.^^^/ *n/^ay cyfy. ^Tu^-zV-e- -y^eAi ^1^97^ l/fHt^n/xifru 4/ Yofui7(/ HISTOEY OF E:^aLAND FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE DEATH OF QUEEN VICTORIA BY BENJAMIN TERRY, Ph.D. PROFESSOR IN THK UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO CHICAGO SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 1901 PA 3 2. T3 COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY IT MORSE S EPHClis PRESS OF THK HENRY O. SHEPARD CO. CHICAGO. OuCL PREFACE It is the purpose of this book to present in a simple and con- nected story the record of the founding, unfolding, and expansion of English nationality. In covering so vast a field an author must necessarily depend largely upon the work of others ; yet in select- ing and organizing material, and in presenting well-worn themes from new points of view he may reasonably be expected to show some originality. He may also be expected to present with accuracy and simplicity the ordinary body of technical material which reader or student naturally looks for in a text-book on Eng- lish History. He ought also to present this material supported by such a body of narrative as shall impart some life to events described, so that the institutions of a people shall appear not as mere abstractions bii^^v.^umanvthya^%fcd the great personages of their history not as the characters of an algebraic formula but as actual men and women. This, in a word, has been the aim of the present work. That it has not been attained in many respects, no one can be more conscious than the author himself. Only one who has gone through the labor entailed by such a task can appre- ciate the difficulty of attaining even ordinary accuracy in the state- ment of simple fact, to say nothing of properly balancing action and motive, or of placing events always in their proper proportions. In general, the plan of the book has been to weave in with a thread of political narrative some account of the constitutional and social development of the English people. In carrying out this plan conventional proportions have been sacrificed somewhat. Less space has been given to the petty squabbles of modern poli- ticians and the mere twaddle of court gossip but more to the development of early institutions ; less to the intricate processes of modern diplomacy, but more to Alfred and William I. and Henry II. and Edward I. The wars of Great Britain with iii 'U 0820S IV PEEFACE Afghans or Zulus or Chinese have been barely mentioned, but an entire chapter has been given to the Norman reduction of Eng- land. In order, also, that each chapter may present a distinct movement as a whole, the familiar arrangement by reigns has been abandoned for an arrangement by topics. No attempt has been made to give a bibliography or even a complete body of notes. The few references which appear as footnotes are designed simply to show reader or student, who may not have the command of a large library, where he may easily reach a few of the most important authorities or sources. Every school library, however humble, should place within reach of its students such standard works as those connected with the names of Freeman, Greene, Ramsay, Stubbs, Taswell-Langmead, Nor- gate, Lingard, Round, Cunningham, Seebohm, and Gardiner, or such collections of sources as those connected with the names of Stubbs, Gee and Hardy, Prothero, and Gardiner. The English Historical Review^ also, will be found to be a mine of wealth to both student and teacher, and a complete file may still be easily obtained for a very moderate outlay. The Epoch Series will also be found invaluable in a small library. References have been given to these works rather than to the more formidable collections which are beyond the reach of most students, in the hope that the references will be actually used and thus prove of some practical value in the more extended study of important movements. Where time per- mits, such documents as Magna Charta^ The Bill of Rights^ The Act of Union ^ The Bill of Union, and the several Reform Bills of the nineteenth century should be carefully read and analyzed. In preparing the work I have levied heavily upon my old stu- dents, my colleagues of the Department of History in the Univer- sity of Chicago, and upon the members of my own family. Special credit is due to Dr. James F. Baldwin of Vassar College who has put his extensive knowledge of the English Feudal Period at my service by gathering for me the material upon the basis of which I have prepared the text ; he has also read the finished MS. of this part of the work and made many valuable criticisms and sug- gestions from which I have been glad to profit. For a similar service in the preparation of the MS. upon the period of the PREFACE V Tudor s and the Stuarts I am indebted to my colleague, Mr. Ealph 0. H. Catterall, and upon the Hanoverian period to Professor Charles Truman Wyckoff of the Bradley Polytechnic Institute. I am greatly indebted, also, to my colleague, Dr. J. W. Thompson for assistance in reading the proof of the maps and for sugges- tions which have added greatly to their value; also to the un- wearied service of Miss Priscilla Grace Gilbert of Chicago in verifying quotations, the spelling of proper names, the correct- ness of dates, and in preparing the MS. for the printer. I wish also to mention the patient service and kindly interest of my colleague Professor George S. Goodspeed of the University of Chicago, and of my father, Mr. J. C. Terry of St. Paul, Minnesota, in reading the proof of the entire work. The University op CHiCAao, August 1, 1901. CONTENTS PAGE Preface iii List op Maps , xi List op Tables xii PART I— TEUTONIC ENGLAND The Era op National Foundation From Earliest Times to 1042 , CHAPTER I. Introduction— Britain before the coming of the Teutons 1 II. The Teutonic Settlement of Britain 18 III. The Rival Confederacies of Teutonic Britain, and the Found- ing of the National Church 32 IV. The Danish Wars— Alfred the Great and the Founding of the English Kingdom 57 V. The Reconquest of the Danelagh and the Expansion of the English Kingdom under the Great Kings of the House of Alfred 78 VI. The Days of Dunstan; the Early English Kingdom passes Meridian 93 VII. The Decline of the Early English Kingdom; the Era of Danish Kings 106 PART II— FEUDAL ENGLAND The Era of National Organization From 1042 to 1297 L The Shadow of the Norman 125 n. The Conquest of England 145 III. The Norman Reorganization of the Kingdom and the Intro- duction of Feudalism 167 vii Vm CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE IV. The Organization of the Kingdom Continued — The English Conquest of Normandy 184 V. Feudal Reaction and the Reconstitution of the Kingdom 202 VI. The Growth of Popular Rights and the Loss of the Continental Possessions of the Angevins 230 VII. The Great Charter « 249 VIII. The Struggle for the Charter , 266 IX. The Chartered Confirmed ,. 294 PART III— NATIONAL ENGLAND The Era of National Awakening book i — social awakening From 1297 to 1485 I. The New Era; Edward I. and the Beginning of the Wars of Foreign Conquest — The Struggle of the Scots for Independence.. 317 II. The Barons and the Royal Favorites— The Independence of Scotland Established 334 III. Edward III. and the Opening of the Hundred Years' War 350 IV. The Decline of Edward III. — Second Stage of Hundred Years' War 381 V. The Peasant Revolt — The Attack of the King upon the Constitution 403 VI. The Constitutional Kings of the House of Lancaster — The Third Stage of the Hundred Years' War 427 VII. The Last Stage of the Hundred Years' War— The Rivalry of Lancaster and York 450 VIII. The Fall of York and the Close of the Dynastic Struggle 474 BOOK II— RELIGIOUS REFORMATION From 1485 to 1603 I. The Restoration of the Monarchy 494 II. The Monarchy Supreme — The Administration of Wolsey 512 III. The Ecclesiastical Revolt of England 528 IV. The Progress of the Reform 548 V. The Catholic Reaction 571 VI. Elizabeth; the Reform Established 587 VII. Elizabeth; The Duel with Spain 606 CONTENTS IX BOOK III — POLITICAL REVOLUTION From 1603 to 1689 CHAPTKK PAGE I. The Breach Between King and Commons., , 618 II. The Era of Arbitrary Government 647 III. The Long Parliament and the Civil War 669 IV. The Parliament and the Army 697 V. Cromwell and the Protectorate 722 VI. The Stuart Restoration 742 VII. The Birth of the Whig Party.... 760 VIII. The Whig Revolution 782 PART IV— IMPERIAL ENGLAND The Era of National Expansion From 1689 to the Close of the 19th Century I. The Beginning of Party Rule in England and the Founding of British Foreign Policy 805 IL The Completion of the Work of the Revolution 836 m. Walpole and the First Era of Whig Rule 861 IV. The Pelhams and Pitt— The Ocean Empire Secured 885 V. George III.— The First Period of Tory Rule and the Loss of the American Colonies 911 VL The Second Perioil of Tory Rule and the French Revolution... 941 VII. The Eastern Question and the First Era of Reform 976 VIII. Peel and the Dissolution of the Old Parties — The Crimean War — Palmerston and British Foreign Policy 1009 IX. The Rise of the New Democracy — Gladstone and the Second Era of Reform 1037 Index 1070 LIST OF MAPS PAGE Teutonic Britain about 600 36 Britain about 792 52 Partition of England bv Treaty of Wedmore 67 England: Later Expansion of Wessex 80 The Great Earldoms 118 England: 1066-1068 145 England AND Scotland: 1066-1328 184 The Angevin Dominions 208 Battle OF Bannockbcrn .. 338 Campaigns OF Hundred Years' War 350 Battle of Crecy 365 Battle of Poitiers 377 Parts of France held by England after Treaty of Troyes 380 France BY Treaty of Bretigny 880 General Map of Hundred Years' War 444 Field of Agincourt 446 The Wars of the Roses 467 England during Tudor Period 528 Battle of Edgehill 684 England during Civil Wars and Later Stuart Period 686 Battle OF Marston Moor 689 Battle of Naseby 694 Ireland during Civil Wars and Later Stuart Period 710 Scotland during Civil Wars and Later Stuart Period 712 Battle of Dunbar 714 Europe: 1713-14 836 Battle of Blenheim or Hochstadt 840 Battle of Rami LLiES 844 Spanish Netherlands 850 Europe: 1789 950 Europe: 1812 970 Peninsular Campaigns of Wellesley , 96D Battle of Waterloo.... 973 India ' 1028 South Africa „ , 1055 xi LIST OF TABLES PAGE The Family of Alfred 57 Rival English and Danish Royal Families 106 The Dukes of Normandy. Early Connection with the Eng- lish Line 125 Contemporaries of Edward the Confessor and William 1 166 The Family of the Conqueror 167 Families of Blois and Boulogne 202 Contemporaries of later Norman and Early Angevin Kings.. 229 Family of Henry II 230 Family of John Lackland 266 Prominent Contemporaries of the Era of the Charter 293 The English Constitution from the 11th to the 14th Century 316 The Disputed Succession to the Scottish Throne 317 Contemporaries of Edward 1 333 The House of Lancaster 334 The Valois Succession 350 The Uncles of Edward III 351 The Breton Succession 361 Family of Edward III 381 Contemporaries of Edward III , 402 The House of Lancaster ..,„ 427 The Descent of the Rival House of York 450 The Beauforts « 474 The Woodvilles 478 The Younger Branch of the Nevilles— The De la Poles 494 Prominent Characters of the Fifteenth Century 511 Royal Descent of the Staffords 512 The Howards 548 The Stuart Succession 587 Prominent Contemporaries of the Later Tudors 605 Contemporaries of the Early Stuarts 696 The Rival Lines of Stuart 805 Contemporaries of the Later Stuarts..... 835 Claimants to the Spanish Succession 836 Descent of the House of Hanover 861 Prominent British Statesmen of Modern Times Who Have Entered the Peerage 1069 xii THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND PART I— TEUTONIC ENGLAND THE ERA OF NATIONAL FOUNDATION FROM EABLIEST TIMES TO 1042 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION BRITAIN BEFORE THE COMING OF THE TEUT0N8 The entire area of the British Islands, roughly estimated, is about one hundred and twenty thousand square miles. Of this, England occupies less than one-half, about fifty-eight bSof^ thousand square miles; not a very large country as grea£s modern states go. And yet, what has been lacking in size, has been more than made up by physical conditions, the most favorable to vigorous and prosperous national life. An insular position, midway in the north temperate zone, provides a climate tempered, yet invigorated by ocean breezes, and sup- plying that most urgent of agricultural needs, an abundant and regular rainfall. The soil is diversified with mountain, river, and lowland; and under intelligent tillage, is generally capable of great fertility. To resources of soil and favorable climatic conditions, is also to be added a vast wealth in minerals, by no means the least considerable of the national assets. Above all, and of the greatest political importance, the continuous 1 2 EARLY BRITAIN" boundary of ocean and channel, by protecting the people from foreign interference, has afforded opportunity for the develop- ment of unique political and social institutions, the normal unfolding of a healthy national life. The long seaboard, more- over, set with numerous and commodious harbors, has naturally suggested commerce and naval enterprise; offered a ready outlet for a population straitened by inflexible natural boundaries, but peculiarly energetic and adventure loving ; and inspired those vast schemes of colonization, which have resulted in the founding of a Greater Britain beyond the seas. The population of the British Islands represents in about equal proportions the two great branches of the Aryan race, who have taken possession of central and western Europe, — the H^ofme^' ^®^^^ ^'^^ ^^^ Teutons. To the first belong the Scots, S?S ^^^ Welsh, the Irish, and the Manx; to the second the English. The Celts, who were the first to come, found another race in occupation before them; these they did not exterminate, but absorbed. The Teutons in turn over- whelmed the Celts, and while they probably expelled them entirely from the eastern parts of the island, in the west and the north, Celt and Teuton rapidly blended, until to-day they so shade into each other that it is difficult to tell where Celtic Britain begins, or Teutonic Britain leaves off. Other infusions of foreign blood from Denmark and Normandy, from Holland and France, have since been received and lost in the larger population. Hence the population of the British Islands to-day is the result, partly, of a layer of population upon population, of race upon race; and partly of the fitting of population to population, like the pieces of a mosaic, yet so skillfully set, that the seams of division are lost, and colors the most violent in contrast shade into each other imperceptibly. The history of the people of the British Islands, therefore, begins far back beyond the Teutonic migration, when the first of these populations appeared. Then a huge peninsula BmtS^ ^^ occupied the place of the present islands, and stretched ^^' away from the continent, far into the northern ocean. Its vast areas of woodland and marsh, broken here and there by open country, afforded a home for the bison and the mammoth, EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN 3 the reindeer and the wolf, and many other creatures, fierce and strange, which have long since disappeared. A people who are represented to-day by the Esquimaux, fished along the Paleolithic sedgy rivers, or tracked the wild beasts to their lairs among the uplands. They are known to scientists as Paleolithic or Old Sto7ie men. Of these, two races have been distinguished. The oldest or first comers are called the River Drift 7ne?i; the second comers, the Cave men. They represent the rudest form of human life. They made tools of flint which the River Drift men used without handles. They also protected their bodies from the extremes of the weather, much more violent then than now, with garments made of skins, rudely stitched together with the tendons of wild beasts. Though barbarians of the lowest type, they had some artistic sense, and attempted to ornament their weapons with rude imitations of the creatures which they were accustomed to slay in the chase. Yet they had no domestic animals; knew nothing of spinning, or weaving; and took no care of their dead. Existence must have been hard and precarious at best, affording little to develop the nobler instincts of human nature. Then untold centuries passed away; the great peninsula was severed from the mainland, and cut up into the group of islands which we know to-day; a climate better suited to Neolithic primitive life also succeeded. The earlier races of Men. men, the Old Stone men, or Paleolithic men,' disap- peared; and a new race, the Neolithic, or New Stone men, suc- ceeded them. These people came from the southeast, and must have known something of sea craft. They brought with them over the narrow seas the domestic animals now so familiar, — the dog and the sheep, the ox, the goat, and the hog. They^ knew some- thing about spinning and weaving; and reverently laid away their dead in long chambers, built of flat stones, over which they heaped pear-shaped mounds of earth. These mounds are still to be seen in parts of the British Islands, and are known as long bar- rows. From remains found in these barrows, we learn something of the appearance of the New Stone men; they were somewhat shorter than modern Europeans, with swarthy complexions, black curly hair, and, probably, dark eyes. The skulls, seen from 4 EARLY BRITAIN above, were oval; the faces, also oval; chins small, foreheads low, and cheek bones not prominent. Kindred peoples, commonly distinguished from later Neolithic men as Iberians or Ivernians, extended over all western and southern Europe. They dwelt among the Swiss lakes, the Lake Dwellers; they were found upon the plains of Italy and in the mountains of ancient Etruria. Within historic times they appear in the Iberians of Spain and the modern Basques of the Pyrenees. Their blood is repre- sented to-day, probably, in most of the populations of western Europe. How long these men of the long barrow and the oval skull, the first Neolithic men, remained in undisputed possession of their island home is not known. But sometime, perhaps The Celts, twenty centuries before the beginning of the Chris- tian era, another people, also in the Neolithic stage, entered Europe, and slowly drifting westward, everywhere displaced the Iberians, breaking up their settlements, and either exterminating the inhabitants or absorbing them. These people were the Celts, the first great historic people of western Europe. They repre- sented a new race — the Aryan, now for the first time seen upon European soil. In marked contrast with the Iberians, the new- comers were tall and muscular, with fair skin, yellow hair, and fierce blue eyes. Their skulls were round, foreheads high and broad, and cheek bones prominent. They treated their dead with reverent care ; but covered the grave with a round or bell-shaped barrow. Later, when bronze had begun to take the place of stone, they burned their dead. About the seventh or eighth century before the Christian era, these people had completed the conquest of Gaul, and were beginning to press into Britain. They did not come migration to all at oncc, but in succcssivc waves of population, each people pushing their predecessors on before them, to be crowded forward in turn by others who came after. In Caesar's day the last of these migrations had been completed; but so recently, that the last comers still kept up a close connection with their kindred of northern Gaul. During this long period the Celts also were passing through a very important transition. The THE CELTS 5 first to come had used stone weapons, similar to those of the Iberians; but the later comers had letirned the secret of harden- ing copper with tin. They knew how to make huge bronze swords, and to protect their bodies with bronze armor and bronze shields. They had also learned to use the chariot in war, somewhat after the manner of the Greek nations of the Mediterranean. They must have been very formidable opponents, even to those of their own people who were already in Britain, and who now saw themselves despoiled of their choicest fields and finest hunting grounds. While many such waves of Celtic population broke upon the British Islands during this period, they represented only two divisions of the race, the OoideU or Oaels^ and the mfuom?^ ^rt7ow5. The Gaels are represented to-day by the people of Ireland and the Scotch Highlands ; the Brit- ons, by the Welsh. It is thought, too, that strains of the old Iberian blood may be detected in the short stature, black hair, and dark eyes which prevail in certain parts of Ireland and Scot- land. A map of the British Islands at the close of the Celtic migration would show in the hands of the Britons, middle and southern Britain from the Firth of Forth to the Channel and about one-half of Wales ; in the hands of the Goidels the modern Cornwall, southern Wales, with Anglesey and the adjoining penin- sula, the Scotch Highlands, Man, and Ireland. The Celts were an exceedingly interesting people, and the ardent researches of antiquarians have restored many of their customs. They understood agriculture, but their chief ^^om8. wealth consisted in cattle. They soon discovered the mineral resources of their new home, for which, espe- cially the tin, they found a ready market among the peoples of the Mediterranean. Along the channels of this ancient commerce, the gold and silver coins of the Greek cities of the south found their way into Britain, and the British Celts soon began to imitate them on their own account. Many of these imitations have been found, struck long before the era of Eoman occupation, and bear no slight testimony to the wealth and intelli- gence of the people who used them, the more remarkable when we 6 EARLY BRITAIK remember that ''Saxon England practically never had a gold coin- age, and that even Norman England never saw a gold coin struck until the year 1257."' The Celts had kings or tribal cliieftaius; but they seem to have been unable to attain any permanent political union. Like Gaul in the time of Caesar, or Ireland in the time of the Plan- tagenets, Britain was cut up into scores of petty tribal families, each family held together by a theoretical kinship to a tribal chief. There were laws and interpreters of laws ; but beyond the tribal family there was no judicial machinery by which inter- tribal quarrels might be adjusted, or offenses might be punished. Hence the tribal chieftains were ever quarreling among themselves, and never able to secure a lasting peace. Another institution peculiar to the Celts was the order of Druids^ a body of men of learning, who were held in great honor, and were exempt from military service and taxation. They were the repositories of the learning of the age, which they received as oral traditions in a long and arduous tutelage. Like most primitive peoples, the Celts offered human sacrifices to their gods, and the Druids officiated in these grim rites. The famous Stonehenge, the remains of which are still to be seen in the great Salisbury plain, is generally thought to be a monument of such ancient British worship. Beside their sacerdotal functions, the Druids were also professional jurists; "they could give legal advice, enunciate the law, act as arbiters, but could not enforce a decree." They existed both in Gaul and Britain, and, if the later Irish hrelions or judges may be regarded as representatives of an ancient order, probably in Ireland as well. The authentic record of Celtic Britain begins with the perma- nent Eoman occupation, about the middle of the first century of the Christian era. Some three centuries earlier, however, '^yfheas, Pjtheas, a savant of the Greek city of Marseilles, was sent a^out325 Q^j^ ]3y ^}jg merchants of his city to open up new trade relations with the people of the north coast of Europe. The expedition was successful, and much useful information was no doubt brought back to the Mediterranean cities ; but unfor- ^ Ramsay, Foundations of England, I, p. 33. A. D. 43] CAESAR IN BRITAIN 7 tunately the original record left by the explorer has been lost, and all that remain are a few stray references or allusions on the pages of his critics. When Caesar was in Gaul, he also made Brftain, B. c. two expeditions to the island ; but apparently he had no 55 and 54. . ^ ^. ,^ . ^\ J.X. S J serious thought of conquest at the time, and proposed little more than a recounoissance in force. Hia first expedition was unmistakably a failure. On his second expedition he remained two months, advancing beyond the Thames, and breaking up a confederacy of tribes which the chieftain Cassivellaunus had brought together to resist him. He also exacted a promise of tribute; but there is no evidence that a tribute was ever collected or that any effort was made by the Eomans at this time to secure a permanent footing on the island. They were soon too busy with their own domestic affairs to give the distant Britons further attention, and left them to sink again into the oblivion which for so many centuries had hidden their island from the eyes of civilized Europe; nor was it until the reign of Claudius, ninety-seven years later, that the Romans seriously undertook to reduce the Britons, or to establish their power beyond the Channel. Here the recorded history of Britain begins. A great king, Cunobelinns, the **Cymbeline" of Shakespeare, had closed a long and prosperous reign in eastern Britain. His capital was at Camulodunum, among the Trinobantes, onhf"^^ the site of the modern Colchester. Both north and awudius"^ south, the neighboring tribes had yielded to his sway. Upon his death, however, his kingdom broke up; the tribes were embroiled in a bloody civil war, and soon exiled chief- tains began to appear at the court of Claudius, only too ready to sign away questionable claims to paper thrones, in order to secure the aid of the emperor in avenging their wrongs. Claudius deter- mined to interfere upon pretext of the 'alliance and friendship' of Rome with these dispossessed chieftains. He was, moreover, sadly in need of a military reputation, while the chronic disorder of the island promised an easy conquest — much easier than the conquest of the incorrigible Germans, upon whom Augustus had spent the whole strength of the empire to little purpose. Accordingly, in the summer of the year 43 A. D., Claudius sent 8 EARLY BRITAIN forward an able general, Aulus Plautius, with an armament, number- ing, both legionaries and auxiliaries, about forty thousand men. The Britons were able to make no effective resistance to this ^Auh!^^^^ force, and in a few weeks the lands of the Cantii, the hautius, region of the later Kent and Sussex,were overrun. So glowing were the accounts returned of the achievements of Eoman prowess, that Claudius ventured to expose his sacred person by ^appearing among the legionaries, and was present when the army crossed the Thames and took possession of Camulodunum. After sixteen days he returned to Eome to enjoy his much-needed triumph, and to add a '^Britannicus" to the calendar of Eoman national heroes. Aulus Plautius remained behind to complete the work of conquest, and within four years the most of Eoman Britain was secured. Colonists also flocked into the island, and in a short time the Eomanizing of the new provinces was seriously under way. Other governors followed Aulus Plautius. There was much hard fighting on the borders ; but for eighteen years the Eoman advance failed to pass the Severn, or the Humber. Within these ^fBrSn^ lines, however, there were many important changes. J|^T~ Londinium, the modern London, was rising rapidly to be the * 'commercial center of the island." From the southern ports the inevitable Eoman roads converged upon her gates. A great road led away to Glevum (Gloucester) , the Eoman outpost on the Severn. The famous Watling Street stretched away to Uriconium (Wroxeter), and Deva (Chester), the outpost of Eome in the northwest. Other highways, the Icknield Street, the Ermine Street, and the Fosse-way, then, or soon after, were laid down to connect the remote corners of the province with the interior and with each other. These roads were designed primarily for military purposes; but commerce was quick to take advantage of the easy and safe communication offered by solid roadbeds and continuous lines of depots and watch-stations ; and very soon, over the Eoman road, as along the line of the modern railroad, the subtle influences of civilization began to pass outward in ever-increasing volume, from the older cities of the coast into the western and northern wilderness. 61] BOADICEA 9 But how fared it with the conquered people during these eight- een years? The Celtic nature is not averse to civilization ; but it was the peculiar misfortune of the British Celts, as with of the their kinsmen of Ireland, to come first in contact with civilization on its most unlovely side. Under such emperors as Claudius and Nero, Roman public service was at its worst. Officials were shamelessly corrupt, and did not hesitate to use their public authority to extort money from the defenseless provincials for their own uses. Troops of private speculators, brokers and money-lenders, had also followed the army, and **offered fatal facilities to needy chiefs." Conscriptions, taxation, and requisitions of all sorts, enforced by punishments which the Britons thought fit only for slaves, were the order of the day. Such blind and stupid oppression of a brave people, who, though conquered, still retained in their hands unlimited power for mis- chief, could have but one result. In the year 61, the BoadLm,6i. Iceni, a vassal tribe who dwelt in the region of the pres- ent Norfolk, rose under the leadership of their widowed queen, the famous Boadicea, and, joined by the Trinobantes and other neighbors to the south, made a desperate effort to destroy the foreigners and break the Roman yoke. In the first tide of revolutionary ardor the insurrection bore all before it. The recently established colony at Camulodunum was overwhelmed. Veru- lamium, the modern St. Albans, and London were stormed and sacked. Frightful massacres attended these successes; seventy thousand persons, it was said, perished. The nearest legion, the Ninth, hastened to the scene of the revolt, but only to be swept away in the flood. Help, however, was not far off. Suetonius Paul- linus, the governor, was already returning from the distant Mona, the later Anglesey, where he had been engaged in an attempt upon the warlike Ordovices. He hastened his march in the hope of saving London; but when he found that he was too late, he fell back to a strong position somewhere on the line of the Thames, and there awaited the advance of the enemy. Boadicea led the charge in her war chariot ; her people supported her with great spirit, but their valor was no match for the dogged endurance of the 10 EARLY BRITAIN Romans. After the first wild and furious onslaught, their energies were soon spent, and they were easily swept away before a well timed counter charge of the legionaries. Boadicea ended her life with poison. Southern Britain was not only conquered, but crushed; and never again disputed the Roman supremacy. Yet the rising was not without its lesson to the Romans; and when the overthrow of the last of the Claudian Caesars and the subse- quent establishment of the Flavians, afforded an opportunity for a change in the policy of the provincial administration, the Britons were among the first to share the benefit of the new order. The governors who now came out to the province were good men, who sought to reconcile the people to the Roman rule by removing the causes of irritation. Among the new governors was the famous Agricola, immor- talized by the pen of his son-in-law, the historian Tacitus. He came to Britain in the year 78, and at once under- BritainV^ took the reduction of the wild tribes of the island, who '^^'^^' had not yet recognized the Roman rule. In three years, he had overrun the western highlands, the later Wales; then, turning north, he crossed the Humber and advanced to the line of the Clyde and the Forth. It took two years more to clear the lowlands, and in the summer of 84 he entered the mountain fast- nesses of the Caledonians, as the Picts were then called, the only people who still defied the authority of Rome in Britain. The difficulties which confronted the Romans in the unaccustomed mountain warfare were serious, but the Caledonians greatly sim- plified the task by massing their forces at a place known as Mons Graupius,^ where Agricola defeated them in a single pitched battle. If we may believe his biographer, Agricola left ten thousand of their warriors dead upon the field. It was one of the S£fL«^„.- most brilliant victories which Roman arms had won &nd'84^^ since the day of the great Caesar. Yet it was impossible to hold or fortify the Highlands, or secure the fruits of victory by permanent possession, and Agricola was forced to return to the province. The fleet, however, he sent forward to 1 It is now generally agreed that Mons Graupius is not to be identified with the Grampian Hills. 84] ROMAN CIVILIZATION 11 explore the northern coast. They turned the cape, and discovering the Orkneys, returned by way of the Irish Sea and the Channel to their winter station. They were the first representatives of civiliza- tion to circumnavigate the island. Agi-icola, in the meantime, was meditating great things for his next campaign. He proposed, in short, the complete reduction, not only of the people of the Highlands, but of the Irish Ayricoia, Gaels as Well. But the suspicious Domitian was already jealous of the growing fame of his brilliant lieutenant, and determined to recall him, leaving three legions in the island, sufficient for a guard, but not sufficient to tempt another lieuten- ant to a career of conquest. The Roman advance in Britain now ceased for a season. The" government, in accordance with a policy, deliberately adopted, sought henceforth not to make new conquests, but to medcJauHve s®^"^® ^^® ^^^^ practicable military frontier. The northern Gaels kept up their old active hostility, and again and again swept into the Lowlands; the Brigantes, who dwelt south of the Tyne, also gave the unfortunate Ninth Legion which was stationed at York, much hard work; yet Home persisted in her defensive policy. Hadrian, who was a thrifty, business-like emperor, decided that the conquests of Agricola north of the Tyne were not worth the trouble which it cost to hold them, and aban- doning all this region, withdrew south of the Tyne and the Sol way; marking the new frontier by a permanent fortification, Ant4jnlnu», the remains of which are still to be seen.* Antoninus 13S Pins, who succeeded Hadrian in 138, however, advanced again to the old frontier, connected the Clyde and the Forth with a second line of fortifications, and made the intervening country once more Roman territory. This practically ended the Roman advance. One hundred and twenty-four years after the battle of sevent^Tn Mous Graupius, Scptimius Severus once more took up Br^mn, ^hc aggrcssivo policy of Agricola, and made a last attempt to complete the conquest of the island. But ^ For description of the famous walls of Hadrian and his successors, see Mommsen, The Provinces of the Roman Empire I, pp. 200-205; and Ramsay, Foundations of England I, pp. 75-79. 12 EARLY BRITAIN he died before he had hardly begun his work. His successors were too deeply occupied at home with military mutinies and barbaric inroads, to burden themselves with the old quarrel with the High- land Gaels. After the death of Septimius Severus, Eoman historians have little to say of Britain for nearly a hundred years ; a fact which may be taken to indicate that the history of the country was unevent- ful, and hence peaceful. Agricola had begun to train the British chieftains in the use of Latin. He had also introduced the luxuries of the bath and the banquet. He gave liberally for the erection of temples and courthouses, and introduced more durable cimiization dwellings to take the place of the huts of clay and thatch. in Britain. . « -n <. n t^ , , .-a Numerous remains of villas of the Roman type testify to the extent to which the Britons profited by these lessons. Some of these villas must have been of considerable magnificence for private dwellings. Agriculture remained the common flourishing industry of the island; in the time of Probus, Britain sent large shipments of grain to Italy. Additions were also made to the flora and fauna of the island; the chestnut and the walnut, the elm and the poplar, the rabbit and the fallow deer, are supposed to date from this era. Bede mentions mines of lead, iron, and coal; and in more recent times numerous discoveries of Eoman pig iron testify to the actual output of these mines. Little, however, is known of other forms of native industry. The Eomans also brought in many customs connected with the occupation of the soil, which scholars, in some quarters at least, are beginning to think survived the later Teutonic migration, and possibly formed no inconsiderable element in pre- paring the foundation of the later medieval social system in Britain, as well as in other parts of the west. It must not be for- gotten, however, that the Eoman occupation of Britain was primarily a military occupation. A military purpose dictated the laying down of the famous roads and the planting Natureof ^^ Eoman colonies. There is no evidence, moreover, OcJupatimi. ^^^^ there ever existed in Britain any such municipal life as existed in Gaul or Spain ; or that beyond the four colonies, Camulodunum (Colchester), Glevum (Gloucester), Eboracum (York), and Lindum (Lincoln), any other cities received 800] PLANTING OF CHRISTIANITY 13 the municipal franchise. The towns which the Romans occupied, were really great camps or forts, and remained so down to the coming of the Teutons. The upper classes of the Britons, who were brought into direct contact with the Roman officials, spoke Latin, adopted Latin names, and aped Italian manners; but outside of the Roman camp cities, and beyond the line of the Roman roads, the people remained still Celtic, Latin a foreign tongue, and the Roman a stranger. First and last, therefore, the relations of the Romans to Britain were like those of the English to India — essentially a military occupation of a foreign country inhabited by a subject Roman population — and with similar results. No new and powerful nationality rose from the wreck of the old independent British states. Instead, even *Hhe remembrance of past independence" faded away; the sense of nationality disap- peared; individuality was destroyed; all capacity for self-help was stifled in the languor and hopeless apathy, generated by a system of paternalism, which insisted upon doing everything for its dependents, and sternly frowned down every effort at self-help. Even at its best, the Roman system of government was burdensome and oppressive. In Britain it was never at its best. Though the better emperors checked the plundering instincts of their subordi- nates, the government itself was always the most gi-ievous plun- derer, from whose exactions there was no redress. It was always needy, and even when it meant well, seemed never able to stay its hand. One ray of light there is, however, which comes to us out of the deep gloom of these centuries of Roman military rule in Britain. It comes, however, not from Rome or Roman institu- ingof tions, but from the despised and forbidden religion of the Christian. The time, and even the traditions, of the early conquests of Christianity in this Land's End of the ancient world, have been forgotten ; evidence positive that, as in the time of the apostles, the consolations of the Gospel here also came first to the htimble poor. The progress of Christianity, how- ever, when once planted in Britain, must have been very rapid. When Tertullian wrote in the early third century, he could claim 14 EARLY BRITAIN the Britons as a Christian people. In the year 314 the British church was recognized as a part of the great western brotherhood of churches, and was represented by three of her bishops at the Council of Aries. If we know little of the founding of British Christianity, we know hardly more of the British church. In the year 359 its bishops were conspicuous for their poverty among the prosperous ecclesiastics who gathered at the Council of Rimini, CMi^h^^^ and were compelled to accept alms at the hand of the emperor. With their poverty, the British churches seem also to have united a sturdy orthodoxy, and through all the controversies which distracted the wealthy eastern churches of this period, adhered loyally to the teachings of Athanasius. Three noted names have come down to us from the British church — -Pelagius, Ninian, and Patricius, the last, better known as St. Patrick. But valuable as these lives are in names^^^ giving US types of British Christianity, they reveal little mm-cii^^ of the British church itself. Pelagius, the arch heretic, lived and wrote in Italy and Palestine; Ninian and Patrick toiled among the Gaels of the north and west — the pioneer missionaries of Scotland and Ireland. Of the political history of Britain, something more is known. When Diocletian and Constantino reorganized the empire, Britain was constituted one of the six dioceses of the great izatwnof Western Praefecture, and placed under its own vicar, Britain as . „ . , i « ^x i a part of or vice prefect, with the seat of government at York. the empire. The region south of Hadrian's Wall was further sub- divided into four provinces, the exact boundaries of which are not known. In general, however, these provinces lay as follows : Britan- nia Prima, south of the Thames; Britannia Secuyida, west of the Severn ; Flavia Caesarie?isis, between the Thames and the Hum- ber; Sind Maxi7na Caesariensis, between the Humber and Hadrian's Wall. Later, the region within the walls was known as Valentia, and is sometimes, although improperly, designated as a province. Each province was governed by a praeses^ er president, whose functions were entirely civil, and distinct from those of the three great military officials who directed the defense of the island. Of EARLY BARBARIAN INVADERS 15 these latter the Count of the Saxon shore commanded the army which guarded the eastern coast from the Wash to the Isle of Wight, cantoned in nine permanent coast camps. Some- (Meiaiiiin times the littoral Count was assisted also by a fleet of considerable strength. The famous Carausius was one of tliese counts, who by the support of his fleet was able to throw off his allegiance to the emperor and establish himself in CaravMvM I^^itain as a sort of pirate emperor, where he maintained 287-2i>4. ijjg sway for nearly eight years. His career is important as the first hint of the possibilities of Britain as a base for a great naval power. The Duke of the two Britains commanded the legions stationed at Caerleon, Chester, and York. A third officer was the Count of Britain^ who seems to have been commander-in- chief. The disposition of tliese forces was dictated by new dangers which began to threaten the existence of Roman Britain as early as the third century. Bands of wild Scots, Gaels liarharic who then dwelt on the east coast of Ireland, crossed the Irish Sea, and uniting with other hordes of Gaels from the Highlands, the old Caledonians, descended upon the lands between the Clyde and the Severn, and after burning and The Scots ravaging the country, retired again with troops of ajidPictK. captives and herds of cattle. A still greater danger threatened the Koman Britons in the southeast. The successes of Probus had cut off the Franks and other neighboring con- federations from their long-accustomed predatory raids by land. The sea, however, still lay open, and along this ''swan road of the water" small piratical fleets soon began to find their way westward and descend upon the shores of Britain. The Saxons, whose terrible name appears first upon Roman annals about the year 160, were the most troublesome of these marauders. In the third century they had extended over all the region between the lower Elbe and the land of the Franks, and began seriously to menace the coasts of Britain and northern Gaul. During the long-continued helplessness of the period of the Barrack emperors, Britain suffered much from the robbers who 16 EARLY BRITAIN" thus swept down upon her from the northern mountains and the two seas. Carausius met the pirates on their own element, and daring f iiof ^^^ eight years' reign once more gave the land peace. Roman The cmpcrors of the House of Constantino continued ^ntain. }^{q work, and for fifty years preserved the tranquillity of the country. But after this family of princes had passed away, with barbaric hordes marching and countermarching the plains of Moesia and Gaul and Italy, with revolting generals sup- ported by mutinous legions hatching into rival emperors, the legitimate emperors were no longer able to give thought to a remote outlying province like Britain. If an emperor honestly sought to protect his distant subjects, and sent out from his scanty legions at home a military force sufficient to help them, the chances were that the soldiers, taking advantage of their remoteness from the capital, would make an emperor of some favorite officer or provincial gover- nor, and force him to lead them back again, in order to tilt with the already distracted occupant of the throne. Emperor-making was far more profitable than fighting barbarians on the lonely heaths of the north. Between the years 383 and 407 this very thing happened twice ; when the entire British garrison crossed the Channel, and with their mushroom emperor plunged into the confusion of strife and intrigue which marked the collapse of Eoman authority in Gaul. The Picts and Scots and Saxons were also quick to take advantage of the defenseless condition of the Provincials, and from all sides began to pour into the country. A wild panic seized the people; all who could, the most of the Eoman population and the wealthier class of the Britons, left the island and withdrew to the continent. The tillers of the soil, the slave and the serf, the poor, the artisans and mechanics only were left. All the conservative elements of society, the so-called "respectable elements," the men who made the laws and supported the courts, were gone. Civil authority dis- appeared ; the country rapidly reverted to barbarism and anarchy. A crop of guerrilla kings, the representatives of violence and dis- order, sprang up in the place of the lapsed civil order, plun- dering the people and warring upon each other whenever the barbarians afforded them a respite. The wail of the British provincials reached the ears of the feeble Honorius behind the 4141 ^^^ ^^ ROMAN POWER 17 lagoons of Ravenna. But he had no more troops to send, and bade the Britons take care of themselves. Once again, when thirty years later the fame of the mighty Aetius reached the island, a second cry for help was sent out from this ** Algiers of the ancient empire." 'The barbarians drive us back into the sea,' the people moaned; Hhe sea drives us back upon the barbarians. We must die by the sword or drown; we have none to help us.' And so Britain drifted away from the nerveless hand that could no longer retain its grasp, and disappeared in the deep night of the fifth century. CHAPTER II THE TEUTONIC SETTLEMENT OF BRITAIN" The first chapter of British history ends in the wild con- fusion which followed the departure of the Roman legionaries. Of the next two centuries, known as the era of the CTmngesin Anglo-Saxon conquest, few records have survived to mwitJi^ ^^ furnish a basis for the compilation of an authentic the Romans, history. Yet violent and far-reaching changes are in progress, and when the curtain rises upon the second act of the drama the old stage setting has been entirely changed. Where were populous cities, or swelling grain fields, are now only dreary wastes of marsh and fen, or solemn forests of beech and oak. A new people of strange tongue, and uncouth manners, living the simple life of the wilderness, hunt along grass-grown Roman roads, or camp among the silent ruins of villa or temple. There are Britons still to be found in the western part of the island, who speak the Celtic tongue and live under the strange old Celtic laws, but the Roman Britons, with all that Rome had given them, have disappeared. The new-comers were the so-called Anglo-Saxons, the ancestors of the present English people. They were Germans, of pure Teutonic stock, and represented the second great wave of Aryan E^amum^ population to break over western Europe. When Py theas Eurtme^^^ entered the northern seas this second group of Aryan peoples had reached the Elbe and behind it were holding the entire southern Baltic basin ; but wken Caesar began his career in Gaul, two hundred and seventy years later, they had long since passed the Elbe, and were crowding upon the Celtic populations on the west bank of the Rhine. The interposition of Rome and the establishment of the Rhine as the eastern boundary of her trans- alpine empire, at once checked the Germanic advance, but the crowding of populations upon the Rhine frontier did not cease, 18 450] EARLIEST SETTLEMENTS OF GERMANS IN BRITAIN 19 and when at last, after five hundred years, the decline of Roman civilization made it impossible longer to hold the outer defenses of tlie empire, Teutonic hordes began again to stream across the boundary river and within a generation had overwhelmed all west- ern Europe, permanently establishing themselves among the ruins of the great cities of the west and south. The Teutons who settled in Britain belonged to a group of tribes who had long occupied lands on the lower Elbe and along the Danish peninsula. Of these the Angles were known Mention of ^^ Tacitus ; and although the Saxons do not appear sSfw.^"'* by name until later, it is not unlikely that they were represented among the peoples who figured in the ancient war of liberation when the Germans who dwelt between the Khine and the Elbe rose against the generals of Augustus, and threw off the Roman yoke. Just when the Germans of the lower Elbe began to form permanent settlements in Brit- ain is not known; but the time apparently was much earlier than that assigned by the traditional accounts of First perma- mi nent settle- the conqucst. The eastern coasts of lower Britain ment of the «. -i ^ , . Saxons. offered an easy approach to their shallow barks, and it is not unlikely that even before the withdrawal of the Romans they had made a permanent lodgment upon the coast of modern Essex, the ** Saxon Shore." New arrivals continued to swell the ranks of the first comers, and with the increasing feeble- ness of the defense steadily pushed their way westward, taking up land as they needed it, until at last they reached the neighborhood of London. Soon after the settlement of the *' Saxon Shore," other bands also succeeded in making a lodgment on the southern shore of the _ ^ , Thames mouth. According to later traditions these The Jutes TJ^^. . people belonged to the Jutes, a tribe dwelling on the Cnntwarain V, . , . Kent Danish peninsula, and came under two war chiefs or ealdormen, Hengist and Horsa, who had been invited by the Britons to assist them against their old hereditary foes the Picts. These Jutes proved to be very troublesome allies, and, like their kindred on the north bank of the Thames, proceeded to take land as they needed it, pushing south and west, forcing the south- 20 THE TEUTONIC SETTLEMENT OP BRITAIN em Britons back upon London, and finally taking possession of the entire peninsula of the ancient Cantii. The name of the dispos- sessed Britons reappeared in the Cantwara^ or men of Kent ; but the old Durovernum gave way to Cantwarahyrig (Can- waraandthe terbury). Other tribes of Jutes, represented in the Wight and later WHitioara and Meanwara, continued along the southern coast until they came to the sheltered waters about Portsmouth, where they took possession of the Isle of Wight and the mainland opposite, and extended their conquests over a large part of the modern county of Hampshire. The Saxons also seem to have found their way into the Channel at an early date, and, pushing into the rivers and estuaries which were at that time more numerous on these coasts than now, began a series of settle- ments south of the great forest of Anderida, and probably extended even west of the Wihtwara. The Britons of the south did not surrender their homes graciously to these strangers. There are grim traditions of attacks and counter attacks, of fierce battles, of whole cities TflB ilTSt perindof massacrcd in the fury of storm, of a wave of fire which surged across the island from sea to sea, nor ceased its fury until it had bathed its flames in the western ocean ; then followed a long period of truce, when the Germans retired to the coast again and rested on their arms, while the Britons wasted their strength and their resources in riotous living and civil brawls. With the opening of the new century^ the activities of the Saxons began anew. Passing up the left bank of the Thames they overran the regions occupied by the modern counties of the middle Middlesex and Hertfordshire; then passing the Chil- terns they added the modern Buckinghamshire, Oxford- shire, and Northamptonshire, and turning south crossed the Thames and began the conquest of Berkshire. This region west of the Chilterns, the middle Thames country, was the original land of the West Saxons, the ''geographical complement" of the lands east of the Chilterns, which now by contrast began to be known as the land of the East Saxons.^ ^ See English Historical Review, Oct. 1898, p. 671. Art. by Henry H. Haworth, and also the reply by W. H. Stevenson in Review of Jan. 1899. ANGLES IN THE NORTH 21 When the Saxons began the conquest of the broad lowlands which to-day stretch away from the suburbs of London to the southwest, the modern Surrey, the ''South Kingdom," is not known, but it is fair to suppose that this region, at least the parts north of the forest of Anderida, was conquered not by the Saxons who had settled on the southern coast, but by the bands who had overrun the adjacent country across the Thames. Possibly the conquest belongs to the later era when West Saxon and Cantwara met in deadly struggle for supremacy south of the Thames. The beginnings of the Anglian settlements are as obscure as those of the Saxons. The Angles do not seem to have been very active until the sixth century, when coasting along the shores in the east of the aiicicnt Frisia in the track of the Saxons, and pass- ing by the Thames month their fleets first found shelter among the islands and estuaries on the coast of East Anglia, where two distinct settlements may be traced in the familiar Northfolk and Sonthfolk. The wild Fen country and the deep indentations of the Wash, however, afforded no such easy egress to the west as had invited the Saxons to the conquest of the Thames basin. Later comers, therefore, according to tradition coming in overwhelming numbers, and including first and last a great part of the nation of the Angles,* passed on up the coast until they reached the broad mouth of the Ilumber. At this time the northern provinces of Roman Britain must have been in some such condition as northern Italy on the eve of the Lombard migra- tion. A century of Pictish inroads, followed by years of famine and pestilence, had left the land depopulated and desolate.* No echoes of any great battles, no traditions of long and bitter strife, such as linger about the Saxon advance in the south, have ever reached us from this northern conquest. If any of the original ^ A part of the Angles were left behind to be finally merged in the Thuringians. 2 An ofiicial report of the Mayor of Santa Clara County in Cuba showed that in only three years, 1896, 1897, 1898, 80 per cent of the population had perished. Conceive this state of affairs lasting for a hundred years, and we have some idea of the condition of the northern part of the Roman provinces of Britain when the Angles came. And we may also under- stand why there was so little show of resistance. 22 THE TEUTONIC SETTLEMENT OF BRITAIN population had survived the earlier Pictish inroads, they were too feeble to resist the overwhelming numbers of the new invaders. Two tribes, later known as Deirans and Bernicians, turned north and took possession of the lands between the Humber and the Firth of Forth. Other tribes turned south, and advancing along the basin of the Trent soon appeared far down in mid-Britain, leaving to the east, between the lower Trent and the Wash, the modern Lincolnshire, the Gainas and the Lindiswara. Still farther to the southeast, the Girwas found their way into the Fen country, while other Anglian communities took up their station about the later Leicester, where they appear as Middle Angles; others still, the South Angles, appeared among the hills of North- ampton, where they began to encroach upon the earlier settlements of the West Saxons. Other tribes worked their way out of the Trent basin to the west, where they appear as North Angles and West Angles. It is perhaps to the era when the Angles were pushing rapidly to the south that we are to ascribe the advance of the West Saxons into the Severn country. Apparently they could not ' ofthe hold their own against the increasing pressure of the rVcst Saxons, ^ Angles upon their northern borders, and began to seek a new extension of territory to the west and south, overrunning the later Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, and eastern Somersetshire. It is probable also that at this time, or soon after, there occurred the direct southward advance of the West Saxons, crossing the lower Thames, expelling the Jutes of Kent from Surrey and Sussex, and conquering the kindred Meanwara of Hampshire, and the Wihtwara of Wight. This last movement is associated by tradition with the name of Ceawlin, the first really authentic king of the West Saxons, and it is not improbable that the great part of these later ZTfJo^' conquests were carried on by him or his immediate pred- ecessors. It is also not unlikely that out of the mili- tary need of the hour there arose the first great confederation of Teutonic tribes in Britain. At one time Ceawlin appears at war with the young king Ethelbert of Kent, when he drives in the western outposts of the Cantwara in Surrey and Sussex. Again 577-603] ETHELFRID THE DEVASTATOR 23 he appears in the Isle of Wight, overthrowing the Wihtwara, pur- suing their kings through the country of the Meanwara, and adding their hinds to his dominions; probably forcing the Jutes of Wight and Hampshire to join the West Saxon confederation. Again, he appears in the valley of the Severn, hunting the Britons out of the country, and in 577 winning the decisive victory of Deorham. The old cities of Bath, Gloucester, and Cirencester fell to the spoil of war, and their blackened ruins lay for centuries to tell of the furious valor of Ceawlin. The victory of Deorham gave the West Saxons the valley of the Severn, where the Hwiccas at once took possession and extended their settlements over Gloucestershire and Worcestershire. While the West Saxons were thus drawing together under the inspiration of Ceawlin's leadership and preparing for the great TheNfn-th- ^^^^ which they were to play in the future history of rwifeSra- ^^® island, the Angles north of the Humber, possibly tiWe have no way of knowing what the relative proportion of the unfree was to the free until the time of the Domesday Survey ; but then the organization of English society had become very complex compared with that of the primitive Teutonic tribes, and the servile condition itself had been differentiated into a series of degrees, or gradations, the distinctions of which are obscure. It is not unlikely that the numbers of the servile popula- tion were largely recruited from the ranks of the conquered Britons. Servitude was also frequently prescribed by the courts as a penalty for crime. It may be that in the more thickly populated parts of Britain, the south and west, where Teutonic occupation was more after the nature of a conquest, that the new population was superimposed upon an older servile population. It may be also that the members of this servile population were of German blood, and represented the results of earlier Roman conquests beyond the Rhine and the upper Danube, when whole nations were corralled and deported to distant parts of the empire and settled as colo7ii or tenant farmers. Thousands of these unwilling settlers had been introduced into Britain. The civitas or tribal state was subdivided into judicial districts, which seem at first to have had various names in different parts of Teutonic Britain. For simplicity we may call this sub- * division the hundred, although the name, thougli known on the continent, does not appear in the laws of England until the time of Edffar. Undoubted traces of the institution 959-975- however, are to be found as early as the time of Tacitus, and it may be taken as one of the most characteristic features of the early Teutonic state. Here at regular intervals, every four weeks, as fixed by the laws of Edgar, the freemen of the district came together in the htmdredgemot, constituting a court, in which civil suits were tried, or quarrels between neighbors were adjusted. 30 THE TEUTONIC SETTLEMENT OF BRITAIN Below the liuiiclred was the town or tun. The town consisted of a cluster of detached dwellings, each with its court or door- yard, stables, and outhouses. The adjacent lands also The Tun ^ ' ' >> belonged to the town. Here the freeman possessed a shifting severalty in the arable land, and a share in the common use of meadow and woodland. The town also had its popular assembly or tungemot. The tungemot does not seem to have been a civil court like the hundredgemot ; its functions were economic rather than judicial. When the period of the Anglo-Saxon codes began, private owner- ship of land was already recognized ; yet, if the progress of Germanic institutions on the continent be considered, we may ouymrsUp believe that in Britain also the lands of each settlement of Land. were at first held by the freemen in common; but with the increase of population the exclusive right of individuals to par- ticular pieces of land was allowed. The first form of tenure how- ever was ^YohQ\A J folk-land or land held by /o/^-ri^/^^, distinguished later from hook-land or land set apart by special charter or grant. The charter, however, suggests the influence of the priest, nor is it unlikely that the church is largely responsible, if not for the intro- duction, at least for the rapid extension of privileged ownership in land among the Teutons of Britain. If so, this is only one of the many ways, economic, social, and political in which Christianity affected profoundly the life of the new-comers. Before the priest came, they were a simple people, knowing little of the arts of civilized life, but much of forest craft ; living under their curious old laws of custom, yet far re- Cwsttr moved from the condition of the mere savage. They had their traditions and war songs; but knew noth- ing of letters. They had also their conceptions of deity, but worshiped God as they saw him revealed in the wild tumult of the storm, or the wilder tumult of their own rude natures. They knew nothing of temples, but reared their altars in the silence of the sacred grove, or upon some lonely hill top. Here they sought to solve the mysteries of their own lives, in offerings, sometimes of human victims, more often of the animals supposed to be the favorites of their special deities. These deities were the great CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE 31 gods Till, Wotan or Odin, and Donar or Thor. There were also a multitude of lesser deities. The practical religion of the people was made up largely of beliefs in omens of good luck or ill luck ; in elves and fairies; *'cursing stones" and "wishing wells"; nor is it likely that 'Hhe common villagers ever rose to any sublimated theories of deity ; or were ever conscious of more than a confused unthinking worship of things held to be holy, whether beings or places." There were deities for river and grove and fountain, for the upper air and the world of the dead, for the forest and the grain field, for the field of battle and the wedding festival, for the home and the hearth, for the flock and the sheepfold, in short, for everything that touched the lives of the people, or for anything they could not understand, they had their deity. They loved war and the chase, and constantly manifested their contempt for a life which was hard and rigorous at best. They lived upon milk and cheese, the flesh of their herds, and the quarry, and the products of a limited agriculture. They could not have been very cleanly in their habits. The word itch, as also the common names of most of the well-known dirt diseases, are old English names. But so are the words clean^ wholeso^ne, healthy ^ hale, and hearty. Possibly the former were winter words, asso- ciated with the dreary months when the people were compelled to hive themselves with their cattle in close dens or caverns for pro- tection from the weather; while the latter were summer words, associated with joyous days when open fields and fresh winds, springing flowers and flowing streams invited the people to a dif- ferent life. All in all they were very human, these first Teutonic settlers of Britain, and not very different from what the people who dwell upon their lands to-day would be under similar circumstances. CHAPTER III THE EIVAL CONFEDERACIES OF TEUTONIC BEITAIN, AND THE FOUNDING OF THE NATIONAL CHURCH The next stage in the history of Teutonic Britain is one of great importance; in it English nationality assumes its first forms. The time is still far distant when we may use with any new era accuracy the words, ^'England" or ^"English." The fminding of newcomers are still Germans ; just such Germans as were dwelling on the Weser and the Ems, living under the same laws and under the same tribal organization. There is also the same bewildering succession of names without forms, of forms without outline, of progress without unity, such as marks the history of contemporary Teutonic life on the continent ; and yet within this confusion, obscured by the shifting shadows, the Teutons of Britain were molding to new habits of thought and action, entirely alien to the old isolated tribal life, and preparing for the advent of the nation. By the close of the sixth century all the most fertile parts of the island had been seized; but the crowding of population upon population continued, and soon embroiled the new pos- of the sessors of the soil in an endless series of intertribal wars, waged for the possession of what they had taken from the Britons. Leagues and counter-leagues rapidly succeeded one another. The old tribal lines gradually dissolved, and the elected war chief of temporary powers passed into the permanent king; the isolated tribal settlements into the seven or eight confederacies, the ''kingdoms," of the so-called "Heptarchy." Then followed a bitter rivalry of these ''Heptarchy" kings, a fierce strife for supremacy, which ended at last in the final triumph of the kings of the West Saxons and the establishment of the permanent hegemony of Wessex. 591-616] ETHELBERT IN KENT 33 Such in outline is the history of the new era. Its events may be grouped about two movements : firsts the growth of a habit on the part of neighboring tribes, of acting together in great -Analysis confederacies, culminating at last in the permanent union of all the tribes in a national state ; and, seco7id, the introduction of Christianity, and the final organization of the national church. When the period of settlement closed, as we have seen, Ceawlin was already at the head of a widely extended kingdom or con- federation of the West Saxon tribes. His kingdom, if hreakiTw up kingdom it can be called, included all the tribes from Kinadom, the Severn to the downs of Surrey, and from the basin of the middle Thames to the sea. It is not likely that his power rested upon other foundation than the shadowy authority conferred by confederated tribes upon the elective war chief. Such loose confederations were very common among the Germans of the continent down to the close of the migrations. The counter- parts of Ceawlin 's career may be found in the Cheruscan and Mar- coman kings of Tacitus. Possibly also, as in the case of the German national hero, Arminius, it was the attempt of Ceawlin to transfer the temporary authority of the war chief into the permanent and more substantial power of a true king that led directly to his fall and the dissolution of this early confederation of the West Saxon tribes. This event took place in 591, two years before Ceawlin's death. East of the confederation, which by habit we call the kingdom of the West Saxons, lay the Jutish tribes, who had settled on the south bank of the lower Thames. We have already seen mh6Uh\he them under the leadership of their young king Ethel- heaemmy |^^^^^ struggling with Ceawlin on the borders of the ^antwara, j^Qj-est of Anderida, for the possession of the downs of Surrey. It is not unlikely that Ethelbert also took part in the overthrow of the West Saxon king, though the first shock to Ceawlin's power seems to have come from the Hwiccas, whom he himself had recently settled on the Severn. At all events, after the fall of Ceawlin, Ethelbert succeeded to his prestige in south Britain, and built up a similar confederation of the eastern tribes. According to Bede, his dominions reached to the Humber ; that is, 34 THE CONFEDERACIES OF TEUTONIC BKITAIK all the East Saxon, East Anglian, Middle Anglian, South Anglian, and a part of the West Saxon tribes entered the new confederation, and either voluntarily, or by compulsion, recognized the overlord- ship of Ethelbert. This second confederation lasted nntil the death of Ethelbert, when it in turn also dissolved, and the tribes east of the Chilterns regrouped themselves under the leadership of Eaedwald, king of the East Angles. The great name of Ethelbert had extended to the continent, and enabled him to make an alliance with the family of Frankish kings who ruled over the conquests of Clovis. The Introduction ^ « -r. . ^ . , .^ i , , i -i-, i of Chris- Uermans of Uritam were still pagans, but the l* ranks had long since adopted Christianity. The men of the Frankish royal house as a class, however, had been little influenced by the teachings of Christianity; they were for the most part graceless ruffians. But many of the women furnished examples of sweet and noble piety, honored a difficult station by blameless lives, and passed to their gi'aves, leaving behind them a precious memory of good deeds and helpful influence. Some of these royal prin- cesses went out from their own homes to serve Christ in the halls of heathen lords, where they became most efficient missionaries of the church. Thus it happened that Bertha, the granddaughter of Clotaire the Great, left her father's court at Paris and entered the home of Ethelbert of Kent. By special arrangement she was allowed to bring her chaplain, Luithard, with her. The long- deserted British church of St. Martin at Canterbury was refitted for his use, and the old walls looked down once more upon the stately service of the Christian church. Here the good chaplain chanted and preached ; here the pious queen with burdened heart bowed and prayed, waiting for the redemption of her heathen lord and her adopted people. How much she and her friends had to do with rousing the church of the continent to any direct mission- ary effort we do not know. But it is more than likely, if the truth were known, that the coming of the first missionaries was due to her efforts and her influence quite as much as to Pope Gregory's happy knack of making Latin puns.^ Certain it is that the band ^See Green, History of the English People, I, p. 37, for the well- known story. ."397-601] INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY 35 of monks led by Augustine whom Gregory sent out, came under the special patronage and protection of the neighboring Prankish kings, and that when they at last landed at Thanet in the spring of 597, they found Ethelbert prepared for their coming and ready to listen to their teaching. On June 2, Whitsunday, Ethelbert himself abjured the faith of his fathers in Wotan and Doiiar, and received Christian baptism. Thousands of his subjects followed his example, and within a year the mission had become a flourishing church. In June, 601, Gregory sent to Augustine the archl episcopal pallium or pall,^ with a complete plan for the organization of the island church. As yet, however, Christianity had not advanced beyond the boundaries of the original Kent. Neither East Saxons, South Saxons, nor West Saxons were ready to receive Christian teachers. But the sanguine Gregory had his four square plan of organization ready. The entire island was to be divided into two nearly equal metropolitan sees, each with its twelve bishops; the primate of the northern province was to be established in York; of the southern province in London. Augustine wisely selected Canter- bury, under the immediate protection of Ethelbert, as a far more eligible site for his archiepiscopal seat, and left to the future the founding of the northern primacy, and the establishment of the twenty-four bishoprics. Augustine was not content with simply baptizing his new con- verts. He brought with him a knowledge of the ways of the great civilized world, and he and his monks taught their royal con- verts many useful lessons. It was due to his influence, probably, that about the year 600 the old customaiT laws of the Etheiurt, Cautwara were reduced to wntmir and put into code 600 form; **the first formal record of the laws of an English people,'' preceding by ninety years the like record which Ine made of the laws of the West Saxons. Thus we owe to Ethelbert almost all our knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon institutions as they existed at the close of the era of settlement. As represented in his laws, they remind us of the descriptions which Tacitus gave of the Germans who lived on the borders of the empire in the first century ^ The distinctive badge of the archbishop, a sort of scarf or stole worn round the neck, with falling ends in front, marked each with three crosses. 36 THE CONFEDERACIES OF TEUTONIC BRITAIN of the Christian era, and show that the Teutons of Britain had not yet advanced very far beyond the condition of the Germans who were first known to the Eomans. The only penalties known to Ethelbert's laws were fines, or indemnities, covering almost every conceivable injury to life or limb or property, and varying from the ordinary indemnities prescribed for the wrongs of a freeman, to the ninefold penalty prescribed for injury to the king or his property ; the elevenfold penalty prescribed for injury to a bishop, and the twelvefold penalty prescribed in the case of him who destroyed the * 'goods of God." Here we may plainly read the influence of the priest, and see the high estate which the church had already won. The overlordship of Ethelbert, like that of Ceawlin, passed away with the generation to which he belonged, and the con- federacy of Jutes, Saxons, and Angles dissolved once reactwnin more into "a chaos of warring tribes." A reaction also set in against the church. Edbald, the new king of the Cantwara, not only rejected his father's faith, but compelled the Christian teachers to retire into Gaul. When Ceawlin was closing his long career in the southwest, Ethelric, the king of the Bernicians, was extending his power over the neighborinsr Deirans. In 593 his son Ethelfrid, The Urst o o 7 Norlhumhri- "the Devastator," succeeded to the headship of the united Northumbrian tribes. We have already seen him at Dawston overwhelming a combined host of Scots, Picts, and Britons; and again, a few years later, overwhelming the Britons in a decisive engagement far down under the walls of Chester. For twenty years this terrible king lorded it over the north and extended his power far to the south. His efforts to extend his power here, however, brought him face to face with the new East Anglian confederation of Eaedwald. The two armies met at Retford in Nottinghamshire; Ethelfrid was slain, and Raedwald for the time secured his supremacy south of the Humber. The Northumbrian confederacy of Ethelfrid, which had now outlasted two kings, did not break up at his death, but passed to the exiled king of the Deirans, Edwin. Ethelfrid had pursued him relentlessly from one exile to another, and it was the refusal of .i ,.t!t-:rtk i.ii4 i-rt * V, OIKSOTU3T VLlATiyUl ood JuodA V \K V.\i.,'^ ,^ eighty years old, per- ished in the fight. The victory of Oswy, who fought against vastly superior numbers, was probably due to the discontent of Penda 's vassal kings, who were weary of the lordly ways of the old pagan, and dissatisfied with his long wars against their Chris- tian brethren of the north. With the fall of Penda, the last bulwark of paganism was swept away. Even while he lived, his son Wulfhere had submitted to baptism, and his Mercians had begun to follow Chris- ChSFanity tian teachers under his very eyes. When, therefore, inMercia. ^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^ Penda's death, W^ulfhere succeeded to the royal title in Mercia, and the last of the great confed- eracies had thus accepted a Christian king, the strength of paganism was broken. It survived only among the South Saxons. Sixty years had now passed since the baptism of Ethelbert, and, although Teutonic Britain was virtually won for Christianity, there was, as vet, no uniform rule of faith, or harmony of The Teutfyfiic ^ j ^ t j church^ in practice; there was no commonly accepted authority theitn before which rival bishops might bring their quarrels for adjustment, or the unworthy might be tried and punished. North of the Hnmber, Oswald had restored the older form, which ho had learned at lona. Kent had been converted by missionaries sent out directly by the Roman church; the East Anglians had been won by the Burgundian Felix, and the West Saxons by the Lombard Birinus. There was no such serious divergence in practice between the converts of these southern mis- sionaries, as between them and the northern Christians, but the universal authority of the Pope had not yet been so thoroughly established in the minds of western Christians as to assure the 634] WILFRID 43 supremacy of his representative at Canterbury over the disciples of Felix and Birinus. The tribal life was still strong ; the spirit of local independence still persistent and defiant. The bishop was only the royal chaplain, and had little influence and few interests outside of the lines which marked the limits of his master's authority. If he recognized the primacy of the archbishop of Canterbury at all, it was a primacy of prestige and dignity, rather than of actual authority. Sees were overgrown and unmanage- able. Their boundaries advanced, or receded, with the success or failure of the arms of the royal patrons. Churchmen were not all saints; and too often the bishops shared fully in the ambitious rivalries of their masters, and lent their influence to conquest and land spoiling, in order to enlarge their authority, or curtail that of some troublesome neighbor. The bishops, moreover, did not always wait for conquest; but interfered directly in each other's affairs. Bitter quarrels arose over jurisdiction or precedence, to be settled at last by an arbitrary judgment of the king, who was often himself an interested participant in the quarrel, and eager for a pretext under which to extend his authority. There must have been some community of life, some feeling of com- mon sympathy, some sense of common interest, but the idea of unity was at best only vaguely apprehended, and burned so feebly, that, aJone and unaided, it could never have materially counteracted the political influence of the age. Here, then, was a great work to be done, to take advantage of the natural desire of Christian men for unity, to bring all the churches of Teutonic Britain into one organic system, united under one national primate. This great work, the union and organization of the National Church, is associated with the names of Wilfrid and Theodore. Wilfrid was born about the year G34. At fourteen, he attracted the attention of Eanfled, the queen of Oswy, and was sent by her to Lindisfarne for his education. Here, the lad's mind Wilfrid. r. 1 . 1 1 . 1 ^n • i • IT was nred with a desire to see the great Christian world, of which his people knew so little; and especially to visit Rome, regarded by many as the first home of Christianity in the west. His royal patroness humored him in his visions of travel and learning, and finally sent him on his way in company with Benedict Biscop. 44 THE CONFEDERACIES OF TEUTONIC BRITAIN After an absence of four years, he returned to his people, and was installed as abbot of Kipon. Travel and contact with the world had opened the eyes of the young monk to the isolation of his own people. He had looked upon the greatness of Rome; he had caught the spirit of her mighty traditions, and bowed to the authority of the greater Christendom. He returned, therefore, to denounce the peculiar practices of the Celtic church as schis- matic, and to demand that the church of Northumbria should order itself in harmony with the common practice of other Christian nations. There were many of the old disciples of Paulinus at hand, ready to second the earnest words of their young champion. The strife increased in bitterness, until, finally, King Oswy him- self became interested, and consented to summon a meeting of northern bishops to settle the dispute. The synod met at Whitby. Colman, the bishop of York, argued for the practices of the Celtic church, as the church of their fathers. Wilfrid pleaded the universal practice of wnmy^mf Christendom. But Oswy at last cut the knot in a sim- ple fashion of his own. ''Is it true," he asked Colman, ''that the keys of the kingdom of heaven were given to Peter by our Lord? Has any such power been given to Columba, the founder of the Scottish church?" "None," Colman was forced to answer. Then said the king, "If Peter be the door-keeper, he is the man for me." The king's logic was final. Colman and his monks withdrew, and once more the Northumbrians began to follow the customs which they had learned from Paulinus. Four years after the famous decision at Whitby, Theodore of Tarsus, a Greek monk, was appointed by Pope Vitalian to the Theodore Vacant see of Canterbury. When he reached Canter- i/c^ai!^'^ bury the following May, he found that a plague had hury, 665. recently devastated the island. The church, in par- ticular, had suffered severely ; several bishops had fallen at their posts ; and the people were awed and softened. Theodore saw his opportunity, and began at once a visitation of the several king- doms ; reorganizing the churches, filling vacant sees, and introduc- ing a stricter conformity to the Roman system. In the north, he found a serious quarrel on between Wilfrid and Oswy. Wilfrid, 673-680] HISTORIC COUNCILS OF THEODORE 45 after his success at Whitby, had been chosen bishop of York, and had gone to the continent to assure himself of a canonical conse- cration, but, upon his return, found that Oswy had installed the Celtic monk Chad in his place. Theodore interfered and deposed Chad on the ground of an uncanonical consecration, and estab- lished Wilfrid. Chad, however, had won the heart of Theodore by his humility, and, after reconsecration, was appointed to the vacant see of the Mercians at Lichfield. Theodore also made appointments to the vacant sees of Rochester, Dunwich, and Dor- chester. Thus, in the first two years of his administration, the new primate had filled five of the six sees of Britain. The existing sees, however, were unwieldy ; some, as York, or the Mercian see, were very large. In G73, Theodore invited the bishops to meet him at Hertford, to consider the ques- SrSfo/ ^^^^ ^^ reorganization. All responded except Wine, the H&rtford673 ^^^^^P ^^ London, who was resting under the grave charge of simony. The gathering was not only the first council of the English church, but the first assembly in which rep- resentatives from all parts of the future nation met to discuss matters of common interest. Theodore proposed to subdivide the unwieldy sees, and place each subdivision under a particular bishop. Each bishop, moreover, was to confine himself to his own diocese; the priest was to minister only in the diocese of the bishop from whom he received his license; monks also were to remain under their abbots. The plan of subdivision did not meet with the favor of the bishops; but the proposition to confine the activity of each official to his proper district was accepted, and a foundation laid for the further introduction of the orderly methods of the Roman church. Seven years later, 680, Theodore held another synod at Hatfield, at which the bishops accepted the decrees of the General Councils, and so formally decreed the orthodoxy of the new national church. Theodore was by no means disposed to accept the decision of the synod of Hertford upon the question of subdividing the sees as final, and the next year proceeded to divide the see of East Anglia, by creating a new bishop's seat at Elmham. In 676, he settled a long-standing quarrel of Cenwahl and Wulfhere, over the 46 THE CONFEDERACIES OF TEUTONIC BRITAIN see of Dorchester, by finally establishing an episcopal seat at Winchester, thus giving the West Saxon king a bishop at his own capital. The great see of York, however, under izationof the masterful Wilfrid, lonff defied Theodore's plan of the Church. reorganization. It was the most unwieldy of all the sees, and included not only the lands of the Deirans and Berni- cians, but an indefinite region beyond the Forth over which Northumbrian kings had extended an overlordship, as well as the Lindiswara, south of the Humber. But the popularity and influ- ence of Wilfrid finally roused the jealousy of King Egfrid, Oswy's successor, and the king himself determined to divide the diocese. Wilfrid refused to yield ; but Theodore supported the king, and, in a council at York, at which he presided, Wilfrid was deposed, and Bernicia formally separated from York, with its own bishop at Lindisfarne. Wilfrid possessed too much of the spirit of the later Becket to submit to what he regarded as an unjust invasion of his episcopal rights, and retired to Kome to appeal in person to the Pope. On his outward journey, he was thrown upon the coast of Frisia, and here he spent the winter preaching to the heathen Frisians and laying the foundations for the future mission of his pupil Willibrord. The next year he reached Eome, but, when he returned to Northumbria with a papal decree directing that he be reinstated, the king and his witan treated the decree with con- tempt, and cast the unruly priest into prison. Nine months later, he was released, and, after more wandering, finally found a field congenial to his energetic temperament, among the heathen Saxons of the Andred's weald. Here Wilfrid labored five years. The people were apparently the most degraded and barbaric of any of the Teutonic settlers of Britain. They were ignorant of the sim- plest arts of life. The king, Ethelwald, appointed Wilfrid a resi- dence at Selsey, where he laid the foundations of the future bishopric. In the meanwhile, Theodore was steadily pushing forward his great plans for the organization of the church. At the request of Kinff Ethelred, he divided the Mercian see, which was Suhdivision o ' ' of Mercian almost as unwicldy as that of York, by establishing a separate bishop for the Hwiccas at Worcester, and an- 681-689] RESULTS OF THEODORE'S WORK 47 other for the Middle Angles at Leicester. The Lindiswara, who had lately been restored to the Mercian confederacy, also received a separate bishop, whose seat was fixed at Sidnacester; Beniieia Lichfield remained the episcopal seat of Mercia proper. diviclcd, 681 XT sr Two years later, Theodore further divided the see of Bernicia by establishing a bishop at Hexham for the Bernicians, and one at Abercorn for the Picts. In the year 686 Wilfrid made his peace with Theodore, and was allowed to return to York and be reinstated. His submission completed the triumph of Theodore. The plan of Th&)dore'8 Gregory for the establishment of a great northern primacy had been definitely abandoned for the plan of uniting all the Teutonic sees under the primate of Canterbury. After Wilfrid's return to York, one more see was established among the Magesaetas at Hereford. The next year, at ' the advanced age of eighty-eight, Theodore passed quietly to his well-earned rest. Theodore is the great man of the seventh century. He created the national church. When he came, in 669, he found six dis- cordant sees, overgrown and unwieldy for administrative Theodore's purposcs. When he laid down his work twenty years later, the six had been broken up into fifteen, and all united under the close supervision of the archbishop of Canter- bury. There was in all the west no ecclesiastical province which y^jg was in better stead, or more efficiently organized. But oTi'Mmai ^^^^y ^^ important as the work of Tiieodore for the Eiiniand. church, was his influence upon the future political development of the Teutonic tribes of Britain. The original smaller tribal divisions were breaking down. The great confeder- acies were passing into permanent federations. But the five great states of Mercia, Northumbria, Wessex, East Anglia, and Kent still stood over against each other as fiercely jealous and hostile as ever. The patient teaching of the monks had done much to assuage the fires of ancient feuds ; still, if a permanent union were ever secured, apparently, it must be by the sword. But, under Theodore, the church, with its perfected territorial organization, recognizing but one country and one people, called up a new vision 48 THE CONFEDERACIES OF TEUTONIC BRITAIN of unity, *' clothed with a sacred form and surrounded with divine sanction," embodied in the one national primate, and expressing its will through the legislative action of one national coun- cil. That this new organization was ecclesiastical, made its influence none the less national and political. Men had not yet differentiated church and state, and it was only a step from the national ecclesiastical organization to a national political organiza- tion ; from the local organization of the bishoprics of Theodore to the shire organizations of Ine ; from the national council of the church to the national council of the state; from the national primate to the national king. In other ways, also, Theodore assisted in laying deep and stable the foundations of the England to come. His penitential system instilled into the barbaric mind a new conception of vice encesof and crime as sin against God; thus preparing a founda- tion for the work of the future Glanvilles and Bractons, in the quickening moral sense of the people. His school at Can- terbury, under the direction of his friend, the abbot Hadrian, gave instruction in Latin and Greek, arithmetic and astronomy, and the themes of Holy Scripture — the forerunner of the great schools of Jarrovv and York. He also did much to diffuse a knowledge of the stately Gregorian music, which had been as yet hardly known outside the borders of Kent. It must not be forgotten, however, that Theodore is not the only great name which the church of this era has given to English history. We have already seen Wilfrid struggling in wiifHd's his own way to solve the Northumbrian church prob- lems. The course of his life after the death of Theo- dore continued as stormy as ever. He quarreled with the successors of Egfrid and Theodore and wasted his declining years between English synods and the papal curia in a vain attempt to recover his lost honors. He died at Oundle in 709. Wilfrid was one of those turbulent energetic natures, whose lot it is to make a great stir in the world, and so get credit for an influence and importance which they do not really deserve. His old friend, Benedict Biscop, on the other hand, was a quiet, unassuming man, whose merits later generations have hardly rec- 670-687] CUTHBERT AND CAEDMON 49 ognized. He was the first to introduce stained glass, bringing glass workers from Gaul, in order to provide his own monastery Benedict ^^ Wearmouth. He founded the famous monastery and BUicop. more famous school at Jarrow, going himself to Rome to procure books and pictures for its library. **To his enlightened zeal, the world owes Bede, the school of York, and the great Alcuin." To this era belong also the names of Cuthbert, consecrated bishop of Lindisfarne by Theodore, famous peasant preacher and saint, who spent the greater part of his life among the dhd^si^'^^^' ^^^^^^^' mountain settlements of Northumbria, '*from whose roughness and poverty other teachers turned aside"; Caedmon, also, the peasant Milton, the cowherd of Whitby, whose untutored lips, touched by divine vision, *sang of the creation of the world,' the 'origin of man,' . . . dudahmit 'of the incarnation, 'passion and resurrection of Christ,'. . . *of the terror of future punishment, the horror of hell pangs, and the joys of heaven,' — 'Hhe first great English song." In the year G70, Oswy, first of English royal saints, had passed to his grave. Egf rid, his son and successor, was a very different man from his peace-loving father. He tore the Lindis- u?eNtrth ^^^^ from Wulfhere of Mercia; he revived the long feud with his Celtic neighbors, driving them out of Cumbria, and taking possession of the south bank of the Solway to the sea. But, in an evil hour, he determined to conquer the Picts, who, it seems, were still as troublesome and incorrigible as in the days of Agricola. He gathered his Northumbrian thanes, and, leading them across the Forth, disappeared among the wild glens of the Pict land. Neither he nor his army ever returned. Ncehtam- ^^® solitary fugitive, after long wanderings among the mere,685. mountains, and after incredible hardships, at last came back to tell how King Egfrid and his thanes fell by the shores of the North Sea, 'bitten to death' by the sword of the Pict. Northumbria never recovered again. Her glory lay in the corpse-ring, which surrounded her fallen lord, **in the far-off moorland of Nechtansmere." For twenty years, Eldfrid, the dead 50 THE CONFEDERACIES OF TEUTONIC BRITAIN king's brother, continued to hold Northumbria together. But, after his death, evil days fell fast upon the North Humber lands. The witan dominated in the councils of the nation, and deSwof^*^ their quarrels filled the land with disorder. In a Northum- period of thirty-eight years, nine different kings rapidly succeeded each other. Of these, three were assassin- ated; five were formally deposed, one being afterward executed for presuming to return from exile. The fall of Egfrid at Nechtansmere left the Mercians and the West Saxons sole competitors for the overlordship of Britain. Decline of -^^^^' ^^ y®^' ^^^ West Saxons had given little promise wessex. Qf their great future. Some petty conquests of Cenwahl (643-672), on the Avon and among the Mendip hills, by which he extended his borders to the Parret in Somerset, could hardly offset the effect of AVulfhere's conquest in 661, when he not only drove the West Saxons out of the Xorth Thames basin, but tore from them the eastern conquests of Ceawlin, including the Isle of Wight, and added them to the lands of the king of Sussex, thus raising a new and worthy rival to Wessex south of the Thames. Cenwahl managed to hold the remnant of his kingdom together until his death in 672. But, during the thirteen years following, even this remnant was still further divided and torn by the rivalries of petty kings. The affairs of Wessex were then, perhaps, at their lowest ebb. In 685, Cadwalla, one of the petty kings of the West Saxons, fought his way to supremacy over his fellows, and once more suc- ceeded in drawing the fragments of Cenwahl's kingdom The rise of o o o Wessex. together. Two years later, he ravaged Sussex, and to death of regained what Wulf here had given to its king. Through Sussex, he entered Kent, and, overrunning the country in two successive years, compelled the people to acknowledge his lordship. In 688, Ine became king of the West Saxons. In him the Mercian kings found a rival worthy of all their strength. He completed the conquest of Somer- set, and secured his new territories by a wooden fort on the Tone, the modern Taunton. In 715, he was called upon to measure his strength with Ceolred of Mercia, at Wamborough ; and, although 715-751] INE IN WESSEX 61 neither side could chiim a victory, Ine prevented the Mercians from gaining a foothold south of the Thames. All the country was now his between the Thames and the sea, and from Dorset to Thane t. Within these borders, Ine sought to lay the foundation of a real kingdom, by defining the power of his administrative officers. The Laws ^^^ gi^i^g Uniformity to the customary law by reduc- ofine. ing it to a code. The shire here first appears as the territorial unit of the judicial administration. The ealdorman is responsible for the arrest of the criminal in his shire ; if he allows him to escape, he forfeits his office. Military service, the fi/rd, is required of all, high or low; and heavy fines, but graded to the rank of the laggard, are prescribed for failure to respond to the call to arms. Like the laws of Ethelbert, these of Ine also show the influence of the priest. Sunday labor is prohibited; a merci- ful ordinance when the labor of the community was performed largely by serfs. The precincts of the king's palace, or a bishop's palace, are sacred against acts of violence, and are equally protected by a fine of one hundred and twenty shillings, — the hurg-hryce. In these laws, the conquered Briton appears as a bondsman, — theoiu luealh; but there is also mention of the Welsh freeman with one hide of land, and of the Welsh rent-paying tenant; the king also has his mounted Welshmen. There is also the Welsh noble, with five hides of land. The later days of Ine were covered with gloom. His old age was saddened by domestic intrigue and revolt, the curse of the early Teutonic kingdom. Then, after thirty-six years daysof^ine. ^^ thankless toU, Ine threw down his work in disgust, and, like so many of his peers, must go a pilgrimiug to Rome. The peace which he sought came to him on the way. While the fortunes of Wessex were rising, those of Mercia were declining. There is no great king after the death of Wulfhere (075) until we reach the era of Ethelbald, when once f^Ma-cia^ more a Mercian king threatens the independence of 716^757^^' Wessex; but a defeat at the hands of a Northumbrian king, whose lands Ethelbald had invaded, so shattered his strength, that his hold upon the south was weakened, and he was compelled to face a revolt of Cuthred, the new vassal king 52 THE CONFEDERACIES OF TEUTON^IC BRITAIif of Wessex. After a long struggle, Cuthred won a decisive victory at Burford in Oxfordshire. No more glorious day had yet dawned in West Saxon history. All the vassal kings of the Mercian overlord, the kings of Kent, Sussex, and Essex, besides those of his own Mercia, had followed him to that fatal field. Opposed were the people of Wessex, marshaled under the famous golden dragon, and fighting for independence. The victory was final; the great Mercian confederacy was shat- tered, and no shred of Ethelbald's power south of the Thames remained. Six years later, 757, Ethelbald was foully slain at night by his own people. No account of the reigns of Ine and Ethelbald would be com- plete that did not mention their great contemporary, Bede, the ^^^ first English historian. He was born, probably, in the ^5-755. yery year of Theodore's historic council at Hertford. At seven, he was put under the instruction of Benedict Biscop, who had shortly before built his monastery at Wearmouth. Bede very early committed himself to the quiet and uneventful life of the scholar. He passed his years between Wearmouth and thQ later foundation of Jarrow. Now and then, echoes from the busy, turbulent world outside reached him in his quiet retreat; but never to allure him from his patient round of '^reading, teaching, and writing." One marvels at what he accomplished. The library, which his old master had brought from Rome for the two monastery schools, was his sole workshop. ''I am my own secre- tary," he writes ; ''I make my own notes ; I am my own librarian. " Yet, he mastered the knowledge of the time, and left a list of thirty-seven works to testify to his industry. He revived for England the traditions of the older culture of the almost forgotten classical world, and impressed the warlike thanes of Northumbria with'Hhe quiet grandeur of a life con- afHis^%' secrated to knowledge." His reputation to-day rests th^A^^f^ upon his ''Ecclesiastical History of the Nation of the Angles," — the beginning of authentic English history; the only light to cast a gleam into the darkness which separates the Britain of Gildas from the Britain of Ine and Ethelbald. /a/TisrM rr "-v ^/^ ^^-^ n his iie 757-796] OFFA IN MERCIA 53 Under the powerful Offa, who ruled Mercia from 757-796, the long struggle for supremacy seemed again about to be decided in favor ^-^ of the middle kingdom. Of the first year of his reign, ^!nvS-Tt ^^^^^® ^^ known; but, in 771, we find him parceling out zenitK the lands of Sussex, with the kings of Wessex and Kent acting as attesting parties; evidence that, even at this date, Offa had established himself south of the Thames, and that Wessex had again lost her independence. His greatest wars, however, were waged against the Welsh, whom he drove out of the valley of the Severn, advancing his own borders to the Wye. This conquest he secured by the introduction of colonists and the erection of a ♦•ofrt'8 frontier rampart, the famous *'Offa's Dyke," connecting -^i/^«" the lower Severn and the Dee. The line of "Offa's Dyke" has remained virtually the permanent boundary between Wales and England. Apparently, Offa accepted the threefold division of Teutonic Britain as final, and sought to secure conformity to this arrangement in the organization of the church, by rais- mdropniitan ing the 866 of Lichfield to metropolitan honors, coor- dinate in authority with Canterbury and York, the archiepiscopal dignity of the latter having been restored in 735. The pope granted Offa's request, and, for thirteen years, Mercia could boast of an archbishop of its own. Offa died in 790, and, for a few years, Mercia maintained the position to which he had elevated her. Then, one by one, the achievements of Offa were undone. The primacy of Lichfield was abandoned, and the under-kings slipped back again into their old independence. In 802, the young Egbert, of the Sj2-83J' royal house of Wessex, returned from the court of Charles the Great, whither he had been driven by the persecutions of Offa. The years which he had spent abroad had not been lost. He had been within that charmed circle which surrounded the mighty Frank. He had looked upon a Teutonic monarchy at its best, and had doubtless studied deep and long the art of ruling men ; but most, the peculiar institutions which lay at the basis of the Prankish system. How much he brought back with him, and just what he introduced into the 54 THE CONFEDERACIES OF TEUTONIC BRITAIN [egbkkt English system, we shall never know; but the striking resem- blances of English and Frankish institutions of the ninth century can not all be ascribed to similarity of Teutonic origin. For the first thirteen years of his reign, Egbert seems to have been rally- ing the shattered forces of his kingdom and nourishing its strength. In 814, he began the series of operations against the West Welsh, Cornwall, which resulted in the final subjugation of the penin- sula. English colonization, however, stopped at the Tamar. For centuries, the Cornishmen retained their own dialect, and enjoyed a semi-independence. Even as late as the seventeenth century, there survived a Cornish parliament, with independence enough to arrest a king's sheriff and hold him until released by a special order of the English parliament. From West Wales, Egbert returned to protect his northern frontiers against an advance of the Mercians. The armies met at Eiiandun Ellandun, in Wiltshire. The Mercians were utterly *^^- routed, and Egbert passed at once to the overlordship of the region south of the Thames. The next year, the East Angles imitated the example of Wessex ; renounced the Mercian dependence, and added their strength to the growing power of Egbert. Again and again, the allies smote the sinking Mercians. Two successive kings, and five great ealdormen, were slain in bat- tle. A third king found refuge in exile. When, in 829, Egbert made a royal progress through Mercia, it was practically his, as much as Wessex. The Northumbrians alone remained, but a century of discord had so weakened their power, that only madness could induce their king, Eanred, to measure swords with the vic- tor of Ellandun. The challenge of Egbert, therefore, was sufficient to bring Eanred to his southern border, there to acknowledge the supremacy of the king of the West Saxons, and enter the new con- federacy as a vassal king. By the end of 830, with the exception of Celtic Strathclyde, all the lands south of the line of the Forth and the Solway had sub- mitted to Egbert. Through all this magnificent region, the princes, whether Celt or Teuton, acknowledged the overlordship of the southern king. The vague recognition of this overlordship, how- ever, did not constitute these vassal states into a kingdom or an 830-839] THE KINGDOM OF EGBERT 55 empire, still less into a national state. ^ Such terms applied here are only confusing and misleading. Egbert had, after all, only brought together such another confederacy as that which The nature °, ° ^ ,, ^„ , , . . , of the 80- once obeyed Oswald or Offa; only larger m extent, and, *'Kirwdomof for the moment, confronted by no possible rival north or south. Yet, it had been established by the sword, and was held together only by threat of the sword. Its size, moreover, was a source of weakness rather than strength, and made the advent of reaction inevitable. It possessed no new ele- ments of permanence. The monarchy, as an institution, was firmly established in the minds of the people. The church had thrown around it the charm of special sanctions, borrowed from the imagery and rites of the Old Testament. Yet, the monarchy was not one, but many ; and, although the right of the witan to select the sovereign was generally recognized, the unwritten laws of the tribes also recognized the claim of certain royal families, the male members of which were known as Elhelhigs, to the exclu- sive enjoyment of the royal title in their several states. Only com- plete extermination could dissolve this claim, or save the king who held his authority by conquest from the challenge of some fugitive rival of the favored blood. As long as this idea of the ineradicable nature of the hereditary claims of each royal family survived in the laws of Mercians or East Anglians, of Northum- bria or Kent, any consolidation of the kingdoms into an organized state, under one sole king, and administered through all its parts by his appointed representatives, was impossible. At best, it could be merely a question of time before the confederacy of Egbert, also, should break up, and the constituent kingdoms regroup themselves about new centers. And yet this did not happen. A new element, the Danish, now violently obtruded itself into the history of the English tribes, and, although the great part of the conquests of Egbert were, for the time, torn from the grasp of his successors, though TVes- sex itself was foully smitten, and her strength shattered; yet, ^For significance of term Bretwalde, as used by Chronicle, etc., cf. Freeman, Norman Conquest, I, Append. A., and Stubbs, C. H., I, pp. 180 and 181. 56 THE COJs'FEDEIlACIES OF TEUTONIC BRITAIN [egbert with each successive defeat, her kings returned to the conflict more desperate and more determined than ever, and, at last, succeeded TheCmifed- ^^ regaining not only their old position, but much E^herftorn ^^^'^- ^^^» ^^ ^^^® ^^^S struggle, iiot Only wcre all other l^y *H. ^f royal lines exterminated, and the old tribal partitions the Danes. ^s political divisions erased, but the many dominions were at last fused into one kingdom, and the many lordships absorbed in one kingship. In a word, Teutonic Britain became England, and the kings of the West Saxons became kings of the English. The progress of these changes constitutes the subject matter of the next chapter of English history. CHAPTER IV THE DANISH WARS. ALFRED THE GKEAT AND THE FOUNDING OF THE ENGLISH KINGDOM THE FAMILY OF ALFRED Egl)ert, 802-830 1 Ethelwulf, 889-855, d. 858 I I 1 1 1 Ethelbald, 85.>-860 Ethelbert, 800-806 Ethelred, 800-S71 Alfukd, 871-901 Edward tlio Elder, 901-925 Ethelfleda, d. 019. I '*The I Jidy of the Mercians' I I I = Etiielrod, Ealdormau of Athelstan, 925-910 Edmund, 940-946 Edred, 946-966 Merclu. Edwy, 955-959 Edgar, 959-973 For two hundred years, Britain had received no fresh accessions of Teutonic life from beyond the seas; but, in the closing years of the eighth century, a new wave began to break upon the eastern shore, and, increasing in volume with the opening of the ninth century threatened to sweep away the older Teutonic settlers, as the Angles and Saxons had once overwhelmed and swept away the remnant of the Britons. This new Germanic population came from the two great peninsulas which separate the waters of the Baltic from the waters of the North Sea. The people of Britain called them Danes; the Irish, whose eastern coasts were harried by them as severely as the coasts of Britain, knew them as Ostmen^ or Eastmen; the people of the continent, as Northmen. The name which they themselves used was Vikings^ or Creehmen. They were of Teutonic stock, like the Angles and Saxons, and possessed in gen- eral the same institutions. 57 58 THE DANISH WARS [egbert The first experience of the inhabitants of Britain with these new troublers of the peace of the island dates as far back as the year 787, when three strange crafts suddenly appeared anceofthe ' before the town of Warham, in Dorset. The simple- minded reeve^ ignorant of the true character of the strangers, went out to collect his port dues, and bring the sup- posed merchants to the king, as was his duty; but was straightway slain for his pains. It was not, however, until six years later, that the Northmen gave the people of Britain a fore- taste of the mischief which they might expect at their hands, when they swooped down upon Lindisfarne and plundered its famous church. The next year, they returned, and Benedict Biscop's settlements at Wearmouth and Jarrow suffered the same fate. The Christian ruffians of the age generally passed by such retreats. The legends of hoarded wealth failed to rouse their cupidity to the extent of braving the wrath of the protecting saints. But the appeals and imprecations of shaveling monks, who had forgotten how to fight, only roused the derision of the pagan Northmen and added to the sport of the plundering. In the year 795, they reached Ireland, and began a series of depredations on the eastern coast, which continued for more than TheNfrrfhmen^ quarter of a century. In 832, the pirate king Thorkil in Ireland, made a permanent settlement on the north coast, and established his capital at Armagh. About the same time, another settlement was made at Limerick ; a little later others were made at Dublin and, in the next century, at Waterford and Cork. The first comers were probably from Norway, and had used only the northern route, which lay directly across the North Sea; Increased ac- ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^' '^^ doubt, that the lower coasts of DmiLs^dfier ^^'i^^i'^ owed the long immunity from attack whicli fol- alarilsVie ^^^^^ ^^^ plunder of Lindisfarne and Jarrow. But, Great, 814. after the death of Charles the Great, the people of the Danish peninsula began to take part in these piratical expedi- tions, picking their way along the coasts of the modern Holland and Belgium, running their long black crafts up into each river inlet, in search of monastery or unprotected river town for plunder. Each year they extended their depredations farther to the west ; spread- 833-843] . THE DAXES IX SOUTHERN IJIilTAIN 59 ing terror before them, and leaving a memory of horror behind them. Homesteads were burned, men slaughtered, chiklren tossed on pikes, and women were driven away into slavery; monasteries were rifled, churches destroyed, and priests slain at their altars. Rumor everywhere added to the actual horrors of these scenes. The courage of strong men melted as in the presence of the pes- tilence. The pious saw the hand of God, who, out of the mysteri- ous mists of the boundless sea, had let slip these, his avengers, to punish his people for their sins. At last, in the year 833, a fleet of twenty-five vessels iM)on South appeared in the mouth of the Thames, and ravaged the little island of Sheppey. In 834, another band, esti- mated at twelve hundred strong, made a landing in Dorset. Egbert hastened to meet thom, but was virtually defeated; the next Henaeatdun y^*^^» however, at Ilengestdun, he succeeded in winning a ^^' brilliant victory over a third horde, which had descended from Ireland upon Cornwall. He was not again molested during his reign. The memory of the slaughter at Ilengestdun was enough to keep the Danes at bay until the accession of Ethel wulf. With Ethelwulf, the attempts of the Danes upon south Britain began again. The new king, like his contemporary, Louis the Pious, was entirely unfitted for the work to which iin^uifa/ter destiny had appointed him; a fairly respectable monk Euben having been spoiled in making a king. Each ealdorman was left to do the best he could for his own district; and a noble record those ealdormen made, in glaring contrast with the shameful incompetency of the king. Sometimes the ealdormen were successful, as when Eanulf and Osric won a victory at the mouth of the Parret in 848; but more frequently the ealdorman fell in hopeless battle, as Ethelhelm at Portland, or Herebryht in the Fen country, or he retired, beaten, to die of his wounds, as Wulfheard after Southampton. The climax was reached in 842, when London and Rochester were sacked, their population scattered, and the cities left in ruin. The suffering of those who survived these raids can hardly be overdrawn. Homes were broken up, the means of livelihood 60 THE DANISH WARS . [ethklwulf destroyed, and families scattered never to be reunited. In 844, the devastations of the country had become so widely extended, that Ethel wulf proposed a remission of the royal rents as a % ^Ye S^^^ poor, always the first to suffer in "hard times, " had so increased in numbers, that the king made special provision in his will for feeding and clothing them at the expense of the royal estates. Thus far the invaders had come mostly in detached bands of a few hundred warriors, bent only upon securing plunder, and mak- ing off with it before a sufficient force could be gathered S^JT^"^'^ to punish them. But, in the year 850, a fleet of three atockiey, hundred and fifty ships, carrying possibly ten or twelve thousand men, wintered at Sheppey, and, in the early spring, boldly entered the Thames. Canterbury, and London for the second time, had to pay dearly for their prominence among the cities of the southeast. Beorhtwulf , the vassal king of Mercia, threw himself in the path of the invaders, but was defeated and his army scattered. Then the host crossed into Surrey, but at Ockley Ethelwulf met them at the head of the West Saxon fyrd, and administered such a beating, that the * 'memory of the great slaughter of heathen" long remained in Saxon tradition. Ethel- wulf, however, seems to have taken little advantage of his victory, wasting his strength in a useless war upon the Welsh; while his ealdormen struggled alone to dislodge the Danes from Thanet and other places where they had gained a permanent footing. When, in 855, another horde gathered at Sheppey, preparatory to a descent upon the neighboring coasts in the spring, the king seized the moment to go on a pilgrimage to Eome, quite the "fad" among the rich saints of the day. So, to Rome he went, with another war cloud about to burst upon his people; and the witan. Justly indignant, held a meeting at Selwood, and, exercising their consti- tutional right of deposition, the corollary of their right of election, made Ethelbald, the eldest son, king. Ethelwulf returned in 856, but had to content himself with an under-kingdom made up of Kent, Essex, Surrey, and Sussex. He survived only two years, and then his sons followed him in quick 8C0-870] HEALFDENE AKD IVAK THE BONELESS 61 succession. When Ethelbald died, in 860, the second brother, Ethelbert, was already the vassal king of Kent, but, instead of appointing a successor in Kent, he retained both crowns, Mheiwuif ^^^ ^^^^ ^^® existence of Kent as a separate kingdom came to an end. After six years, death again made way for another of Ethelwulf's sons, and Ethelred became king. Dur- ing Ethel bert's reign, the old capital, Winchester, had been taken and sacked by the Danes, and eastern Kent overrun. The Danes, moreover, had been showing alarming intentions of permanently establishing themselves upon English soil. In the year 866, the first of Ethelred's reign, a great host landed in East Northum- Anglia, under the leadership of the famous chiefs, Healfdene and Ivar. The East Auglians saved them- selves for the time by supplying the invaders with provisions and liorses, and in the spring, saw the horde disappear to the northwest, upon a regular inland campaign. The Danes swept through Lindsey, devouring the country and burning what they could not carry off. The Ilumber was crossed and Deira overrun. In Nmxmhcr, ' November, York fell. Then the two rival kings of Northumbria, Ella and Osbert, whose strife had made their country a prey to the Danes, arranged their differences, and united for the recovery of the northern capital; but their reckless courage only gave the enemy a better opportunity for slaughter. Both kings were slain under the walls of York, and the Northum- brian army, with its eight ealdormen, dispersed. Healfdene established himself at York, and set up a puppet, one Egbert, over the Bernicians. In the meanwhile, Ivar, known by the curious nickname of *Hhe Boneless," advanced into Mercia, and established himself in Nottingham. Mercia would have followed the fate of Boneless:' Northumbria had not Ethelred marched to the aid of in Mercia , ti. -r» n iiiciiTirj. and East the under-king, Burgred, at the head of the West Saxons. Alfred appears in this^ campaign holding high command under his brother, and is henceforth one of the prom- inent figures in the wars. The Danes were disheartened by the vigorous campaigning of the West Saxon princes, and agreed to retire across the Humber. But the year 870 saw them again on 62 THE DANISH WARS [ethelred the war path, under the same Ivar, *'the Boneless," and heading toward East Anglia. The Lindiswara were reduced, and the Fen country was overvyhelmed. In East Anglia, the under king, Edmund, attempted to face them, but was routed, taken, and afterwards, in company with his bishop, Humbert of Elm ham, tied to a tree and shot to death with arrows. He is '^Edmund ^^ known in church traditions as "the Martyr," — the Eng- lish St. Sebastian. To the panic-stricken people, the struggle was rapidly assuming the aspect of a religious war. The invaders turned their fury particularly upon the visible representa- tives of the Christian faith. Every church edifice in the line of march was burned. The monks of Medehamstede, the later Peter- borough, were massacred without mercy. The monks of other monastic communities, as Croyland and Ely, probably shared the same fate. The bishop of Lindsey escaped only by hasty flight, but other priests, like Humbert of Elmham, died with their people. The episcopal sees were broken up, and the flocks scat- tered. Nearly a century passed before Lindsey and Elmham again saw a bishop. Dunwich never recovered. The Danes had already prepared themselves to hold what tbcy had won in East Anglia, by constructing elaborate earthworks at Thetford, the remains of which, even to-day, cover The *'Y'ecir of Battles," about thirteen acres. Their purpose, apparently, was not to settle as colonists, but to make East Anglia a base in operating against the richer country which lay to the west. Accordingly, in 871, with numbers greatly strengthened by later accessions, under Healfdene and "a host of jarls," they took the old Eoman road, the Icknield street, and advanced directly upon Wessex. The moment was a critical one in English history. Northumbria and East Anglia were already conquered; the strength of Mercia was broken; only Wessex remained, the last bulwark of England. If the West Saxons failed now, the end was near. The opening of the year, long known as the * 'year of battles, ' ' was discouraging enough. The Danes took up a strong position at Reading, between the Thames and the Kennet, where they fortified themselves, as was now their custom. Then they began to spread out over the country in search of forage; for a medieval 87l] THE YEAR OF BATTLES 63 army, even of civilized nations, had no other way of sustaining itself in the field. King Ethelred and Alfred Etheling, however, soon pnt a stop to the foraging by driving the Danes behind their earthworks. They had then only to sit down to a regular siege, and hunger would soon have compelled the Danes to treat. Such simple tactics were followed later with great success. But the enthusiasm of the West Saxons could not be restrained, and, in an jittempt to carry the camp by storm, they were beaten off with great slaughter and compelled to retire up the Thames, where a second battle was fought at Ashdown. Here, though forced to fight at a great disadvantage, the West Saxon princes were success- ful, and compelled the Danes again to retire upon Reading. Within two weeks, a tliird battle followed at Basing, and still a fourth at Me r ton, in Surrey. The fatigue and anxiety of such vigorous campaigning told heavily upon King Ethelred, who finally broke under the strain, and died about a fortnight after Merton. Alfred, who of Alfred, had contributed not a little to the successes of the 871 army, who had endeared himself to his men by the exhibition of true soldierly qualities, and had won their confidence by his wisdom and skill as a leader, was at once selected as king. Two sons survived Ethelred, but the law of strict hereditary suc- cession had not yet been established. These were days, moreover, when regal honors were neither to be lightly sought nor lightly conferred; so the young children of Ethelred were set aside, and the young man Alfred, probably in his twenty-sixth year, became king, the ''people's darling," the hope of the England to be. Alfred had little time for fetes or celebrations, and at once addressed himself to the serious problem of the hour : how to rid his eastern kingdom of the Danes and restore again his The Danes . ° ^r- ^ . ^ -,,-,•, - retire from smitten country. Withm a month, he brought his battle- weary people to face their foes again at Wilton, whither they had recently advanced from their old camp at Read- ing. The Danes won the day, but the hard fighting was beginning to tell upon their strength, for they had been forced to fight nine pitched battles in five months. They were glad, therefore, to take advantage of their last victory and retire from Wessex. 64 THE DANISH WAllS [alfred The next position of the Danish army was on the lower Thames, near London. Here, however, the country had already been stripped bare, and they were soon compelled to inEaS!mi ^^^^^ ^ ^^^^^ camp at Torksey, on the Trent, whence they 'and^myrth- ^^^^^^ Operations upon Mercia, and, in a short time, '^t>ria, reduced all the eastern and central parts. Bnrgred, the last Mercian king of the old line, apparently, saw little chance of success in continuing the struggle, and took him- self off to Rome to die. As in Northumbria, Ilealfdene set up a puppet king over the parts of Mercia which he did not care to take for his people ; but the parts about Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Stamford, and Lincoln he divided among his followers. These towns, the famous "Five Boroughs," soon became Bw-'imgM ' ^^go^ous Centers of Danish life. We do not know the terms upon which the Danes settled, but it is not likely that they disturbed the tillers of the soil, who were now practically serfs over all England. It is more likely that they simply ejected the landowners and lived upon the labor of their tenants. The memory of the old life of plunder, however, was still too strong upon the Danes to allow them to settle down into quiet land- lords, and, leaving a sufficient force to hold what they armput^the ^^^^ won, they continued to lead out their armies both theStif north and south, to plunder the country and exhaust the resources of the states which still survived. In the spring of 875, Healfdene led a horde up the west coast, to complete the pillage of North umbria. Carlisle was left in ruins, and so remained until restored by William Eufus more than two hundred years later. The Britons of Strathclyde and the Picts of Galloway bowed to the storm. Then Bernicia, which had been spared in 867, was also compelled to yield up its treasures. Lin- disfarne, which had recovered somewhat from the raid of 793, was again destroyed, and every monastery from sea to sea, it is said, shared the same fate. The north now lay in ashes. The libraries of Jarrow and York, associated with the great names of Bede and Alcuin, had gone up in flames. The "art treasures" and the "book treasures" so carefully gathered by Benedict Biscop had been either destroyed or 876] GUTHRUM IN WESSEX G5 scattered. The service of the chnrch had been supplanted by the bloody feasts of Odin and Thor, and the successors of Wilfrid and Cuthbert either been slain at their altars or driven ^m"*^^?* out to wander in strange lands. Then, when there was %alieis nothing left to plunder, the booty thirst of Healfdene and his pirates seemed to be satisfied, and they began in serious earnest to make themselves homes in the land which they had desolated. To know how numerous and widely extended these settlements were, then and later, the student has only to take a modern map and note the town names of eastern, middle, and northern England. Wherever he finds an English town with the ending %, he may know that he is on the track of Healfdene and other Danes, who, like him, came to rob and pillage, but, weary of plunder at last, settled down into peaceable landowners. Wliile Healfdene was thus clearing the ground for the planting of Danish communities in the north, Guthrum, an East Anglian Dane, who had succeeded Ivar, **the Boneless," gath- Smid^r ®^®^ ^ ^^^^^y ^^^^ ^° ^^® spring of 876, took to the sea. H^««ex, Passing around Kent and sailing westward, he made a junction with a second fleet, coming probably from Ire- land, and brought the combined hordes to land at Wareham, in Dorset. Here, as at Reading, the Danes fortified themselves, and began to overrun the surrounding country, extending their depre- dations over the entire region. In the spring, they advanced to Exeter, which a band of their comrades had seized the year before. Alfred followed warily, crippled, no doubt, by the instability and irregularity of the fyrd, the '*minute men" of early English his- tory; avoiding pitched battles, he could yet cut off foraging parties and prevent the Danes from getting supplies. Thus, at Exeter, as at Wareham, hunger, the vigorous ally of Alfred, soon compelled the Danes to move, and a part of the horde marched into Mercia and took up a third station at Gloucester. Medieval armies, by common consent, were accustomed to dis- band in the winter months and return to their homes. The Danes, however, by their custom of establishing permanent for- tified camps, were able to winter m the field and so had a great Q6 THE DANISH WARS [.\m.m.;i> advantage over the temporary levies of Alfred. The English, moreover were rendered inert by fear; they shrank from the sufferings and perils of a winter campaign in the face Atheiney. of such an enemy. Furthermore, men who had left their families for months to the care and pro- tection of old men and boys, could well plead that they were needed at home. Alfred, therefore, found it impossible to keep the field, and withdrew to the deep recesses of the forests of Somerset. Late in the winter, he established himself in a fort at Athelney, behind the marshes of the Parret, where he was pro- tected against any sudden advance of tlie Danish cavalry, but could watch their movements and offer a rendezvous for his people. Athelney was Alfred's "Valley Forge"; nor is it difficult for the imagination to picture the patient waiting and the heroic suffer- ing of the little band who still clung to their king, as they watched and waited for the spring to open the ways of the forest and enable the thanes of Somerset to join their standard again. ^ Soon after Easter, the fyrd of Somerset began to come and in, and Alfred was soon enabled to leave his hiding-place and take the field. On the eastern margin of Selwood, near Warminster, the fyrds of Wiltshire and Hampshire also joined him, and with this force he advanced to meet the Danes at Chip- penham, whither they had removed from Exeter in Jan- Edington, nary. At Edington, eight miles from their camp, he took up a strong position, and waited for them to attack him. The battle was long and bloody, but the Danes were beaten and compelled to retire. Then, for fourteen days, Alfred besieged them at Chippenham, and, finally, by the grim logic of famine, brought them to accept his offer of peace. They must leave Wessex and settle down as peaceful landowners east of the old line of Watling Street. This land was already ^ The old tale of Alfred and the burned cakes, belongs to this winter at Athelney. Its authority, however, is somewhat doubtful; and yet it is not unlikely that the incident or something like it, really happened, in connection with some one of the many expeditions in which Alfred no doubt often went out in person to seek news of the enemy or find forage for his men. 8'r . i l i i a^ *ii<< it i OITITSA'-? bi-m ^tiiv PARTITION OF ENGM.AND by treaty of WEDMORE 878j ALFRED AND GUTHRUM'S PEACE 67 theirs. They had wasted it and occupied it; now let them stay there. They should not be disturbed, only, as a pledge of good faith, let Guthrum, their king, acknowledge Alfred as overlord and submit to Christian baptism. The pledge of Guthrum was fulfilled to the letter. He and thirty of his nobles were baptized at Aller, near Athelney. Alfred himself acted as godfather to his new vassal, and gave him the now Christian name of Athelstan. Godfather and neophyte tlien retired to Wedmore, where the terms of the truce were formally ratified in the famous i,i wahnurc, *'fryth," kuowu as ''Alfred and Guthrum's Peace." * *'This is the peace," it runs, *'that King Alfred and King Guthrum, and the witan of all the nation of the Angles, and all the people that are in East Anglia, have all ordained, and with oaths confirmed, for themselves and for their descendants, as well born as for unborn, who reck of God's mercy or of ours." By the agreement of the two kings, the boundaries of their kingdoms were definitely fixed as follows, *'up on the Thames, and then on the Lea, and along the Lea unto its source, „f nir^^^ then right to Bedford, then up on the Ouse unto Wat- ling Street." Each people were to keep to their own side of the boundary. The Danes were not to seek service under Alfred; his people were not to seek service under Guthrum; but commercial dealings were to be allowed, and Englishmen and Danes were to be held ''equally dear" on either side of the boundary, and to be protected by the local laws. Thus, all England east of Watling Street was formally ceded to the Danes. Wessex, and Western Mercia, however, had been saved. This was much. It was more to have established some basis upon which Englishmen and Danes might dwell together in peace. England, east of the line of Wedmore and north to the borders of Bernicia, soon became known as the Danelagh; that is, the country, where the law of the Danes prevailed, in dis- wcTkIi tinction from the country where English law prevailed. meMi'u'^^ This region, however, was not one kingdom, but many. The Danes, like the Teutonic settlers of two centuries ^ The so-called Treaty of Wedmore, as we have it, was probably made a year, possibly several years, later. Stubbs, Select Charters, pp. 63, 64. 68 THE DANISH WARS [ Alfred earlier, gathered in separate communities, about centers of popu- lation, each under its own jarl or king; but linked together in loose confederacies. South of Watling Street, there was now one kingdom and one king. It is, moreover, significant, that, although Alfred continued through his reign to style himself simply *'king of the West Saxons," in the Treaty of Wedmore his people are called * 'English" in distinction from the Danes. Possibly the application of the name to the West Saxons had been brought into general use by the Danes, who failed to distinguish between Angles and Saxons, and knew only the name of the people with whom they had first come in contact.^ Alfred could now undertake the great work of his reign, the restoration and reorganization of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom. Little of the old order was left; ealdormen and kings demsluion ^^^ been swept away; peace officers had disappeared, and the old rude courts for the protection of private rights, abandoned. Sees had been broken up; churches and monasteries destroyed, and bishops and abbots slaughtered or driven into exile. Cities lay in ruins; whole regions were waste, their populations destroyed or scattered by famine and the sword. With the destruction of the church, the sources of moral and intellectual life had also dried up. The very fibers of society were loosened. Yet, in spite of the general wreck, there still sur- vived the elements of the older organization, elements into which the character of the people had already breathed its life. With rare wisdom, Alfred seized upon these elements, and made them the foundation of the new England. Western Mercia was committed to Ethelred, who ruled it as a dependent principality, under the title of ealdorman. Alfred gave his own immediate attention to Wessex and the other ^anizts^and kingdoms south of the Thames. Here, he sought to thtx^siem ^®^^ ^^® shattered fragments of these ancient states into a single compact kingdom. As far back as the days of Ine, Wessex appears to have enjoyed a somewhat thoroughly organized shire system. But Wessex was very small then, and her *See Gregory's letter to Augustine for early use of name "English" (Angli) as a general term. Gee and Hardy, Documents, etc., p. 9. ALFRED ORGANIZES THE KINGDOM 69 handful of shires occupied only a small portion of the territory of Teutonic Britain. The rest of the country was governed by petty kings, or semi -independent ealdormen, who ruled each in his own seven-by-nine kingdom, holding his court in the open gate and knowing no intermediate jurisdiction between himself and the local court of the hundred. But now the old kingdoms were gone, with king and ealdormen, their hundred courts and their gate courts ; yet the names and boundaries, and, most valuable of all, the habit and the traditions of local cooperation for local administration remained. Upon the lines of the old tribal kingdoms, therefore, Alfred organized and established the new shires ; each a simple administrative district, under the jurisdiction of its own court, and presided over by its own steward, the scir-gerefa^ whom wo know by the modern name of sheriff. By the side of the sheriff sat also the ealdorman and the bishop. It is not possible to dis- tinguish clearly the respective duties of these officers in the shire, but the sheriff was **the constituting officer'' of the court. It is not likely that ealdorman and bishop were always present, but the sheriff, as the representative of the king, must be ; without him, there could be no shire court. It was his duty, also, to look after the interests of his master in the care of the crown lands within his shire, and the collection of fines and dues. It was the ealdor- man's duty to command the military levies of the shire, — the fyrd. He was responsible for their condition; for the promptness with which they took the field. It was his, also, to lead them in bat- tle, to encourage them by his example, to hearten and cheer them by his fortitude under trial, by his courage in the face of peril. The sheriff was appointed by the king, but the ealdorman was elected by the witan, of which august body he was also a member, and to whose councils he contributed his wisdom. The bishop also had his interests in the shire; his people were amenable to its court; the innocent, the poor, and the friendless must be protected against injustice in the name of law; the various religious forms connected with the crude methods of trial must be superintended in the name of the church. The king himself might be present in the shire court; for this is to be born in mind, that the shire court was the lineal successor 70 THE DANISH WARS [alfred of the old petty royal court. Hence, its character as a king's court was always maintained. The king and his witan were theoretically present in the sheriff, the ealdorman, and the bishop. Neither shire nor shire court was the invention of Alfred; both had existed in Wessex for fully a hundred years before his time. The name scir, which was used at first, prob- Aifredin ^^^J? ^^ some such general way as the kindred word s/ilreswsfew^ 5ec^^on in America, had been applied sometimes to the wards of a city, sometimes to the hundreds of a subkingdom. In Wessex, it had already come to indicate the greater divisions of the consolidated state. In Alfred's day, there- fore, neither the thing nor the name was new. What he did was to restore the ancient shires of Wessex, and reorganize alongside of them as coordinate shires, the ancient kingdoms of Kent, and Sussex, and Surrey, thus making them organic parts of one cen- tralized state; but, in so doing, he gave to the sJiir-e a significance which had not belonged to it before. The expedient, moreover, was a happy one; for, while on the one hand it preserved the habit of local self-government, so essential to the development of free institutions, on the other, it afforded an opportunity for the development of a strong central government, so essential to the attainment of great statehood. The association of neighboring villages into minor judicial dis- tricts, known later in England as hundreds, was, as we have seen, like the shires, not a new thing. These also Alfred the system of reorganized and harmonized, and greatly strengthened and extended as the foundation of the shire system. To give weight and dignity to the decisions of the hundred court, the great landowners of the district who possessed five hides of land or more, the thanes, were required to be present and to assist the court in rendering just decisions. They themselves, however, were exempt from tlie jurisdiction of the local court, and held in their own halls a coordinate court for their people. In all cases, the king held the presiding judges responsible for the decisions of their respective courts, nor did he hesitate to inter- fere or punish the judge who was neglectful of his duty or gave other evidence of his unfitness. Even the ealdorman was not ALFRED AND THE LAWS 71 above the king's displeasure, and might be removed for connivance at crime or injustice. The poor, the remnant of the old free ceorls, the friendless peasantry upon whom the heavy hand of the great magnates was apt to rest with unsparing severity, were the special objects of the king's solicitude; *'for the poor had no friend save the king." Side by side with a better civil organization, Alfred established also a better military organization. By old Teutonic law, the great body of freemen were held to military duty, and ■^J^^[f^^ might be called into the field in the presence of common w-'mlizatum ^^^S^^- ^^^^ ^^® ^^^S campaigning of the earlier years of Alfred's reign, and the need of keeping the nation constantly under arms, had been a severe strain upon the older system, and it had more than once failed in an hour of greatest peril, as in the winter of 877. Alfred sought to remedy this weakness of the fyrd, by introducing a system of reliefs. Only a third of the people were to be called into active service in the field at any one time; another third were to do garrison duty; while the remaining third tilled the fields and cared for the families of those who were facing tlie enemy. The period of service, more- over, was definitely fixed, and the men of each division knew just when they were to be relieved. With the same wise policy of adapting old institutions to the new needs of the nation, Alfred addressed himself to a reform of existing laws. From the codes of Ethel bert, Ine, and tiw^aws"^ Offa, supplemented by provisions taken from the ancient Levitical Law, he compiled a new code for the common kingdom. The only originality which he claimed for himself was that of selection: **I gathered these laws together and commanded many of those to be written which, our fore- fathers held, those which to me seemed good ; and many of those which to me seemed not good, I rejected."* In these laws, how- ever, there is a marked advance in this: whereas the general prin- ciple of the commutation of crime for money is still recognized, we have now a distinct law against treason, for which the death penalty is assigned. **If any one plot against the king's life, of ^ Preamble to Alfred's Laws. Stubbs, S. C, p. 62. 72 THE DANISH WARS [alfhed himself, or by harboring of exiles, or of his men, let him be liable in his life and in all that he has." The king, however, is not the only member of the community whose life is protected by the death penalty. "He who plots against his lord's life, let him be liable in his life to him, and in all that he has." In these laws we see the strength with which the importance of the kingly authority is taking hold of the popular mind; we also see the growing influence of the great landowning aristocracy. Com- pared with one of these great lords of the soil, the life of the landless freeman was of little importance. No statesman ever appreciated more than Alfred the value of education in elevating a people, or in creating a true national spirit. His own education had been neglected in his fduc^ion^ early years ; for what reason is not known. He had been left to gather what he could in a desultory way ; at twelve he had not yet learned his letters ; nor in his later years was he ever able to atone for the lack of early training, always to him a source of deep regret. Yet possibly this early neglect was not without its compensations. For during these years when Latin, the literary language of the ninth century, was to him a sealed tongue, his fresh- young mind must have drunk deep and long from the homely fountains of his own English, the language which was yet virtually without a literature, and learned to value the priceless traditions of a past which was rapidly fading. It is not likely that he knew much of Bede in those days, for Bede had written in Latin; but he must have heard the gleemen sing their half -pagan songs in his father's hall; he must have listened to tales of brave deeds of old, of * 'sword play," and ''shield wall," and "arrow flight," until the generous heart of the lad had thrilled with patriotic emotion. Nor, in after years, when his turn came to take up the burdens of a king, could he forget these lessons, or fail to appreciate the value of such traditions in in- spiring the English with pride in their past, or confidence in their future. Thus Alfred, first among English kings, grasped the importance of national history as an instrument of education, and sought to leave to the people, in a language which the simplest of them could understand, a record of their kings and of their own THE NINTH CENTURY RENAISSANCE 73 achievements. This record, compiled under Alfred's direction, partly from current traditions and partly from the Ecclesiastical History of Bade, was the beginning of the famous Cliron- The Anglo- . , f , , \ - ^ ^ . Saxon icie, which was destined to be continued for three hun- Chronicle. -. , . - nr. - -, ., dred years, forming a sort of semi - official national diary of the greatest value in recovering the later history of Old English kings. For the benefit of his unlearned country- men also Alfred caused to be put in an English dress such works, standard in his day, as Bede's history and the general history of the world of Orosius. The king's interest in literature, however, was by no means confined to history. He caused translations to be made of standard philosophical and theological works as well, of which the most important were the Cojisolations of Philosophy of the unfortunate Boethins, and the Pastoral Care of Pope Gregory I. lie also made a collection of the ancient epic songs of the English. But of these, with the exception of the epic of Beowulf^ only a few fragments have survived. In Beo- tvulf^ however, we have a priceless treasure. It is not only the earliest of English poems, antedating the era of migra- tion;^ it is also a striking picture of life and manners, fur more than the dry annals of the Chronicle, revealing the temper of the ancient English folk.* The compilation of the Chronicle, the translation of standard works, and the collection of English war songs, formed only a part of Alfred's plans for furthering the education of century his people. Like Charles the Great, he ransacked his renaissance. , . . . . _ dominions for men who were apt to teach. From Mercia, he drew out Plegmund, who in 890 became archbishop of Canterbury. From Wales, he brought the man who was after- ward to become his biographer, the learned Asser. Even foreign countries also were invited to contribute of their wealth to enrich his schools. Saxony gave him John the "Old Saxon" and St. Bertin gave him Grimbald. Under the inspiration of such men, there began a genuine renaissance. The long struggle with the ^ Its present form is probably the work of a Christian monk of the eightli century. 2 See Green, H. E. P., I., pp. 17-20. 74 THE DANISH WARS [alfrkd Danes had dealt severely with the English kingdoms; the old schools had been destroyed, their teachers and pupils scattered, and the people had lapsed into barbaric ignorance. When Alfred began his reign it was said that there was not a man in "Wessex who could read understandingly. When Alfred closed his reign, English prose had been born, and the English mind had received an inspiration which it was not to lose, until it emerged into the full day of the modern era. The same order which Alfred introduced into the administra- tion of his ffingdom, he introduced also into his own private life. ThevaJucof ^^ ^^^^ ^^ clock to warn him of the flight of the hours; mluiodicai ^"^' ^^ burning a series of tapers, he contrived to divide We. his day with some accuracy. When he noticed that the draughts caused his candles to burn unevenly at times, he pro- tected them with a lantern made with sides of horn. The well- ordered household, the value put upon education, the sobriety and patient industry of the king, and the quiet seriousness with which he took the duties of his high office, created an influence which affected all who came in contact with him, and from the court ex- tended outward and downward to the people. While Alfred was thus laying broad foundations for the future greatness of his people, the Danes of Britain were qnietly set- The Danes ^^^^^S dowu to a peaceful life, learning much from the ^'Ufred' slater English who dwclt among them, and forgetting much reign. ^f their old hostility. Occasionally a new band from the continent harried Alfred's coasts. But Alfred, in reorganiz- ing the land fyrd, had not forgotten the sJiip fyrd. In the year 882 his seamen sank thirteen Danish ships at the mouth of the Stour, one of the earliest recorded achievements of the English navy. It is to be noted, however, that the sea had become a strange element to the English ; the children had forgotten the ways of their fathers, and Alfred could man his ships only by enlisting foreigners. It is to be noted, also, that the long exemption of Britain from such attacks was due quite as much to the extreme feebleness of the Frankish Empire during this period and the richer booty promised by the monasteries and cities of the south, as to the prestige of Alfred. Upon the first manifestation 891-895J RENEWAL OF DANISH INROADS 75 of returning vigor in the Frankish defense, the Danes once more began to appear on the English coast. From 891 to 895, Alfred's hands were full. One horde under Bjorn Jaernsides descended on the southern coast of Kent, and creeping up into the Limen, estab- lished themselves at Appledore. After laying waste the surround- ing shires of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, they were at last beaten by Alfred's son Edward at Farnham in 893, and driven down the Thames where they found shelter among the swamps of Thorny Island, the present Westminster. Then Ethelred, Alfred's son- in-law, the ealdorman of Mercia, fell upon them from the Mercian side, and forced them to make terms and retire to Mersea on the coast x)t Essex. Alfred himself, in the meanwhile, was occupied with another horde under the famous Hasting, who had entered the Thames and taken up their station at Milton, whence they ravaged western Kent and threatened London. Alfred succeeded in driving them from Kent, only to see them settle again on the other side of the Thames at Benfleet still nearer London. Before he could come at them again he was recalled to the west to save Devonshire and Exeter from a horde of Northumbrian Danes. In the meanwhile, the Danes of East Anglia and Essex had teen aroused by the rout of war which had entered their borders, and many of them flocked to the banners of Hasting, so that he was emboldened to dash by London and start "on a wild raid up the valley of the Thames." The whole west country, however, rose before him, and by the time he reached the Severn, he found himself confronted by the ealdorman, Ethelred, with mMington, the fyrds of the Mercians, the Sumorsaetas, and the Wilsaetas. Even the North Welsh sent their contingents to help against the common foe. At Buttington, Hasting was brought to bay, and the English prepared to starve him to terms, quite after the manner of Edington and Chippenham. But when his horses had been eaten, apparently not such an extreme hardship for the Danes, Hasting attempted to cut his way through the beleaguering ranks. A great battle was fought, and many of Alfred's thanes fell, but Hasting got away to Chester, where he wintered among the ruins of the old Roman city. Hither Ethelred followed him and kept him closely beleaguered until the spring of 76 THE DANISH WARS [alfred 895, when Hasting agaia escaped, and finally, after an attempt upon North Wales, retired into Northumbria. Benfleet, in the meantime, had also been cleared of the Danes, whom Hasting had left behind, but Mersea still continued to be the Danish base on the East Saxon coast. Hither Hasting made his way from North- umbria with the remnant of his army, and, joining his fleet again, brought his ships by way of the Thames up into the Lea, and estab- lished himself within twenty miles of London. He was, strictly, still upon Danish territory, but Alfred could not allow this new camp to remain just over his borders to menace the peace of Mercia. The Londoners began the siege in the summer and in harvest time Alfred arrived and took charge of the operations. He threw a dam across the river below the camp, and by cutting off the escape of the Danes to the sea forced the horde to disperse, but could not prevent individual bands from slip- ping away into Essex and East Anglia. One company succeeded in breaking into Mercia, and repeating the career of Hasting of the year before, reached the Welsh border, and wintered near Bridgenorth. The next summer they retired into Northumbria. *In the summer of 89 G there were '' desultory landings" on the southern coast, but the danger was passed. The losses of the four years had been very severe. A great number of Alfred's AUred*^^^ people had fallen; among them two bishops, three eal- dormen, and many of the minor thanes. Vast areas of country had also been laid waste. But Alfred's system had suc- cessfully stood the strain, and Englishmen had learned the value of an efficient government, loyally sustained. Five years later, Alfred, the greatest of early English kings, laid down the burdens which he had carried so well. He had reiffned twenty-nine years and six months. He was Death and °. . ^, "f, . ^^ . ^, • ix i tt character of preeminently the right man in the right place. He imparted his own energy and courage to the English people in the most critical period of the national history. But he did more than this. He founded the England which we know. By an unerring instinct, the traditions of a thousand years trace back to him the beginnings of almost all that is great and good in English life and character. He has been called 'Hhe model man of CHARACTER OF ALFRED ?7 the English race."* He was "the noblest, as he was the most complete embodiment of all that is great, all that is lovable, in the English temper. He combined, as no other man has ever combined, its practical energy, its patient and enduring force, its profound sense of duty, the reserve and self-control, that steadies in it a wide outlook and a restless daring, its temperance and fairness, its frank geniality, its sensitiveness to affection, its poetic tenderness, its deep and passionate religion."^ Like all great men, Alfred was. many-sided. Among the scholars who gathered about him, he was one of tlio first, leading them in the arduous work of trans- lation. ''The singers of the court found in him a brother singer.'* He could plan buildings with his craftsmen; he could superintend the workmen; he could instruct even his ''falconers and dogkeep- ers." Deeply religious, frail in health, and seldom free from pain, he was no ascetic, but a thoroughgoing man of affairs, laborious, metliodical, and careful of details. He was a leader whom men trusted with implicit confidence, because they felt that he was directed and controlled by sterling good sense, and was able to "bring things to pass"; he is "one of the most pleasing, and per- haps the most perfect, character in history";^ the king who, "as no other man on record, has so thoroughly united all the virtues, both of the ruler and of the private man."* ' Goldvvin Smith, The United Kingdom, I, p. 18. 2 Green, H. E. R, I, 75. 3 Ramsay, I, 247. * Freeman. N. C, 1.61. CHAPTER V THE RECONQUEST OF THE DANELAGH AND THE EXPANSION OF THE ENGLISH KINGDOM UNDER THE GREAT KINGS OF THE HOUSE OF ALFRED Edward, distingnislied by later historians as *'the Elder," suc- ceeded to the crowii by Alfred's death. His coronation, however, did not take place until the following sprins^. The I^UCCCSS'iOTt of <^ ± ^ J. TT J. ij Ethelred. dissension to the last. He was not an old man, pos- sibly not much past fifty, but he had lived far too long for the good of England; he died April 23, 1016. London was the only stronghold which held out for Ed- mund ; but he had no thought of waiting idly behind its walls until Canute should gather and organize the strength of Therallyof ^ , ^ . , ^ . • .- \ tt ^ x Edmund, England in order to drive him out. He proposed to show what Englishmen could do when led again by a brave and competent leader. And no doubt with the example of his great ancestor before him, he retired to Selwood Forest, and 116 DECLIJSTE OF THE KINGDOM [edmund Ieonsidk under its shadows gathered the descendants of the men who had fought at Edington. With a small but determined band, steadily increasing as he advanced, he fought his way back to London, defeating the Danes at Penselwood, again at Sherston, and finally raising the siege of London and winning a third victory at Brentford. The eyes of all loyal Englishmen now turned to Edmund. At last, here was a king who knew how to lead his people and win battles. Even the traitor Edric began to despair of the fortunes of Canute and in an evil hour was allowed to make his peace with Edmund. After Brentford, Edmund followed Canute to the south bank of the Thames, and overtaking him at Otford in Kent, forced him to retire across the estuary into Essex. Then Ashingdim. D^^king a detour by land, Edmund again came up with the Danes near the modern Ashingdon. The English, confident in the skill and good fortune of their king, were eagerly looking forward to the struggle, which each side felt must settle the issue of the war, when occurred the fell treason, which in a trice undid all the victories of the past year. At the very moment when the English wej*e entering the battle Edric the Grasper halted his Mercians and refused to fight. Edmund gallantly led forward the loyal men of Wessex, but, against the odds which now confronted him, victory was impossible. Yet from three o'clock until the gathering darkness of the short October day made it no longer possible for foe to see foe, the men of Wessex fought on. Then they withdrew and under cover of the night the fyrd broke up. But the Danes were in no mood to follow ; the roads were unknown, and the country hostile. They too had suffered in the royal "hand-play" of ''rank thrust- ing at rank with sword and spear." They were, moreover, "weary of fighting and marching and working of ships," and thought no longer of conquest, but only of truce. In a few days Edmund would return with another army, and then certain expulsion, if not extermination, awaited them. But Edric's treason was not yet complete; he now exerted his influence among the witan to persuade them to demand a cessa- tion of hostilities. Edmund protested; but his protest was over- 1016] POLICY OF CANUTE 117 Thetnu:e rilled, and at Alney near Gloucester he was compelled '^^^* to accept Canute as under-king, and cede to him all England, saving only Wessex and East Anglia. Edmund survived this 'disgraceful treaty only a few weeks. Later accounts ascribe his death to Edric, secretly encouraged by Canute. But it is more than likely that the events Edmund, of the seven months past, the incessant campaign- ing, the five pitched battles, the cruel disappoint- ment in the moment of success, were too great a strain even for his vigorous constitution. His d^ath was a national calamity. Ilis brilliant triumphs are "the best commentary on the imbecility of Ethelred, and show that it was not so much the degeneracy of Englishmen as the incompetence of the government that had been responsible for the disasters of his reign." The death of Edmund left Canute undisputed lord of England. He was then a young man, probably not far from his twenty-first year. Yet with remarkable clearness of vision and ^oiekf soundness of judgment he grasped the conditions which confronted him. He saw that what the English needed most was peace; but that a stable and lasting peace could be established only by first securing his power against the machinations of possible reactionary plotters. Accordingly, almost his first act was to seize the archtraitor Edric and put him to death. Other executions also followed, by no means as justifiable. The infant sons of Edmund, whom probably he did not dare to destroy, he sent off to Norway for safe keeping; but Edwy, a brother of Edmund Ironsides, was outlawed and afterward slain. When Canute had removed the men whose presence he regarded as a menace to the peace which he would make, he stayed his hand, and addressed himself to the task of winning the confi- Camue^ dence and support of the English. Though no English- man, he understood the English nature far better than their "own born lord." He connected his reign with the past by proclaiming the laws of Edgar; he assured his people of fair treat- ment by placing Englishmen and Danes upon the same footing before the law; and to fortify his position in the only direction from which he might expect a challenge to his right to the throne, 118 DECLINE OF THE KIl!^GDOM t he sought and won the hand of the Lady Emma, the widow of Ethelred. He sought also to strengthen the conservative elements of English society by favoring the clergy and increasing the power of the local landlords. He also strengthened the great earldoms, bestowing a power upon the earls of Mercia, Northumbria, and East Anglia coordinate with the power which he himself exer- cised directly over Wessex. If he put the loy- alty of his new- subjects to the test by the levy of an enormous Danegeld, the end surely would find fa- vor in their sight. For by this tax he was enabled to pay off his army and send the greater part of it home. Henceforth his throne must rest upon the loyalty of the English people. In 1019 Canute was recalled to Denmark by the death of his brother Harold. Three years of Canute's rule had made England The Charter a united and peaceful country, and he left it without 1020. ' fear to the charge of Thurkill, whom he had made Earl of East Anglia. He returned, however, the next year in time to take part in the Easter feast. The so-called charter of Canute 1020-1026] THE CHARTER OF CANUTE 119 is commonly assigned to this year. The opening paragraph is a greeting to his people after his safe return. He then recounts the measures which he has taken for the peace of the realm, and calls upon all good people to *' thank God Almighty for the mercy that he has done for our help." He commands his earls to "help the hishops to God's right and to my royal authority and to the behoof of all the people." Edgar's law is reaffirmed as the law of the kingdom; all unrighteousness is to be eschewed; Sunday's festival is to be kept "from Saturday's noon to Monday's dawn- ing"; and no man may either go to market or seek any court "on that Holy Day. " ^ In 1023 occurred an event which shows with what pains Canute sought to take advantage of the susceptibilities of the English. St. Dunstan's Day had already been added to the caleri- Thetransla- , . ^^^^ ^ , . , tionof dar in 1018. Canute now, with great ceremony, took Alfheah(St. ,, , -, . ,, ,-..,.,, -. , . AipJiege), up the body of the murdered Alfheah, and bore it ten- derly from St. Paul's to Southwark, and thence by regu- lar stages in solemn procession, through Rochester to Canterbury. The proceedings, which took eleven days, appealed powerfully to the national sentiment of the English, nor could the nation fail to regard the honor done to their martyred primate as the peace offer- ing of their foreign king. Tlio retirement, possibly outlawry of Thurkill, whom popular opinion, rightly or wrongly, made respon- sible for the murder of Alfheah, we may also associate with the translation of the Saint's bones to their last resting place. In 1025 Canute again returned to Denmark. It was during this second absence that he made his memorable visit to Rome, which he so timed as to be present at the Imperial iSw*jo27 coronation of Conrad II. The compliment which he thus paid to the new emperor was amply rewarded by a grant of privileges of prime importance to Canute and his people; not least of which was the abolition of the heavy tolls which it was customary to exact of English pilgrims as they passed through Burgundy or Switzerland on the way to Italy. They were moreover to be protected by more equitable laws while passing through the other dominions of the Emperor. The pope also agreed not to iStubbs, S. C, p. 75. 120 DECLINE OF THE KINGDOM [canutb demand the ruinous sums which it had been customary to exact of the English archbishops in return for the pall. The next year Canute took advantage of a quarrel of his old friend Olaf the Holy of Norway with his people, and landed with a Canute adds ^^^^^- ^^ ^^^J sWps, and drove Olaf out of the country. hS^domin^ Canute then added Norway to his cluster of kingdoms. wm,io28. Two years later Olaf attempted to regain his crown, but was defeated at Stiklestad and perished, probably in the battle. After the overthrow of Olaf Canute returned to England, the undisputed lord of the north. In the days of England's weakness, the Scots had steadily encroached on the Northumbrian iMhian^^ border, and in the second year of Canute's reign the Scottish king Malcolm had defeated the northern earl at Carham and taken possession of the country between Forth and Tweed. Canute did not seek to regain this region, but prepared to compel Malcolm to recognize the overlordship of the king of England, a custom which had been abandoned since the days of Edgar. Malcolm promptly yielded ; and the country north of the Tweed, Lothian, passed permanently into Scottish hands and soon became the dominant influence in the northern kingdom. The later kings made Edinburgh their capital, and here, surrounded by an English population, they, who heretofore had been lords only of rude Celtic tribes, soon became more English in speech and thought than the kings of strange blood who ruled England. In 1035 the long and peaceful reign of Canute came to an end. He was not a great conqueror; it can not be said that he proved himself a master of the art of war. Yet, as a states- coMute's man, as a master in building up empires by the arts of reign. peace, he has had few equals. English towns hitherto have played only a subordinate part in English history. They have been conspicuous at all only as fortresses. But with Canute's reign the English town enters upon a new era. The union of England, Denmark, and Norway, the end of the viking era, and the new peace and security which settled on the northern seas, greatly stimulated mercantile adventure. The pure English stock were not quick to see the new opportunity which opened before 1018] CHARACTER OF CANUTE 121 them, but the Danish population, with that readiness of the Danes of adapting themselves to novel surroundings so characteristic of the race, entered at once into a new commercial activity. York rose rapidly into a mart of considerable importance, and began to be a very respectable competitor of London for the northern trade. Oxford, Chester, and Bristol also became centers of prominence. Canute was a man of no vices and few weaknesses. He had an ungovernable temper which when aroused rushed him head- long into deeds of violence, only to leave him in tears ^mSf^^^^ of real penitence when the storm had subsided; yet too often the repentance came over late to make amends to the victim of his wrath. Ilis father, Sweyn, in one of his earlier wanderings, seems to have embraced Christianity, but his faith was that of a barbarian; he thought that in adopting the cross he was securing the favor of some extra wonder-working charm to help him in his piracies. Canute's training therefore could hardly be called Christian; yet as soon as he came under the direct influence of English teachers he readily yielded to their guidance and displayed a most commendable desire to profit by the new precepts so strange to his own people. The letter which he sent home from Rome reveals **the noble conception" of his kingly duties which had been born of these new influences and goes far to explain the devotion of his later life so marked in contrast with the brutalities of the earlier period. He wrote: *'I have vowed to God to lead a right life in all things; to rule justly and piously my realms and subjects, and to administer just judgment to all. 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." He warns his officers against oppressing his people in his name: *'I have no need that money be heaped together for me by unjust'demands." **Never,-" he concludes, "have I spared, nor will I spare, to spend myself and my toil in what is needful and good for my people." It was in keeping with the spirit of this letter that Canute had dismissed the army of invasion in 1018, and filled the prominent places of trust and power about him with Englishmen. And yet 122 DECLINE OF THE KINGDOM [canute he dared not trust the old fyrd altogether, not perhaps because the men who composed it were English, but because it was a fyrd, slow to action, unwieldy, and uncertain. With his house-carls P^^^tical seuse, therefore, he retained at immediate call a small standing army, composed of picked troops, well paid and well armed, the famous house-carls — in number not exceeding six thousand men, possibly not even three thousand. These troops were maintained by a yearly levy of Danegeld. The institution survived the death of Canute, to be finally swept away in the rout of Hastings. The Norman and Angevin kings did not replace the house-carls, although mercenaries were used at various times. The idea of a standing army has never been popu- lar with the English; it has been tolerated at all only since the expanding colonial possessions of England have made it a necessity. The laws of Canute added nothing to existing English institu- tions. The *'shire-gemot" was to be held regularly twice a year, and the *'burh-gemot" thrice a year. The lower CaniUe^^^ courts Were protected in their rights. Appeals were to be recognized only in default of justice. Every freeman must ''be brought into a hundred and into a tithing," institutions which had now absorbed the gild in the completed territorial organization of the kingdom. The king's stewards were not to oppress the king's tenants, or take from them their goods unjustly. The heriot, the custom by which the lord was allowed to seize the chattels of a deceased tenant, was fixed by rule ; henceforth only a certain value could be taken, prescribed in accordance with the rank of the tenant from the earl down. Canute favored the land- lords by greatly increasing the number of private juris- Saeand dictions, sac and soc, which had become only too common in the unsettled days of Ethelred; a dangerous precedent, and yet one which was entirely in keeping with Canute's policy of enlisting the conservative elements of English society in the service of the state. Canute's ''elaborate humility toward all things connected with the church and clergy" is not in accordance with modern ideas; yet it must be borne in mind that the church was the one power- 1035-1040] HAROLD HAREFOOT 123 fully organized social influence of the times, the hearty coopera- tion of which was absolutely necessary in maintaining the peace Canute and ^hich the king so dearly loved. It was the church the church, ^q^ as Alfred regarded it^ the instrument of education, the disseminator of knowledge, but the church, the instrument of law and order. Upon the death of Canute his three kingdoms drifted apart. Emma had borne him one son, Ilardicanute. But he left also two other sons, the children of an English woman, Elgiva, Harold borne to him in that loose union always too common among sovereigns of Teutonic blood. Of these Sweyn, the elder son, retained Norway, but was soon after dispossessed by Magnus, the son of Olaf the Holy. Canute apparently designed England for Ilardicanute, but at the time of his death Hardi- canute was in Denmark, and Harold, known on account of his physical activity as Harefoot, the second son of Elgiva, attempted to seize the kingdom. But Godwin, the Earl of the West Saxons, refused to acknowledge Harold and held Wessex for Hardicanute. So matters stood in England when Alfred, the eldest of Emma's sons by her first marriage, in an ill-advised moment landed in Kent in the hope of rallying the English to his support. But Ethelred's name roused no enthusiasm among the people, and possibly by the knavery of Godwin, Alfred was seized and turned over to Harold, who straightway put out the lad's eyes and sent him to Ely to die of his wounds. By this treachery Godwin seems to have made his peace. with Harold. Harold was not a strong character like Canute ; yet he was not a bad prince. The murder of Alfred was, according to the ideas of the times, no worse than several similar crimes laid to his father. The worst that is told against him is that he neglected Christian rites and would go hunting on Sundays. Harold died at Oxford after a reign of five years. His death pf-obably saved England from civil war ; for Ilardicanute, having come to an understandinsr with Magnus, was already Death of , . , ^ -r^ , -, * * i Haroia, contemplating a descent upon England. A powerful party, moreover, with Godwin at their head, had never given up the idea of securing the crown for Emma's Danish son. 124 DECLINE OF THE KINGDOM [hardicanuie When therefore it was known that Harold was dead, the witan at once sent an invitation to Hardi Canute to come and take the crown. The first act of the new king betrayed how little of his father's wisdom or greatness of soul he had inherited. He ordered his brother's body to be thrown out into the marshes of the iiarmSuu 'i'^^^es. His next step was to levy a Danegeld in order to pay the men whom he had brought with him from Denmark. The winter of 1040 was a severe one, and the people paid the tax with great difficulty. Other levies followed, and then the people refused to pay altogether. The earls and sheriffs could do nothing. Hardicanute committed the collection of the tax to his house-carls. Eiots followed. Blood was shed at Worcester. Hardicanute called out the fyrd against the con- tumacious city, and the great earls, Godwin of Wessex, Si ward of Northumbria, and Leofric of Mercia,^ gathered their men at his bidding, and for four days harried the shire and finally destroyed the town. At last after two years of such a reign as only such a man could give, Hardicanute died "as he stood at his drink." He had proved himself from the first a despicable tyrant. The ^^^' English hailed his death as a fortunate relief from a bad bargain, and turned with no feigned joy to greet as king the mild and pacific Edward, the surviving son of Emma and Ethelred. - iThe wife of this Leofric was Godgifu, the "Lady Godiva" famous in the legends of Coventry. PART II— FEUDAL ENGLAND THE ERA OF NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FROM 1042 TO 1297 CHAPTER I THE SHADOW OF THE NORMAN EDWARD THE COSFESSOR, 10421066 HAROLD. 1066, JAN. 6-OCT. 14 THE DUKES OF NORMA M»V EARLY CONNECTION WITH THE i:N(il.ISlI LINE Rolf the Walker, 912-927 William Longsword, 927-943 Richard I. the Fearless, 943-996 * \ Richard II. the Good, 996-1006 Emma = | \ ^aSSte^ Richard IIL, 1026-1028 Robert the Devil, 1028-1035 William the Conqueror, from 1035 Duke of Normandy, from 1066 Kitii; of England. Died 1087 The reign of Edward the Confessor may be regarded as a preparation for the Norman Conquest. The establishment of a powerful Scandinavian state on the southern shore of ^^'<^^ the Channel must have exerted a direct influence upon shadow upon ^ Edward's England sooner or later. For a time, however, the troubled sea of Neustrian politics, the opportunities of expansion south and west, fully occupied the attention of the pirate chieftains or dukes who succeeded Rolf, the founder of the Norman Duchy. But the marriage of Duke Richard II. 's sister to two kings of England in succession, the migration of many of her people thither, the long residence of Ethelred's exiled sons at the Norman court, and the numerous and lasting friendships made by Edward among his mother's Norman friends, quickened the interest of duke and people in the neighboring king- 125 126 THE SHADOW OF THE NOEMAN [edward the Confessor dom. The spirit of intermeddling and mischief-making, more- over, was as strong as ever at the court of these be-Frenched descendants of the old sea-kings, and it required only some fancied grievance, some opportunity of disputing the English succession, to bring a new viking expedition from Normandy, more formidable than any which had ever sailed from Norway or Denmark. This is the shadow which, during the twenty-four years of Edward's reign, is ever deepening, ever creeping upon England from the south. Edward was peculiarly unfitted for the task which he was called upon to perform. He was born of an English father, whose personality could never have been to him more than one Edward/^ of the shadowy traditions of childhood. He was ^^ ^' brought up in the home of his Norman mother, where his father's speech was heard only as a foreign tongue ; where he was tutored by French priests, and where all his thought was shaped by men who despised and disparaged his father's people as a nation of half -civilized boors and rustics. At forty he was called home to rule over this impossible people. What wonder that he could never understand them ; that his native land was to him always a weary land of exile and that he clung with pathetic tenacity to the Norman friends of his youth. Edward, more- over, was the kind of man to spend his life in leading strings. Although capable of a certain kind of fitful energy, he possessed no power of independent action, and allowed himself to be pulled about by the rival elements ever at quarrel'in his court. In all this turmoil, the poor king, long remembered for his thin figure, '*his delicate complexion," his slender womanly hands, and his deep devotional nature, was unable to gather to himself any per- sonal following in the nation, or to exert any direct influence upon its thought or its ideals. Yet no king ever took his kingly ofiice more seriously, or tried harder to rule as a king should. But Edward's delicate hands were unfitted for such rough work, and at last, weary in body and sick of soul, he threw down the tangled skein, and left it for stronger hands to unravel. History presents no sadder tragedy than this, when for the mere accident of birth, it thrusts such a man as Edward the Confessor or Henry, sixth 1042] EAKL GODWIN 127 of the name, into a position where his very goodness defeats him. Meekness was the one quality for which the medieval king had little need. When Edward assumed the crown, the one great man of the kingdom was Godwin, Earl of Wessex. Leofric of Mercia, or Si ward of Northiimbria, might rival him in rank; Earfo/' but in actual influence and solid ability, Godwin was Messei. vvithout a peer. His eldest son, Sweyn was already earl of the western shires of Wessex. In 1045 his second son, Harold, was raised to the earldom of East Anglia, to which were also added Huntingdon, Cambridge, and Essex; and the same year his daughter Edith became the wife of Edward. The advance of this powerful family, in the ordinary course of things, must have caused much jealousy and suspicion on the part of Edward's other English subjects. But the Norman gJSJi'J'' '* sympathies of the king had been from the first so pro- popuiaruy. j^Qunced, his favoritism for one man in particular, Robert of Jumieges, so conspicuous, that the English apparently looked with complacence upon these evidences of the growing strength of the Earl of Wessex, seeing in him a possible foil to the Norman influence which surrounded the king. The confidence of the people, however, received a severe shock when a few months after the marriage of Edith, Earl Sweyn carried off the Earfswcyn ^^bess of Leominster and proposed to make her his wife. The crime was a very serious one in the eyes of a churchly age ; yet Godwin with cool indifference to public sen- timent, attempted to use his influence to shelter his wayward son. Nevertheless, the young man was outlawed and forced for two years to seek exile in the courts of Flanders and Denmark. The father's influence, however, finally prevailed over the sensitive conscience of Edward, and Sweyn was recalled ; but only to add another to his list of crimes by treacherously murdering his cousin Beorn, who had been given a part of Sweyn's earldom dur- ing his exile. The new crime raised a storm of indignation, and Sweyn was compelled a second time to flee for his life. The king publicly proclaimed him **nithing" — "the deepest term of oppro- brium known to English law." But Godwin still clung to his first- 128 THE SHADOW OF THE KORMAK [edwaku the Confessor born, and not only secured a second inlawing, bnt persuaded the gentle king to restore again the forfeited earldom, which had remained vacant since the death of Beorn. The persistent fidelity of Godwin to Sweyn had not only shaken the confidence of the English in Godwin as a leader, but had also Growth of compelled him to make serious sacrifices to the Norman iMtunmi^^ or court party in order to purchase their support in party. ^ho witenagemot. The earldom of Hereford which had been recently added to Harold's possessions, was given to Ealph, the king's Norman nephew; the vacant see of Dorchester was given to one of the king's Norman priests, Ulf, who *'did naught bishoplike," and of whom none had anght good to say; and most important of all, upon the death of Arch- bishop Edsige, llobert of Jumieges, who held the approaches of the king's ear as no other man in the kingdom, was advanced to the important see of Canterbury. But reaction had already set in, and Godwin was in a position to protest against this last act of favoritism. The king however insisted, and Eob- ert departed for Rome to secure the pall. Yet something was gained, for the king consented to the appointment to the see of London of Spearhafoc, an Englishman; but when Robert returned, he refused to consecrate* Spearhafoc and appointed William, one of the king's Norman chaplains, in his stead. Kynsige, an Eng- lishman, but also of the royal chapel, had been recently made primate of York. The English or national party was now thoroughly awakened, and their disapproval of the king's partiality for his Norman The affair of fne^ds was becoming every day more outspokeu. This mmufarifat unfortunate moment, Eustace of Boulogne, who had Dover, io5i. married a sister of the king, seized for a visit to the English court. Eustace, who was by nature a firebrand and as void of tact and judgment as of self-control, was not the man to increase the popularity of foreigners among the English. The crisis came when on his way home he managed to get into a brawl with the people of Dover, in which Eustace was beaten off after a pitched battle and several of his men slain. Eustace rode straight to the king and made his complaint, and Edward without further 1051 ] GODWIN AN OUTLAW 129 inquiry ordered Godwin, as Earl of Wessex, to destroy the city which had treated his guest so shabbily. Godwin was too good a politican not to see his opportunity and seize it. He flatly refused to march against his own people at the complaint of a foreigner. The king, vexed and angry, between^ determined to appeal to the witan, who had been sum- ioSn""^ moned to meet at Gloucester on September 1. God- win, putting himself squarely on the issue, whether England should be governed by foreigners or Englishmen, appealed to his people, and with Sweyn and Harold to support him marched to Gloucester under arms. The northern earls, Leofric and Siward, with Ralph of Hereford, also gathered their followers and advanced to Gloucester. The realm trembled on the brink of civil war; a taunt, a blow, the spilling of blood, never so little, and no man could tell what, or where the end would be. Edward was saved from the Godwin and crisis bv the judicious advice of Leofric, who proposed his aims. . •,.-,. iit-i i^ii^* that the witan adjourn to meet at London and that in the interim both parties disband their forces. When the time for the meeting came, however, Godwin and the king were as far apart as ever; but Godwin's supporters, yielding to soberer second thought, were by no means as ready for war as they had been at Gloucester. When, therefore, the king refused to guarantee the safety of Godwin and his sons, should they present themselves at the witenagemot, Godwin saw that he was beaten and that noth- ing was left for him but flight. The sentence of outlawry was immediately passed as a matter of course. Even the Lady Edith was not beyond the malice of the court party and Archbishop Robert proposed that Edward complete the overthrow of Godwin by securing a divorce against the daughter. To the honor of Edward be it said, he refused to comply with the suggestion, and contented himself with sending Edith to a convent at Wilton, where she had been educated and where she was among friends. The foreign party were for the time supreme in the councils of the king, and it was doubtless with a direct view of perpetuating their power, that they began to turn the attention of Edward to his kinsman, Duke William of Normandy, as a possible successor. 130 THE SHADOW OF THE NOKMAK [edward the Confessoe This man whose shadow now for the first time falls across the path of English history, deserves more than a passing notice. His father was Duke Robert, younger son to that Duke Eich- N^momdy ^^^ ^^^ Good, who sent his sister Emma as a peace offering to Ethelred. For some reason or other, he had won the ugly sobriquet of Robert the Devil. But the devil in Robert seems to have been a harmless, good-natured sort of devil. Though wild, impetuous, and inconstant, and although doing many things in his later years that made churchmen stare, to his people he was always ^'courteous, joyous, debonaire, and benign." He abounded in noble deeds and loved to startle his miserly con- temporaries by the reckless magnificence of his charities. The mother of William was Arlette, the daughter of a tanner of Falaise, the sight of whose fair feet had captured the impetuous Th misf had married a kinswoman of Henry II. of Germany. With his three children, Edgar, Margaret, and Christina, the Etheling now returned to England as the recognized heir of Edward the Confessor. But the unfortunate prince had hardly reached England when he suddenly sickened and died, leaving the little lad Edgar as the sole male representative of the line of Alfred. If therefore Edward the Confessor had ever seriously enter- tained the plan of a Norman succession, he had evidently aban- doned it; but not so the man who was to have been the ?am^io64 chief agent in carrying it out. In 1064 Harold was shipwrecked on the Norman coast and ultimately fell into William's power. The duke was quick to take advantage of his good fortune, and virtually forced his unwilling guest to take an oath to support his candidacy for the English throne; William on his part, pledging one of his daughters to the captive earl in marriage. This oath of Harold was to have the gravest political consequences, since the subsequent violation of it, secured as it was by the most solemn sanctions which were known to the eleventh century, necessarily embroiled Harold with the church and roused a public sentiment in Europe in William's favor. Upon his return, however, Harold did not for one moment conduct himself as though he regarded the oath of any importance. Even Edward seemed to have forgotten William, and into the after the death of Edward Etheling, turned his thoughts for a moment upon the lad Edgar. But Edgar was poor, a child in years and experience, and without any definite following. If Harold and the great house of Godwin should support him, his claim might be made good; but Harold now had ambitions of his own. He was, moreover, completely in the king's confidence, and was quietly drifting into the place of Harold greatest power. Those who were in Harold's counsels, ^amuarue therefore, were not surprised when it was reported that 1066. the good king with his last breath had named the powerful earl as his successor. Edward died on the 5th of Jan- uary, 10G6, and the next day, the 6th, the witan who were present in London, met quietly, and elected and crowned Harold. 1066] WILLIAM'S APPEAL TO EUROPE 135 Strange to say, however, William did not seem to know what had been doing at Westminster. The oath of 1064 had thoroughly deceived him, and when he received the report of prepares for Harold's coronation, he acted like one unnerved by news of sudden calamity. His first act was to dispatch a messenger to Harold to protest against his perfidy and demand the fulfillment of the oath. At Lillebonne he assembled his Norman nobles, the heads of the great houses of Beaumont, council of Montgomery, Fitz-Osbern, and Mortimer, names then strange to English ears, and by appealing to the old viking love of plunder which was by no means dead in the race, persuaded the assembly to support him in an armed protest against the alleged usurpation of Harold. To Europe William submitted his case against Harold The appeal under the following counts: m Eurupe. ® 1. The alleged bequest of his cousin Edward from which Harold had defrauded him. 2. The perjury of Harold, which was a crime against the church. 3. The expulsion of the Normans from England in 1052 at the instigation of Godwin and his sons. 4. The massacre of the Danes by Ethelred on St. Brice's Day, 1002. That William should take such pains to secure the moral sup- port of Europe shows that public sentiment was already a recog- nized element in international politics. In winning the pope, Alexander II., William found no diffi- culty. The outlawry of Robert of Jumieges and the election of Stigand had already brought the English witan into of P(yi)e open conflict with the Roman Curia, which had refused ' to recognize their right to depose an archbishop. And when Stigand sought to secure from the anti-pope, Benedict IX., the recognition which the canonical popes denied him, he had made the breach irreparable. When therefore William laid his case before the pope, the papal tribunal was already prejudiced in his favor and not only declared Harold guilty of perjury and justified William in taking up arms, but went farther and gave the 136 THE SHADOW OF THE NORMAN [harold expedition almost a semi-religious character by sending to the duke the consecrated banner of St. Peter, together with a sacred relic of the Apostle himself, to lead the invading host. To win the pope was also to win the council that at that time controlled the boy emperor, Henry IV. ; and although Germany had been the ally of Godwin, the vassals of the empire the Imperial were encouraged to enlist under the banner of JNor- coitvt mandy. A pledge was further given to William to protect his duchy from attack during hi^ absence; so fatal and far-reach- ing was the hostility of the church to the party who had outlawed Robert, elected Stigand, and supported the perjury of Harold. At the court of the French king, Philip I., William met with some opposition. It required no deep political insight to discern a menace to the future interests of the French crown in the French the proposal of the Duke of Normandy, already over- powerful for a vassal, to add to his Norman posses- sions the kingdom of England. Yet William was not without powerful friends at the French court. Philip, like Henry IV., was a minor, and at the head of the regency was the Count of Flanders, William's father-in-law. While, therefore, the regency openly commanded William to abandon his enterprise, secretly the Count of Flanders favored it and encouraged his own vassals to join William. Anjou also, the hereditary foe of Normandy, strange to say, was for the time arrayed on the side of William. Another ancient foe, Conan of Brittany, was removed by death, just at the moment when he was meditating mischief, and his suc- cessor, Hoel, at once sent five thousand Bretons under his own son to fight for William. But if fortune thus smiled strangely upon William, it as con- spicuously frowned upon Harold. First he had to face the defec- tion of his brother Tostig, who in the later days of ^renegade Edward had been driven out of Northumbria by his own people; but holding Harold responsible for his troubles he had retired to the home of his wife's father, the old Count of Flanders, the father-in-law of William, where he nursed his resentment and waited for the moment of revenge. When tidings of the events of January reached him, he hastened to 1066] THE WATCH BY THE CHANNEL 137 Rouen, to offer his sword to his brother-in-law against his brother. His impatience, however, would not allow him to await the slow gathering of the greater armament, and the early spring saw him at the head of a band of Norman and Flemish mercenaries, harry- ing the coasts of Sussex and Kent. Harold attempted to intercept Tostig and his pirates, but Tostig eluded him and entering the North Sea passed up the English coast to the Humber, where he fell foul of the northern earls and was driven out to sea again. His further movements during this eventful summer are traced with difficulty. Apparently, after various unsuccessful efforts to rouse first Malcolm of Scotland and then Sweyn of Denmark to sup- port William, he finally repaired to the court of Harold Hardrada of Norway, and induced him to enter the lists upon his own account as a third applicant for the English crown. As the price of his support, Tostig was to be restored to his northern earldom. In the meanwhile the English Harold, knowing nothing appar- ently of this new storm which was gathering in Norway, was directing all his attention to the south, where he collected his ships, and massed his troops, and waited for William to strike. On the opposite coast, sheltered in the mouth of the Dives, there gathered at the call of William all the martial strength of northern Europe. The expedition had become widely popular with the young nobility, and from all the northern feudatories of France and from many of the southern as well, the wild adventurous spirits of the day ** flocked together for the war over the sea," — "an innumerable host of horsemen, slingers, archers, and foot soldiers."* For a full month after all was ready, contrary winds kept the impatient host waiting in the Dives. But in the end this proved not a little to the advantage of William, though a grievous vexation at the time. Harold was compelled to keep his fleet in the roads during the whole summer. The men of the southern f^^f^^^****' counties lay out **fyrding," waiting while months dragged by and the foe did not come. The enthusiasm of the first muster ebbed, and when early in September, pro- ^ Upon the number of William's armament, ships, and men, see Oman's History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages, p. 156. 138 THE SHADOW OF THE NORMAN [hakold visions began to fail, Harold was compelled to dismiss the fyrd. A week later the fleet also was disbanded. The same wind, moreover, which was keeping William and his host fretting in the harbors of Normandy, was now in the end of September bringing the other Harold with Earl Tostig Tosiia^and ^^^ ^^^ their following. Tostig with sixty ships was H^rdrada ^^® ^^^^ ^^ reach the Humber but was again driven out to sea by the northern earls, and retired to Scot- land where he was joined by Harold Hardrada. The allies then returned, harrying the coast as they advanced. At Riocal on the Humber they disembarked and leaving a strong reserve with their ships, marched upon York. Edwin of Mercia, and his brother, Morcar, to whom the witan had given Tostig's s^te^^b 20 Northumbrian earldom, attempted to make a stand at Fulford, but their hasty levies were easily beaten and compelled to retire behind the walls of the northern capital, leav- ing all the country north of the Humber at the mercy of Tostig and his allies. Harold had been speedily apprised of the serious nature of the storm which had burst upon the north, and at once abandoning his watch by the Channel, by one of the most remark- marfh'^ able forced marches on record, was already hastening to BHd^T^^^^ meet Tostig and the other Harold. He must crush them before the arrival of William, or all would be lost. On Sunday, September 24, York capitulated. On the same even- ing, Harold and his men were at Tadcaster, hurrying along the old Roman road, only a day's march away. The approach of such a large body of men along the dusty September roads was probably not unknown to the Norwegians at Riccal, whose bands after the usual custom were scouring the surrounding country for forage. Instead of holding York, therefore, the leaders ordered up their reserves, and attempted to retire beyond the Derwent. But Harold, marching his men all night and pressing on through York without stopping, overtook them at Stamford Bridge some- time in the forenoon of Monday the 25th. The Norwegians apparently were in light marching order; many of them, en- tirely unarmed. A part had already passed to the east bank of 1066] STAMFORD BRIDGE 139 the Derwent; others were in the act of filing across the long wooden bridge ; still others in motley groups were sitting or lying about the grass, waiting for their turn to advance to the crossing. The English under cover of the low sloping hill which shuts out the plain of York from the basin of the Derwent, had stolen up swiftly and noiselessly. The dust stirred by thousands Stamford of rapidly moving feet first betrayed their approach to Bridge, Sep- ^. ^r - - j.x. n a ^ iT^-i i. tember25, the Norwegians in the valley. A party was hastily sent to the summit to reconnoiter; and there they beheld the advancing host, coming swiftly on, prepared for immediate battle, ''their shields and arms glistening like ice in the morning sun." There was a cry; the galloping of horses; the blare of a bull's-horn. Then arose the clamor of men, as the loiterers sprang to their arms and the leaders attempted to form the shield wall. Those who had already passed the stream turned about and began to crowd back again across the bridge. But the gleaming helmets and stately forms of the house-carls of Harold were already ris- ing above the brow of tlie hill. A shout, a wild plunge forward, and the battle was on. From the first clash of arms, Tostig and Harold Hardrada had no chance of victory, little of flight. Yet they fought like heroes. First Harold fell and then Tostig. Then the half-formed shield wall was carried by the English with a rush, and the battle surged up to the bridge head. Here for full thirty minutes a gigantic Norwegian, ax in hand, held back the whole English army, — a deed worthy of one of Homer's heroes. Then another mighty surge forward of the crowd before the bridge, and it was won. For a moment, the Norwegians made a stand on the further side of the bridge, but only for a moment ; then the host, taken at the first unawares, with all the advantage of position against tliem, kingless and leaderless, broke and fled. A wild panic followed, and the rout soon passed into an indiscriminate massacre. The remnant of the smitten army rallied at Riccal ; for the reserve had not come up in time for the battle. With the sea open before them, they would be able even yet to make bS^^^^^^ Harold much trouble, should he draw off his forces to the south ; but with the other war cloud still hanging over the southern coast, Harold could not wait; his return was 140 THE SHADOW OF THE KORMAN [habold urgent. Instead, therefore, of pushing the remnant of the smit- ten army to extremities, he offered the leaders generous terms, and soon saw them sail away to their homes. So ended the famous northern campaign of Harold. The superhuman endurance of the long march, the furious energy of the pursuit, and the com- pleteness of the victory, proved that Englishmen had not forgot- ten how to fight or their leaders how to lead. The battle of Stamford Bridge was fought on the 25th of Sep- tember. Two days later the moment came for which William and his barons had been so long waiting. As the sun Jlwiiiiam ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^'^^^' ^^^ great 'flagship, the gift of s^^iemherlr ^^^ ^^^^^ Matilda, with its crimson sails spread to the freshening breeze, steered out into the channel. In the morning the fleet with only two ships missing, which had been sunk probably in some nocturnal combat with the scouts of the enemy, came to anchor off the Pevensey coast, and by nine o'clock the disembarkation had begun. William now found himself safely landed, but face to face with a hostile country. He knew Harold well ; knew his energy and his skill. He knew also that Harold would not yield Wiiiiam's ' without a battle. But when and where? A speedy victory, a great crushing blow which would shatter Harold's power must be delivered at once. With his army to maintain in a hostile country, delay would be as serious as defeat. The 28th was spent by the Normans in the disembarkation ; then in true viking style, they drew their ships up on the beach, and leaving them under a sufficient guard, the main fo^HM'^T ^^^y moved along the shore to Hastings. William evi- dently had not heard of the landing of Tostig and Harold Hardrada; nor of the absence of King Harold. Instead therefore of marching directly upon London, he began carefully to fortify Hastings, digging a trench and constructing a mound and wooden fort. He then undertook a systematic wasting of the country, with the evident purpose of compelling Harold to come forward and fight him in this strong position. So thor- oughly was this work done, that when twenty years later, the great Domesday Survey was made, traces of the havoc of Wil- 1066J RETURN OF HAROLD 141 liam's men might still be seen. Woeful days were these for the people of Sussex. Village and cottage, hayrick and granary, the harvests of the summer just ended, went up in flame and smoke. Only the churches and the churchyards were spared. It is not so easy to follow the movements of Harold during these two weeks. That he could not return at once to London is evident. If the forced march and tlie hard fighting of HoroS'^'^ Monday had not thoroughly exhausted his men, the vic- tory certainly must have disorganized his army for the time. In medieval warfare the one conspicuous lack of an army, first and last, was discipline. A victory was almost as disastrous as a defeat. Harold therefore was still in the north when news was brought him of the landing of William;* nor could he reach London much before October 5, and even then he must have pre- ceded his army, which was made up mostly of infantry. William on the other hand, apparently at the same moment heard of the landing of the Norwegians, the overthrow at Stamford Bridge, the arrival of Harold in London, and the swift approach of the victorious army which was following him from the north. William's first news, therefore, could not have been assuring, and prudence bade him still linger behind his trenches at Hastings. Harold in the meanwhile was gathering the southern levies and preparing a second time to hurl himself upon his foes. His counsellors, headed by his brother Gyrth, advised delay. The advance ..„ -, , , , ,,r. tothehaiof 1 hoy proposed to devastate the country about uiUiam so that neither man nor beast could live, and thus com- pel him either to surrender or retire. It was the counsel of a gen- eral. The reply of Harold was the reply of a king. He would not burn a single English village nor harm a single English home; he had been set to protect his people, not to destroy them.* Within a week Harold was ready, and by October 12 at the latest he marched out of London and took the great southern road which led away to Hastings. On Friday the 13th, probably toward the end of the afternoon, he reached the fatal hill which has since been * Probably about October 1. According to Freeman's estimate it would take a horseman three days to reach York from the southern coast. 2 Freeman, N. C, pp 437-439. 142 THE SHADOW OF THE NORMAl^ [habou) given the French name of Senlac — the name with which recent historians have succeeded in dubbing the battle, in spite of the custom of eight centuries. Up to this point William had intended to force Harold to attack him on his own ground at Hastings. But the natural strength of the site which Harold had chosen for his camp, his evi- The change _, -<.,•!.. ,i > ,i ,, in William's dent purpose of fortifying, a rumor that the northern levies under Edwin and Morcar were approaching, and that an English fleet was coming around by the Channel, left Wil- liam no choice but immediate action. Harold, if once he were securely fortified in his hill camp with all England at his back to supply him with men and provisions, could not be dislodged. The night was spent in the Norman camp in the impressive religious ceremonies appointed by the medieval church for those about to brave death. ^ With sun-up the Normans were 'thtbatiic amove; long before the third hour they had passed over the eight miles intervening and from the heights of Telham faced the line of Harold upon the opposite slope. The plan of Harold was simple. He had only to hold his ground and wear out the enemy as they dashed themselves against his lines, and thus compel William to retire again to his defenses at Hastings. Accordingly Harold's heavy armed infantry, the house-carls, selected each man for size and strength, clad in helmets and long coats of mail, armed with javelins for hurling and the terrible two- handed Danish ax for close counter, than whom there were no finer troops in Europe, were extended along the whole front, arranged in close order with their shields overlapping and forming the famous shield-wall.^ Back of this living rampart thronged dense masses of half -armed yeomanry, ready to confront the advancing foe with a continuous shower of darts, arrows, and stones. On the very crown of the hill, at the point where the ground begins to slope to ^ For the original account of the way in which the English passed the night, see William of Malmsbury, a.d. 1066. Cf. Freeman's criticism and explanation, N. C. Ill, 453 and 454. In all probability the English were not expecting to fight so soon. ^ For criticism of Freeman's "palisades," see Round, Feudal England, pp. 340 and following. 1066] HASTINGS 143 the southeast, the spot marked to after ages by the high altar of William's Abbey Church of Battle, were planted the two-fold ensigns of England, the dragon of Wessex and the armed warrior advancing to battle, the latter the personal ensign of the king.* Here stood Harold and the men of his house surrounded each by his personal following. William saw that it would be useless to attempt to force his knights, the strength of his army, upon the living shield-wall with the broken ground and the rising hill against them. He '^an^flbattie ^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^J ordering forward his infantry, the light- armed archers and cross-bowmen, tempt the English to break their formation and then by hurling forward his cavalry, seek to pierce Harold's line. As Napoleon many centuries later at Waterloo, William proposed to alternate incessant charges of a powerful cavalry with a destructive fire of missiles. ** Nothing can be more maddening than such an ordeal to the infantry soldier rooted to the spot by the necessities of his formation."* This in a word explains the conduct of the battle. From nine o'clock until twelve the English withstood the alternating attacks of infanti7 and horse. Then William, who from his thehatae^^^ post across the valley had been watching the slow prog- ress of the battle, bade the archers elevate their shafts that they might drop upon the English from above. The increased execution was apparent at once. The English, standing in dense masses behind the shield-line, but no longer protected by the tall shields of the house-carls and unable to ward off the bolts which dropped upon them out of the eye of the October sun, were stung to madness, and breaking through the line of heavy infantry surged forward, bearing the Norman bowmen and slingers before them. In vain William sent forward his knights; they plunged into the struggling throng, but only to add to the confusion. The English hardly felt the shock of the cavalry, but swept on madly carrying all before them, infantry and horse, down the slope and across the valley and up the southern hill to the very spot where the duke sat upon his horse. Then the battle roared around him ; » Freeman, N. C, p. 474. ^ Oman, Art of War in the Middle Ages, p. 161. CHAPTER II THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND EDOAR, OCT.-DEC, lOeR WILLIAM /., ljl0o7. first Copsige had been successful, but later he was surprised and slain by Osulf and his supporters scattered. Here- fordshire also was the scene of other reverses, where in spite of the efforts of William Fitz-Osbern, one Edric the Wild, an English- man, had continued to maintain himself, and in midsummer sup- ported by the Welsh princes, Bledyn and Rhiwallon, had swept through the shire, ravaging the country and treating the unhappy Englishry as his enemies. A third disturbance, which was more of the nature of an English rising, broke out at Dover, caused directly by the stupid oppression of Odo; and although the effort signally failed it produced an uneasiness and suspicion* among the resident Normans which in turn reacted upon the English. Early in December William returned. The condition of the kingdom, as described by Ordericus, was on the whole quite satis- Theretumof ^^ctory. **A11 the cities and provinces which he had jJ^jf^j^JJy, himself visited or had occupied with garrisons obeyed 1067. his will; but on the frontiers of the kingdom, in the northern and western districts, the same wild independence pre- vailed which formerly made the people insubordinate, except when they pleased, to the kings of England in the times of Edward and his predecessors. " * In accordance with the custom of English kings, William called together his witan to keep the Christmas 0/ irSiT* ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^ Westminster and inquire into the m7\ ^'^^' ^^' ^^^^® ^^ ^^^ kingdom. Here we see him at his best, as with that gracious affability which so well became him when he chose to assume it, he received the bishops and nobles ; *'when they made any request it was graciously granted, and he listened favorably to what they reported or advised . . . some- times he gave instructions to the Normans with equal care and address ; at others he privately warned the English to be continu- > Ordericus Vitalis, Bk. IV, 11. 156 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND [ William I. ally on their guard in all quarters against the crafty designs of their enemies."^ Two matters of prime importance are connected with this mid- winter assembly of 1067. One was the trial of Eustace of Bou- logne, who had encouraged the men of Dover in their The Dane- ^ [ ix xi -r^ ^ i i -. ueid revived, recent revolt — the same Eustace who had made so much trouble for Edward the Confessor seventeen years before.^ Another incident generally associated with this council was the setting of "a heavy tax on the poor people." Here with- out question is the Danegeld again, the only tax known to English kings. Moreover there was pretext enough for such a levy at this time, for Canute's nephew, Sweyn of Denmark, encouraged by English refugees, was seriously contemplating the setting up of a rival claim to the English throne. It was probably also at this witenagemot that William filled the vacant see of Dorchester by the appointment of Kemigius of Fecamp, the first Norman bishop appointed to an English see after the Conquest. Upon the breaking up of the witenagemot William turned his attention to the reduction of the parts of his kingdom which still refused to do him homage. How far the shires which The rising in lay bevond Winchester had submitted we do not know. the south- west, 1068. The bishops of Hereford and Glastonbury had yielded, but the people of these western shires were by no means reconciled to the new rule. A feud at home had withdrawn the Welsh princes from the invasion of Hereford, but at Exeter, the great city of the west, the discontent was assuming every day a more formidable aspect. William learned, moreover, that the citizens were sending out messengers through the neighboring shires and actively preparing to take the field in the spring. He determined, therefore, to surprise his foes by a winter campaign and by striking at Exeter prevent the intended rising. Bridport, Wareham, Dorchester, and Shaftsbury were burned. Twenty years later, when the survey was made, the shire had not recovered; at Bridport not a house was able to pay taxes.^ As William drew 1 Ordericus Vitalis, Bk. IV, 11. 2 For jurisdiction of William over Eustace see Freeman, N. C, p. 129. 3 Freeman, N. C, IV, p. 151. 1068] RISING OF 1068 157 near Exeter a body of leading citizens met him and abjectly sub- mitted. But the people rose in fury and refused to acknowledge the act of capitulation. In vain William insisted on the binding authority of the submission of the leaders; he brought before the city one of the unfortunate hostages, and in view of the citi- zens put out his eyes. The inhuman sight only roused the people to greater fury. Then for eighteen days William sat down before the city and took it at last only by reason of the Norman's superior knowledge of siege warfare. The townsmen prayed for mercy, and William, still the debonaire king to those who submitted, granted the prayer. The founding of the inevitable castle followed ; the fosse, the mound and the massive fort surmounting all, forms with which Englishmen were fast becoming only too familiar. A con- fiscation of lands also followed as a matter of course, but as in the case of those in the east the humbler landholders were left undis- turbed. The lands which belonged to the Godwin family, which were very extensive in the western counties, were seized, but God- win's daughter, Edward's widow, was not molested. It is to be noted that William's army in the campaign against Exeter was composed largely of Englishmen. The foreigners who had won Hastings for him had now either been dismissed or distributed through the country in permanent garrisons. The western rising, unlike the attempt at Dover, seems to have been something more than a local outbreak. The presence of Harold's mother and sons within the walls of Exeter, Nature of . i , , - i , • i • . t the rmng of evidently no mere accident, gives some dignity to the stand of the people of the west, and makes it appear as a sort of forlorn hope of the family of Godwin. Was it more than this? Was there any expectation of a concerted rising of the northern earldoms as well, any widely extended plot by which all the disaffected elements of the nation were to combine for one last heroic stand against the Conqueror? If so the unexpected winter campaign of William had effectually prevented the north from act- ing, and the men of Exeter were left to brave William's wrath alone. So quick and sharp had been the work of the campaign that by the end of March William was able to hold the Easter assem- 158 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND [ William I. bly at Winchester. Six weeks later he was again at Westminster where he kept the Pentecost, the third assembly of the winter. This gathering was made eventful by the introduction of a new feature in the court history of English kings, no less than the public recognition of William's wife Matilda Matilda, the ^ ^ . ^ . , . . -r^ , • , , . first English by a coronation. Ever since the wives of English kinars have shared with their consorts ''all the honorary dig- nities and privileges of royalty."^ In the summer the belated movement in the north at last broke forth. Edwin and Morcar fled the court to put themselves at the head of the rising. The real leaders, however, oUhe^wlrUi ^^^^ ^^^ bravc Gospatrick, whom William himself had W68^^^' recently sent into the north to take up the work of Copsige, and Maerlesweyn, Harold's sheriff of Lincoln, who had brought with him out of London Edgar Etheling and his sisters. Malcolm of Scotland had also pledged his support and was expected to invade England in force. But from the first Edwin and Morcar had little heart in the undertaking, and when William began a slow but masterful march northward through Mercia, building and fortifying as he advanced, their courage ebbed and they were glad to be received back again into their old dependent relation. The two earls had brought little to the patriot cause; but they took much when they abandoned it. Their submission disheartened and discouraged those who ought never to have depended upon them. Malcolm's army of Scots failed to material- ize, and finally Maerlesweyn with Edgar and his sisters retired into Scotland to find a safe exile at the court of the Scottish king. By the time William reached Nottingham the rising had already subsided. York, the second city of the kingdom, quietly allowed him to take possession and rear a Norman castle on the tixmofthe high ground within the southern quarter. Here he left in command three of his most trusted captains, Robert Fitz-Ri chard, Gilbert of Ghent, and William Malet, an English- man, and after making peace with Malcolm began the homeward march, retiring by way of Lincoln, Cambridge, and Huntingdon, 1 Freeman, N. C, IV, p. 179. 1068] DISCONTENT OF ENGLISH 159 in each city building a castle and establishing a permanent gar- rison. When William neared London disquieting news again reached him from the west, where the sons of Harold, who had escaped from Exeter to Ireland, had returned to the Bristol Harold's 'in sominthe coast With a fleet of fifty ships, manned by Irish Danes. They first attempted to enter Bristol, but the people gave them little encouragement. They then descended upon Somerset, but the English levies, apparently without any Norman help at all, rallied and drove them off. William must have taken deep satisfaction in the results of the summer's work. The northern earls had proved themselves devoid of spirit, and what had promised to be a serious rising: cnnirnt nf liad collapscd almost at the first rumor of William's tilt Knijli.sh. northward march. In the west the sons of Harold had failed to awaken anything but hostile sentiment among their coun- trymen, and had been ignobly beaten off by the English them- selves, like any common pirates. Yet William could hardly bo blind to the fact that the countiy was seething with discontent, and that the English were everywhere dissatisfied and disloyal. They had generally yielded obedience to the new government, but their obedience was sullen, without heart and inspired only by fear. In reorganizing and restoring the government William had found his greatest difliculty at the point where the administration __ ^ came into contact with the local institutions which Difficulty '>/ T T 1 • 1 • /v» . xeeitrirm m- depended for their eflBciency upon the support of the people. He first tried the experiment of ruling English- men by Englishmen; but he could not find Englishmen of stand- ing who were willing to bear the opprobrium of entering into the foreign king's hire, and he was shrewd enough to see that it was worse than useless to attempt to enforce laws by means of agents for whom the community had no respect. Yet the laws must be observed ; the authority of the courts must be maintained. The king had no recourse, therefore, save to turn to his own people. At first he had confined the Normans to the strictly military duty of castle guarding, but little by little he now began to introduce them into such civil offices as those of sheriff and portreeve — 160 the' conquest of England [william i. the one the chief magistracy in the shire, the other the chief magistracy in the great merchant town. Here, however, he was confronted by a new problem. The English rapidly developed a hatred for the Norman sheriffs and portreeves, only one degree less bitter than their hatred for the turncoat Englishmen who had been willing to soil their hands with the king's money. With every day, therefore, the difficulty of punishing crime or enforcing law was increasing. Even good men did not hesitate to protect out- laws or baffle the king's officers in the pursuit of a criminal. The Norman official, moreover, understood the English tongue indiffer- ently ; he knew less about English customary law, and was inclined to treat the rights of the people with contempt, often giving his decisions in an arbitrary, off-hand way in defiance of all precedents known to the people. It was perhaps at this time, when William was struggling with the question of local order, that there grew up the custom of requir- ing Presentment of Englishry} The English, in despair o/E7^^iuh? ^^ securing justice, especially when the legal adversary happened to be a Norman often took the law into their own hands ; secret murders increased at an alarming rate, and as conviction was impossible, William, in order to protect his foreign- born subjects, empowered the sheriff, in case the victim proved to be a Frenchman and the hundred did not produce the murderer within a week, to levy a penalty of forty-six marks upon the hun- dred itself. The response of the English was to strip the body and mutilate it beyond recognition. The law officers then assumed that a body found thus disfigured must be the body of a Frenchman, and laid the burden upon the hundred of proving by the process of Presentment of Englishry that the victim was not French. Thus the feeling was rapidly gaining ground among the English that under the Norman there was no redress. William sought to allay the discontent by sending home more of his Nor- ^ This custom which was generally established in the reign of Henry I., was formerly supposed to date from the laws of Canute, but it is now assigned to the early Norman period and undoubtedly grew out of the efforts of William to protect his own people. 1069] MASSACRE AT DURHAM 161 mans and Flemings. But this only weakened him, while it did not materially diminish the ill-will of his new subjects. He could not enforce the laws ; he could not prevent Englishmen and Normans from preying upon each other. When William assembled the midwinter witenagemot of 1068 nothing of all this was yet apparent on the surface. The land was everywhere quiet, save in the distant earldom of The mm- . -^ -, , . xan-eatDur- GospatricK, and to this extreme northern earldom William now turned his attention. For the third time in two years he selected an earl for the troublesome province. The new earl was one Robert of Comines, probably a Flemish adventurer, of whom nothing is known, save his fatal errand in quest of the dan- gerous prize which he had drawn in the court lottery. He entered Durham without opposition; the adventurers who attended him spread over the town and began to treat it as a captured city. But the fyrd of Northumberland had quietly approached the city under cover of the night, and in the morning, breaking down the gates, entered the streets and began a massacre of Robert's men. Quarter was neither asked nor given, and in a few hours Robert and all his knights save one had been destroyed. The affair at Durham was the beginning of the grave troubles of William's reign. The massacre of a paper earl and a few hun- dred adventurers was perhaps not a serious matter, but the wild spirit of the north was at last abroad. A series of revolts suc- ceeded each other, each more desperate and bloody, as the utter hopelessness of the struggle became more apparent ; William on his part very perceptibly hardened under the repeated irritation, and finally abandoned his policy of conciliation altogether for a policy of brutal coercion. York imitated the example of Durham. William Malet, who was now in sole command, was compelled to retire into the castle and stand a regular siege. The rising was by no means Ym-k^iri^^ a merely though tless local tumult. The reappearance wS*^^ of Edgar and Maerlesweyn, of Gospatrick and the most of the northern leaders gave it a fairly representative character. William fully realized the importance of prompt and energetic action, and roused himself to unusual exertion. He 162 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND [william i. reached York by a forced march, sweeping down upon the city as swiftly and mercilessly as a bird of prey upon its quarry. For eight days he remained, and then retired to Winchester to hold the Easter feast, leaving Fitz-Osbern in command. York had yielded but the country was by no means reduced. A second castle was reared within the city. An expedition was also sent to Durham to punish its people but accomplished nothing. A rally of the fyrd of Yorkshire, however, was beaten by Fitz-Osbern not far from York, and for the moment the danger had passed. Edgar retired to Scotland, and the leaders went into hiding. The sons of Harold, who were again troubling the western coast, were beaten in Devonshire by the local levies, and after the loss of seventeen hundred men were glad to escape to their ships. It was their last attempt ; they disappear soon afterwards in the petty brawls of the Irish court, in which their friend and patron. King Dermid, lost his life. In spite of these reverses, however, when in the autumn the long- expected fleet of Sweyn of Denmark, after various unsuccessful attempts at landing in the south, appeared in the oPtheSm Humber, the Northumbrian shires rose as one man to Autumnof greet the Dane. A second fleet from Scotland also brought back the exiles, Edgar, Gospatrick, and Maerle- sweyn. But greater in prestige than all, Waltheof, in whose veins flowed the blood of Siward, Edward's earl of Northumbria, and who had been made earl of Northampton and Huntingdon, possibly in the brief reign of Harold, withdrew from the court of William and cast in his lot with the patriot cause. In the northern capital misfortunes followed each other in quick succession. The Danes landed September 8. On Satur- day, the 19th, the sorrowing people of York laid away tlTDanes^ in the tomb the remains of Eldred, "the last primate of Sept. «, the old northern stock." His death at such a moment was a national calamity; he could not have averted the approaching storm; he might have tempered the wrath of William. The very day of Eldred's funeral the Norman garrison fired some of the houses which stood near the foss before the castle, on the plea that these buildings might serve as a cover 1069] MASSACRE AT YORK 163 for an attacking enemy. But the flames soon got beyond .the con- trol of the incendiaries, and from the foot of the castle mound swept across the city to the northwest, even reaching the distant minster. The people spent a wild Sunday in the midst of tumult and the heartrending scenes which accompany the burning of a populous city. They thought only of saving themselves and such movable property as they could bear away on their shoulders. When the motley army of Danes and English appeared before the city on Monday morning the fires were still raging. The garrison attempted a sally, but were driven back into the city with great slaughter. Three thousand Normans fell, dying among the flames which their own hands had kindled. ^T ft^scicvc iff th< unrrison Waltlicof was the hero of the fight. The northern i)f York. ° scalds long continued to sing of his mighty deeds on that day: *'How the son of Siward gave the corpses of the Frenchmen as a choice banquet for the wolves of Northumber- land." ^ The garrison was exterminated ; but the besiegers, instead of preparing to make the most of their victory, acted like a lot of children — thoughtless barbarians rather — for when no garrison remained longer to resist them Ihey spent their fury upon the two castles, to them the emblems of all that they had lost and suffered. The rumor of the rising of York, the coming of the Danes, and the destruction of the Norman garrison spread like wildfire. The men of Shropshire, of Somerset, and even distant fhcra-idl Dorsetshire, thrilled at the great news from the north which lost nothing by the distance over which it traveled. They too had garrisons to fight and castles to raze. Edric the Wild, with his Herefordshire men who had never yet bowed the knee to the Norman, the men of Chester also, who had given refuge to Harold's widow, and Bledyn, sole king of Gynedd and Powys, with his untamed Welshmen, all gathered for one last heroic effort to drive the Norman from the land. The people, however, were reckoning without William, nor had they yet fathomed the depth of cruelty of which his fierce nature was capable when once the lion in him was thoroughly aroused. 1 Freeman, N. C, IV, p. 267. 164 THE CONQUEST OF ENGLAND [william i. He hastened from the wood of Deams, where he was hunting when the fell news came, to gather his men and strike such blows as only William could strike. Bishop Geoffrey inthew^^ of Coutances was dispatched against Somerset and Dorset with the men of London, Winchester, and Salisbury; Englishmen against Englishmen, the hopeless feature of the struggle to the men who believed themselves fighting for the liberation of England. Those who were taken in arms were muti- lated, and then dismissed with maimed and broken bodies to drag out useless lives. Exeter not only refused to join the insurrection, but at the head of its garrison charged upon the rebels. On the Welsh border a combined force of English and Welsh under Edric succeeded in burning Shrewsbury, but then dispersed. The move- ment against Stratford was more serious, and required the presence of William before the last embers were stamped out. While William's lieutenants were thus putting down with a stern hand tlie risings in the west, William himself with a force of picked cavalry was hastening into the north. York The third re- ^ ^ i- , i , -, • i • ^i j ^ i auction of was a waste of blackened ruins; his castles destroyed and his garrisons massacred. But when he reached the seat of the war he found that the great northern army had dis- persed of its own accord; the Danes to their ships and the English to their homes. Nothing was left for him but to hunt out the stragglers and destroy them as he could find them. He spent Christmas in his northern capital, and then with grim determina- Thedevas- tiou gave his attention to the work of rendering the N(^um- northern shires incapable of another revolt. For a terofiovo. hundred miles the country was systematically laid waste. Houses were burned; crops, stores, ploughs, and carts were destroyed; all cattle were slaughtered. The people were left in the dead of the northern winter to die of cold and hunger. Even the Norman Ordericus could not recount the awful work without a shudder. William is no longer the king, the father of a way- ward people; he is henceforth the grim impersonation of conquest, and conquest too as it was understood in the eleventh century. When seventeen years later the Domesday Survey was made up, only one mournful word, but often repeated, was needed to describe 1070] THE FALL OF CHESTER 165 the condition of these northern lands, once so fertile and so popu- lous: "Waste!" **Waste!" *'Waste!" The work of conquest was now almost completed. Chester, secure behind its mountains and protected by an unusually severe The fall of winter, still remained defiant. But this fancied secur- thechmtue- ity ouly rendered the conquest more easy. At the head weUt/^ ^^ of a determined band William made his way over all but impassable mountain roads, facing blinding storms of sleet and rain, floundering through swollen torrents, suffering incredible hardships, and suddenly appeared before the walls of Chester. 'J'he last fortress in England to hold out against him was taken apparently without resistance, and destroyed, and upon the ruins rose the Norman castle. The surrounding lands of Cheshire, Shropshire, Derbyshire, and Staffordshire were then, harried and the population left to starve as in Yorkshire. Streams of gaunt fugitives, starving men, women, and children, found their way southward begging for food. The streets and churchyard of Evesham, far away on the borders of distant Warwick, were crowded with these pitiful victims of William's wrath. Many had perished by the way, and those who reached Evesham were so nearly famished that they were unable to swallow the food which the good abbot Ethel wy gave them. The heartbreaking scenes which were taking place in the streets of Evesham were to be seen in the streets of every town and hamlet that lay within two or three days' march of the stricken district. Thus William girdled his kingdom with a wilderness. Of the sum total of the fatalities of this dreadful winter we can only guess. In a cold-blooded determination to destroy regardless of the suffer- ing caused, it is doubtful if anything in the fifth century can compare with the wickedness of William's vengeance. Surely nothing surpasses it before the era of Spanish domination in Europe and America. The great work to which William had set his hand was now accomplished. At Hastings he had won the right to present him- Eiiaiaiui ^^^^ ^^ ^ candidate for the crown of Edward the Con- coruruered. fessor. At Berkhampstead, London, and Barking, the nation, through its leaders, had accepted him as king. But it 166 THE COKQUEST OP EKGLAND FWILLIAM I. was not until the north and west had been crushed that the land was his. There were still occasional revolts. For more than a year the outlaw Hereward held out in the marshes of Ely. The treacherous brothers, Edwin and Morcar, the heroic Waltheof, played their last part in these insurrections. Even the king's brother Odo and many others of his Norman following turned against him, but the throne which they had helped to erect was not to be shaken. England was conquered. CONTEMPOKARIES OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR AND WILLIAM I. KINGS OF FRANCE Henry I., d. 1060 Philip I., 1060— EMPERORS Henry III., d. 10o6 Henry IV., 1056— 1042-1087 COUNTS OF FLANDERS Baldwin V., father- in-law of William, d 1067 Baldwin VL, 1067— POPES Leo IX., 1048-1054 Victor II., 1054-1057 Stephen IX., 1057-1058 Benedict X., anti- pope, 1058-1059 Nicolas IL, 1059-1061 Alexander IL, 10GM073 Gregory VII., 1073-1085 Victor III., 1085-1087 KINGS OF SCOTS Duncan I., assas- sinated, 1040 (?) Macbeth The Usurper, 1040(?)-1054. Malcolm III. Canmore, 1054— Duncan and Macbeth are the well known char- acters of Shak- spere's play CHAPTER III THE KORMAN REORGANIZATION OF THE KINGDOM INTRODUCTION OF FEUDALISM AND THE WILLIAM L, WO-1087 Robert Duke of Normandy d. 1134 I William Clito THE FAMILY OF THE CONQUEROR William I. = Matilda k. 10G6-1087 I dauKhter of the Count of Flanders William II. k. 1087-1100 Henry I. : k. 1100-1135 Matilda of Scotland frand d. of Edmund ronside Adela William, d. 1120 Count of Flanders, rf. 1128 Matilda - i *• Henry V. Emp. Mauiaa -- ^ g. Geoffrey Plantagenet Count of Anjou Henry IL,k. 11&4-1189 Stephen Count of Blois Theobald IV. Stephen = Matilda, Count of Hlois k. of Knj?. I daunhter of Flustace III. 1 1 85- 1 1 54 Count of Boulogne I Henry BLshop of Winchester Eusi tace, d. 1152 Wi lliam. Count of Boulogne, d. 1159 The Norman Conquest affected the development of England in every possible way ; architecture, law, finance, trade, industry, military science, administration, in short, every phase iffccu of the of national activity, felt the touch of new thought and quickened into forms heretofore unknown to the pro- vincial and isolated Anglo-Saxon. But most marked was the influence of the Conquest upon the further development of English political and social institutions. Politically England had passed far on in the course of decline since the days of Athelstan; the royal authority had been undermined; the crown had been shorn of its dignity; its eminence had faded before the waxing power of the great earls. The Norman king at once restored to the monarchy its old prestige ; arrested the further independent devel- opment of the landholding class, and in spite of most bitter and 167 168 NORMAN REORGANIZATION [william i. persistent opposition succeeded in laying again the foundations of the throne in the supremacy of law and the restoration of the royal authority. The attitude of William toward the old English system was not that of a revolutionist; he was not consciously an innovator; he accepted the crown with the rights and limitations William and ., n , ,i . , , ^ the old Eng- prescribed by the ancient customary law of England lish system. ^ . _ *^_^ , , . . . , ."l . . unchanged. Yet by inspiring the old institutions with his own mighty personality he imparted to them new life and new significance. Hundred -moot and shire-moot went on as before; but their findings received a new importance. The sheriff, the executive officer of the shire, no longer stood in awe of the local magnate; the king had appointed him; the king was behind him, < and to the king alone was he responsible. The ancient police system, once represented in the gild and later in the tithing, which made the local community responsible for the production of the criminal, reappeared in the frankpledge,^ but to be enforced with vigor and thoroughness unknown to the old English courts. The earldom of semi-regal powers survived in the counties palatine^^ but the vast agglomerations of estates, lordships, and shires, the giant earldoms of the houses of Godwin, Leofric, and Siward, which had menaced the crown in the days of Edward the Confessor, were broken up, their privileges assumed by the crown, and their lands distributed. The national council, the ancient witenagemot, survived in the great council, magnum coyicilium; but the occasional and spasmodic gatherings, the occurrence of which like the meetings mncUium ^^ ^^® later States-General of France commonly betok- ened impending calamity, now passed into the impressive and regular courts, which William held thrice each year whenever he was in England. Here, amid great pomp and ceremony, he wore his crown, *'at Easter at Winchester, at Whitsuntide at Westmin- ster, at Midwinter at Gloucester"; and here he met his gran- ^ For nature, extent and date of introduction of frankpledge, see Pollock andMaitland, History of English Lmv, 2d Ed., Vol. I, pp. 568-571. 2 Two counties palatine survived the reign of William; Chester and Durham. CURIA EEGI8 169 dees in solemn assembly, **all the rich men over all England, archbishops and suffragan bishops, abbots and earls, thanes and knights."^ The great council was further known as the king's court, curia regis; but only for a short time, however, for it was soon called upon to share its functions with another body, also a curia ^rin regis. The origin of this body is obscure. It seems to have been developed partly out of the administrative functions of the group of officials who constituted the king's house- hold, partly out of the appellate powers of the witenagemot, and partly out of powers assumed in direct imitation of the ducal court of William in Normandy. It was composed of the great administrative officers of the crown and certain of the more promi- nent members of the baronage. At its head was the chief justiciar, a new officer instituted by William, who presided at the sessions of the court in the absence of the king and who further acted as regent whenever the monarcli left the kingdom. With the chief justiciar there were associated certain other high officials beside a group of inferior justices, also known as justiciars. Of the great officials, of prime importance were the chancellor, an officer who dates from the reign of Edward the Confessor, who was the king's chief secretary and had charge of the royal seal; the chamberlain, who was the king's chief auditor or accountant, and during the Norman period rather outranked the chancellor in dignity **in the judicial work of the country," being only less important than the chief justiciar; the treasurer also, who was the keeper of the royal hoard which was safeguarded at Winchester, and who sat at the famous exchequer table at Westminster to receive the accounts of the sheriffs. Other officers of the household were the steward, the butler, the constable and the marshal. These latter offices were very ancient, and under various names were common to all the Teutonic kingdoms, not only in England but also on the Continent. The steward, who corresponded to the major domo or mayor of the palace of the Prankish kings, was the chief officer of the royal palace; the butler, the Anglo-Saxon discthegn^ was the caterer of the palace; the constable and the marshal, the exact division of ^ Ang. Sax. Chronicle, a. d. 1087. 170 NOKMAN REORGANIZATION [ William L whose duties is obscure, superintended the ordering of the feudal array and the fyrd. Under the Norman kings and their successors these more ancient offices soon became overshadowed by the four great officers of state, the chief justiciar, the chamberlain, the chancellor, and the treasurer, and sank into mere honorary titles or hereditary decorations, the ancient duties of the offices being performed by others.^ These officers were in constant attendance on the king. They might be called together to give him advice as a special council of state. As an administrative body they managed the Curki Regis assessment and collection of the crown revenues. They were also a high judicial body, and could summon before them any cause from the ordinary shire courts, exercising all the supreme judicial functions of the ancient witenagemot or the contemporary great council. And inasmuch as such judicial business constituted necessarily a large and conspicuous part of their activities the body soon came to be known distinctively as the Ctcria Eegis,^ while the larger body remained simply the great council. William was not more generous in conceding rights of taxation than he was in renouncing other powers of government. The English were not used to taxation; the obligations of Taxation ^- ^, _ . xi i j . • 7 under the freemen were summed up m the old trinoda neces- sitas, war service, castle service, and road service ; so that the crown legally had no right to revenues other than those derived from the royal estates, dues from markets and ports, and the findings of the courts. The successors of Ethelred upon one pretext or another had continued to levy the Danegeld, but it had always been regarded by the people as irregular and tyrannical, and Edward the Confessor, who once imagined that he saw the devil in the treasury sitting on the money bags, abolished the tax alto- gether. William, however, was too good a business man to allow himself to be troubled by any such visions as had disturbed the peace of the sensitive Edward, and began again to levy the Dane- * For the development of the several offices of the king's household see Stubbs, C. H., I, pp. 372-385. 2 In the reign of Henry I. 1085, 1086] THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 171 geld. The old haphazard method of rating which had been in vogue since Ethelred's day was abandoned, and by a careful survey of the kingdom a businesslike attempt was made to get at the actual wealth and resources of each region. This important work, the famous Domesday Survey, was begun in 1085. Com- day Survey, missioners were sent forth into every shire of the king- dom to collect information on oath as to the number of manors or townships, the whole number of hides, the names of those who held the lands, their value, the population free and unfree, and the number of cattle, sheep, and swine upon each estate. Englishmen cried out against the unheard-of inquest. **It was a shame," they said, ''to pry into each man's matters." It does not appear that William levied the Danogeld directly upon his feudal tenants, but the various aids, tallages, and other inci- dents ^ of feudal tenure which he might claim as lord, were quite sufficient to put the property of his barons also within his power to tax as he willed. "Stark man he was and great awe men had of him . . . in his time men had mickle suffering and many hardships." "Many marks of gold and many pounds of silver he took from his people, some by right and some by mickle might for very little need. " As a result of William's methods it has been estimated that during his reign the royal income reached the sum of £40,000,^ an income which was enormous for the time and of which no other prince of Europe could boast. For the most of William's harsh measures, for his exactions and even his cruelties, he might plead the necessities of state. There was one measure, however, peculiarly Norman, ari^the^ which could havB no motive save the king's personal f>re,s s pleasure. His nature was temperate in most things, but his love of hunting amounted to a passion; "he loved the tall deer as if he were their father." On the continent kings had monopolized hunting as their own special sport, but in England it had been the right of any man to slay wild beasts on his own lands. William claimed this exclusive privilege for himself and those to » See p. 177. 2Stubbs, C. JT., I, p. 303. Later calculations throw doubt upon this estimate. 172 NORMAN REOIIGANIZATION [williami. whom he gave a special license and "forbade the harts and also the boars to be killed." Moreover, the existing forests according to his ideas were not sufficient; and in order to make "mickle deer- frith" he set aside vast tracts as forest the inhabitants of which were placed under special courts, the forest courts^ and denied the protection of the common law. Of these forests the famous New Forest of Hampshire contained 17,000 acres. The forest laws were very severe ; the penalty for killing a hart or hind was blinding. For his forest laws William was censured more by the people than for the wasting of the north and west. It does not appear that William attempted directly to intro- duce into England the Norman system of landholding, or the care- fully graded hierarchy of the Norman feudal society. offmdamn ^^^ ^^® theories and forms of English holdings in the eleventh century were not so widely different from the Norman that the Norman lawyers found any difficulty in explain- ing the relations of landlord and tenant upon the principles of Norman feudal law. English forms of landholding therefore, with- out any specific act of the crown, easily and rapidly assimilated to the theories and customs with which the Normans were familiar. For two hundred years in fact England had been preparing for this transition. The ancient free democracy had long since given way to a landed aristocracy who controlled the govern- for ment and made laws in their own interests. In many parts of England the old free township with its town meeting and elective reeve still survived; but the town was steadily giving way to another system of lordship, which so closely resembled the Norman manorial system that the name manor may be applied to the English institution without impropriety, just as the Norman term county is often applied to the old English shire. ^ The city as yet was hardly felt as a factor in English social life. At the time of the Conquest the whole number of cities did not exceed seventy, and most of these were small and poor The city . without and altogether insignificant, even if compared with con- temporary continental cities. Commerce was corre- spondingly feeble and limited. Agriculture and the pursuits more »Stubbs, C. H., I, pp. 96, 296 and following. THE MANORIAL SYSTEM 173 or less directly connected with the tilling of the soil were not sim- ply the only source of wealth; they were virtually the only source of livelihood. The great mass of the population, therefore, were of necessity engaged in agriculture, but agricultural society had come to know virtually only one form of organization, the form which lent itself most readily to the development of feudalism — the manor. By the manorial system the title to the land of the village, waste as well as cultivated, rested not in the free community but in a single lord, and conferred upon him civil and crim- '^^^ inal iurisdiction with right to service from all who manor. J ^ dwelt within his boundaries. The members of the manorial community, therefore, were not landlords but tenants. Their lands, moreover, did not lie in compact pieces as in the American farm, but in small strips scattered widely among similar strips belonging to fellow tenants and distinguished only by a narrow ridge of turf or by the furrow left by the plow. Cooper- ative cultivation, therefore, was not only advantageous but necessary. The tenant if free enjoyed the produce of his lands by what was known in feudal language as socage tenure^ paying his lord a regular rent in money or in kind, or by performing Socage some labor service. These dues were fixed by imme- morial custom and the obligation to pay them descended with the land from father to son. Beside the free tenants there was also to be found upon the English manor another class of tenants of various grades, the mem- bers of which were known to the feudal lawyers as ^/'^ . villains. In general they held their lands under more burdensome terms than the free tenants. These bur- dens might consist of labor on land which the proprietor of the manor had reserved for his own use, the demesne; or of dues in kind, or of dues in money. The villain, moreover, could not leave the bounds of the manor without his lord's permission. He must get permission also to marry son or daughter ; to sell sheep or ox, or cut timber. His tenure, however, was fixed ; his dues could not be increased at the will of the lord; his marriage was recog- 174 KORMAN REORGANIZATION [ William I. nized by law; he could not be torn from his family and sold like a chattel slave. He could also own horses and cattle; he could pasture his stock on the common and could cut firewood in the forest. The church insisted that he should have the full enjoyment of its holidays; it offered his son the advantages of a free educa- tion if he were worthy of it, and opened to him its highest posi- tions. As abbot or bishop or archbishop he might become the companion and adviser of kings. In addition to the tenants who were directly engaged in the tilling of the soil there were others, both free and unfree, who held merely their houses with the surrounding plot of ground, with Uimnts privileges in the common and the waste. Of such were the weaver, if the village were large ; and the miller, who rented his mill of the lord and shared with him its profits. There were craftsmen besides, as the smith, who kept the village forge; the rope-maker, who kept the village rope-walk; and the armorer, who repaired his lord's armor. The parson also was a conspicuous figure in all phases of village life; likewise the clerk, who found a field of manifold activity in a community where, from the lord down, writing was an unknown art. Not least important was the reeve, a villain generally, who kept the accounts of the lord with the manor and saw to it that he received his ilues from his tenants. Thus the English social system had already been established upon the principle of tenure by service. The old system of allodial tenures had passed away in England quite as Iff military completely as ou the continent. It was not a difficult matter, therefore, to add to the English system the Norman tenure by military service, the characteristic feature of feudalism; and here also the way had been directly prepared by the special military obligations which Alfred and Edward the Elder had imposed upon the thane class, by which, if not the amount, at least the kind of service due from the freeman to the king had been graded to the wealth of the subject in land.^ It was therefore not widely at variance with precedents long since established by English kin gs that William should require of his iStubbs, C. H., I, pp. 210-213. THE knight's fee 175 great beneficiaries a quota of men-at-arms, knights^ bearing some proportion to the importance and value of the lands which he conferred.* Those who thus held land directly of the king were known as tenants in cliief or tenants in capite. The tenant in chief was left to provide for his military family as he thought best. He might keep his quota of men-at-arms in his hall and feed them at his table, or he might settle each man-at-arms upon a small estate set off for him out of the domain lands and sufficient for his support. Such a grant was known as the hnigliVs fee; KnighVit the grautor was the lord; the tenant was his vassal. During the Norman period the amount of land neces- sary to constitute a knight's fee was not fixed; it generally varied from ten to twenty librates.^ The receiver of the knight's fee was to hold himself in readiness to come at his lord's summons, and thus enable him in turn to fulfill his obligations to the king. This subgranting of lands in military tenure was knows as suljinf emula- tion. Compared with the otlier custom of keeping the suUnfeuda- meu-at-arms in a body in the lord's hall, it would readily commend itself to the man who loved peace and quiet ; it also offered a better guarantee to the lord of the faithfulness of his military dependents. It became quite com- mon during the last years of William. It must not be con- founded with commendation^ by which a free land- £w"^^^ holder, in return for a promise of protection, surren- dered his lands to some powerful landlord and received them again on condition of rendering feudal service. Commenda- tion became very common in the twelfth century in the troubled times of Stephen's reign and greatly reinforced the numbers of the military tenantry. In granting a fief it was very natural for a lord of Norman birth and training to seek to protect himself and secure the ful- ^ Round, F. E., pp. 289-293. The whole number of knights thus exacted was far less than coinnionly represented. In the time of Henry II. the number did not exceed 5,000, or 6,000 at the most. During William's reign, it was undoubtedly mucli less. 2 A librate was an estate which rendered an income of one pound a year. 176 NORMAN REORGANIZATION [williamI. fillment of the tenant's pledges by using the forms and sanctions with which the feudalism of the continent had long made him familiar. In accordance with these customs the tenant SSi^>? was required to kneel before his lord and placing his EweSire ^^^^^ between his lord's hands, swear to be his '*man" — liomage. The lord then girded him with the sword, and in symbol conferred upon him the estates — investiture. The obligations thus created were personal and hereditary, but their characteristic feature was always the military service. If the vassal should ever refuse to arm and come at his lord's bidding, or if he ever fought against his lord the oath was violated and the right to the fief was forfeited— /or/e/^wre. With the military service the vassal was also bound to attend his lord's court, submit to its jurisdiction, support its authority, and assist in its deliberations. On the continent the <^(^urt baron's men were exempt from the iurisdiction of the service. ^ •> king's court, and even from the duty of attendance. In England the old popular courts had been steadily undermined by the growth of the landed aristocracy, and by the wide extension of the dangerous custom of granting to thanes a private jurisdiction over their tenants under the terms sac and soc; a grant which made the hall court of the manor, the court-baron, Sflwarwi coordinate with the hundred court. Nevertheless the principle had survived that the shire courts, as king's courts, were entitled to a supreme jurisdiction over all the inhabit- ants of the shire; and the Norman kings were not inclined to sacrifice a principle so important to the royal treasury, or so useful in maintaining the royal authority. It is true that William granted a number of great baronies with full jurisdiction, known ^i^il^^ as honors or liberties,^ and also freed the men of these barons from all attendance at the popular courts; yet such grants could hardly have affected the great body of manorial lords, whose men remained subject to the jurisdiction of the shire and whose courts-baron held jurisdiction only in feudal cases, that is, in disputes between tenants about land. And even in feudal cases, when a dispute arose between vassals of different 'Stubbs, C. H., I, p. 431. FEUDAL INCIDENTS 177 lords, the case could be tried only in the shire court. It is to be remembered also that while the great baronies enjoyed an exemption from the jurisdiction of the shire court, and were in fact pieces cut out of the jurisdiction of the shire, like the shire courts they were subordinate to the Curia Regis, and when Henry II. began to send out the justices of the Curia to sit as his representatives in the shire courts these officers forced their way also into the courts of the great barons. Beside military service and court service the vassal was also liable to certain occasional exactions known as incidents. Thus when heirs failed the tenant the fief returned to the incidents. lord — escheat. In case the deceased tenant left an heir, when the heir took possession he was expected to pay the lord for the renewal of the grant the equivalent of a year's income from the estate — relief. If, however, the heir wardship were a minor the lord might retain possession and appropriate the income until the heir became of age — wardship. A woman might ordinarily inherit a fief in default of male heirs, but the title passed to her husband, who regularly did homage for the fief and represented his wife in fulfilling the feudal obligations. The lord, however, was entitled to select the husband, but if the ward objected to the husband of her lord's choosing she might be released upon the payment of a fine. The same principle was applied in the case of a widow whose husband had died without other heirs. There were certain other occasions also when, under the gracious title of aids^ it was customary for the lord to exact further sums from his tenants. These occasions were fixed by Aids. custom and were: (1) When the lord's eldest son was knighted ; (2) when his eldest daughter was married ; and (3) when the lord was captured in war and his body was to be ransomed — an occurrence not infrequent in days of almost constant warfare. In addition to these ordinary aids the king might solicit from his vassals certain dona or gifts. The Norman kings also devel- oped a similar source of revenue in the tallage^ a com- pulsory aid levied at irregular intervals upon the demesne lands of the crown and upon the royal towns. 178 NORMAN REORGANIZATION [williahi. Thus Norman military feudalism easily struck its roots into a soil already prepared, and in a few years shot up into luxuriant growth. The Norman king, however, remained a sov- vSmS and ^^'^^g^ after the national and not after the feudal type. notafeiMai gy English law whatever the rank of the individual, whether ordinary freeman or thane, he remained always a subject and liable to all the duties of a subject; nor had William any thought of releasing his earls of foreign blood from these duties ; or of allowing them to gather to themselves upon English soil such power as he himself exercised in Normandy as a vassal of the French king. In the twentieth year of his reign he sought to give expression to this fact of sovereignty in a way which no man might fail to understand. The Domesday Survey had just been completed, and upon the basis of its returns he summoned to meet him in the great plain before Salisbury '*all his witan and all the landowning men of property there Saiisbu^ "^ ^^^'^ ^^^^' ^^^ England, whosoever men they were, and required all to bow before him and become his men and swear oaths of fealty to him against all other men." Against this universal oath of allegiance no feudal oath was to be binding ; no feudal contract was to stand which imposed upon the subject an obligation that interfered with his first duty to his king. Hardly less important than the relations which William estab- lished with the feudal society were the relations which he estab- lished with the church. In the middle ages church the^Srch^^ and state were hardly distinguished; the functions of the one so traversed the whole line of the activities of the other that at times the medieval state appears to be as much of a theocracy as the early Hebrew state. The state was the body of believers ; the head of the state was God or Christ ; the king was his vicegerent who had been ushered into his office by forms borrowed from the church, and who in the royal style, the rex dei gratia^ bore a reminder of the source and limitations of his authority. The heads of the church hierarchy sat in the national council and exercised a controlling influence in shaping the policy of the state ; they shared in the election or deposition of kings. They sat in the national courts and judged the highest 1070-1088] WILLIAM AND THE CHURCH 179 princes of the realm. The maintenance of discipline within the church, moreover, bore no slight relation to the preservation of order within the state. The lapse of church discipline was a cer- tain symptom of political or social anarchy. Religious forms, furthermore, marked all the stages of civil procedure. The litany and the mass were important features of the court room as well as of the coronation hall of the king. Thus no reforms could be more important or far-reaching than those by which William sought to bring the English church into accord with the ecclesias- tical system of the continent. William from the first had received a powerful moral support from the pope, and was therefore well disposed toward the papal system, and not at all inclined to favor the continuance Smrf^I*^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ''insular and barbaric independence" which the m^wmthe ^"glish church had of late enjoyed. The deposition church ^^^^ of Stigand had in all probability been early decided upon, yet William had found it useful to retain him until the year 1070, when he was forced to make way for the king's old friend Lanf ranc, the Abbot of St. Stephens of Caen. About the same time the primacy of York, recently made vacant by the death of Eld red, was filled by the appointment of Thomas of Bayeaux. Other similar appointments followed from time to time, until by the year 1088 Wulfstan of Worcester remained the only bishop of English birth in the kingdom. These new men were in full sympathy with the great contemporary reform in Europe which had culminated in the election of Gregory VII., and soon justified their appointment by instituting similar reforms in the English dioceses, forbidding simony and insisting upon the celibacy of their clergy. The church courts were made independent of the lay courts, and discipline was enforced upon the laity as well as the clergy. The English monasteries were also compelled to conform to the stricter rules of the Norman abbeys. Yet if William thus showed hrmself entirely in sympathy with the spiritual aims of the church, he was careful to indicate the lines where the ecclesiastical authority ended. If he established the independence of the church courts he also removed the bishop from the shire court where he had long been a conspicuous- figure. 180 NORMAN REORGANIZATION [william I. Within the church, moreover, William would tolerate no authority rival to his own. No decree of a synod should be binding without his confirmation; barons or officers of the crown should The church not be subjected to the finding of a church court with- and the royal , i . • . t ^i <• • i ^ authority. out his permission. In the case of rival popes he proposed to decide which pope the Church of Eng- land should recognize, for he allowed no pope to be obeyed in England or papal letter to be received without his consent. The demand of Gregory YII., who at the time was vigorously pushing his ideas of papal sovereignty within the empire, that William should likewise recognize liim as feudal overlord, he met with a flat refusal: ''fealty he had never promised; nor had his prede- cessors ever given it." Yet he recognized fully the spiritual headship of the pope and acknowledged the duty of the English church to contribute the "Peter's pence." The ideas of William were nobly carried out. The church rapidly attained new dignity and respect and began to exert a new influence over English life and manners. A new Remits of cathedral was beguu at Canterbury; the old cathedral church policy, of. York was repaired. The other bishops also imitated their primates in the magnificence of the new struc- tures which they began, or the restorations which they instituted. Old episcopal seats, such as Lichfield and Sherborne, were removed from the country to the neighboring centers of population. After the year 1070 William had little further trouble with the English. There was still much grumbling; and many bitter words continued to find their way into secluded mon- si/mofthe astery records, where patriotic monks sought to cherish ^ ^ ' the memories of the old England which was passing away; but the disastrous issue of the recent struggles, the flight or death or apostasy of the English leaders and the failure of the treacherous Danes to afford the long-expected help had signally demonstrated the utter vanity of attempting to overturn the throne of the new king by force. William, moreover, soon began to commend himself to the sub- ject people by the very rigor of his administration. His ways were masterful and his measures severe, but the results were bene- KEW COKDITIONS OF ENGLISH LIFE 181 ficial. He was a hard drillmaster; but England needed a drilT- master, and the English were the first to recognize it. Life and property were protected as they had never been pro- ff'^^ tected under the native English kings. Even the wiiiiam'8 Chronicle is forced to recognize the "good peace that he made in the land, so that a man might go over the realm alone with his bosom full of gold unhurt. Nor durst any man slay another, how great soever the evil he had done." The English, therefore, began quietly to accept the lot which they now knew they could not avert, and in a short time settled down to make the most of their new conditions. These conditions, however, could not have been very attract- ive at best. At the time of the Survey, as a result of the fre- quent revolts, fully three-fourths of the estates of Eng- New crnidi- ^ *' " turtwof land had changed hands, and in many cases where the English thanes had been allowed to retain their lands they had sunk into the condition of ^'subtenants of a Norman baron." When the land was at peace and plenty reigned the lot of the ordinary tenant possibly was not hard. But unfortunately the land was often at war, and famine and pestilence were frequent visitors. The lord lived in the great house on the demesne, but his people of alien blood, who regarded him with sullen aversion as an interloper and usurper, could feel for him and his nothing of that touching loy- alty which so often lights up the darkness of bondage. If the lord, moved by sincere regard for his dependents, honestly sought to improve their condition, the chances were that he would be misunderstood and his measures misinterpreted. The absentee landlord also was by no means uncommon, for thousands of manors were held by William and his friends. In such cases the lord's agent, the bailiffs lived in the great house on the demesne, and saw that the reeves required the tenants to fulfill their obligations. The bailiff was selected for his thrift rather than for any goodness of heart, and knew well that his tenure depended upon the balance which he could show each year in his lord's favor. It was his interest to exact the last penny, and the lord was only too well pleased to see his returns roll up, to ask questions, or inquire into 182 ' NORMAN REORGANIZATION " [williamI. the condition of distant tenants. It was here that the Norman yoke rested most heavily upon the English rural population. If, however, the English were coming to be reconciled to the rule of William, the men who had come with him into England, who found themselves denied the privileges which they me^bar&m^ and their kind were enjoying on the continent, were by no means inclined to accept William's system with- out a protest. In 1075 discontent passed into open revolt, when Ralph Guader, Earl of Norfolk, and Roger Bret- RMng of e^ii^ the son of the Conqueror's old friend William Fitz- Osbern, Earl of Hereford, openly raised the standard against the king. But, although they had been secretly plotting for a year and William at the time was absent in Normandy, the revolt was a disastrous failure. The ordinary shire levies were sufficient to put down the rising, and in a very short time Roger was a prisoner and Ralph in exile. England was well rid of two such characters ; but unfortunately Waltheof, who after the great rising of 1069 had not only been pardoned and received again into royal favor but had also been restored to his father's earldom of Northumbria, had become implicated in the affair, and was condemned to death by the witan. His death appealed powerfully to the imagination of the English writers, and the people long veneratM him as a martyr. The rising of Ralph and Roger would really be of little impor- tance were it not the first of a series of armed protests on the part of the Norman-English barons against the authority of ofiherSi^^ the Norman-Euglish kings, which did not cease until the reign of Henry II. , when the old baronage was at last effectually crushed and the leaders driven to the continent. In these insurrections it is to be noted that the strength of the king lay in the support of the English nation, who needed no schooling to teach them that the tyranny of the king was far less to be feared than the tyranny of the barons, and who thus looked upon the king as their natural protector against feudal lawlessness. The relations of William to his own family were in keeping with his relations to his people. Such men are feared but never loved. William quarreled with his eldest son Robert, and drove 1078-1087] DEATH OF THE CONQUEROR 183 him from the kingdom. In Normandy the quarrel was renewed, and father and son met in deadly personal combat under the walls of Gerberoi. On the return of William from Nor- PHnce mandy in 1082 he quarreled with his half-brother Odo, who had abused the authority which the king had conferred upon him in his absence by oppressing the poor and by indiscriminate cruelty. William might have forgiven this, for he certainly knew Odo by this time, and from earlier ex- ^dZm82^^^ periences knew what kind of report to expect from his regency. But Odo, who possessed all the ambition of his race, had been carried away by a foolish dream of securing the papal crown by force of arms, and to this end had taken advantage of William's absence to enlist men in England for his harebrained scheme. It was this which roused the wrath of William and brought him home from Normandy. And when none dared to lay hands on the sacred person of the bishop, William went himself, seized Odo, and packed him off to Normandy to be kept a close prisoner at Ivouen until his own death. In the year 1087 William entered upon the last of his many wars. His foe was Philip I. of France, who had encouraged Robert in rebellion and had always been William's of William, enemy either secret or open. At the taking of Mantes William's horse stumbled among the embers of the burning city, and the king, whose body had grown unwieldy with advancing age, was thrown heavily upon the iron pommel of his saddle. He was taken to Rouen where he died after a loathsome illness. The priests and nobles who had eaten his bread left the body to the tender mercies of menials, who stripped even the bed of its furnishings and left the dead king ''naked and lonely on the floor." *' Death itself took its color from the savage solitude of his life." CHAPTER IV THE ORGANIZATION OP THE KINGDOM CONTINUED THE ENGLISH CONQUEST OF NORMANDY WILLIAM IJ. 10S7-1100. HENRY L 1100-1135. It was the wish of the Conqueror that Robert, his eldest son, with whom he had been reconciled before his death, should succeed him in Normandy ; and that William, his second son, Accession of William familiarly known as Rufus or the Red, should succeed Rufus. him in England. He had also a third son, Henry, a lad of nineteen, who had been born in England since the Conquest. Henry, however, he put off with a legacy of £5,000 and some lands in the Cotentin. Robert was not satisfied with the arrange- ment which gave England to the younger William, and proposed to contest his candidacy for the English crown ; he was supported by the greater part of the barons, who loved Robert's easy-going ways and saw in William too much of the father's imperious nature for their liking. The very elements in the young man's character, however, which the barons regarded as a menace to their liberties, only commended him the more to Lanfranc and the church, and to all who had the good of the nation at heart. A war of succession followed and William, largely through the influence of Lanfranc and by the support of the English, succeeded in driving the friends of his brother out of the kingdom ; chief of whom was his uncle, the old mischief-maker Odo, who had been released from prison after the Conqueror's death. Four years later William in his turn carried the war into Robert's dominions, and proposed to oust his brother from the duchy and secure it for himself. But the French king, Philip I. interfered, and brought about an agreement by which each brother renounced his claim to the domain of the other ; in case of the death of either, the survivor was to succeed to both 184 w Caithneas) i^utherliiiKlj Map of ENGLAND and SCOTLAND 1066 to 1828 C ^ erne lirO^^ lAlntriek ijijr" \ ♦ fnyrmd-' " ' .cHBriR.-'l \ * •■ HAM IV i;' MORrOLK :.-kvv 3iANZ.Cl>iea«o S L L- J. d 1 J *o qbM L.nri^^^ l(V 1 a/AJLTOJ^ ba& a'^AJOi^a " ' ?k^ %^?,l 0^ ^?)0l "?' ! / C'l^ ' /" •f^. CHARACTER OF THE RED KIIfG 185 dominions. Philip was not led to this neighborly act by any love for the Conqueror's sons, but simply by a desire to prevent Eng- land and Normandy from again falling into the same hands. We shall see this policy guiding the conduct of the French kings in all their dealings with the descendants of the Conqueror. In figure the new king was a caricature of his father. He was short, thick-set, powerful in body, with ruddy face and restless eyes, and ever liable to violent outbreaks of merriment of uie or anger. He had much of the ability of his race. Yet he lacked his father's greatness of character; he had nothing of his self-control; was personally lawless and ever a riotous liver. He moved about the country accompanied by a rout of swashbucklers and mistresses, who shocked decent folk by their roistering revels, and who pillaged and plundered the people; **the poor man was not protected by his poverty, nor the rich man by his abundance." He abounded in inconsistencies — this uproarious king. He cared not a penny for the most solemn oath; saints and devils were to him so many bogies by which designing monks frightened children and silly women; and when men charged him with violating his coronation oath he sneeringly rejoined, **Who is there who can fulfill all that he promises?" Yet he had his code of honor. When he gave his word as a knight, he kept it inviolate; prisoners of war were safe in his hands, and when he granted a truce men knew that it would not be broken. He mocked at all things sacred ; yet he was not without some latent respect for the powers of the next world. When in 1093 he fell grievously sick, believing that death was near he called for his confessor and made noble prom- ises of reform; but as soon as his strength came again he went on in the old way as graceless as ever. In spite of his personal lawlessness none appreciated better than William the value of a well organized administration. While Rob- ert allowed Normandy to fall into a condition of turbu- Fiamhard. lent anarchy William sought to strengthen and extend the vigorous administrative system of his father. He found an able instrument in Ralph Flambard, who had been originally a humble clerk in his father's chapel. The man was as able as he was unscrupulous. He had entered the church from 186 NORMAN ORGANIZATION CONTINUED [william ii. purely worldly motives, and by making himself useful to the king had risen rapidly ; secured the bishopric of Durham and finally was made chief Justiciar. Here as head of the financial and judicial administration of the kingdom, he found ample scope for the exer- cise of all his powers. He grasped the possibilities of English feudalism as a source of revenue, and pressed to the utmost the advantages offered the crown by such incidents as relief and ward- ship ; nor was it an uncommon thing for the royal stewards so to impoverish a ward's estate in the interests of the treasury that when the land was finally turned over to the heir it was exhausted and all but worthless. The application of feudal exactions to lay fiefs was simple enough; but there was another large class of fiefs which by reason of the fact that they were held by churchmen, William II. „ ^ 1 , . 1 . . and the were naturally exempt from such claims as those mci- cliuvch. influenceof dent to relief, or wardship and marriage. But accord- ing to feudal ideas the estates of a bishop or abbot were held personally of the king, and were obligated to military service just as lay fiefs; and to the thrifty justiciar there appeared no reason why ecclesiastics should be exempt from the other occasional but really more burdensome dues. The dead bishop could leave no heir, but the king might claim the income of the estates until a new incumbent was appointed. It was, more- over, a very simple matter, by ways well known to the crown officer, to delay such an appointment until it suited the royal pleasure to forego the profits of the lands in question. But even here the clerkly financier showed the king how to turn still another profit, since he might exact from the new incumbent a handsome gift after the manner of a relief. And as the Red King carried out the principle, it amounted to a virtual selling of the offices of the church, and was the source of much corruption. The most flagrant instance of William's violation of the rights of the church occurred in connection with the vacancy caused by Vacancy in ^^® death of Lanfranc in 1089, when the vast estates of caMerbunj ^^® ^^® ^^ Canterbury were thrown into the king's 1089-1093. hands. For four years William refused to appoint Lanfranc 's successor, in the meanwhile appropriating the rev- 1093-1096] ANSELM ' 187 enues of this important see to his own wayward uses. In vain the great council protested; it mattered little to the king that church discipline languished and that the whole realm suffered; nor was it until the serious illness of the year 1093 brought William to his senses that he consented to allow the revenues of the see of Canterbury to be applied again to their legitimate uses. The man chosen was Anselm, abbot of Bee, the friend and pupil of Lanf ranc ; already eminent among the theologians of the continent, and well known and loved in England. The amrlriiHam ^^^^ ^^^ abbot, howcvcr, hesitated to incur the responsi- io93-io97 bilities of such an office under such a king. **IIe was a poor, weak sheep," he said, **to be yoked with the young bull of England." But those concerned were urgent and would take no refusal; they dragged the abbot to the king's bedside, and after literally forcing the pastoral staff into his reluctant hands hurried him away to the cathedral for con- secration. Upon his recovery William found that he had yoked himself not with a poor sheep but a lion. Between two snch men there could bo nothing in common, and it was not long before their differences passed into an open rupture. ** Treat me as a free man," demanded the primate in words that thrill with the true English spirit, **and I devote myself and all I have to your service; but if you treat me as a wslave, you shall have neither me nor mine." Such a man could not keep silent in the presence of the orgies which disgraced William's court; still less could he stand by while the king and his creatures plundered the church. A series of quarrels followed, until at last in a burst of fury W^illiam drove the faithful primate from the kingdom. It will be remembered that William had agreed to leave Normandy to Robert on condition that he renounce his claims to England. But in 109G the crusading mad- Eimiandand ness scized Robert With thousands of other princes of Normandy. . , . Europe. In William's shrewd and unsentimental nature, the wild enthusiasm which swept the continent found little sympathy; yet he was not averse to helping his brother off, and 188 NORMAK ORGANIZATiON" CONTINUED [williamII. willingly furnished 10,000 marks^ toward his equipment in return for Normandy in pledge. So Robert betook himself to the east, along with the host of restless and adventurous spirits who fol- lowed the First Crusade, while his duchy of Normandy was added again to the English kingdom. William had now reached his fortieth year. He was still a young man, and no one could tell what would be the end of his career. In England he was all-powerful; none durst WilliamII. defv him. He had compelled the Scottish kine: to re- 1100. .J X o new homage. His barons had seized the lowlands of Wales and its southern coasts, and their castles crowned the hill- tops of the border. He was meditating the conquest of Ireland. On the continent also his power and influence were rapidly extending ; when suddenly and without warning all these great plans were cut short and the end came. With a company of jovial companions he had risen from the banqueting table at Winchester and gone to hunt in the New Forest. In the pursuit of the game the party had scattered, but when night came and they returned to the trysting place, William was not among them. Then came a peasant with a strange story: he had found the king lying in a glade with an arrow piercing his heart ; the wide-open sightless eyes staring up into the heaven which he had mocked. How was it done? Was it the work of a clumsy hunter, whose brain had been fuddled with drink; or, more likely perhaps, was it the work of an assassin who had taken vengeance for unrequited wrong? The question has never been answered. The pious saw in the mysterious taking off, the judgment of God. The body was taken to Winchester and there buried without religious ceremony and without sign of sorrow. At the time of William's death Robert was on his way home from the Crusade. The success of the enterprise, in which Robert had born a conspicuous part, the popularity which had been given to it by its religious character, had done much to obscure the 1 The mark was a theoretical denomination of money on account. Like the American mill, it was not coined. From the 12th century it was equal to 13s 4d current money. 10,000 marks, therefore, were equal to £6,666 13s 4d. HENKY I. 189 unpleasant memories which lingered about the early career of Rob- ert. He was more popular than ever with the barons, and by con- trast with the brutal tyrannies of William, his good- mcce8»km matured ways appeared like positive virtues. He had also in his favor the advantage of his early agree- ment with William. There was, however, a new element in the problem which neither William nor Robert had considered when they made their compact, and that was the national sentiment of the English people. The English had long since abandoned the hope of ever restoring the ancient royal line; yet the soil was dear to them, and the fact that the Conqueror's youngest son, Henry, had been born in England, brought him a degree nearer than his foreign -born brothers. When, therefore, Henry, who had been of the fatal hunting party in the New Forest, hastened to Winchester to secure the royal hoard, as the first step in making good a counter claim to the throne, the English welcomed him at once as one of themselves, and their cordial support gave to his elevation the appearance of a national choice. Henry on his part fully realized both the strength and the weak- ness of his position. He saw that it would not do to perpetuate the abuses of the Red King's reign, and that only by a wise mUcu^ policy of conciliation could he win the lasting support of the nation.. Among his first acts, therefore, were the arrest of Flambard and the recall of Anselm. But the event which did most to establish the confidence of the people, was the marriage of the king with Matilda, the daughter of Margaret and Malcolm of Scotland, and the lineal representative of Edmund Ironside. Thus at last the nation could look forward to a day when the sacred blood of Alfred should again be represented in the kings of England. Of even more direct import, was a charter which Henry issued soon after his coronation ; the first formal acknowledgment by a Norman king of any '^limitation on the despotism opHennlr established by the Conqueror." This charter was simply an amplification of the coronation oath ; yet it was of great importance, for it gave to the nation an authoritative interpretation of the terms of the oath, made by the king himself. 190 NORMAN ORGANIZATION CONTINUED [henry i. In the charter Henry promised not to make profit out of lands of the church, either by taking advantage of vacancies or by selling its offices ; not to abuse his rights over feudal tenants ; that reliefs should be just and lawful ; that heiresses should not be forced to marry against their will ; and that fines should be levied according to the nature of an offense. To the nation at large he granted the laws of Edward the Confessor as interpreted or amended by his father. The restriction which he proposed to place upon his deal- ings with his tenants, they in turn were to observe in dealing with their vassals. The coiners of false money also were to be pun- ished ; but the forests were to be retained as his father had held them.^ In spite of the unpopularity of this last provision, the people received their new king with magnificent enthusiasm; and when in 1101 Robert landed at Portsmouth in order to con- Hupport test the crown, the people rallied to the support of their king as they had once rallied to the support of Harold. The barons, however, held back, for they feared a strong admin- istration. The pliant Eobert, whom nobody feared and who could hardly keep the clothes on his back from the thieving favorites who surrounded him,^ would be a king much more to the liking of the barons. Yet before the solid front of the nation Eobert quailed, and was finally glad to renounce his claims upon the English crown in return for the cession of Henry's fief in the Cotentin. The retirement of Robert left Henry free to deal with the barons who had held aloof in the moment of threatened invasion. Robert de Lacy, Robert Malet, and Ivo of Grantmesnil ofEiberPof ^^^^ stripped of their lands and driven from the king- ^eiesme, dom. But greatest among Henry's tenants was the terrible Robert of Belesme, who held the important western earldom of Shrewsbury, and who had used his power to inaugurate a reign of terror on the border. Forty-five charges of treason were brought against Robert, and when he refused to answer the king's summons to appear and make reply to the ^Stubbs S. C, pp. 99-102, and Lee Source Book, pp. 125, 126. 2 See the remarkable illustration of the results of Robert's good nature recorded by Will. Malmes. v. g 394. 1102-1106] TENCHEBRAY 191 charges, Henry straightway marched against him ; laid siege to the great castle of Bridgenorth on the Welsh border ; and after three weeks took it. The fall of Arundel and Shrewsbury followed Bridgenorth, and Eobert was forced to retire to his continental domains. Ilis fall was hailed by the nation with unrestrained delight. ''Rejoice, King Henry," the people shouted, "and give thanks to God, for you became a free king on the day when you conquered Robert of Belesme and drove him from the land." It would have been better for both England and Normandy if the quarrel of the two brothers could now have been dropped, and the duchy and the kingdom gone each their separate The war o o r carried into ways. But the baroDS of Duke Robert were not satis- fied and incited him to new intrigues against the king. Henry who had many loyal barons who held lands on the Norman side of the Channel and were thus exposed to Robert's tyrannies, believed that he had sufficient cause for renewing the war. For two years it raged without material advantage on either Terwhebray, gjde . but in 1106 Henry at the head of a Norman- English army completely routed Robert's knights at Tenchebray. The battle was fought on the 28th of September, the fortieth anniversary of the crossing of the Channel by the Conqueror, and was regarded by the soldiers of Henry as a re- quital for the defeat of Hastings. Robert was taken and spent the remaining years of his life a close prisoner at Cardiff Castle, where he died in 1134. The salve to English feelings, however, could hardly atone for the new burdens which were imposed upon the monarchy as a result of the recovery of the Norman duchy. The con- Lou^vT^ temporary French king was the wily Louis VI., who with the keen insight of the statesman saw that the welfare of France demanded the separation of England and Normandy. For twenty-five years Henry wasted the strength of his English kingdom in maintaining his Norman borders against the hostility of the French, or in crushing the insurrections of Norman barons, stirred up by French intrigue. Yet Louis was no match for Henry either in war or diplomacy. He was both outgeneraled and out- witted. Henry secured the favor of the pope on the one hand and 192 NORMAN ORGANIZATION CONTINUED [henry 1. of the Emperor, Henry V., on the other, to whom he married his daughter Matilda. He steadily extended his Norman domain at the expense of the feudatories of France; after the death of Henry V. in 1125, he married his widowed daughter to Geoffrey of Anjou, and thus prepared the way for the future union of the pos- sessions of the great houses of Normandy and Anjou. At home Henry found himself plunged into a struggle of another kind, but no less important in its ultimate issues. He had early given an indication of his good will toward the Ameim^^ church by the recall of Ansel m. But the persecutions to which Anselm had been subjected by William Euf us, had not been without a direct influence upon his character as well as upon his theories of the proper relation of church and state. Moreover, he had spent the years of his exile at the Roman court in the very midst of the bitter struggle over investiture. The best men of the age felt that the time had come when the church should be freed from the control of the civil power. Only so could it keep its garments unspotted from the sin of simony and the other corruptions which had degraded its character and weak- ened its influence. Anselm had not objected to investiture at the hands of the Red King; but coming at the call of Henry, fresh from the stirring scenes of the great Lateran Council which had formally forbidden lay investiture, he could not do homage to Henry or consecrate the bishops whom he had appointed. It was a grave question ; none more serious had ever confronted king or bishop. The autocratic spirit of the king revolted against the implied denial of his independence. "What have I to do with a Roman canon!" he cried. "No man shall remain in my land who will not do me homage." Yet Henry was no such blustering egoist as his brother. He fully valued the support of the church, and a breach with Anselm was farthest from his thoughts. Anselm on his part St^^'^S^^' was no contumacious rebel, but was fully prepared to TYll'SC^ 11.07 • •/ X J. concede to the king all rights consistent with the spiritual independence of the church. He had been the first to respond to Henry's call for troops against Robert, and his example had had no little influence in strengthening the loyalty of others. ROGER OF SALISBURY 193 The controversy therefore, though earnest, was carried on with becoming dignity on both sides, and was finally adjusted by a com- promise: 'The election of bishops was to be henceforth in the hands of the cathedral chapters, but was to be held at the king's court; the temporal rights of the crown were secured by the act of homage to the king, by which the new bishop received his lands; the spiritual rights of tlie church, by anointing and investiture with ring and crozler at the hands of the archbishop; papal juris- diction was not excluded, but no papal legate could come into England without the royal permission. ' ^ **Thus the church retained its independence as far as it was necessary for its moral influence; the king retained a supervision as far as it was necessary for the unity of the state." This arrangement, the only possible adjust- ment of the dual relation of church and state, was practically the basis upon which the long quarrel between church and empire was finally settled by the Concordat of Worms fifteen years later. Tenchebray had freed Henry's hands to take up again the work of organization and administration at home, a work that pleased him far better than the rough and uncertain life of the SaSSbury camp. In Normandy he had picked up a priest, known as Roger the Poor, who once when Henry happened to be present had commended himself to the king by the rapid, busi- nesslike way in which he had rushed through the mass. A cool- headed, cold-blooded man of business was this Roger, as void of sentiment as the columns of a ledger. Henry advanced him steadily; made him bishop of Salisbury, chancellor, and finally chief justiciar. Roger was quick to see the weakness of the system which England had inherited from the past; but also quick to see how it could be adapted to the new conditions which confronted the crown. The magnum concilium, the old witenagemot, had changed Change in insensibly from a council of the grandees of the nation mZXm''^ to a council of the tenants in chief of the king. It cnnciHum. ^^s no longer summoned at regular intervals, as in the time of William I., and had long since become too unwieldy to attend to the details of ordinary administration. Theoretically its * Gee and Hardy, pp. 08-GG. 194 NORMAK ORGANIZATTOK CONTINUED [hkney I. functions remained unchanged, but practically they were passing to the body of officials who composed the king's household, which from Henry's reign is to be known distinctively as the Curia Regis, ^ and which under Roger's management rapidly developed into a court of all work, with business as manifold and varied as the rela- tions of the crown to the people. His custom was to Development _ ^ . . , ^. ^ ■,.-,„, . r^ Curia coufine Certain sessions to particular kinds of business Thus the members might be summoned to give advice upon state matters, the O^^dinary Cou7icil of the king; or they might be summoned as a simple court to hear an appeal from a lower court, or to try a dispute between the great barons, or to hear a charge of the king against a baron. Questions pertaining to the royal treasury also formed no small part of the business of the Curia, and when summoned for the consideration of such business it was known as the Court of Exchequer. Later these several meetings differentiate into separate committees, and finally into distinct courts. The local courts also demanded the attention of Henry and his great justiciar. By the custom of granting private jurisdictions the jurisdiction of the old courts of the hundred and the Ujcai^urts ^^^^® ^^^^ heew steadily contracted. Even lords who did not hold their lands with special liberties, did not hesi- tate to take advantage of the natural strength of their position in the local community to enforce the fullest jurisdiction. Flambard also had indirectly contributed to the decline of the public courts by using them as a means of extortion, and the people had begun to abandon them for the private courts of the feudal lords as more likely to do them justice. Accordingly, soon after Tenchebray, Henry set himself to restore the public courts, and issued orders for the holding of the courts of the shire and the hundred ^'according to the rlttiyres local ^^shion in wliich they had been held in the time of King no8^^' ^^'^"^ Edward and not otherwise. " Yet so unpopular had the shire courts become, so suspicious were the people of the king's officers, that Henry had to repeat the order four years later and support it by fining those who continued to disobey. 1 See p. 170. HENRY AND THE COURTS 195 Henry also sought to strengthen the local courts by sending out Justices from time to time from the Curia Regis to sit in the shire courts, thus emphasizing their ancient character circuit as king's courts. One such circuit, that of 1124, was famous for the hanging of forty-four thieves, which according to the Chro7iicle was a fair breaking of the record. Such commissions were as yet occasional and always special. Yet the way was indicated by which the ** superstructure of Norman cen- tralization was to be placed over the groundwork of English local government." It was left for the second Henry to complete the work by arranging definite circuits and fixing the periods of visita- tion. In the growing power of the king's court we are to see the growing power of the monarchy. Nor was it simply that the king thereby had forged an effective weapon for overawinsr The courts a« ^, , i /^ i i j i -, , i a source of the barons, but he had also developed a new source revenue. . . , . A . ii i • of income; always a primary motive at the basis of the judicial system of the Norman kings. ^ The fines and for- feitures decreed by the courts, gathered from the whole kingdom and swelled into a considerable stream by the time they reached the royal treasury, formed no inconsiderable part of its revenues. The increase of the crown revenues through the courts did not save the people from the burden of more direct taxation; ** bitterly they complained of the manifold taxes which never under ceased. " ''lie who had any property was bereaved of it, and he who had none starved with hunger." Bad harvests, sickness, or other misfortune, might not be pleaded in excuse for non-payment; the taxes were none the less regular, the crown officers none the less exacting. In 1109, when the Princess Matilda was betrothed to the emperor, an aid of three shillings per hide was levied not only on the baronage but on the entire population ; the first instance of the payment of a distinctly feudal aid by the nation. Beside Matilda, Henry had one other lawful child, a son, who bore the family name of William and who by reason of the ^Stubbs, a H., I, p. 425. 196 NORMAls" ORGANIZATION CONTINUED [henrt I. strain of English blood which he had inherited from hjs mother, was exceedingly popular with the English. Yet he but poorly re- quited their affection. He was thoroughly Norman in Princ6 tj ♦/ wiiimm, his sympathies, and looked with contempt upon his mother's people. He is not an attractive character, this William, with all the vices of his father's family and with nothing of his father's tact or self-control. In 1120 he had gone with his father to Normandy, where the Norman barons had formally accepted him as Henry's successor. But on the return a drunken crew managed to run the ship, the *' White Ship," upon a rock, where it sank with all on board. It has been the fashion of Eng- lish writers to lament the accident as a national calamity. It is true England might have been saved from the civil wars of the next reign. But then, some things are worse than civil war. The question of succession was at once reopened. William Clito, the son of Duke Robert, was the last representative of the male line of the Conqueror. He was a young man, ap- cim, death, parently of real ability, and withal of excellent character. Yet the long feud which he had waged with his uncle on the ground of his father's wrongs, made it impossible for Henry ever to accept him as his heir. The enmity of the two men was still further embittered by a new quarrel which sprang up on the death of Charles, the last count of Flanders. The French king supported William Clito who claimed the succession by right of descent from Matilda, queen of the Conqueror. Henry interfered and incited the Flemings to revolt, but was unable to prevent the succession. William's triumph, however, was of little profit; he died soon after from the effect of a slight wound, which the rude surgery of the day had failed to treat properly. Henry in the meanwhile had set his heart upon securing the succession in England for his daughter Matilda. On January 1, 1127 the great council formally acknowledged her right and Henry fixes swore to accept her as their future sovereign. She had umm m his j^^en left a childless widow by the recent death of the emperor, and Henry pledged his barons to find her a husband in England. But in 1128, without consulting the barons, he married Matilda to Geoffrey of Anjou, a bright handsome lad, Ma- THE LIOX OF JUSTICE 197 tilda's junior by many years. The English lords felt that the king had betrayed them. The Norman lords hated the Angeviiis with the bitterness born of a century of border warfare. Yet Henry persisted and compelled the barons to renew their oaths to Matilda; and when in 1133 prince Henry was born, the name of the grandson was joined in the oath with that of the mother. Two years later Henry I. suddenly died in the midst of his activities. He had been a great king. He had his faults, the somber side of his nature; yet they were not allowed to ontiem^S^ affect his public character. He was an indefatigable worker, and he exacted the same diligence and industry from all who served him. He reintroduced the lamp as an adjunct to the public service; for the daylight hours were all too few for liis tireless energy. Like his father, he was cold and hard. He asked no man to love him; yet he expected his people to respect him and obey his laws. His severity won for him the title of the **Lion of Justice." The death penalty, which had been confined to the Forest Laws, was put into practice against thieves and rob- bers. *'Great was the awe of him." **No man durst misdo against another." ''He made peace for man and beast. Whoso bore his burden of gold and silver, no man durst say aught to him but good." Henry saw that the people needed security from the oppression of the barons and rest from war and alarm, and to this end he bent all his splendid energies. His hand was an iron hand, Henry's . -, ■, ^ > policy but it gave peace; and the achievements of the country during his reign, its material and intellectual prosperity, fully justified his policy. The Crusades had greatly stimulated all forms of commercial and industrial activity; vast sums of money had been released and put into active circulation. The close con- nection of England with the continent, the result of the union with Normandy, the peace which reigned in the Channel, placed the English nation in a position to secure their full share of this new life. English merchants extended their operations to Flanders, Denmark, Ireland, and Brittany, and even sought connections with the great trading and banking firms of southern Europe. The craftsmen of the lands south of the Channel, weavers and manu- 198 NORMAN ORGANIZATION CONTINUED [hknryI. facturers of various kinds, who dwelt where barons were accus- tomed "to go a riding" as their lust for war and plunder dictated, turned to the land of the peace-loving king, and in ever increasing numbers began to seek its shelter, and thus added not a little to the development of the wealth and strength of the middle classes. Henry was not unmindful of the significance of this industrial revival, and showed himself willing to encourage it by granting Charters of Diany charters to English towns. The charters of Lon- towns. (Jon and Beverley are still preserved, and furnish valuable examples of the first achievements of English towns in securing local privileges.* The quickening of the moral and intellectual life of the people also kept pace with the political and industrial revival. This phase of the new life naturally found expression through Moral and ^ ^. . ^ ^. / ^, ^ , ^ intellectual monasticism ; for the monastery was the commonly rec- ognized agent through which society sought to realize its better aspirations. It was the most important of civilizing agencies ; it was not only hospital, dispensary, and asylum; it was university and library and printing press as well. Here in bleak cells simple- hearted scholars toiled through weary hours, copying with infinite pains the writings of the past. The abbey, moreover, was the inn or .hostelry of the period, and here the great folk of the age in their tireless passings to and fro were forced often to spend a night, and many a choice bit of courtly gossip fell upon the ears of the alert monk, to find its way ultimately into chronicle or more pretentious history. Men seemed to realize that stirring times were passing, that England was moving swiftly into a new era; and they sought to link past and future by leaving a fuller account of the present as they saw it. About the year 1120 the monks of Peterborough secured a copy of the old Worcester chronicle, that had come down from the days of Alfred the Great, and for thirty-four years longer continued the entries of this famous register. Henry of Hunting- don and William of Malmesbury, contemporaries of Henry I. and Anselm, also began their histories; such works show how seriously Englishmen were beginning to regard the actions of their public men. iStubbs, S. a, pp. 107-110. 1117-1133] EDUCATION 199 Historical writing was only one of many ways in which the quickened intellectual life of the age sought expression. Henry himself was an educated man. He spoke English and French as a matter of course, and could use Latin like a clerk. He saw to it that his children also were trained in the lore of the age. His court was familiar with the forms and faces of famous scholars. His son, Robert of Gloucester, was the par- ticular friend and patron of William of Malmesbury. At Beau- mont, on the northern side of Oxford, Henry erected a palace, and the neighborhood became a popular place for the gathering of learned men. Here, sometime before the year 1117, Thibaut d'Estampes gathered some half hundred or more scholars to whom he gave instruction in letters. In 1133 Robert Pullin lectured on the Scriptures, and was soon after seconded by Vacarius, who began lectures on the civil law.* Upon the informal beginnings made by such men grew up in time the noble group of schools known as the University of Oxford. In other ways also the monastery contributed to swell the tide of new influences which was moving England. The Clnniac reform had reached its height during the reign of the The^ciunUic ^^st William, and his policy of appointing Normans to rule over English abbeys, as well as the policy of intro- ducing into England new colonies of Norman monks, had done much to bring English monasticism into touch with the monastic life of the continent; yet, although the influence of these foreign ecclesiastics over the English clergy was very great, although their advent had inaugurated a new church-building era, the results of which in the vastness, ornateness, and splendor of individual structures surpassed anything which England had yet seen,^ ^The commonly accepted date, 1149, is doubtful. 2 Of these structures the most famous was old St. Paul's of London. A building had been begun in 1083, but was burned in the great fire four years later. The rebuilding was undertaken by Bishop Maurice and took forty years to finish. The dimensions of the completed edifice were: length, 720 feet ; breadth, 130 feet; height of body of church, 130 feet ; while the steeple rose to the magnificent height of 520 feet. According to William of Malmesbury, the building was capable of containing the "utmost conceivable number of worshipers." The structure survived 200 NORMAN ORGANIZATION CONTINUED [hbnkyI. the fact that the new ecclesiastics were of foreign birth cut them off largely from the sympathy of the nation; nor was it until the generation of the Conquest had passed to the grave and the reign of Henry I. was drawing to its close, that their influence began to reach beyond the walls of chapter or monastery to affect the lives of the people in more direct ways. In the year 1128 the forerunners of the Cistercian revival began to reach England, This new order was an offshoot of the older Benedictine brotherhood ; it had been founded by Rob- "cicmr&oivai ^^^ ^^ Molesme at Citeaux in 1098; its members adopted the rules of Clnny and applied them unsparingly in the regulation of food and dress. The older monasteries had become very wealthy. Wealth had led to luxury, if not to riotous living. The monastery was lord of manors, with vassals and revenues ; it furnished its quota of knights at the king's call. The abbot vied with bishops in dignity and power; he had his wine cellars; he kept his stables and kennels. There had never been lacking, how- ever, godly men who felt that all this fine living, this ostentation of wealth, was not in keeping with the ideals of the monastic life, and to such elements the apostolic simplicity of the Cistercians, their lives of voluntary poverty, and their deep religions zeal, voiced in the stirring appeals of men like Bernard of Clairvaux, the famous preacher of the second Crusade, came with peculiar power. The appearance of the Cistercians in England was the signal for the beginning of a wide-reaching religious revival. "Everywhere in town and country men banded themselves together of^cM^rcimis ^^^ Player ; hermits flocked to the woods ; . . . a new inEngiand, gpjrit of devotion woke the slumbers of the religious houses, and penetrated alike to the home of the noble and the trader. " ^ Nor did the revival pass away in mere devo- tional excitement ; it left a deep and permanent mark upon the many vicissitudes until it was swept away in the great fire of the year 1666. Another building which also dates from this period, famous in later years as containing the tomb of Milton, is the Church of St. Giles at Crip- plegate, the order for the destruction of which has recently (Jan., 1901) gone forth. 1 Green, H. E. P., vol. I, p. 157. THE CISTERCIANS 201 nation and upon the age. A new class of ecclesiastics came for- ward who owed their positions not to political influence but to their reputation for "holiness of life and unselfishness of aim;" who sought to give practical expression to religious devotion in rearing hospitals and founding schools ; who did not hesitate to confront lawless barons, and who compelled even kings to listen to the pleadings of the national conscience. The churches of the Cluniac monks had abounded in decora- tions, in beautiful windows of stained glass; their services were equally ornate. The asceticism of the Cistercians arcMUciure ^^^ended to the service as well as to the luxurious lives of the religious orders. They despised ornament both in building and in ritual. Yet in the very simplicity of their buildings they attained a dignity and grandeur, a beauty of form, which the ostentatious Cluniacs missed altogether.* It was the custom of the Cistercians also in their desire to avoid display or ostentation to search for sites for their monastic settle- ments in some abandoned wilderness, some lonely spot Cisterciam . ,, , , , \ -, , , as wool- in the forest, some waste bottom-land, where they busied themselves in the homely but practical service of clearing woodland or draining fens. It was due to them that, beginning with the twelfth century, pasture-farming derives a new importance in the history of English industries. Large parts of northern England had been practically unoccupied since the days of the Conqueror, and these desolate regions afforded most favor- able conditions for the breeding of sheep. The Cistercians discov- ered that this form of industry promised most abundant rewards, and turned to it as their special avocation, becoming par excellence the sheep-raisers of medieval England, greatly encouraging wool- growing and all the accompanying industries. ^ The famous Abbey of Fountains, near Ripon, said to be the finest ecclesiastical ruin in England, is an illustration of the Cistercian style. It was built in the fourteenth century. y CHAPTER V FEUDAL REACTION AND THE RECONSTITUTION OF THE KINGDOM STEPHEN, 1135-1154 HENRY II., 1154-1189 FAMILIES OF BLOIS AND BOULOGNE BLOIS Stephen = Adela Ct. of Blois, youngest child Chartres, and of the Conqueror Champagne m. 1086, d. 1137 Theobald IV., the Great, Ct. of Blois, Chartres, and Champagne ; d.ll52 I I Stephen Ct. of Mortain and Boulogne, 1125; King of England, 1135; d. 1154 Henry ('t. of Cham- pagne and Troyes Theobald V. Ct. of Blois and Chartres Henry Bishop of Winches- ter; Pai)al legate Stephen Lord of Sancerre BOULOGNE Eustace 11. = Godgifu, d. of Ct. of Boulogne d. (about) 1093 Ethelred, the Eedeless Eustace III. = Mary, g. d. Godfrey Ct. of Bou- logne, d. 1135 Stephen King of England of Malcolm of Bouil- and Mar- Ion, Duke garet of Scotland Matilda, d. 1152 Baldwin King of Edessa; after 1100 King of of Lower Lorraine, First Christian Jerusa King of lem, d Jerusa- 1118 lem, d. 1100 Eustace William Mary, Abbess Other d, 1153 Ct. of of Romsey; children Boulogne 1159 succeeded of minor 1154-1159 to Boulogne; Impor- m. Deitrich tance of Flanders When the masterful Henry was no more it was hardly to be expected that the barons would show much respect for the disposi- tion which he had made of the succession. The barons sirniof considered themselves specially grieved by what they regarded as the late king's bad faith, and felt no obliga- tion to keep the oath which they had made to the daughter and the grandson. Matilda, moreover, had spent much of her life abroad; the people knew little of her, and that little had left a most unfavorable impression. When, therefore, Stephen, the Count of Mortain and Boulogne, the son of the Conqueror's daughter, Adela, presented himself as the rival of Matilda, brave, generous, debonaire, and already well known and popular in Eng- 202 1135] UNFITNESS OF STEPHEN 203 land, all classes welcomed him; the towns greeted him with enthusiasm; the great officers of Henry I. declared for him; and the clergy, headed by Stephen's younger brother, Henry, bishop of Winchester, entered upon an active campaign in his support. The Norman barons hesitated, not because of any lingering loValty to Matilda but because they preferred Stephen's elder brother, Theobald the Great, the powerful count of Blois, Chartres, and Champagne. The prompt action of Stephen, however, forestalled any movement on behalf of Theobald; Theobald himself quietly acquiesced in what appeared to be the choice of the English nation, and the barons almost to a man went over to Stephen. So Stephen was crowned and not Matilda; in all England and Normandy Matilda possessed not a single open adherent. Stephen had hardly entered upon his first year before good men began to realize that a serious mistake had been made, and that he was singularly unfitted for the ^tfum^^ task which he had assumed. He had made many proni- ises: he would not use the church lands for gain; he would abolish the wrongs sprung of the overfree exercise of the authority of the sheriff; he would do away with the hated Dane- geld; he would surrender the forests made in Henry's reign; he would observe 'Hhe good laws and customs of Henry and Edward the Confessor. " * * These thi ngs chiefly and others he vowed to God , but he kept none of them." He was as lavish with his gifts as with his promises ; but he bestowed them not upon those who had first declared for him but upon those who held back and sought to barter allegiance for a price. Among these was David of Scot- land, who was an English baron by reason of lands which he held in England. He made a show of declaring for Matilda, invading England and seizing the northern castles, but allowed Stephen to buy him off by adding Carlisle to his possessions and bestowing upon his son Henry the earldom of Huntingdon. Such a policy on Stephen's part was suicidal; it whetted the appetites of others who saw that they had yielded all too readily to the new king, for subjects had nothing to fear from this overgenerous sovereign, who in rcAvarding his servants recognized treason rather than service. 204 FEUDAL REACTIOK [stkphbn Stephen's head was none of the clearest, and yet even he could see that things were going wrong, and that reaction was setting in against him. But he only added blunder to blunder. ders of To strengthen himself he introduced an army of Flemish mercenaries ; no measure could have been more fatal to his waning popularity, which in the first place had been largely based upon his supposed opposition to foreign influence. But, as if this blunder were not serious enough, Stephen allowed the barons whom he regarded as his adherents to build and fortify castles of their own, where they gathered private bands of armed retainers and soon began to exercise over the people of the surrounding country all the brutal tyrannies which had made the baronage of France so justly feared and hated. Yet these concessions, while they alienated the people, failed to win the barons; for they were more than offset by the strange fatuity with which Stephen insisted upon raising certain base-born favorites to the high grade of earl; a policy which only roused the scorn of the older baronage and won for the king their lasting hatred and contempt. By 1136 Stephen's hands were full of trouble. The perfidious David had again taken up arms, while the powerful Robert, Earl of Gloucester, the half-brother of Matilda, had gathered Outbreak of the barons of the west and south and also declared for civil war. Stephen's rival. Yet Stephen's cause was by no means desperate. He was a good soldier, and soon won marked successes in the west, where Hereford and Shrewsbury were taken, while his *'good queen," Matilda, daughter and heiress of the younger Eustace of Boulogne,* not to be confounded with the other Matilda, captured Dover. In 1138 Earl Robert Urn. the was driven from the country and some of his garrisons standard, were hanged. David of Scotland also was beaten at Northallerton in the famous Battle of the Standard, by an army of barons and yeomanry, whom Thurstan, the aged primate of York, had called together and dispatched under Walter Lespec to hold the road into Yorkshire. All in all, the first years of the war had gone well for Stephen ; too well, in fact, for his head had been completely turned by his suc- ^ See table at head of chapter. 1139] THE BREAK WITH THE CHURCH 205 cesses, and he seized upon this moment for his fatal break with the church. Henry's justiciar, Roger bishop of Salisbury, was still the great man of the kingdom, and controlled all its Fh^^i "^'/f administrative machinery. His son, a second Roger, was chancellor; his nephew, Nigel, the bishop of Ely, wa^ treasurer; still another nephew was bishop of Lincoln. It is easy to see why Stephen should become jealous of this powerful family, who now for a full generation had managed the '* judicial and financial business of the kingdom." It is not so easy to under- stand the strange blindness which permitted him to break with them. Roger had many bitter enemies among the barons, but he had made them his enemies in the king's service. He and his nephews had built strong castles and were accustomed to go up to court attended by a magnificent array of retainers. This was all contrary to law, but everywhere the barons, the very vassals of Roger and his kinsmen, were building castles and arming their retainers. With vast revenues at command, therefore, and the dignity of the state to uphold, Roger could hardly do less. Be this as it may, in June 1131) Stephen suddenly arrested the justiciar and the chancellor, the two Rogers, and also the bishop of Lin- coln, and forced them to surrender their castles. The move was a double blunder. In the first place the *' whole mechanism of the state at once came to a stand still." In the second place the church, which had been from the first thoroughly loyal to the king, raised the cry of privilege, and when Stephen stubbornly held to his purpose, the clerical leaders, headed by Henry of Winchester, went over to the Angevin side. Thus Stephen, in striking down Roger, had done more than strike down a powerful family; he had cut away the ground from under his own feet. The royal income at once ceased, SerioiixnesH iii. hi nf Stephen's and the king was compelled to resort to the shabby expe- blunder. -,. , ^ -,. f • rr., . , , • . , dient of dishonest coinage. The national levies refused to respond to his call, and he was compelled to summon from the continent a horde of ruffian adventurers, who were willing to look to the plunder of the battle field and the looting of the houses of citizens for their pay. In September the Angevin Matilda arrived, accompanied by Robert of Gloucester, and Stephen at last found 206 FEUDAL REACTION [stephen himself in the field face to face with his powerful rival, but shorn of all the advantages which belonged to him as the crowned and accepted king. Matilda the ex-empress, however, did not succeed in winning the confidence which Stephen had squandered. The barons as a class were well pleased with the discord, and desired to of^narcinj ^^^1^ neither Stephen nor Matilda, ''lest if the one were overcome, the other should be free to govern them." ^ Henry of Winchester, who had been appointed papal legate a short time before the arrest of Eoger, and who held a position of influ- ence in the church even greater than that of Theobald, the new archbishop of Canterbury, sought to act as arbitrator; but he was without military support and found himself compelled to favor first one side and then the other. Castles soon began to blossom on every hill side; each with its independent lord, who bullied and browbeat his neighbors, spreading* the terror of his name over the country for many miles around. And as "some would endure no superior and some not even an equal, they fought among themselves with deadly hatred," spoiling the fairest regions with fire and rapine. "They greatly oppressed the wretched peo- ple by making them work at these castles, and when the castles were finished they filled them with devils and evil men. Then they took those whom they suspected of having any goods, by night and by day, seizing both men and women, and they put them in prison for their gold and silver and tortured them with pains unspeak- able. " ^ "They were continually levying an exaction on the towns, which they called tenserie (protection money), and when the wretched inhabitants had no more to give, then plundered they and burned all the towns, so that thou mightest well walk a whole day's journey, nor ever shouldst thou find a man seated in a town, or its lands tilled." ^ Trade and agriculture were of course impos- sible; "if three men came riding into a town, all the inhabitants fled." "God and the saints," it was said, "were asleep." Devil- ish engines of tort are called "rachen tages" were so cunningly con- ^ Henry of Huntingdon, p. 227. 2 William of Newbury, I, 22. ^ Aug. Sax. Chronicle, A. D. 1137. 1139-1141] DECLINE OF MATILDA'S POWER 207 trived, that when one was fastened about a man's neck, he could neither ** sleep, nor stand nor lie, but had to bear all the weight of iron." Men were hung up over slow fires and left to suffocate in the choking smoke; they were cast alive into dungeons, swarm- ing with rats and toads, and there left to die and rot. In the years 1139 and 1140 Matilda and Robert succeeded in establishing themselves in the western counties. Stephen con- tinued to hold his own in the east. But in 1141 he was Matilda, defeated by Robert and Ralph of Chester in an attempt 1139-1141. . to rescue Lincoln, and himself fell into the hands of the victors. For a short time Matilda's cause was in the ascendant; Oxford castle was surrendered, and London submitted. In April Bishop Henry called a great council at Winchester and formally acknowledged Matilda as *'the Lady of the English." There was now no question of Stephen's unfitness for his office; he had tried to rule and had failed. It was Matilda's turn to give evidence of even greater unfitness, if that were possible. T!le[^o/^' ^^® ^^^ Ethelred the Redeless in petticoats. She ^Matildas refused to listen to the counsel of Henry of Winchester and drove him from her by her injustice. She insti- tuted a wholesale confiscation of the lands of those who had sided with Stephen; she seized the property of the church and disposed of it to her liking ; she attempted to extort money from leading citizens by open violence, and bluntly refused to grant the plea of the people of London for the laws of Edward the Confessor. The landing in Kent of the other Matilda, the queen of Stephen, with a force of Flemings at once brought on the reaction. London rose as one man; and '*The Lady of the English" was hurled from her high state even more rapidly than she had risen. Then she turned her wrath upon Bishop Henry and sought to take him in his own castle. But Stephen's queen, with her Flemings and the men of London, compelled her to raise the siege and withdraw. Robert of Gloucester was taken in endeavoring to cover the retreat. The capture of Robert was the beginning of the end as far as the dynastic struggle was concerned. In the autumn he was exchanged for Stephen, but the fall of Oxford the next year ended the forward movement of Matilda's party. For five years longer 208 FEUDAL REACTION [stephen she remained in England; but both sides were now so exhausted that neither could make headway against the other, or chain the turbulent spirits which they had unloosed. Geoffrey de End of dynastic Mandeville, who had been appointed earl of Essex by both claimants, yielded to neither and betrayed either as it suited him. The earl of Leicester and his brother, the count of Meulan, held the midlands, but proposed to be neutral. North England was held by the Scottish king. So matters stood, until the capture of Ralph of Chester in 1146, followed by the death of Robert of Gloucester the next year, finally discouraged Matilda and she withdrew to the continent. After the departure of Matilda, the war was left to burn itself out in local partizan strife; the preaching of a new Crusade drew off some of the more restless spirits ; the clergy slowly ofihSrm I'^covered their influence and the king again guaranteed them protection. Thus gradually the storm subsided; but England was sinking hopelessly into the hands of the feudal baronage. Even Stephen, rash and headstrong as he was, shrank from stirring up such a new war as would be necessary to force upon his barons the system which had prevailed under his prede- cessors. While Matilda had been thus pursuing her dubious way in Eng- land, her husband, Geoffrey Plantagenet, had with better success been reducing the castles of Normandy. By 1144 he had ^erwi^of g^i^^^d control of the entire duchy and was recognized Anjou.^^^ by Louis VII. of France as duke of Normandy; six years later he turned it over to Prince Henry, then in his seventeenth year. In 1149 the young duke appeared in England,^ but little came of his visit, save a knighting at the hand of his great-uncle, David of Scotland. His power on the continent, how- ever, continued to increase. In 1151 Geoffrey died, and Henry became also lord of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine. In the following spring he married Eleanor, the divorced wife of Louis VII. , and secured her magnificent heritage, Aquitaine, Poitou, Saintonge, and Limousin. Henry had thus become lord of all western France, ^ He had visited England before in 1142 and in 1147. THE AXGEVIN DOMINIONS Y-^ Ll. "l-y^ i>- ' 115l] RENEWAL OF THE STRUGGLE ^09 Brittany alone excepted. He was the mightiest subject in the west. The jealousy of Louis VII., Henry's overlord, was thoroughly aroused. He hated Henry because he had married Eleanor and won her lands. He feared him because of his of the power. He encouraged Stephen to allow his eldest 8 rtwg . ^^^ Eustace to join in an attempt to wrest Normandy from Henry's hands. A first attempt had been made in 1151 before the death of Duke Geoffrey. The second.attempt, made after the marriage of Eleanor, fared no better, although Louis was sup- ported by Henry's younger brother Geoffrey of Anjou, Theobald v., count of Blois, nephew of Stephen, and others of Henry's vas- sals. Henry drove back the French king, brought his own vassals to terms, and then turned to carry out the invasion of England for which he had been planning for two years. In England matters were drifting from bad to worse. The church was now thoroughly involved in the quarrel, and was as seriously rent asunder as the baronage. Theobald, the wJepoSe^'"* archbishop of Canterbury, had sided with the Angevins, while Henry Murdoc, recently won by Stephen, had been made archbishop of York. Appeals to Rome, virtually unknown during the early Norman period, had become absurdly- frequent. For every petty quarrel men hastened off to Rome to get the judgment of the pope, and in January 1151 Stephen sent Archbishop Henry to get the papal sanction for the immediate coronation of Eustace. The coronation of the son before the death of the reigning king had been common enough in France but had been heretofore unknown in England. It was Stephen's last hope. The ground was sinking beneath him. Even the barons of his own making were growing weary of the strife and he felt that since he could not depend upon them, a coronation at the command of the pope might furnish a respectable claim for Eustace. But the pope had no wish to see the confusion continue ; Stephen, moreover, had sinned too grievously against the church to be easily forgiven. The pope, therefore, not only refused to sanction the consecration of Eustace, but forbade the English bishops to have anything to do with the proposed ceremony. Armed with this prohibition 210 FEUDAL REACTION [stbphbn the bishops refused all the solicitations of Stephen. Stephen became furious and threatened them with personal violence. A few apparently indicated their willingness to submit; the rest refused ; Theobald retired to the continent. Stephen then once more drew the sword, took Newbury and advanced upon Walling- ford whose garrison through all these years had refused to recog- nize any other lord save Matilda and her son. It was at this juncture that Henry reached England. His army was small/ but many men were hardly needed; all classes were disgusted with the senseless tyranny of Stephen. fourth ap- The Angevin garrison at Wallingford was saved ; Malmes- BngimiV bury fell ; other places as Warwick, Leicester, Stamford, and Nottingham either were taken outright or their garrisons declared for Henry of their own accord. At this point the sudden death of Eustace gave an entirely new aspect to the struggle by removing Stephen's l^st hope of securing the crown in his own family. A plan of com- Eustace, promise had already been proposed, by which Henry ^" * should withdraw and Stephen should recognize him as his heir. As long as Eustace lived, Stephen had been loath to yield, but there could be no reason now for holding out longer. He had other children, but on account of their youth they had not been identified with the struggle and had no following. Accord- ingly Stephen determined to accept terms which promised him a whole kingdom for the rest of his life in lieu of the fragment which then acknowledged him. The terms of the treaty are of importance because better than the rhetorical effusions of any chronicler, they present the results of "this period of unprecedented general misery" and Wallingford, the longing of the nation for peace. It was in fact a definite scheme of reform, an expression of the desire of all parties to get back again to the order and unity which had pre- vailed under Henry I. (1) The royal rights were to be resumed by the king. (2) All estates were to be returned to the lawful owners who had enjoyed them in King Henry's day. (3) The ''adulterine" or unlicensed castles which had been erected during ^ 140 men-at-arms and 3,000 foot. Ramsay, II, 448. 1154] DEATH OF STEPHEN 211 Stephen's reign to the number of eleven hundred and fifteen, were to be destroyed.^ (4) The king was to restock the desohite country, employ the husbandmen, and as far as possible restore agriculture and replace the flocks and herds in the impoverished pastures. (5) The clergy were to have their peace and not be unduly taxed. (6) The jurisdiction of the sheriffs was to be revived and men were to be placed in the office who would not make it a means of gratifying private friendship or hatred, but would exercise due severity and give every man his own; thieves and robbers were to be hanged. (7) The bands of mercenary sol- diers were to be broken up and sent home ; the Flemings to be relegated to their workshops, *' there to labor for their lords, instead of exacting labor as lords from the English." (8) The general security was to be maintained, commerce to be encouraged, and a uniform coinage struck. (9) Stephen was to retain the crown during the rest of his life, but Henry was to succeed him.' The negotiations were begun at Wallingford in the summer, but were not concluded until the November following at Westminster. On the 13th day of the new year Henry received the stenhen 1154 ^^^^ ^^ ^^® barons at Oxford, and in Lent returned to the continent. The long struggle of fourteen years was at last ended. Stephen had pledged himself to restore the king- dom; but even at hi« best he would have been unfit for such a task. He was now, moreover, a broken man; the spirit was gone out of him; and a few months after the return of Henry he passed away, leaving the great part of the work of restoration still undone. Henry had just reached his twenty-first year. He was of square frame, in later years inclining to the stout, with fiery face, short red hair, bull neck, bowed legs; as restless and active opHmriT ^^ ^^ ^^^ strong. He was temperate in food and drink ; careless in dress; well versed in books; talkative, and inquisitive, yet cautious; coarse in his tastes and unscrupulous. He was one of the few monarchs of his time who cared for power more than for glory or pleasure. His entire thought he devoted ^ This has been the commonly accepted estimate but the number prob- ably did not exceed a third of this. 2Stubbs, C. H. I, p. 361. 212 FEUDAL REACTION [henry II. to business, and took delight in looking after the smallest details himself and in experimenting with different methods. In matters of religion he showed a startling irreverence, mingled with curious superstition. He would amuse himself during mass by scribbling or whispering, occasionally breaking out into paroxysms of ungov- ernable profanity ; yet he could be terrified by an accusing con- science and at times sink into depths of hopeless remorse. Energy, force, the love of order, and the masterfulness of both races were concentrated in the fiery blood of this Korman- Angevin; and he had need of it all. His first task was of the to take up the work of restoration and reorganization as Stephen had left it. The foreign mercenaries were sent home. The destruction of the illegal castles continued. The new earls who had been set up by Stephen and Matilda were deposed, and the royal domains which had been frittered away when the rivals were bidding against each other for support, were taken again "into the king's hand." The king of Scotland was forced to give up Northumberland and Cumberland. If a baron refused to give up his lands or renounce his privileges, as in the case of William of Aumale who had intrenched himself in the north at Scarborough castle, the king promptly took the field and brought the rebel to terms. So effectively in short did Henry set his face against the further continuance »f feudal practices, private warfare or private coinage or private justice, that in an incredibly short time the work was finished and the last traces of the anarchy which had disgraced Stephen's reign, had been stamped out. Henry then set himself to restore the administrative system of the kingdom. The great council was revived and once more honored by the confidence of the king. The Curia of the system Regis was also restored and strengthened. Able men were selected for office ; Robert, earl of Leicester, and Richard de Lucy became justiciars; Becket became chancellor and Nigel of Ely, a nephew of the great Roger of Salisbury, treasurer. The revenues soon increased threefold. The sheriffs were required to come to the exchequer twice a year in order to render account for the collection of taxes and the management of the king's THE EXCHEQUEB 213 estates. Their accounts were kept by means of *' tallies" or notched sticks. These *' tallies" were issued in duplicate, the exchequer keeping one, the sheriff carrying the other away in his wallet. In the exchequer chamber the officers sat about a dark covered table and the ac- counting was carried on before them in full view, by means of discs or counters. 12S45S78 DIAGRAM OF THR KXCHKQUKR TABLK.« The resemblance of the operation to the game of chess probably suggested the name, exchequer. It was a primitive method, but one which could be easily understood by all, and was in fact nec- essary when sheriffs generally could neither read nor write. The most striking figure at Henry's council-board was his chancellor, Thomas a Becket. Thomas was born of one of the Norman families, which had recently V EXCHKQUER TALLIES, OF BKIOS OF HENRY III.l ^ From Introduction to Pipe Rolls — The large notches on left side of tallies represent pounds. The smaller notches on the right side represent shillings, the lines pence. 2 From Introduction to Pipe Rolls — 1-8, white wands, or chalk-lines, marking the columns of account, a a, teruiinal spaces, before which sat, on the right, the chancellor and his suite, on the left, the sheriff and suite. 214 FEUDAL REACTION [hbney II. established itself in England. His parents had brought him up with great care, and sent him to the continent to complete his education. He had then returned to England and en- BeckeT^ tered the household of Archbishop Theobald, where he rose rapidly.^ He had also attracted the attention of the young king and with the approval of Theobald was made chancellor. He was some fifteen years the senior of Henry, and as long as Thomas remained in the chancellorship, the two were congenial spirits with but '*one heart and one mind." They were often seen together, riding or hunting ; now bent in earnest converse at the council-board, and again making the passer-by stare, as they tumbled each other in rough horse-play. Thomas unlike the king was tall and spare, dark haired, but fair skinned and somewhat pale. His countenance was pleasing, his manners blithe and winning, and with no suggestion of the ascetic. He took pride in having the most sumptuous table in England, and was exceedingly fond of fine apparel, upon which the king loved to chaff him. He was strong of limb and loved vigorous hand-play. Although a churchman, he led a band of 700 men-at-arms at Toulouse and overcame a French knight in single combat. His speech was quick and frank, yet halting somewhat when under excitement. *'In youth he had been known as a good chess-player, a bold rider, and a keen sportsman. He hated liars and slanderers. He was a kind friend to dumb brutes and to all poor and helpless folk." As chancellor, Thomas identified himself thoroughly with Henry's schemes of reform. When the war of Toulouse was undertaken in 1159, it was Thomas who suggested to Henry the expedient of levying the scutage. The object of the war was to enforce the claims of Queen Eleanor to the suzerainty of Toulouse. Henry could hardly compel his English tenants to Touiome^^ accompany him on a war of this kind over sea. It was (^nd^^(^utage, proposed therefore to allow a kind of commutation of service for a money payment of two marks for each knight's fee; an expedient by no means unknown before this ^ It is said that he was at Rome when Henry Murdoc appeared to pre- sent Stephen's case and that it was largely due to his influence that the pope decided against the coronation of Eustace, see p. 209. 1159-1162] THOMAS A BECKET 215 period. This was the famous scutage and was paid not by the great barons/ but by those of the king's tenants who did not have large estates, and by under-tenants who could ill afford to leave their farms for so long a time. The move was certainly a wise one. The holders of small fees were given to husbandry rather than to war, and it was in the king's interests, especially after the dis- tractions of the recent civil wars, to encourage this class of his tenants in the pursuits of peace, rather than to tear them away to engage in the hazards of a foreign campaign. The additional rev- enue of tlie crown could also be turned to practical account in enabling the king to draw to his standard the professional sol- diers who were ever floating about Europe and were far more efficient in this kind of warfare than men who left their homes with reluctance, and who had little heart for the hardships of a war in which they took no interest. From Henry's day the scutage becomes more common ; it foreshadows a radical change in the methods of medieval warfare. Unfortunately for Thomas, Henry's scheme of reform included the church as well as the civil organization. The Conqueror had carefully separated the two inrisdictions ; and the recent Thomas, J r j j archbishop, anarcliy had taught the clergy the full value of their special privileges. When therefore Henry proposed to bring the whole state under one system of law, he found a serious obstacle in the jealousy with which the clergy regarded any innova- tion which threatened to invade their peculiar immunities. In 11()1 the venerable Theobald died, and Henry proposed to put at the head of the English church none other than his fine chan- cellor. Some of the barons remembered the scutage and grumbled ; but the obsequious churchmen regularly elected Thomas and con- secrated him to the vacant see of Canterbury. Never was king more deceived in his man. Becket felt the hollowness of his past life in the presence of the new Effect of new , . . , , ^ . ^ ,^ -, . 1 , ' ^ • cc^r rei^ponsihiu- dignity to which the king proposed to raise him. ''You ThAimas's are choosinff a fine dress," he exclaimed 'Ho figure at character. n •> o the head of your Canterbury monks." He felt too the weight of the new responsibility which he must face, and shrank * Baldwin, Scutage and Knight's Service in England, pp. 19-57. 216 FEUDAL REACTION^ [henrt II. from it; ^'Whoever is made archbishop," he said, **must quickly give offense either to God or to the king." These protestations were the expression of no sham humility on Thomas's part; but the voice rather of a deeper nature, which through all these years had been in slumber, which Henry had never recognized and which possibly Thomas himself had but vaguely comprehended. It was this deeper nature, so unlike the gay worldling of the court, that awoke under unwonted burdens, and made Thomas as completely a man of the church as he had been before a man of the world. He at once resigned his chancellorship, much to the disgust of the king; renounced the vain amusements of the court and changed his whole mode of life. The same absorbing care which he had bestowed upon his civil office, he now gave to his new duties, relieving the poor and caring for the sick. I^or in his solicitude for the proper ministration of his office did he neglect his private religious duties. Yet of this inner life, men saw little; for Thomas was a magnificent archbishop. His dress was still of the richest, his tables as of yore groaned under the load of good things; but the guests had changed, instead of the gay butterflies of the court, the poor now sat down with Thomas. However, few understood him ; even in his charities men saw the same ostentation, that had once expressed itself in fine clothes. But when it was all over, and the assassins had fled from the pres- ence of their victim, and the terrified monks came creeping back into the dark chancel and took up the mangled corpse, then they knew this man. *' Beneath the splendid robes they found the hair cloth, and saw on the body the stripes of daily secret penance." It was not long before the king discovered the true nature of his new archbishop. The next year after the election the king, at a council held at Woodstock, proposed to enroll as a of Woodstock, part of the royal revenue, the two shillings which the sheriffs were accustomed to take from each hide in pay- ment of their services.^ To this Thomas protested, and his vigorous words certainly were ominous of coming storm. *'We will not give this money as revenue," he declared, *'but if the sheriffs and servants and ministers of the shires shall perform their ^ Not Danegeld. See Round, F. E., p. 497 and following. 1163] THE COURTS AND THE CLERGY 217 duties as they should, we will not be lacking in contributing to their aid. " Becket was right and Henry had to yield. The issue between church and state, however, was not to be joined upon the taxation of church lands, but upon the broader question of the proper jurisdiction of the church courts. ^iiSictum ^^®^ since the church courts had been separated from the temporal courts, it was uncertain just where lay the boundaries which marked their respective jurisdictions. The system of canon law also, which had been introduced into the English church courts during the past century, had given rise to methods of procedure, very different from those in use in the secular courts. Appeals to Rome were encouraged and the num- ber had greatly increased. Most serious, however, was the custom of trying a ''criminous clerk'' in the court of the bishop, where if found guilty, he had little to fear save the imposition of a penance, or imprisonment in a monastery or a fine. At most he would only be unfrocked and deprived of the privileges of his order. In theory he should be degraded and handed over to the civil court ; but the churchmen were so jealous of their own independence, that they were inclined to spare even a notorious criminal, rather than call upon the laity to punish one of their members. The king's justiciars alleged that since the beginning of Henry's reign "no less than one hundred murderers and innumerable thieves and robbers" had in this way escaped punishment. Henry with his characteristic bluntness went straight to the point, and proposed that henceforth clerical criminals should be tried by the secular courts just as ordinary persons, and proposed that while they might be degraded by their bishops, they should be punished by the secular arm with the severity which the law prescribed. Thomas acknowledged the abuse, but claimed that the remedy was to be sought, not in sacrificing the independence of the church, but by greater care in receiving those who were presented for orders. And this he, as archbishop, had already conscientiously set himself to do. In 1163 the question was brought to a direct issue by the case of Philip de Broi, who was accused of a capital crime but escaped by claiming benefit of clergy. The impetuous king would not be 218 FEUDAL REACTION" [hknry il. put off longer and in a great council held at Westminster, put the direct question to the bishops : Would they abide by the customs Councils of which prevailed in the time of Henry I. ? The cliurchmen, Sciaren^ however, were wary and would not commit themselves, so ^^^^' that the discussion was renewed again at Clarendon in the following January when Becket finally agreed to '*obey the cus- toms of the realm." Henry then ordered the justiciar, Richard de Lucy, to present a list of these customs; in nine days the report known as the Gonstitutio7is of Clarendon was ready. ^ The discussion, however, had evidently drifted beyond the dis- posal of criminous clerks, and taken in the whole series of ques- comtitutims *^^^^ raised by the ill-defined relations of church and ^^mmary^^' state. Not only were clerkly criminals no longer to be ^^^^- sheltered, but all questions concerning church patronage or church contracts or injuries claimed by clergymen against laymen, were to be tried in the king's courts. Offenses not capital commit- ted by clergymen and suits relating to church lands held by spiritual service, were to be tried in the church courts. A layman could not be punished by the church courts. Tenants in chief or officers of the king could not be excommunicated without the king's consent. A clergyman could hot appeal to Rome; nor were archbishops, bishops, or other persons to be allowed to leave the realm without the license of the king. No villain could be ordained without his lord's permission; no bishop could be chosen without the king's permission. To Thomas the constitutions were a cunning piece of tyranny. Whether in a moment of weakness he was induced by the bishops, who were now all with the king, to give his formal SSi^BSet? assent or not is doubtful. At all events he left the council, determined to fight for his cause to the end ; while Henry as naturally determined to use all his power to force the stubborn primate to resign. He summoned him to appear at a council at Northampton and then fined him for not coming. He made him give an account of the various moneys which he had handled as chancellor, although the justiciar, Richard de Lucy, 1 Stubbs S. C. pp. 135-140. Also, Gee and Hardy, Documents, pp. 68-70. 1166-1176] henry's reforms 219 had formally released him from all claims when he resigned his office. Thomas, broken in fortune and forsaken by his fellow clergy, believed that his life was in danger and fled to Flanders. The king turned his anger upon the church of Canterbury and the dependents of Thomas, confiscating the revenues of the see and driving into exile the kinsmen and friends of the archbishop, to the number of four hundred. Henry, relieved by the voluntary exile of Becket, then went on with his reforms. As early as the Assize of Clareiidon^ 11G(>, he had begun again to send the justices from the £'*l5^**^^*' Curia Regis to sit in the shire courts. Besides admin- istering justice, they were also expected "to look after the collection of the royal revenues, the enrollment of each person in a frank-pledge, and to see that all proper precautions were taken for keeping the king's peace." These justices were known as justices-in-eyre^ from the Latin in itinere. In 1176 Henry formally divided England into the six permanent circuits which have remained with slight modification until recent times. The methods of procedure also received the touch of the same master hand. Civil causes, such as a dispute between two neigh- bors over the boundary of their farms, or the ownership Methods of . . -,,111 legal pro- of a piece of wood, or the sale and purchase of cattle, had in ancient times been settled in full shire-moot by hearing the statements on oath of persons who claimed to know the facts; the decision was given by the body of suitors present. The Normans had introduced the judicial duel, or combat, in which the disputants, or in case of women or monks or the aged, their representatives, set to in the presence of the court and fought the matter out. The Norman method however, was never popular with English townspeople, who were no such lovers of broken heads and bleeding faces as the Norman barons. Henry offered as an alternative to those who preferred, the privilege of bringing their disputes before a body of sworn men, who made inquiry under oath, discovered the facts, and recorded them. Just when this wise measure was introduced is unknown. In the Constitutions of Clarendon, the method is prescribed for the settlement of disputes about ecclesiastical property. 220 FEUDAL REACTIOK [henrt II. The methods of criminal trial in vogue in the early twelfth cen- tury were even more crude than those used for the settlement of civil causes. According to the English method the ^^nlcedure ^ccused man was allowed first to clear himself if he The grand could by the oaths of his neighbors, who simply vouched for his good character. If he failed in this, he was put to the ordeal.^ The trial by battle was also allowed here as in civil cases; the accused challenging the accuser. In either case the appeal was supposed to be made directly to God, who knowing the hearts of men would interfere to save the innocent or punish the ffuilty. Henry in the famous Assize of Clarendon rein- A-Hsizc of ciarencum, stitutcd in the place of the accusations of private indi- viduals the jury of inquest, corresponding to the modern grand jury, which had been discontinued in Stephen's time but had been used apparently more or less since the days of Ethelred, when the twelve senior thanes of each hundred were accustomed to swear on the rood that "they would accuse no innocent man nor conceal any guilty man. " ^ Twelve legal men were now chosen from each hundred and four from each township, and when the justices came in circuit these sixteen presented to them upon oath any one in the hundred who was ''notoriously a robber or murderer or receiver of such. " This jury was not a trial jury. It simply deter- mined whether the person accused ought to be tried or not. The trial then took place as before ; but the only ordeal allowed by the Assize was that of cold water, which meant almost certain condem- nation.^ The indictment of the jury, however, was a very serious matter of itself ; for even if the accused succeeded in passing the ordeal, he was compelled to leave the country within forty days ; a commendable way of ridding the community of undesirable char- acters. If he failed he was hanged, or otherwise punished as the judges might direct. In 1215 the practice of the ordeal was abolished throughout Christendom by the Fourth Lateran Council ; and as the jury of in- ^ See page 90. 2Stubbs>S'. C. p. 72. ^ See page 90. 1170] THE IXQUEST OF SHERIFFS 221 quest alone was inadequate to secure the ends of justice, the custom grew up in England of supplementing it by a second jury, known as the petit or little jury, whose function was to review mTmSi'^ the work of the jury of inquest in a special case and VifhafihT^^ either affirm or deny its findings. It is interesting fur- ther to notice that the trial by battle remained, and that it was possible for the accused to select it in preference to a trial by petit jury as late as June 1819, when it was formally abolished by act of Parliament.^ In the management of the exchequer, Henry's purpose was to secure a large and steady revenue, yet levied equitably so as not to overburden any particular class. Accordingly he The smirceit , , . , , , t^ i i i • i i -i i i /- of Henry's abolisbed the Danegeld which had ceased to be pront- able; but from the knights he took scutages, from the towns which were already growing up as centers of wealth he took tallages. The clergy who sometimes were inclined to claim immunity from taxation, he caused to bear their share by exacting from them special contributions under the gracious name of * 'gifts," — dona. From the estates of his own domain he received a steady stream of ''ferms" paid by his custodians, and upon his officers also occasionally he levied the dona. The itinerant justices periodically visited the shires, holding pleas and gathering fees and lines, all of which went into the royal treasury. Another impor- tant income Henry derived from the Jews whom he undertook to protect against the intolerance and jealousy of the people in return for the payment of enormous sums of money. Yet although Henry honestly attempted to adjust taxation fairly, the burden rested grievously upon the necks of his people. For this he was not altogether to blame. The sheriffs The Inquest . " . i i i. c i of Sheriffs, as a body had been trained in the evil school of Stephen and were not above plundering the people for their own profit. The poor and the friendless were the most frequent suffer- ers. They were often turned out of their homes and compelled in order to live to take to thieving and plunder. The king's officers were making outlaws faster than the king's courts could hang ^ For the famous Thornton case of 1817. see Taswell-Langiiiead, 5th ed. pp. 103-105. 222 FEUDAL REACTION [henby ii. them. Henry determined therefore to overliaul the whole system, and in the year 1170 sent out special commissioners to inquire whether the sheriffs were enforcing the laws ; whether they were taking bribes; how much money they were receiving from the counties and in a word to inquire into their entire official conduct. This was the famous Inquest of Sheriffs^ conceived and carried out in a manner worthy of Charles the Great. It was no mere *' white- washing commission." Twenty out of twenty-seven sheriffs were reported guilty of irregular practices and straightway deposed. The old sheriffs, moreover, had been selected from the great barons of the localities, some of whom held several counties and were in a fair way of assuming the importance of the former earls. The new appointees the king took from the exchequer; men of humble position who depended for their professional career solely upon the king's favor. For six years Becket had now been in exile. He had spent his time in a vain attempt to persuade Pope Alexander III. to espouse his cause. But Alexander was sore pressed by the rSwiiiation Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and was not inclined to and^enry '^^'^ak with the English king. Instead, therefore, of tak- ing up the cudgels for Becket, he used his influence to bring Henry and his obdurate primate to an understanding, but only with partial success. Becket insisted on condemning the obnoxious Constitutions, and the king as stubbornly refused to give him the '*kiss of peace." Matters were drifting in this uncertain way when Henry unfor- tunately contrived again to wound the pride of the archbishop. He had determined after the French custom to make Sa^S^^^ his son, Henry, king during his own lifetime, and thus not only secure the peaceful succession of the crown, something as yet unknown in the annals of the Norman kings, but also provide for the better government of the kingdom during his own frequent and unavoidable absences in Normandy. No one questioned Henry's right to have his son crowned. But unfortu- nately the privilege of crowning English kings had been by long custom and common consent conceded to the archbishop of Can- terbury. Henry, however, was in no mood to honor Thomas and 1170] THE MURDER OF BECKET 2^3 allowed Roger, the new archbishop of York, an old enemy of Becket, to hallow the young Henry. Thomas was furious; he per- suaded the pope to suspend Eoger, and also the bishops cmmiedS^ of London and Salisbury who had taken part in the Westminster, ceremony. The king of France who was always ready to enlist against his rival of England and was never over-particular about the justice of his cause, was persuaded that an affront had been intended for him personally in that his daughter, the wife of Prince Henry, had not been crowned with her husband, and threatened war. The elder Henry quailed before the storm, and hastening to France attempted to conciliate Thomas, and finally persuaded him to return to England. When Thomas arrived, how- ever, Henry was still in France and the primate received but a cold welcome from those in authority. He first attempted to recover his confiscated estates, but with indifferent success; and when he complained, the young king laughed, refused to see him and bade him keep to his see. The reply of Thomas was to renew the sen- tence against Roger and the two bishops. The elder Henry at the time was at Bures, keeping the Christmas feast. The report of the new troubles of Becket were brought to him by the suspended bishops and put in such way, we may believe, as to reflect most dis- creditably upon the primate. The king heard, and in a moment of passion let slip the fatal words: **Here is a man that has eaten my bread; a pitiful fellow that came to my court on a sorry hackney and owes all he has to me, lifting his heel against me, and insult- ing my kingdom and my kindred; and not one of the cowardly sluggish servants I feed and pay so well has had the heart to avenge me!" Four knights heard the hot words of the king; returned to England, went to Canterbury, and there murdered the primate in St. Benedict's Chapel. Indignation and horror everywhere greeted this act of sacrilege. Henry cleared himself by oath of all complicity in the primate's death; but his reforms trembled in the balance. The murder of Constitutions of Clarendon were nominally abandoned; Thomas. -, ^ n^^ but there was no one to take up the cause of 1 nomas and there the matter rested. The whole question of the supremacy of the civil power was left open ; but to leave it open was to leave 224 FEUDAL REACTIOIT [ Henry 11. the advantage in the king's hands and ultimately give him the victory. During the lifetime of Henry, Thomas was canonized, and his shrine, erected at Canterbury, soon became a very popular resort for English pilgrims. It is now time to notice the relation of the king of England to the other parts of the British islands. From the time of William I. the princes of Wales had acknowledged a nominal cwMuesU)/^ suzerainty, and Henry II. had carried on three wars with ™^™ indifferent success to make these claims ffood. The 1 loo -1177. t? kings of Scotland had also acknowledged a dependence of a vague kind. A suzerainty over Ireland had not as yet been more than thought of. The Irish had made some headway in the arts of civilization and had early accepted Christianity, though they had not yet become attached to the see of Rome. In 1154 Pope Adrian IV. as lord of all the islands of the sea, issued a bull bestow- ing Ireland on the English king and exhorting him to extend hither the papal authority. Henry at the time meditated a plan of con- quest, but gave it up in deference to the objection of his mother who thought he had quite enough to attend to at home. Ireland was still in the old tribal stage with various rival princes constantly warring with one another. In 1166 a prince named Dermod fled to Henry and did homage to him in order to secure his aid. Henry was not yet willing to undertake the quest himself, but gave permission to such of his knights as were ready, to attempt it. Dermod easily found allies in the adventurous nobles of the Welsh border, who under the leadership of Richard de Clare, earl of Strigul, better known as '^Strongbow," invaded Ireland and took possession of Leinster. Then lest such a^colony if left in inde- pendence should prove a menace to the quiet of England, Henry asserted his authority as overlord. The outcome of the murder of Becket was at the time still in suspense and Henry was probably glad of any excuse for getting out of England. He compelled Strongbow's followers to submit to him, and besides received the homage of all the princes of Leinster and Meath. Directly the homage of the Irish princes was of little significance, for they ignored it again as soon as Henry's back was turned; but a foot- hold had been won in the island, a claim had been established 1172-1174] REVOLT OF THE BARONS 225 which was destined to draw the Irish ever more deeply under the shadow of their powerful neighbors. The family life of Henry reveals the same, sad blight which seems to have been the common lot of medieval kings. His warm nature craved affection and loyalty in those who were hcmjns, 1172- nearest to him, but Eleanor, proud and treacherous by nature, was incapable of bestowing either, and her sons were equally false and undutiful. lu 1172 the king repeated the coronation of Prince Henry. He had already secured Brittany for his second son, Geoffrey, by marrying him to Constance, heiress of Brittany; and had made his third son Richard duke of Aquitaine. The danger in this scheme was that the sons who were never overdu- tiful, would grow impatient of their father's control, and in hope of realizing their inheritances would lend a ready ear to the flat- teries of the king's many enemies. The younger Henry in par- ticular was a foolish and heady youth who was only too willing to believe that now he had been crowned, he ought to be really the king. He easily fell into the hands, therefore, of those who were jealous of Henry's greatness and who sought to use the youth as their tool. Eleanor and the younger sons also took side against the father. The barons of Normandy were soon deeply involved in the rebellion, actively aided by the princes of Scotland, Flanders, and Champaign. But the difficulties which faced Henry only brought out all the splendid energy of his character. On the continent he was favored by the dissensions of his enemies. In England his justiciars, de Lucy and Glanville, served him loyally and were sup- ported generally by the sympathies of the people. In Norfolk they took the arch rebel, the earl of Leicester, while in the north the royal forces led by Glanville and supported by the men of Yorkshire gained a decisive victory over the Scots at Alnwick, taking their king, William the Lion. At the time, Henry was going through his seemly penance at the tomb of Becket, spending the night in prayers and tears, and offering his back to the scourges of the monks. The news of Alnwick was received as the sign of divine forgiveness; the rebellion was broken, the rebels were at the king's feet. Henry, however, was in no mood to punish ; he would shed no blood and he made scarcely any confiscations. Yet in the interests 226 FEUDAL REACTION [henhyII. of good government he insisted upon taking all the castles into his own hands and thus completed the work which he had begun twenty years before. Before releasing the king of Scot- land from his prison at Falaise, he obliged him to do Fui&e^ii74 homage and acknowledge his supremacy over Scotland. The sons, however, were restored to their former posi- tions as prospective heirs to the various parts of Henry's dominions. Yet his trouble with them was by no means ended. The younger Henry went on with his intrigues until his death in 1183. The unpopularity of Geoffrey in Brittany made him also a source of constant trouble until his death in 1185. The death of Henry had left Richard the acknowledged heir to the throne, and the father proposed to transfer a part of Aquitaine to the portionless John. But Eichard was in no mind to renounce any of his lands in the south and made cause with Philip against the father. Thus Henry struggled on amid the deepening gloom of declin- ing years. Yet he had not for a moment forgotten the great work to which he had devoted his life. In 1176 he renewed Nortimmp- the Assize of Clarendon at Northampton, and added other regulations for the better preservation of the peace. In 1178 he further organized the work of the Curia Eegis by setting apart five judges and committing to them a great part of the judicial business, which it had been customary to bring before the Curia as a whole. This special committee developed ultimately into two separate courts, known as the Court of King's Bench and the Court of Common Pleas, which with the Court of Exchequer already organized, constituted three coordinate branches of the Curia. The last great measure of Henry for the better ordering of the kingdom, was the famous Assize of Arms. The Norman kings had often found the fyrd useful both in repelling for- "Arrm^fmi^^ eign invasion, as at Northallerton, and also in check- ing and overawing the barons. To encourage and strengthen the national forces, Henry proposed that every freeman should find arms and equipment according to his ability, estimated by the amount of his property. The Assize directed that every one holding a knight's fee should possess a coat of mail with hel- 1187] THE CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM 227 met, shield, and lance ; every man having chattels or receiving rent to the value of 16 marks should be armed in like manner; one who was worth 10 marks should have a coat of mail, an iron cap, and a lance; other freemen should provide themselves with doublet of mail, iron cap, and lance. The lance was evidently the important implement of war; the bow was not yet conspicuous. As the years of Henry's reign drew to its close, the eyes of all ('hristendom were once more turned to the east. The Christian kingdom of Jerusalem had been established in 1090, as of^uEniem ^"^ ^^ ^^^ results of the First Crusade, and had led a ^^itj^he Turks, precarious existence since, owing largely to the discords of the Christian knights rather than to the strength of their enemies. The surrounding Turkish states, small, and divided against each other, had been unable singly to drive out the strangers. But they had been united recently into a powerful state by the Sultan Noureddin and his son Saladin, who had suc- ceeded in combining all the vast military resources of the lands between the Nile and the Euphrates. Henry was particularly inter- ested, because through his grandfather Fulk of Anjon who had married for his second wife Milicent, the heiress of Jerusalem, an Angevin line had been established in the east. In 118G the last male representative of the eastern Angevins had died, and Sibyl, the surviving daughter, had bestowed herself and her father's crown upon Guy of Lusignan. The valiant Guy had made a noble stand against the rising strength of Saladin, but at the battle of Tiberias, July 1187, the last remaining strength of the Christians was swept away, and Jerusalem with the "true cross" fell to the victor as the spoil of battle.' The pope, Gregory VIIL, had already sent out frantic appeals for help but the danger seemed remote, the western princes were all quarreling among themselves, and none had heeded. A new Cm- rm i i sadepro- ihen there came the news of the brave but hopeless claimed. • • n i i i stand at iiberias, followed by the yet more astound- ing rumor of the fall of the holy city. Europe awoke as it had awakened a hundred years before under the fervid words of Peter the Hermit. The pope proclaimed the Crusade, and the princes of the west, swept along by the popular tide, dared not deny 228 FEUDAL REACTION [henry II. the demand of their people to be led once more against the infidel. Henry, to whom the misfortunes of Guy were almost a personal matter, had long before begun to prepare for the Crusade, but in 1185 he had been compelled by the earnest protest of his bishops and barons to abandon his project for the time. He now persuaded the great council to devote to the holy cause a tenth part of the goods of every man in England, the "Saladin tithe." ^ He found, however, that he was not yet free to move. He soon became in- volved in a fresh quarrel with his son Eichard and the young king Philip II. of France, who suddenly invaded Henry's continental dominions at a time when he was not only ill but had been aban- doned by his mercenaries on account of arrears of pay. Henry could make no resistance. He was driven out of Le Mans, the city of his birth, and at last compelled to accept an humiliating treaty in which he conceded the demands of Richard and Philip without reserve. Among these concessions, he agreed that Richard's asso- ciates should transfer their allegiance from the father to the son. The king called for the list, and when he saw at the head the name of John, his youngest born, whom he had not suspected of treason and whom he dearly loved, he read no further. ''I have nothing left to care for," cried the broken-hearted man, "let all things go their way." He did not recover from the shock, but died three days later, attended only by Geoffrey, an illegitimate son,^ and by William Marshal, who had been the friend and supporter of the younger Henry and had attached himself to the father after 1183. The sad death of Henry closed a uniformly successful life. As head of a compact kingdom and lord of nearly half of what is now France, his position among the princes of Europe was Hmril^^ second only to that of the emperor. While Henry probably considered his continental interests of greater importance, the work which has given him his name lay in the island kingdom. His reign marks a great advance in the national life of England. The monarchy had triumphantly passed through the dangers of feudal anarchy. The king had proved himself to be iStubbs, ;Sf. C, p. 160. 2 Not to be confused with the father of Arthur. THE WORK OP HENRY 229 the one great centralizing and unifying influence in the state. The barons had been spoiled of their castles ; the authority of the laws of the realm over all classes vindicated and the supremacy of the king's courts established upon a permanent foundation. CONTEMPORARIES OF LATER NORMAN AND EARLY ANGEVIN KINGS. KINGS OF FRANCE Philip L,fi. 1108 l.ouis VI., (1. 1137 l,onis VII., d. 1180 IMiilip IL, Augustus, 1180 EMPERORS Henry IV., d. 1106 Henry V. (son in- law of Henry of England), (/. 112.5 Lothairll., d. 11M7 Conrad III..(/. 11.V3 Fredericlt I., Barbarossa, ll'):i 1087-1187 KINGS OF SOOTS Malcolm III., d. um Donald Kane, king in l()i»3 and again in l(Ht4 Duncan, um Edgar, i(n»7 IKH? Alexaiid.T 1.. oIni IV., W. iiti.-) Williain the Lion, iHw MORE PROMINENT POPES Urban II., d. 1099 Paschal II., 4-ll79 Rauulf de Glanville, 1180 CHAPTER VI THE GROWTH OF POPULAR RIGHTS AND THE LOSS OF THE CONTI- NENTAL POSSESSIONS OF THE ANGEVINS RICHARD, llH9-im JOHN, 1199-1204 FAMILY OF HENRY II. Henry II. I Henry, d. 1183 Geoffrey William Archbishop Longsword of York Earl of (illegitimate) Salisbury (illegitimate) Ricliard King 1189-1199 Matilda= Henry of Saxony Otto IV. Emperor, 1209-1218 I Joanna m. William II. of Sicily Geoffrey, John Eleanor d. 1186 King m. TO. 1199-1216 Alfonso Constance to. King of of Brittany Isabella Castile I of I Arthur Angouleme Blanche Duke of TO. Brittany, Louis murdered VIII. of 1203 • France After Henry's death Richard passed quietly to the English throne. There were disgraceful riots ending in massacres of Jews in various parts of the kingdom; but they were inspired RiSSd!^ by the desire of pious subjects to relieve their excess- ^^^^' ive loyalty, rather than to show any feeling of hostility to the new king. In character Richard presented a marked con- trast to his father. .Henry was a soldier only by necessity. He hated the riot and uncertainty of war. He loved order and pre- ferred to win his triumphs over the lawlessness of the time by the steady encroachment of good government and wise administration. Richard was a soldier rather than an administrator ; a knight errant rather than a statesman. His figure suggested great physical power and endurance. *'His fresh complexion and golden hair" betrayed the viking blood. In dress he was showy and ostenta- tious; in the use of money, extravagant; in action, impulsive. Like Stephen he possessed the generous qualities of the soldier; but unlike Stephen, as his career in Poitou proved, he could enforce law and order. Yet he was full of visionary ambitions and possessed nothing of the Angevin aptitude for practical affairs. All 230 1189] SALE OF PRIVILEGES 231 in all he was a poor king. Although born in England, he had spent his youth abroad and knew little of the people over whom he was to reign. He remained always an Aquitanian, and seemed to regard his kingdom only as an appanage of his continental dominions. He cared little for its interests, treating it for the most part as a convenient source of supplies in carrying on his continental schemes.^ Ki chard had taken the cross in 1188, and his accession to the crown offered the means of putting his long-cherished plan of Richard's S^^^S ^^ ^ Crusade into immediate execution. He ?aSm'^^ found the treasury full, thanks to his father's thrift as m^^ney- much as to the recently collected Saladin tithe. But these sums were not sufficient to enable him to carry out his plans upon the scale which he meditated ; he set himself, therefore, to raise more money. He took fees from those whom he appointed to office and also from those whom he permitted to retire. The aged justiciar, Ranulf de Glanville, eminent as the first scientific writer upon English law, was allowed to buy his way out of office that he might take part in the Crusade. Eights and immunities were thrown on the bargain counter in reckless profusion; * 'I would sell London," the king exclaimed, **if I could find a purchaser." In return for a payment of 10,000 marks, he released the king of Scots from the homage which he had sworn at Falaise. Tvcatu of Falaise To those who in a moment of thoughtless enthusiasm annulled. , -, , , , i ^ -i i. , • , i had taken the cross, he sold licenses to remain at home. The general traffic of the king in sheriffdoms, justiceships, church lands and appointments of all kinds, shocked even that age when public office had come to be regarded largely as a matter of private property; **all things were venal to him." **Thus the king acquired an infinite amount of money, more than any of his pred- ecessors is known to have had." In order to make provision for the government of the kingdom during his absence, Eichard placed the authority of the justiciar jointly in the hands of Hugh of Puiset, the bishop of Durham, who paid £3,000 for the honor* and William of Longchamp, the ^ For character of Richard see Norgate, England under Angevin Kings, 11,206-208. 232 THE GROWTH OF POPULAR RIGHTS [richard i. chancellor. Longcliamp was a foreigner, and said to be of mean birth. He had been raised over nobler heads to the chancellorship; then made bishop of Ely, and finally Justiciar. He was provides for lame and ugly, but skillful and unscrupulous. He was hated by the nobles as a matter of course, and thus had every reason to be faithful to his master. In December 1189, "Richard left England for Palestine. But his back had hardly been turned before the two justiciars began to quarrel at the exchequer, and Longchamp, secretly sup- nlieof^^^^ ported by the king, displaced his rival. His increased uS^iwi^^' power, however, brought him no popularity. He took no pains to disguise his contempt for the English whose language he would not speak; he gave offense to the nobles by placing his foreign friends and kinsmen in high positions, bestow- ing upon them the custody of castles and towns, which he seized under various pretexts. He lived himself in great luxury and pomp, traveling about the country with an extravagant retinue of fifteen hundred men. The growing unpopularity of Longchamp might not have been a serious matter, had it not been for Kichard's younger brother John, who saw an opportunity for mischief, a miscMef- ' always grateful to his intriguing disposition. Richard and John had been generally upon good terms, although Richard was not unaware of John's treacherous nature. He had refused to recognize him as his heir, and in the arrange- ment which he had made for the government during his absence, had further denied John any share in the administration. He had also exacted a promise from John under oath, that he would leave the kingdom for three years; but to conciliate him, had given him control of five counties with their revenues and castles. Against the advice of Eleanor, however, the wise precaution of keeping John out of England had been abandoned, and he was now lording it like a king in his five shires, and openly encouraging the discontent of the deposed justiciar, Hugh of Durham, and the general restlessness of the barons under the insolence of Longchamp. An attempt of Longchamp to replace the castellan of Lincoln was resisted by John. For a moment it seemed that open war was 1189-1191] KICHARD AND THE THIRD CRUSADE 233 inevitable; but the quarrel was patched up, and Longchamp's tyrannies continued. John's iialf-brother, Geoffrey, had been recently made archbisliop of York. Like John he had ^^'^r, been compelled to promise under oath that he would keep away from England during the king's absence ; but like John also he had been released, and in August 1191 returned. Longchamp refused to believe in the alleged release and sent his men to arrest Geoffrey in Dover church. The people, who had not yet forgotten the brutal deed of Henry's knights at Canterbury, beheld the archbishop, dragged by hands and feet through their filthy streets, bareheaded, his sacred vestments torn and dis- heveled, *' clinging to his pastoral cross and excommunicating his tormentors as he went." The unseemly sight destroyed what little respect still lingered for Longchamp's authority. John at once took up Geoffrey's cause, and summoning a great council at London, forced Longchamp to leave the kingdom. Richard, it seems, had already heard of the difficulties of Longchamp and had sent back to England one of his father's old and long-tried officials, Walter of Coutances, archbishop of Rouen. Walter had reached England in April. At the moment everything was Walte^r of , . . . coutarweit, quiet and according to instructions he kept his secret commission in his wallet. But the time had now come to act, and producing his commission he quietly took Long- champ's place at the council board. The arrangement had been made by Richard's authority and John and his friends were forced to be satisfied. In the meanwhile Richard was having his heart's content of intrigue and wild adventure. He and Philip of France had attempted to make the Crusade together, but had Richard and \ -, . i * t.*- • i i the Third quarreled from the start. At Messina, where they passed the winter of 1190 and 1191, so hot ran the fierce war of words that they all but came to blows. In June Richard reached Acre where Guy of Lusignan, king of Jerusalem by right of his wife Sibyl, Richard's kinswoman, had been carry- ing on a profitless siege since 1189. Frederick Barbarossa, the fine old septuagenarian emperor, had set out in 1190 to reach Syria by land, but had been drowned while crossing the Calycadmus, a 234 THE GROWTH OF POPULAR RIGHTS [richabd I. little stream of Asia Minor. Only a small part of his army ever reached the Holy Land, and although Philip had arrived at Acre in April, the outlook was still very gloomy when Richard came. The camp was poorly arranged for the accommodation of large bodies of men, poorly drained and swept by pestilence. The ceme- tery near by already contained as many recruits as the armies that bivouacked before the city ; the solemn muster including the names of Baldwin of Canterbury, and Ranulf de Glanvilie, Henry's famous jurist. The arrival of Richard, his skill and spirit, soon put new life into the besiegers, and within a month the city fell. The next step would have been naturally the capture of Jerusalem and the restoration of Guy. But the capture of Acre had cost 300,000 men ; the leaders were divided and jealous of each other ; the recent death of Sibyl, also, in the eyes of the German and French leaders, had destroyed Guy's claim to the crown. Thus a new bone of contention was thrown into the camp and Philip and many of the Germans went home in disgust, leaving Richard to carry on the contest alone as best he could. Twice he led his troops almost within sight of the sacred battlements ; he beat the Sultan in a great battle at Asuf ; still with his depleted hosts he could not secure the prize. Then came news of more mischief-making at home where Philip who had now reached France, was secretly lending his influence to John's schemes. Richard determined, therefore, to make the best terms he could with Saladin and return. He obtained a truce which was to last three years, and which secured to Christians the privilege of visiting Jerusalem and trad- ing in the country. This done, Richard set out; leaving Hubert Walter, the crusading bishop of Salisbury, to bring home his army. Richard's troubles were by no means over. He had intended to land at Marseilles, but rumor of a plot of Raymond of Toulouse to seize him upon landing, turned him back to the sea. The vetuvn and capture. Finally, after long buffeting by contrary winds, he was wrecked near Ragusa 'and compelled to cross Germany on foot. Everything went well until he entered the dominions of Leopold of Austria, whom at the taking of Acre he had mortally offended by throwing down the duke's banner from the walls. 1194] THE RANSOM OF RICHARD 235 Kichard had donned a pilgrim's garb and had allowed his beard to grow long. But he was recognized in spite of his disguise, and as he approached Vienna was seized and cast into prison. Philip no sooner heard of the good luck of Leopold, than he began to plot deeper mischief with John. Together they cun- ningly spread the rumor that Richard was dead, and Intriijues ^>/ ^ i i, -. ^ Philip and John was allowed to do homage for Richard's conti- John. ° nental dominions. But neither Eleanor, nor Bishop Geoffrey, nor Hugh of Durham could be caught by such a trick, and when John demanded the custody of the English castles, they defied him. Philip then attempted to rouse the king of Denmark to invade England, while he with a French army invaded Nor- mandy. The nobles of Aquitaine were as usual ready to revolt, and even in Anjou Philip found a sentiment widely prevalent among the nobility, that their true interests lay in a closer alliance with the French king. In the meanwhile Richard fared but poorly in the hands of his captors. He was, however, too valuable a prisoner to keep in secret confinement, or to destroy. Under the strange ideas RShaixilf which prevailed, when states might play the footpad o/olrmany. ^^^^ ^ig^itj^ Richard's capture was in fact a great speculation; he could be held for ransom. The busi- ness, however, was too great for Leopold alone to handle ; so he sold out to the Emperor Henry VL who had grudges of his own against Richard, and was not averse to satisfying his malice and filling his coffers at the same time. While Richard was thus spending his days in the seclusion of a Geiunan castle, John was conducting himself as though he expected his brother would never return, seizing castles Theransmn, a^d defying the justiciar. Yet he did not forget to " intrigue with Philip to prevent Henry from releasing his royal captive. All of this, of course, only raised the price of ransom, which was at last fixed at the enormous sum of 150,000 marks. It was a serious burden to come in the train of so much else, and yet the nation assumed it loyally. Each knight's fee was bound by feudal law to pay its aid for the lord's ransom. But the customary aid of 20 shillings per fee was inadequate to meet 236 THE GROWTH OF POPULAR RIGHTS [kichaei> 1. such a ransom as this. Accordingly the aids were supplemented by the exaction of a fourth part of the revenue or of tlie mova- ble goods of every man in the kingdom. To this the Cistercians and Gilbertines were also induced to add the fourth part of the wool of their flocks/ and many of the more important churches contributed their "plate and jewels." Similar exertions were also made in the continental dominions of Richard. Still the sum did not reach the ransom demanded by the enterprising emperor; yet enough had been raised to make a payment on account, and the emperor consented to release the king after receiving hostages in guarantee of the balance. Among the hostages was the justiciar, Walter of Coutances. As soon as Richard reached England, he summoned a great council of his barons at Nottingham, and to complete the ransom, levied two shillings upon every ploughland of one hundred acres, the carucage. It was also proposed to confiscate all the wool of the Cistercians for one year, but they were finally allowed to compensate by a money payment instead. As a salve to the pride of Richard, before he left Germany the emperor had bestowed upon him the titular crown of the kingdom The titular ^^ Burgundy; to Richard an acquisition of some impor- Bvrmmdv ^^ucc, sincc by it he became a prince of the empire. ^r'd^^Hom^^e ^^^^^^^ transaction is also connected with the ransom for England. Qf Richard which has caused English historians some difficulty to explain. It is said that Richard formally renounced his English kingdom to the emperor, handing him his cap in lieu of the crown in token of surrender, and that the emperor returned it to him again, on condition of homage and a yearly rent of £5,000. The arrangement was afterward annulled by the emperor.^ So at last Richard was free and the fabulous ransom was paid. Henry, apparently, still had an unworthy feeling that he might have made a better bargain. But the pope and the German princes were indignant at the ill usage of Richard and at the violation of his rights as a crusader, and Henry did not dare longer to offend the awakening sentiment of Europe. 1 Compare Norgate II, p. 336 with Stubbs, C. H., I, p. 540. 2Stubbs, C. H., 1, p. 601. 1194] HUBERT WALTER 237 Kichard remained in England from March 20 until May 12, barely two months, but long enough to finish tumbling down John's house of cards, and then was off again to the secona stay continent to settle his score with Philip. With charac- teristic generosity he pardoned John. "I forgive him," said the king, "and hope that I shall as easily forget his injuries as he will my pardon." He was too shrewd, however, to put lands or power again into John's hands. John on his part realized that it was useless to intrigue further against his powerful brother, and accepting a stipend which enabled him to live in a way becoming his rank, he gave no more trouble for the rest of Richard's reign. After bringing John to terms, Richard then set himself to raise new funds in order 'to further his schemes against Philip. He compelled those who had made trouble during his absence to forfeit vast sums; sheriffs were turned out of their positions upon various pretexts, and another sale of offices began ; charters and privileges were again scattered freely for money, and many towns, imitating the recent example of London,* seized the opportunity to gain corporate rights. While in his German prison Richard had secured the election of the crusader Hubert Walter to the see of Canterbury. Hubert was no ordinary priest. He was a nephew of Walter. Henry's great justiciar, Ranulf de Glanville, and had been trained in his household. He had accompanied his venerable primate. Archbishop Baldwin, in the Crusade, and after his death had been tacitly recognized as the chief among the spiritual leaders of the English crusaders, and when Richard has- tened homo, it was to Hubert that he entrusted the conduct of the returning host. As archbishop, Hubert had at once exercised a decisive influence in checking the elements of disorder which were seeking to take advantage of the prolonged absence of the king; he had inspired the measures for raising the king's ransom, and by supporting the Justiciar Walter and casting the weight of the church against John, had materially contributed to the over- throw of John's influence even before the release of Richard. ^ For date (1191) of granting the commune to London and for influence of example, see Round, The Commune of Loudon, pp. 219-260. 238 THE GROWTH OF POPULAR RIGHTS [richardI. When, therefore, the justiciar was summoned to Germany to present himself as a hostage in order to secure the king's release. Arch- bishop Hubert had been appointed to succeed him. The task which was assigned the new justiciar was not an enviable one. In order to support Eichard in the war which he proposed to wage against his continental foes, Hubert Hubert was cxpccted to raise funds from the already exhausted Walter and , . , , , , , , the political kingdom and yet keep the people contented and sub- educatimiof . . riM • . . , » „ thepeopie. missive. ihe justiciar, however, fully grasped the con- ditions of his position; he knew the temper of the English and saw that his only hope of success lay in win- ning their confidence and active support. To this end he sought to avoid the appearance of irregular or arbitrary extortion by throwing the assessment of levies largely into the hands of the people; he also gave them a more direct share in the administration of justice, taking from the sheriffs the selec- tion of the juries of presentment and placing it in the hands of the ''lawful men" of the shires. He also greatly enlarged the scope of these juries, not only inviting them to adjudge pleas of the crown, but calling upon them for support and cooperation in almost every emergency. Constitutionally these innovations were of the utmost importance ; they not only did much to restore the habit of local self-government, which was rapidly passing into a mere tradition under the deadening influence of the Norman- Angevin system of centralization, but they also inaugurated a course of political education which directly prepared that genera- tion of Englishmen for the role which they were to play in the great era at hand. Notwithstanding these wise and statesmanlike measures, how- ever, Hubert was not able altogether to forestall discontent. In London the poor craftsmen, the weavers, the arrow- Eievemie^^ smiths, the day laborers, and others, who were not land- holders and so had no voice in making assessments or directing the local administration, charged the burghers with sparing their own purses at the expense of the poor. Murmurs soon passed to open riot and bloodshed. An eccentric burgher, William Fitz-Osbert, called also "William Longbeard," a returned 1194-1198] WILLIAM LONGBEARD 239 crusader, championed the cause of the people. He was a natural agitator, and by proclaiming the monstrous doctrine that "every man, poor or rich, ought to pay his share of the city's bur- den according to his means," a doctrine which he advocated with rare eloquence, soon made himself the special object of govern- ment wrath. The justiciar attempted to arrest William, but he resisted, slew one of his assailants and fled to the church of Saint Mary-at-Bow. Hubert who might not take William in the church without violating sanctuary, ordered the building to be fired. The leaping flames drove William upon the soldiers waiting with- out; he was at once struck down, and, stripped and bleeding, was dragged through the city to the gallows at Elms ^ and there hanged with eight of his comrades. The cause of popular liberty was to have many such martyrs in the near future, but none more noble and sincere, none of clearer vision than the eccentric William Longbeard. This exhibition of harshness did not increase the strength of Hubert; popular disapproval continued to find expression, and finally became so pronounced that the justiciar ^^^hT ^^®^ ^0 ^® relieved. Richard, however, needed him, Ldrwoin/ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ special request Hubert once more took up the ungrateful burden. In the meantime discontent was spreading among all classes, and steadily solidified into a stubborn determination to pay no more taxes; and when in 1198 Richard sent over a demand not only for more money but for men as well, even the saintly Hugh of Avalon, bishop of Lincoln, who was rever- enced in England as no other man since the death of Anselm, pro- tested against the unheard-of exaction. At a great council held at Oxford he faced the justiciar with the noble words: ''Ye know well, my lords, that I am a stranger in this land, one called from the plain life of a hermit to be bishop. But when our Lady's Church of Lincoln was given into my unskilled hands, I set about learning what its rights and burdens were, and these thirteen years I have walked in all the ways of my forerunners. I know very well that this church is bound to furnish knights for the king's service in England, but not for service abroad. And I will go back * The later Tyburn. " 240 THE GROWTH OF POPULAR RIGHTS [kichardi. at once to my old hermit's life rather than lay fresh burdens on this bishopric committed to my charge." Herbert, the bishop of Salisbury, a member of the family of the great Roger, also sup- ported Hugh, and Hubert, quailing before opposition such as this, durst not press the demand for men, although the barons The great Carucage, finally submitted to the levy of a carucage, at the rate of five shillings on each carucate. No one, however, paid the tax willingly; the monks refused outright, and were brought to terms only by threat of outlawry. Poor Hubert was now pressed from all sides. The taxpayers held him responsible for the exactions, and the absent king held him responsible for the tardy payment ; while the pope on his own account sent him some very plain-spoken advice. *'It was not worthy," he wrote, '' that an archbishop should be a judge and a taskmaster." Feeling that-he was discredited on all sides, and undoubtedly weary of the whole business, Hubert resigned, and Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, another of Henry II. 's men, was appointed in his place. The new justiciar was quite as able as Hubert, but more stern and troubled by fewer scruples. The administration, however, was suddenly confronted with a new series of problems by the death of Richard. Since his return to the continent Richard had been engaged in almost constant strife with the French king. Philip, as we have seen, had got the pot well boiling when the unwelcome the continent, news of Richard's release reached him. The famous 1194-1199 message which he sent to John, "The devil is loose, take care of yourself," attests his respect for the wild energy of Richard's character, and that he fully expected trouble. It was this war both of defense and revenge, that Richard had taken up with all the cunning and unscrupulous violence of the Angevin, and for which Hubert Walter had been exacting such vast sums from the long-suffering loyalty of the English. The rebels of Aquitaine were reduced; Philip was checked on the Korman border; and Flanders, the ally of Philip, was bought off by a well-timed bribe. The counts of Chartres, Champagne, Boulogne, and others, including the most powerful vassals of Philip, were leagued in revolt; while by Richard's influence in the Ger- man diet he managed to secure the election of his nephew, Otto of 1199] DEATH OF RICHARD 241 Saxony, as Henry VI. 's successor, and thus laid the foundation of an alliance of England and the empire. In order to hold his Norman frontier against Philip, Richard seized the church lands 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 cliffs along its banks," and here on a spur of the chalk hills, connected with the plateau in the rear by a narrow neck, at the dizzy height of three hundred feet above the river, he reared his *' Saucy Castle," the Chateau Gaillard. Philip saw the massive fortress rising and swore that he would take it, '*were its walls of iron." Richard as defiantly replied: *'I would hold it, were its walls of butter." The archbishop of Rouen, Richard's old justiciar, Walter of Cou- tances, laid Normandy under an interdict; but Richard only mocked. *'IIad an angel from heaven bid him abandon his work, he would have answered with a curse." ^ The completion of this great frontier fortress was to be the preliminary to a final and crushing blow, which Richard had prepared for Philip. Richard's allies were all ready ^d^\h^ii99 ^^^ ^^^^y money was needed. But to get this Richard was at his wit's end, for England had at last failed him. Then came a mysterious report of a remark- able treasure-trove, uncovered at Chaluz, exaggerated by rumor into ''twelve knights of gold seated round a golden table." It was perhaps no more than a chess table with pieces of gold ; but it was enough to rouse the hungi-y king who straightway as over- lord, asserted his rights to the treasure-trove and claimed the "find" whatever it might be. The Lord of Chaluz refused to give up the treasure, and Richard came with his men-at-arms to enforce his claim. The castle was not large and was defended only by fifteen men, seven knights and eight serving men ; yet they held out for a day, and one of the crossbowmen who in spite of the enemies' bolts had kept his place on the walls in hope of getting a shot at Richard, succeeded at last in lodging an arrow in his neck. The wound of itself was not serious, but the bad surgery of Rich- ard's physicians as well as the king's impatience caused the wound 1 See Green, H. E. P., I, pp. 187 and 188. 242 THE GROWTH OF POPULAR RIGHTS [richabdi. to mortify, and in a few days Richard was dead, with almost his last breath forgiving the poor fellow who had slain him. Directly, Richard had had little to do with England. His per- sonal career belongs to the continent. Only seven months all told of the ten years of his reiffn, were spent in his island Importance ,. , , , , « ^ -,'■,■, . of Richard's kingdom, and yet no ten years of English history are more important than these years of Richard's absentee reign. It was an era when the results of Norman and Angevin rule gathered solidity and permanence; when the nation was beginning to realize the full benefit of the policy of the two great Henrys in crushing the baronage and reducing all elements to the sway of the laws, and when older popular elements, by taking advantage of the needs of the crown, were gathering new strength in organization. This latter movement was particularly noticeable in the progress of the towns. The early English towns had grown up around castles or monasteries. For the most part they aiidm gilds ^^^^ merely overgrown villages where the country folk came to find a market, and where in rude and ill-kept huts the small merchant or the poor artisan sheltered himself and his family. Since the Conquest, as a result of the increased foreign trade, the seaport towns had risen to considerable importance, and in turn had contributed not a little to the growing wealth of the more humble towns of the interior. The kings of foreign blood kuew the value of local organization in these centers of denser pop- ulation, its necessity as an adjunct of administration, and did not hesitate to encourage the people to assume some responsibility in matters of local government. In this they were assisted by the presence of gilds which had been a potent influence in English town life from the earliest times. These gilds originally were private associations of one kind or another, organized by citizens for mutual help. Of these the merchant gilds very early assumed an importance and influence beyond any of the others. Often they were strong enough to control all the affairs of the town, assuming practically the functions of a town council. The gild hall became virtually the city hall, and the members of the gild were distinguished from the herd of unprivileged classes as the THE COMMUNA 243 governing or citizen body. They jealously guarded their interests against outsiders and, save in the article of food, would tolerate no rivalry in trade within the city market from any who were not gild brethren. For the most part the towns were situated on the demesnes of the crown, and as they increased in wealth and strength, their first thought naturally was to free themselves from the con- Privildftcs oft(fwm. trol of the sheriff and secure the right of administering the functions of his oflice themselves. The king, more- over, soon discovered that the people were better tax collectors than the sheriff, and found that it was for his interest to allow the towns to pay a fixed maximum sum and collect it themselves in their own way. This privilege was known as the grant of Jirma burghi. The citizens, however, wore not quit of the authority of the sheriff as long as they were under the jurisdiction of the sheriff's court. Beside the firma burghi, therefore, the towns sought also to secure the privilege of having courts of their own, under the charge of their own magistrates. But these privileges carried with them serious duties, and in order to fulfill them properly some corporate organiza- tion was necessary. When so organized, with its liberties defined and confirmed in legal form by a charter, the town became a corpor- ation, or communa. The Henrys granted many such charters with the sincere desire no doubt of encouraging wealth and trade and building up cities. Richard granted a large number as we liave seen, not because he cared for the towns, but because he needed money. Yet the results were the same; the charter was just as good and the privileges as valuable and just as highly prized, whether they came from the political foresight of the king or from his avarice. Of the cities benefited by this generous policy of the Norman and Angevin kings, London was the most important as well as the most conspicuous. It then of course bore no compari- 'Smdlfn^^ son to the present city; but its political influence at critical periods of the nation's history was even more marked and important. It was the first city of the realm in size and wealth. It was naturally the greatest center of trade ; from all the kingdom the roads converged upon its gates, and from the 244 THE GEOWTH OF POPULAR RIGHTS [richardI. broad mouth of the Thames its shipping went forth each year to seek trade in unaccustomed seas. The buildings were thickly set ; fires, a constant menace to the medieval city, were frequent and disastrous; the streets were narrow, poorly paved, always dirty, and lighted only by the flickering lamp which piety kept alive before the street corner Madonna. Pigs might be kept in the houses, though they were not allowed to wander in the streets. But these things were not regarded as they are now and other cities were in as bad condition or worse. All in all, London was no doubt a very grand affair to the rural Englishman who stumbled through the foul smells of its tortuous streets for the first time. The importance of the city very soon brought to her people unusual privileges, and London became a sort of ''standard of the amount of self-government at which the other towns of the country might be expected to aim. " William I. gave the city its first charter; a brief one, the provisions of which require only eight charUr^'^ lines of modern book print to state; and yet it meant much, for in these eight lines the Conqueror gave his word to the citizens that their property should not be taken from tliem, and that their privileges should be continued. In Henry I.'s charter the Londoners were put into possession of more extensive rights; they were granted the ferm of Middlesex "with the right of appointing the sheriff: they were freed from the immediate jurisdiction of any tribunal except of their own appointment, from several universal imposts, from the obligation to accept trial by battle, from liability to misericordia or entire forfeiture, as well as from tolls and local exactions."^ They were also secured their separaire franchises a^id their weekly courts. Yet Henry's charter did not create the communa^ but left the city still an "accumulation of distinct and different corporate bodies." Nor was it until Richard's reign ^ that London assumed the character of a compact and perpetual organization under its lord mayor and twelve aldermen, each representing one of the twelve wards of the city. iStubbs, ^. a,pp. 107, 108. 2 For the "communio" of Stephen see Round, The Commune of Lon- don, pp. 223, 224. THE SUCCESSION" OF JOHK 245 The death of Richard left the vast Angevin dominions once more at the mercy of Philip. Richard was childless and had named John as his heir; and in England where Arthur, the son of Geoffrey, had no standing, John succeeded to the throne without difficulty. On the continent, however, Arthur was high in Phil- ip's favor; for the same policy which had made the The^8w:ceii- j^^j^g ^f Prance the friend of Prince Henry and Richard when they were at war with their father, but John's friend and Richard's enemy as soon as Richard became king, now made this same king John's most dangerous foe. In order to cripple John, therefore, Philip took up Arthur's cause PhiUp^'^^ and helped him, supported by his Bretons, to make good his claims in Anjou, Maine, and Touraine. Normandy was safe, for John had been invested by Arch- bishop Walter of Rouen with the insignia of the ducal office before departing for England to receive the English crown. Aquitaine was also saved by the ready wit of Eleanor, who com- pelled Philip to bestow it upon her -as duchess in her own right. Philip, moreover, was by no means sure of his ground. An attempt to put away his wife, had embroiled him with the pope and he feared the interdict, which might prove a very serious matter should it come while he was at war with John. Otto of Germany and the count of Flanders also were preparing to carry out their recent agreement with Richard and invade France from the northeast. Philip, therefore, thought it safer to bow to the storm and disarm his foes by making peace with John. Accordingly he changed bis policy; threw over Arthur entirely, and received John's homage for Anjou and the other lands in question. As a further pledge of the French king's friendship, his son Louis married John's niece Blanche, the daughter of his sister Eleanor and Alfonso of Castile. John was now everywhere triumphant, and a better man might have had a long and successful reign, but he was his own worst enemy. He possessed some of the abilities, and all of oPjoZi^^ the darker moral traits of his family. He had been a bad son and a treacherous brother. He was as vicious as William Rufus and as mean as Ethelred. He had, moreover, 246 THE GllOWTH OF POPULAR RIGHTS [johm Kichard's insatiate greed for money but with nothing of that romantic vision of great things which had gone far to justify his extortions in the eyes of the nation. John at first took up his brother's policy and made little change in the administration at home. Perhaps he had already learned the temper of the English people in his earlier of'john^^^^ experiences, and knew that his only hope of success against the wily Philip lay in keeping a united England at his back. Geoffrey Fitz-Peter was continued as justiciar and made earl of Essex. Archbishop Hubert was added to the council as chancellor. William Marshal, who had been John's friend in the quarrel with Longchamp, and who had married Eva, the heiress of "Strongbow," was allowed to succeed to the Clare estates and titles as Earl of Strigul and Pembroke. John, however, was the creature of his passions, and soon plunged from one infatuation into another in utter disregard of the enemies he might make. In 1189 he had married rimefof' *^ Avice, the granddaughter of Robert of Gloucester and pmyu^^^^ a co-heiress of the vast estates of that family. She was John's third cousin, and hence came within the lines of consanguinity forbidden by the church. Still the pope had given his dispensation and all had gone well, until John made up his mind to marry Isabella of Angouleme and persuaded some Aquitanian bishops to annul his first marriage. The Gloucester family was very powerful, and when John in addition to the insult, refused to surrender the lands of Avice, the breach was irrepara- ble. Isabella of Angouleme, moreover, was the affianced bride of Hugh the Brown, son of Count Hugh of La Marche, and con- nected with Guy of Lusignan and other powerful nobles of Poitou, and when John claimed the younger Hugh's bride, the Lusignans in their turn were furious. But as if his offence were not serious enough, John ordered the barons of Poitou to appear before his court on charge of treason against the late king and Angevin ^* himself, and clear themselves by ordeal of battle. They at once appealed to Philip as overlord; and he hav- ing made his peace with the pope by taking back his wife, was delighted to have an opportunity to reopen the case against 1304] LOSS OF THE ANGEVIN DOMINIONS 247 John, and ordered him to surrender his French fiefs to Arthur. John refused and Philip summoned him for trial before his court in Paris, When the appointed day came and John failed to appear, Philip in accordance with feudal law declared him to be a contumacious vassal and to have forfeited by default all fiefs which he held of the French crown. Philip proceeded at once to carry out the decree of his court, invaded Normandy, and began reducing its castles. Arthur in the meanwhile had been foolish enough to be drawn into the The murder i • i i i i of Arthur quarrel affain, and with his Bretons had laid siege to and loss of \ , . .1,1 . Angevin the castle of Mirabeau with the hope of seizing Eleanor, dominions t i 1 • his grandmother. John who in emergency was capa- ble of acts of heroic exertion, by a forced march surprised Arthur, carried him off and ultimately lodged him at Rouen, the last that was seen of this unfortunate prince. John was equal to any wickedness and it is not unlikely that he compassed his nephew's death, if he did not actually stab him with his own hand and throw the body into the Seine, as reported by a very venerable tradition. The murder of Arthur completed the trilogy of fatal blunders. Philip at once proclaimed John the murderer, cited him a second time to appear before his conrt and to the sentence of forfeiture added the sentence of death.* The Norman castles fell one after the other, and finally, after a year's siege, even Chateau Gaillard passed into Philip's hands, March 1204. It was the beginning of the end. The Seine was now open to Philip's armies. John's vassals of Normandy refused longer to sup- port him. In April, 1204, Eleanor died, and with her, John lost the last tie which bound him to his continental barons. Before the summer closed, Anjou, Touraine, and Maine had also passed permanently into Philip's hands; the next year Poitou was overrun and of all the splendid possessions of the Angevin kings on the continent only scattered fragments remained, Gascony, Guienne, and one or two strongholds in Poitou. At, the time Englishmen regarded the triumph of Philip with a sense of deep humiliation. Yet nothing more fortunate could have happened to the English state. Richard's absentee reign had ^ Norgate, II, p. 408. 248 THE GROWTH OF POPULAR RIGHTS [john tested and proved the splendid administrative machinery of Henry II. ; and men were coming to distinguish between the government and the personality of the king. Richard, moreover, J. tic SCpCt'Td- 1 T -i F^^f fi compelled by his need of money to allow the from the people a voicc in the assessment of taxes. The shire- moots also had been given control of pleas of the crown. Taxation and representation became thus linked indissolubly in the national mind, and the people began to take their first steps in actual self-government. When, therefore, John was bowed out of the continent by the wily Philip, he found himself face to face with a nation that had passed its nonage and would no longer tol- erate abuses which had sprung of an irresponsible kingship. The old baronial families who like the king were also severed from con- tinental interests, forgot their foreign parentage and once and for all time accepted the position of English subjects of an English king. The nation felt the accession of strength and came very soon to recognize the baronage as a part of itself; and although the influence of the French language and French social customs lingered long after the era of John, the power of French political ideas over England was broken, and the nation was left free to develop its own peculiar institutions and in its own way. Thus the separation of England from the continent, though forced upon the nation against the will of its king and against the will of the people, formed no unimportant link in the series of great events which were preparing England for her future. It restored to her once more the natural advantage of her position behind the Channel; it threw her back upon her own resources, and com- pelled her to develop that intensive life, so marked in every people who have been called upon to play a great role in human history.^ ^ For review of the early Angevin era and results see Norgate, II, chap. X, The New England. CHAPTER VII THE GREAT CHARTER JOHN, 1204-1216 The territorial combination created by the Norman Conquest was now definitely broken and English feudalism had been cut off from the source from which it had originally drawn its r^new) life. This event, coming so soon after the overthrow of the barons and the restoration of the national courts, was of the utmost importance, not only in forestalling any recru- descence of political feudalism, but also in permanently establish- ing as a part of the English constitution the principle for which the Norman Henry and the Angevin Henry had so nobly strug- gled, — that in England all classes are subject to the laws of the realm. But the quarrel of king and feudal baron had hardly been settled, when a new and more serious menace to the happiness of the people appeared in a quarter from which they had been accustomed heretofore to expect comfort and protection, and presented to the nation a new problem for solution. Should the crown become an irresponsible and lawless power; or should the king and his ministers also be held amenable to the laws to which they had forced the barons to submit ; and if so, by what legal machinery could the nation compel the crown to respect Its own laws, with- out resorting to the violent methods of revolution? Here in a word was the new problem which confronted England. It was perhaps fortunate that John was utterly contemptible. A nature so base, so treacherous, could inspire no sentiment of loyalty to obscure in the minds of good men the real issue. His a par^*^**^ tyrannies were so flagrant, so brutal ; his violation of law, his trespasses upon the rights of all classes of his subjects, so arbitrary and so unreasonable, that it was impossible to create a personal party in his favor or draw about him any portion of his 249 250 THE GREAT CHARTER [john people. The king stood alone, without any of that glamour which surrounded the second Stuart and which made him in his death appear to many a veritable martyr. One bad man stood alone, confronted by the nation, powerful in its integrity, ter- rible in its calm self-possession, and determined that the king should rule in accordance with the laws of the land, or not rule at all. John's troubles at home began soon after the last triumph of Philip. On July 12, 1205, the veteran Hubert Walter died. Of late John and his chancellor had not been upon the The crmtested best of terms; Hubert had not hesitated to protest Canterbury, against the tyrannies of John, and John had so far fretted under the restraints put upon him by the hon- est old minister, that the news of his death was received with an exultant sense of relief which he did not try to disguise. But Hubert was also archbishop of Canterbury. IS'ext to the crown there was no more important office in the kingdom. What its influence might be in shaping the destiny of the realm or in brav- ing wayward kings had been shown in the careers of Danstan, Lanfranc, Anselm, Theobald, and Becket. John, therefore, fully realized the importance of filling the vacancy with one of his own creatures, if he would control the policy of the church. But unfortunately for John's plans the right of electing to this impor- tant post had long been a subject of dispute between the suffragan bishops of the metropolitan province and the monks of Christ Church Priory, who since the days of Augustine had acknowl- edged the archbishop as their abbot. The king also had a right in equity to a voice in an appointment so closely related to the welfare of his realm, and since the Conquest had generally named the candidate to be elected. When, therefore, John learned that on the very night following Hubert's death, the junior monks of Christ Church had secretly met, and had not only elected the sub- prior, Reginald, to the primacy but had forthwith without waiting for the approval of the king, dispatched the archbishop-elect to Rome to secure confirmation at the hands of the pope, John was furious. The senior monks and the bishops were also deeply vexed. Reginald was a babbling, shallow sort of fellow, hardly 1207, 1208] STEPHEN LANGTON 251 to be taken seriously; yet his election, if once confirmed by the pope, apart from the question of right involved, might prove grave enough. All parties, therefore, appealed to Rome. John, however, first announced as his candidate John de Gray, bishop of Nor- wich, had him elected and put in charge of the see, and then sent him off to plead his cause at the Roman court, trusting to win his case by the free use of money among the officials who were sup- posed to be in the confidence of the pope. The low cunning of John was no match for the statesmanlike pope. Innocent III., who had recently brought the wily Philip Augustus to terms, and who knew John better than TTie election of LangUm, John knew himself. After letting the case drag on for a full year and a half, Innocent declared that the right of election lay with the monks; rejected both candidates upon the ground that neither election had been canonical, and persuaded the proctors of the monks of Christ Church who were present, to elect an Englishman named Stephen-^mngton. The nomination by the pope was clearly a violation of the right both of the Eng- lish church and of the English crown; yet never was usurpation more fully justified by the results. A better choice could not have been made. Langton was a man singularly pure and noble in pur- pose, of great personal dignity, wide learning, and had been recently raised to the high dignity of cardinal. John refused to assent to the papal choice; and when the pope proceeded to consecrate his candi- date notwithstanding, John swore that he would never allow Langton to land in England. John was now face to face with a man who was accustomed to having bis way. A wise king might have rallied his people about The inter- ^^"^ ^^^ fought out the issuo upon the broad principles of diet, 1208. i\^Q independence of the English crown. But John was not wise. He became violent, and descended to petty persecutions of the monks of Christ Church. He threatened to drive all clergy- men from the realm. He swore he would seize and mutilate every Italian he found in his kingdom. The reply of Innocent to John's furious outbreak was the interdict. This was an ecclesiastical weapon which had been used by earlier popes with great effect. It forbade all religious services, except baptism and extreme unction. Mar- 252 THE GREAT CHARTER [john riage ceremonies could not be performed ; mass was celebrated for the clergy alone; and the dead were buried in unhallowed ground. It played directly upon the tenderest feelings of the people; it appealed to the terrors of the superstitions and was expected to create a public sentiment which would bring the king to terms. Innocent had recently used the interdict with great effectiveness against Philip II. ; but John paid little attention to the murmurs of his people and at once struck back at the pope by confiscating the property of the churchmen who obeyed the interdict. Inno- cent replied by excommunicating John. John then catumof confiscated the estates of the bishops, and used the John, 1209. ,,..,. ^^ - money to strengthen his military power. He was thus enabled to force the king of Scots to renew his homage and pay a levy to the amount of £10,000; he reduced Ireland to order; cut up the English district into counties, and introduced English laws. With the same vigorous hand he turned upon Llewelyn, Prince of Wales, and compelled him to submit. Thus John had only fattened upon the thunders of Innocent. Innocent, however, was now fully aroused, and in 1211 announced through his envoys, Pandulf and Durand, that as his next and final step, he would absolve the subjects of The threat ^ , j, ., • V, • ^ m -, ^ - of deposition. John from their allegiance, formally depose him, and paresis summon Philip of France to carry out the decree. meet it. John knew both men; lie knew that the threat was not idle. He also learned that Philip was actually gathering an army in order to be ready to invade England, the moment the pope should give the word. At home, discontent and disaffection were daily spreading; the church was openly hostile ; the nobles maintained a sullen silence which but poorly concealed the web of treason which they were weaving about the king; the people who had supported the elder Henry with such sturdy loyalty, looked on with cold indifference. Yet John apparently had no thought of yielding. His Angevin blood was up, and he began to strike about him in blind fury. The churchmen who defied him, he drove from the kingdom. He did not wait for the nobles to be detected in actual conspiracy. If a man had power to injure him, that was sufi&cient; his castles were seized and his family held as 1213] JOHN SUBMITS TO THE POPE 253 hostages for his good behavior. With the people John tried a somewhat different course, playing directly for their confidence by remitting fines and abolishing vexatious customs, and although in this he succeeded but indifferently, England was overawed; his enemies at home were paralyzed, and an * 'enormous host" gath- ered at his call to resist the threatened invasion. Abroad he had also secured an alliance with the old allies of Richard, Otto IV. and Ferrand, count of Flanders, who had their own quarrel with both Philip and Innocent and stood ready to invade France the moment Philip should sail for England. The outlook was not inviting to Philip; it was not altogether gloomy for John. lie was fully prepared to defy the threat of deposition as he had defied the interdict and the excommunication, and apparently with a fair chance of success. Then suddenly at the very moment when the Curia had decreed the deposition, and the legate was on the way to England, John made that strange move which it is custom- irlmt^mT^^ ary -to interpret sometimes as an exhibition of despicable weakness, and sometimes as an exhibition of remarkable and farsighted statesmanship. It is said that in spite of John's habit of scoffing at religion, he really feared the papal excommunication; that like all base natures he was capable of a groveling superstition, and that this weakness had been recently played upon by an alleged prophecy of Peter of Wake- field, a hermit, who had declared that within the year John would cease to be king. It is altogether probable that such elements had some influence upon John's determination, but it is also certain that more than pope or hermit, the thing which caused John to draw back was his assurance of a secret coalition between Philip and his own barons. Five of his bishops and many of his nobles had already fled the country and were with Philip. John knew that they had many friends at home; that the very army which he had gathered on Barham Down was honeycombed with treason, and that the landing of Philip would be the signal for general revolt. The pope, however, was the bond which held this coalition together; to remove the pope from the alliance, would leave Philip without moral support for his enterprise; while to 254 THE GREAT CHARTER [johU secure the active friendship of the pope, would turn Philip's Eng- lish allies, John's subjects, from dutiful servants of the church into rebels and schismatics. This was the problem which con- fronted John, and with characteristic unscrupulousness he solved it. On the 15th of May, 1213, John met Pandulf, the papal legate, near Dover and made his submission. He ''accepted Langton as archbishop, undertook to repay certain enormous sums John's which he had recently exacted from the churches," and homage w •' ' tjhepope, restore the estates which he had ruined. He then sur- May 15, 1213. rendered his kingdoms to the see of Rome, and received them again as the pope's vassal, agreeing also to pay a tribute of 1,000 marks a year.^ Innocent withdrew from the coalition and forbade Philip to proceed. The closing of the quarrel with the pope, however, by no means ended John's troubles. It only cleared the field for the greater issue of his reign, which was now at hand. Matters on The OVCO/t/€V isme of the continent had gone too far to be • stopped by the nsrewn. ^^^^j ^^f ^jjg p^pg Fighting soon began between Philip and the Flemings. John sought to assist his allies by sending over his half-brother, William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, to destroy Philip' s shipping in the harbor of Damme; but when he called upon his barons to prepare for an invasion of France, upon one pretext or another they refused; the northern barons putting themselves squarely on the ground that the king had no right to demand military service out of the kingdom. In the Thecouncii meantime a great council which was called to meet at Of St. Al- ^ ham,Av^.4, gt. Albans in August for the purpose of estimating the damages which church property had received during the recent quarrel, provided an opportunity for a free discussion of the condition of the realm, the failure of the king to fulfill his prom- ises of good government, and his numerous invasions of the legal rights of the barons. Most of the encroachments of which the barons complained 1 See Roger of Wendover (years, 1208-1214) in Lee, Source Book of English History, pp. 155-164. 1203-1218] JOHN'S EXACTIONS 255 were the natural results of uew conditions which confronted the crown. The old regular feudal revenues had long been inadequate Thevrrcmas ^^ meet the needs of government, and the king had been 'ibanms forced to develop new sources of income in order to defray the increasing expense of administration. Under Henry II. the offices of state had been bought and sold like ordi- nary fiefs; Richard had driven a flourishing trade in the favors of government, nor had he recognized any limit to the possibilities of sale and purchase, save the depth of the would-be purchaser's pocket. But John had surpassed all his predecessors in devising new and burdensome methods of wringing money from his sub- jects. In the first year of his reign he had raised the carucage, the new tax upon land levied l)y Richard, from two to three shillings on the carucate; the scutage, also, he raised from twenty shillings to two marks. In 1203 he had exacted a seventh of the movable property of the barons under pretext of the war in Normandy, and when the bai'ons became convinced that John did not intend to fight, and returned home in disgust, he declared their lands for- feited by desertion and allowed them to be redeemed again only by the payment of an enormous fine. In 1207 the king demanded a thirteenth of the movable property of the entire kingdom, and when his brother Geoffrey of York protested and the church refused outright to pay the levy, John sent Geoffrey into exile and exacted the tax notwithstanding. In other ways also, no less annoying, John had taken advantage of his position to plunder his barons. The right of conferring the heiresses of his vassals in marriage, he had used as a convenient method of enriching his own creatures. If the heiress refused the king's choice, and sometimes he sought out the most unlikely husband that he could find for this very object, in accordance with feudal law the king was entitled to exact a heavy fine. He also took advantage of the right of wardship to plunder the property of the helpless minor, not only exhausting the estate, but withholding it from the heir as long as possible. The barons, however, were not the only sufferers from John's tyrannies. His hand had been heavy on the churchmen who had remained faithful to the order during the quarrel with the pope. 256 THE GREAT CHABTEE [john He had not hesitated to put to a cruel death an archdeacon of Nor- wich who had withdrawn from his presence at the time of the excommunication.^ The people also had felt the grievous Grievances ■, -, o ^ ^ \ t • of other burden oi the carncasre and the repeated taxation of the movable property of the kingdom. The entire adminis- tration of justice had been used as an engine of extortion; fines and confiscations were frequent and the threat of them often used to levy blackmail. John's rapacity, moreover, was not the least unattractive element of his character. His meanness, his treachery to his friends, his inordinate lust, are beyond description. The barons and the people, therefore, were not without cause of grievance. One marvels that a warlike race should endure so long Legaihasis ^^^ ^^ patiently this despicable tyrant. It can be p&tor explained only by the wide influence and patient firm- thebarom. j^ess of Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, the justiciar. John hated Geoffrey as he hated Hubert Walter, the best testimony to their integrity and faithfulness ; yet Geoffrey was indispensable and John had had the shrewdness and self-control to keep Geoffrey at his post. Matters, however, were now fast approaching a crisis; the more serious as Geoffrey himself appears as the spokesman of the barons. The men who surrounded the justiciar, like him, had been trained in the school of Henry II. , and fully appreciated the moral advantage of finding some standard, some definite legal ground upon which to base their complaints against John. At St. Albans, therefore, Geoffrey Fitz-Peter formally proclaimed the laws of Henry I., as the basis *'of the good customs which were to be restored." Few knew just what these laws were; yet the demand served as a rallying cry; and when three weeks later, at a second meetins^ of the barons held Meetina at st.PauVx, at St. Paul's in London, the new archbishop, Lang^- A.ug. 25 1213. i ' o ton, brought forth the forgotten charter of Henry I., the long-needed weapon was put into the hands of the popular party. *'By this" declared the archbishop, *'you can bring back the liberties which have been lost, to their former condition." In 1 Green, H. E. P., I, p. 233. 1213, 1214] THE CRISIS 257 this definite form the demand of the barons was laid before the king.^ Geoffrey Fitz-Peter did not long survive the council of London. To the king his death was irreparable; yet far from appreciating his loss, John only gave utterance to the brutal words : TheCrifi. *'\Vhen he srets to hell, let him go and salute Hubert Death of & j o Fitz-Peter, Walter; for by God's feet, now am I for the first time Oct 2, 1218. •> J 1 king and lord of England." To the barons the death of Fitz-Peter must have seemed like a calamity; and when John named as his new justiciar, the foreign favorite Peter des Roches, the bishop of Winchester, they knew that there was none to stand between them and the tyrant. Another council had been summoned on November 7, to meet at Oxford. In addition to those ordinarily called, each sheriff liad been directed to send four discreet knights from his shire to * 'discuss the business of the kingdom with the king." ^ Beyond this important provision how- ever, we do not know that anything was accomplished, or in fact that the council was ever actually held. So the eventful year 1213 closed. The rival parties seemed to be marking time. On the continent, however, events were moving rapidly to a crisis. The long talked of alliance of England with Otto IV. and the count of Flanders, who still had their old quarrel with CnaHtion Philip, was about to bear fruit in a joint invasion of defeated at *■ ^ •' Bourmes, France. It was the critical moment in the history of 1214. "^ ** English liberty. If the allies succeeded in crushing Philip, then John might return and settle with his barons at his leisure. Yet the barons hardly seemed to realize what John's suc- cess would mean to them. Some of the southern barons as loyal as ever responded to his call and followed him to Poitou. It is true the northern barons who had been present at St. Paul's took their stand upon the ground assumed in 1213, and refused to serve out of the kingdom; but their action was due to a lack of 1 Lee, Source Book, p. 165 and 124-127. 2 At St. Albans the reeve and four legal men from each township in the royal demesne had been summoned with the barons to assist in esti- mating the damages to church property. They probably acted only as witnesses. 258 THE GREAT CHARTER [john interest in the quarrel, rather than to any just comprehension of the remoter issue. The great alliance, however, proved a signal failure. On the 27th of July, 1214, the Germans, Flemings, and English, led by Otto IV., Ferrand, and Earl William of Salisbury, met Philip on the fatal field of Bou vines. Ferrand and J^^^27^%i4 ^^^® ^^^'^ ^^ Salisbury were both taken; Otto retired with a pitiful remnant of his German knights, his power so shattered that his influence at home rapidly waned before the rising prestige of his young rival, Frederick II. In the mean- while John had attempted a diversion in the west, in the hope of regaining a foothold in the French provinces which he had forfeited in 1204. He had won some unimportant advantages in Poitou; but the defeat of his allies compelled him to retire beyond the Loire and make a truce with Philip for five years. The great coalition, which Richard had built up by the expenditure of so much English wealth, had dashed itself to pieces upon the pikemen of Philip, and with it passed away the last hope of John of ever wresting from the hand of Philip the lands which he had seized ten years before. The permanent possession by the French king of Normandy, Anjou, Touraine, and Poitou was secure. John did not return to England until the autumn. But he had not forgotten the northern barons and came back with the avowed purpose of calling them to an account. The at St. Ed- barons, however, knew their man and were prepared to meet him. Late in November they met in the minster of St. Edmunds under the color of a pilgrimage, and secretly bound themselves before the great altar to compel the king to restore the liberties of the realm and confirm the act by a charter given under his seal ; if he refused, they would withdraw their allegiance and appeal to arms.^ Soon after Christmas a deputation of the barons laid their propositions before the king. He asked for time and promised to respond on the first Sunday after Easter. He had, paresfor however, no idea of submission and set himself to pre- IVdV 1215 pare for resistance. He sought first to detach the bishops from the popular cause, and on the 15th of January issued 1 Lee, pp. 165, 166. 1215] THE CHARTER SIGNED 259 a charter in which he granted the church freedom from the inter- ference of the crown in *'the election of all prelates whatsovor, greater or less."^ Langton, however, was too wise and farseeing to be caught by John's blandishments and stoutly refused to accept any terms for the church, which did not also include the barons. The king in the meanwhile was swelling the ranks of his foreign mercenaries by enlistments in Brabant and Poitou ; he fortified and provisioned his castles; he required his tenants to renew their homage and directed the oath of allegiance to be taken by all freemen throughout England. He also sought to secure the support of the pope by assuming the obligations of a crusader; an act which put him under the special protection of the church. In March the barons gathered at Stamford, and with a dignity and self-possession worthy of the greatness of their cause calmly waited for tiie expiration of the truce. They then marched thrrhnrtn;_ into Northamptonshire and on the 27th of April lay encamped at Brackley. Here Langton and William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, met them as envoys from the king and asked their demands. In reply they drew up a series of articles, known as the ** Articles of the Barons," ^ and dispatched them to the king, John read the demands and angrily exclaimed: **Why do they not ask for my kingdom? I will never grant such liberties as will make me a slave." When the answer came back, the barons, now two thousand strong and numbering representatives of the greatest houses of England, broke camp and marched upon Lon- don. John was still surrounded by many of the older barons; men like William Marshal, whose sympathies were with the rising, but who feared the anarchy of civil war and preferred to gain their point in a quieter way by bringing pressure to bear upon the king within the lines of the constitution. The nation, however, was against John and when on the 24:th of May ''the Army of God and the Holy Church," as the barons styled themselves, entered London in the midst of the wildest enthusiasm, the king's most trusted followers, even the members of his household, saw that his * Gee and Hardy, Documents, etc., pp. 77-79. ^Stubbs. ,Sf. C, 290-296. 260 THE GREAT CHARTER [john cause was hopeless and abandoned him. Cunning and unscrupu- lous as John was, supported only by Flemish mercenaries and a few foreign favorites, he saw that further resistance would be madness, and when the Articles of the Barons in a revised form were again submitted to him, he signed them and attached the great seal. This historic event took place at Runnymede, near Windsor, on the 15th of June, 1215. So at last was secured the priceless document, known in distinction from all other charters as the Great Charter. The importance of this famous document can hardly be ^^^ exaggerated. It was *'the first great legislative act of the English nation," and, supplemented by the later Petitio7i of Right and Bill of Rights^ it constitutes the legal foun- dation of Anglo-Saxon liberties. In form it was a grant similar to previous charters of English kings, issued by the favor of the crown to all "our faithful subjects." In theory it was a restate- ment of the customary laws of feudal England as they had been recognized by her Norman and Angevin kings. In fact it was a list of rights and liberties forced upon the king by his sub- jects; and since it defined in legal form the relations of king and people, and imposed upon the subjects the task of deposing him as a sacred duty in case he violated these relations, it virtually asserted the principle that the king was subject to the laws of the realm as well as his meanest vassal. An analysis of the sixty-three articles of the Charter shows that little had escaped the barons.^ The church was "to be free" and have its newly granted rights. The feudal obligations tiie'charter ^^ ^^® barons Were carefully specified, and the dues which the king might justly demand were carefully defined and limited ; as carefully also were limited the rights of the king over his wards. The administration of justice, which in unscrupulous hands had only too often degenerated into tyranny, was to conform to right and law. The penalty of crime must conform to the grade of the offense. Judges must be selected for their legal knowledge and probity. Suitors in com- ^ For analysis of Charter and review of its contents, see Taswell-Lang- mead, pp. 92-115. PRINCIPLES OF THE CONSTITUTIOlf 261 mon pleas should no longer be compelled to drag about over the country in the wake of the king's court, but were to have some fixed place to which they might resort. The king's justices also were to visit the shires four times a year, to hear and settle dis- putes concerning real property. Such cases, moreover, could not be tried out of the county in which the lands in question lay. Other articles bravely dealt with the fundamental principles of the constitution ; principles the greatness and farreaching import of which the barons themselves probably did not vru!l?,^rTnf realize and which it has taken six hundred years to fim/""'^^"" work out. In the regulation which forbade the king to levy scutage or extraordinary aid without the consent of the common council of the nation was involved the sole right of the parliament to levy taxes. In the regulation which required the king to summon to the council the archbishops, bishops, earls, and greater barons individually, but allowed him to summon the lesser tenants by general notification through the sheriff of each county, was involved the subsequent separation of the two houses, as well as the opportunity for the later development of the representative system. In the principle that no freeman should be imprisoned or suffer other penalty, *' unless by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land," and that ** justice should be neither sold, nor denied, nor delayed," were involved the Habeas Corpus act, and all the other regulations by which Englishmen and Ameri- cans have sought to protect the individual from the abuse of the vast powers of the state. The national character of the Charter is shown by the gener- osity of the provisions which included all classes within its bene- fits. The barons agreed that the liberties which they National . ^^ , , . , . /, character of as tenants received from the kinsr, they in turn would the Charter. , . , ,. . , , . ^ "^ rr,, .,. observe in dealing with their own tenants. The cities and towns also were to have their liberties and free customs. London was to share in the limitations put upon aids and scutages. Foreign merchants were not to be interfered with, but might come and go without being subjected to more than the ancient customs. One standard of weights and measures was also prescribed for the whole kingdom. Even the villain came in for his share of protec- 262 THE GREAT CHARTER [john tion; his agricultural implements, like the stock of the merchant or tradesman, were to be sheltered from the rapacity of the gov- ernment official. No man's grain or other property was to be taken by royal officials under the plea of right of purveyance without payment or consent of the owner; nor could land or rent be seized for any debt due to the crown, as long as the chattels of the debtor were sufficient. Such in brief was the famous Charter; the first attempt to define in a formal way the powers of the crown and the rights of the people. Its moderation is as remarkable as its ofuifcMrter.^^^^^^^ ^^^ Comprehensiveness. The barons had no wish to weaken the crown ; they fully believed that the established customs of the nation were sufficient guarantees of their rights, and these were all that they asked; bat they demanded that these customs be observed. It was much that now at last king and subjects had come to a formal understanding. The customs of England had been formu- lated and the salutary principle established, that these Devicefor ^ ± x enforciw customs miffht uot be violated even by the kins:. But f/j6 ChdVtCT' »J CD how enforce this principle? By what guarantee could the barons protect themselves against the notorious insincerity and treachery of John? Former sovereigns, far better men, had not hesitated to break the most solemn covenants, when a sufficient pretext presented itself, and sometimes even without pretext. The barons could not expect more of John. The system of con- stitutional checks, so well understood and so effective to-day, had not yet been devised, nor was other method understood, save the appeal to the sword. And appeal to the sword there certainly would be, if John were left to himself with all his "regal power and dignity" intact. This was the problem, and to solve it, the barons devised a scheme as naive as it was impracticable. By the sixty-first clause of the Charter the king was made to empower the baronage to elect a standing committee or council of twenty-five barons, who were to keep w^atch upon the king and his officers, and demand instant redress in case any of the provisions were violated. If the king within forty days should not give satisfactory redress, then "the five and twenty barons. 1215] WAR OF JOHN WITH THE BARONS 263 together with the commonalty of the whole land" were authorized by the king to make war upon him, until the grievance should be satisfied. The king further pledged: ''as to all those in the land who will not of their own account swear to join the five and twenty barons in distraining and distressing us, we will issue orders to make them take the same oath as aforesaid." This rude device which imposed upon John's subjects rebellion as a sacred duty, and placed over the sovereign as John declared, "four and twenty kings," could not be satisfactory for the simple reason that no government could long survive under such conditions. The immediate conduct of John, however, justified all the sus- picions of the barons and soon gave his "four and twenty kings" their hands full. Evidently he had not been sincere offt^pope^ for a single moment ; as soon as the barons had returned to their homes, he sent off Pandulf the papal legate post haste to persuade the pope to free him from his oath. The pope at heart was not unfriendly to the cause of English liberties, but he looked upon the struggle solely from the point of view of his interests as overlord, and Pandulf easily persuaded him that the barons in curtailing the powers of the crown, were seriously harm- ing his interests. Moreover, technically, by feudal law any diffi- culties between the king and his vassals ought to have been first referred to the overlord for settlement. The pope accordingly granted John the dispensation ; threatened the barons with excom- munication because they had levied war upon a crusader, and finally suspended Langton. John in the meanwhile was busily preparing for war, and by the en-d of harvest was ready to take the field. He sent a body of foreign mercenaries under Falkes de Breaute to waste War '>/ John and his the lands of the barons, while he himself, ravaging as he advanced, marched into Scotland to punish the Scot king, Alexander, for supporting his enemies. It was a serious moment for the Charter. The suspension of Langton removed the only man who was able to hold together the many diverse elements of the popular party. The more conservative of the barons, men like Pembroke and Chester, who had left John only at the last moment, were inclined to draw back, while the younger men, the 264 THE GREAT CHARTER [john hotheads, were determined to fight the matter out. Thus the war rapidly degenerated into a struggle of factions, in which the pop- ular party continued to disintegrate and John's ranks swelled cor- respondingly. The barons who held out, however, were soon in a sad plight ; their estates were ruined, their castles destroyed, and their wives and children were lying in John's dungeons as hostages. frwSedto^^ In their desperation they finally renounced their alle- crmvn^^^^ giance altogether, and invited Louis, the son of Philip, to come over and assume the English crown. Louis, it will be remembered, had married John's niece, Blanche of Castile, and by feudal law, in default of John and his male heirs, Louis's right to the English crown through his wife might be recognized. Philip chose to regard the claim as founded upon good law and in spite of the threats of the pope, espoused the cause of the barons, and in November hurried off a detachment of 7,000 men to aid them, reinforcing it at times during the winter and spring. John, however, in spite of the French help, continued to make head against his foes, and with the fall of Colchester in March, London remained almost the only place of importance in their hands. In May, the arrival of Prince Louis gave a new phase to the war. Up to this point John had shown considerable military skill. His energy had been magnificent. The strength L^uff^Sm ^^^ ^'*^^^ ^^ ^^^ blows had appalled the stoutest. But now John began to display that want of resolution in the presence of great emergency, so characteristic of the man, but a new element in the Angevin character. When he heard of the landing of Prince Louis at Thanet, he at once broke camp and retired to Winchester. Louis marched upon London and was received by the people with loud acclamations. From London he advanced upon Winchester. John's French mercenaries who con- stituted his main strength, refused to fight against their king's son, and John could do nothing but waste the country and retire before Louis. Winchester fell, and Louis laid siege to Windsor and Dover. Alexander came from Scotland to do him homage and the northern lords followed his example; then the southern earls began to come in and finally John's half-brother, 1216] DEATH OF JOHN 266 William of Salisbury, made his submission. John's kingdom was fast slipping from him ; he could not bring his mercenaries to meet Louis in the open field, although they were perfectly will- ing to rove up and down the country in John's train, burning and plundering English homes and butchering the people. This, how- ever, did John little good, and soon even his friends were disgusted with the lawlessness of his followers. As the summer approached everything was going Louis's way. But ere it had passed, unmistakable signs of a second reaction began to appear. Hubert de Burgh had succeeded in john,Oct^)- holding Dover against every attempt of Louis; Windsor also held out. The barons, moreover, began to doubt the security of their position, should Louis be too successful. Still the fear of John was superior to all other motives and Louis's party continued to hold together. But suddenly in the midst of new successes of the royal party, the whole aspect of the struggle was changed by the removal of John himself, according to tradition, the result of a surfeit of new cider and green peaches. ** History has set upon John's character a darker and deeper mark than she has on any other king. He was in every way the worst of the whole list; the most vicious, the most inMstnv^^' profane, the most tyrannical, the most false, the most shortsighted, the most unscrupulous."* And yet had John been less of a brute, had it been possible to live with him upon any conditions, it is likely that the struggle would never have taken such definite form, ' or the principles of the Charter become so promptly established as the fundamental law of England. It was John's hopelessly base nature, that made the Charter a necessity, and left it to succeeding generations as the monument of his reign. * Stubbs, The Early Plantagenets, p. 160. CHAPTER VIII THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CHARTER HENRY TIL, 1216-1265 FAMILY OF JOHN LACKLAND John = Isabella k. 1199-1216 I of Angouleme Henry in.=Eleanor Joan Eleanor= j J i^^"^™i^^^s„^.J],«. Richard, k. 1216-1272 I of m. < 2 bimon de Montfort g^^.^ ^^ Provence Alexander II. Cornwall, I of Scotland King of the I I .( Romans, Edward I. Edmund Crouchback, Margaret = Alexander III. d. 1271 k. 1272-1307 Earl of Lancaster, of Scotland d. 1296 A great forward step had now been taken by England in secur- ing a basis upon which the relations of crown and people might be formally worked out. A precedent had been estab- for the lished ; a system or program had been accepted which embodied in definite formulae the rights of the subject and the powers of the government. Ideas, heretofore only vaguely floating in men's minds, had been crystallized into the formal terms of a public document ; they could never again be lost or forgotten. Yet the Charter was by no means secure. Its provisions, after all, were as yet only the platform of a party. Much depended upon John's successor; much more depended upon the clearness with which new leaders should grasp the principles of the Charter, and the courage with which they should uphold them. This struggle is the theme of the next sixty years of English history. Stephen Langton, soon after his suspension, had hastened to Rome to put a fair statement of the quarrel before the pope and had not yet returned. His absence was now doubly ^rmmL¥ai ^^^plored. The Charter, however, found a new friend in oSTrTs ^ qi^arter where perhaps it was least expected. William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, was the recognized head of the conservative party of the barons who had clung to John, and, although they had supported the demand for the Charter in 1215. 266 1216] THE FIRST REISSUE OF THE CHARTER 267 had refused to make war upon him. Within ten days after his death, therefore, they brought out and crowned at Gloucester the young Prince Henry, John's eldest son. They also appointed Pem- broke "governor of the king and the kingdom," but entrusted the person of the king to the care of Peter des Roches. The supporters of Henry, however, were not wedded to John's ways, and it required no great foresight to see that the only hope of the young king of ever ruling over his father's kingdom, lay in the absolute and immediate abandonment of his father's policy. To show the people, therefore, that John's policy had died with him, Pembroke at once reissued the Charter, in a modified (if Charter, form to be sure, but nevertheless the Charter. The most important change was the omission of the clauses which made the consent of the barons necessary to the levy of an unusual aid. The new government was at war with its own sub- jects ; a foreign prince supported by a powerful army was in the field, and at so critical a time the new governor of the kingdom might well hesitate to tie his hands, or acknowledge the powers of a group of men the most of whom were in actual rebellion. Yet the first clause of the modified charter declared that the omitted articles were only suspended by reason of the present emergency, and that they should be considered later. Gualo, the new papal legate, and Peter des Roches had also borne no small part in secur- ing the reissue of the Charter, as the first step toward the pacifica- tion of the country. Sworn as was the one to the interests of his papal master, and devoted as was the other to the interests of John and his son, both saw that the moment had come for compromise and conciliation. The first year was fully occupied by the struggle with Louis. The military advantage was all against Henry, but patriotic cur- rents were running high. The old hatred of the Eng- withLouis^ lishman for the foreigner kindled again under wild rumors of French brutality. The young king had no personal enemies. His very youth, his misfortunes, appealed to the awakening loyalty of the people. The independence of the realm was at stake. Tho liberties of the people surely would be far safer under one of their own princes, than under this French- 268 THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CHARTER [henry IIL man, whose ancestors had always and at all times been the enemies of England. Gualo, staunch to the interest which he had now taken up, thundered his excommunications against those who supported the French in their unholy cause. A new and powerful moral influence, moving in ten thousand hidden currents, was thus rapidly setting against Louis. In May 1217 Pembroke beat the French in an absurd battle at Lincoln, known as "The Fair of Lincoln," so easy was the victory and so rich the plunder. In August the Fair of Lincoln was eclipsed by another victory off Dover, in which Hubert de Burgh with a small fleet of forty ships completely over- whelmed the French fleet, and thus destroyed Louis's last chance of getting reinforcements. The victory was due partly to the superior seamanship of the English sailors, and partly to the simple expe- dient of throwing quicklime into the faces of the French, as the English bore down upon them from the weather side. This battle of Dover practically settled the war; Louis thought only of mak- ing his escape from the country. The treaty of peace was signed at Lambeth, September 11, 1217. The same dignity and moderation, so characteristic of all Treaty of ^^^^ bears the touch of Pembroke's great soul, mark SepUmber ^^^^ treaty, which was "almost as important as the 11,1217. Great Charter itself." It secured a general amnesty, and provided for the restitution of all forfeited property. Ten thousand marks were paid to Louis to meet the expenses which he had incurred in undertaking the war. Thus Pembroke sought to lay the foundations of a lasting peace by restoring all parties to the conditions which prevailed at the opening of the year 1215. Ill a few weeks Louis, after receiving the absolution of the legate as one guilty of an ecclesiastical offence, quitted the kingdom for good. Pembroke was now free to address himself to the reorganization of the kingdom on the basis of the Charter. He had not only averted the danger of another foreign conquest; he had Second re- saved England from the horrors of long-continued Charter, i2i7. domestic anarchy. The treaty of Lambeth was imme- diately followed by a second reissue of the Charter, and also by the issue of a supplementary charter, known as the Charter 1217] THE CHARTER OF THE FORESTS 269 of the Forests, which became almost as popular as the earlier work of the barons. In the reissued Charter the clause restricting the taxing power of the king was still held in abeyance ; illegal castles, which had risen again as in the wars of Stephen's reign, were tb be destroyed; the itinerant justices were to make one instead of four circuits a year. The Charter of the Forests included the forest regulations of the original charter which had been omitted from the first reissue, and also certain new regulations which relieved the people of many hardships. The boundaries of the forests were always more or less indefinite, and the constant tendency of the forest courts had been to extend these bound- aries. By the new Charter the forests were to be restored to the limits which had been recognized in the time of Henry II. ; and much of the legal chicanery by which the forest courts were accustomed to draw the helpless people into their toils, was abolished. No measure of Earl William's administration was more popular; and long after his death, when the cry for the *' confirmation of the charters" was raised by the nation, it was Earl William's charters of the year 1217 that the people demanded. At the close of the year Gualo retired and Pandulf was again appointed legate. Gualo had administered his high office in the main with wisdom and discretion, and although he had StrwS^^"^ been somewliat overeager to levy fines and confiscations in the name of his spiritual lord, no small credit is due to him for his staunch support of Pembroke in restoring the kingdom to order and putting into practice the principles of the Charter. The new legate had nothing of Gualo's keen insight into existing conditions. He possessed, moreover, a dangerously energetic tem- perament and was imbued with the idea that he was to govern Eng- land as a dependent province of Rome. His overbearing disposition also soon brought him into conflict with Langton who had returned to England soon after the death of Innocent and was again at his post. But Langton's influence with the new pope, Honorius III., finally prevailed ; Pandulf was recalled and Langton obtained the promise that during his lifetime no resident legate should be appointed in England. 270 THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CHARTER [hekbtIH. In 1219 Earl William died. He is the "grand old man" of this era. He had been identified with every great political move- ment since 1173. If he had supported John it was not hroke%i9^^' ^^^cause he loved tyranny, but because he feared baronial violence. He represented the great conservative thought of the nation, and because he was able at last to marshal this element in support of the Charter, he made the final triumph of the popular cause possible. His place could not be easily filled, nor did the council attempt to appoint a new "governor." Hubert de Burgh, the hero of Dover, had been justiciar since 1215, and the chief place in the administration naturally fell to him. He had never been in sympathy with the restrictions of the royal power as they had been set forth in the Charter; but he believed in good government, and threw himself with all the confi- dence and vigor of a successful soldier into the task of complet- ing the work of Earl William. Hubert, however, was a very different man from the gentle earl. He had nothing of his patience and little of his tact in deal- ing with rebellious vassals. He saw, moreover, what de^Burgh possibly William had seen before his death, that the time for conciliation was passing and that the moment was at hand when the new government might no longer shrink from putting its authority to the test, but that it must deal vigor- ously with the barons who still refused to surrender their strong- holds. *The feudal lords must submit to Henry III. as they had once submitted to Henry II. ;' the foreigners whom John had put in charge of his castles and who still held them, must be removed and the strongholds which they had turned into instruments of "tyranny and oppression," must be given back again to the king. The most conspicuous of these tardy barons were William of Aumale and Falkes de Breaute. Aumale was of the old French- English baronage which had rooted itself in the soil since element in the Conquest. His grandfather was that William of ' Aumale who had defied Henry of Anjou when he began the restoration of the kingdom after the close of Stephen's stormy reign. Falkes de Breaute was one of the horde of ruffian adven- turers whom John had introduced into England in order to 1219, 1220] HUBERT DE BURGH 271 support his tottering throne. He was a Norman by birth, but had been driven out of Normandy for his crimes and had found congenial occupation in marshalling John's mercenaries. John had rewarded him by bestowing upon him a rich heiress; he had also made him sheriff of six English counties and given into his keeping many of his castles, including Bedford, one of the most formidable strongholds of England. Pembroke perhaps would not have hesitated to attack Aumale or de Breaute had they stood alone. But there were many other powerful barons who, like Ralph of Chester, held aloof from the new government and would undoubtedly have taken alarm, had the regent attempted to coerce one of their number. There was also within the council itself a pow- erful foreign influence, headed by the quondam justiciar of John, Peter des Roches, who had been a knight, a politician, and a mis- chief-maker generally, before he had taken orders, and had not so far abandoned his old profession, that he could not use his present position secretly to encourage the barons to defy the regent in order to build up a foreign party in the coart. As a preliminary step to the assertion of the royal authority, at Whitsuntide of the year 1220, Hubert with the support of Langton had Henry recrowned at Westminster amid (ussert^^he gi*6at pomp ajid splendor. It was to be the signal that ity"i22o^*^^'^ the king had been restored to full possession of the royal dignity. Armed with a bull from Honorius which demanded the surrender of the castles, Hubert then proceeded against Aumale, and although he succeeded at last, it was not until Aumale had resisted the whole force of the government for nearly a year. By this time, also, the other barons were fully aroused, and appearing before the king, with Bishop Peter as spokesman, formally accused Hubert of treason. They then retired to Leicester. The justiciar in the name of the king appealed to the nation and gathered a rival force at Northampton. Langton also entered the lists and issued a formal excommuni- cation against the rebellious barons. This * 'array of force and authority" overawed the malcontents; and one by one they sur- rendered their castles and made their peace with the justiciar. Falkes de Breaute, however, remained defiant and Hubert deter- 272 THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CHARTER [heneyIII. mined to complete his success by either destroying him or driving him out of the country. But he took his own time, and waited patiently until some overt act of de Breaute or his men should leave no question of the justice of his position. In 1224, the occa- sion came. William, a brother of de Breaute, who held Bedford in his name, seized and imprisoned one of the royal justices. Hubert at once accepted the challenge, marched against Bedford, and after two months' siege, took it and hanged William and some eighty of his men on the walls. Such prompt and vigorous measures thoroughly cowed the barons who still retained any sympathy with de Breaute. De Breaute himself was glad to leave the coun- try; Bishop Peter also lost his influence for the time, left the council, and soon after departed for a Crusade. For three years Hubert continued to rule the kingdom with vigor and success. But in 1227 Henry, who had entered upon his twenty-first year, declared his purpose of assuming the becomes of government himself. Personally the young king was clean and upright, without any of his father's personal wickedness ; but unfortunately he was possessed with an exaggerated estimate of his own abilities as an executive, always coupled with a slavish deference to the papacy. He was, moreover, easily led by the favorite of the hour and inclined, like most weak natures in high positions, to be suspicious of the influence of strong men. Hubert continued to act as justiciar; but the king was incapable of appreciating his sterling worth, or the value of his past serv- ices. In 1228 Hubert lost his best and wisest supporter in the death of Langton, who as no other English statesman of the time, even Pembroke not excepted, had risen to the full concep- of^Huberi^^ tion of the constitutional monarchy. He had unflinch- ingly upheld the liberties of all classes against the king; yet he had as staunchly defended the crown when the barons pro- posed to deprive the king of his legal and just powers. As no other man he stood for the national rights of the English people. His death left Hubert to struggle on alone under his burdens. The task had long since proved thankless, for the king had early shown alarming signs of treading in his father's footsteps. His 1228, 1229] FALL OF HUBERT DE BURGH 273 very first act was to insist that all charters or grants made in his name during his minority, should be regarded as invalid, until confirmation had been purchased by the beneficiary. Other acts as ill-omened of the future followed. Hubert, loyal to the last, found himself driven to adopt the policy of his predecessors, Hubert Walter and Geoffrey Fitz-Peter; like them he deliberately sacrificed his own popularity to save the reputation of his master. When he could, he lightened the burdens of the people, but only in the end to forfeit the favor of the ungrateful king. The troubles of Hubert began soon after the death of Langton. The pope, Gregory IX., at the time was in the midst of the struggle with the Hohenstaufen which had been Rubeft renewed soon after the death of Innocent III. As a result the papal budget had enormously increased, and the ordinary revenue of the papal see, although supplemented by the Peter's Pence, was no longer sufficient for its needs. Henry at his coronation in 12 IG, had formally done homage to Gualo as the representative of the pope ; and again in 1220, at the second coronation, the sponsors of the young king had thought it neces- sary first to await the command of the papal overlord. The tribute of 1,000 marks which John had promised had also been regularly paid. The pope, therefore, had every reason to regard as established the papal overlordship which had now for nearly fifteen years passed without a challenge, and in 1229 demanded a tenth of all property, both lay and ecclesiastical, to assist him in prosecuting his wars. The demand brought the papal overlord- ship home to the barons, and when the matter was brought up in the council, voices were loudly raised in protest. The pope dared not push the demand upon the laity, but he compelled the church to submit. Eventually it became the established custom for the clergy to set aside one-tenth of their yearly income for the pope, annates, besides the entire income of each benefice during the first year after appointment, ^r^^/rwiY^. Popular feeling ran high, and a quickening national sentiment found voice in a definite protest against the impoverishment of the nation in order to carry on wars in which England had no interest. The papal collectors were plundered ; their stores burned. The king whose sympathies were 274 THE STKUGGLE FOK THE CHAKTER [hknbtIII. all with the pope, was grieved and angry ; and when the justiciar failed to punish the perpetrators of these outrages, he charged him with conniving at the excesses of the populace. Henry in truth was already tired of his minister. Peter des Roches, moreover, who had just returned from his crusading venture, and who was as unscrupulous and ambitious as ever, easily made the king believe that Hubert's dishonesty was the cause of the lean treasury and that he was abetting those who were opposing the papal exac- tions. At last in July, 1232, des Roches had the satisfaction of seeing his old rival driven from the council, like Becket over- whelmed with a mass of unfounded charges, and his lands taken from him. Hubert de Burgh was the last of the great justiciars. Inferior men succeeded him. The political functions of the office passed to the chancellor and in the next reign the office itself was virtually abolished by the breaking up of the Curia into three distinct and separate courts. Peter des Roches was now supreme in the council; and when- ever a valuable appointment was to be filled the king apparently preferred Peter's foreign friends, adventurers mostly, Srw^im-^^ to his own people. A hundred years earlier such favoHteS^ conduct on the part of the king would have been accepted as a matter of course, but the national feeling was now too strong to allow it to pass without a protest. Earl Ralph of Chester, the natural head of the baronage, had died in the year of Hubert's fall. William Marshal, the younger, had married a sister of the king and was not inclined to break with him. William's brother Richard, however, "one of the most accomplished knights and the most educated gentleman of the age," put himself at the head of the national party and persuaded the barons to refuse to attend any council called by the king at which Bishop Peter was present, and to demand the dismissal of the foreigners whom he had introduced into the king's service. The king under the instigation of des Roches declared Richard a traitor and invaded his estates. The barons insisted that he should be tried by his peers. Peter des Roches asserted the startling doctrine that there were no peers in England as there were in France, and that the king had full right to proscribe and 1234] HEN^RY'S personal ADMIIS^ISTRATION 276 condemn. Eichard, satisfied that he would receive short shrift with Bishop Peter as his judge, in self-defense made an alliance with the Welsh princes. So the nation was once more drifting toward civil war, when Richard was decoyed into Ireland by the cunning minister and there slain in a skirmish. But his work was accomplished. The clergy had openly taken sides with the barons. Langton's successor, Edmund Rich, read a list of griev- ances to the king and declared himself ready to pronounce the excommunication if the king refused to heed. Henry, who was a coward at heart, saw himself at last like his father confronted by an angry nation and durst not defy the spirit which he had raised. He therefore dismissed des Roches and sent off the foreigners. Henry, however, did not propose to flatter his troublesome vas- sals by calling any of them to his side as ministers. If he could not select his own ministers, he would have none at all. aSptnt ^^® measure was a serious mistake. For hitherto the mStratum. ininisters had borne the brunt of the popular discon- tent. Now the king assumed the whole responsibility himself. He was extravagant, obstinate, and false. It was not long before a mass of grievances had rolled up which certainly would have appalled a wiser head. But Henry kept on, blind to his own utter incompetence, disgusting his people by his evasions and shortcomings, and laying up an account for the future. These grievances centered largely about the question of money. Henry loved power not so much for itself, as for the opportunity which it gave him for ostentatious display. He loved o/Hmry^^^^ ^^ Scatter his favors in extravagant profusion ; he loved the glitter and sliow of court pageantry, and squandered vast sums in supporting its ceremonies. He made the brilliant alliances of the royal house, in particular, occasions for the display of his magnificence. As a' result, Henry won an unfortunate repu- tation for wealth which was not supported by facts, but which nevertheless tickled his vanity and led him still deeper into this costly masquerading. The broken-down gentility of Europe who could manufacture any claim upon his bounty flocked to his court. Most notorious among these were the queen's two uncles, Peter of Savoy and Boniface, who came with a train of hungry Proven9als 276 THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CHARTER [hkneyIU. at their heels, and secured offices and pensions at the king's expense. Henry for his pains was rapidly sinking into hopeless debt. The barons continued to grant scutages, aids, carucage, or tax on movables as Henry demanded. But their generosity found little encouragement in the financiering of the kingf. Growing im- i i , , i ■, patwnceof whose debts already exceeded four times his annual income. The barons insisted with each grant that the king confirm the charters and promise redress and reforms ; and Henry like all spendthrifts was always ready to promise when he needed money, only to forget again as soon as the money was in his hands. But the patience of the barons had its limit; the king was drifting rapidly near to the danger line. Beyond it, was either bankruptcy or civil war, probably both, with the possibility of ultimate deposition. The king at the time was preparing an expedition against Louis IX. of France. He had long cherished an impracticable scheme of regaining the French domains which his father had tempt ix) lost, and had already squandered the treasures of his footifw on the subiects ill a wasteful war with the French for this pur- pose ; but he had accomplished nothing, and in fact owed the continuance of his power in. the parts of John's domain which had been saved from the general wreck, only to the loyalty of the Gascons, who did not love Henry so much as they hated and feared the French. The Gascon barons, moreover, were turbulent and unruly by long habit, and preferred the government which was remote and there- fore weak ; the southern merchants also found England the best market for their wines, the chief staple of their country. But the English barons took little interest in the distant struggle and were weary of the endless demands for scutage and other subsidies. It was with little satisfaction, therefore, that in 1242 they saw their king bent upon rushing into still another war with the French king. The Poitivin, Hugh de la Marche, had quarreled with Louis IX., and appealed to Henry for help. This Hugh was the man whose bride John had once carried off, the beginning of all his troubles. After the death of John, Hugh had successfully renewed his suit and was now Henry's stepfather. Henry regarded the call of Hugh as the opportunity to regain his footing 1242-1245] GRIEVANCES OF THE CLERGY 21"}' in Poitou, and although the English barons flatly refused to grant the required subsidies, the headstrong king, determined to under- take the quest, took his army to Poitou, only to be disgracefully driven out of the country. Then, to exasperate the baronage still further, he brought back with him a rout of hungry Poitivins, his half-brothers and their friends, to live upon his bounty and plunder the realm in his name. The barons now began to see clearly that it was not enough to protest, or refuse grants. In 1244, therefore, they presented a formal remonstrance to the kinff, in which they declared The hcirons demand con- that he had not expended their grants wisely, and de- appointment manded that he appoint a justiciar, a treasurer, and a chancellor, subject to their approval. In 1215 the barons had demanded only that the king's officers be acquainted with the law; now they demand that the affairs of the kingdom be administered by men directly responsible to the great council. The barons were thus at last feeling their way towards a right solution of the problem in which Langton and the elder Marshal had failed. The time, however, was not yet ripe for a step so rad- ical. The barons were not ready to break finally with the king, and the king evidently would not yield to their demands until forced by open revolt. The state of the clergy was far less hopeful. Like the barons they were subjected to numerous and heavy exactions ; but they were far less able to help themselves. The king was ^heciergy ^^^^ ^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ hands of the papal overlord, and the English clergy might well hesitate to raise an issue with the fiery and inexorable Gregory IX. His remorseless demands were repeated from year to year; yet the papal treasury was ever empty. The pope, moreover, not satisfied with direct taxation, by the recently assumed right of naming **provisors," sought to reward his Italian servants by securing for them appointments to English livings in advance of vacancies. In 1231 Gregory forbade the English bishops to **present to livings" until provision had been made for five Italians whom he did not even name. In 1240 the bishops of Lincoln and Salisbury were instructed to provide for three hundred Italians. In 1245 the 278 THE STRtJGGLE J"OR THE CHARTER [hknbt nl. new pope, Innocent IV., demanded a year's revenue from all vacant livings, and in a formal protest, which the English bishops subsequently presented at the council of Lyons, they declared that they were putting 60,000 marks each year into the hands of foreign prelates. At last the exactions became so burdensome that even the laity complained of the impoverishment of the country. The only justification which can be advanced in defense of the policy of the popes, is the desperateness of the mighty struggle which they were carrying on against Frederick II. It temess toward was a duel of Titans and neither party was scrupulous about encroaching upon the rights of inferior powers. It was a cause too, Gregory or Innocent might justly claim, in which the entire church was interested, and their vassals of England ought to bear a share of the burdens as well as their vassals of Italy. To national England, however, drawing herself together after a cen- tury and a half of feudal strife, it seemed that she was paying overdear for her loyalty to the Roman see, with her riches pour- ing into its cofferSj her livings handed over to foreign ecclesiastics, many of whom did not take the trouble to come to England at all, and her king a witless tool in the hands of a foreign hierarchy. In the quaint words of Matthew of Paris, *Hhe pope displayed the harshness of a stepfather, and the church of Rome the fury of a stepmother." Many voices were raised in protest. Even the saintly Edmund Rich, the archbishop of Canterbury, although like Langton he owed his appointment directly to the intrusion of papal authority, protested against the continued usurpations of the Roman pontiff and went into exile rather than submit. Sir Robert Twenge, a public-spirited knight of Yorkshire, went to Rome in order to present his protest in person. But no voice rang clearer than that of Robert Grosseteste, the bishop of Lin- coln, who boldly urged the clergy to resist the frequent levies, and declared that the nominees of the pope were drawing from Eng- land three times as much revenue as the king himself. Almost his last words were those of the noble and manly protest of 1253. Innocent had proposed that one of his own nephews be invested with a living in the diocese of Lincoln. *'I decline to obey," replied 1253-1257] THE APULIAN" AFFAIR 279 Grosseteste; * 'filially and obediently, I oppose; I rebel!" Thus were sown in the English mind the first seeds of that bitterness which was destined two centuries later to bear fruit so fatal to the pope's interests in England. In 1257 affairs began to approach a crisis. Frederick II. had died in 1250, and Innocent IV. had followed him to the grave in 1254. Innocent's successor was Alexander IV., a mild onhecrisS^^ and gentle prince, of very different spirit from either Gregory or Innocent. The policy of the Roman see, however, had become too firmly established; the enmities which divided Italy had bitten too deeply into the hearts of the people to be influenced much by the character of one pope, so that Alexander was compelled by his position to take up the task of his predecessors. A Hohenstaufen prince must not be allowed to establish himself in southern Italy ; a descendant of Frederick II. must not succeed to the crown of the Sicilies. Innocent had sought to interest France in his cause by offering the disputed crown to Charles of Anjou, the brother of Louis IX. ; he had also gone begging to England and had actually persuaded Henry, who was just vain enough to be caught by the dangerous bauble, to accept the honor for his second son Edmund, when Innocent died and left his bargaining and his scheming for Alexander to bring to some definite result. Henry had agreed to send an army to take possession of the Sicilian kingdom, and when he was unable to act, the pope had generously undertaken to carry on the war for him, charging the expense up to his account, and with such good results that very soon Henry's debt had been rolled up to 135,000 marks. la the meantime the pope had not hesitated to press Henry for payment, even sending his own creditors to Eng- land to deal directly with the sorely beset debtor. In 1257 the urgency of Alexander finally forced the king to lay the matter before the great council and ask for a grant of 140,000 marks. Henry tried to arouse some enthusiasm by presenting to the barons the little Edmund tricked out in the costume of Apulia, but the attempt was a dismal failure. The clergy consented to contribute 52,000 marks, but the barons remained ominously silent. 280 THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CHARTER [hknry iii, The king and the great council were approaching a deadlock, and a deadlock at this moment meant bankruptcy, possibly revo- lution. Since the fall of Hubert de Burgh the king ofHmii^s^ had acted as his own chief minister. Since 1244 he ^ovei^ent. ^^^ Conducted the government without treasurer, chancellor, or justiciar. The affairs of these important officers had been carried on by means of a bureau of clerks, mere registering machines, both irresponsible and inefficient. Public business had fallen first into arrears, and then into hopeless con- fusion. Enormous sums had been raised but the treasury was always bare. The king could not pay even the menials about his court, and some of them had been driven to highway rob- bery by actual destitution. To add to the general distress the year 1257 was attended by a failure of the crops throughout Eng- land. Heavy and long-continued rains ruined the grain, and when November came the harvests still lay rotting in the fields. The price of wheat rose tenfold, and in the winter which followed thousands of the people died of hunger. The rich had no con- fidence in the future, and the poor, always the first to suffer on the eve of national bankruptcy, were openly disloyal, restless, and defiant. The discontent was universal and soon passed into savage mutterings, the presage of coming storm. In the past, in the case of wise kings like the first two Henrys, it had been sufficient to protest and exact some written guarantee of better rule. But this method had proved utterly fiyrmer meth- worthless against the obstinate extravagance of Henry straining the and the insatiable avarice of the creatures who surrounded him. Never had charters been more elaborate or mi- nute ; never had king more readily and graciously given his word ; but never had king more lightly broken his word again as soon as his people's wealth was safely housed in the royal treasury. Yet the nation had hesitated to draw the sword. The memories of John's wars were still fresh. The clergy were overawed by the pope ; on the one hand, on the other, they distrusted the barons and hesi- tated to join them in a struggle against the royal authority. The commons as yet not only had no regular representation in the national council, but by long-accepted tradition they still 1258] THE MAD PARLIAMEN'T 281 regarded the king as their natural protector, and had no desire to throw the administration altogether into the hands of the barons. Such was the condition of affairs when in April 1258 the barons were summoned to a great council at London. They were still in the same ugly mood in which they had met the king in oPi258^^ the preceding year. But the pope, who had little appre- ciation of the difficulties which confronted Henry, had continued to press him for the immediate settlement of his account; the legate had threatened the kingdom with the interdict in case of refusal, and the king had no recourse save to call once more upon the barons to assist him in making good his pledge. Then the barons who had been silent before spoke out; they told the king plainly that he had acted unwisely in the Sicilian affair and without the advice of the council, and that he must end the matter as best he could. After a month of wrangling Henry finally promised that he would summon the barons again at Oxford soon after Whitsuntide ; and that, if they would grant the aid for which he asked, he would consider their grievances and consent to the appointment of a commission of twenty- four, twelve of whom should be taken from the royal council and twelve from the barons, with full power to institute the necessary reforms. The barons accepted the promise in good faith and the assembly broke up. The king kept his word, and early in June the barons were summoned to meet him at Oxford. There was no mistaking the spirit of this second assembly, which was soon christened The "JJad Parliament," bv the king's adherents the ''Mad Parliament." ^ The June 1258. , ,-,.«,, -I Til 1 11 barons met clad in full armor, and although they pre- tended that the arming was for the Welsh wars, no one was ignorant of its real purpose. They first presented their grievances, a long ' The name parliament was now coming into vogue. Matthew of Paris among English writers first uses it^ parlamentum, of the meeting of the barons at London in 1246. Gneist, Const. Hist, of England, I, p. 320, note 2a. The word at first had nothing of its later specific meaning, but was used in some such way as the word congress is frequently used to-day. See Taswell-Langmead, p. 194 and note 1. 282 THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CHARTER [henbt 111. and formidable list/ and then proceeded to the reordering of the government. A justiciar, treasurer, and chancellor were chosen, presumably, by the parliament. The promised committee of twenty-four were also appointed, and proceeded to draw up the constitution known as the Provisions of Oxford. In accordance with the proposed constitution, the commission of twenty-four were to appoint a second committee of four; each twelve to select two names from the opposing twelve. sionsof ihe committee of four were then to select a per- Oxford. ^ manent council of fifteen members. This council was to advise the king in matters of state and to exercise a direct supervision over his public ' acts. The barons were also to appoint a second permanent committee to consist of twelve members who were to represent the "community of the realm," meeting in parliament with the council of fifteen three times a year. A second committee of twenty-four were to be empowered to negotiate the aid which had been promised to the king. The original twenty-four were entrusted with the reform of the church. In each shire four discreet knights were to be appointed to watch the conduct of the sheriffs and report at the parliaments. The sheriffs were to be appointed for one year and their accounts were to be strictly audited. A direct blow was aimed at the foreign friends of the king, in that all castles were to be put at once into the hands of native Englishmen. The barons were taking a long step in advance of the crude provisions made in the Great Charter for safe-guarding the nation cmistuu- against the tyrannies of the king ; yet they had little tumai^nifi- comprehension of the principles of constitutional gov- Proviswns. ernment. For the arbitrary government of an irre- sponsible king, they had nothing better to substitute than the arbitrary government of an irresponsible oligarchy. In the method also, which they devised for selecting the men to whom this important trust was to be committed, they betray the same barrenness of expedient, having exhausted their ingenuity in * See Stubbs, S. C. , p. 382. By comparing these grievances point by point with the provisions of the Great Charter it will be seen how little had yet been actually secured. 1258] THE t»ROVlSIONS OF OXFORD ^83 imitating the complicated and crude machinery of cross appoint- ments by which it was customary to negotiate the treaties of the era. The barons conceded the supervision of local administration to the knights of the shire and allowed them to report at the parliaments. Yet they evidently had no wish to allow the knights any standing as a constituent part of the parliament, and really showed less confidence in this large and important ele- ment of the commonalty of the realm than Henry him- 1254. self had shown on a previous occasion/ when he had assembled the knights through their representatives, as an integral part of the great council. All in all, the Provisions were constitutionally a step backward; they were designed to fetter the king by putting the government into the hands of an oligarchy of the great barons, rather than to extend political priv- ileges to the community at large or to develop its political activity. As it was, the lesser barons evidently were not satisfied, and to quiet them, the twenty-four promised to announce further reforms before the following Christmas. The Provisions were accepted by the king; the several commit- tees were appointed and the members bound by an elaborate series of oaths to perform their respective duties. The king ^!i^em;iicn« ^^^ swore to support the Provisions and respect the launched, advice of the council. A flurry was caused for a moment 12o8. -^ by the conduct of Henry's half-brothers, the Lusignans, who refused to surrender their castles at the demand of the barons, and, throwing themselves into the castle of Winchester, defied the authority of the government. After a two weeks' siege, however, they were compelled to capitulate on July 5, and were expelled from the kingdom, leaving the most of their ill-gotten wealth behind them. After their departure, Edward, Henry's eldest son, also accepted the Provisions, and the new government was fairly launched. On the 1 8th of October, in a document drawn up in English, French, and Latin, the king formally announced to the world his acceptance of the Provisions and his purpose to respect the decisions of the council. ^ Taswell-Langmead, p. 194. 284 THE STRUGGLE FOtl THE CHARTER [henry in. The two men who thus far had led the barons were Richard of Clare, Earl of Gloucester, and Simon de Montfort, Earl of Lei- cester. Of these two men Richard of Clare was "by tlwharom. ^^^^h, property, and descent the natural head of the English baronage." He was also a man of great energy and strength, but his political sympathies were narrow and con- fined him to the interests of his class. A very different man was Earl Simon. He came from an ancient Norman family and was the second son of that Simon de Montfort who had lost his life under the walls of Toulouse in the Albigensian Crusade. The younger Simon like his father was tall and handsome; he pos- sessed also his religious ardor, his love of roving, his fondness for war and adventure. From his father's mother he had inherited a claim to the English earldom of Leicester, the recognition of which by Henry had given him a standing among the English barons. He had risen rapidly in favor, and in 1238 had secretly married the king's sister Eleanor, the widow of William Marshal the younger. Thus far the career of Simon had not differed much from that of many another foreign adventurer who came to seek his fortune in England. His rapid rise, also, had stirred up bitter enemies, chief of whom was the king, who was particularly dis- pleased by the marriage with Eleanor. In 1240 Simon departed on a Crusade and was gone two years. In 1248 he was made gov- ernor of Gascony and gave its unruly nobles the best administra- tion that they had known since the days of Richard I. He returned in 1251 to find that the king's hostility had not abated and that the malice of his own enemies was as busy as ever. Yet his services were too valuable to be dispensed with, and he was sent again to Gascony as the guardian of Prince Edward. Simon's high reputation at this time is shown by the fact that he was twice invited to be seneschal of France. In 1254, however, he was finally retired to remain for two years under the deep shadow of royal displeasure. In 1256 he came back to England to throw himself into the cause of reform, and it was largely due to his clear-sighted leadership that such definite results had been wrought out of the parliaments of London and Oxford. He was not, like Langton, an Englishman; but yet, like Langton, like no Englishman of his own 1359] DIVISION IN THE PARTY OP THE BARONS 285 times, he rose to the full significance of the movement for the political reorganization of the kingdom. The year 1259 opened auspiciously enough for the new admin- istration. After the expulsion of the foreigners the adherents of the king were left in a hopeless minority both in the The split in council of fifteen and in the consulting board of twelve. the barons. Henry's personal influence was feeble. His son Edward had a strong following among the lesser barons, but they were all with Simon and the cause of reform. Eichard of Cornwall, the king's brother, who had been elected King of the Komans in 1257 and had been spending the last two years in the mad quest for imperial honors, returned in January of 1259, but was compelled to swear to support the Provisions. In times past, at great crises in the nation's history, the archbishop of Canter- bury had generally played a most important role and the support of his powerful influence was more to be desired than the support of an army. The present incumbent, however, was Boniface of Savoy, the queen's uncle, who was not only one of the very foreigners whom the barons were determined to keep out of the kingdom, but had made himself specially obnoxious by his brutal violence, so marked in contrast with the gentle saintliness of his predecessor. There was no one, therefore, to rally a king's party. Yet the king was not long without friends. He found them, moreover, where he had least expected, among the very barons who had driven away his kinsmen and seized control of his government. Gloucester and Leicester were thoroughly incompatible both in views and in tem- perament. Gloucester was satisfied, now that the foreigners had been expelled, and had no desire to see the reform carried farther. Leicester, apparently, did not wish to stop until remedies had been introduced which should make such abuses of power as had disgraced the reigns of John and Henry henceforth impossible. Gloucester furthermore had no sympathy with the demands of the inferior barons, and it was probably due to him and the conservative instincts of the powerful section of the baronage which he represented, that tlie Provisions were so illiberal and that the inferior barons had been put off with a promise. Simon, however, was evidently not satisfied with simply exalting the powers of a few great barons at 286 THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CHARTER [henrt III. the expense of the crown; he contended not for the privileges of his class but to secure good government for the nation. Christmas came and passed, and the council had taken no steps to fulfill the promises made at Oxford. In February the matter The Provi- ^^^^ ^^ ^^ Q-pen quarrel between Gloucester and Simon ; ^JS^tr^'o^t- ^"^ Simon app'arently won, for on the 28th of March ober, 1259. the king published an ordinance by which the barons of the parliament undertook "to observe towards their dependents all the engagements which the king had undertaken to observe towards his vassals." This pledge, however, was evidently not definite enough to satisfy the great body of knights, ^ who, led by Prince Edward himself, demanded of the council that the specific reforms promised at Oxford be forthcoming. There were ominous threats of counter-revolution in the air, and the oligarchy in con- trol of the government could only submit. In October, therefore, they published a second or supplementary set of Provisions, known as the Provisions of Westminster, which, while not altogether satisfactory, served to allay the disquiet for a time. It is not necessary to trace the further history of the govern- ment of the barons in detail. They succeeded in bringing to a close a AYelsh war which had smouldered through the mentofm greater part of Henry's personal reign. They withdrew England from all share in the unfortunate Sicilian affair. They also succeeded in settling by a definite treaty the long-stand- ing quarrel of England and France over the lost Angevin dominions, in which the council renounced all claims of the English BordeaiLr, king upou Normandy, Anjou, Touraine, and Poitou ; the French king conceded Bordeaux, Bayonne, and Gascony, with the bishoprics of Limoges, Cahors, and Perigord, all to be held by the king of England as fiefs of the king of France. The domes- tic administration of the council seems to have been likewise suc- cessful. The three parliaments were held each year; the four knights from each county regularly reported on the conduct of the sheriffs, and the courts instead of being a source of extortion, became again the guardians of law-abiding subjects. So matters continued until the close of 1260. Leicester and ^ "The community of the bachelors of England, " Stubbs,C. H., II, p. 83. 1260-1262] HENRY DEFIES THE COUNCIL 287 Gloucester were apparently reconciled; but the estrangement of Leicester and the great barons was not healed, although Simon had spent much of his time abroad since the quarrel wtmtM^^^ of 1259. Gloucester and the king naturally drew council, iiear together, and Edward and Simon, who had long been close friends, as naturally found themselves in accord. Edward, moreover, had been specially embittered against Gloucester who it seems had been largely responsible for the Treaty of Bordeaux, having surrendered the English claim to Normandy against the express protest of the prince. Gloucester also had used the intimacy of Edward and Simon to excite the suspicion of the king and caused him to believe that Simon was plotting to dethrone him in the interests of his son. Henry on his part was fully aware of the unpopu- larity of Simon with the great barons and had taken advantage of his continued absence to foment trouble in the council and had gathered about him a considerable party. At the opening of 1261 he believed that he was strong enough to act, and made no secret of his determination to overthrow the Provisions of Oxford, lie also received direct encouragement from the pope, who annulled the Provisions and released Henry and Edward from their oaths. Edward, whose sympathies were still with the popular cause, refused the pope's proffered assistance; but Henry seized and fortified London Tower, brought over foreign soldiers and began again to appoint his ministers and sheriffs quite in the old way. Open war would have broken out immediately but neither side was yet sure of its strength. The great barons, moreover, had become altogether lukewarm in their support of the Provisions, and prob- ably would not have opposed the king at all, if he had*shown any disposition to keep his foreign friends out of the country, for they had already scented fresh booty and were beginning to return. The liberal views of Simon also were steadily gaining ground in the towns and in the counties, and the people were showing their dis- approval of the king's course by open rioting in the north and west. In 1262 the earl of Gloucester died, and Simon returned to put himself again at the head of the popular movement. He was joined by the son of Gloucester, the young Earl Gilbert. 288 THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CHARTER [henkt III. As the year 1263 opened, it was evident that the country was drifting rapidly into civil war. The party of the barons was at last hopelessly divided. The great earls had come to The approach \ . i -r. • • in ^ i i • i of civil war, look upon the Frovisions as a shallow pretense to hide de Montfort's despotism. Edward also had for some time begun to mistrust, if not the motives, at least the wisdom of the leader of the popular party, and when the young earl of Gloucester refused to swear allegiance to him as heir to the throne, he regarded it as cause of open breach with his party. Simon, moreover, had made an alliance with Edward's old enemy of Wales, Llewelyn, who had begun to attack the king's partisans in the west. The people of London had unfortunately also won the enmity of Edward by an utterly inexcusable insult to his mother whom they hated as one of the detested foreigners. Kichard of Cornwall, who had not yet committed himself to either party, for the moment managed to stave off the war by persuading the leaders to lay their quarrel before Louis of France for arbitra- tion. Louis, however, knew little of the conditions which existed The*'Mis6of ^^ England, and his decision, the Mise of Amie7is, was fmiuanj singularly unjust and one-sided. He declared that the 1264. Provisions of Oxford and all engagements connected with them were null and void; that Henry might appoint his own council and employ foreigners if he would, but that previous charters ought to be observed. The discontented leaders were by no means satisfied with the results of the attempt at arbitration. They declared that they miffht accept the decision against the Provisions of Rejection of the "Mise of Oxford, but that the foreigners must be expelled from •the kingdom; this item they had not consented to arbitrate. The city of London was the first to repudiate the ver- dict. Simon also announced that he proposed to adhere to the Provisions of Oxford. Only a few of the great barons went with him, but the citizens of the large towns, the native clergy, the universities, and the great body of the people hailed his declaration with unfeigned enthusiasm. The rejection of the Mise of Amiens was the signal for the begin- ning of the so called *' Barons' War." At first the royal forces won 1264] THE barons' war 289 marked success in the midland counties ; Northampton was taken ; Nottingham opened her gates, and Tutbury surrendered. Then the war drifted south, and finally in the first week of the ''Barons' May, 1264, the two armies faced each other at Lewes. The bishops of London and Worcester came to the king with an offer of 50,000 marks if he would confirm the Provisions of Oxford. His answer was a defiance,and a challenge to do their worst. The next morning Earl Simon, reinforced by a body of Londoners, led his army to the attack. Simon, good Norman that he was, had spent the night in prayer, urging others to do the same, jf^^d ^"^ *^^ ^^^ spirit had found a ready response among soldiers who felt that, like the men of 1215, they too had a right to call themselves **The Army of God and the Holy Church.'' The battle went against the king, owing largely to the eagerness of Edward who early in the action had routed a band of Londoners and led his men-at-arms too far in the pursuit. He returned to the field to find the battle lost, and Henry and Richard of Corn- wall prisoners. The victory placed the game in Earl Simon's hands; and the next day, a formal treaty, the Mise of Lewes, was signed in which the king bound himself to submit the points at issue to ^^^f/f a new board of arbitration ; to act solely on the advice of his counsellors **in administering justice and choos- ing ministers;" to observe the charters and to live at moderate expense; that Edward and Henry, the son of Richard of Corn- wall, be given as hostages, and that the earls of Leicester and Gloucester be indemnified for their sacrifices in the war. Simon himself was now apparently ready to abandon the cum- bersome arrangement devised at Oxford ; and a month later, June 22, a great council or parliament, to which were added fio^ofml^'^ four knights from each shire, was summoned to ratify a new scheme of government. By this plan three elec- tors were to be chosen by the parliament, and these in turn were to name a permanent body of nine councillors. Of the nine three were to be in constant attendance, and only by their advice could the king act. They were to nominate the ministers of the crown and the wardens of the castles, and their authority was to continue 290 THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CHARTER [heney IIL until the new board of arbitration provided by the Mise of Lewes had settled the points at issue. ^ The plan was adopted and Simon was named as one of the three electors; with him were associated the earl of Gloucester and Stephen Berksted, the bishop of Chichester. These three men for the next year were the real gov- ernors of England. Simon was fully aware of the insecurity of his position, and had little confidence in the proposed arbitration. He seized the royal castles, therefore, and placed them in the hands of Ccmditionof , / _ ' ^ parties after his own men. He also sought to secure the country by the peace. . ,. . , , . ,,-,,, -,. „ , appointing m each shire so called ''guardians of the peace. " The royal partisans on the Welsh border, led by the border lord, Roger Mortimer, were still strong and defiant and were pre- paring for the renewal of war; Queen Eleanor and the English refugees were also raising a powerful force in France.* The pope too had entered the lists and was using all his influence to detach the bishops from the support of Simon, and the legate stood ready to hurl his anathemas at the new government. Simon, nevertheless, bravely addressed himself to the task of inaugurating the new order, and on the 20th of January 1265 his famous parliament came together at London. Of the menuTms S^^^^ barons of the kingdom only five earls, including Simon and Gloucester, and eighteen barons had been summoned. The clergy, however, were generally represented. The shires also had been instructed through the sheriffs to elect in each shire court ''four legal and discreet knights to attend the king in parliament at London." As an afterthought, apparently, a similar summons had also been sent to such cities and towns individually as were known to be friendly to Simon, urging the attendance of two deputies from each. As a matter of fact, tlie list included all the most important cities of England. The parlia- ment as thus composed sat until late in March. It had been sum- moned to complete the arrangements entered into at Lewes. The king swore to maintain the new form of government during his lifetime, and published "a statement of the circumstances and terms of pacification. " Those who had lately borne arms against ^Stubbs, ^. C, 414. 1265] SIMON'S PARLIAMENT 291 the king took the oath of fealty. Edward's county of Chester because of its military importance was transferred to Simon, for which Edward was to receive other lands in compensation. The charters were also confirmed and declared once more established. Then the parliament broke up. In a few months its acts were swept away in the counter revolution which culminated at Eves- ham, but a new suggestion, a hint at least, had been given that the untitled inhabitants of the towns might be useful in the national council. It is upon this hint, for precedent it can hardly be called, that the fame of this assembly of Simon rests. Represent- atives from the shires had been summoned several times during the ten years preceding; but no one had yet thought of inviting representatives from the great towns to take part in the actual deliberations of the national council. It is not clear that even Simon appreciated fully the significance of the innovation. The increasing wealth of the towns formed no inconsiderable basis of the national revenue, and it was in every way important to secure their active sympathy and support in order to counteract the hostility of the great barons. In all probability this was Simon's sole motive in inviting the burghers to sit with barons and bishops and knights to deliberate upon the affairs of the kingdom. But, however that may be, although no one now calls this assembly of 1265 the first meeting of the House of Commons, it is nevertheless "a very notable date" ; it is the first hint of the important part yet to be performed by the people in the government of England. Simon was now to pay the penalty of the successful revolution- ist. He had been in fact too successful, for if his success had not turned his own head, it had turned the heads of his Ecesham mi • • i t /-,, and the fall two SOUS. Their insolence angered Gloucester ; a per- of Simon ' i: Augwt4, sonal quarrel with Earl Simon followed, in which Glou- cester intimated that Earl Simon himself was one of the hated foreigners who had been forbidden by the Provisions of Oxford to share in the government of England, and when on the 28th of May, Edward, who since the meeting of parliament, had been retained in a sort of honorable captivity at Hereford, rode away to join Mortimer on the Welsh border, Gloucester threw off all further pretense of acting with Simon and gathered his tenants for war. 292 THE STRUGGLE FOR THE CHARTER [ Henry m. The moment was well chosen. Earl Simon had taken the king and marched into Wales where the king's half-brother, William of Valence, was seeking to rally a party among his tenants of Pem- broke. Edward and the earl of Gloucester, therefore, by seizing the town of Gloucester, easily secured control of the Severn and cut off Earl Simon from England. The younger Simon, who was at the time besieging Pevensey, hearing of his father's danger advanced to Kenil worth. The father meanwhile was hastily returning towards Hereford, his army suffering greatly from the privations of the long march through the Welsh hills. His hope was to combine his force with that of his son, and by sur- rounding Edward force him to fight at a disadvantage. Edward, however, was fully awake to his danger and, by a forced march, struck the younger Simon at Kenilworth and drove him with heavy loss behind its massive walls. But the elder Simon was fully as alert as Edward, and taking advantage of his departure from the Severn, on the 2d of August threw his troops across the river, and, by a long night march, on the morning of the 4th reached Evesham where he had planned to join his son. Edward in the meanwhile had already countermarched and was again approaching the Severn, but had evidently failed to meet the elder Simon. The younger Simon once more leaving Kenilworth was also hurrying forward by forced marches, not to overtake Edward but to keep his appointment with his father. The two Montforts were now hardly ten miles apart and the junction of their armies seemed certain. The weary toil of the night, however, had told sadly on their troops and in a fatal moment the younger Simon gave orders for his men to halt at Alcester and prepare the morning meal. This halt proved the ruin of Simon, for Edward ''through the same memorable night was hurrying from the Severn by country cross-lanes, to seize the fatal gap that lay between" father and son. Through the morn- ing mists Simon saw the troops of Edward advancing, the men marching in long and regular ranks. He read his fate at once; his handful of knights, supported only by an unorganized mob of Welsh peasantry, could never stand before the disciplined troops which were moving down upon them. "Let us commend 1265] DEATH OF SIMON 293 our sonls to God," he cried to the brave men who stood by his side, "for our bodies are the foe's." The Welsh gave way at the first shock. The group of knights about the earl, among whom was Hugh le Despenser the justiciar, fought till the last man was down. Still Simon, like Totila of old, held off his swarming foes, until a foul blow dealt from behind felled him to the earth, and with the cry, "It is God's grace," the old hero yielded up his spirit.* PROMINENT CONTEMPORARIES OF THE ERA OF THE CHARTER. KINGS or ENGLAND: Richard 1. 1189-1199. John, 1199-1216. Henry III.,1216-1272. KINGS OF FRANCE Philip II., Augustus, Louis'viII., d. 1226. I^uis IX., d. 1270. Philip III. EMPERORS d. Frederick I., Barbarossa, d. 1190 Henry VI.. (I. 1198. Philip, d. 1209. Otto IV., 1209-1218. Frederick II., 1212-1250. KINGS OP SCOTS William the Lion,(i. 1214. Alexander II., d. 1249. Alexander III. POPES Clement III., d. 1191. Innocent III., d. 1216. Honorius III., d. 1227. Gregory IX., d. 1241. Innocent IV., 1254. Alexander IV., d. 1261 ARCHBISHOPS OP CANTERBURY Baldwin. 118.V1190. Hubert Walter, 1193-12(K>. Steplien I^ngton, 1207- 1228. Edmund Rich, 1234-1240. Boniface of Savoy, 1345- 1270. CHIEF JUSTICIARS OF ENGLAND Hugh Of Puiset. 1189-1190. William Ix)ngchamii, 1190- 1191. Walter of Coutances, 1191- 1194. Hubert Walter. 1194-1198. Geoffrey Fitz Peter, 1199- 1214. Peter des Roches, 1214- 1215. Hubert de Burgh, 1215- 1232. (The last of the great justiciars.) See Green's briUiant account of the battle. H. E. P., I, pp. 303 and 304. CHAPTER IX THE CHARTER CON^FIRMED HENRY III., 1265-1272 EDWARD I., 1272-1297 Lewes was now undone; all that had been gained by two gen- erations of strife apparently had been swept away ; the king could now defy the Charter, squander the treasure of his sub- ofEveSm. j^^^s, and rule as he listed. This, to all appearance, was Henry's interpretation of the overthrow of Simon, and he at once set about punishing those who had recently opposed him. Simon's vast estates were given to the king's second son, Edmund; the towns which had favored Simon, London most con- spicuously, were held to be at the king's mercy and their privileges forfeited; the estates of the barons also who had followed Simon, nearly one-half the gentry of England, were marked for forfeiture and confiscation; and the hungry favorites of the king, without waiting for process of law, began at once to take possession. In September a parliament, brought together at Winchester in the king's interests, legalized these spoliations by revoking all charters which had been granted during the king's captivity and by authorizing the confiscations in one gigantic act of forfeiture. It was impossible, however, for the king's party to pursue this mad career of reactionary vengeance long without a challenge. The movement for popular risrhts had stirred the people Evidences of ^ ^ -.i . , , -. i i.^ rrT. gathering too profoundly to be abandoned after one reverse. The friars, who from the first had espoused the people's cause, cherished the memory of the fallen Simon, * 'who gave up not only his property, but also his person, to defend the poor from oppression;" nor was it long before miracles were reported at his grave, — a throb from the great heart of the people, a surge 294 1266, 1267] DICTUM OF KENILWORTH 295 from the lower deep. Then mourning over the disaster of Eves- ham gave way to acts of popular violence, as at St. Albans, where a king's officer and his posse were cut to pieces by the townspeople and their heads set up at the ''four corners of th§ borough." The powerful garrison of Kenil worth also continued to defy the authority of the king, levying its contributions upon all the sur- rounding country, while the younger Simon retired into the fast- nesses of the Fen Country on the lower Trent, and there rallied to his side the ''disinherited," as the victims of the recent forfeit- ures styled themselves. The sturdy burghers of the Cinque Ports put their wives and children on board their ships, and taking to the Channel, began to harry the southern coasts. Llewelyn, the old ally of Simon, crossed the borders and began to ravage Chester. Bands of outlaws alsq terrorized the counties far and near. The outlook, therefore, was not reassuring. Such leaders as Edward and Gloucester who had once been of the popular party Dictum of *^^ ^^ their hearts still sympathized with some of the Keniiworth, ^ims of Simon, were convinced that the kingdom could \JCtOOCT' o J| 1266. \)Q saved only by conciliation ; the sweeping decree of disinheritance must be recalled, or at least so modified that those who submitted might have the opportunity of redeeming their lands by the payment of a fine; the king also must restore the Charters as a guarantee of good government to the peopler These measures were forced upon Henry at a parliament summoned the following summer under the walls of Kenilworth, and were pub- lished, October 31, 1266, in the famous Dictum of Kenilworth. In November Kenilworth capitulated. It was not, however, until the next year, when the earl of Gloucester suddenly appeared in London and took possession of the city as a pledge for the fulfillment of the king's promises, that the obtuse mind of Henry fully realized that it was no longer possible to con- tinue the old methods and that the new order was final. In Novem- ber a parliament met at Marlborough and proceeded to put the finishing touches to what was virtually a revolution by formally adopting the Provisions of Westminster of 1259, although the appointment of all officers of state was carefully reserved for the 296 THE CHARTER CONPIRMED [ Ed ward l. crown. Thus the great cause for which Simon had laid down his life after all was not lost. The Charters were saved, and the principles for which Simon had fought were again recognized as a part of the •fundamental law of England. Quiet was now so completely restored that Edward, to whose wisdom and firmness this happy outcome was largely due, thought it safe to leave the kingdom and join with Louis IX. of Crusade, France in the ill-fated Seventh and last of the Crusades. He left England in 1270; reached Tunis just after the death of Louis; then went to Acre where he stayed some months but accomplished nothing of importance. In 1272 he set out upon his return and in Sicily heard of his father's death. The last years of the old king had been uneventful and tranquil. His advancing age had fortunately prevented him from again Death of attempting any active part in the administration of the Nommber' government. He had been a good man, but a bad king 16, 1272. an(j a dangerous tyrant. . His worst weaknesses were an overfaithfulness to unworthy friends who did not hesitate to sac- rifice him to their own interests, an overfondness for the members of his family, and a blind devotion to the religious forms and authorities of his day. ** Whatever be his sins," said the just Louis, "his prayers and offerings will save his soul." His mis- rule was due, not like John's to malicious pleasure in playing the tyrant, but to a witless vanity which plunged him into extrava- gance, stopped his ears to wiser counsels, and made him obsti- nate when he should have been yielding, and yielding when he should have been firm, — not an unusual combination in men of his type. Four days after the death of Henry the barons of England took the oath of fealty to Edward, and although he did not return for his coronation until 1274, his reign was regarded by the fealty to lawyers as beginning with the date of the taking of the November oath and uot with his coronation. Here was something Oil i *y7 9 new in the annals of English kings. It was not simply that a king was acknowledged without dispute or rival, or that the oath of fealty had come to take the place of formal election by the great council, but that the hereditary right of the son to the sue- CHARACTEK OF EDWARD 297 cession was for the first time clearly recognized. The recognition, however, was not yet complete; 'Edward's reign did not begin until the barons had taken the oath of fealty. It will take two hundred years to bridge this gap. At the time of Henry's death Edward was thirty -three years old. He was already a veteran in war and in administration. He had profited much by the mistakes of his father ; nor Edward^ ^^ ^^^ ^® ^®^^ altogether void of sympathy with the visions of Earl Simon. Yet he possessed what Simon had not, a practical, common sense way of adapting his plans to facts as he found them. His ambition was to restore the crown to its ancient strength and dignity; yet he saw that he could not do this with- out the cordial support of a united people. Here in a word is the policy of Edward's reign. He was not enamored of the idea of encouraging the political activity of the people; but he saw that cer- tain privileges could no longer be withheld. He, therefore, accepted the inevitable ; recognized what he could not deny, granted what he could not refuse, and used the returning confidence of the nation to secure anew the foundations of his throne. Personally he was well fitted to arouse the loyal enthusiasm of his people. His English name, his yellow hair, which even after it had whitened with advancing years still waved in luxuriant masses to his shoulders, the frank and sympathetic blue eyes, his frame, vig- orous, muscular, and tall, so that like Saul of old he towered head and shoulders above the young men who attended him, all associ- ated the new king with the best traditions of the English kingship, attracted the eye and drew out the love of his people. A warm- hearted Englishman he was, without any of the cold selfishness or crafty cunning of the Angevins, capable of deep affection, and withal possessing a high sense of honor. He could follow the bier of Earl Simon, his old companion in arms, as a sincere mourner ; he could weep over the death of his father, although it gave him a crown. He was slow to make promises and obstinate in yielding concessions, but an oath once given was to him a sacred thing. His temper was violent, and when aroused he could be fierce, cruel, and relentless. In the Song of Lewes he is *'a lion in pride and fierceness;" ''a panther in inconstancy and changeableness. " 298 THE CHARTER CONFIRMED [edwabd I. And yet Edward learned to govern himself, as he learned to govern his people. The first serious difficulty which faced Edward after his coro- nation was the long-standing quarrel of the Welsh with England. For England in the thirteenth century had a Welsh Wales to question on her hands, as she has an Irish question to-day; and her efforts at settling the one then, had been as unsatisfactory as are her efforts at settling the other now. The Welsh princes had made a formal submission to William the Conqueror, but they had never been brought under the actual rule of English kings. William's successors had from time to time invaded the country in order to enforce the obligations of the AVelsh lords, but they had never met with more than temporary success. Secure in their mountain fastnesses, the Welsh chieftains had continued to raid English territory as pique or lust for plunder dictated; and English kings in order to protect the western shires had been compelled to establish on the border a number of military lords with almost sovereign powers. These were the so-called marcher barons, whose turbulent independence became in time as great a terror to the border lands as the chronic hostility of the Welsh. These unsatisfactory conditions had been specially emphasized during the recent struggles, in which the Welsh lords had proved themselves ever ready to encourage and assist rebellion duS^Wai'es ^^ England. When, therefore, at Edward's coronation Llewelyn, Earl Simon's former ally, not only refused to appear among Edward's vassals and renew homage, but openly defied the new king, Edward determined to settle the vexing Welsh question once and for all time. He first invaded Wales with an army strong enough to bring Llewelyn to terms, and forced him to cede the northern cantreds. He then proceeded to introduce into the ceded district the English system of shire administration and to enforce English laws. The Welsh naturally murmured at this interference with their local institutions, but probably would have accepted the new order without serious protest, had not the English magistrates made the common mistake of treating the less civilized people with severity and their prejudices with con- 1282-1301] STATUTE OF WALES 299 tempt. In 1282 the smouldering discontent broke out in a general popular rising. But Edward returned to the struggle more deter- mined than ever. Llewelyn was slain in a skirmish ; his brother David held out for a year, when he too was captured, and in a parliament held at Shrewsbury was condemned to a traitor's death. Edward then took possession of the conquered country as a forfeited fief, and the work of introducing English institutions began anew. By the Statute of Wales the principality Wai^%84 ^^^ placed directly under the dominion of the crown and divided into shires after the English model. Ed- ward, however, profiting by his former experience, was more careful to conciliate the feelings of the natives and chose Welshmen rather than Englishmen for the administration of the shires. The per- manence of the conquest was further assured by settling colonies of Englishmen in the towns and by building castles, such as Con- way and Carnarvon, the ruins of which still remain, silent testi- monies to the thoroughness of Edward's work. It was Edward's policy, also, to retain the country ^ a principality, distinct from England; nor was it incorporated in the kingdom or allowed to send representatives regularly to the national parliaments until the reign of Henry VIII. In 1301 Edward gave the title of Prince of Wales to his eldest living son Edward, who had been born at Carnarvon in 1284. The subjection of the rude courts of Wales to the English sys- tem was, only a part of a greater work which Edward had early set himself to accomplish. The thirteenth century was for rendffsance E^^ope distinctively a legal age. The great law schools of Bologna and other Italian cities had for a century been preparing the way for a legal renaissance by creating and extending an interest in the systematic and scientific study of the Roman Law. Under emperors like Frederick Barbarossa and his brilliant grandson, these studies had borne practical fruit in the introduction of more rational methods of procedure in the imperial courts, and in the production of formal codes which supplanted the crude laws of feudal custom that had prevailed heretofore north of the Alps. This work- had been continued in the west by such 300 THE CHARTER CONFIRMED [edwakd i. princes as Louis the Just of France and Alfonso the Wise of Castile. In England the more perfect organization of the govern- ment, the development of the magistratical functions of the crown, and the coordination of the courts had not been without a direct influence in unifying the laws and reducing them to some coherent system, and the English people could already boast of their great legists, men like Glanville and Bracton,^ who wrote law treatises and sought to reach the underlying principles which explained and justified the decisions of the courts. But while the legal renais- sance in England had thus drawn its inspiration in the first instance from sources largely outside of the civil law, it was impossible for the English jurists, clerks as they were, many of them educated abroad, and all more or less steeped in the principles of the canon law, to escape the subtle influence of Eome ; for although they did not follow the subject matter of the Roman law, they could not escape the charm of its orderly methods. Edward was in full sympathy with the legal renaissance of his age. He had had an Italian jurist for a tutor in his youth, and was very early made to feel the constant contradiction Edwardand between the relations expressed in feudal forms and customs, and the theories which the legists taught him lay at the basis of these relations. To this work, therefore, of unify- ing and systematizing the irregular growths of centuries of feudal custom Edward addressed himself, and with such energy and far- sighted wisdom as to win for himself the title of "the English Justinian. " He broke with the precedents of the past and assumed the right of the crown not simply to amend laws of custom, but to create new laws ; not simply to make laws on the basis of what had been, bat on the basis of what ought to be. That is, the laws of Edward, unlike the laws of his predecessors, are not merely amend- ments or restatements of existing customs but are laws in the modern sense. From his reign "the Statutes of the Kealm" con- tinue in unbroken series. Of the statutes of Edward some are worthy of special notice, as way -marks in the social progress of England. Among these was ' For work of Bracton, see Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law; The Age of Bracton, I, pp. 174-225. 1276-1290] LAWS OF EDWARD 301 the famous Statute de Beligiosis, issued in 1279, which prohibited gifts of land to the church in mortmain^ a form by which tenants had been accustomed to transfer their lands to some religious cor- poration and thus deprive the overlord of his rights. DeBeiigiosis. The law was designed not to check the growing power of the church as much as to protect the overlord from the excessive piety of his tenants, sometimes simulated to disguise a deliberate purpose of fraud. Another statute, not less important in protecting the rights of the overlord, was the Quia ^mptores Emptores^ first issued in 1276, and again in 1290; an act intended to prevent the abuse of the principle of subinfeudation. It had been the practice of subtenants to part with portions of their laud by creating other subtenants who in turn might continue the subdivision and subgranting indefinitely. In this way the overlord's power was seriously diminished, and there was constant danger that the tenants might grant away so much land that there would not be enough left to bear the obliga- tions of the fief. By the Statute Quia Emptores the new tenant escaped from the lordship of the last grantor and became the vassal of the original lord. This statute it was supposed would benefit particularly the great barons, who strongly supported it in the par- liament. Its more conspicuous effects, however, were greatly to increase the number of tenants in chief, and thus, by breaking down the hierarchical gradations of feudalism, hasten the time when all should stand in the same relation to the king. An even more important act appeared at Winchester in 1285, which ivinch^ler ^^^^"^^^ some of the older institutions of the Anglo- Saxon period that during the two centuries of feudal- ism had been allowed largely to fall into decay. It regulated the action of the hundred, revived the hue and cry, reimposed the duties of watch and ward, and reenacted the obligation of the fyrd which Henry II. had once reorganized in the Assize of Arms. By this act every man was bound to aid in the pursuit of criminals when the hue and cry was raised, and to hold himself in readiness to serve the king under arms in case of invasion or rebellion ; every hundred also was to be responsible for the crimes committed within its limits, and every walled town was to close its gates at sunset 302 THE CHARTER CONFIRMED [ehward l. and compel every stranger to give an account of himself before the magistrates. Like the first Plantagenet also Edward saw that the way to bring the crown into touch with the nation was through a more perfect organization of the royal courts. Henry II. had refirmJof definitely established the Curia Regis as the central court The courts ^^ ^^^^ national judicial system. Its activities, however, had steadily extended their scope, and the volume of busi- ness had increased enormously. Yet up to the thirteenth century one staff of judges had served for all departments of justice. But in the thirteenth century the policy of differentiating the work of the Curia, already forecasted in the reservation of certain business for certain sittings,^ was fully carried out, and by the close of Henry III.'s reign the ancient Curia Eegis had been divided into three separate and distinct courts: the Court of Exchequer to hear all cases touching the revenue, the Court of Common Pleas to receive civil cases, and the Cou7't of King''s Bench to deal with cases affecting the king's interests and criminal questions reserved for his judgment. The chief justiciar, however, still remained the bond of union of these courts until Edward finally abolished the common presidency by giving. to each court its own chief. The common law courts, furthermore, had their limitations as instru- ments for the redress of wrongs. Their decisions were necessarily based upon precedent and the strict letter of the law. But in the complexity of human actions many questions may arise to which no existing law applies or, if applied, may work actual injustice to the individual. Henry II. had reserved all such cases for the special action of the king in council ; but Edward I. gave a still wider extension to this equity jurisdiction of the crown and referred such cases to the special care of the chancellor. Thus there grew up about the chancellor the fourth of the series of great royal courts — the Court of Equity. The Chancery, however, as a court of equity was not definitely organized until the time of Edward III., nor was its equity jurisdiction permanently estab- lished until the reign of Richard II. I See p. 194. 1289] THE ROYAL REVENUES 303 Edward I., furthermore, understood that the strength of his courts consisted in rendering real and not fictitious justice. He therefore attacked unsparingly the abuses by means of fhi'SniM which the judicial circuits had become engines of extor- tion, hated and feared by the people. In 1289 all the king's judges were brought forward on charges of bribery, and all were found guilty except two. The chief justice of the Common Pleas had amassed a fortune of 100,000 marks. Nothing could more strikingly show the extent'of the corruption which had crept into all branches of service during the inefficient administration of Henry III. Edward's love of justice was real; yet he had the faults of a legal mind, and was too often willing in construing the law to strain it in his own favor. While he seldom broke the Tjm?}i^^ letter of the law, he often violated its spirit. Most of his legal chicanery, however, was prompted by the incessant demands of his treasury. It was his misfortune to find the throne encumbered with debt, from which he was never able entirely to extricate himself. He was by no means extravagant like his father, but his plans for the monarchy required more money than could be raised by the old methods. The crown domains, moreover, had been greatly reduced by the follies of John and Henry. The incomes from feudal dues had also declined with feudalism. Scutages and similar levies were not worth the trouble which it cost to collect them. The courts returned their fines to the royal treasury, but this was not a revenue which could be wisely developed. In his last year Henry II. had instituted a tax on personal property; and although as first introduced it was designed only to secure money for the Crusade, the Saladin tithe, it had since become the most common form of taxation. It depended on a parliamentary grant and varied from a thirtieth to a seventh. But such relief could be only temporary, and parlia- ment was loath to repeat it too frequently. Edward, therefore, was obliged to search for still other sources of revenue in order to secure a permanent and steady income. He found the answer to his quest in the possibilities offered by the rapidly developing com- merce of England, especially by the wool trade of which England 304 THE CHAKTER CONFIRMED [edward l virtually enjoyed the monopoly. England since the close of the barons' war had been comparatively free from private warfare and quite removed from the possibility of invasion. She had brought her rural interests to a high state of prosperity and had become the great wool-growing country of Europe. The old way of taking a portion of the goods going in or out of the country was no longer satisfactory to king or merchants; and accordingly in 1275 a parliament at Westminster granted to the crown the Cmtmn^^i275 ^^S^^ ^^ levying an export duty upon wools, skins, and leather, the so-called Gi^eat Custom^ in return for a renunciation by the king of his ancient right of levying upon all goods entering or leaving the kingdom. This was the legal begin- ning of the English customs-revenue. It is not now considered good policy for a country to tax its exports; but at that time, the Flemings were absolutely dependent on England for the wool to sup- ply their looms. So that, in this case at least, the tax had to be paid by the foreign consumer. The king still continued from time to time to use the right of prise in regard to other commodities. Mercatoria, But bv the Carta Mercatoria of 1303, customs on wine, 1303 cloth, and other articles of merchandise were formally recognized and regulated. By the time of Edward III. these had become a regular part of the ordinary revenue. Another 'Knkmhood ^^^ort of Edward for restoring his treasury was known as Distraint of KniglitUood. In the summer of 1278 he issued a writ compelling every freeholder who possessed an estate of £20 a year to assume the obligations of a knight, or to pay what amounted to a heavy fine. The advantage was twofold. Those who obeyed increased by so much the body of knighthood. While those who did not wish to assume the obligations of knighthood, gladly paid the fine and by so much increased the revenue. In 1282 all persons possessing an estate of £20 a year, were ordered to provide themselves with horse and armor. In these schemes for raising money, the Jews also did not escape the attention of the royal financier. From the time of the Conquest they had occupied a singular place in England. In the age of the Crusades it is not strange that they were hated as infidels. The most shocking crimes, involving murder, sacrilege, 1290] THE EXPULSION OF THE JEWS 305 and even cannibalism were popularly imputed to them. The real source of popular hatred, however, was perhaps the fact that the Jews held virtually the monopoly of the banking busi- TheJews^and ^^gg Qf Europe. They were the money lenders and usu- rers of the time, and by these means had accumulated vast wealth. In the middle ages the propriety of taking interest for tlie use of money was not understood, and usury, as all interest taking was called, had been condemned by the church. Not infrequently the hatred and suspicions of the people expressed themselves in violent outbursts. The first year of Richard's reign had been disgraced by a massacre at York. But the Jew always had a strong protector in the king, who needed him for his money's sake, since a large share of the Jew's profits was sure to come ultimately into the royal treasury as blackmail levied under the guise of protection. No small part of the extravagance of Henry III. had been met by tallages levied upon Jews. Some of the nobles also used the Jewish brokers as leeches to draw wealth from the people, in order that they might compel the Jew to dis- gorge later. The great men of the time like Grosseteste, Simon de Montfort, and Edward himself shared in the popular antipathy. Edward at first tried, restriction ; he would not allow the Jews to hold real property; he compelled them also to wear a distinctive dress, which greatly increased the grievous burden of their lot by making the Jew always a marked man in the streets, where the hoodlum element, by no means a peculiarity of the modern city, was always ready to take the Jew's distinctive garb as a challenge. Even these annoyances, however, did not satisfy tlie popular clamor, and in 1290, Edward expelled this much abused people from the country altogether, allowing them to take only their mov- able property with them.^ A grateful parliament granted him a tax of a fifteenth. The great banking houses of Italy were already coming into prominence and from this time the money business of England fell largely into their hands. The reforms of Edward, thus far, were reforms which any abso- lute monarch might have instituted who was bent upon adminis- ^ Thev were not allowed to return until the time of Cromwell. 306 THE CHARTER CON^FIRMED [edwaed i. tering his trust upon rational principles; but sooner or later the great underlying thought of the Charter, the right of Theneiv ^^® nation not only to fair treatment by the gov- probUm. ernment but to a fair share in the gOYernment, must force itself upon Edward. The nation as the basis of political organization was hardly recognized in the thirteenth century. Political unity had been sacrificed in the upgrowth of feudal classes. The Estates^^ multitude of petty sovereignties which had marked the earlier stages of feudal society, had been slowly merged in the expanding powers of the national monarchy, but the baron- age, the great feudal landholding aristocracy, still constituted a society by itself, with its own peculiar rights and privileges. Alongside of this feudal community, moreover, bound to it by a thousand intangible ties, and yet not of it, there had grown up another community, the ecclesiastical, with its own aims, its own methods, its own laws, its own courts, and finally its own complete and well-defined organization ; on the one hand, asserting its inde- pendence of the feudal society, and on the other, its supremacy within the feudal society. Furthermore, as the middle centuries progressed, with the increased wealth and numbers of the urban population, there had gi'own up still a third community, or rather group of communities, which by reason of numerous privileges and immunities, conferred generally by charter, had won a certain inde- pendence of the feudal and ecclesiastical societies, and formed a group by itself. As yet the members of this third group were united only by the possession of common privileges ; they had less coherence than the individuals of the feudal group, and noth- ing of the unity which was conferred upon the ecclesiastical group by its hierarchical organization. This threefold grouping, or rather separation, of the free elements of the nation was not peculiar to England, but was characteristic of the feudal state wherever it existed. The several groups were known familiarly as the Estates, and their relative importance and dignity in each case was indi- cated by the preeminence which was given to the ecclesiastical as the First Estate, to the feudal as the Seco7id Estate, and to the burghers as the Third Estate. THE COMMONS 307 In England, however, this threefold division early began to assume certain features which in time became characteristic and which go far to explain why popular institutions developed development a strength and importance upon English soil as nowhere upon the continent. As early as Magna Charta a dis- tinction had been recognized between the great barons who were summoned to the national council by name, and the lesser barons who were summoned through the sheriffs in a body. But the attendance of the body of small landholders upon the meetings of the great council was for many reasons impracticable, and even in John's reign the expedient had been resorted to of allowing the knights to be represented by delegates chosen at the shire court .under the direction of the sheriff. By the close of the century this expedient had become a regularly established custom. The eccle- siastical or First Estate, as indicated above, had a divided interest. Its members, however, had very early acquired a definite status of their own. They had their special councils and separate courts, and preferred to hold their own separate parliaments, or convocations^ and discuss and vote their grants separately. The great church- men, however, the bishops and abbots, were also barons, or feudal tenants of the crown, and as such continued to sit with the great lay barons in the national council. Here then was a cross division which cut through the two higher estates, severing the great barons, ecclesiastical or lay, from the inferior members of their respective orders. Now, as a matter of fact, the interests and sym- pathies of the lower orders of both knights and clergy were far more nearly allied to those of the towns than to those of the great barons, and thus very soon after the crown began to summon dele- gates from the towns, it became customary for the representatives of the towns and the representatives of the shire to meet together in an assembly distinct from that of the great barons. Thus the Commons^ so called, came at last to represent not simply an estate, but the people, the nation. The lower orders of the clergy by pre- ferring the convocation, undoubtedly lost a distinct and separate rep- resentation in this more popular branch of the national assembly; but in as much as their interests were really merged in those of the towns and tlie shires, they too were virtually represented in the 308 THE CHARTER CONFIRMED [edwabd I. more numerous body. Thus the original threefold division of the national council into separate Estates, which on the continent hard- ened into an insurmountable obstacle to the progress of popular institutions, in England gave way to a twofold division in which there were really but two classes represented, — the titled nobility and the untitled people, or the nation. In other words, in Eng- land the original Third Estate absorbed the lower ranks of the First and Second Estates ; and since it thus came to include the body of the wealth and population of both city and country, the great undivided middle class, its representatives in the national council soon gained a unity and influence which the simple deputies of the towns never attained upon the continent, and compelled the crown at last to recognize their importance as the source of its authority and the support of its power. This final goal, however, was not reached until long after the age of Edward I. There is no evidence that either Simon or Edward ever had any thought of attaining such a result Edward's ^s this ; or that the expedient of summoning delegates summoning from the towns was consciously designed as a step toward giving the people a more direct influence in the government. Simon sought to find in the lower orders the support which the barons had denied him. Edward needed money and thought only of making the wealth of the country gentry and the burghers tributary to the needs of his treasury. And even in this, he appears like a man who is feeling his way toward a goal of which he is at first uncertain, stumbling at last by a series of experi- ments upon the only possible principle by which that end might be attained ; not the high and lofty end of bestowing liberties upon the nation, but the entirely ignoble, yet practical, end of securing new sources of revenue for the crown. Thus in his first parlia- pariiaments ments he began by summoning the knights of the shire in addition to the prelates and barons. Sometimes, however, he brought together only the magnates in the old way. In 1290 the great barons met to deliberate upon a proposed statute, and the knights came later to take part in voting a tax. In 1282, when the expenses were unusually heavy on account of the second Welsh war, the king sent around to the different shires and 1283-1295] THE MODEL PARLIAMENT 309 boroughs to ask each community separately for its aid. The results of these local appeals were not satisfactory, and the next year he brought together on the same day two separate assemblies, one at York, and one at Northampton. It is to be noted further, that the principle underlying the feudal state is recognized in all of these early efforts to secure aid from the nation; the crown had no right to levy taxes directly upon the people, whether lord or simple, other than those prescribed by the implied feudal contract, or as established in the customs of each locality. If more were needed, it could be secured only by voluntary grant on the part of each class, or of each corporation. It is, therefore, a marked step in advance when it is recognized that the consent of each individual separately is not necessary to the legality of such a grant, and that such consent may be given for him by his representatives, or by a majority of tlie representatives of the class to which he belongs, acting collectively. This important principle was explicitly recognized in the call- ing of the famous parliament of 1295, which on account of its completeness was lonff known as the ** Model Parlia- The Model ^ ,, t^ ^- • i • i. mi. u Parliament ment. It was a time of general anxiety. Ihe old of 1295 Welsh question had been replaced by an even more serious Scottish question, and the long war had begun which was Edward's reward for interfering in a Scottish dynastic quarrel. The Scots, moreover, had found eager allies in the French, who had their own perpetual quarrel on with their rivals across the Channel, and Philip IV. 's fleets were threatening the English coasts. The king was beset on all sides. In his need he appealed to the common interest of the nation. "It is a most just law," he declared, *Hhat what concerns all should be approved by all, and that common dangers should be met by measures provided in common." The war was neither the king's war, nor the barons' war; all classes were interested, and all classes ought to bear their share of its burdens. Accordingly, he summoned not only the great churchmen as heretofore, but also directed that there be sent one proctor from the chapter of each cathedral, and two proctors from the clergy of each diocese. In the same manner he summoned the great barons as heretofore, bat directed also that two knights be BIO THE CHARTER CONFIRMED [edwaed i. sent from each shire and that two citizens be sent from each city or borough. For the first time all the different elements of the nation represented by the free subjects of the king, met together in a national council, coming, at the king's request, so constituted that the representatives of each estate should have power to levy a tax upon all the members of that estate. It is interesting to note that the results fully justified the confidence of the king. The First Estate, the clergy, voted a tenth of their movables ; the Second Estate composed of the great barons and knights,^ an eleventh; while the representatives of the towns outdid them all in loyalty by voting a seventh. In the Model Parliament Edward had established a pre- cedent which was to be invaluable in the future. The clergy apparently did, not take kindly to the idea of merging w-ecedent their independence in a secular parliament, and pre- ferred rather to vote their gifts through the two great archiepiscopal convocations of Canterbury and York, so that the lower clergy soon ceased to attend the parliaments altogether. The towns, however, had no other common organization, and with loyal enthusiasm they hailed the recognition of their importance and the opportunity of bearing their share of the public burdens. They were still separated from the knights of the shire; their right to a share in the general deliberations of the council was by no means clearly defined or fully recognized ; yet they had entered parliament to stay, their wealth and the needs of the crown were guarantees that they should receive a hearing. Edward's relations to the church mark as complete a departure from the policy of his father as his relations to the national council. He was slow, however, to break with the m^cMvrch^ papacy. He needed the support of the clergy, and the popes generally were not averse to the heavy grants which Edward continued to demand. But in 1294 Boniface VIII. began his reign; a man whose ideals of papal prerogative were taken from the era of Innocent III. and who seemed unconscious of the deep currents of national life which the 1 The knights of the shire still deliberated and voted with the great barons. 1296] EDWARD AND THE CHURCH 311 thirteenth century had set in motion. In 1296 he issued the famous bull, Clericis Laicos^ which forbade the clergy to pay any taxes to the temporal authority. The measure was primarily aimed at Philip IV. of France; but it affected every state of Europe and fairly opened the question of the place of the church in the new national systems. Were the clergy of England or of France a part of the nation and liable to its duties as subjects of the national king, or were they solely the subjects of the pope, and as such were they and theirs exempt from the exactions of the national government? It was really the old issue which Henry II. and Becket had fought out, only in a new form. Then it had been the independence of the church courts which was at stake ; now it was the independence of the church treasury. Archbishop Winchelsey supported the papal pretension, and when in 1290 a parliament modeled on that of the preceding year, was called at Bury St. Edmunds, the clergy under the archbishop's leadership refused to make a contribution and presented the pope's bull in defense. '*We have two lords," said the archbishop, '*the one spiritual, the other temporal. Obedience is due to both, but most to the spiritual." Edward's reply was characteristic of the man. He did not threaten like John to put out the eyes, or slifc the noses of disobedient churchmen ; he simply applied their own doctrine. If they would not contribute to the support of the gov- ernment, they should be treated as aliens and not have the protection of subjects. In other words, they should have no rights in the king's courts. The sentence amounted to a decree of outlawry. The clergy might be robbed or mal- treated or even murdered with impunity, for the civil author- ity refused to punish. The results reveal how rapidly Europe was receding from the ideals of the past. The time had been when even emperors quailed before the ban of the church ; but now compared with the excommunication of the king the ban of the church was only so much stage thunder. Before the king's ban the church bowed its head and the proudest prelate was silent. Edward followed up -the sentence of outlawry with the further threat, that unless the clergy yielded before Easter, he would him- self confiscate their lands, and the clergy knew the king too well 312 THE CHARTER CONFIRMED [edwabd l. to hope for one moment that his threat would not be carried out. Winchelsey personally refused to yield and sacrificed his lay estates, but he was wise enough to advise his clergy to make the best terms they could individually. They were quick to profit by the permission and soon made their peace with the king, for the most part, paying the money under the name of gifts, sometimes passing it through the hands of a third party and sometimes leaving it at a convenient place where the royal officers might find it. The new struggle with France had reopened the old question of service on the continent. The French king had naturally selected Gascony as the first object of attack, and Quarrel of Edward proposed to send his earls to defend Gascony his barons, while he in person led another expedition to Flanders. The English barons, however, felt little interest in Gas- cony. Wales and Scotland were near at home and the English were always ready to respond to a call to defend their borders or cripple their hereditary foes by counter invasion ; but it mattered little to them whether Gascony were held by an English king or not. In an assembly of the nobles in 1297, the king laid his plans before his earls and barons, but was met by the protest of Koger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, the Marshal, and Humfrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, the Constable, who fell back on their traditional rights and refused to leave England save as they fol- lowed the king's person. '*By God, Sir Earl," cried the angry king, '*you shall either go or hang." "By that same oath, Sir King," coolly answered Bigod, "I shall neither go nor hang." The assembly broke up in confusion. The two earls called their people to arms and were soon at the head of fifteen hundred men. It was the crisis of Edward's reign. His ambitious foreign policy had imposed a serious burden upon the nation. The splen- did response of the year 1295 had been followed by the thebaroL P^'^test of the clergy in 1296; and now in 1297 came the yet more stubborn and dangerous protest of the barons. For the refusal of the earls to go to Gascony was only a pretext to cover the growing suspicion of the Estates of the king, and the feeling that by these aids and exactions dangerous prec- edents were to be left to the future that might one day put in CONFIEMATION or THE CHARTERS 313 jeopardy the rights and privileges which the fathers had won. The king, however, was in no mind to yield or renounce his proposed expedition, and in order to raise the funds which the . parliament had failed to grant, he seized the wool of the mer- chants and made requisitions upon the shires on the basis of former grants. He also issued orders for all who held lands of £20 a year or upwards to meet in London under arms on July 7. Bigod and Bohun refused to move ; but the king, by promising to confirm the charters, persuaded the leaders, who had come together for the military levy, to consent to a grant of one-eighth of the mov- ables of the barons and knights, and one-fifth of the towns. The action was altogether too much in the spirit of Edward's predeces- sors, and Bigod and Bohun at once sent to Edward a formal protest in the name of '*the whole community of the land." They declared that the numerous tallages and other exactions were devouring their resources, and that they were utterly ruined. Then in remarkably bold and clear-spoken words they proceeded to demand that the Great Charter and the Charter of the Forests be confirmed, and pointedly hinted that with Scotland hostile it would be wise for the king to stay at home. The document reached Edward when he was on the point of embarking for the war. Such outspoken words from subjects had been common enough in his father's day, but had not oft^^chaf-^ been heard before in Edward's reign. His own sense hers^mn!^' ^^ justice told him that he had gone too far, and his better wisdom would not allow him to come to an open rupture with his barons. Yet he was not ready to submit, or give up his plan of invading France. He avoided a direct answer, therefore, on the plea that lie could not act without his council, and that it was impossible then to bring them together. The two earls, however, were not to be put off by evasion, and when the departure of the king assured them that their petition was to be ignored, they at once marched to London and forbade the royal officers to collect the eighth, which had been granted at the London levy, and, further, protested against the seizure of the wool. Edward had left his son with his councillors to do the best they could in quieting the barons. But to do this they found that they must summon a 314 THE CHARTER CONFIRMED [edward L regular parliament and secure the aid in a lawful manner. The par- liament, however, came together, not to grant the aid, but to insist upon the promised confirmation of the charters. The original taxing clause, which had been omitted from William Marshal's reissue of the Great Charter, it will be remembered, had never been formally restored, although the crown had since generally recognized the principle. The earls, therefore, insisted upon the introduction of several new clauses, by which they recognized the ordinary aids fixed by ancient feudal custom but demand that the king should again pledge himself not to claim as a right aids which the people had granted of their own will, and that such aids should be taken only by the ^'common consent of the realm." The kiug had also taken advantage of the vast increase in the wool trade to levy a customs-duty — the maltote^ — which amounted to a virtual confiscation of a large part of the profits of the trade. The earls insisted that the king should renounce the maltote and should pledge himself and his heirs not again "to take any such thing, or any other, without the common consent and good will of the commonalty of the realm." The Great Custom of 1275, however, was to be retained. In this form the charters were confirmed by the council in the name of the absent king, and then sent to him at Ghent to be ratified.^ The victory of the earls was final. Edward subsequently, like John, obtained from the pope a dis- pensation which relieved him of the obligation of keeping his pledge, but he dared not make use of it. The barons at last had found the right weapon by which to hold the king to his word ; and for several years to come, they insisted upon the renewal of the king's pledges as the condition of each grant. The Confirmation of the Charters completed the work which Langton and the barons had begun at Eunnymede. What had been "recognized as a usage, now became a matter of Langtm written right." Henceforth, no general tax could be legally taken from the nation without the consent of its representatives". The constitutional importance of this prin- ciple can not be overestimated. It made the king dependent for his power upon the good will of his people. It made it impossible 1297] Langton's work completed 315 for an evil king who once lost the sympathy of the nation, to carry out his designs by legal methods. It furnished the vantage ground from which the nation, in working out the problem of con- stitutional government, might take the next great upward step by establishing the responsibility of the king's ministers to the parlia- ment. o GO S «8 S u ^^ 2 ^ K O a>^g. ® »-^ a O ,o en be .S I be - fl iO s- o en _, Pi" II ^-f c3-« cnS -*-» b£:3 g OJ -oo^cn a H £r en bc^ g :3 o S E) . g en3 S-fi 5 2 « S ci55 o o^K S w S ^ 0) c «M«H (D ;^ ® ' o o^ -d 02 o a» c6 03.;:- ^^ en J O C b£i« i=l O t, en c r^ ^ K <^ Pbd ^ o =" o.!:h ti o+^ cc o H o fl f^ « ^ d f» O P eS ^t3 g f- a r^ O +J ,Q 5X) ^ ^ o S .2 ^•ws,.a'^ »?; -^ r^ -^3 -^ o t5 ^G O C o ^ ^-x5 •-;3 -d i: ^ O 3(/5'-' c3 be J < (^ CO — ^ ^ 'S ' C !L. e C8j2 > ® o © -S -S 'S ^n+3 V..2 1=3 __. c3 o en o • -i^ en ^ S'+-' OJ ^ '^ ^ O t:, .2 is M o H be' 03 a §_ SK en 03 -::g|s' ■^eg= ^^53a H ^ gj a/«w P O r i CO b I— U U © ^ « 3 '^-2 ^'S ^^ 3 bcw 2^ « o '^'T3 ^ w ce aO. o be^ fe :3 •' CO rd 03 S ^ © 0) g-M £ ^ en bp E5 >; a o '^ tS^Jn' .S © d "^ be© « dTS - ^ '^^ * ro re • , r d ill >5 § ® ?3, r^ a© ©^ S5 3 « §52 p; ©rc3 H 13 Jj tj d ^ ><,d sh fa ^«M 03 Sm © © =' ^^ a*^ CO be 03 2^d « =3 c3 ;p -^ P < S ^ 2 :i . ^^ J5 B ;- d a PAKT in— NATIONAL ENGLAND THE ERA OF NATIONAL AWAKENINO BOOK I— SOCIAL AWAKENING FROM 1297 TO 1485 CHAPTER I THE NEW ERA; EDWARD I. AND THE BEGINNING OF THE WARS OF FOREIGN CONQUEST. THE STRUGGLE OF THE SCOTS FOR INDEPENDENCE EDWARD]!., 12Sn-t3m THE DISPUTED SUCCESSION TO THE SCOTTISH THRONE David I. Henry, Earl oflHimtingdon Haron Hastings William the Lion David, Earl of Huntingdon 1165-1214 I I 1 1 : 1 Alexanuek II. Margaret = Alan Isabella = Robert Bruce Ada = Henry, 1214-1249 I of Galloway I of Annandale Alexander III. Devorguilla = John Balliol Robert Bnice, 1249-1286 ! (/. 1295 Henry Hastings I 1 f I I Margaret = Eric of Margaret John Balliol, Robert Bruce, John Hastings I Norway of Galloway k. 1293-1296 d. 1305 Margaret, the John Comyn, Robkrt L, Maid of Norway, murdered by k. 1306-1329 d. 1290. Bruce, 1306 A new era in English history begins with the last years of Edward's reign. With the determination of the internal structure of the government, English kings began to adopt what n^&^a^ ^^ ^^^ modern politician would call a more brilliant policy plunging the nation into a long series of extensive foreign wars, which in turn reacted powerfully upon all phases of national life, quickening national feeling, stimulating new forms of economic activity, and ending at last in social upheaval and civil strife. The remote issues of the era were also as marked as 317 318 TH^ NEW ERA [ed^ardI. they were varied and far-reaching. The general intellectual and moral awakening expressed itself, on the one hand, in a deepening hatred of the foreigner and a growing estrangement from the papacy; on the other, in the creation of a distinctive English literature, a stronger life in the universities, and the quickening interest of the people in public affairs. The rapid development of the economic resources of the nation stimulated the growth of cities and the expansion of commerce, accompanied by the disap- pearance of villainage and the opening of the first breach between "labor and capital." The creation of a national military spirit in contrast with the old class militarism of feudalism, born of such victories as Crecy and Agincourt, laid the foundation of England's military prestige and opened the age-long struggle for the sover- eignty of the seas. Parliament also rapidly assumed unity, form, and dignity, becoming the controlling instrument of government; a position which it surrendered only after the nobles had shattered their strength in the dynastic struggles of the fifteenth century. Premonitions of this new life had long since been felt by the nation. The people had taken a profound interest in the consti- tutional struggles of the thirteenth century. They had PrertKmitwm fgjt the Conflict between the unvoiced aspirations of the of new life. .... age and the institutions which were supposed to embody its best thought. At a time when the temporal glories of the papacy were approaching zenith, when bishops had become worldly politicians, and monasteries had declined into rich land- owning institutions and love of wealth and ease had obscured their original purpose, the old primitive spirit of Christianity was strug- gling for utterance in the saintly lives of sacrifice and The Fran- service of the friars, the "Salvationists" of the thir- ciscans. ' teenth century. New economic and social conditions were crowding the cities with a helpless and dependent population. Sanitation was practically unknown. Surface wells and surface drainage were the rule. Habitations were small, dingy, and over- crowded. Town government was largely in the hands of the gilds or the communes, the members of which did not fail to provide for their own families by seeking high and airy quarters where they reared their comfortable dwellings ; but below them lay the slums, 1224] THE FRIARS 319 never an inconsiderable part of the medieval city, where poverty and vice gravitated in hopeless squalor. Neither the town organi- zation nor the church felt any responsibility for the condition of this outcast class. Beyond the isolated efforts of individuals, little was done to alleviate their condition. New forms of dis- ease also appeared, conspicuously the leprosy which had been brought back from the Crusades ; diseases that fattened in filthy lanes and crowded quarters, appalling in hideousness and fatality. Into these stews of wretchedness came the *'Gray Brothers," the followers of St. Francis of Assisi, who had renounced home and kindred that they might care for the outcast poor. In 1224 the first of the Gray Friars reached England. Heretofore the monks had sought the silence and seclusion of the wilderness, where they might spend their lives in a kind of selfish devotion, undisturbed by the sad sights of the world which surrounded them. But the brothers of St. Francis sought rather the very centers of popula- tion, where the human hive swarmed and reeked. Hither they came, two by two, without scrip or purse, living like the lazzaroni whom they sought to help, sleeping under arches or lying on the church porches among the beggars, bringing with them their Gospel of good Samaritanism. Their chief settlement was fixed in New- gate, near the butchers' shambles, in a spot which went by the unsavory name of "Stinking Lane." From the first the growth of the order was rapid. Godly men felt the reality of religion such as this, and many hailed the oppor- tunity of reaching a helping hand to the suffering about offhXder. ^^^^- The people recognized the genuineness of the new spirit that was taking hold of the church and gave the friars their confidence without reserve. Good Bishop Grosseteste of Lincoln wrote of their work to the pope: '^0 that your holiness could see how devoutly and humbly the people run to hear the word of life, to confess their sins, to be instructed in the rules for daily life; how much profit the monks take from imi- tation of them." With the rapid growth of the order, its usefulness extended into new fields. St. Francis had sought to avoid the temptations which had turned aside the older orders, by discouraging learn- 320 THE NEW ERA [edwabd L ing among his followers as he had forbidden wealth. But the efforts of the brothers to care for the sick and improve the sani- tary conditions which surrounded the poor, led them Suence^ almost against their will to take up the study of medicine and the physical sciences; while the wide popularity of their preaching and their constant warfare against the strange opinions which Crusaders had brought back from the east, com- pelled them to study theology and logic. Into these new fields they entered with the same consecrated fervor, and could soon boast the greatest doctors of the age. Eoger Bacon, the precursor of the modern scientist, was of their number. Many became teachers in the universities, where, as at Oxford, they helped to mould the thought of the coming generation. They were also quick to see the interest of their wards, the people, in the great political struggles of the century, and did not hesitate to plunge into the strife for the Charter. It was largely due to their influence that Earl Simon was so well understood and supported by the common people. Side by side with the Franciscans, and hardly less famous, toiled the Dominicans. St. Dominic, the founder of the order, had felt the shortcoming of the church in another icans reach direction. He had seen the growth of heresy and un- * belief among the higher orders, and had justly traced its cause to the prevailing worldliness of the church and the heart- less indifference of its agents to the needs of the people. He pro- posed to establish an order of popular preachers, who should meet heretic or infidel upon his own ground, and prove by devotion and piety that Christianity was something more than a system by which gorgeous bishops could be enriched or abbots fattened. The Dominicans reached England three years before the Franciscans, but heresy had never taken such hold upon the English as Upon the people of southern France, and hence the Dominicans, the **'Black Friars," never became as popular or as influential in England as the Franciscans, the Gray Friars. The universities also felt the new life. The gathering of poor scholars at Oxford swelled rapidly during the thirteenth century. The course of study was still meagre and narrow. Latin was the 1238-1264] THE UNIVERSITIES 321 language of the class room. Greek was practically unknown and Aristotle reached the student only through garbled translations. Logic was the backbone of the educational system and fiius'^^^^^ dialectics was largely pursued for its own sake. Hair- splitting became a science, and the search for truth was sacrificed to the love of bandying empty words. Yet thinking men, like Koger Bacon, felt the barrenness of tlie methods in vogue, and urged not only a freer use of existing knowledge, but the search into wider fields. Student life and student thought, always rough, free, and hearty, was inclined to outrun the dignified pace of the teachers, and, often in closer contact witli the people than the church, refused to be bound by existing traditions, readily respond- ing with the reckless fervor of youth to the stimulation of new and high ideals. Hence student infhience was generally to be found on the side of the man who durst question the right of the feudal lord or the authority of the wealthy clergy. In 1238 the students of Oxford openly attacked the papal legate, and in 12G4 the whole student body turned out to join the party of Earl Simon. While the poor were suffering and the pious friars were grap- pling with the serious problems of the age, the rich were leading an unreal life which they stimulated by mock sentiment and by turning serious matters into play. The early Crusades had provided the wild baronage of Europe with a real sentiment in which they sought to realize the **ideal of Christian knighthood." The champion of the cross found ample scope for the cultivation of all the noblest traits of manhood in facing hard- ship and danger in defense of the poor and th6 oppressed, often to the sacrifice of life itself. The noblest ideals were set forth in the solemn and impressive ceremonies by which the knight was ushered into the duties of his order. lie bound himself to observe the laws of honor, to fight fairly, to protect the church, to defend women, and to act with courtesy to his equals and with deference to his superiors. But with the decline of the religious fervor which attended the early Crusades the vows of chivalry lost their significance. Its noble sentiment became mere senti- mentalism, which failed to gloss the heartless brutality of the noble. The hero became a "gentleman," who prided himself on 322 THE NEW ERA [edward i. his class, and despised and abased those who were socially beneath him. His fine sentiments lost their meaning in the narrow self- ishness of a class spirit which felt no pity and recognized no duty toward peasant or bnrgher. For a time the great constitutional struggle of the thirteenth century furnished him with a true moral motive, but too often his position was determined by the selfish interest of the hour rather than by any true devotion to the cause of liberty, and if he drew near to the commons, it was because he needed the help of the burgher's pike or the burgher's purse. When the reign of Edward drew to its close the ques- tions which had roused men like Earl Simon were settled, and in the wars of the new century the knight rarely felt any higher motive than glory or privilege, or worse, plunder. Chivalry became more polished, more gorgeous, but also more hollow, more heartless. It sought its victories not in conflicts waged in defense of virtue or weakness or principle, but at grand tournaments, where bodies of knights or squires joined in combat for the purpose of displaying their skill or courage. Fre- quently the tournament proper was varied with the joust where two knights engaged each other with blunted spears, the one attempting to hurl the other from his horse. Such combats were always attended with much danger and frequently ended fatally. The lamented Henry II. of France lost his life as a sacrifice to the popular sport, and Edward 1. of England, while on his eastern expedition, narrowly escaped paying the same forfeit in ofChaion," a tournament at Ohalon, long known as the "Little 1273. Battle of Chalon," where after a desperate struggle and the loss of many lives, he and his party finally came off victo- rious. At these bloody orgies, ladies presided and awarded the prizes. Kenilworth became famous as the place where Edward held his "Bound Table" in imitation of the imaginary glories of the fabled Arthur's court. Hither flocked the gay and frivolous worldlings of the court, the king, his knights and their hidies, "clad all in silk." The climax of this hollow extravagance was reached during the reign of Edward HI. ; a fitting intro- duction to the era of luxury and cruelty which followed. Earlier kings, like Henry II., had forbidden tournaments altogether, SCOTLAND AND THE ENGLISH CKOWN 323 but Richard had not hesitated to license them for money. Openly encouraged by such kings as Edward I. and Edward III., the tilt-yard remained for nearly three centuries the chief amusement of the nobility. The era of foreign wars began with the attempt of Edward to subjugate Scotland. Ireland had already been partly subdued and placed under English governors. The Welsh had beeu nina^(7ihc crushed and the cantreds organized into English shires s'coiiand^^^^ and hundreds. These early successes of Edward as well as his fondness for order and harmony, naturally suggested a single sovereignty over the entire island of Britain. The way was opened, as in the case of Wales, by a call for a more definite interpretation of the shadowy claims which English kings had from time to time asserted over the kings of Scotland. Edward was a legalist by disposition, inclined always to insist upon his technical rights, and without that finer sense of justice so marked in Louis IX. which made the rights of others ever as sacred as his own. Edward, moreover, was in possession of all the vast resources of the newly harmonized state, and, fully conscious of his strength, he was the last man to allow a mere question of metes and bounds to go long unsettled. In the thirteenth century the Scots were a rising people. Goidel, Briton, Norse, and English were at last merging into a sin- gle kingdom. The relation of their kings to the English kiiwdUynu^^'^ court was ucccssarily intimate. They had frequently intermarried with the English royal house; had held lands south of the border as vassals of the English king, and as English barons had not hesitated to take part in his quarrels. They had also, even before the Norman Conquest, recognized in the English king a vague right of overlordship over the Scottish kingdom. IIeiu*y II. had brushed away all technical difficulties in the treaty of Falaise, by which he had compelled William the Lion, who was then his prisoner, to become his liegeman for Scot- land and all his other lands. But fifteen years later, for a pay- ment of 10,000 marks, Richard had restored to the King of Scots the border castles which Henry had retained as security, and released him and his heirs forever from the homage promised for Scotland. 324 THE NEW ERA [edward l. The later English kings, however, had not regarded the matter as finally adjusted, and although, in the century following, the royal families of the two countries had remained upon more or less friendly terms, they had more than once raised the question of overlordship. In 1286 Alexander III. died. His daughter Margaret had mar- ried Eric King of Norway, and their daughter, known as the "Maid of Norway," was the sole descendant of Alex- successuni, ander. The claims of the little granddaughter, also a Margaret, were recognized by the Scots. Edward saw at once the opportunity for a peaceful settlement of the unadjusted claims of the English crown, and proposed the marriage of Mar- garet to his own son, Edward of Carnarvon, then a lad about Margaret's age. The Scottish nobles were not averse to a union so much in accord with recent traditions of both kingdoms ^ and so promising in many mutual advantages. It was stipulated, how- ever, by the Scottish estates that the kingdom of Scotland should remain separate with its own laws and customs. These conditions were formally accepted by Edward at Brigham. But Brigham, unfortunately the little Maid of JNorway did not sur- 1290. vive to reach England, and the fine plan of Edward, which would have brought England and Scotland under one crown three centuries before the time of James Stuart, was blasted in the bud. A swarm of claimants for the vacant throne now sprang up. A definite law of succession had never been clearly established in Scotland, but the superior importance was ffenerallv TUe judgment .-,<.-,. , -, -, , <. -rx • -, , "^ of Edward, recognizcd of claims based on descent from David, the earl of Huntingdon, a younger brother of William the Lion, and a contemporary of Henry II. and his two immediate successors. Unfortunately, however, the earl of Huntingdon was represented by three male descendants : John Balliol, Robert Bruce, and John Hastings. Of these John Balliol was the grandson of Margaret, the eldest daughter of David ; John Hastings, the lord of Abergavenny, was the grandson of a tliird daughter ; but Bruce 1 Edward's sister Margaret had been the wife of Alexander III. ; hig aunt Joan the wife of Alexander II. 1291, 1292] THE JUDGMENT OF EDWARD 325 was the son of a second daughter and so a degree nearer to David than either. According to the custom of feudal inheritances, when the holder left daughters only, the fief was divided equally among them as co-heiresses. Hastings claimed that the law should be applied in this case, and that heirs of David's daughters should share the kingdom equally. Bruce and Balliol, however, advanced each his right to the whole kingdom; based, the one upon his nearer descent from David, and the other upon the fact that he represented the eldest line. In the absence of precedent, one claim was probably as valid as another. All three of the claimants were more English than Scotch in feeling; they had also borne their part in English politics, Bruce having been chief justice of the King's Bench. The contestants, therefore, naturally appealed to Edward, and in the long existing confidence which bad prevailed between the two courts, felt no hesitation in recog- nizing him as overlord. In 1291 Edward invited the nobles of Scotland to meet him at Norham, but before he would act as arbi- trator lie insisted upon a formal recognition of his position as superior lord of the Scottish realm. Accordingly he received the homage of the Scots, and with the aid of the court lawyers pro- ceeded to examine the case with care and deliberation. The decision was not rendered until the next year, when both Bruce and Hastings were set aside and the kingdom, undivided, was awarded to John Balliol. Balliol straightway did homage to Edward for the kingdom and was crowned. All parties apparently were satisfied with the result. To Edward, however, the recognition of overlordship meant more than a public acknowledgment of preeminence in rank. Arguing from the well-established relations of his own of^jiaHsdSm aut^iority in Aquitaine to his French overlord, he held ffmrts!^''^^ that it was his right to hear appeals from the highest court in Scotland, and, the very first year of John Bal- liol's reign, when four Scottish suitors appealed to Edward against the decision of the Scottish courts he seized the opportunity to put his claim to the test, and summoned King John to appear at Westminster to answer the complaint of his aggrieved subjects. Here certainly was innovation; an application of feudal theory 326 THE NEW EKA [edward i. which the high-spirited Scottish nobles were by no means inclined to accept. And although Balliol went to Westminster and pro- tested in person against the usurpation of Edward, his movements were altogether too sluggish to satisfy the fiery spirits whom he had left at home. His motives were suspected, and in 1295 the nobles took the administration out of his hands altogether and put it in the hands of a commission, in some such way as the English nobles had assumed control of the government of Henry III. Edward, however, was by no means free, either to support his vassal king, or to intimidate his turbulent rear vassals of Scotland. Philip IV., a very different man from the just and with^France! P^^ific Louis, was uow upon the throne of France; ambitious, treacherous, and full of guile, he only waited an opportunity to complete the work of Philip 11. , by shaking the English from their last hold on the Garonne. A special oppor- tunity for making mischief, moreover, had been offered by the chronic hostility of the Norman and Gascon sailors. The distinc- tions between lawful trade and piracy were hardly as yet under- stood, and the wine ships coming from Gascony to England were the favorite prey of the Norman ship-masters. The Cinque Ports, the great trading towns of southern England, naturally took the part of the Gascons. Eeprisals were made on both sides, and in 1293 the affair came to a head in a great sea fight in the harbor of St. Mahe in Brittany, in which a fleet of Normans, St. Make, Flemings, and French, engaged a fleet of English, Gas- cons, and Irish. The Normans and their allies were completely overwhelmed, their ships sunk, and fifteen thousand lives sacrificed. Philip naturally was not inclined to let such a serious matter pass unnoticed, and at once summoned Edward as duke of Aquitaine to appear in the French court and answer for the conduct of his Gascons. Edward neglected the summons, and Philip declared his duchy forfeited. Ordinarily such a decision would mean war, but Edward, warned by the growing restlessness of the Scots, was not ready to plunge into a confiict with Philip. He, therefore, sent over his brother Edmund, the earl of Lancas- ter, to represent him and do what he could by negotiation. Philip was gracious and suave, and tricked Edmund into believing that 1296] FIRST SCOTTISH WAR OF EDWARD 327 all he sought was some formal recognition of his authority, persuading him to hand over the castles of Guienne to be held for forty days and then returned again. But when the forty days were up, Philip canceled the agreement with Edmund, poured his troops into the Gascon country and entered into an active alliance with the Scots. Edward could not refuse the challenge and prepared for war. The usual Welsh outbreaks helped to rouse popular sentiment, and when in 1295 Edward summoned his famous Model scfmshWar P^^-rliament to consider the difficulties which confronted %%^^^^^^' him, the nation responded with an alacrity and una- nimity never before known in English history; the burghers outdoing tlie nobles and the clergy in generous response to the king's call for money. Edmund of Lancaster was dis- patched to the Garonne, while Edward in person led an army into Scotland and summoned I^alliol to appear before him. But instead of presenting himself, the unhappy king sent to Edward at New- castle a formal renunciation of the homage which he had sworn in 1292. *'The false fool," cried Edward, **if he will not come to us, we will go to him.'' Berwick fell in March. In April, Earl Warenne who commanded the English advance, defeated the Scots on the plain before Dunbar. Then followed in quick succession the surrender of Dunbar, Koxburgh, Edinburgh, and Stirling. Finally the surrender of Balliol completed the speedy and unex- pected triumph. Edward continued his march through the Lowlands, receiving the keys of the Scottish strongholds and admitting the nobles to homage. He made Earl Warenne guard- ian and then returned to England, taking with him to Westmin- ster the famous stone of Scone, the traditional coronation stone of Scottish kings. Edward's triumph apparently was final. Scotland lay under his feet, prostrate, destitute; her strongholds held by English garrisons, her dethroned king a captive in a foreign prison.^ Yet Edward had hardly turned his attention to France when disquieting rumors began to reach him from his new conquest. Earl Warenne, ^ Balliol was confined for a while in the Towner of London and then allowed to depart for the continent where lie finally died in obscurity. 328 • THE XEW ERA [edward i. although guardian of the realm, had turned the administration over to two men, Cressingham the treasurer, and Ormesby the justiciar, who were utterly incapable of understanding the Scot- fng^under^ tish people; nor was it long before the discontent i^"^^' aroused by their petty tyrannies passed into widespread revolt, and the Highlands far and near blazed with the fires of a bloody guerrilla warfare. The wild mountain glens and dreary upland moors offered a safe hiding to desperate outlaws. Here they gathered in ever increasing numbers, finding leaders among those who had felt the hand of the tyrants and lived only for vengeance. All other leaders, however, sank into shadow by the side of the famous Wallace, whose daring and energy awed and terrified the English, as it inspired and heartened his own people. Edward was absent in Flanders. The absentee guardian of Scot- land roused himself and entering the country with a great army approached Stirlins^. At Cambuskenneth a lonsr bridge neth, SepUm- spanned the Forth, so narrow that only two mounted ber 1297. men could cross it abreast. Beyond the bridge a range of low hills reached almost to the water's edge. It was just such a spot as Wallace and his desperate band of outlaws knew how to make the most of. The southern army approached the bridge and began the long and tedious crossing. Five thousand men under the hated Cressingham were already on the other bank when the Scots led by Wallace and Sir Andrew Murray rushed upon them. The slaughter was frightful; Cressingham was slain and his fol- lowers butchered almost to a man. The main body of the English retired. The news of the victory electrified the prostrate nation; the lukewarm and the cautious hesitated no longer; everywhere the Scots rose and the English garrisons fled for their lives. Scot- land was now again in the hands of her own people, and a provi- sional government was organized under Wallace and Murray, who assumed the title of "Generals of the Army of the Kingdom of Scotland and Guardians of the Kealm for King John." Edward saw that if he would save Scotland, he must return at once, and strangely enough Philip consented to a truce and left Edward free to devote all his splendid energy and skill to the recovery of Scotland. Wallace's tactics were simple and would 1298] FALKIRK 329 have succeeded, had he dealt with a less able general. The Low- lands were harried by his orders and nothing was left that might feed an invading army. The English were sore put to cnmpaimof ^^ ^^^ food, and a disgraceful retreat, which must have Edward, 1298. ^een jfinal, seemed unavoidable, when Edward by one of those brilliant movements which mark the great general, suddenly confronted Wallace in Falkirk wood and com- pelled him to fight against his will. The battle is interesting because it illustrates the rapid progress which the English were making in the art of war, soon to give them such superiority in the approaching struggle with S!"^'^' France. Wallace had hardly any cavalry, for the Scot- tish nobles had not taken kindly to the man of the people. They suspected his motives also and feared the results of his rapid successes. Wallace, therefore, was compelled to depend almost altogether upon his pikemen. These, however, he drew up with real skill behind a marsh, so arranged that they formed four squares, or circles rather, connected by a line of archers. In the rear he posted his few horsemen. Edward saw that his heavy armed knights were useless against such a formation, and resorted to the tactics which his great ancestor had used at Hastings, and with similar success. The English had of late begun to develop the long bow, which in the Welsh wars of Edward had proved its superiority to the old short bow or the cross bow. The archer, by the greater length of the bow and weight of his arrow, was able to throw the entire strength of his body into the shaft, drawing the bolt to the ear instead of the breast, and sending it with such force that it could pierce armor or shield. Edward had brought with him a body of archers skilled in the use of this terrible weapon. He now ordered them into action and had them concen- trate their fire upon the Scottish squares. The pikemen, mad- dened by the swiftly flying shafts but unable to protect them- selves by reason of their close formation, were soon thrown into confusion ; then a well-timed charge of the English cavalry into the struggling mass of men and tall spears, and Falkirk was won. Wallace's power melted away as rapidly as it had arisen. He escaped from Falkirk to spend the next six years in hiding ; but 330 THE NEW ERA [edward l. was finally betrayed by the Scots themselves, delivered over to Edward and put to death as a traitor. The people, however, would not forget him. He became the hero of the of Wallace's struggle for independence. Even the well-earned power. fame of the younger Bruce paled before the favor- ite of legend and song, the first among Scottish national patriots. Although Wallace had been routed and his power dispelled, it took Edward six years to recover the lost ground. He had made an alliance with Flanders against France, but the alli- Thecmitimia- ^yicq proved expensive and unsatisfactory. The money Faikirk^'^^^ which the English estates had so generously voted him in 1295 had been expended, and yet had secured no adequate results. The towns were restless under later exactions; the church disobedient and the barons defiant. The pope, Boni- face VIII., also embarrassed the king by putting forth a claim as overlord of Scotland and forbade him to interfere further with the Scots. New leaders also came forward to carry on the work of Wallace. In 1302 John Comyn, a nephew of Balliol, supported by the bishop of St. Andrews, won the important battle of Roslin and for the moment delivered Scotland north of the Forth. Ordinary difficulties, however, did not discourage Edward. In 1301 he had again confirmed the charters and in return secured the promise of the English barons to defend his claim to Scotland against the threatened intervention of the pope. But fortunately the rival claim of Boniface was never brought to an issue; nor is it likely •that he meant to do more than assert his position as guardian of the peace of Europe. At all events he was soon able to give proof of the genuineness of his desire for peace by securing an agreement between Edward and Philip, in accordance with which Philip restored Gascony, and Edward, whose first wife had died in 1290, married Philip's sister; the Prince of Wales was also betrothed to Philip's daughter Isabella. By this double marriage it was hoped to assure the friendly relations of the two courts for many years to come; a fatuous hope, for it was through the mar- riage of Prince Edward and Isabella that English kings came subsequently to lay claim to the throne of France. 1304-1307] RISING OF BRUCE 331 The Scottish barons, now that they were deserted by Philip, felt the uselessness of continuing the struggle. At Dumfries, Comyn, who had been acting as King John's regent. End of armed j^q^ Edward and agreed to a peace on condition that inScotJand, ^he Scottish barons should not be deprived of their lands, but should be allowed to redeem them by the [)ayment of a fine. In 1304 Stirling fell and all armed resistance ceased. In the meantime Edward was maturing plans for the settlement of the kingdom, and a really good scheme was struck out. But he was to meet the common experience of most ambitious sovereigns who attempt to foist a foreign government upon a high- spirited and warlike people against their will. The temporary successes of Wallace, followed by the glorious but ineffectual strug- gle carried on by Andrew Murray and John Comyn, had appealed powerfully to national sentiment and the people only waited for a new leader. This leader appeared in the young Robert Bruce, grandson of that Robert Bruce who had been Balliol's rival. Hitherto he had been on the English side and high in favor with Edward, RiMng of ^vho had trusted him and consulted him upon the reor- Bruce, 1306. ^ *■ ganization of the country. But in 1306 in an interview at Dumfries with Comyn who was heir to Balliol's claims, hot words had arisen between the two men, swords had been drawn, and Comyn was slain. Bruce, an outlaw and a murderer, had then fled to the mountains of Galloway, and, apparently in self-defense, had raised the standard of revolt. In March 1306 he was able to make his way to Scone and secure a coronation. Edward heard of the new revolt, and roused himself to crush it. Apparently it was not a very serious matter, and Aymer de Valence, Edward's nephew, easily drove Bruce into the The last cam- ^Yestern islands for refuge. But Edward was now well paign of o Edward, gone in years, and infirmity was fast creeping upon him. His wrath was as terrible to onlookers as ever; but the lightnings had lost their power to blast. He hurried on after his armies, but crippled by his years he was no match for the young and energetic Bruce whose rapid movements easily eluded the pur- suit of the king's lieutenants and enabled him to strike again 332 THE NEW ERA where least expected. Edward fumed and stormed and vented his wrath upon the lackless Scottish nobles who fell into his power. They were put to death without mercy ; their estates confiscated and turned over to Englishmen. The Countess of Buchan, who had placed the crown upon Brnce's head, was put in an iron cage and hung from the walls of Berwick castle. The efforts of Edward, however, only added fuel to the insurrection. The war took on more and more the character of a national rising, and in 1307 Bruce was able to take the field at the head of a ward, July Considerable force. The old king, broken by fifty years of service, rose from his bed to put himself at the head of his troops as of yore; but the effort was too much for his fail- ing strength. He died at Burgh-on-the-Sands, July 7, 1307. So died the great Edward; lawgiver, statesman, soldier, and king. The closing years of his long and brilliant reign, clouded by his unfortunate attempt to make good his lordship over Edward's Scotland, must not obscure the real greatness of the man or the success of his fifty years of administration. His father had made a pitiful failure and had been saved from utter ruin only by the cool determination of the barons and the wise leadership of the son. When Henry died all strife had ended, and Edward, as no Norman or Plantagenet before him, succeeded to a peaceful and united realm. Of this harmony he made the most. He fully grasped the elements of the problem before him ; accepted the results of the barons' wars; kept himself in touch with the national sentiment of the age, and sought not to check, but to direct the efforts by which the nation was seeking to secure better laws and a wiser service. Once he seemed to waver in his allegi- ance to the cause of constitutional government, when for the moment the pressure of unsuccessful foreign war had blinded him to the possible results of his actions; but it is this very incident, connected with the names of Bigod and Bohun, that reveals the real greatness of Edward, — the infinite distance which separates him from John Lackland or Henry III. for Edward was man enough, when once he saw his mistake, to confess his error and right the wrong. The attempt to conquer Scotland, however, was more than a mistake of policy; it was a political crime, and bit- GREATNESS OF EDWARD 333 terly Edward paid the penalty in the humiliation of failure which shadowed his last days and in the fatal debt with which he fettered the reign of his unfortunate son. Yet the attempt to conquer the northern kingdom was not the outcome of mere vulgar hunger for military glory; Edward simply tried to make real and practical his right as overlord, just as every other great national king in the west was then doing. It is remarkable, however, that one who had such keen appreciation of the significance of national senti- ment in England, should have so little perception of its strength in other lands. KINGS OF FRANCE Philip III., (1. 1285. Philip IV. CONTEMPORARIES OF EDWARD I. 1272-1307 EMPERORS Rudolph of Haps- burg, d. 1291. Adolphus, d. 1298. Albert. KINGS OF CASTILE Alphonso X., the Wise. rf. 1284. Sancho IV., the Great, d. 12l>5. Ferdinand IV. KINGS OF SCOT- LAND Alexander III., d. 1286. John Balliol, k. 1292-1296. Robert I., k. 1306. PROMINENT POPES Gregory X., 1271-1276. Nicolas III., 1277-1281. Martin IV., 1281-1285. Honorius IV., 128.5-1289. Nicolas IV., 1289-1292. Boniface. VIII., 1294-1303. Benedict XI., 1303-1305. Clement V., 1305. ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY Robert Kilwardby, 1273- 1278. John Peckhain, 1279-1292. Robert Winchelsey, 1294. FAMOUS MEN (Not princes) Roger Bacon, d. 1272. Dante Alighieri, h. 1266, d. 1321. William Wallace, b. 1274( ?) d. 1305. Marco Polo, b. 12&4, d. 1324. CHAPTER II THE BAROKS AKD THE ROYAL FAVORITES. THE INDEPENDENCE OF SCOTLAND ESTABLISHED EDWARD II.. 1307-1327 THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, ' brother of Edward I. . I Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, Henry, Earl of Lancaster, d. 1322 I d. 1345 Henry, first Duke of Lancaster Blanche m. John of Gaunt, fourth son of Edward III. The new king, Edward of Carnarvon, was a failure from the first. He was frivolous, unprincipled, and utterly incapable of handling the questions which his father's death had left me^Tm^. i^nsettled. He tied himself to a contemptible favorite Piers Gaves- Qf j^jg boyhood, a Gascou by the name of Piers Gaveston, who encouraged him in dissipation and costly extrav- agance, and used his influence for his own ends. The foreign birth of Gaveston, his rapid elevation, his worthlessness, roused the enmity of the baronage, and at onee created a powerful anti- administration party among the nobility as in the days of the for- eign favorites of Henry III. The most bitter and dangerous opponent of Gaveston was the king's cousin, Thomas Earl of Lancaster, the son of Edmund Crouchback, the once titular king of Sicily. Earl Lanmster's '^^^^^^ ^^Id the lordship of five earldoms, controlled G^vesm,^ enormous wealth, and possessed great personal influence. He had resented the insolent ways of the upstart Gaves- ton and had smarted under the lashing of his sharp tongue; for Gaveston rather prided himself on his wit, and took a silly delight in fixing various nicknames upon the prominent members of the 334 1308] PIERS GAVESTON ' 335 court. Thus Lancaster he had dubbed "The Hog;" Pembroke, *'Joseph the Jew;" Gloucester, "The Cuckoo;" and Warwick, "The Black Dog of Arden." It was fine fun no doul3t for Gaves- toii and his admirers, but dangerous. In 1308 Edward returned from France with his bride Isabella, and held the ceremony of coronation with great magnificence. He made the usual promises to maintain the customs of the Gnveaton, realm and respect its laws. But the frivolous and insincere nature of the king was so well understood, and the continued affront of Gaveston's presence, his reckless insolence, was sucli a constant challenge to the barons, that the most sanguine could not fail to see that trouble was at hand ; nor was it long before the storm broke. At a great council held soon after the coronation, the barons insisted upon the expulsion of the favorite from the kingdom, and Edward was forced to yield. The barons, however, had only begun their work. Earl Thomas imagined that he was destined to play the role of a second Montfort; and the next year, in a full parliament in as^arepmrnr ^^^^^^^ ^^® commons were represented, he persuaded the Estates to refuse to vote any supplies, unless the king consented to redress certain grievances, as unjust seizures of provisions by the king's officers under the name of purveyance, excessive duties on wines, cloth, and other imports, irregular coinage, and similar abuses, particularly grievous to the merchant classes. The king had banished Gaveston as he had agreed, but he had sent him off loaded with gifts to the governorship of Ireland. He now offered to grant the reforms provided the favor- ite might be allowed to return to the kingdom. The barons, how- ever, were in no mood to be gracious and refused their consent. Then Edward undertook to gain his point by coaxing, wheedliiig, and bribery, and although the body of the barons were still stub- born, thinking he had support enough to act without their consent, he recalled his man. It was a fatal step for both king and minister. The king again drifted into his old ways of living; and Gaves- ton, looking upon his recall as a triumph, became more irritating than ever. When the barons assembled the next year, they came 336 • THE BARONS AND THE FAVORITES. [edwaed n. with the grim determination to take the government out of the hands of the king who could so soon forget his promises. A com- mittee of administration was appointed of twenty-one barons, known as ''Lords Ordainers;" including, beside the GaSwk" ^"^ archbishop Winchelsey, Lancaster, Pembroke, War- wick, and Gloucester; all of whom had felt the lash of Gaveston's tongue, and with the exception of Winchelsey, were _ ^ moved more by hatred of the favorite than by any intel- The ''Lords ,. t . , J J Ordaimrs," ligent devotion to the cause of pure government. They were specially commissioned to reform existing abuses and to regulate the king's household. The report of the Lords Ordainers, known as the "Ordinances," consisted of forty -one articles, and dealt with current abuses, some of which were as old as Magna Charta. Of chief importance, however, were the excess- ive duties which had prevailed since the beginning of the Scot- tish wars. The Lord's Ordainers fixed the duties of the year 1275 as standard. They directed also that Gaveston be per- manently banished, and forbade the king to appoint ministers, go to war, or leave the kingdom without the approval of the barons. Edward, cowed and humbled, signed the Ordinances, but entreated the barons to save his "brother Piers." He then went north, where the rising power of Bruce liad lonff since The Ordi- iianceH demanded attention. Here he no sooner found him- self out from under the shadow of the Lords Ordain- ers, than he defied the Ordinances and called his favorite to his side. This new evidence of the bad faith of the king was too much for the temper of the. barons. They appealed at 'GavS)n ^^^^ ^^ arms, took Gaveston at Scarborough and sent him to Wallingford under the pledge of the earl of Pembroke to present him at the meeting of parliament. But such fiery spirits as Warwick, Lancaster, Hereford, and Arundel, were too impatient to await a trial, and had the favorite seized on the way to Wallingford and hurried off to Warwick Castle. Here he was brought into the presence of his foes and his fate decided. It would not do to let the fox go, they said ; they would only have to hunt him again. 1311-1313] SUCCESSES OF BRUCE 337 The murder of Gaveston was prophetic of the era at hand. It was a new thing for politicians to butcher their fallen rivals. From this time until the reign of Henry VII., politics ^UaracUr becomes more and more a bloody trade. Feuds were vouucs^^ started which were not to be allayed until many of the finest families of England had perished. It was the hot breath of the new era; the natural effect of continual war, of the factitious life bred of chivalry, and of the decay of per- sonal piety. The unhappy king was powerless to punish ; he had to content himself with receiving the feigned submission of the men who had slain his favorite, and proclaim a general amnesty. The troubles of Edward with his barons, the generally crip- pled condition of the government, will explain why so little had yet been done to repress Bruce. The great strongholds of fc?%5fe ^^® Lowlands, Roxburgh, Linlithgow, Perth, Edinburgh, {/S!^^^^ and Stirling, still remained in English hands, but Bruce was everywhere master of the open country. Moreover, as the weakness of the English became more apparent, the hopes of the Scots rose correspondingly; their daring also increased to such an extent that they answered Edward's invasion of 1311 by a counter raid into the northern counties of England, and in 1312 Bruce began the systematic reduction of the English strongholds. It was a great year in Scottish story. In January Bruce car- ried the battlements of Perth by assault; Roxburgh surrendered in March; seven days later, Randolph, a son of Bruce's sister, led a band of thirty men up the frowning cliff on whose crest rises the huge keep of Edinburgh Castle, scaled its ramparts, and took the garrison by surprise, — one of the most brilliant and dar- ing enterprises of all history. A brilliant strategy at the same time secured Linlithgow. A countryman, with the good Scotch name of Binnie, approached the gates on a bright morning with an innocent looking load of hay. Under the portcullis the load stopped and a band of sturdy Scotchmen, sword in hand, springing out from under the hay, held the gate until their comrades could rush in and overpower the garrison. By the opening of the next year, only Stirling held out. The garrison were sore pressed and 338 THE BAKONS AND THE FAVORITES ["edward II. Philip Mowbray, the governor, agreed to surrender, if they were not relieved before June 24, 1314. Edward had time enough to relieve the town and was in fact deeply stirred by the new responsibility which the conditions accepted by Mowbray imposed upon him. But he was Attempt to ; -' ^ rni relieve stir- no longer his own master. Ihe barons were not inclined to trust him with a large army. The months of grace slipped by. The king urged and pleaded. Still Lancaster and his men held aloof; yet as the last days approached, they were apparently shamed out of their sulky mood and al- lowed Edward to act. He came within sight of Stirl- ing on the 23d of June, one day before the time fixed for Mowbray 's surrender. Bruce had drawn up his men behind the Bannockburn in order to command the roads to Stirling. His position was one of great natural strength. A marsh protected his right burn^i3i4 ^i^^' while his left was covered by low ground, filled here and there with pools of water. Wherever there was a chance for horsemen to secure a footing, he had also dug pits and concealed them with hurdles. The formation of Bruce was similar to that adopted by Wallace at Falkirk, but back of his bristling circles he had a powerful body of cavalry in reserve. For 1314] BANNOCK BURN 339 in the seven years which had followed the death of Edward I. , Bruce had won to his side all the discontented elements of the population, and the younger nobility in particular had rallied to his support. The English commanders showed little skill in marshalling their men. The men showed little confidence in their leaders. Edward opened the battle by sending forward his archers; his plan being first to riddle the Scottish array, and then hurl forward his heavy cavalry as his father had done at Falkirk. But unfortunately he allowed the archers to advance so far that the English horse could not support them, and a well-timed charge by Bruce's horse from the flank swept them from the field. Edward then sent forward his horse, but the Scottish knights had recovered their position and the English knights found only the dense array of spearmen to receive them. In vain they hurled themselves upon the forest of pikes. Their splendid courage only increased the confusion and slaughter. Then suddenly, appearing above the high ground in the rear of the Scots, the English caught the glitter of arms and the waving of banners of a second army approaching. It was only the camp followers of Bruce, his sutlers and cattle herders, tricked out for the occasion, but the sight was too much for the shattered nerves of the English leaders. They fully believed that a second army was about to enter the field in support of the Scots, and thought only of flight. The Scottish horse dashed in among the mass of struggling fugitives and began a ruthless slaughter. The earl of Gloucester was slain ; Hereford was taken at Bothwell, and the king with great difficulty got away to Dun- bar, and finally to Berwick. Edward had left many of his barons and knights on the field of Bannockburn ; yet for the moment he talked wildly of summoning a new army and renewing the war. It was evident to oftheScJ^^ Edward's advisers, however, that the country was utterly disheartened; that no one had confidence either in the king's ability or his courage, and that a second attempt would only invite fresh disaster. Yet no one dared to propose peace while the disgrace of Bannockburn rankled in the public mind. The king also was obstinate in his determination to regard Bruce as a rebel, and persisted in refusing to listen to any of his 340 THE BAKONS AND THE FAVORITES [edwari> il. overtures. Bruce on his part fully appreciated the significance of his victory, and was more than ever determined to compel the English to recognize the independence which he had now won. He had already seized the Isle of Man and in 1315 Sco^Si^^'^ allowed his brother David to enter upon the ill-starred jreiand, attempt to wrest Ireland from the English. In 1316 Bruce himself went over to assist his brother, but soon became satisfied that the place to strike England successfully was not in Ireland but upon his own border. Soon after his return, therefore, he began the systematic harrying of the northern shires. The capture of Berwick opened the eastern highway into England, and every harvest time saw the Scots in the saddle, and the English farmers fleeing for their lives ; their hay ricks and granaries going up in flames; their cattle gracing the homeward march of the Scots. In a single raid the Scots burned Scarborough, Northallerton, Boroughbridge, and Skipton. In 1319 the York- shire farmers, led by their priests in their white surplices, attempted to make a stand at Myton, but the simple peasantry fled at the first rush of Kandolph's men-at-arms. They were cut down like sheep. So many of the clergy were slain that the bat- of^Myton''^^ tie or rather massacre was known as the ''Chapter of Myton." Still Edward refused to recognize Eobert Bruce as king of Scotland. In 1322 he again attempted to invade the country but only to bring the Scots to the gates of York for his pains. It was more than ever evident that nothing was to be gained by further war, and in 1323 Edward prudently determined to unload part of his trouble by giving peace to the northern bor- ders. The truce was to last thirteen years, Bruce in the mean- time to take the title of king. But upon the accession of Edward III., four years later, Bruce seized the opportunity to force upon England a full recognition of his claims and the accept- ance of a permanent peace. The treaty was signed at Northamp- Northampton in 1328. England formally recognized Bruce as king of Scotland and renounced all claims to the Scottish overlordship. So at last, for the time, ended the strug- gle for Scottish independence. It had cost much ; but it was worth it all. The Scottish nation had come out of the fires a great peo- 13144318] THOMAS OF LANCASTER • 341 pie. They had learned self-reliance ; they had learned to think and act for themselves ; they had learned that they were Scotchmen. Above all they had received a priceless heritage in the memory of great names and heroic deeds, the true soil of patriotism. Edward in the meantime was steadily sinking in the pit of his own digging. He had fled' from Bannockburn with a troop of furious Scotchmen at his heels, and a brave and warlike mwardii people could not forgive their king for missing this rare chance of dying like a hero. Even the royal title could no longer impart dignity to a character so contemptible. Lancas- ter became the dominant spirit both at the council board and in the army. He removed old ministers and appointed new ones at will. He fixed an allowance for the king's expenses and deter- mined his personal friends. He was commander-in-chief of the army. He became president of the council. But unfortunately ho proved as incompetent in administration as he had been unscru- pulous and violent in opposition. The baronage would not endure his despotic ways; they broke up into rival factions, and turning their arms against each other, left the Scots to plunder and ravage the north as they pleased. A serious failure of the harvest added to the distress caused by domestic anarchy and foreign war, and the people were not slow to charge the government with their misfortunes. Men whispered that Earl Thomas had entered into a secret league with the Scots and had agreed for a price not to molest the enemy in the plunder of English fields and the slaughter of English burghers. In their despair the hearts of the people turned again to their young king. Affairs had gone better when he was left free to bring whom he would into his council chamber. Even Gaveston had managed things better than this. So the bal- ance began to shift again and Edward's chance of once more con- trolling his government began to mend. With the fall of Berwick and the failure of the attempt to recover it the next year, only the poor shreds of Thomas's former influence remained. Two new men now became prominent among the rival factions of the baronage and, by making the cause of the despised king their own, secured a marked advantage over their fellows. These men 342 THE BARONS AND THE FAVORITES [edwabd ii. were the Despensers, father and son. Unlike the fallen Gaveston, they represented one of the fine old Norman English families of tlie baronage, which for generations had been closely pmsfrf.' identified with the political history of the country. Hugh le Despenser the elder was the son of the Hugh le Despenser who had been justiciar under Earl Simon and had fallen by his side at Evesham. The son had regained the royal confidence during the reign of Edward I., and had occupied an important place among his ministers; he had since adhered to the second Edward and had supported him heretofore tlirough all his troubles. Earl Thomas hated the man and held him as his per- sonal enemy, while the barons affected to regard him as a traitor to their cause. The son, Hugh le Despenser the third, was nearer the king's age; ambitious, avaricious, and not overscrupulous as to the means employed to gain his ends. He had married a sister of the earl of Gloucester, and after his death at Bannockburn had come in for a third of his estates, becoming thus by right of his wife one of the richest lords of England. In the new government organized after the fall of Berwick, he had been made chamberlain, and was thus brought into direct personal relations to the king, nor had he hesitated to take advantage of the enforced loneliness and iso- lation of the unhappy man to worm his way into the place of con- fidence once held by the fallen Gaveston. Of the unscrupulous greed of the Despensers there can be little doubt. It is not unlikely, however, that some of the principles adopted by the old popular party of Earl Simon's day theDespetis- had descended with the family traditions, and that the later Despensers justified their ambitions, to themselves at least, in the avowed purpose of securing a more distinct recog- nition of the political rights of the nation as a whole, by over- throwing the personal rule of Earl Thomas and setting up in its stead a more direct control of the royal council by the parliament. At all events some of the maxims ascribed to the younger Hugh reveal a grasp of the principles of constitutional government far in advance of his age. One element, however, the Despensers had not fully considered; and that was the latent hostility of the nation to the royal favorite, in whatsoever guise he might appear. Earl 1321, 1322] THE FALL OF EARL THOMAS 343 Thomas and his friends, therefore, found little difficulty in appeal- ing to this deep-seated prejudice, and persuaded even the luke- warm that a new Gaveston had arisen in the younger Hugh. So great had become the unpopularity of the pair that in the parlia- ment of 1321 almost the entire baronage turned upon the favor- ites; and the lords, "peers of the realm" as they had begun to call themselves, passed a formal sentence, decreeing the Despenser estates forfeited and banishing the Despensers from the land. The triumph of Thomas was as brief as the reverse was fatal. An insult offered to the queen by Lady Badlesmere, gave the king a pretext for raising an army. The barons joined him, The fall of ^ _,, 1. t J 1 i. lu -o ^1 Earl Thomas, and Thomas, who had no love to spare on the Badles- 1322. meres, held aloof. But the king finding himself at the head of an army at last, with that energy which even the most contemptible of the Plantagenet race were capable of displaying at times, turned upon the friends of Thomas and proceeded to avenge the fall of the Despensers. The border castles of Hereford, Audley, and D'Amory were marked for destruction. Thomas now saw his mistake, and summoning his followers, *'the good lords," at Doncaster, prepared for open war. The king, however, had secured the first move in the game, and Thomas with all his energy could not regain his advantage. At Boroughbridge he was fairly brought to bay, and in the battle which followed, his little army was routed and himself taken. Four days later, he was Execvtumof tried in his own castle of Pontefract, condemned as a Thomas of ' Lanc(uster, traitor, and at once put to death. **So the blood of March 22. ^ ^ ^ Gaveston was avenged, and the tide of savage cruelty began to flow in a broader stream." Thirty of Lancaster's adher- ents were also executed, and many more were imprisoned, while a vast wealth in the form of fines and forfeitures was gathered from those whom obscurity or family influence saved from the fate of the leaders. Earl Thomas soon became a popular hero. With characteristic inconsistency the people, forgetting his blunders and his despotism, lamented Boroughbridge as a second Evesham, and Thomas as a second Montfort. The usual miracles were reported from his tomb and his name became a Watchword of liberty. Six weeks after Boroughbridge, Edward held a parliament at 344 THE BAKONS AND THE FAVORITES [edward IL York, and at once secured the revocation of the Ordinances and a formal declaration of the theory of constitutional government toward which all these struggles were tending. By this ment^^Yorii, statement, all "matters to be settled for the estate of ^^^^' the king and his heirs, and for the estate of the realm and of the people were to be treated, accorded, and established in parliaments by the king, and by the consent of the prelates, earls and barons, and commonalty of the realm, according as had hitherrto been accustomed;"^ the government must not again be put into the hands of an irresponsible commission as in 1311. The Despensers were now supreme : they had sought to win the commons by recognizing their right as a constituent part of the national assembly, denying for all time the right of an oligarchy of the great nobles to rule England, and the parliament had responded by reversing the hostile acts which had been passed by the lords at the instigation of Lancaster and Hereford. Yet the unfortunate word "favorite" clung to the Despensers; the people saw them fattening on the estates of the slaughtered lords, and they could not forget. The king, however, was now without a rival. Men might league secretly with the Scots, as did the earl of Carlisle, but they durst not openly brave the king and his council. ^UlT Earl Thomas had left his brother Henry as his heir, plotter. -^^^^ ^YiQ king, by refusing to confer upon him the Lancastrian estates, had left him, for the time at least, a political cipher. But there was one whom neither the king nor the Despensers had taken into their calculations, the French queen of Edward, Isabella. With all his faults Edward had not been an unkind husband; but the close relationship of the queen to Lancaster had forbidden the fullest confidence between the royal pair. Isabella, moreover, hated the king's ministers, and soon became the center of a widely extended intrigue. It is not likely that the queen at this time had consciously determined upon treason. She found herself the center of a group of inferior men, who saw their ambitions balked by the fall of Lancaster and their one chance of some day becoming bishops or ministers of state 1 Tasvvell-Langniead, p. 255. 1322-1324] ISABELLA AND MORTIMER 345 wane before the continued prosperity of the Despensers, and, stung by her husband's lack of confidence, piqued by the successes of the men whom she hated, and puffed up by the flattery of the creatures who fawned about her, she accepted the role of chief plotter and soon became involved in the sad intrigue, which has so deservedly blackened her name for all time. In 1322 Isabella's brother, Philip V. of France, died and the new king Charles IV., also a brother, summoned Edward in accordance with the custom of the feudal age to come onhe^m ^^ France and do homage for the fiefs of Ponthieu * and ^France Gascony. But the Despensers, conscious of their growing unpopularity, were afraid to allow Edward to leave the kingdom. For two years negotiations dragged on, Edward seeking to avoid giving offense to his powerful brother-in- law, and the enemies of the Despensers bringing all influence to bear upon Charles to prevent a compromise. Finally a per- emptory summons was sent by the French king, accom- panied by a threat of forfeiture in case of longer delay. This summons was nothing less than an ultimatum, as the modern politician would call it, that is, a threat of war. Then Edward in sore despair sent over his queen to plead his cause at the French court. She parted with him on good terms, and at the French court presented his cause with such apparent success, that Charles agreed to allow her son Prince Edward to represent his father, and to make over the provinces to him in the king's stead. The unhappy king had fallen into a most cunningly devised trap. The young prince had hardly reached France, when all disguise was thrown off by the queen and she openly ^ndisclbeiia. j^^^^d the king's bitterest enemies. The most danger- ous of these was Roger Mortimer, the lord of Wigmore, an old friend of Lancaster, who had recently escaped from the Tower and now found at the French court ample opportunity for satisfying his desire for revenge. lie won an unbounded influence over the queen's mind, and used it to the undoing of the king. ^ For origin of Plantagenet claims to Ponthieu, see Stubbs, Early Plantagenets, p. 243, also below p. 364. 346 THE BARONS AND THE FAVORITES [edwabd II. The young Edward, a mere lad of fourteen, was taiight that his duty to his father demanded him to break the power of the Despensers. Even the king's brother, Edmund of Kent, was induced to join the conspirators. The plotting at last became so open, and the scan- dal so flagrant, that Charles out of self-respect was compelled to drive Mortimer and the queen from the court. They found a more congenial atmosphere at the court of Hainault, whose count was not above sharing in the profit of the proposed invasion, and readily furnished men and ships, while the Italian bankers fur- nished money. Edward knew what was going on bufc was helpless to defend himself from the threatened blow. Parliament met, but refused to act. Military musters were ordered but the people Landing of refused to assemble. As long as the Despensers were tember^i326:' retained in power, no one would support the king. In September 1326, Isabella landed in Suffolk with her foreign army and at once proclaimed her mission as the "avenger of Lancaster and the sworn foe of the favorites." Edward, who was in London at the time, called upon the citizens for help; but no man would draw sword in the cause of the hated ministers. He then fled westward seeking help among the Despenser lands. The Londoners rose behind him and murdered the unfortunate bishop of Exeter, the treasurer, who was regarded as a creature of the Despensers. Archbishop Reynolds sought to make the best terms he could with the queen. The earls, the bishops, Henry of Lancaster, the king's half- brothers, all, almost to a man, now went over to the queen. The king fled to Gloucester, then to Wales, whence he iSemerr ^ought to pass into Ireland. On October 26, the queen reached Bristol; here she took the elder Despenser, now earl of Winchester, and hanged him forthwith. The lords in her train declared Prince Edward "Guardian of the King- dom," and in his name summoned a parliament. In the mean- time the queen continued to make havoc among her husband's friends and advisers. The young Despenser was taken with the king on November 16, and on the 24th was hanged, drawn, and quartered; the king was brought to Kenil worth for safe keeping. 1327] THE CHARGES AGAINST EDWARD 34? The reign of Edward II. was now ended. The parliament which the lords had summoned in the name of Prince Edward met at Westminster January 7, 1327. There were those aqainst to whom it Seemed that the matter had gone far enough, and that now the Despensers had been struck down, the king, harmless enough in himself, might be left to continue his reign. But Mortimer, the dark lord of Wigmore, knowing that such crime as his could never be forgiven, and that so long as the king remained even nominally in power, his own head could never be safe upon his shoulders, used all his influence to secure an imme- diate deposition. What should come after deposition, had been also fully determined no doubt; but this for the time he kept to him- self. In the presence of the armed bands which he had brought with him to the parliament and with the clamor of the London mob rising without, the courage of the few friends of the fallen king, who may have found tlieir way to Westminster, melted, and no voice was raised in his defense. On the other hand the high- est dignitaries of the church so far forgot themselves as to spread the mantle of their authority over the shameful plot. Reynolds, the archbishop of Canterbury, declared that the voice of God spoke in the clamor of the people. Bishop Orleton declared that the life of the queen would not be safe if the king were released. Bishop Stratford of Winchester presented the series of articles which were to serve as a basis for formal abdication, declaring: Jirst that the king was incompetent and throughout his reign had put himself in the power of evil counsellors, and had proved him- self unable to distinguish *'good from evil," and when the great me!i of the realm had called upon him t6 remedy the existing evil, he had obstinately rejected their counsel; second^ he had spent his time in labors unseemly for a king and had neglected the business of the kingdom ; thirds by his mismanagement he had lost Scotland, Ireland, and Gascony; /o?«rM, he had injured the church, and destroyed many great and noble men of the land; fifths he had violated his coronation oath; sixths he was a menace to the pros- perity of the country in that he was without hope of amendment. It was assumed that these charges were proved **by common notoriety," yet the queen's advisers shrank from an act so revolu- 348 THE BARONS AND THE FAVORITES [edward ii. tionary as deposition ; they preferred to secure from the broken- spirited king a formal abdication. The matter was not difficult. The unhappy monarch, shorn of his friends and aban- dwaMoruie^' doned by the nation, had nothing to do but yield. It cidedupon. gj-jeved him much, he said, that he had deserved so lit- tle of his people, and he begged pardon of all who were present ; but since it could not be otherwise, he thanked them for electing his eldest son. On the 20th of January the enforced abdication was completed; the parliament renounced the homage and fealties of its mem- bers, and the steward of the household publicly Ahdieatimiof broke his staff as a token that Edward II. had ceased tLUwata 11. to reign. Of the subsequent life of Edward, but little ever reached the ears of the public. Grim stories of insult and actual bodily suffering at the hands of brutal keepers soon began to be whispered about, but no hand was raised to help him. A terror seized upon those who by kinship or gratitude might feel called upon to interfere. On the 21st of September, eight months after the abdication, Edward was murdered at Berkeley Castle in some mysterious way, so cunningly and devilishly devised as to leave no mark of violence upon his person. "Thus ended a reign full of tragedy, a life that may be pitied, but affords no ground for sympathy. Strange infatuation, unbridled vindictiveness, reck- lessness beyond belief, the breach of all natural affection, of love, of honor, and loyalty, are here; but there is none who stands forth as a hero. There are great sins and great faults and awful vengeance, but nothing to admire, none to be praised." ^ The constitutional significance of the reign of Edward II. is of considerable importance. The right of the nation to a voice in the selection of the king's ministers was undoubtedly set ?^mance^^ forth in the successive overthrow of the favorites, Gaves- % Edward II ^^^ ^^^ ^^® Despensers, although it was to be a long time before the principle would be definitely accepted, or its full significance understood. Linked with the right of the nation to a voice in the control of the king's ministers, or rather the justi- fication of the principle itself, was still another idea, which since * Stubbs, Early Plantagenets, p. 288. MEANING OF DEPOSITION OF EDWARD II. 349 the days of John Lackland had been slowly but surely taking definite shape in the mind of the people, that the crown was not a piece of private property to be administered or neglected in accord- ance with the whim or caprice of the incumbent, but that it was a public trust, and that the accident of birth, instead of granting to a king immunities such as no subject enjoyed, imposed rather responsibilities which made him beyond all men the servant of the nation, and that as a servant he was to be held to a strict and awful accountability. The deposition of an unfaithful king was not a new exercise of the authority of a national council. The old English witan had not hesitated to depose such a king as Ethelred the Redeless. And yet since the Norman Conquest there had been no actual case of deposition. Had John Lackland lived, he undoubtedly would have been dethroned and possibly put to death. The question of a change in the succession had also been raised by the barons in the case of Henry III. But now, whatever may be thought of the actors or of the motives which inspired them, an English king had been formally arraigned by the nation represented in the parliament, declared incompetent and unworthy to reign, the oaths of homage and fealty withdrawn, and the crown transferred to a new king; and the sole justification of this act of the national council was the failure of the king to fulfill the duties of his high oitice. CHAPTEE III EDWARD III. AND THE OPENIN^G OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR EDWARD III., 1327-1360 THE VALOIS SUCCESSION Louis IX., d. 1270 I Philip III., 1270-1285 Philip IV., the Fair 1285-1314 Louis X, 1314-1316 I Philip V. 1316-1323 Charles IV. L Isabella m. Edward II. I of England Edward IIL Charles of Valois Philip VL 1328-1350 John the Good 1350-1364 Charles V., the Wise Joan Jo Charles of Navarre, h. 1332 Edward III. was only fourteen 'years of age when the successful treason of his mother brought him to the throne. A regency, therefore, was necessary. It pleased Isabella and Mor- dirnis^'^^^ timer, however, while retaining the real control to keep themselves in the background and shoulder all responsi- bility for the administration upon men like Henry of Lancaster and the ex-king's brothers who by reason of their royal lineage commanded the confidence of the people. Such an arrangement detracted in nothing from the actual influence of the chief plotters and for a time concealed from the nation the real nature of the revolution. The position of the "guardians," as the committee of regency was called, was thus not an enviable one. They were responsible for a government which they could not direct. They were compelled to submit to the insolent dictation of a man whom neither office nor royal lineage entitled to speak. They had struck down the king's favorite, to exalt the queen's favorite. But the part of Mortimer in the recent plot had been too prominent, his present influence was too marked, to permit him to remain unnoticed in the background, nor did it take the people long to divine his actual relation to the queen. They had never liked 350 ^^ ,r XT ^ X Orecu v G *" A» T. <» o y^ Ticquigriy \m GENERAL MAP OF HUNDRED YEARS WAR 1328-1330] FALL OF MORTIMEK 351 the man and resented his insolent ways. They were particularly offended by the presence of a body guard of knights which he kept ever in attendance; an ostentation which was hardly divine the seemly in a man who was not even an earl and who had no nominal connection with the government. Grim rumors also began to spread as to the fate of the deposed king; men's blood stood still at the horrible details, and they were ready to believe the worst. There was something wrong also in the recent peace with the Scots, in which the guardians had formally Nm-Phampum, and finally recognized the independence of that realm. March, 1828. rjij^^ peace perhaps was wise, but what had become of the £20,000 which the Scots agreed to pay into the royal treasury? Rumor reported that the guilty queen and her paramour had appropriated this money to their own uses. Was it for this then that the English must suffer the humiliation of defeat? Was it not enough that Edward II. had thrown away Scotland? Must this debauched Frenchwoman now openly trade in the blood of his subjects? The people called the peace *'tho shameful peace," and when the guardians, in order to keep their agreement with the Scots, proposed to return the Stone of Scone, so great was the uproar among the Londoners that the king's councillors dared not proceed, and thus the famous talisman was left permanently in English hands. Mortimer's insolence in the meantime kept pace with his grow- ing unpopularity. His one thought seemed to be to add to his wealth and titles. He was made Earl of March. He Mortfmer, Hved in regal state. In 1329 in a moment of anger he ^■''*^^* brought a baud of armed retainers to the parliament of Salisbury, broke into the parliament chamber, and threatened the members with personal violence. At last the reproaches of the people and the continued insolence of the favorite goaded Lancas- ter and the king's uncles ^ into action, but only to be cowed into » THE UNCLES OF EDWARD IIL Edward I. m. 1 Ele anor of Castile j m. 2 Marga ret of France Edward II. m. Isabella of France | ^| I Thomas, Edmund, Edward III Earl of Norfolk Earl of Kent 352 THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR [] Edward 111. silence again, the moment the cunning villain, who was fast ter- rorizing the whole kingdom, raised his head. Mortimer, however, on his part was not to be satisfied with silence, and with diabolical art set a snare for the high-minded bat simple-hearted Edmund of Kent, who was led. by Mortimer's secret agents to believe that the late king was still alive, and was thus tricked into committing him- self to a plan of rescue. The unfortunate earl was at once arrested upon a charge of treason, condemned by an obsequious parliament then sitting at Winchester, and hurried to execution. A terror seized the nobility; no man could feel sure of his position, or know what devilish trap might be spread for his feet. In desperation the nobles turned to the boy king. Though a lad in years, he felt deeply the humiliation of his position and had grown restless under the tyrannical tutelage which his mother and Mortimer had imposed upon him. Isabella scented mischief and carried Mortimer off with her to Nottingham Castle; but the young king with a band of determined men followed them, and, secretly gaining access to the castle through an underground pas- sage, since known as "Mortimer's Hole," seized the favorite, and, with the cries and protests of the queen ringing in their ears, bore him down the stairs and out into the night and off to London, where he was straightway condemned by the lords and hanged at the Elms. Isabella was sent to Castle Rising where she was kept a prisoner until her death twenty-eight years later. The actual reign of Edward III. now began. He had '*a hand- some person, pleasant and affable manners, a fluent tongue and an energy that contrasted most happily with the listless EdwSrd^ii iiitlolence of his unhappy father." He was, however, no statesman like Edward I. and soon developed a thriftless recklessness in pursuing the ends of mere personal ambi- tion. Like Richard I. he gloried in the glamour of costly military pageants. He thought little of the expense and suffering which he imposed upon friend or foe, if only he might acquit himself with what he called honor. Yet, during the early part of his reign, he was loved and honored by his people, who did not then understand the heartless selfishness of his real nature. 1330-1347] RESTORATION OF ORDER 853 The first acts of Edward were directed to the suppression of the disorder which had sprung up under the weak government of his father. Armed bands of outlaws infested the highways, of^rrd&r^^^ Seized travelers for ransom, and overawed courts of justice. The great nobles, as Mortimer at Salisbury in 1329, did not hesitate to employ such bands to defy the laws or work out their criminal plots. Even the boys on the street were infused with the prevailing spirit of disorder; a law of the times forbids them to amuse themselves by ''knocking off the hats of passers-by in the neighborhood of the palace of Westminster." The Statute of Winchester of Edward I. had made each locality responsible for all crime within its precincts; the leading men of each county were now in addition to assemble the people by hue and cry, and pursue the peace-breaker ''from vill to vill" and "from hundred to hundred." The king was also to make regular tours through the counties to see that this law was observed. The courts of "trailbaston," which had been instituted under special commissions by Edward I. for the purpose of dealing with gangs of outlaws too powerful for the ordinary courts to handle, were also revived and did good service during the first twenty years of Edward III.'s reign. In 1347 these special courts were superseded by the appointment of permanent local officers known as "keepers of the peace," who soon began to be called "justices of the peace," becoming a recognized part of the police system of the counties. While the young Edward was thus putting his hand to the restoration of order within his kingdom, fresh troubles arose with Scotland which taxed seriously the wisdom of the new UoVH^aUnnl't administration. It had been one of the terms of the iSul^'"^' P®^^® ^^ ^'^^^ ^^^^ ^^^® estates of English nobles in Scotland, which Brnce had confiscated, should be restored. This promise had not been fulfilled, and the English barons who were interested, now that the great Bruce was no more and the kingdom left to his infant son, believed that the moment had come for enforcing their rights, and proposed to place upon the throne of Scotland, Edward Balliol, son of the quondam King John.^ They first appealed to Edward, but he could not openly violate the recent treaty and ostentatiously closed the border roads 354 THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR [edward in. against them. They were left, however, to fit out their expedition at Ravenspur and finally sail away for the coast of Fife with a small army of 3,300 men. Their success was beyond their expectations. They met the regent of Scotland at Dupplin Moor, M!x)r,^August August 12, 1332, and easily defeated him. Perth, the capital, was then taken, and on September 24 Edward Balliol was crowned at Scone. ^ An army of Scots hastily gathered to retake Perth but disbanded again without accomplishing any- thing, leaving the handful of English adventurers virtually in pos- session of the great part of the kingdom. Yet five weeks after the coronation, Balliol 's mushroom throne had crumbled before the revival of the old Scottish national party, and he was himself a fugitive on English soil. The weakness of the regency, however, had been discovered, and the recovery of what Edward II. had lost seemed now an easy task. Edward III. was unequal to such ferenceof temptation, especially when Balliol waited to renew Edward III. T . ^ ^, ,' ^ -nj J XI i. .J his father's homage. Edward, therefore, recognized Balliol as rightful king of Scotland and sent him back with an English army to support his claim. Edward himself joined the invaders before Berwick, and when the Scots attempted to relieve the town, met them at Halidon Hill, where mainly Hiii^^^ through the efficiency of the English archery, he administered such a crushing defeat, that for the moment it seemed that Bannockburn had been undone and all that the Scots had gained by a generation of sacrifice had been lost. Balliol again assumed the royal state, and formally recog- nized the English overlordship. He also ceded to Edward, Tweed- dale and part of Lothian. The second reign of Edward Balliol was hardly longer or more satisfactory than the first. The humiliation of Scotland was more than her proud people could endure, fired as fSj^fsff^' they were by the traditions of the glorious past. The i^>i' French king Philip VI. also was quick to see the advantage of a vigorous Scottish alliance in case of quarrel with ^ Scone, the ancient capital, was two miles from Perth. Perth re- mained the capital until 1436. 1332-1339] CAUSES OF HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 355 England, and did not propose to allow Edward III. to entrench himself permanently in Scotland. He sent his ships to the coast, and while avoiding open war, managed to keep alive a party loyal to King David. In 1339 Balliol was once more driven from the country, and two years later David Bruce, who had been hurried off to France in 1332, ventured to return. Edward could not again interfere, for England and France were already drifting into the shadows of the *' Hundred Years' War," and he needed all his strength to defend his own coasts against a threatened French invasion. Berwick, however, remained in the possession of the English.* The great event of Edward's reign was now approaching, the opening of the long duel with France. Like most great national conflicts this struggle struck its roots far into the past. causeanfthe Evcr since a vassal of the French crown had become YmfPfvar. king of England, it had been the accepted policy of the French court to weaken the hold of the English king upon his French vassals and drive him from the continent if pos- sible. Hence the complications which had sprung from the ill- advised attempt of Edward I. to subjugate Scotland, had been hailed with satisfaction by his watchful neighbor across the Chan- nel, and a new clause added to the old traditional policy of the French court; namely, the maintenance of a close alliance with Scotland against England and the support of the independence of the Scottish crown at all hazards. It was not that the French king loved the Scots ; but he saw here a chance to fetter his rival by preparing for him a powerful diversion at home, whenever England and France should come to blows. As we have seen it was this alliance with France which roused John Balliol to assert himself ^ The English possession was not yet permanent. Between 1332 and 1461 the Scots regained the town several times, although each time they failed to hold it. But in 1461, Henry VI. formally ceded it to them in gratitude for the kind treatment which they had given him after Tow- ton, and the Scots held the place for twenty-one years. In 1481 it passed permanently into English hands. The English, however, still regarded the town as a part of a foreign kingdom, conceding to it its own civil and military establishment, and leaving it in fact a separate but depend- ent state until the act of Union in 1807. 356 THE HUNDRED YEARS ' WAR [ Edward 111. in 1295, and gave Wallace liis opportunity in 1297. It was a French war also that had assisted Bruce in 1306, and it was the continued friendship of France that had enabled the old Scottish party to expel the younger Balliol at last and bring back David Bruce in triumph to his father's throne. The earlier wars for the maintenance of the claims of English kings south of the Channel, had never taken any very serious hold upon the English nation. For the most part the people, and, after the loss of N'ormandy, even the feudal nobility, took no deep interest in these wars, but begrudged rather both the time and the money which they were ever demanding. But the Scottish wars had struck nearer home; national sentiment had been awakened. Hence Englishmen could not overlook the unneighborly acts of the French, and it was not long before they began to hate the French as bitterly as they hated the Scots. Other causes also helped to fan the popular hatred and develop the war spirit. England and France had already begun their commercial rivalry, and were elbowing each other on the seas and in the marts of the Low Countries. The merchant service of civilized nations, moreover, was still exposed to the temptation of piracy; the plun- dering of merchantmen by their rivals of other nations even in times of peace was hardly regarded as a crime. The battle in the harbor of St. Mahe in 1293 had been the direct outgrowth of such piracies. In the year 1328 Charles IV., the last male of the elder line of Capet, died. There were- nieces and a sister,^ the mother of Edward III. ; but the French lawyers, in the interests TheVaiois ^f the Collateral house of Valois, had seen fit to give a succession. ' ° constitutional interpretation to the old Frankish law which decreed that "no part of the Salic land could fall to a woman." The law of course applied only to the transmission of private property, and even here had long since become a dead letter. But it was sufficient for the purpose of the lawyers to serve as the basis for a quibble in order to justify the transfer of the crown to Philip, the son of Charles of Valois. The new king had adopted fully the traditional policy of the 1 Charles of Navarre was not born until 1332, see table p. 350. MAKING READY FOR WAR 357 French court and proceeded to seize every opportunity of harassing the English. He had kept the borders of Guienne in turmoil and had continued to encourasre the French piracies. He Policy of (=> r Philip of had also renewed the former alliance of Philip IV. VdUiis. with the Scots, sending them ships, men, and money, and in 1332 had given the exile David Bruce a cordial welcome. Ten years of Edward III. 's reign had now passed. In spite of the renewal of the quarrel with the Scots, at home England had enjoyed comparative quiet and the nation had been readyflyr restored to much of the prosperity and confidence which ^"*^* it had enjoyed under Edward I. Dupplin Moor and Ilalidon Hill had done much to efface the deep humiliation of Bannockburn, and the people, flushed with victory, were not inclined to endure much longer the persistent interference of the French king in insular affairs, or the ever-increasing annoyance of French piracies. War in short had already begun. Not only was it no secret that French money was equipping ships in Sicily, Genoa, Norway, and Holland, but French ships were actually wasting the English coast. The English also were equipping themselves for the struggle. Parliament had adopted the quarrel as its own, and had not only voted largo grants of money, but, without a protest, had allowed the king to violate the promise of Edward I. concerning the raising of money by tallage. Each seaport town also was required to furnish a quota of ships for the defense of the coasts; a measure for which Edward III. had precedent enough in the past. The Scottish alliance of Philip, Edward sought to offset by an alliance with the petty principalities which fringed the eastern borders of France; for the most part purchas- ing their support outright either by subsidy or by the promise of important commercial advantages. He bought up the emperor for a subsidy of 3,000 florins, getting 2,000 men to fight for him, and when the German princes of the Rhine hesitated to fight under a foreign prince, the emperor conferred upon Edward the title of ''Vicar General of the Empire on the Left Bank of the Rhine," with authority to lead the princes of the empire for seven years. Of all these allies, the Flemings were the most important. In the industrial arts they were the foremost people of Europe. 358 THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR [edwardIII. Their cities teemed with hard-headed burghers who had made for- tunes by manufacturing English-grown wool, and had little ^^ . sympathy with the feudal maxims which controlled the The impor- ^ ^ "^ . ^nc^pf ^^« J^ rench kingdom of which they were nominally a part. Nine cities had already formed a defensive league under the inspiration of the famous *' Brewer of Ghent," James Van Arteveldt, and, quick to see the advantage of an alliance with the country which furnished the wool for their looms, now readily yielded themselves to the blandishments of Edward. It is difficult to say, then, just when the war began or who was more responsible. The open support which France had given to Scot- land, the attack upon Gascony, and the plunder of Eng- ningofthe h'sh shipping, would be regarded by any modern state as war, 1337. sufficient ground for war. In 1337 Van Arteveldt came to blows with the count of Flanders, who was a vassal of the French king, and Edward sent over an English fleet to support his ally, and drove the garrison of Count Louis out of Cadsand. The next year Edward himself went to the continent to begin a direct attack upon France using Flanders as a base. Here he was made to feel at once the strength of Philip and the worthlessness of his own allies. The frontier cities were really huge fortresses, or fortified camps, well garrisoned for long sieges, and the two years of 1338 and 1339 Edward spent in the vain endeavor to break through this ring of frontier strongholds. Phih'p also took the field, but stubbornly refused to be drawn into a general engagement, satisfied to see Edward wear out the patience of his troops and exhaust his resources in useless campaigning against stone walls. Edward's allies also soon proved that they were more interested in drawing his subsidies than in defeating his enemies. Even the Flemings, upon whom Edward had most reason to depend, while perfectly willing to march under Edward's banners and draw pay from his treasury, hesitated when it came to fighting against their sovereign in person. John Lackland had met the same difficulty when he tried to bring his Flemish mercenaries into the field against Prince Louis. These and other considerations now led Edward to determine upon a step which soon gave new color to the entire war, effectually 1337-1340] EDWARD CLAIMS FRENCH CROWN" 359 obscured its original cause, and made peace impossible until one or both of the two nations had been entirely exhausted. This step was to claim for himself the crown of France as his varices claim bv right of his mother Isabella. When Charles IV. to the French ,. , ? x i n t ^i- • i • crown OH a dicd in 1328, Isabella and Mortimer, wlio were then in power, while accepting the principle that a woman might not inherit the crown of France, had yet advanced the claim of the young Edward on the ground that a claim might be transmitted by a daughter to her male offspring. But the claim was not pressed, and Edward by doing homage to Philip VI. for the French pos- sessions of the Plantagenets, had virtually recognized Philip as right- ful king of France. Largely, therefore, as a war measure, and at the earnest solicitation of Van Arteveldt, Edward determined to assert his title as king of France. It is difficult to understand the logic by which Edward could convince himself that his claim was just. Even if in 1328 he were the nearest male heir of the elder Capetian line, he had been debarred since by the birth of Charles of Navarre, the grandson of Louis X. Still, as a war measure, Edward's claim was good enough, and accordingly in January 1340,* as a preliminary to a new campaign, he formally declared himself king of France by right of his mother, and quartered the arms of the leopards with those of the fleur-de- lis, adopting the motto '*God and my right." On the 8th of February he carried his effrontery so far as to issue a charter to the French as their king. The war was now on in serious earnest; the quarrel of Edward and Philip was irreconcilable. In the early spring Edward returned to England to levy new taxes upon his people navau^ctory ^^^ prepare for the new campaign. But Philip had Junef4,'i34o. changed his tactics somewhat and, by gathering a fleet of upwards of two hundred sail in the harbor of Sluys, proposed to prevent the return of Edward to t he Low Countries. * Edward evidently had had this step in mind since 1337, for he had used the title as early as October 7 of that year, but inasmuch as the title is not found in any documents between that date and the 26th of January, 1340, he seems to have temporarily abandoned the matter. The better judgment of Europe was against it, and on March 5, 1340, the pope wrote to dissuade him. See Stubbs, O. H. II, p. 400, note 1. 360 THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR [edward II. Edward promptly accepted the challenge and on the 24th of June attacked Philip upon his own ground. As the English ships, with the wind and sun at their backs, bore down upon the enemy, the archers swept the French decks, while Edward and his knights, sword in hand, stood ready to board the moment the shock of collision came. The victory was as brilliant as it was complete. The French fleet was annihilated; thirty thousand men were slain upon the decks or drowned in the harbor. No such victory had been won by the English at sea since the exploit of Hubert de Burgh before Dover in 1217. The English remained masters of the Channel for thirty years. Not only was all fear of a French invasion dispelled; but the entire French coast lay open for Edward to choose his sSs^^^ own time and place of attack. Yet instead of taking advantage of his victory he sat down before the first big French town that lay across his path, this time Tournay, and frittered away precious months in a vain attempt to persuade Philip to meet him like a knight and settle their quarrel in fair combat. Philip, who had already proved himself a master in a contest of matching patience with Edward, simply repeated the tactics of the former campaign, and with such success that the autumn passed and still Edward had accomplished nothing; his supplies were exhausted and the winter was coming on. He was glad, therefore, to secure a truce of nine months and be allowed to return home where his presence was by this time sorely needed. Nearly five years had now passed since the beginning of the war ; vast sums had been squandered ; thousands of lives had been sacrificed, and nothing had been gained. If there were firS'%e^^^^ advantages on either side, they lay with Philip rather Hto^-.oL'^''''' than with Edward. It is true that Edward had 1337-1342. destroyed the French fleet, but he had signally failed to break through Philip's frontier. Philip's lieutenants on the other hand had broken into Gascony and now held a part of that unhappy country for their king. The Scots, moreover, had by the aid of French troops recovered their cities and castles and once more threatened the northern shires of England. Five years of war had not sweetened the temper of the English people nor softened their 1341-1343] THE BRETON SUCCESSION 361 hearts towards the French, but, they were weary of a war which had borue such meagre results, 'and had lost much of their early enthusiasm. Parliament was growing restless; its supplies were doled out with a niggardly hand and the members were begin- ning to show alarming signs of a disposition to inquire into the way in which the king's ministers were spending his money. The emperor's support also was weakening and the pope was exerting all his powerful influence to bring about a permanent peace. Hence at the opening of 1342 peace did not seem to be far off, when a new cause of quarrel arose in a dispute over the succession to the Duchy of Brittany. In 1341 John III. of Brittany had died childless.^ His brother Guy had died before him but had left a daughter Jeanne, the wife of Charles of Blois, nephew of the French king. But succmdnn- ^^^^^ WES also a lialf-brother of the late duke, another ^newaiof' John, wlio bore the title of de Montfort from his mother. Philip claimed the duchy for his niece in nccordanco with the well established law of Brittany. De Mont- fort claimed the succession as the sole male heir of his father Arthur. Here was an application of the Salic law which was not so pleasing to Philip. Edward, who minded little the incon- sistency of his position when he saw an opportunity of striking Philip in a new quarter, took up the claim of de Montfort. Thus the war shifted to Brittany. Edward's candidate, how- ever, made little progress and soon found his way into on6 of Philip's prisons. In the autumn of 1342 Edward himself came over, but after many trials and much suffering on the piirt The truce of ^^ ^^^ troops, he was glad to accept a truce again ¥(nmaruf' ^^ ^^® ^®^^ ^^J ^^^^ ^^ ^ ^^^ busincss. The truce was 1343. ^Q Ig^g^ until Michaelmas, was to include all the con- tending parties, and might be made permanent, if the English 1 THE BRETON SUCCESSION Arthur Duke of Brittany John III. Guy John de Montfort Duke of Brittany, | died 1341 Jeanne = Charles Count of . Blois, nei)hew of Philip VI. 362 THE HUKDRED YEAKS' WAK [ Edward 111. parliament should consent to its terms; for Edward had thought it politic to defer the final decision for parliament. Parliament met early in 1343 and agreed to lay the matter of quarrel before the pope for arbitration, at the same time declaring for the continuance of the war, if peace could not be Ineffectual jjajj npon iust terms. It is difficult to believe that peace ^ «' negotiatiom, Edward was doing else than playing for time. What- ever he may have thought of his claims upon the French crown, he had fully made up his mind to accept nothing short of the absolute sovereignty of Guienne. Philip on the other hand was Just as determined that Edward should never rule French territory save as his vassal. The negotiations, therefore, dragged on their weary length and ended at last where they began. It was no doubt what Edward expected; possibly what he most desired. He had gained eighteen months of valuable time and was ready to strike again. Philip in the meantime had not been idle. Trouble still smouldered in Flanders. The small towns had turned against the cities, roused by their monopolies, and in the rioting The war which ensucd Edward's old friend Van Arteveldt had renewed. been slain. Philip had, also, contrived to keep alive a powerful French party in Aquitaine, where he was steadily under- mining Edward's influence. Edward sent hither in the summer of 1345 a considerable army under the command of Henry, Earl of Derby, the son of Henry of Lancaster, a commander of no mean parts, who by a series of brilliant successes fully justified the confidence of the king. The main expedition which w^as designed for Normandy followed in the spring. It was led by Edward in person and was composed of Irish, Welsh, and English, *'a great army of souldiours well appointed," of whom ten thousand were bowmen. Edward landed on the northwest coast of Normandy and without any particular plan other than to punish the coast towns for their piracies, began ravaging the country, pillaging the campaign cities, and burning the shipping, but moving in a gen- of C^vfcu eral easterly direction with Calais possibly as his goal, where he expected to find the Flemings in force and with them 1346] CAMPAIGN OF CRECY 3G3 take the city. All went well until Edward reached Kouen, for Philip had drawn away his soldiers to protect his southern borders against the vigorous attack of the earl of Lancaster.^ But at Rouen Edward found that the French had destroyed the bridges over the Seine and he was compelled to ascend the river toward Paris in search of another crossing. Edward's position was one of great peril. Before him lay the high walls of Paris, with its mighty population, formidable even in that day. Behind him lay an exasperated people, whose lands he had ruined and where he had himself destroyed the means of feeding an army. Philip, more- over, had hastily returned from the south, and now lay on the farther bank of the Seine at St. Denys, with an army which outnumbered the English two to one. Edward was in short caught in a trap. But Philip, most fortunately for Edward, mis- took the northward march for an attack upon Paris, an error in which he was confirmed by a skillful feint of the English. He waited therefore at St. Denys for Edward to wear himself out upon the city gates, while his own army continued to augment by daily arrivals from the south and east. But Edward in the meanwhile was quietly repairing the bridge at Poissy and on the 16th of August crossed to the east bank, and after defeating a detachment of new recruits who were advancing to join Philip, marched away toward Pontoise. At Airaines Edward halted for three days, while his scouts patroled the banks of the Sommo in a vain search for a ford; for the only bridge which the French had spared on the lower river was at Abbeville, where Philip had had the foresight to leave a strong garrison. Edward's position was once more growing critical. Philip had at last broken camp at St. Denys and was swiftly approaching Airaines with an army which now outnumbered Edward's fully three to one, and was, moreover, eager for battle. Edward dared not delay longer and, as a forlorn hope, hastily broke camp and marched upon Abbeville. So hurried was his departure, that when the French entered his camp, two hours later, they found **meat on the spits, pasties in the ovens, and tables ready spread." Yet Edward's good fortune did not * Henry of Derby had become Earl of Lancaster by the death of his father, September 22, 1345. 364 ^ THE HUNDEED YEARS' WAR [edwakd ill. forsake him. As he neared Abbeville he learned of a ford at a place called Blanche Tache, where the waters of the Somme widen ere they pass into the sea, and where an army might find footing at low tide. Edward easily reached the ford, but only to find him- self confronted from the opposite bank by a force of twelve thou- sand men drawn up under Guimar du Fay. With the powerful army of Philip, however, pressing upon him from the rear, the English king had no choice but to lead his troops into the river and fight for the passage. The banks were speedily cleared by the English "archers, and Edward's men-at-arms were soon pursuing the knights of Guimar across the fields of Ponthieu. The crossing was not won a minute too soon; Edward's rear guard had hardly shaken the water from their garments, when the light horse of the French advance appeared on the bank which the English had just left. But Edward's men were now safe, the tide was already roll- ing in again over the white shoals ; and nothing was left to Philip but to halt his army at Abbeville. Edward now declared that he would retreat no further. Ho was in Ponthieu,^ surrounded by abundance; his way was open to Calais; his army although small was formidable, wimdrawsto nor could Philip attack him before the morrow at the earliest. He would give his men, therefore, what remained of the day and the night for rest, and prepare to give a good account of himself when Philip should appear. Accord- ingly he first sent out numerous small parties to secure forage, and then withdrew the main body to the neighborhood of the little village of Crecy, finally taking up a strong position on a hill slope to the east of the town and facing Abbeville. In the meanwhile Philip also was attempting to give his unwieldy host an opportunity to rest at Abbeville, but with poor success. The accommodations of the little town were altogether AbibS)me inadequate to the needs of so many men and the great part slept in the open fields. Nevertheless Philip tar- ried from Thursday until Saturday, without gaining other advan- 1 The reason which Froissart assigns for this decision of Edward was that Ponthieu had belonged to Edward's mother. Compare p. 345 note with Longman, Life and Times of Edward III. , I, p. 254, note 1. 1346] CEECY FIELD 3G5 Vadicourt **3 tage than the accession of fresh troops to swell the size of his already unmanageable army. On Saturday, the 26th of August, long before sun-up the vast host was astir and soon streaming away towards Crecy; the men marching without order, a confused multitude of horse and foot, possessing but one prime military quality, an eager desire to come up with the foe. Six leagues away Edward and his men were quietly waiting on their hillside. All told they numbered about four thousand horse and ten thousand archers, besides an irregular body of order of Irish and Welsh footmen.^ The knights were dis- mounted and drawn up in three divisions as pikemen. The first di- vision was placed at the foot of the slope and commanded by Edward, the king's eldest son, the beloved Black Prince, sup- ported by some of the ablest c a p- tains in the English service. To the left was drawn up the second division, led by the earls of Arundel and Northampton. The third division, com- manded by the king in person, was mar shalled on higher ground in ' The number of the French army was by this time probably not far from seventy thousand men. The number of the English has long been a subject of dispute. Estimates have varied from 8,000, determined on the basis of the disposition of the several divisions as given by Froissart, and 32,000 as given by the Italian Villani. The treasury accounts, recently discovered in the Herald's College, however, have now furnished the data for a satisfactory estimate. See Wrottesley, Crecy and Calais, from the Public Records. Reviewed by J. E. Morris in Eng. Hist. Review, 1899, p. 766. Battle of CRECY Aug. 26, 1346 English Foot English Archers Irish and Welsh French /// 366 THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR [edwardIU. the rear as a sort of reserve corps.* Before each division the archers were thrown out in open order; the men in the successive ranks arranged like the pieces on a checker-board, so that each man should have an open space before him for the full play of his terrible bow. It is also stated, but upon questionable authority, that between the divisions were placed very small bombards ** which with fire and a noise like God's thunder, threw little balls of iron to frighten the horses." ^ The Irish and Welsh, armed with long, ugly looking knives, hovered on the flanks and completed the array. About noon Edward's preparations were fully completed and betook up a position back of his third division near a windmill from which he could survey the field. Below him his Au{jiuit26, men stood in their places, or sat on the ground with their iron caps lying on the grass beside them; their coolness and quiet order in marked contrast with the confused chaos of martial valor that was rolling down upon them from Abbeville. When the afternoon was well on Philip's men began to appear and soon all the lanes and avenues leading to the English position were choked with the increasing press of men and horses. Philip had tried to get his troops into some order on the march, but had only increased the confusion, and when he arrived on the field he was fully determined to postpone the attack until the next day. But the sight of the English, sitting there on the hillside and look- ing down upon him with insolent indifference, was too much for his temper; and in an outburst of anger, he bade his marshals send forward the Genoese cross-bowmen and begin the battle. Of these cross-bowmen Philip had brought along some six thousand to engage the English archers. But the poor fellows were "quite fatigued, having marched on foot that day six leagues, completely armed, and carrying their cross-bows," and, to add to their discomfort, moreover, while they were getting ready for action, there came up a terrific thunder storm, accompanied by a drench- ing rain. When the storm had passed the Genoese were ready and advanced with a great shout. But the cross-bow was no * See Colby, Selections, p. 98, for Froissart's account of the battle. 2 Villani is the sole authority for the employment of these toy can- non by the English. Longman, I, p . 250. 1346] . THE BATTLE OF CRECY 367 match for the English long bow. The English archers also fully understood their work and, rising to their feet, coolly unlimbered their weapons and waited for the Genoese to come well within range. ''Then they stepped forth one pace and let fly their arrows so hotly and so thick that it seemed snow." The long lines of cross-bowmen faltered, swayed, then surged backward and broke. Philip was furious and, turning to the men-at-arms who were supposed to support the Genoese, cried: "Kill me those runaway scoundrels." The order was the signal for the beginning of the main battle. The men-at-arms spurred forward their heavy horses, riding down the unfortunate Genoese, only in their turn to meet the murderous flight of cloth-yards. Soon the field was covered with writhing men and plunging horses. Then came the moment of the Irish and Welsh footmen, who darting under the rearing horses, and slashing at the huge bellies with their long knives, added not a little to the havoc and the wild confusion. Other bands of French knights came up, and passing around the first battle and skirting the hedge of archers, managed at last to get at the English men-at-arms. The press about the first divi- sion increased and there was danger that it would be borne away by sheer weight of superior numbers. From the height by the wind- mill the anxious watchers with the king saw the sea of tossing crests close around the little band which surrounded the Black Prince, and cried to Edward to lead them to the rescue. A mes- senger also came in hot haste asking the king to come to the help of the captains who were with the prince. But Edward saw that the moment had not yet come for leading out his reserve. ''Let the boy win his spurs," he coolly replied, "that the honor may be his." So Edward waited; moments dragged into hours, still the battle raged on. Philip had had no control of his army from the first, and apparently made no effort to hold his knights together or to hurl them in masses upon the English lines. The broken bands were left to return again and again to the onset, accomplishing prodigious feats of valor, but only to foam themselves away against the bristling wall of lances. Philip's brother fell with his sword in his hand. John, the blind old king of Bohemia, Philip's ally, asked to be led into the thick of the fray that he might strike one 3G8 THE HUN^DRED YEARS* WAR [edward ill. blow at the English, and there lie died. Night at last put an end to the useless carnage. Belated bands of French continued to arrive during the night and the next day there was some desultory fighting; but the French could not rally and the fighting rapidly degenerated into a mere slaughter of fugitives by the English. Philip, wounded in body and broken in spirit, had already fled to Amiens under cover of the night, leaving behind him on the field twelve princes of France, thirteen hundred knights, and six- teen thousand lesser folk.^ The English loss was inconsiderable. Once more France lay at Edward's mercy; yet, instead of tak- ing advantage of his victory, he repeated the mistake which he had made after Sluys, spendine^ the winter months of 1346 The sieae of j ^ i. n Calais, 1346, and 1347 under the walls of Calais, patiently waiting for the burghers to eat up their store of provisions^ while Philip was left to rally his shattered strength unmolested. France, however, was weaker now than in 1340, and a wholesome dread of meeting the English in battle had taken the place of the former vainglorious enthusiasm of her nobles. Yet, as the autumn months wore on, and it became evident that the terrible invader was to come no nearer, the people took fresh heart and began to turn their thought to the relief of the beleaguered garrison. Philip roused his old allies, the Scots, in the delusive hope of forcing Edward to return home to defend his northern counties; but the northern earls, Henry N^eville and Ralph Percy, proved themselves amply able to hold the borders, meeting the Scots at Neville's cross, and beating them with great slaughter, taking King David himself. An attempt of the French to relieve Calais by water met Calais, Au- with no better success. At last in the spring Philip managed to get another army into the field; but he could no longer bring his troops to face the English archers, and after an ignominious retreat was compelled to leave the brave burghers to throw themselves on Edward's mercy. The first thought of Edward was of slaughter. The city had allowed its harbor to be used freely by the Channel pirates and had long proved a scourge to English commerce. He proposed, there- ' For the several estimates given above see E. Maunde Thompson's Edition of Le Baker's Chronicle, pp. 259-262. 1347] EFFECTS OF WAR ON ENGLISH LIFE 369 fore, to read its citizcMis a lesson which should not be soon forgot- ten. But better counsels prevailed, and he determined to make Calais an outpost of England on French soil. He first drove out the French who would not take the oath of allegiance, and filled their places with new colonists from England. He then established a market for tin, lead, and cloth; repaired the walls and settled witliin the city a powerful resident garrison. The town at once took on a new life, becoming the chief channel of English trade with the continent. It remained in English hands for two hundred and ten years, during the most of which it enjoyed an unexampled prosperity. When Edward returned to England in 1347 he was at the height of his glory and the idol of the hour. The spoils of war, the plunder of France, poured into the kingdom. ''There Kdintni-s was uo womaii, it was said, "who had not got gar- ments, furs, feather beds, and utensils from the spoils of Calais and other foreign cities." The country forgot the earlier drain upon its resources. A new taste for articles of luxury and extravagance was awakened, and swept away even the ofmtmr^ sober-visaged clergy. It expressed itself in marvelous t^i^nn Eiwii^h gowus of great length, trimmed with furs, and stiff with embroideries; in hanging sleeves, so long that they could be tied behind the back ; in shoes with wonderfully pointed toes that had to be fastened to the knees with silver chains. It was the heyday of the furrier and the clothier. A single gown would cost the price of a duke's ransom. The king led in this extrav- agant foppery. He decorated a select band of his knights with a "blue garter," thus originating the famous order. Pie held tournaments without number, — as many as nineteen within a six- month, some of them lasting more than a fortnight. Hither flocked the gay and frivolous court, to lead in the carnival and set the people wild in their mad chase after French and Italian fash- ions. The fondness of the people for these pageants became so extravagant that it was forbidden to hold them without the royal license ; a permission, however, which it was never hard to secure. The chase also, hunting or hawking, lost nothing of its charm for the elegant idlers who surrounded the court. Vast tracts of land 370 THE HUJ^DRED YEARS* WAE [edwakd hi. were kept waste, and troops of gailj attired men and women swept by in wild rout in pursuit of the quarry, trampling down the crops of the peasantry and destroying the food supply of the hapless poor. The taste for extravagance was also revealed in the architec- ture of the period. The old pointed arch, which had supplanted the simple and massive architecture of the Normans, Wchitecture. ^^adily yielded to elaborate decoration, — the "decorated style. ' ' The castles of the nobility changed from gloomy strongholds into elegant palaces, which vied with each other in the tapestries which hung from the walls or the exquisite carvings which ornamented beds, tables, and chairs. In London the houses of the tradesmen rose two and three stories high. Glass was also coming into use, though only the rich and the great could yet afford it. There were larders, too, batteries, and ward- robes, filled with endless supplies which were the pride of the housewife. In other less direct ways also the war had powerfully stimulated the development of the resources of the country. Edward had very early in the struffde felt the need of new sources Indirect j j oo effects of the of revenue. The knights were still regarded as the flower of the army, but recent wars had proved the value of archers, light cavalry, and footmen of various kinds, besides ships and other engines of war. The duty of feudal serv- ice, moreover, did not compel knight or yeoman to follow Edward over the seas in his foreign war. Such service could be carried on only by voluntary enlistment and this required money and much of it. To furnish a foundation, therefore, for the revenues which the war demanded, Edward sought to encourage both industry and commerce. His methods, however, were curiously arbitrary and inconsistent and, as the sequel proved, both false and harmful. Yet for a time he succeeded in stimulating powerfully the eco- nomic life of the nation. He ordered that foreign merchants be allowed to enter the country freely and sell their wares without in- terruption. He brought over weavers from Flanders and furnished a market for English wool at home. And when the people began to show an undue preference for foreign-made goods, he forbade 1333-1348] THE BLACK DEATH 371 them to wear any cloth not made in English towns. The nobles and the wealthy, however, he exempted from the law. To keep control of the wool trade, he forbade the exportation of English rams, and allowed the raw wool to be sold abroad only at author- ized ports, or staples. Sometimes he attempted to prevent the exportation of wool altogether. Sometimes he turned merchant himself and used the royal authority to control the market. In 1338 he was given the right to purchase twenty thousand sacks, or half the wool of the kingdom, fixing the rate at £3 a sack. He * 'unloaded" at Antwerp for £20 a sack. He prevented competition by forbidding other merchants to sell until he had completed the transaction. A more harmful regulation for- bade the people to sell or the merchants to buy wool or other standard commodities at other places than regularly established markets, — the staples, — a measure designed solely to simplify the levying of duties. The people were also forbidden for a long period to trade with Scotland. Yet in spite of these arbitrary rulings of the government, the war created a vigorous demand for the products of all kinds of industry; wages were good; food was abundant; prices were steady and trade, secure in the prestige of England on the seas, flourished. Suddenly over all this prosperity the "Black Death" cast its shadow. This mysterious malady, it is thought, appeared first in China about the year 1333, and following the Death 134S, old trade routes extended steadily westward, reach- ing the eastern Mediterranean the year after Crecy. In January 1348 it broke out on the lower Ehone. In August it appeared in England. Its ravages were appalling; no part of the kingdom was exempt; no class was spared. The king's daughter and the archbishop of Canterbury were among the vic- tims of the first year. The hale and the hearty succumbed as readily as the weak and the infirm. In some parts of Yorkshire, one-half the priests perished; a noble testimony of their fidelity in the hour of the nation's trial. A nameless dread fell upon all classes. The nation put off its festal attire and sat in the pres- ence of its dead; nor were voices lacking to remind the people that such woe comes only to those who have sinned. 372 THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR [ Edward III. Then the horror passed by, but the desolation remained. It was said that of the entire population one in three had perished. The laboring element naturally suffered most. Its Bi^k%eath strength was shattered. Whole families had been swept away; in many manors rows of tenantless cot- tages, silent and forsaken, were all that remained to tell of the population that had disappeared. The life of the nation, however, had been so quickened by all the experiences of the century, its pulse was so strong and steady that prostration could not last long. Yet the symptoms of convalescence were hardly understood by the king or his advisers. The free life of the nation was fet- tered by restrictions upon labor and trade, designed no doubt with the best intent, but destined to bring new and unheard-of dis- orders in their train. At the opening of Edward TII.'s reign, rural England appar- ently had not passed very far beyond the condition of the rural England of the eleventh century; the manor was still Ruraiiifein the prevailing form of orsfanization of the a2:ricultural En^landin ^ ^ ^ P 14th century, community. llie Village liie was still simple and isolated ; although comforts were few, there was always plenty to eat and vagrancy was virtually unknown. The lord lived quietly in his manor, surrounded by his family and his household servants ; fully occupied with the homely duties of his station. The great outer world broke in occasionally when some preaching friar or pardoner from Rome came that way, with fresh stores of gossip from court or council, not the least popular of their wares. There were sabbaths and feast days also, when young and old made merry and joined in the rude old country sports. There were the great fairs too, whither the bailiffs brought their woolpacks, and whither the good wife went with *'her man" to buy the supplies for the year to come. Some- times, also, when the work of the summer was done and the granaries were full, lord and villain, freeholder and artisan, clerk and scrivener might be seen drifting along the pleasant highways, entertaining each other by guileless tales and seeking the shrine of some neighboring saint, for the rest of their bodies and the good of their souls. EFFECTS OF THE BLACK DEATH 373 Yet even when Edward began his reign these pleasant scenes were not without some signs of change. The long era of domestic peace which had followed the close of the Barons' Wars, and had hardly been broken by the Enniwhrurai troubles which had attended the reign of the second Edward, the steady development of the cities, the growth of corporate privileges and tlie extension of economic activities into new fields, had not been without a direct and whole- some influence upon the manor and its tenants. This influence was manifesting itself in two very marked ways. First, the cus- tom was steadily prevailing of allowing the tenant to exchange his ordinary labor service into a regular money service, or rental ; the lord on his part hiring such labor as he needed and paying regular wages. When the villain secured the privilege of paying a stated rent for his land in lieu of the ancient labor service, a memoran- dum of the agreement was indorsed on the manor roll; a copy was given to the villain, who became a copyholder; the land was known as a copyhold. Second^ with the increase of luxury the lord lost his taste for the old quiet life of the manor and preferred rather to rent the demesne outright with all that belonged to it in the way of farm buildings, implements, and stock. The first effect of the Hundred Years' War had been greatly to accelerate the changes which the long-continued tide of pros- perity had already set in motion. The people begau to Wack%eath ^^^^^'^ luxury in dressing and living as something desir- able. Their needs, also, increased with the development of taste, and they became dissatisfied, restless, grasping, and hard. Then came the Black Death, and, by shattering the strength of the laboring class, struck directly at the basis of all this prosperity. Landlords could not get "hands" to save their rotting crops. In their distress they competed with each other in offering higher wages. This in turn reacted upon the villains who still held land under the old service tenure and who saw themselves thereby pro- hibited from taking advantage of the general increase in wages. They became dissatisfied and refused to work for their lords. Smaller tenants left their crops standing and went out to work for their richer neighbors. Land sank in value, and tenants who held 374 THE HUl^DRED YEARS' WAR [edwaud ill. by copyhold, could no longer keep up their rental and pay the pre- vailing ruinous wages for help. The distress and confusion which now fell most heavily upon the landlords, attracted the attention of the government, and the , . ^ king attempted to remedy the evils which he did not of govern- understand. *' Seeing that a great part of the people and principally of laborers is dead of ^ the plague, and that some seeing the necessity of masters and the scarcity of serv- ants, will not work unless they receive exorbitant wages, ... we have ordained, . . . that every able-bodied man and woman of our kingdom, . . . not living by trading or having of his, or her own, wherewithal to live, . . . shall if so required, serve another for the same wages as were the custom in the twentieth year of our reign." The parliament who represented only the landholding class and regarded the alleviation of the distress of the landlords of far more importance than the matter of justice to the laborers, supported the king by passing the famous Statute of Labourers Lahouvers^^ in which an attempt was made to prescribe a regular scale of wages, corresponding to the rates paid before the appearance of the plague. The laborer who refused to work at such wages was to be put in the stocks. If he went into another shire in search of higher wages, he was to be branded in the forehead. These laws, harsh and cruel as they were senseless, only increased the sufferings of the poor and did not help the landlords. Yet they were reenacted again and again ; the penalties each time increasing in severity. Still the suffering and the con- fusion continued. Then] it dawned upon the king and his econo- mists that the cost of living had also risen, that not only had the cost of labor advanced but the cost of everything that labor pro- duced was also advancing, and that a man could not be expected to accept for a week's work wages which would not keep himself and his family for a day. So the king turned his attention to the regulation of prices. In this he was also guided by the popular prejudices of the hour. He turned upon the "forestallers," men who purchased in large quantities to sell later at retail. The people suspected the forestallers and hated them as they suspect and hate 1 See Lee, Source Book, pp. 206-208. 1349-1369] ECONOMIC DISORDERS 375 the promoters of trusts to-day and for the same reason; they believed that the forestallers aimed to exclude other tradesmen from buying, so that they might control the markets themselves, *' thirsting after wicked gain." "Forestalling" therefore was for- bidden by law under pain of the pillory. Merchants also were for- bidden to bid against each other *in the fish market, lest they should raise the price of fish. The king and his parliament might as well have legislated against the law of gravitation, provided they knew what the law of gravitation was. The discontent of the laboring element only increased; the hostility of landowner and landless hardened into hatred; and since the landowner made the laws and wielded the power of the government, the landless man, as in the France of 1789, only waited for a leader and an occasion, to begin the burning of chateaus and the massacre of the nobles.se and their bailiffs. In the meantime the Black Death came and went again; first in 1349, again in 13C9; each time leaving an aftermath of economic and social disorder. In vain the reeves or manor stewards attempted to force men to work for the wages prescribed by law. Their crops were in the field and must be gathered. They themselves were the first to weaken and seek labor at any price. In vain they sought to exact to the uttermost the services of those who still lived under the older system. In vain the government took fishmongers and forestallers in hand. Prices continued to rise, and wages continued to increase, and the interference of the government only exasperated the people and laid up trouble for the future. The war had now languished for eight years since the fall of Calais. There had been no formal peace, not even a truce; yet Influence of ^^^ither nation had the heart to renew the struggle in uDfmme^ the presence of the Black Death or the economic or war. social distresses which had followed it. Neither party, however, had ceased to intrigue; a bitter partisan strife, also, smoul- dered in Brittany where the question of succession was not yet settled; open war occasionally flickered up on the Gascon border. In 1350 the Spanish, probably incited by French intrigue, attempted a descent upon the English coast. Edward went out with his fleet, and in the brilliant victory of "L'Espagnols sur 376 THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR [edward m. mer" off Sluys, in which the feat of John Paul Jones off Flam- borough Head was repeated three several times, once by Edward himself, again vindicated his title of "King of the Sea." A week before this famous action Philip VI. had died and John of Normandy had succeeded him. Edward announced his willingness to renounce his claim to the French crown, Uwwa?i355 ^^ John would cede him Gascony in full sovereignty. Bat John rejected the offer; and both sides prepared again for the active renewal of the war. Edward planned to strike France in three different places at once. One army was to land in Brittany and assist the Montf orts , a second army led by the king was to descend upon Northern Normandy, where he expected help from the young Charles of Navarre, son-in-law of the French king, a dangerous and reckless youth of twenty-three who had quarreled with John over his daughter's dowry, and was perfectly willing to annoy his royal father-in-law by assisting Edward, although his title to the French crown, even according to Edward's way of reckoning, was better than Edward's. Nothing, however, came of either of these expeditions, and Edward returned shortly to repel a new invasion of the Scots. In the meantime the third expedition, under the young Prince of Wales, had landed at Bordeaux and begun a systematic plundering of the valley of the upper Garonne, passing by the cities, m^incit^^^^ but cutting a wide swath through the open country of Prince 1355, Langucdoc to the Mediterranean, — a veritable "march to the sea." The successes of the first year led the Black Prince to attempt to repeat the experiment the next year on the Loire. He advanced across Poitou, as in the pre- vious year ravaging the countryside and leaving a desolate wilderness behind him. All went well, until four miles from Poi- tiers, where the prince found himself confronted by a French army which outnumbered him seven to one. He was far from the Gascon frontier; his army was not only encumbered with prisoners and spoil, but all told did not number more than twelve thousand men. To retire was impossible; to fight was only to invite the destruction of thousands of brave men to no purpose. He offered, 1356] POITIERS 377 therefore, to surrender his prisoners and his spoil, and pledge his word not to fight again for seven years, if he might be allowed to withdraw. But John, who now at last saw an English army within his power, refused to grant any terms other than the unconditional surrender of the English prince and one hundred of his knights. At this the prince and his knights determined, ratlier than to lay- down their arms in an unknightly way, to sell their lives as dearly as possible. The English with their usual skill, seeking to take all the advantage which a strong position might afford them, had drawn up their array on some high ground west of the farm of Maupertuis, pro- tected in front by a dense hedge which was broken in the middle by what was probably an or- dinary farming road. On the right the hill, or plateau, descended to a marsh drained by a small stream, be- yond which the ground again rose abruptly and was covered thickly with briars and bushes. The combination of fonrmt&n!^ hedge, marsh, and rough ground beyond made an excellent cover for the English archers who were thus protected effectually from the enemy's horse. The English knights, with the exception of a small band reserved for skirmishing, were dismounted as at Crecy and drawn up in three divisions which after several maneuvers were finally arranged so that Salis- bury held the left wing, Warwick the center, and the Black Prince the right where he could support the archers in the marsh. King John was a better soldier than his father, but he was no match for a Plantagenet. Some of his knights, conspicuously a 378 THE HUNDKED YEARS' AVAR [edwakd HI. Scotchman by the name of Dudley, thought that they had dis- covered the secret of the English strength, which they ascribed not Thebattieof ^^ ^^^ archery, but to the fact that the English men- Septemier ^t-arms were accustomed to fight on foot, and per- 19, 1356. suaded John to dismount his knights also, reserving only a small company of three hundred mounted French sind a band of mounted Germans who were to ride down the English archers. With these men John began the battle in a vain attempt to break through the hedge. Again he attempted to storm the English position, sending forward the first division of his army under the command of his eldest son, Charles Duke of Normandy. The English arrow-flight riddled the French lines, and the division melted away; Charles and some eight hundred of his knights mounted their horses and fled from the fleld. The second division, under command of the king's brother, Philip Duke of Orleans, also lost heart and, apparently without striking a blow, marched from the field, leaving John with his third and last division to meet the counter attack of the whole English army led by the Black Prince in person. John himself fought like a lion, but he was outgen- eraled by Prince Edward, and his men were outfought by the Eng- lish. At last, taken both in front and rear, the third division also gave way. John refused to flee and with his youngest son Philip, who fought by his side, fell into the hands of the English. The battle had opened at nine o'clock, and by noon John was a captive in the tent of the Black Prince. The case of France was now pitiable enough. The disaster of Poitiers had come, not at the close of an era of prosperity, but after fifteen years of as bitter and cruel war as has ever p^uers^^*^^ desolated western Europe. Moreover, from the first, France had been uniformly unsuccessful in the war. She had suffered while her enemy had waxed fat and insolent. Then she had hardly ceased mourning for her dead after the disaster of Crecy, when the Black Death came creeping upon her from the south, afflicting her even more sorely than it afflicted England, for she was far less able to endure the scourge. It was upon this already desolate land that the disaster of Poitiers had fallen. The best of the nobility had been slain or taken ; the king 1356-1359] FEANCE AFTER POITIERS 379 was a prisoner, and the government demoralized. The Dauphin,^ who was hastily appointed regent, was an untried youth, his magnificent ability as yet unknown, and men feared to trust him. The riffraff of the two armies that had fought at Poitiers, troops of disbanded soldiers, .infested the highways, and, forming them- selves into **free companies," fastened upon the countryside, liv- ing by plunder and rapine. The knights and nobles, also, who had been captured in the battle, having bargained with their captors for their ransom, returned to wrest the money from their peasant ten- ants, already distracted by present sufferings beyond measure. The wildest disorder prevailed. In 1358 the peasantry, the Jacquerie, rose against their lords, and to the fierce plundering of a lawless sol- diery, tlie attacks of the English, and the destitution and misery which had followed plague and famine, were now added the yet deeper horrors of a servile war. The regent summoned the States-Gen- eral, but only to increase the confusion by precipitating a war of classes, — the nobles and clergy against the Third Estate. Petrarch, who visited France about this time, wrote of the universal desola- tion which confronted him: *'I could not believe that this was the same kingdom which I had seen so rich and flourishing. Nothing presented itself to my eyes but a fearful solitude, an extreme poverty, land uncultivated, homes in ruins, even the neighborhood of Paris manifested everywhere marks of destruc- tion and conflagration. The streets are deserted; the roads over- grown with weeds; the whole is a vast solitude." In the meantime John had been treated right royally by his English captors ; his entry into London was a pageant. Negotia- tions were opened and he agreed to cede to England the renewed 1359. ^^^^^'^ Western seaboard of France including a district nearly equal in extent to the original Angevin domin- ions. But the Estates were in no mood to accept terms so humili- ating, and promptly rejected them. Edward prepared for a renewal of the war. He first, however, took advantage of the ^In 1349 Philip VI. bought the domain of Humbert, Dauphin of Vienne, and ceded the district to Charles, his grandson, who took the name of the Dauphin, afterward the established title of the eldest son of the King of France. 380 THE HUl^DRED YEARS' WAR [ Edward III. death of Edward Balliol to put his relations with Scotland upon a more secure basis by releasing David, who had been in captivity since the day of Neville's Cross, and acknowledging again the inde- pendence of the kingdom. The Scots of course had to pay a round ransom for the return of their king and a second sum in addition m lieu of the claim which Edward renounced. In 1359 Edward was ready to begin operations on the continent, and with an army of one hundred thousand men started from Calais to march upon Eheims with the idea of having himself formally crowned king of France. He could not hope to feed such an army in a country already thrice a desert, so he carried with him his own provision train of eight thousand carts. The march was like a gala day parade. The Dauphin shut himself np in Paris and left his people to take care of themselves. Edward threw his vast host around Rheims and waited under its walls until January 1360. Then he was compelled to raise the siege, for his eight thousand carts had now been eaten empty. He next turned upon Paris where he fared worse than at Rheims. The winter was one of great severity and the English ere long were suffering more than the people within the city. Then at last, at the earnest entreaty of Pope Innocent VI. , the Dauphin consented to sue for peace ; but it was not until Edward had been fairly driven off by famine and had begun his march toward Brittany. The messengers of the regent, following the trail of starving men and horses, overtook Edward at Chartres. He was ready for peace; he could no longer blind himself to the vanity of attempting to unite the two crowns, and agreed to renounce all claims to the throne of France and to the ancient possessions of his house north of the Loire. The French king was to renounce on his part all suzerainty over the lands south of the Loire which had once belonged to Eleanor. Ponthieu with Calais were also to be ceded in full sovereignty to the English king, and John was to be ransomed for 3,000,000 crowns. The treaty was signed at Bretigny, near Chartres, May 8, 1360. 3J^ 52.0 F t 'k. l^-^>m\l ^ tfe6 imi ^|v-:^4'4^>rS" h))\iS weri CHAPTER IV the decline of fdward iii. second stage of hundred years' war EDWARD III., 1360-1377 FAxMILY OF EDWARD III. Edward III. = Phllippa of HainaiUt, k. 1327-1377 I d. 1369. Edward William, Lionel, ho Black Prince, d. 1335 Duke of Duke of Clarence, Aqultaine, rf. 1368 d. 1376 1 Phllippa Richard II. m. Edmund k. 1377-1399 Mortimer, Earl of March Jolm of (iaunt m. Blauclie of Lancaster, d. 1399 Henry IV. k. 1399-1413 Edmund. Thomas, Duke of York, Duke of d. 1403 Gloucester, I d. 1397 Edward, Duke of York, d. 1415 Richard, Earl of Cambridge, d. 1415 The last years of Edward III. 's reign were full of trouble. Edward himself was called upon to pay the penalty which nature so often exacts of prematurely developed mental and PcvsoticlI- decline of physical powersi he was an old man long before his Edward. f . -^ n,f , mI- . . xi time. The brilliant successes of the war, moreover, had encouraged the baser elements of a nature which was by birth mean, selfish, and shallow ; nor could the glamour of court pageantry long hide the spuriousness of his character from the people, or conceal the fact that their glorious Edward was fading into a con- temptible little old man, decrepit in body, small of soul, and weak of will, the prey of politicians and court parasites. The nation also was now face to face with the inevitable results of long-continued war. The people were hardening under burdens which they could not bear. They were content of beginning to regard the landlord, once their patron and epeope. pj^Q^ector, as their worst enemy. The titled clergy were the special objects of their hatred; not the humble priest and the friar, who were poor and suffered as the people 381 382 SECOND STAGE OF HUNDRED YEA.RS' WAR [edward in. suffered, but the mighty bishops and abbots, who controlled the government, made the laws, ground their tenants, and hoarded their wealth, or worse, sent it off to Rome to buy favors and pre- ferment, yet lifted not a finger to relieve the distress about them. The people, moreover, were not without leaders. New and strange voices were raised ; startling doctrines were taught, — the rumbling of approaching upheaval. In the year 1360 all this was still below the surface. Edward's power was at zenith; his revenues were double what they had been when he ascended the throne thirty-three years before : Edward's i.^ iir^i ii-.iti power at his fleets rode the Channel; his armies had shattered zenith, 1360. the military might of France and one-half of her ter- ritories had been added to his kingdom. The magnificence of Edward's court had fully kept pace with his military triumphs. It was the most splendid in Europe. The king of France was his prisoner-guest. The king of Scotland waited upon him in person to secure some modification of the hard terms of his ransom. The king of Cyprus came from the distant east to secure the help of the mightiest captain of Christendom against the Turk. It was not long, however, before the first shadows began to fall across this fine pageant, dulling its glamour and filling the minds of the wise with foreboding. The Treaty of Bretisrny FaUureof , ^ ^ s, '^ i-. { the Treaty of provcd a Complete failure as a basis for a permanent peace. The French people, sore burdened and dis- traught, could not raise the enormous ransom which had been pledged for the return of their king, and left him to die in exile. The other terms of the treaty also were never carried out. Edward had promptly organized the newly-acquired territories as the Duchy of Aquitaine and had installed the Black Prince as duke, but the French king had never formally renounced his sover- eignty, neither had Edward renounced his claim to the French crown. But the most serious obstacle to the success of the treaty lay in the temper of the Aquitanians themselves. It was too late to dismember France. The new subjects of Edward regarded themselves as a part of France, and when they found that they had been abandoned by their king and turned over to a for- eign master, a bitter sorrow seized them. "We will obey the Eng- 1360-1367] PEDRO THE CRUEL 363 lish with our lips," said the good people of Rochelle, *'but our hearts shall never be moved toward them." Geographically Aquitaine belonged to the great political system which the middle Hge was slowly but surely building up about the old Duchy of Francia, and there was no reason, other than the arbitrary decision of battle, for annexing this region to England. The fourteenth century was the era for the growing of nations; the time for the building of empires was not yet. The Treaty of Bretigny, therefore, in the nature of things, was only a truce and a very uncertain truce at that. Not so readily was England to shake herself loose from the complica- Pedro the cnieiin tions whicli the unfortunate war with France had entailed; not so easily could she escape the penalty which a war of conquest always brings in its train. The old struggle continued to rage in Brittany, and when in 1365 a crush- ing defeat of the French party definitely settled the succession in favor of John de Montfort, a new storm center suddenly devel- oped south of the Pyrenees. Pedro, known by the ugly but well merited nickname of 'Hhe Cruel," a crowned madman, had been ruling Castile for fifteen years. He had conducted his reign like a Dahomey chief rather than a Christian prince; destroying his leading nobles, assassinating his brothers, and poisoning his wife, the gentle and unoffending Blanche of Bourbon. By this last outrage Pedro had bitterly offended Charles V. the new king of France, whose wife was the sister of Blanche. He had already aroused the church, for he had not scrupled to put bishops to death, and, to complete his measure of wicked- ness, had entered into a formal league with the Mohammedan ruler of Granada. Pedro had thus raised up two powerful enemies, who might well think that any means would be justified in putting down this Spanish Caligula, and when the Castilian nobles found a leader in Henry of Trastamara, the illegitimate brother of Pedro, who by the law of the church could not inherit a crown, the pope had removed the bar by legalizing the birth, and Charles had furnished an army by authorizing liis famous captain Bertrand du Guesclin to collect the "free companies" and lead them into Spain. Pedro, who did not dare to trust his subjects to 384 SECOND STAGE OF HUNDRED YEARS* WAR [edwari> ill. fight for him, fled before the storm to seek comfort from the enemy of France. In an evil hour the Black Prince received Pedro in his court at Bordeaux. Wise counsellors, like Sir John Chandos, -advised him to have nothing to do with the evil-minded king. But The Black , , , • , . , „ , i -, ^ , -. , Prinec the chivalric nature oi the duke was touched by the misfortunes of a fellow prince. He also saw in the irregularity connected with the succession of the base-born Henry of Trastamara a threat to the rights of royalty based upon legiti- mate succession, and persuaded Edward III. and the parliament to consent to a proposal to restore Pedro to his throne. The prince met Henry and his allies at Navarrete, and added another to the series of brilliant victories which England has associated with his name; *'a victory, however, of which every decent Englishman should be heartily ashamed." The generous and gentle Henry of Trastamara fled to Aragon, and the ferocious Pedro was once more established in Castile. When in Aquitaine the royal refugee had agreed to pay the wages of those who should enlist under the Black Prince and had pledged the treasures of his kingdom. But, now that he had his own again, he showed no disposition to keep his promise, and left the prince and his army "not only without money, but absolutely without food, on tlie burning plains of Castile." Here the Gascons died of famine and pestilence, while the miscreant king amused himself with fetes, wholesale slaughter, and assassination. At last "the gallant defender of royal rights" was glad to leave Spain, "with the loss of his soldiers Septemhcr, ^nd of his money and of his health, befooled and cheated in one of the worst causes in which English blood and English treasure have ever been squandered on the continent of Europe."^ He had won new glory, but he had incurred a serious debt, with the odium, also, of fighting in a bad cause. Henry of Trastamara returned to Castile the next year, caught his brother in a trap and slew him; and thus the matter ended as far as the civil war in Spain was concerned. Not so the Black Prince; after straining every resource to meet the obligations incurred by the war, the best that he could do for the still unpaid ■' Burke, History of Spain, I, p. 311. 1368, 1369] THE HEARTH-TAX 385 ** companies," was to offer them half pay with license to levy the rest on the subjects of the French king. Bat the young duke could not so easily satisfy the claims of his merce- tax and the naries I Only a tew took advantage oi the permission to Aquitaniam. ,-r^T,., -,,i • i-i enter French territory, and the prmce was compelled to cast about for some new method of raising money. In an evil hour he was persuaded to propose the levy of a hearth-tax, the most vexatious and unjust of all methods of taxation, since it fell upon the humblest Aquitauian peasant who cooked his scanty meal on his hearth fire, as well as on the rich landlord. The nobles of Aquitaine refused to consent to the levy, and when the duke persisted in his demand, they appealed to the king of France to protect them. Charles, always wise and sure-footed, had no intention of committing himself to a renewal of the war with the English until he was certain of his ground. So he waited a year to give the Aquitanians a chance to know their own mind and to prepare himself and his people for the struggle. Then he resumed the overlordship of Aquitaine, and summoned the duke to Paris to answer the complaints of his vassals. The prince replied with characteristic spirit that he would come, but only with helmet on head and sixty thousand men at his back. The response of Charles was a declaration of war, contemptuously sent by a kitchen scullion. The English soon found tbat they had a new kind of antagonist to deal with in the young French king; a man who despised chivalry and its nonsense, and saw no glamour in war; The French ^liose bodilv infirmities forbade him to lead armies, but adopt ncir J ' 'icar'"''^ "' ^^^ knew men, and from the quiet seclusion of his castle with unerring wisdom observed events and selected his instruments. The French king saw, moreover, that in any cam- paign upon his own territory the invader must sooner or later retire baffled and beaten, if only he could be prevented from fight- ing battles. He also fully realized the uselessness of continuing to pit feudal levies against the trained soldiers of England, and steadily substituted the professional soldier for the feudal knight; placing in command not his dukes and counts, whose claim to preferment rested merely upon their social alliances, but trained warriors like Bertraud du Guesclin, men who were conspicuous for 386 SECOND STAGE OF HUXBRED YEARS' WAR [edward ill. tried abilities rather than for high birth, and who thoroughly understood their business of war. For this modern method of war vast sums were needed; these soldiers of fortune had to be paid in hard gold; yet the shrewd business ability of Charles did not fail him. He understood the art of economizing and getting the most out of his limited resources, as well as the art of find- ing men. In 1370 the French entered Aquitaine; the Black Prince with shattered health and wasted treasury, with the country largely in sympathy with the invaders, could onW look on, while The French «/ j. •/ ' j ^ reconquest the disaffected towns opened their gates and received of Aquitaine. . t^ i i . -, . l^rencn garrisons. 13at when the episcopal city of Limoges surrendered, he roused himself from his sick bed with the desperate resolve to retake the traitorous city, and although he was forced to conduct the siege from his litter, he inspired his troops with such energy that in spite of the heroic efforts of both garrison and citizens the city fell. 'No mercy was shown to the unfortunate inhabitants; men, women, and children were put to the sword. A body of knights who had determined to sell their lives dearly, won the compassion of Edward and were spared for their knighthood ; an act of spurious mercy, fully in keeping with the debased chivalry of the fourteenth century. The "Mirror of Chivalry" could spare knighthood, but look on with cold indiffer- ence while the women and little children, who had never given any offense, sobbed for mercy at his feet. The massacre at Limoges has no rival in civilized warfare. Even the Sepoys at Cawnpore might plead their wrongs and the teaching of centuries of barbar- ism. The recapture of Limoges was the last exploit of the Black Prince. The next year he returned to England a dying man. The war in the meanwhile continued; the prestige of the Eng- lish faded; their power in the newly conquered provinces dis- integrated. Their armies marched hither and thither, Engiian but no battles were fought. Cities that consented to "blackmail" were spared; the rest were plundered and burned. A bitter hatred, fed upon such scenes as those of Limoges, took possession of the population and made them ready to receive even the ruffians who followed du Guesclin as saviors. 1373] DISASTER AT ROCHELLE 387 In 1372 Edward sent out an expedition under the command of Earl John of Pembroke, who had been appointed lieutenant of Aquitaine in consequence of the declining health of the June 22,^23, Black Prince. Pembroke proposed to invade France by way of Rochelle; but he was so long in getting started, that his plans were well known to the French, and when at last he reached his destination, he found a powerful Spanish fleet lying in wait for him in the harbor. The English fought with great bravery, but their ships were outclassed by the huge Spanish deckers, and after a two days' fight, their fleet was sunk, and Pem- broke and his surviving captains were loaded with chains and borne away to the prisons of Spain. The English had met with no such reverse since Edward III. began his reign; the supremacy on the seas, which they had enjoyed since Sluys, was at an end; they could no longer support their armies in the field, and a French invasion of England was a possibility of the near future. This was Henry of Trastamara's requital for the support which England had given to Pedro the Cruel. The disaster at Rochelle, the reports of other reverses in Aquitaine following each other in quick succession, roused Edward to make one more attempt before the summer should end to relieve his distressed garrisons, and on the 30th of August he himself embarked with the Black Prince at Southampton. The fleet con- sisted of four hundred ships and had on board four thousand men- at-arms and ten thousand archers. The equipment had cost the government the incredible sum of £90,000. But after five weeks of useless struggling against contrary winds, Edward returned to port and the expedition upon which so much had been expended was abandoned. The people, whose consciences rested none too easily under the discouragement of repeated misfortune, saw in the contrary winds a direct interposition of Providence. God they said was now plainly for the king of France. In the autumn and winter of 1372 the French continued to reduce the strongholds of Aquitaine, and in the spring du Guesclin invaded Brittany with a large army. The English made new exertions to fit out a relief expedition and finally saw it depart in June under the command of John of Gaunt, the king's fourth 388 SECOND STAGE OF HUNDRED YEARS' WAR [edward m, son. The danger of approaching Aquitaine by sea was now so great that it was determined to land at Calais and attempt to John of relieve the southern garrisons by marching across France\s73 France. Charles, ^*that mysterious man, who never took the field himself, nor allowed his armies to fight if they could avoid it," simply strengthened his castles and watched the enemy, giving strict orders to his generals under no conditions to hazard a battle. The French, also, burned over the country before the invading army, leaving nothing to feed man or beast. These measures were heroic but v/ere fully justified by the results. The march of the English resembled a retreat. The winter caught them amid the mountains of Auvergne, and when at last they reached Bordeaux, all that was left of the "mag- nificent army," which had marched out of Calais six months before, was a horde of miserable fugitives, disorganized and dis- heartened. They had marched across France, a distance of six hundred miles; they had endured incredible hardships, and all to no purpose. The English could send no other reinforcements; in a few months only Bordeaux and Bayonne remained in their hands. The next year they were glad to accept a truce, which continued in force theoretically until Edward's death. Thus the tables had been completely reversed ; the prestige of the English had not only been swept away, but they had been left with hardly a foothold, where a few years before they The decline j ^ -j j of English had been the unquestioned masters. Their govern- ment, moreover, was bankrupt and their splendid king fast sinking into the gloom of a dishonored old age. These changes were not the result of a mere freak of fortune. France was now better governed than England; her administration better ordered; her armies better equipped and better disciplined; her king was a better man. The frugality, almost parsimony of his court was in marked contrast with the wasteful prodigality of Edward's court; the quiet atmosphere which pervaded the sol- itary castles where he met his counsellors and planned his cam- paigns or directed the administration of his kingdom, with the bickering and intrigue, the wholesale corruption and general demor- alization which surrounded Edward. 1359, 1369] FACTIONS OP ENGLISH COURT 389 The good Queen Philippa had died in 1369, and soon after her death Edward had become blindly infatuated with a young woman of her household named Alice Ferrers. He lavished izaturn^^^ upou her the late queea's jewels. He paraded her ^ourt"^^'^ through the streets attired as *'The Lady of the San." He suffered her to interfere in affairs of state and sit with the royal judges when she wished to influence their decisions. He allowed her to lead him into the wildest extravagance, while she secretly leagued with other favorites, as avaricious and shame- less as herself, to speculate in the claims of the king's disheartened creditors. The adult children of the king, who ought to have steadied his steps to the grave, gave him little support. The broken health of the Black Prince had compelled him to retire from public life. Lionel Duke of Clarence, a third son,^ had died the year before Queen Philippa. John of Gaunt, the fourth son, instead of protecting his father did not scruple to join with Alice Ferrers and the other parasites of the court in order to wheedle favors out of the doting old king. The high offices of the state were in the hands of the clergy; but they had lost the sympathy of the people and had roused the bitter hostility of the baronage, and particularly of the onhc^nnuT. creatures who surrounded the king. To this latter Vaiicaiur! ^^^^ belonged John of Gaunt. This powerful but unprincipled man had married Blanche, the daughter and heiress of Henry of Lancaster, and with the titles and vast estates he had also succeeded to the traditions of this ancient house. He was the recognized leader of the old conservative wing of the baronage, and was in full sympathy with its narrow class feeling; he saw nothing to be commended in the rising power of the commons, and scoffed at the new ideas which had found lodgment in the constitution; he did all that he could, moreover, to develop hostility to the clergy, begrudging their wealth, and claiming for himself and his friends a monopoly of the public offices of the kingdom. Such a man could never become a great popular leader. The people missed that high-toned self-respect which had characterized Earl Simon, and refused to trust the ^ Edward's socond son William had died in 1335. 390 SECOND STAGE OF HUlJiTDRED YEARS' WAR [edwakd ill. prince even when he tried to win their favor. Yet John of Gaunt was an exceedingly dangerous man. A 'powerful reactionary spirit was everywhere quickening into action, and although no one credited him with any patriotic motive, he was allowed to put him- self at the head of the reaction, confuse its real interests, and use its influence to further the factional strifes of the court. Opposed to this Lancastrian court party was a second faction of the barons whose natural leader was Edmund Mortimer, the earl of March, the great-grandson of that Roger Mortimer f'^mn^Sf^ who had been hanged at the Elms for his misdeeds in ThJ^eariof the early years of Edward's reign. He had married March. Philippa, the daughter of the late earl of Clarence, and had the interests of his wife and son to maintain against the ambi- tions of John of Gaunt. He was, therefore, the natural ally of the clerical party, represented by the chancellor, William of Wykeham, the bishop of Winchester, who as head of the govern- ment was the special object of the enmity of John of Gaunt and the favorites. Independently of these factions of the court there had also grown up in the nation at large a vigorous and energetic party whose purpose was ecclesiastical reform ; who protested Thereform j^q^ against the church but the abuses of the church ; not against the clergy but against their useless wealth, their extravagance, their worldly ambition and heartless indiffer- ence to the sufferings of the poor ; not against the papacy as an institution, but against the interference of the pope in English affairs, and the indirect taxation of the English church through the * 'provisions" which the pope was still in the habit of making for his Italian servants. In 1351 parliament had passed Provimrs, the Statute of Provisors, which made the recipient of a Prcemunire, papal provision liable to imprisonment and forfeiture. In 1353 the even more important Statute of PrcB- munire had directly attacked the appellate jurisdiction of the Koman Curia by making it a serious crime for any English- man to appeal from the decision of an English court to a foreign court. In 1366, also. Urban V. had very unwisely put a new weapon in the hands of the reform party by making a 1366-1372] DISMISSAL OF WYKEHAM 391 formal demand upon the English king for the payment of the tribute which John had once pledged to Innocent III. During the great part of Henry III.'s reign this tribute had been paid, though not regularly. Edward I. had refused, but Edward II. had resumed the payment. Edward III. had again refused, and for thirty years the pope had missed his annual gift of 1,000 marks from the English king. The pope was now unwise enough to send to England a demand for the renewal of the tribute and for the payment of the arrears in full. The moment was not well chosen. The English government was burdened with debt; the people- were restless and dissatisfied ; a powerful and growing party among the nobility were jealous of the monopoly of the high offices of state by the clergy, and were eagerly waiting for some pretext for open attack. The king submitted the pope's claim to parliament, and although parliament made short work of it by denying the right of King John to enter into any such compact, the discussion aroused was most unfortunate because it helped to turn the eyes of the nation from the much-needed reforms within the church to the abuses which had sprung up in the borderland character of where the interests of church and state came into con- ereorms. ^^^^^ ^^^^ deflected the activity of the reformers from the moral to the political field, making such men as Wyclif the tools of John of Gaunt and the other politicians, who were bending all their energies to drive the churchmen out of the state offices and secure them for themselves. In 1371 the opposi- tion believed themselves strong enough to open a direct attack upon the ecclesiastical office-holders, and persuaded parliament to petition the crown: '* Whereas the government has been carried on by men of Holy Church, who are not justifiable in many cases, from which great mischief and damages have come in time past and more may happen in time to come; therefore, laymen being able and sufficient, none other shall be made chancellors, barons of the exchequer, or shall be appointed to other great offices of state for the future." The petition shows the drift of popular opinion at the time and prepares us for the dismissal of William of Wykeham and his fellow ecclesiastics the next year. 392 SECOND STAGE OF HUNDRED YEARS' WAR [edwakd iii. The new lay officials who took the place of the deposed ecclesi- astics had to experience the common lot of a party long out of office when suddenly entrusted with a vast and delicate the new machinery, the safe management of which depends government. . ., , j -n mi i i upon experience quite as much as good will. They had charged the ecclesiastical ministers with sluggishness in the con- duct of the war. To justify the charge, therefore, they were bound to take the war in hand and push it vigorously. But how should they secure the money? They hesitated to tax the great landholding middle class or to lay hands on the goods of commerce. As astute politicians they shrank from incurring the odium of the class which controlled the parliaments. They turned, therefore, upon the hated churchmen, and proposed to raise the money needed by a direct tax of 22s. 3d. on every parish of the kingdom, but taken from lands ''which since the eighteenth year of Edward I. had passed into mortmain." There was this to justify such an action: lands held in mortmain were exempt from feudal service and hence bore no share of ordinary taxation. Transfers in mort- main, also, had been illegal since the passage of the Statute of Mortmain in the reign of Edward I. Tactically, however, the measure was a serious blunder. By a strange miscalculation, pos- sibly due to the lack of experience of the new financiers quite as much as to the fault of existing statistics, the ministers overesti- mated the number of parishes in England by about five times. This compelled the government to increase the tax per parish from 22s. to 116s., in order to produce the sum required by the budget, and gave only too much ground for the cry of the church party, that they were the objects of malicious persecution and were being robbed in the name of the state. A singular misfor- tune, moreover, attended the efforts of the new councillors to prosecute the war. The fleet which was raised with the money taken from the clergy was the one which Pembroke lost at Eochelle in 1372. Then Edward III. led his ships out of Southampton to be driven back again by adverse winds, and the next year John of Gaunt led his ill-fated expedition into the heart of France. At home in the meantime, while English ships were sunk at sea and English soldiers were dying like flies on the fatal march across 1376] THE GOOD PARLIAMENT 393 France, the court was openly parading its shame; Alice Ferrers was allowed to traffic in her influence with the king, and her favorites traded in the claims of his hapless creditors. Mismanagement, extravagance, overwhelming failure, the scandals of the court, and the evident helplessness of the king, at last brought on the inevitable reaction. In 1376 the rlifi^^The^' Black Prince came forth from his seclusion, and, making ment^^^^^^' common cause with William of Wykeham and the earl of March, put himself at the head of the opposition. In the parliament known as the'*Good Parliament,'' which metin April, Peter de la Mare, steward of the earl of March, who had been elected speaker, proceeded with great boldness to discuss the misman- agement of the government, and demanded an account of recent re- ceipts and expenditures before new supplies should be granted. The duke of Lancaster bullied and blustered. "What do these base and ignoble knights attempt? Do they think they be kings or princes of the land? I deem they know not what power I be of. I will therefore in the morning appear unto them so glorious, and will show such power among them, and with such vigor will terrify them, that neither they nor theirs shall dare henceforth to provoke me to wrath." But de la Mare was supported by men who were not to be dazzled by the prince's glory or frightened by his blus- ter. A new council was organized ; William of Wykeham was restored and the duke of Lancaster was sent into retirement. The parliament then began a direct attack upon three mem- bers of the council, Latimer, Lyons, and Neville, and also upon Alice Ferrers. ''Their method of attack was almost as im- portant as the attack itself, for the Commons proceeded by impeaching the accused before the House of Lords. In this method of procedure the House of Commons, as a body, appears as prosecutors. The lords act as judges; hear the evidence brought by the managers before the Commons, their speeches upon it, and the answer of the accused, and finally pronounce by a majority the verdict and sentence." Lyons had the impudence to attempt to save himself by sending to the Black Prince a bribe of £1,000, done up in a cask "us if it had been a barrel of sturgeon." Latimer and Lyons were found guilty of robbing the 394 SECOND STAGE OF HUNDRED YEARS* WAR [edward hi. king under the guise of lending him money; Neville of trading in the king's debts; but strange to say, the most serious charge they could make good against Alice Ferrers was a violation of an ordi- nance which forbade a woman to practice in a court of law. Before the sitting of the Good Parliament was concluded the Black Prince died. His death at once brought forwai'd the ques- tion of the succession. The parliament greatly feared Black Prince, the ambition of John of Gaunt, and, believinsr him capa- ble of any crime, the Commons entreated the king to bring them the little "Eichard of Bordeaux," the son of the Black Prince, that he might be formally honored as the heir to the crown. They also persuaded the king to strengthen his council by the addition of ten more members representing the popular party. •In July the Good Parliament broke up with the feeling that all had been done well ; but the members had hardly reached their Return of ^omes before John of Gaunt resumed his old place, 'oaunfto Alice Pcrrers was brought back, the late speaker was power. arrested and put in prison, and a long list of charges brought against William of Wykeham. The new members of the council, also, were denied a seat, and of a list of one hundred and forty petitions, embodying the grievances for which the Good Parliament had humbly sought redress, not one received the assent of the crown. In January 1377 a new parliament was summoned, packed to suit the ideas of John of Gaunt, and the work of the Good Parliament was speedily undone. The new parliament also wrestled with the question of supplies, and signalized itself by vot- ing a poll tax of 4d. on all persons, male or female, over fourteen years of age, a kind of tax "hitherto unheard of." While the party of John of Gaunt were thus carrying things with a high hand in the council and in the parliament, convocation was preparing to take up the cudgels in defense Wym^i377 ^^ ^^^ church. The unjust attack upon Wykeham, had roused the churchmen to strike back. They could not reach John of Gaunt directly, but they could strike him by attacking his ally and supporter John Wyclif. This remarkable man had first appeared in Oxford as a student. He had soon made himself master of the existing scholastic system and won a reputa- 1361-1376] JOHN^ WYCLIF 395 tion among the distinguished scholars of the university. He was also a controversialist of rare powers. He was by temperament witty and ever inclined to give a humorous turn to an argument; his mind was acute and well sharpened by long training in the methods of the scholastic philosophy. His personal character, also, was beyond reproach, and his genial, snnny nature had won him many friends. In 1361 he had become master of Balliol. He had also taken a prominent part in a conflict which had been stirred up against the influence of the mendicant orders at the uni- versity. In 13G6 he had boldly assailed the pope's claim of feudal supremacy over England, publicly defending the action of parlia- ment in refusing to continue the annual tribute. Two years later he had more formally set forth his views in his ** Theory ^iJiuri368 ^^ Dominion," the famous Be Dominio Divino^ in which he asserted that all right of dominion must depend upon true relations with God, the supreme suzerain of the uni- verse; that kings are vicars of God as truly as popes, and that the state is as sacred as the church. Such views had naturally attracted a man like John of Gaunt, who was not over-shrewd even for a politician, who, while failing to comprehend the remote logical application of Wyclif's theories in establishing the responsibility of the individual and the liberty of the individual conscience, thought only of the support which the views of Wyclif would give to a party built up ostensibly upon the principle of opposition to the usurpations of churchmen in the state. Wyclif on his part had accepted the alliance, apparently, without question. Did he know the real character of the man whom he thus supported? The vicious and unscrupulous baron, who ostentatiously paraded his principles in order to cloak his motives, and the high-minded and single-hearted doctor to whom double dealing was an impossibility, were surely a strange team to be yoked together. Yet, happily or unhappily, they found themselves in accord upon the one point, that it was high time that the fine feathers of the church should be plucked and that the clergy should be reduced to their simple spiritual functions. John of Gaunt, therefore, had found in Wyclif a useful ally, and had takeiL him to Bruges in 1374 in order to negotiate the truce with France and also to bring the pope to agree 39G SECOND STAGE OF HUNDRED YEARS' WAR [edward III. to some adjustment of the matter of provisors, as well as to argue in general the relation of England and the papacy. It was natural, therefore, that Wyclif should share in the opprobrium which had fallen upon John of Gaunt's government, and that the clerical party should single him out for 'w^cuT^^^ attack as a counter to the attack upon Wykeham. He was accordingly summoned to appear before a commit- tee of bishops at St. Paul's in London. John of Gaunt assumed the duty of protecting him and seeing fair play. The people, who were deeply interested in the trial because of its political bearing, also came in great numbers and packed the hall. Wyclif was the last to enter, and when the judges left him standing, Henry Percy, the friend of Lancaster, who had come with him to the trial, ordered a seat to be given to the prisoner. The judges refused and a bitter altercation followed in which the people finally took part; the whole affair ended in a riot. The duke of Lan- caster fled to Kensington where he was protected by the widow of the Black Prince, who was very popular with the Londoners. Although the duke had come out of the affair without much dig- nity, he had perhaps accomplished his purpose. The trial had been broken up, and Wycliff had been saved, at least from a formal condemnation by the ministers of the church. The attempted trial of Wyclif was held in February. On June 21 Edward III. breathed his last, and with his death the schemes of John of Gaunt for the time came to an end. So DeamnfEd- ended in its fifty-first year the long reign of Edward the imfortauT'^' Little. Its features of greatest importance, if not of features^of greatest interest to the ordinary reader, are not his dramatic campaigning and his brilliaijt victories; but first, the increasing authority of parliament; second, the beginnings of social and religious revolution ; and third, a genuine revival of national feeling, which found expression in a new English liter- ature and gave new importance and dignity to the English lan- guage. First, the reign of Edward III. is marked by a steady increase in the authority of parliament as a factor in the government. The Statute of York, 1322, had definitely established the right of 1322-1377] INCREA8IXG AUTHORITY OP PARLIAMENT 397 the Commons to a share in the deliberations of parliament. During the early part of Edward III.'s reign the knights of tlie shire began regularly to sit with the representatives dignityofthe of the towns ^ and thus greatly enhanced the dignity and importance of the inferior house, enabling it to claim a voice in the government of the nation and to defend the liberties of the people in a way which was not possible as long as it was composed of simple deputies whose sole function was to consent to taxation or to advise upon matters of trade. ^ The advance in the dignity and usefulness of the Commons was only a phase of a general increase in the activity and authority of parliament as a whole, largely a result of the Hundred adfritTand ^^^^'^^ Viiw. Frequcut sessions were necessary; dur- paHUiinau. ^'^^ ^^"^ periods the parliaments were virtually annual.^ The well-known shiftiness of tho king, his frequent attempts to secure money contrary to the spirit of the laws as con- firmed by Edward I., required the utmost watchfulness and devel- oped a clearness of vision and boldness, as well, worthy of the days of Pym and Hampden. As a result of this faithful persistence in holding the king to the paths prescribed by the laws, three very important constitutional principles, all bearing directly upon the authority of parliament, and all more or less clearly expressed iij formal law, passed into definite practice: 1. No legislation could be binding upon the nation witliout the concurrence of both houses. 2. The king might not raise money by taxes, loans, or otherwise, without the consent of parliament; any such attempt on the king's part was henceforth illegal, and it was within the right of the subject to resist the king's officers who sought thus to take his property. John Hampden could not go farther. 3. The king's ministers were directly responsible to parliament and might be impeached.* ^ This change must have taken place before 1347. See Taswell-Lang- mead, p. 220. 2 Taswell-Langmead, pp. 220, 221. ^ There are 48 recorded sessions during the 50 years of Edward III. 's reign. * For summary of the steps by which these principles passed into prac- tice, see Taswell-Langmead, pp. 226-334. 398 SECOKD STAGE OF HUNDRED YEARS' WAR [edwabd ill. Second, the reign of Edward III. witnessed the beginnings of great social and religious movements which were to result on the one hand in the abolition of villainage in England and religious on the Other in the complete severance of England from movements of , , , _ ^ ,11,1 Edwardiii.'s the great European system represented by the papacy. Edward and his ministers had little to do with the first of these movements, save to accelerate it by their foolish Statute of Labourers. New conditions made villainage no longer a paying institution and the landlord was forced to accept other relations to the laboring class. With the second of these movements Edward had much to do. The contiguity of the papal court to France, the undoubted French influence at Avignon, involved the popes even against their will in the hostility which a generation of war had bred in the breasts of Englishmen against the French nation, teaching them to look upon the papacy as a foreign institution. The continued demands of the papacy, its interference in the ecclesiastical affairs of England, also, opened the eyes of English- men to the real significance of the appellate jurisdiction of the pope's court and the claim of the pope to appoint to English liv- ings. The Statute of Provisors and the Statute of Praemunire are the first paragraphs of the English Declaration of Independ- ence. It was impossible, furthermore, for such a movement to stop simply with an attack upon the political authority of the pope. The abuses which had crept into the church were too widespread and flagrant, the sufferings of the people were too acute. Men were not lacking who dared to proceed from institutions to doctrines, and question the foundations of the entire ecclesiastical system. This religious revival, however, associated with the name of Wyclif, really belongs to the next generation and must not be confused with the estrangement. of the English government and the papacy, which began with Edward III. Third, the reign of Edward III. is marked by a pronounced growth of the national spirit. The traits of nationality had begun to develop even before the Norman Conquest and had continued in a steady and sturdy growth. Yet some elements were still lacking. The Englishman had a language of his own and the beginnings of a literature, but he had not learned either to respect. 1362-1393] LANGLAND AND PIERS PLOWMAN 399 the one or to love the other. The Latin had never yielded its place as the language of the church and the university. The pliant and nimble French had displaced the more uncouth English in the court and in the schools. William the Conqueror had tried to learn English but with poor success. Other kings had not made the effort at all. Even Edward III. spoke English with difficulty. Ralph Iligden, a writer of the times, deplores the custom of com- pelling English boys, against the practice of all other nations, to construe their lessons in French ; a practice, which he declares, had been followed since the Norman Conquest. The French had also invaded the law courts and the parliaments. It had taken pos- session of the shops and was fast becoming the language of trade and commerce. Since the beginning of the war, however, the hostility of the English toward the French people had extended to their language and the use of the foreign tongue had rapidly fallen off. In 1362 the people had become so unaccustomed to the French that the law courts were ordered by statute to conduct their proceedings in English.* In 1363 for the first time the chancellor opened parliament with a speech in English. The vigor with which the English were turning to their own tongue again is also shown in the great literary creations of the next reign which are associated with the names of matiterpieces Wyclif, Langland, and Chaucer. Wyclif discarded the ponderous Latin of the university and spoke directly to the people in the homely speech of the plowboy and the village smith: **Let clerks enditen in Latin, and let Frenchmen in their French also enditen their quaint terms, for it is kindly to their mouths, but let us show our fantaseys in such words as were learnden of our dames tongue." Innumerable tracts, but most of all his English Bible, masterpieces all of the simple chaste English of the people in their best moments, show how well Wyclif kept to his purpose. Of William Langland little is known save his poem, *'The Vision of Piers Plowman." The poem is a running satire of the time, presented in the form of a vision or dream, in which in a plain "full of folk," the dreamer watches the mad struggle for * The records were still kept in Latin. 400 SECOKD STAGE OF HUNDRED YEARS' WAR [edward iii. place and pelf, so nnseemly in men of high calling. He deplores the evil practices of the church; he beholds Lady Mead, — re- ward or bribery, — obtaining bishoprics for fools; he Langiand. draws droU pictures of the hunting priest, lazy, ioviaL The Vmon of .... ^ .^ . , ^ . . . Piers hard drinkmsr, who comes to church lust in time to Plowman. . •* hear the Ita missa est; but finds only severe words for the professional pardoners and the herd of knaves who traffic in holy things. Yet he has no thought of doing away with the church, the hierarchy, or its doctrines, and only prays for its amendment from the pope down. The same wholesome sense, a desire for reform rather than revolution, is revealed in Langland's view of the political society of his day. His sympathies are with the people, yet there is place and need for all the great ones in the well-ordered England. The king is necessary as the head of the state to rule the commons and *'holy kirke and clergy fro cursede men to defende." King and parliament are the law-makers ; the knights defend the priest and the laborer; the merchant's wealth must restore the broken bridges and support the scholars. Even lovely ladies with their ^'longe fyngres" have their tasks with the needle. But supporting all, feeding all, is the humble plowman. Piers, bending to his daily toil, patient as his oxen. The teaching of the poem is wholesome and sound. The welfare of the state depends upon the harmony and mutual support of all classes. The great have their tempta- tions which they may avoid by marrying Lady Mead to Sir Knight Conscience. Piers Plowman is not to be despised. He is the main support of the state. In his humble, unadorned, bat honest life, free from the elements that lead other men astray, Truth finds a congenial home. Unlike Langiand, Chaucer is the poet of the court. The art and elegance of the French love poets are his, in marked contrast with the unadorned alliterations of Langiand. His spirit, moreover, is of the Eenaissance, nor does he hesi- tate to draw his themes from Petrarch or Boccaccio. His sym- pathy is with the upper classes. He is neither religious reformer, nor social reformer. He bears no burdens. He loves life for its own sake, and sees in the foibles of those about him, themes CHAUCER 401 whereon to make merry rather than to mourn. His days were passed in the midst of business and pleasure. He was courtier, traveler, office holder, and pensioner; nor was he wanting in that variety of fortune which so often falls to one who is dependent upon the smile of the great for daily bread. His pictures of life and manners, particularly of the clergy, are not therefore always to be taken in full confidence. Like Wyclif, he was a partisan of John of Gaunt, and reflects the views which prevailed among the men of that following. He had, however, none of the reformer's sincerity of purpose. Nor can we avoid suspecting the honesty of a man who could thus lament the downfall of Pedro the Cruel, the passing favorite of the English court: **0 noble, O worthy Pedro, glory of Spain, Whom fortune held so high in majesty." His best known book is the '^Canterbury Tales," written prob- ably in the later years of his life and left incomplete. He brings together at the Tabard Inn in London, a company of hury^Taiel' "^^^ ^'^^ women from various classes of society, all bound on a pilgrimage to the shrine of the popular Thomas jI Becket of Canterbury. Here, then, in the stories and conversa- tions of the pilgrims, as they lope along in the easy, rocking can- ter, the favorite Canterbury gallop, is the England of the fourteenth century in miniature; its dress, its foibles, its heart songs and its laughter, its meanness and its weakness. Here is the "very perfect gentle knight," just returned from his battles and adventures in the wars, accompanied by his squire; the sturdy yeoman, he who gave such good account of himself at Crecy and Poitiei-s, who with professional pride keeps his good bow like an experienced archer. There is also the hunting monk, who cares not a groat for the rules of his order ; the mendicant friar, a sturdy beggar, "wanton and merry;" the summoner whose fiery face is a terror to the children ; the pardoner with his wallet "brimful of pardons come from Rome all hot," who can rake in more money from a country parish than the parson can get in two months, an arrant knave who knows more than one trick of wheedling the coppers out of the purses of simple country folk. Then, too, there 402 SECOND STAGE OF HUNDRED YEARS' WAR [edward ill. is the brighter side of church life; the gentle, dainty prioress is there wilh her courtly French lisp, her refined manners and tender heart; the earnest parson, poor, loving, and self-sacrificing, the salt of the church to keep it all from rotting. Of the learned classes, the physician, the lawyer, and the Oxford student are also there; other characters also, such as the merchant, the miller, the cook, the reeve, and finally the plowman, suggesting the inspira- tion of Langland, as the parson suggests Wyclif. These characters are not allegories or mythical creatures of the past, but the real men and women of the England of the fourteenth century, who bore its burdens and felt its sorrows; the men who fought out the Hundred Years' War, who caught the glow of the morning and made merry in the conscious sense of the new life which was at hand; a life which they could feel, but could not comprehend. CONTEMPORARIES OF EDWARD III. KINGS OP FRANCE Philip IV., d. 1314 Louis X., d. 1316 Philip v., d. 1322 Chas. IV., d. 1328 Philip VI., d. 1350 John, d. 1364 Charles V. POPES Era of Babylonian Captivity, 1309-1376 Began with Clement V., 1305- 1314, and ended with Greg- ory XI., 1370-1378, no great popes. ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY The only great name of the era is tliat of Thomas Bradwardin, the theolo- gian and mathematician, who died of the plague forty days after his con- secration, 1349. EMPERORS Henry VII., d. 1313 Louis IV., d. 1347 Charles IV. KINGS OF CASTILE Ferdinand IV., d. 1312 Alplionso XI., d. 1350 Pedro, d. 1368 Henry II. KINGS OF SCOT- LAND Robert I., d. 1329 David II., d. 1370 Robert II. FAMOUS MEN NOT SOVEREIGNS James van Arteveldt, 1285- 1345. Thomas Bradwardin, 1290- 1349. Cola di Rienzi, 1313-1354 Stephen Marcel, d. 13.58 Francesco Petrarch, 1304- 1374 Giovanni Boccaccio, 1313- 1375 Edward Prince of Wales. "the Black Prince," 1330-1376 Bertrand du Guesclin, 13-iO?-1380 John Wyclif, 1324-1384 AVilliam Langland, 1330?- 1400? Geoffrey Chaucer, 1340?-1400 Jean Froissart, 1337-1410 CHAPTER V THE PEASANT REVOLT. THE ATTACK OF THE KING UPON THE CONSTITUTION RICHARD II. 1377-1.199 Upon the death of Edward, John of Gannt made no attempt to continue his control of the government. Possibly he thought that as the eldest living uncle of the child king his influence reign of Rich- WU8 assuredi for although the barons manifested no a\s- nrdll. Rec- . . ' . , . • i nnciiiatwn position to appoint liim either regent or protector, and at once vested Kichard with the full rights of a sover- eign, yet as long as the period of the minority continued, the powerful duke must naturally remain the first among the little king's political tutors. The enemies of John of Gaunt on their part were apparently as reluctant as he to push the quarrel farther, and in the presence of the distractions which confronted the state were ready to abandon partisan strife in the interests of the new reign. The accession of Richard, therefore, was the signal for a general reconciliation of all parties. Peter de la Mare was released from prison. The charges against William of Wykeham were dropped, and the prelate and the duke were formally reconciled. When the new parliament met in October, although the mood of the members on the whole was likewise conciliatory, they had no thought of dropping the work which the Good Par- GmSpariki- ^^^^^^^ had begun. They were still suspicious of John umid^ of Gaunt and would allow neither him nor his brothers a place in the royal council; yet they did not object to his friend, Richard Fitz-Alan Earl of Arundel. The Commons again made de la Mare their speaker as a matter of course. They also demanded that annual parliaments be required by law; that statutes once sanctioned by the crown be enrolled without 403 404 THE PEASANT REVOLT [richakd ii. change or amendment by the council ; that the evil counsellors of Edward be removed; that the lords name the chancellor, treasurer, and barons of the exchequer, and that during the king's minority these ministers be not removed without the advice of the lords. They also voted a subsidy for the war, but demanded that the control of the funds be put in the hands of two treasurers who should be responsible to parliament. The men chosen were Wil- liam Walworth and John Philipot, prominent citizens of Loudon. It was high time that the advisers of the young king awoke to the serious nature of the troubles which threatened the state. The skv was portentous with coming storm. The war oftrouUes with France had not only long since ceased to be profit- frontedncw able but had inflicted upon the people a constantly increasing burden of taxation. The great peasant class, who numbered one half the population of England, upon whom, as Langland had tried to show, the whole superstructure of state and society rested, no longer bore their load with the old-time ox-like patience. It is not likely that their terrible strength was more than dimly understood either by themselves or their masters, or that an actual rising was apprehended. Yet there was certainly reason for disquiet in the minds of tliose who were directing the government. The endless taxes were collected with ever-increas- ing difficnlty and the returns were as unsatisfactory.^ The pro- prietary classes, instead of rallying to the support of the state, with customary shortsightedness were inclined to unload their own burdens upon the people. The tide of war, also, which had so long desolated France was now at last approaching England. The very, week after Edward's death the French burned Rye; and in the snmmer following they continued their depredations, striking various exposed points on the southern coast. The Scots also were restless and active, and the condition of the borders added not a little to the anxiety of the ministry. The French war was directly responsible for the beginning of ^ The failure of the several levies of this period to realize the amounts expected, was probably due to the success of a disloyal people in cheating the collectors quite as much as to the blunders of the ministers in making their estimates. 1379, 1380] THE POLL TAX 405 the troubles of Eicliard's reign, as it was for most of the trouble of this era. John of Gaunt had persuaded the council to entrust him with the money, which had been recently granted by parlia- Beginnirw ™®^^> i^ Order that he might fit out a fleet and clear %hepw^' ^^® Channel. The attempt was a failure as might be m^liaso. expected of any thing committed to the care of John of Gaunt. He then crossed to Brittany and attacked St. Malo, but, baffled by the obstinate courage of the burghers, was again forced to return without results. The ministry had now spent their money, and they hesitated to ask parliament for another subsidy. In their strait they turned to the new plan of taxing people by the head ; a scheme which commended itself to the proprietary classes because it promised to relieve them somewhat by compelling the landless poor and the clergy to bear a part of the burden of taxa- tion. The measure had been resorted to by John of Gaunt's parlia- ment of 1377, but the levy of a groat a head had failed to return a sum adequate to the needs of the state. It was determined, therefore, to increase the net sum, at the same time relieving the measure of the charge of injustice by grading the tax according to rank. A duke was to pay £6 13s. 4d. ; an earl £4; and so down to the villain who paid his groat as before. The clergy also paid by a similar scale. The amount, however, owing to a very simple blunder of the financiers, fell short of the estimate by about one-half, and in 1380 parliament levied a third poll tax, but with no such just graduation ' as in the previous year. The humblest villain had now to pay a shilling for each member of his family of fifteen years of age and upward, while the richest man in the king- dom paid only a pound. The tax was a fatal blunder. Inflammatory elements were scat- tered everywhere ; the strife of landlord and villain was increasing ^., , in bitterness daily; the free laborer and the wandering Wide-spread • t , ^ inflammatnnj artisan, under the Statute of Labourers, were treated as elements. . . vagrants; disbanded soldiers from the wars, broken in fortune and swelling with pride and mischief, wandered every- where; begging friars, the newsmongers and gossips of the times, brought the news of the day to the humblest and added their own flery editorials; incendiary priests, like John Ball of Kent, 406 THE PEASANT REVOLT [richard ll. preached the rights of man to eager multitudes, and even dared to question the whole existing social order. When, therefore, the third poll tax was announced, it needed only the irritation caused by the attempt of the officials to enforce The rising Collection to cause the seething waters to overflow. peasants, "^^^ ^^^^ Outbreak occurred near Tilbury in Essex 1381. about the last week in May. A few days later trouble began in Kent. By June 10, the counties of the lower Thames were up from end to end; manors were burned, manor rolls destroyed, and bailiffs, lawyers, and particularly obnoxious land- lords, hunted down and murdered in cold blood. Everywhere the same scenes* of violence were enacted, though with ever changing variety in the grim details. Then, when the special objects which had roused the wrath of the people in their home districts had been destroyed, the mobs, maddened by their very successes and still unsated, from all the *^home counties" began marching upon London. The insurrection in the meanwhile continued to spread. By the 19th of June it had reached Somerset and on the 23d it had reached Yorkshire. There were echoes even in distant Devon and Cornwall and in remote Chester, though the extent of the out- breaks here is not known. The government was helpless to protect its subjects or even to defend itself. At the first break of the storm an expedition lay at Plymouth ready for the French wars, but, not realizing Helplessness ^^^ importance of the crisis, the leaders had put out to government. ^^^^ rpj^^ ^^^ other force of any importance in the kingdom was with Percy on the Scottish border. The nobles and their retainers were scattered over the kingdom and owing to the rapid spread of the insurrection it was impossible for them to gather in any force sufficient to disperse or overawe the gathering mobs. Without any trained police force at command, without any standing army, the government could only look on and await developments. On the 12th of June an army of Kentish insurgents lay encamped on Black Heath, within five miles of the Southwark end of London Bridge. All day long their ranks were swelled by other arrivals from the towns and villages of Surrey and even from the 1381] LOKDOi^ IN THE HANDS OF THE MOB 407 distant wolds of Sussex. William Walworth, now mayor of London, had no sympathy with the risings and had fully determined to keep the insurgents out of the city, but he was overborne ter'uSmT by the advice of some of his aldermen who were Jumi2. supported by the city populace, and on the 13th the great drawbridge which cut off London from the Southwark side was lowered and the peasants from the southern counties were allowed to stream across the bridge into the city. The same even- ing another horde which had been advancing from Essex encamped at Mile End, while the northern heights were occupied by still other insurgents who had come down from Hertford and St. Albans. Here also the city authorities, more than half in sym- pathy with the rebels, failed to keep the gates closed, and in a short time these new streams were allowed to swell the tide of riot and lawlessness that was already roaring through the streets of the city. A wild afternoon and night followed. John of Gaunt, fortu- nately for himself, had been called north by threat of new trouble with Scotland, but his beautiful palace, the Savoy, was at Vie mis in ^and and upon this the people first vented their wrath. j^mZ: '^^^ Temple, the Inns of Court, and other buildings associated in the popular mind with the hateful laws which they hoped to overturn, were fired and all legal records destroyed that could be found. The jails, also, were opened and their populations turned loose to join in inaugurating the reign of terror. From arson and plunder the rioters soon passed to murder; seizing their victims in church and sanctuary, and drag- ging them forth to be dispatched in the presence of the applauding* multitude. The council with the king had very early sought refuge behind the strong walls of the Tower, and their asylum soon became the focus towards which all the many streams of rioters Miie'End, began to converge as if by common consent, clamoring unei4. i^j. ^j^^ death of the ministers who were hiding within. Through a sleepless night the king and his ministers *'sat with awful eye," while ever and again ''the most horrible of all sounds, the roar of a mob howling for blood, penetrated the grim walls." The council in despair offered to parley with the insurgents, and 408 THE PEASAJ^T REVOLT [ ElCUAltD II. it was finally agreed that if they would retire to Mile End the king would meefc them and hear their grievances. The king was as good as his word, and on the morning of the 14th rode out to the rendezvous accompanied by a group of nobles, heard the demand of the peasants for freedom and graciously granted that they should never again "be named or held for serfs." A general pardon was also promised, and a small army of clerks were soon at work drawing up the necessary charters. Within the city affairs were not going as well. Apparently only a part of the rebels had kept the tryst with the king, and those who staid behind, in some unaccountable way,^ The masi >■ /k'"'?f ■fi ;%!,' ■' I L P A^iMAM 1415] THE CAMPAIGN OF AGINCOURT 445 The troops were already gathering at Northampton, when rumor was brought to Henry of a conspiracy to carry off the earl of March to Wales and there proclaim him king. The Y<^kisi lot P^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^® sprung after Henry had left England, while he was involved in the toils of a distant campaign in the interior of France. The chief plotter was Richard Earl of Cambridge, who had married Anne Mortimer and represented his wife's interests as heir to the throne next after the earl of March. Cambridge and his fellow conspirators were arrested and, upon confession of their guilt, executed. The affair made no difference in the friendship of Henry for the earl of March, who apparently was not a party to the plot and had been the first to warn the king, nor for Edward the new diike of York, the elder brother of Cambridge. The affair, *s it turned out, was of little importance of itself, yet it served to keep Henry in mind of the shadows which ever lurked about the Lancastrian throne. On the 10th of August Henry began the crossing of the Chan- nel, and landing at Chef de Caux advanced to the siege of Harfleur Thecam- ^^ ^^® 17th. Unlike Edward III., he knew how to ^jincmirt "a^ke the most of an advantage. Instead of wasting ^^^^- time in burning hayricks and slaughtering cattle, he fixed upon certain strategic points and bent all his energies upon securing these as a new basis of attack upon the enemy. The fall of Harfleur, after a heroic defense of more than thirty days, at once gave him control of the valley of the lower Seine. His army, however, had been so wasted that he dared not attack Paris ; he therefore retired toward Calais with the idea of joining forces with the duke of Burgundy. His experience was much that of Edward in 134(5 ; the bridges were broken down before him ; the country was hostile, the inhabitants removing everything that his army might subsist on. Weary and famished, the English approached the Somme at Edward III.'s old ford of Blanche-Tache, only to be compelled to retrace its banks as far as Amiens before they could secure a crossing. At last they neared Calais to find near the castle of Agincourt the French blocking their way in overwhelm- ing numbers. The English now^ had hardly 6,000 available men. Yet they 446 LANCASTER AND THE CONSTITUTION [henbtV. The battle, Oct 25, 1415. were buoyed up by the memory of former victories and by the mar- velous spirit of their leader. ''I would not have a single man more," he cried; "if God give us victory it will be plain that we owe it to his grace ; if not, the fewer we are, the less loss for England." The French, outnum- bering the English six to one and therefore overconfident, allowed Henry to select his ground, a narrow plowed field flanked by hedges and thickets. The archers were placed in front, each man protected from the rush of cavalry by a six-foot stake sharpened at the ends and so set in the ground as to receive upon its slant- ing point the breast of a charging horse. The field was sod- den with re- cent rains and so soft that the men-at-arms sank to the ankle in the moist earth. It was almost impassable for horse. The French accordingly refused to advance, and drawing up their men-at-arms, the most of them on foot as at Poitiers, stood so wedged together that the knights could with difficulty use their swords. Two bodies of horse were marshalled on the wings of the first rank, designed to charge the English archers. Henry waited in his position for hours ; but the French refused to move. The English were without food and fight they must or surrender. When it became evident that the French were not to be lured into making the attack, Henry ordered forward his bow- 1415-1419] RESULTS OF AGINCOURT 447 men, who advanced lightly over the soft ground until they came within range of the enemy, and then with a hearty English cheer, sent their arrow-flight into the dense ranks before them. The French horsemen attempted to sweep down upon the flanks, but only to flounder and wallow in the soft earth, while the English men-at-arms advanced and closed in upon the first line. For a few minutes the press was terrible, when a well timed attack of the English horse on the flanks threw the French into confusion. The second line was broken in the same way and then the English advanced to attack the third. It was at this moment that Henry gave his order for the massacre of the prisoners. The deed, so out of keeping with all that we know of Henry's character, can be explained only by the supposition that he thought at the moment that the enemy were about to attack him from the rear, and he feared that the prisoners of whom the English had taken a great many might also turn upon him. Then he attacked the third line and the battle was won. The immediate effect of Agincourt was to turn upon Henry the eyes of Europe as its most brilliant captain, its most glorious Remiu of ^^"S- England went wild with enthusiasm ; his return Agincourt, ^^s a triumph. No one thought of the flaw in his title to the English throne, or the double flaw in his title to the French throne. The Emperor Sigismund, fresh from the triumph of the Council of Constance, where the great schism of the church had finally been closed, came to visit him, in order that here too he might play out his little farce of peacemaking. But with the eyes of England dazzled by the glories of Agincourt, and parliament lavishly voting supplies to Henry for life, peace even after the order of Sigismund was not to be thought of ; and the emperor departed as he came, having first been allowed to salve his pride by entering into an alliance with the conqueror of France. Henry in the meanwhile was preparing to take full advantage of his victory. He raised the royal navy once more to its old The cam- efficiency, and while the Burgundians and Armagnacs Normandy ^^®^'® fighting before Paris, began a campaign for the 1417-1419. conquest of Normandy. His treatment of the con- quered country was firm but conciliatory. He came, he announced, 448 LANCASTER AND THE CONSTITUTION [hknuyV. to give peace to the land and save the people from the curse of civil strife. He forbade his men to pillage, or to abuse the peasantry. As city after city fell into his hands, it was a part of his regular program to establish in each place an orderly govern- ment, and to assure the burghers of his purpose to give them a better protection than the French. The steady advance of the English finally brought the French nobles to their senses and led to an attempt to bring the duke of Burgundy and the court party together. A meeting Hon of Duke was arranged to take place upon the bridge at Montereau John of Bur- gundij,Aug., between Duke John and the Dauphin Charles who now 1419. ■ . . represented the stricken king. But the hatred of the Armagnac for the Burgundian was deep seated; the blood of the duke of Orleans was still unavenged, and as the traitorous Burgun- dian knelt before the Dauphin in the act of renewing his oath of homage, an old servant of the duke of Orleans rushed upon him and smote him to death. The breach between Burgundy and Armagnac was now irreparable; the duke's son Philip, with all his following, including the great city of Paris where Duke John was very popular, again went over to the English, and the Armagnac court were compelled to accept such peace as Henry was willing to give them. The peace was- concluded at Troyes, May 21, 1420. By it the Dauphin was excluded from the succession. Charles YI. was to remain kins: in name until his death ; Henry was to Treaty of . . TroyeH,May marry his daughter Catharine, be recognized as ''heir of France," and govern the kingdom as regent. Henry now returned to England to crown his new queen at AVestminster and enjoy his triumph in the midst of his people. He had succeeded where Edward III. had failed. The crown of France was won; his son after him should wear the crown of both nations. But Henry was about to commit the same blunder which Edward I. had made in dealing with the Scots; he forgot the people. If the French crown was won, France was not. The Dauphin Charles, who was by no means inclined to sub- mit to the disinheritance prescribed by the Treaty of Troyes, had retired south of the Loire, whither in time flocked all the discon- 1421, 1422] DEATH OF HENRY V. 449 tented elements of the nation. The Dauphin, frivolous, dissipated, and unworthy of the people's trust, was a poor leader for such a forlorn hope; yet the people clung to him as their last refuge. lie was thus strong in the very desperateness of his cause, nor were Henry's lieutenants a match for the seasoned warriors whom the Prince now pitted against them. His brother Thomas March 22, Duke of Clarence was defeated and slain at Bauge and 1421. ^ . Henry himself was forced to hasten from Westminster to enter the field again in defense of his new crown. He drove the Dauphin south of the Loire and then turned upon Meaux. Here he was compelled to sit down and wait seven months, while dysentery, Rirthnf ^^® scourgc of the armics of the fifteenth century, Da-llLhere ^^™^^ off his men. The only ray to brighten the tedi- ^^^' ous waiting of that long and fatal winter, was the news of the birth of a son, who was straightway christened Henry. On the 10th of May 1422, Meaux surrendered ; but Henry had little opportunity to rest and was at once called north again by the renewed activity of the Dauphin. On the way he was overtaken by the fell disease which had already laid low so many of his people. He died at Vincennes near Paris August 31, 1422. CHAPTER VII THE LAST STAGE OF THE HUNDRED YEAES' WAR. RIVALRY OF LANCASTER AND YORK THE HENRY VI., 1^2-1461 THE DESCENT OF THE RIVAL HOUSE OF YORK Lionel, Duke of Clarence, 3d son of Edward IIL, I d. 1368 Philippa= Edmund Mortimer. Earl of March, great-grandson of Roger Mortimer of Edward II. 's reign I Roger, Earl of March, killed in Ireland Edmund taken Elizabeth m. by Glendower Henry Percy, at Brynglas, "Hotspur" m, (xlendower's daughter Edmund, Earl of March, 1398-1424 Edmund, Duke of York, son of Edward III., (1. 1401 5th Edward, Earl of Rutland, Duke of York, killed at Agincourt 1415 Anne = Richard, Earl of Cam- I bridge executed 1415 Richard, Duke of = Cicely Neville York, killed at Wakefield 1460 \ Edward IV. 1461-1483 Edmund, Earl of Rutland slain at Wakefield 1460 i (Jeorge. Duke of (Marence, mur- dered in prison 1478 I Richard III., 1483-1485 Edward v., cl.l483 I Richard, Duke of York d. 1483 Elizabeth = Henry VIL The death of Henry V. left his two realms to a child eight months old. His brother John, Duke of Bedford, a man of ster- ling worth and ability of hiffh order, was appointed Siwcessionof . ^ -, Henry VL, regent of France and protector of England, w hen the duties of the regency carried Bedford to France, a second brother Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, was to have the title and assume the duties of protector. The arrangement was unfortunate. Duke Humphrey was a very different man from John of Bedford; he had a certain kind of showy ability; but he was also insanely ambitious, restless and reckless; the kind of man to 450 1422-1428] PROTECTORATE OP BEDFORD 451 make trouble unless held in by a strong hand. Henry Beaufort Bishop of Winchester, the great-uncle of the little king, was appointed to the chancellorship, where his personal worth and repu- tation for sound judgment did much to outweigh the mischievous influence of Duke Humphrey. Two months after the death of Henry V., poor Charles VL, forlorn and unattended, passed away at his palace of St. Paul in Paris. His death, however, changed in little the out- uiinries vti., look for the Dauphin, who possessed neither the men nor the resources to enable him to compete successfully with the English regent. Yet he assumed the title of Charles VII. and kept up a court as gaily as he could at Bourges. The first step of Bedford in strengthening the English hold upon the French crown was to form an active alliance with his two great vassals of Burgundy and Brittany, based upon a operawrm ^^^^ble marriage. He thus held control of almost cimrus VII ^^® entire seacoast of France, and also secured a fine base for operations in the regions east and west of Paris. He then began a series of campaigns designed to wrest from Charles his last hold north of the Loire. In 1423 his able lieutenant, Thomas Montague, Earl of Salisbury, won a decisive victory at Crevant, and the next year at Verneuil Bedford himself almost eclipsed the victory of his late brother at Agincourt. In two years nearly all the strongholds of Charles north of the Loire were taken. Bedford also still further weakened Charles by persuading the council to release James Stuart and enter into a league with him, in order to withdraw the Scots from the French alliance. The prince had been held in England for eighteen years. During the four years which followed the victory of Verneuil, the thoughtless ambition of Duke Humphrey did much to Reactum neutralize the results of Bedford's successes. He scan- 1424-1428! dalized good people, and offended the duke of Burgundy, by marrying Jacqueline of Hainault, the wife of the duke of Brabant, whose divorce was still in question and whose dominions were expected to fall to Duke Philip. At home, also, Humphrey quarreled with his fellow councillors, and the duke of Bedford had to cross the Channel in order to quiet the storm. The French 452 RIVALRY OF LANCASTER AND YORK [henryVL people, who had been somewhat confused at first by the marriage of Henry V. and the Princess Catharine and hardly knew which was the real national party, were now beginning to see the path of duty, if not of interest, more clearly and to regard the Dauphin as the champion of national independence. His misfortunes, also, appealed to them, if his character did not. Charles, moreover, had the experience of the past to draw from. Like Charles V., he sought to replace his feudal army by a professional soldiery, and even found another du Guesclin in the scarcely less famous Dunois. In other ways also the tide was turning against the English. Ten years had elapsed since the renewal of the war, and the first flush of enthusiasm had long since ebbed in England; it was no longer an easy matter to persuade parliaments to make annual grants, or to enlist men for endless campaigns against stone walls, where dysentery and camp fever were far more to be feared than French bombards. In 1428, it was determined by Bedford and his councillors to make one supreme effort to drive the Dauphin wholly south of the Loire, and to secure the great town of Orleans, the arimm^i428 strategic value of which in carrying on subsequent operations south of the river was well understood. It was a serious undertaking; the city was well manned and well pro- visioned; its position also was one of great natural strength. The English by the utmost endeavor could marshal an army of only 10,000 men, and this was still further weakened by the temporary withdrawal of the duke of Burgundy. Yet with this force, in Octo- ber 1428, they proceeded to invest the city. Early in the siege Salisbury, the hero of Crevant, who commanded the little English army, was killed by a cannon shot. This was a serious loss to the English; yet the garrison were so completely demoralized that for the most part they simply looked on while the little army of Eng- lishmen continued to build forts and plant batteries about the city. In the spring the French outside of the city plucked up courage suificient to attack a supply train, which Sir John Fastolf was con- voying to the English camp, but were beaten off with great slaughter. The supplies were mostly salt fish, hence the camp wits facetiously dubbed the encounter the *' Battle of the Her- 1428] JOAN OP ARC 453 rings. " This was the only serious attempt made by the French to interfere with the English during the first six months of the siege. The court was in despair; Charles gave up hope, and thought seriously of leaving Aquitaine altogether and seeking refuge in Dauphine or possibly even in Spain or Scotland. A great nation, like Balaam's ass, sometimes requires a vigorous drubbing to give it voice, and when it finds utterance at last, it is likely to speak in strange and startling ways. The natumai French people, not the titled nobility, had suffered long and sadly under the war. Generations had come and gone, and still the fire smouldered on. Frenchmen without num- ber had fallen in battle; died of wounds and mutilation; died of pestilence and famine. Thousands of French homes had been destroyed ; the children scattered ; wives and mothers had perished of hunger and exhaustion; still the dreadful war raged on. And now at last the end of all this suffering apparently was at hand ; and what had it all been for? Only that the foreigner might pos- sess the land, and that the last of the French native kings might die in exile. Whatever men might say of the chief actors, the cause was holy. Would not God himself interfere to save his people? It was this spirit of pure patriotism, very different from the self-seeking of noble and churchman, which found incarnation at last in a simple peasant girl of Domremy, Joan of Arc. Joan of Arc. ^, , , i i i ^ \ ^ She had pondered long upon the woes of her people, until the iron had entered her soul. Possibly her simple mind bent under the strain, — in the language of a modern materialistic age became deranged. But then all unselfish enthusiasm is of the nature of insanity. She believed in God and his saints; she believed in the destiny of her country; the simple creed of all true patriotism. She saw visions and heard voices. She had no choice but obedience. Her sacred enthusiasm inspired those about her with confidence, and with them she went forth to meet dangers, the real nature of which her rustic mind but dimly comprehended. On the 12th of February, 1429, Joan set out from Vaucouleurs, a king's town some thirteen miles from Domremy, to present her- self at the court of Charles VII. She was dressed and armed 454 EIVALRY OF LANCASTER AND YORK [henbt VI. like a man; by her side rode a few friends whom she had convinced of the reality of her visions and who were embued with her spirit. From Vaucouleurs on the borders of Lorraine to Chinon from Dom- where Charles was then holding his court, the distance remy. was two hundred and fifty miles; the country was infested by wandering bands of freebooters; every step was fraught with danger. Yet she made the journey without incident. At Chinon Joan met her first serious difiBculty in gaining an audience from the king and explaining her mission. Here she Joan and found characters to deal with very different from the charUs VII. simple peasant folk of her home. Yet the age was full of superstition; men lived with the spirit world ever at their elbows. Something about the strange maid in man's attire, her eyes lightened with holy enthusiasm, or possibly some crude tests devised by the churchmen in the royal suite, laid hold upon the young king's imagination. He and those about him were satisfied that she was sent either by Cod or the devil, — as men regarded such things then, about equally powerful and equally desirable as allies. Accordingly it was determined to give the ''wondrous maid" a trial and put her mission to the test. At Blois she came into direct contact with the wild and dissolute life of a pearanceof medieval army. She felt the contradiction with her Joan. own pure nature, and began her work by purging the camp. She inspired the rough soldiery with her religious enthu- siasm and brought grizzled warriors like children to the confes- sional, which most of them had neglected for years. The army from the depths of despair rose at once to the height of enthu- siasm; they believed that at last God had come to fight for them. The English on the other hand had their own explanation of the wonderful power of this new ally of the French; they saw in her a witch without question, an ally of the devil, and their courage melted accordingly. Their leaders could no longer bring them to face the dreadful champion of Charles. Joan entered Orleans without difficulty and at once began a series of vigorous sallies upon the forts with which the English had blocked the ways into the city. The besiegers, whose numbers 1429-1431] DEATH OF JOAN OF ARC 455 from the first had been inferior to the French, were swept from position after position, until on Sunday morning, the 8th of May, Success of 1^^9, they formally raised the siege and retired from Joan. before the city. A few days later the earl of Suffolk was defeated and captured at Jargeau ; then Sir John Talbot was over- whelmed at Patay; and at last on the 17th of July, Joan stood by the altar in the great Cathedral of Rheims, the ancient coronation city of the French kings, and saw Charles VII. crowned. The mission of the maid was now accomplished; but the king, against her judgment, persuaded her to remain with the army. She won no more successes; her simple soul was no Joan of Arc's match for the mean intrigues and jealousies of the camp, and in 1430 she was captured by the Burgundians at Compiegne, betrayed it is said by her former companions in arms, and then sold to the English, The English, who still cherished their old theory, thought, no doubt, to break the spell and restore the morale of their troops by destroying the alleged witch and thus vindicating the righteousness of their own cause. Joan was accordingly tried before a court of Norman and Biirgundian prelates who were determined to force from her the confession of witchcraft or to destroy her, or to do both. She was con- victed and sentenced to death by fire. The cruel command of the court was carried out at Rouen, May 30, 1431. The execution was a lasting disgrace to the English leaders and to their tools the French churchmen who authorized it; to King Charles and the French court who lifted not a finger to save the poor girl who gave her life for France. While English interests on the continent were passing through these trying vicissitudes, the council and parliament at home were more or less distracted by the continual quarreling of affairs at Gloucester and Henry Beaufort. In 1426 so intense was the feeling that their partisans almost came to blows; the parliament of the year is known as the ''Parliament of Bats" because each member came armed with a bludgeon. In 1427 Beaufort made the serious mistake of allowing the pope to raise him to the rank of cardinal, which, while it opened a larger arena for his commanding genius in the field of European politics, 456 RIVALRY OF LANCASTER AND YORK [hexry vi. put a new weapon in the hands of his enemies at home by ena- bling them to attack him directly as a friend of the pope, sold to the papal interests. Gloucester insisted that he should Temporary give up not Only his English bishopric but the chancel - Beaufort. lorship as well. But before the question could be set- tled, a service which Beaufort rendered the English army in the field .after the relief of Orleans, satisfied the waver- ing, and for the moment shamed even his enemies into silence. Yet he was glad to escape the hornets which Gloucester kept ever buzzing about his ears, and after the French coronation of the English king in 1431 he kept away from England for two years. On the continent in the six years which followed the death of Joan of Arc neither party was able to gain on the other. Yet in any prolonged struggle, time is always on the side of of^B^r^nT ^^ose who are fighting the defensive war. In 1433 the enthusiasm of parliament for the war had ebbed alto- gether; a debt of £160,000 had accumulated, enormous for the times, and, do what the ministers would, it continued to mount upwards at the rat^ of £20,000 a year. Exclusive of the troops detailed for garrison duty, Bedford could command barely 8,500 men for field duty. It was evident, therefore, that if the conquest were to be completed, it must be by the vigorous support of the duke of Burgundy. But unfortunately Bedford had managed to offend his powerful ally by marrying the sister of the Count of St. Pol, Burgundy's old time enemy. Burgundy had never been happy in the British alliance, and nothing but the fierceness of his desire for revenge upon the men who had so foully slain his father on the bridge of Montereau, had held him to the uncongenial task of making war for the glorification of a foreign king. The old wound, however, was now somewhat closed, and, smarting under the new offense inflicted by Bedford's marriage, the duke entered into secret negotiations with Charles VII. Pope Eugenius IV. in the meantime had summoned a congress at Arras in the of Arras, hopc of finding some ground upon which the peace of Europe might be restored. The peace congress met in August 1435, and the French were ready with a proposal which had been secretly agreed upon beforehand with Burgundy; they 1436-1440] INCREASING STRENGTH OF PEACE PARTY 457 offered to cede to the English Normandy and Aqiiitaine on con- dition that the English renounce their claims to the French crown. The English, as was expected, promptly rejected the proposal, and four weeks later Burgundy renounced the English alliance and made a formal treaty with the French king. He car- Parisde/!iares ried with him also the city of Paris. Her population, for Charles, r i ^ April, 14861 ahvays turbulent, and devoted to Burgundy rather than to the English, rose against the meager garrison which Bedford had left in the city and opened the gates to their king. For the first time in eighteen years, the French national party held the capital. But a still more serious misfortune had already befallen the English in the death of Bedford himself, who, worn out by the long struggle, and broken-hearted over the failure of all his plans, had survived the Congress of Arras barely three weeks. The peace party in England now had ample ^material for a vigorous campaign in favor of putting an end to the useless war. New leaders were brought forward in hope of finding a Growth of man who could fill Bedford's place and lead English peace part}/ . , - . x. . ^ ^ i • i in England, armies oucc more to victory, but only to emphasize by their repeated failure the hopelessness of the struggle. First, Richard Duke of York, the son of that earl of Cambridge who had been executed in 1415, was sent over as regent; then Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and then the duke of York again; finally John Beaufort, the nephew of the cardinal, tried his fortune in conducting the losing cause. Some paltry advantages were secured; but the conviction was steadily gaining ground in England that it was impossible to build up an English monarchy on French soil in defiance of the wishes of the French people. Gloucester had done his best to embarrass the ministers in prosecuting the war when it was successful. He now did his best to stir up popular feeling against the peacemakers. The oum^&r candid mind of Cardinal Beaufort recognized the use- warparty^ lessness of Continuing the war, and he bravely put him- self at the head of the peace party. In this he also had the active support of the young king, whose gentle and kindly spirit had no desire to see the aimless waste of life continue. The 458 RIVALRY OP LANCASTER AND YORK [hexuy vi. two found an ally in the duke of Orleans, who had been taken at Agincourt and had passed the intervening twenty-five years as a prisoner of war. He was now released on condition 1440. that he pay a ransom of £60,000 and pledge himself never again to bear arms against England. He was also to use his influence to secure a permanent peace ; if he succeeded, the ransom was to be remitted. Gloucester was furious; he raged and stormed, and openly accused Beaufort of treason. Two years later Henry VI. came of age. He was singularly pure in spirit, amiable, devout, and above all anxious to please. The hearts of the people turned to him with hope and Character, confidence ; yet they were doomed to bitter disappoint- ment. A more unfortunate king never reigned. With all his goodness, he lacked the sterling mental qualities necessary for a ruler of men. He had been most carefully trained, too care- fully perhaps; for his tutors, encouraged by his eagerness, his con- scientious devotion to duty, had laid tasks upon the young prince which his feeble strength could not sustain; possibly also there lurked in the lad's constitution some germs of hereditary insanity, the tainted blood of his French mother, which required ©nly the heart-breaking cares of the next few years to develop. During his minority the young king with the desperate tenacity of one who knew his own incompetence for independent action, had clung to the venerable Cardinal Beaufort, and when fail- the king's ing health forced the cardinal to retire from public life, Henry had found a new support in William de la Pole, the earl of Suffolk. This de la Pole was the grandson of the old chancellor of Richard II; his father had fallen at Harfleur in 1415. Suffolk, with the real interests of the House of Lancaster at heart, urged upon the king the policy of an early marriage, and selected for him Margaret, the daughter of Rene Duke of Anjou, Count of Prov- ence, and titular King of Naples and Jerusalem. But what influ- enced Henry more than the father's titles, was the fact that the proposed bride was a niece of Charles YII.'s queen, and hence the marriage might prove a step towards a permanent peace. In 1 445 Suffolk managed to secure a truce for ten years. The English agreed to withdraw the few garrisons which were still 1445 1447] THE WAR RENEWED 459 left in Anjou and Maine, and Margaret was sent over to England. The peace party was now in the ascendant. Parliament voted its thanks. Suffolk was made a marquis, and four years later a duke. The marriage, as might be expected, was bitterly opposed by Duke Humphrey ajid the war party; first because they were opposed to makinff any concessions to France; and Death of ^^ T , TT 1 1 . lii L • L Gloucester, second becausc Humphrey himself was not anxious to see his own hopes of securing the crown destroyed by the birth of an heir to Henry. But Humphrey's influence had been on the wane of late, owing largely to the over-eagerness of his wife Eleanor Cobham, whom he had married after the pope had rid him of the fair Jacqueline, and who had been thoughtless enough to consult a famous witch about the future of her house. In a day when men serionsly believed in the black art such an act approached dangerously near to treason, and the good dame soon found herself in sore trouble. Some believed that she had actually sought to compass the young king's death. Gloucester, however, was still not without some following and kept up his opposition until even Henry's patiejice was exhausted, and at the beginning of the year 1447, the king gave his councillors permission to arrest the trouble- some nobleman. Five days later Gloucester was dead. With the death of Gloucester, the last obstacle in the way of a permanent peace was removed. Cardinal Beaufort had survived him only six weeks; but his declining health had for renewed, some time back prevented him from exercising his old influence in politics, and his loss was hardly missed by the peace party. The real leader was now the new made marquis of Suffolk, who proceeded in good faith to carry out the agreement made at the time of the marriage contract. Here, however, he met a new obstacle in the English garrisons who felt the soldiers' reluctance to withdraw from a country which had once been won by the blood of their comrades in arms. Their commander Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset,^ was too much in sympathy with their mood to restrain them, and allowed them to vent their ill humor upon the helpless inhabitants of Fougeres. This act of ^John Beaufort had killed himself in 1444, and Edmund had suc- ceeded to his titles and also to his command in France. 460 RIVALRY OF LANCASTER AND YORK [henry VL wanton savagery, by which a peaceful city of France was turned over to a band of armed ruffians who called themselves English soldiers, to be sacked as though it had been taken by the sword, could have but one result. The two nations were again plunged into war, and all the planning of Suffolk came to naught. The council were now in worse trouble than if there had been no attempt to secure peace. The war party were not appeased by ^ ,_ the failure of Suffolk's plans; the peace party were English re- . iii. -tj verses, inclined to hold him responsible, all parties were 1448,1449. r 5 r angry because he had surrendered the citadels of Anjou. The French were well prepared for a renewal of the struggle ; they had entirely reorganized their military system, and were able to take the field with a standing army of paid soldiers. The English were correspondingly unprepared. Somerset could not hold his ground with the meager garrisons under his command, and Suffolk could not strengthen him. One by one his citadels were wrested from him. In 1448 Le Mans fell, and in 1449 the great citadel of Rouen also passed into French hands. The recovery of Nor- mandy by the French was now assured. In England all control was rapidly slipping from the feeble hands of the council, whose misfortunes had long since lost them the confidence of the people. The government was anarchy in virtually bankrupt,^ and without funds it could neither reward its servants nor awe its foes. Confusion reigned everywhere. The barons despised the threats of the council, defied the courts, and, with the feeling that troublous times were at hand, began hiring and arming retainers^ and forming military ^ The debt had reached the unprecedented sum of £370,000. 2 The custom of keeping hired bands of liveried retainers, known as livery of company, had been introduced soon after Edward I. by the statute Quia Emptores had put a stop to subinfeudation. The support of such a band was always a temptation to a baron to engage in acts of unlaw- ful violence or to interfere with the courts of justice by "upholding or maintaining (\u2iXYQ\B not his own." Edward I. had forbidden mainte- nance and Richard II. and Henry IV. had attempted to check livery of com- pany ; but the barons apparently had paid little attention to the laws, and in the era of anarchy now at hand the evil soon assumed alarming 1450] THE CADE REBELLION 461 leagues with neighboring freeholders and knights; nor was it long before swords were drawn and blood was flowing. The north was in an uproar where the two rival branches of the Nevilles were already fighting; experiences such as those of John Paston, whose home at Gresham was stormed by Lord Moleyns at the head of a thousand men, soon became the order of the day. Here was soil prepared for fresh trouble; it needed only a leader to plunge the nation into all the horrors of prolonged civil war. At last the year 1450 opened; destined to be a year of national humiliation, disorder, and much shedding of blood. In January the council sent Bishop Moleyns down to Portsmouth Opening of . • -i i «. • i fataiyear, to quiet some mutinous sailors by offering them partial payment on account of money due them from the gov- ernment. They turned upon Moleyns and murdered him. Two weeks later parliament met and opened the second tragedy of the year with a direct attack upon Suffolk. Since the fall of Rouen in the preceding October, tlie populace had turned all its wrath upon the now doomed minister. He had been made the target of a fusillade of popular ballads, noteworthy as affording the first use of the word * 'Jackanapes." Henry attempted to save his old friend and servant by sending him out of the kingdom for five years. Suffolk left London with a howling mob at his heels, and reaching the seaboard in safety set sail April 30, only to be overhauled, dragged out into a small boat, and murdered under circumstances of peculiar barbarity; the headless trunk was cast out upon the sands of Dover. The government of Henry VI., now without a helmsman, was left to drift aimlessly under the shadow of the next great crisis of the year, — the Cade Rebellion. Kent and Sussex had Rebeiuan ^^^^^ ^^® most stirred by the loss of the French posses- jiau^i45o sions; the population were given either to maritime pursuits or manufacturing and had profited directly by the war. Their enmity, therefore, had been specially bitter against Suffolk and when a rumor reached them that they were to be held responsible for the murder, it was enough to set fire to proportions. The existence of these small private standing armies made such a struggle as the Wars of the Roses possible. 462 RIVALRY OF LANCASTER AND YORK [henry Vi. the combustibles with which this part of the country particularly abounded. Once started, the movement gathered strength rapidly and soon all southern England was ablaze. Unlike the Peasant Revolt, this was an uprising of the middle classes. The lesser gentry and the free yeomanry turned out with the unanimity and order of an ordinary military muster. At Sevenoaks they were set upon by a body of the king's men, but made so good a defense that they beat off the troops, slaying their captain. Sir Humphrey Stafford. A leader now for the first time appears, one Jack Cade, who called himself John Mortimer, professing to be a son of the late earl of March and to be acting in the interests of his alleged cousin, Richard the duke of York. Henry had already found that he could not depend upon the mutinous troops, and after allowing his treasurer Lord Saye, a sup- porter of Suffolk, to be cast into prison, abandoned his tiS^rebfis^ capital and fled to Coventry. Cade at once advanced upon London, proclaiming as the grievances which had called the people to arms the loss of France, the heavy taxation, the extortion of the king's officers, the corruption of the courts, the exclusion of the king's kinsmen from the council, and the inter- ference of the ministers with the election of the knights of the shire. On the 30th of July the rebels were allowed by the citi- zens to enter the city. At first their conduct was orderly and businesslike. The hated treasurer. Lord Saye, and Crowmer, the sheriff of Kent, whose exactions in his county had been a chief occasion of local irritation, were drawn out of prison and put to death. At night the insurgents returned to Southwark. But on the 5th, their cupidity got the better of their judgment, and they began plundering the homes of the burghers. The Londoners, who up to this point had shown only good will, were roused against the rioters and after a severe battle on the night following finally got possession of the bridge, opened the draw, and closed the gates. The rioters were now thoroughly discouraged; the more shrewd began to slink home, those who could, getting pardons. Cade, however, kept a small band about him and retired into Kent, where he was soon after overtaken and slain by the new sheriff. Outbreaks had also occurred in other eastern counties, 1450] RETURN OF YORK 463 as well as in the west in Wiltshire and Gloucestershire. But with the death of Cade aud the collapse of the Kentish rising, the other disturbances also soon subsided. The duke of York, the representative of the Mortimer claims to the crown, had been in the meanwhile quietly biding his time in Ireland, whither Suffolk had sent him to get him out Ym^k^^^ of the way. It does not appear that he hud been impli- cated in any of the recent risings. He was altogether too shrewd a politician to trust his cause to such agents as Cade and the undisciplined mob who followed him. Yet any movement which helped to impress upon the people the complete failure of the present administration, advanced by so much the day when he should be called upon to interfere and save the state. Reverses also were crowding upon each other in France. On April 15 an English army had been cut to pieces at Formigny, three thousand Englishmen slain, and the last hope of saving Normandy shattered. The fall of Bayeux and Caen followed. It was full time, therefore, for a strong hand and a clear head to assume control at the council board. In September York crossed from Ireland, and collecting a band of 4,000 retainers from the Mortimer estates, advanced upon Lon- don. This did not mean civil war necessarily, for it rSr^'ec- ^^^ ihen no uncommon thing for gentlemen of high S^^^^' rank to parade the country attended by a small private army. He proposed simply to force himself upon the council and secure the controlling influence in the administration which was due his high rank. Yet this was not an easy task; the old Beaufort-Suffolk party had rallied around Queen Margaret, who in the general breakdown of her husband's government justly feared Duke Richard on account of his nearness to the crown and was industriously spreading rumors which made him responsible for the late risings. Margaret's chief supporter was Edmund Beaufort, the duke of Somerset, whose unfortunate ill humor in 1447 had been largely responsible for the renewal of the war in France, but who had returned home to ally himself with Margaret, now that the Lancastrian throne itself was in danger, and, although Richard of York succeeded in forcing a declaration 464 RIVALRY OP LANCASTER AND YORK [henuy vi. of confidence from the king, Margaret and Beaufort managed to keep him out of the council for three years. In the meanwhile the court party were sinking under the opprobrium of having wrecked the English cause in France ; the people could not forget that Margaret was a French - Vl-il^^f^L-, woman, and saw in the continued reverses of English 1 1 ance, i4oi. ' <^ arms only so many evidences of friendship for her native country and of treacherous betrayal of the land of her adoption; they believed her capable of any villainy. Edmund Beaufort could not help her; he had lost France, the best that could be made of his conduct of the war, and to him passed all the odium which had once been heaped upon poor Suffolk. Affairs, moreover, were rapidly passing from bad to worse in France. Cherbourg, the very last English stronghold in Nor- mandy, had fallen just before the return of Richard of York. The next year Bordeaux and Bayonne also fell, and thus was completed the ruin of the lucrative trade which English merchants had spent three hundred years in building up in the south- ern duchy. The Gascons were not French ; they had obeyed Eng- lish kings as overlords since the days of Henry II. and regarded themselves almost as a piece of England. Their appeal for help roused the government to new activity, and for a moment the skill and energy of John Talbot promised to restore the English hold on the lands south of the Garonne. But in an unfortunate and ill-judged attack upon Castillon in 1453, Talbot managed not only to lose his own life but to wreck his army and prepare the way for the reentry of the French into Bordeaux three months later. With the second fall of Bordeaux, of all England's conquests on the continent, only Calais and the outlying lands remained. The news of Castillon very perceptibly deepened the gloom which had been of late overspreading the kingdom. The king was completely unnerved; the strain of insanity in his blood Effects upon , ^ ^ "^ x -^ iJ j x ^ j parties at began to assert itself, and to rumors of deepening mis- fortunes abroad was added yet this of the hopeless col- lapse of the king. It was evident that a protector must be appointed; but upon whom should the council thrust the thankless burden? Edmund Beaufort might under ordinary circumstances 1453] FIRST PROTECTORATE OF YORK 465 be selected for such a task; but the news from Castillon, which had played so sorrily with the king's wits, had also dissipated the last remaining influence of Somerset. Just then he was the most generally hated man in England. Charges of peculation, cow- ardice, incompetency, and darkest treachery were in the air. There was no man of all the council, therefore, who dared face the opprobrium of naming him as protector. Richard Duke of York was the only other possible candidate. He had proved himself cautious and wise ; neither could his nearest friends say that he had any designs upon the crown, or had other motives in seeking prefer- ment than to serve the king and the state. His prominence among the princes of the blood naturally gave him great personal influence. He had, moreover, married into the powerful Neville family, who in the fifteenth century controlled one-third of the peerages of England, and, although at the time a bitter feud existed between the elder branch of the Nevilles and the younger, the younger branch, to which Richard's wife Cicely Neville belonged, was the more powerful. The birth of Prince Edward, October 13, 1453, also strengthened the duke's position, since, now that Henry VI. had an heir, the enemies of York need no longer fear him as a future sovereign. All parties, therefore, looked to Rich- ard as the one man who could save the state. In December Somerset was seized and thrown into prison ; York then assumed control of the government, replacing the friends of Somerset and Margaret with his own supporters. A few amtrou^the "^^nths later, in consequence of the continued illness of wmernment, the king, he was formally appointed pro tector. York's position apparently was now very strong. Richard, the brother of Cicely Neville, was not only the head of the younger branch of the Nevilles, he had also married the daughter of Thomas Mon- tague, Earl of Salisbury, the famous captain of Henry V. who had been killed before Orleans in 1428, and through her had succeeded to Montague's titles. His son, also a Richard, had married the heiress of the Beau champs, and had likewise succeeded to the important earldom of Warwick, and had become the greatest land- owner in England, controlling the accumulated estates of the Beauchamps and the Despensers. He was an energetic, restless 46G RIVALRY OF LAXCASTER AND YORK [henry vi. spirit, and, combining with great wealth, personal talent, and en- ergy of high order, the nature of an adventurer, was altogether a rare lieutenant; he was the man to devise the most stupendous projects and carry them to a successful issue. AYith such sup- porters in the high places of state York was able to begin a vigorous administration, and soon imparted a more hopeful aspect to everything that pertained to public affairs. Ilis influence was strong enough to stop a private war which had broken out between the Nevilles and the Percies in the north. Everywhere the government was winning respect ; an era of confidence and peace ap- parently was at hand, when the recovery of the king, in January, 1455, released Somerset, expelled York and the Nevilles from the council, and brought back Margaret and her friends once more to power. Thus far the Yorkists had conducted themselves with remark- able moderation and self-restraint for the times, and, although the lines separating them from the court or Lancastrian The Wars of party Were already very definitely drawn, although party hegun. May, feeling was bitter and the tension severe, there was no 1455. ° reason why the counter revolution, which had placed Margaret and Edmund Beaufort once more in control of the council, should be marked by any more serious step than the dis- missal of the Nevilles. Here, however, the anxiety of Margaret for the future of her little son and her suspicions of the ultimate purpose of York, led her to take a most unfortunate step, which at once imparted a new and far more serious aspect to the rivalry of the two parties. The new council had hardly established them- selves, when they summoned a parliament to meet at Leicester, an old Lancastrian town, "for the purpose of providijig for the safety of the king's person against his enemies." The form of the unfortunate call, as well as the place designated for the meet- ing, was taken by York as a threat. He at once called upon Salisbury and Warwick to arm themselves, and the three Richards marched upon London, *'coming" as they proclaimed, *'to con- vince the king of the sinister, malicious, and fraudulent reports of their enemies." The Wars of the Roses ^ had begun. 1 The badge of York was a white rose ; the red rose of Lancaster was not adopted until the last stage of the \var. 1455] THE SECOND PKOTECTOKATE OF YORK 467 The sword was now drawn, and it was no easy matter to return it again to the scabbard, although both sides shrank from the issue. Somerset hastily gathered a force of 3,000 men. The first hattie of Alharia, May hattie of St. ^ud, With the king in his train, advanced to St. Albans 22,1455. and took up his station within the city. The three Eic hards lay without the city. The king still hoped to end the matter without bloodshed and opened a parley with the rebels; but York sternly demanded as the first condition of truce that his enemies be de- livered to him, *Hobe dealt with as theyde- served." The king refused, and the Yorkists at once attacked the town. Som- erset was slain and his troops routed; the king was powerless to make further resistance, and, upon the return of his malady tec tor. The recovery of the king in January put an end to the second protectorate of York; but the king's part in public affairs was only in the fall, York was again appointed pro- 468 RIVALRY OF LANCASTER AND YORK [hevry vi. nominal and York's influence still remained dominant in the coun- cil. Warwick was made captain of Calais, a most important posi- tion, because it gave him virtually the command of the Channel. He made use of his position to carry on a vigorous course protectorate of privateering against Spanish, French, and Hanseatic merchantmen, and soon became the idol of the sail- ors and the merchants of the southern ports. The nation felt that the troubles were now over, and that the vigorous hand at the helm was a permanent guarantee of peace. Even the poor king tried to see things in a more hopeful light and proposed a great feast of reconciliation. The idea pleased such wily poli- ticians as York and Margaret, who were only waiting for an oppor- tunity to secure some new advantage in the quarrel, which had lost nothing of its bitterness in the three years of quiet which had followed St. Albans. A procession marched to St. 1458. Panl's, friend and foe walking hand in hand, Margaret and the duke of York following the king. The victors of St. Albans paid for masses for the souls of the men whom they had slain, and oaths of friendship were exchanged. The farce of the reconciliation probably deceived no one save the kind-hearted king, whose generous nature failed to fathom the bitterness which separated Margaret and her enemies. renewsmi ^^^ ^^^ might again have gone well had Margaret been Yor^i&T content to let her quarrel rest. But the improved con- dition of the king gave her new courage and she once more laid her plans to destroy York. Early in 1459 she secured the dismissal of the duke and his supporters from the council. In September she assembled an army in the king's name and sum- moned Salisbury to London. Although the attack was thus directed at the Nevilles, York understood its real object and at once took the field. In September an attempt of Lord Audley to prevent the junction of Salisbury and York at Bloreheath, resulted in a victory for Salisbury ; but at Ludlow the Yorkists broke up in a panic when they found themselves confronted by overwhelming numbers. York fled to Ireland; his son Edward Earl of March, Salisbury, and Warwick managed to reach Dover and get away to Calais. 1459, 1460] THE ACTS OF ATTAI]S^DER 469 Margaret's triumph could hardly have been more complete had she won a pitched battle. Her enemies Avere now scattered and the leaders driven out of England. The Lancastrians mentof accordingly assembled in a parliament at Coventry and Novemher, under Margaret's direction took measures, as they thought, to make permanent the results of their vic- tory. For the first time an English parliament passed an act of attainder; a far more terrible weapon than the old appeal of treason, which the first parliament of Henry IV. had forbidden. By it the property of the condemned, as well as his life, was for- feited; furthermore, unlike the decree of an ordinary court of law, the king could not reverse such an act; only the power which had passed an act of attainder could undo it. Such bills were now brought forward against York, Salisbury, and Warwick. The acts of attainder were a serious mistake. Margaret in thus abusing her victory in a way that could not be undone, was virtually forcing the revolution. York and the Nevilles the acL^ of had been fighting heretofore simply for the control of the government; Margaret now compelled them to fight for their lives and for the rights of their children. They were, moreover, by no means so reduced that they could not strike back. An army of 20,000 men had broken up and slunk away at Lud- low; but Margaret, by taking no steps to win over the scattered followers of Richard, had left them to be drawn together again, the moment the leaders should have recovered heart. The ram- ifications of Neville influence were many. There were ten thousand secret channels under the control of the three Eichards which they would not fail to operate in furthering discontent and reaction. Warwick was still captain of Calais ; the fleet was at his disposal, and the seaport towns of southern England, now thoroughly dis- affected, inclined to his support. The winter of 1459 and 1460 the exiles spent in preparing for a descent upon England. Early in June the preparations were all De^cenfof ^eady. Salisbury and Warwick landed in Kent and uwmKent^ moved boldly upon London. Later York crossed from 1460. L'eland to Wales and entered England from the west, where he could always count upon the support of tlie Morti- 470 RIVALRY OF LA Js^C ASTER AND YORK [henby VI. mer tenants. The evil effects of Margaret's severity were fully apparent. The Nevilles of the south flocked to the standards of Salisbury and Warwick. The king retired to Coventry. Lou- don, whose people had no love to waste on the French queen, opened her gates to the rebels ; assured, however, by the declara- tion of Salisbury and Warwick that they had no quarrel with the king, and came only to restore good government to the realm. The wavering now flocked in from middle and eastern England, and, early in July, Salisbury and Warwick advanced to Northampton where the Lancastrians were marshalled in force. The battle was fought on the 10th; the Lancastrians were routed and the king again taken. From Northampton the Yorkist army returned to London. In the person of the king, they held the key to the whole situation, and could cast the onus of treason and rebellion against J. he jiOTKists 1 1 • T again in the authorized government upon their enemies. Their power. ^ ^ . ^ tirst step was to reorganize the council in the king's name and issue a call for a parliament, which met at Westminster in October. The new parliament, as a matter of course, was as thoroughly Yorkist in its sympathies, as the parliament which had met the November before at Coventry had been Lancastrian, and its first act was naturally to undo the work of its predecessor. While parliament was in session, York reached London, marching from the west. The successes of his friends had appar- ently turned his head; his actions are in marked con- ThTcrowfi!^ trast with the shrewd caution which had up to this 'm£e.^^^^' P^i^^t marked his progress. He at once assumed the airs of royalty ; turned the king out of his palace, and appearing before the astonished Lords, laid his hand upon the throne and claimed it as his by right of birth. Kichard found, however, that he had men to deal with. The Lords remained silent, and Warwick openly declared his surprise and his disap- proval; he would not violate his oath to the stricken king; he would not give the lie to every pledge which he and his father had made to the people. Then York's better sense revived. He saw that he had gone too far; and graciously accepted a compromise. The king was restored to his palace and his honors; but York was 1460] WAKEFIELD 471 to be designated as his heir in the place of Margaret's son; he was also to be given the title of Prince of Wales and granted an income of 10,000 marks; the law against treason was to be extended to include all plots against his person or authority. Parliament sanctioned the arrangement by a formal act and the king acquiesced. It was now the turn of Margaret to be roused to acta of desper- ation. The disinheritance of her son had transferred the war from a strife of rival political factions to a war of rival trlum^h^ royal houses. In the months which had followed Margaret, Northampton she had wandered with her little son, at times almost alone and always in imminent peril, to reach the land of the Scots at last, where she found refuge at the court of her husband's kinsman, the youthful James III., grand- son of Jane Beaufort. Here Margaret received encouragement and assistance, and was soon able to take the field again at the head of an army recruited from the borders; simple farmer lads, the most j)art drawn from Lancastrian and Percy lands, clad in rusty armor and mounted upon lean steeds, but glad to follow their queen in hope of avenging her wrongs and plundering the rich homes of the south. York and Salisbury with a small band -of six thousand men advanced to Sandal Castle near the town of Wakefield; their pur- pose was to watch the marauding bands of Margaret until March and Warwick could bring up their men. A well contrived ruse, however, lured York into hazarding a battle at Wakefield, Decem- ber 29, 14G0. York's little army was cut to pieces; he himself was slain in battle; his second son, Edmund the earl of Rutland, a fine lad, just approaching manhood, was dispatched in cold blood by Lord Clifford, in revenge for the death of his own fatlier who had fallen at St. Albans. The earl of Salisbury was taken and beheaded the next day at Pontefract. The heads of the fallen chiefs were borne to York and there set up over the gates; the head of York adorned in derision with a paper crown. The rumor of Margaret's victory rapidly spread through the north and soon brought other recruits flocking to her banners from both sides of the border to the number of 40,000. But her success was again to prove her undoing. She had never appre- 472 RIVALRY OF LANCASTER AND YORK [hexry VI. ciated the national sentiment which her foreign birth had arrayed against her. This sentiment was now doubly quickened over all middle and southern England by rumors of the barbar- 'cross^nd^ ities perpetrated by the horde of border ruffians who fol- st Albany, lowed at her heels. The formal alliance with the Scots, moreover, had still farther alienated the English, so that for the first time the war began to assume a really national character. Four armies were in the field; the earl of Warwick with 30,000 men lay at St. Albans, waiting the approach of Mar- garet who was advancing upon London by the Ermine Street, burning the cities and laying waste the fields in her path; York's son, Edward the earl of March, lay in the Severn valley at the head of an army of 10,000 men of the Marches; while Owen Tudor who had married Catharine, Henry Y.'s widow, and his son Jasper, Earl of Pembroke, were advancing with a Welsh army and threat- ened March's rear. Edward was only in his nineteenth year, but at such times lads become men in a day. He knew it was useless to attempt to join W^arwick with the Tudor force intact behind him, and accordingly turned upon the Tudors, and on February 3, 1461 beat them at Mortimer's Cross, slaying Owen Tudor. Two weeks after this brilliant victory, February 17, 1461, Mar- garet came upon Warwick at St. Albans, drove the Yorkists out of the town and regained possession of the king. The withdrawal of W^arwick from St. Albans left the road to London open. Here at last was Margaret's opportunity. Yet for some unaccountable reason she delayed, and the last op- The YovTiists ./ ' ^ secure portunity of saving the House of Lancaster was lost. Saturday, The Londoners were hourly expecting the arrival of the northern horde, and, trembling for the safety of their city, had already sent "certain aldermen and commissioners . . .to speak with the queen's council, to entreat that the northern men be sent home to their country. For the city of London did dread sore to be robbed and spoiled." But Warwick and Edward, hav- ing now joined forces at Chipping-Norton, had learned of Mar- garet's blunder, and were hastening by forced marches to throw themselves between her and the capital. On March 7, the Lon- doners heard of their approach and at once stopped the supply 1461] EDWARD IV. PROCLAIMED 473 vans which Henry had ordered to be sent to St. Albans. The next day, amid great rejoicing on the part of the populace, the Yorkists marched through the gates into the city. Only four months had passed since Richard of York's proposal to assume the crown had been met by the silence of his lords and Edward IV. the Open protest of his great captain. But these four Siarc/i'Jf^* months had made a complete change in the sentiments ^"^^^ of men like Warwick whose kinsmen had been slain at Wakefield and St. Albans. The nation also could not forgive the ferocious French woman who had brought a horde of wild Scotch- men into the heart of England, burning their cities and plunder- ing their homes. They had nothing against the gentle Henry, but they knew that to be loyal to Henry meant to be loyal to his French wife. The Yorkist leaders, therefore, had no doubt already accepted the deposition of Henry and the elevation of the earl of March as forced upon them by the logic of their position. Accordingly, the next morning after the entry into the city, Edward called together a council of lords and went through the form of declaring his right to the crown, and they in response declared Henry deposed and proclaimed Edward king. At Clerk- enwell Fields, George Neville, the bishop of Exeter, addressed the soldiers and explained Edward's claim to the throne. A great meeting of the populace was also held at St. John's Guild and when the question was formally put to the people, *' Shall Edward be your king?" the assembly shouted in tumultuous approval *'Yea, yea, King Edward!" A deputation then waited upon the new king and formally notified him of the choice of the people. The reign of Edward IV. had begun. CHAPTER VIII THE FALL OF YOEK AND THE CLOSE OF THE DYNASTIC STKUGGLB EDWARD IV., 1461-14ii3 EDWARD V.,14S3 RICHARD III.. 14ti3-1485 THE BEAUFOKTS John of Gaunt = (3) Catharine Swynford John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, d. 1410 John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somer- set, d. 1444 Owen Tudor, killed at Morti- mer's Cross 1461 I Jasper Edmund = Margaret Tudor Tudor. Earl of Eichmond, d. 1456 Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester and Cardinal, d. 1447 I Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, killed at 1st battle of St. Albans, 1455 I Henry Beaufort, Duke of Som- erset, beheaded after Hexham, 1464 Thomas Beaufort Earl of Exeter, d. 1426 Jane = James L, of Scotland, 1423 Edmund, Duke of Som- erset, be- headed after Tewkesbury, 1471 John, d. 1471 Henby VII., 1485-1509i Margaret, m. Humphrey, Earl of Stratford Henry, Duke of Buckingham beheaded, 1483 Character of the so- called Parlia- mentary Government of the House of Lancaster. The weakness of the House of Lancaster lay partly in the fact that its kings never outgrew their defective title; partly in the fact that they had accepted a crown encumbered with enormous debts, a result of the extravagant wars and extravagant living of their predecessors. They were thus compelled to throw themselves without reservation upon the support of parliament. This dependence upon parliament, however, was not an element of strength, for the parliaments of the fifteenth century represented, not the nation, but a coterie of nobles, who possessed more land than the crown and the rest of the nation combined, whose numbers had diminished, but whose wealth and selfishness had increased, and who, in spite of laws against livery and maintenance, had continued to augment 474 1406-1445] LAKCASTRIAK ELECTION LAWS 475 their retinues of armed retainers, overawe the local courts, and defy justice. The House of Commons as yet exerted very little independent influence as an instrument of government. In the fifteenth century in particular it was completely dominated by the House of the of Lords; nor had the nobles m power any difficulty in getting a House to their liking whenever they had impeachments to secure, bills of attainder to pass, or confiscations to be approved. It was an easy matter to overawe she^-iffs by packing the county courts with their **bullies;" still easier to bribe sheriffs to send in false returns or to spring'an election upon the people before sufficient notice had been given in the shires. The Lancastrian kings had recognized the evil and sought a remedy in a series of laws designed to secure the independence of elections. Thus in 1406 it was prescribed that a parlia- EZ'-'^laUonnf i^entary election should be held always at the regular kiiigiiT^'^^^^ meeting of the county court next succeeding the recep- tion of a writ. But only a few regularly attended these courts, and it was still possible for the sheriff by passing the notice quietly to his friends, to pack the court with an irrespon- sible crowd of retainers and carry the election in some such way as primaries used to be carried in some of the American cities. It was therefore necessary to follow the law of 1406 by another law in 1430 which limited the right of election to freeholders whose lands were worth at least 40 shillings a year; and when the sheriffs began to bring in freeholders from neighboring counties, two years later the right was still further limited to residents. An act of 1445 further prescribed that each sheriff should send the notice of an election to those cities or boroughs in his county which were entitled to return members, and that a deputation should report the results at the court of the shire and see that the sheriff regu- larly attached the returns of the boroughs to his return of the election for the shire. These laws were the result of a brave effort on the part of the government to rescue the Commons from the control of the noble born politicians who were playing fast and loose in order to control the patronage of the government ; but the great lords paid little 476 THE FALL OF YORK [edwabd IV. more attention to laws for the regulation of parliamentary elec- tions than they did to the laws against livery and maintenance, and the party in power continued to get up parliaments theEiections to Order as before. Moreover these very laws, insti- of Lancas- tuted no doubt with the best of intentions, by disfran- chising the free copyholder and the villain, separated the Commons still farther from the body of the people and com- mitted it for the next four hundred years to the control of the lords of the soil. It is no marvel, therefore, that the House of Commons soon lost the respect of the nation and was left entirely to the control of the politicians, or that the so-called parliamen- tary government of the House of Lancaster, valuable as it was in furnishing precedents for a later day, when the terms Lords and Commons should come to have a very different meaning, during the reign of Henry YI. rapidly developed into a tyranny of certain great families over the crown. Here was the basis of the dynastic revolution which followed. Here also is the explanation of the readiness with which the people submitted to the complete over- throw of the whole flimsy Lancastrian structure. The reign of Edward IV. began with the proclamation of March 9, 1461. On the same day the horde at St. Albans broke up and began its homeward march, apparently dissatis- reignof ^^^ because Henry would not allow them to continue ^Si^^'' ^^®i^' plundering. Edward without stopping for a coro- nation followed the retiring horde with the energy which was characteristic of him in supreme moments, and over- taking them at Towton near York, on the 28th and 29th of March, successfully fought the most obstinate and bloody battle of the war. The heralds counted the slain to the number of twenty- eight thousand. Edward entered York in triumph, while Mar- garet and Henry sought safety beyond the northern border. From Towton Edward returned to London to be crowned, June 28th ; his brothers George and Eichard, also, were created dukes respectively of Clarence and Gloucester. In November Tw£i^^ parliament met and as its first duty passed an act which confirmed all that had been done by Edward ; it then declared the Lancastrian kings usurpers, those who had been 1461-1464] EDWARD IV. 477 active in supporting them attainted and their possessions forfeited, and Henry and Queen Margaret traitors. Edward was by no means an ideal king, thongh he possessed many good qualities. He had a fine presence; was tall, muscular, and handsome, and possessed a fearless eye. He had Edward!^. S^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ uniformly successful. He loved field sports but he loved also less worthy amusements, and knew no self-restraint when once his appetite was aroused. He was cruel, yet not more cruel than the age when all public men had been hardened and embittered by ten years of civil strife. In politics Edward's abilities were not as conspicuous as in war; he was careless in mat- ters of business, trustful to simplicity and altogether lacking in foresight. Yet he saw clearly the causes of the failure of the Lancastrian government and made no secret of his hostility to the nobles. When Edward returned to London, ho had left Warwick and his brother, John Neville, the newly made earl of Montague, to carry on the struggle in the north. They reduced the Continuance great Percy strongholds, but were compelled to take in the north, and retake them several times in the course of a few months. Margaret in her desperation had given up Berwick to the Scots in return for their aid; she had also prom- ised to give up Calais for the support of Louis XL Both gave her some assistance; Louis actually sent her 2,000 men. But an invasion of Scotland in 14G2 compelled the Scots to abandon Mar- garet's cause and expel Henry VI. from the country. Still the fires of this fatal war, which in the ferocious vindictiveness of both parties has had few equals in the history of civilized nations, smouldered on. Li April 14G4 Montague defeated Henry of Somerset at Hedgeley Moor and a few weeks later again at Hex- ham. At Hexham Somerset was taken and at once put to death. A year later Henry VI. was also taken at Waddington Hall on the Lancastrian estates whither he had gone when the Scots had turned him out of Scotland. A few castles still held out in Wales, but the throne of Edward was secure so far as the House of Lancaster was concerned. 478 THE FALL OF YORK Tedward IV. Since the battle of Towton Edward had given himself up to the gayeties of a luxurious court, leaving the cares of government to Warwick. Yet he was not so steeped in his life of and War- indolence that he could not keep a watchful eye upon his minister. Thus when he found that Warwick was wife hunting for him in the courts of the continent he quietly slipped off to Grafton and secretly married Elizabeth Woodville, the widow of Sir John Gray, a Lancastrian who had fallen at the second battle of St. Albans.^ The high spirited minister in the meantime was left to go on with his negotiations until the last moment, when Edward cut short his fine plans by announcing his marriage. Warwick plainly had been duped, and in a way that could not be easily forgotten. Other events followed which still further widened the opening breach between Edward and the great Neville. In connection with his marriage scheme, Warwick had also developed a policy of alliance with France as the best security for Edward's throne. But Edward was quite disposed to hummatimh ^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ traditional policy of his predecessors and of^arwicu, j^e^p France humble by building up Burgundy; its magnificent court was far more to his taste than the mean surroundings of the niggardly and spiderlike Louis XI. In 1467, therefore, while Warwick was maturing his plans and was apparently about to secure the long hoped for treaty with Louis XL, Edward was entertaining Burgundian ambassadors and ^THE WOODVILLES Richard, = Jacquetta of Luxembourg, 1st Earl I widow of Jolin of Rivers, Bedford d. 1469 I Anthony Lord Scales, 2d Earl Rivers, d. 1483 John, d. 1469 Lionel, Bishop of Salisbury I Richard, 3d Earl Rivers Elizabeth (other daughters) 1 m. John Grey, d. 1455 2 m. Edward IV. Thomas, 1st Marquis of Dorset, d. 1501, ancestor of Lady Jane Grey Richard, d, 1483 Edward v., d. 1483 I Richard, Duke of York, d. 1483 Elizabeth m. Henry VII. Catharine TO. WiUiam Courte- nay, Earl of Devon (other daugh- ters) FIRST RISING OF THE NEVILLES 479 secretly pledging his sister Margaret to the new duke Charles the Rash. In the meantime, also, with shrewd cunning he had taken the precaution to build up around him a new family of nobles to offset the power of the Nevilles. He made his father-in-law. Sir Richard Woodville, treasurer, then raised him to the rank of earl as Earl Rivers, and finally appointed him constable of England. He also found husbands among the peerage for his wife's sisters, of whom there were a round half dozen. Equally distinguished marriages were found for the queen's brother, also a Richard Wood- ville, and for Lord Thomas Grey, the elder of the queen's two sons by her first marriage ; Anthony Woodville, another brother of the queen had already married a wealthy heiress and in her right had become Lord Scales. Thus in a day Edward had raised at his side a worthy rival of the Nevilles. Warwick, who had more shrewdness perhaps than the clever young king gave him credit for, fully comprehended MtxTig of the object of the king's policy and began to counterplot, proposing to marry his own daughter Isabelle to the king's brother, George Duke of Clarence. Clarence who was weak, inconstant, and vain, jealous of the Woodvilles and anxious to be considered the heir to the throne, readily lent himself to War- wick's schemes. Edward attempted to block the game by forbid- ding the marriage, but Warwick sent his family off to Calais, where Clarence afterward joined them and the marriage ceremony was duly performed. But the marriage of Clarence, apparently, was only a step in a greater plan for securing the hold of the Nevilles upon the high places in the state. The surviving Lancastrians had suffered much ; the bitter memories of the war could not be forgotten. The Yorkists also were growing discontented and jealous of the preferment of the Woodvilles. Here were materials enough for the organization of a dangerous plot. It is not known that Warwick was implicated in the first rising of the year 14G9, which was a small affair, confined to the neigh- FirstrMna ^^^'^o^d of York and, apparently, the result of strictly ^^eviiies ^^^^^ causes. It was soon followed, however, by a more 1469. widely extended movement which was joined by the Nevilles and assumed such proportions as to defeat a royal army at 480 THE FALL OF YORK [edward iv. Edgecote on July 26, and a few days later again at Chepstow, where Earl Rivers and his son John Woodville, were taken and shortly after beheaded. Warwick and his new son-in-law, in the meantime, had hurried from Calais to Kent and, calling out the southern Kevilles, were marching north, not to assist Edward, but to seize him before he could rally from the discomfiture of Edge- cote. Their plans were entirely successful. Edward was taken at Olney near Coventry and brought to Warwick Castle. • Warwick was now master of the situation ; Edward IV. was a prisoner and the power of the Woodvilles broken. Yet Warwick's position was by no means secure. He was still hated in power, and feared by the Lancastrians; nor could he contrive 1469. . . to hold Edward long in prison, for Edward's despotic ways had won the confidence of the great middle class, the burghers, who were weary of the quarrels of the nobles and wanted to see a strong government once more established. Warwick, therefore, made the best terms he could for himself and Clarence, and Edward was set at liberty. Any reconciliation, however, between Edward and his old com- panion in arms could neither be cordial nor lasting. The earl continued his policy and Edward watched for his oppor- Faiiureof tunity. It Came in the form of a rising in Lincoln- Ckirenceand shire, apparently stirred up by Warwick himself. 1470. ' Edward met the insurgents near Stamford, March 12, 1470, and used the royal artillery with such effect that they speedily fled. The battle is known as "Lose-coat Field," from the frantic profusion with which the rebels threw away their coats which were decorated with the fatal badges of their leaders, hop- ing thereby to escape recognition. Sir Robert Welles the leader of the insurgents was captured and beheaded. Before his death he confessed to an extensive plot in which Edward was to be dethroned and Clarence made king. Warwick of course was implicated and, without waiting for the return of Edward, took his son-in-law and fled the kingdom. Edward after his release in 1469 had issued a general pardon, but now he had no reason for sparing his enemies, and, contrary to his custom in the earlier wars, even descended to victims of humble rank. The refugees of Lose-coat Field were 1470] THE SECOND RISING OF THE NEVILLES 481 hunted across the kingdom, and the hideous penalty which the barbaric laws of the period prescribed for treason, exacted for great and small; even the luckless sailors, who were waiting at South- ampton to take Warwick off, were seized and some twenty of them executed. In this instance, so thoroughly was. the work done, that John Tiptoft, the earl of Worcester, who had the grewsome matter in hand, rose above the merely commonplace, winning for himself the nickname of "the butcher." It is also to be noticed that Tiptoft had the reputation of being one of the most accom- plished scholars of the times. It was now evident to Warwick that his only chance of over- reaching the Yorkist king was by making common cause with the exiled Margaret and returning to England under the HMngofthe Lancastrian banners. Louis XL, who was anxious to break up the Burgundian alliance of England, exerted his influence to bring about a reconciliation with Margaret, and furnished Warwick with ships and men and money; Warwick was to invade England for the purpose of restoring Henry VI., and Prince Edward, Margaret's son, now a lad of seventeen, was to marry Warwick's second daughter Anne. In England Warwick was not without his secret following, and in a few months the Nevilles through all the many ramifications of the family were ready for the rising. So secretly and so successfully were their plans carried out, so swiftly at last came the revolution, that within two weeks Edward's power had collapsed, and he himself was a fugitive on the way to the court of Louis's rival in Burgundy. Henry VI. was drawn out of the Tower and once more set up as the figure head of the government, but the real power lay in the hands of Warwick, the " King-Maker," as men were beginning to call the ambitious Neville. The suddenness of Edward's fall, instead of discouraging him, only put him on his mettle and called out those resources of energy and skill, the possession of which he had fully revealed ofHmry^^i ^^ Mortimer's Cross and Tow ton. As his rival had Marchim. app^al^d to Louis XL of France, he now appealed to Louis's enemy, Charles of Burgundy, who in self-defense was compelled to help his ally back again to his throne. Charles, 482 THE FALL OF YORK [edward iv. however, was too sore pressed at home to render Edward much aid, and left him largely to his own resources. With 1,500 Eng- lishmen and 300 Germans who had been sent to him by Duke Charles, on March 14, 1471, he landed at Kavenspur, the very spot where Henry of Bolingbroke had landed on a similar errand seventy-two years before. Like Henry, also, Edward declared that he came simply to demand the lands of his father. At York he actually took an oath that he would not again lay claim to the crown of England. At the head of the little band of adventurers, however, he marched steadily southward, gathering to his standard the old retainers of his house from the north and west, and when he reached Nottingham, where his army had swelled to five thousand men, he threw off all disguise and once more proclaimed his right to the throne. The position was one which would have delighted a Napoleon. Back of Edward lay Lord Montague, Warwick's brother, who had allowed the invaders to pass Pontefract and enter the Midlands; to the east lay Oxford who was hurrying up from Norfolk; before him lay Arch- bishop George Neville, another brother of Warwick, guarding London; the "King-Maker" himself lay at Warwick, while the duke of Clarence was advancing by forced marches from Glou- cestershire in the west. Thus from the four quarters of the com- pass, as many armies were closing in upon Edward and his wild adventure seemed almost run. It was a moment, however, to rouse all the matchless energy and courage of the man ; for Edward at times had flashes of real military genius somewhat akin to that of the great modern captain. Suddenly changing his line of march, he made a swift descent upon Oxford and drove him back ; without following his fleeing foes, he turned again to the south and advanced to Leicester, in order to face Warwick who had reached Coventry. A battle was imminent; it was W^arwick's hour, but in an unlucky moment he determined to wait for the arrival of Montague and Clarence. The delay gave Edward a respite and also gave some who wavered time to decide. Henry Percy of the old Northumberland house, whom Edward had restored to his earldom, had already joined him; but on April 4, Edward's brother, — "false, fleeting, perjured Clarence," who had been 1471] BARNET 483 grieved by the way in which Warwick had thrown him over in the interests of Margaret's son, carried out a project long meditated, and went over to Edward with his following. The defection of Clarence compelled Warwick to wait for Montague, and left Edward and Clarence free to march upon London. Archbishop George Neville had had little success in rousing the Londoners, many of whom were creditors of Edward and saw no hope of pay- ment save in his return to power. Hence Edward was allowed to enter the city without resistance, where he was speedily joined by the Yorkists of the south in sufficient number to give him nearly 20,000 men. Edward entered London on Thursday, April 10, and on Sat- urday led his army out of the city by the Watling Street to meet Warwick at Barnet, now strengthened by the aIhim, 1471. ^^^^^^1 ^^ Lords Montague and Oxford. On the night smiday. ^^ April 13 the armies encamped within cannon shot of each other. The Yorkists began the attack early in the morning, advancing under cover of a heavy mist; but in the obscurity Edward had so miscalculated the position of the enemy that his left wing was seriously outflanked by Warwick's right, commanded by the earl in person, and borne backward by over- whelming numbers began to retire. But unfortunately for War- wick the livery of Oxford was marked by a star with beams, which very much resembled the famous badge of York, the sun with rays, and his men pressing forward after the broken left wing of Edward and possibly losing their direction in the confusion, came suddenly face to face with the star of Oxford, and, in the fog mis- taking it for the Yorkist badge, began to fire upon their friends. The retainers of Oxford, with the example of Clarence in mind, supposing that the Nevilles had also gone over to the enemy, raised the cry of treachery and fled. The men of Warwick and Mon- tague, however, still held their own, and left the field at last only after six hours of desperate fighting, and when both Warwick and his brother had been slain. The very day of the battle of Barnet, Margaret, who had been lield off for nearly three weeks by contrary winds, landed at Wey- mouth ; but Barnet had removed the last hope of rescuing her hus- 484 THE FALL OF YORK [ Edward IV. band, and as soon as the fatal news reached her she turned to fight her way into Wales where she could be joined by the Welsh supporters of her house and possibly provide a rallying May 4^1471^ point for the defeated Lancastrians of the north. But the citizens of Gloucester closed their gates and refused to allow her to cross the Severn. She then hastened on to the next crossing at Tewkesbury; but Edward was by this time close upon her track and her men reached Tewkesbury only to be set upon by Edward at the very moment when they were ready to begin the crossing. The Lancastrians fought as desperate men fight, but everywhere they were routed and everywhere the fierce Yorkists stained their victory by wholesale slaughter. Among the slain was Henry's son, Prince Edward, according to tradition murdered after the battle in cold blood in the presence of King Edward himself. Fifteen great earls sought sanctuary in the abbey church of Tewkesbury; Edward promised to spare their lives but two days later sent them all to the block. Among them were Edmund, Duke of Somerset, and his youngest brother John, the last of the male line of the Beauforts. From Tewkesbury Edward returned to London to continue the slaughter of his foes; on the night that he entered the city, Henry VI. was murdered in his lonely cell in the Tower; how was never known. George Neville, the church- man, was cast into prison. Others less conspicuous, if rich, were allowed to buy their lives by heavy ransoms ; the poor were hurried to the gallows without redress. The four years which followed Tewkesbury were years of com- parative quiet. Edward continued to summon parliaments as before; he laid important measures before them and reianof^^ appeared to seek their consent, but the independence of f^r-1^3 parliament had passed away, not to be recovered again until the men of the seventeenth century should wrest it from the Stuarts. The nobles of England were by no means exter- minated; but the strength of the great house of Neville, which had overthrown the House of Lancaster and raised Edward to the throne, had been entirely shattered, and it was not likely that any other family would succeed to their influence; Edward would see to that. The nearest heir of John of Gannt, the son of Margaret 1475] PICQUIGKY 485 Beaufort, was a penniless exile in hiding in a foreign land; a strip- ling youth, without money and without friends, of whom Edward had little to fear. The people were weary of civil war ; the cities, for the most part loyal to York, were well pleased, and all were willing to give the new dynasty a trial. Instead, however, of turning his mind to securing the solid advantages of peace, Edward must first try his hand in the foreign game of politics where so much English money had faii^spart already been sunk and where so many English lives had ^ivars^^ been squandered. He allowed Charles to draw him into an alliance, with the virtual dismemberment of north- ern France as its object. Charles was to extend his territories at the expense of the eastern domains of Louis, and Edward was to have Normandy and Aquitaine. In 1474, Edward began active preparations to carry out his part of the engagement. The sub- servient parliament voted its supplies, and the next year Edward embarked, taking with him, it is said, the largest and best equipped expedition which had yet set sail from English shores. His plan was to land at Calais and advance directly into the heart of France, while Burgundy and Brittany were to push in their armies from the east and the west. The plan was ably conceived ; and had Edward's allies supported him, it is difficult to see how Louis XL could have saved himself. But Duke Charles was carrying on a stubborn campaign against the little town of Neuss across the Rhine, in which he so wasted his strength that he could bring no army to Edward's assistance. Edward, who was no man to chase a chimera, abandoned his allies in disgust and made his own terms with Louis. Louis, the business man on the throne, who always preferred fighting his battles with "words and money," had counted the cost of the new war, and coolly deter- mined to appropriate the money, not to raising soldiers, but to buying up his enemies. The two kings met on a p^cquigny bridge of the Somme at Picquigny, and agreed to a seven U75.' ^^' years' truce; Louis also agreed to pay Edward 75,000 crowns down and a further sum of 50,000 crowns for the ransom of the unhappy Margaret.^ He also had magnificent ^For full terms of treaty see Ramsay, La7icasfera?idFor/j, II, pp. 412, 413. 486 THE FALL OF YORK [ Edward IV. pensions for Edward's leading nobles and a grand supper for the common soldiers, — for Louis could spend money like water when it came to affairs of state. The affair all in all was not creditable and Edward suffered in the popular esteem; but for this he cared very little, so long as disapproval spent itself in grumbling and did not lead to open outbreak. The lesson which Edward had learned was not lost, and for the rest of his reign he remained satisfied with the military laurels of his youth, and gave himself to the work of securing the tyranny of foundations of his throne. He was, however, far from possessing the intellectual and moral qualities necessary to make the most of his position. He was no statesman like the first Edward; he was no organizer like the second Henry; he was bold and clever, but he possessed none of that farsighted and patient cunning which served his contemporary Louis XL in lieu of more kingly qualities. Hence he took no steps to organize the results of his victory, or to justify the confidence of his subjects by leaving an efficient public service behind him, and much of his work had to be done over again. He was a strong king; but his strength was founded upon ruthless cruelty and injustice. He had never forgotten the treachery of his brother Clarence, and in 1478 appeared in person before the House of Lords to accuse him of treason; the charge was sustained and a few weeks later the unfortunate Clarence was secretly murdered in the Tower; drowned, it was said, in a butt of Malmsey. The king who spared not his own brother would not be more tender of lesser folk. He had received a bankrupt treasury from his predecessors and he seized every means within his power, fair or foul, to bring in money. The revolution which had borne him to the throne, had put within his hands ample means of enriching himself by simply declaring forfeitures against his unsuccessful foes. The revolt of 1470 in particular had placed the vast wealth of the Nevilles at his disposal and afforded him an opportunity for new and still more extensive confiscations. The courts of justice also took advantage of the prevailing suspicion of defection and conspiracy, and turned in a never ceasing stream of reveruues, gathered from thousands of petty 1483] DEATH OF EDWARD IV. 487 fines and forfeitures. Not satisfied with the old forms of exaction, Edward's genius devised a new method of extortion known as a "benevolence." Previous kings had exacted ''forced loans" from their subjects which might or might not be repaid. Edward dis- carded the fiction of a loan altogether and received what he called "free will offerings" from his loyal subjects. He even made per- sonal solicitations and wrote letters in his own hand requesting gifts from those who dared not refuse them. There is ao record of any protest against these tyrannies on the part of parliament or of any complaint from the people. It is true that Edward in his later years called few parliaments, nor gave the nation many opportunities to express its will in legal form ; and yet there were times in the past when barons and people had compelled reluctant kings to summon parliaments that the nation might register its disapproval of him or his ministers. Of the few parliaments which Edward summoned, none saw fit to question his measures or to bring forth the old cries of "privilege" or "liberty." For the first time since the day of John Lackland, the reign of an Eng- lish king was allowed to pass without a single enactment inspired by these magic words. And yet full of injustice and cruelty, full of the spirit of tyranny as the reign of Edward was^ men justified it because all felt that a strong kin? was the need of the hour. After The desire for a strong the extreme weakness of the parliamentary kings, the unutterable chaos and misery which attended the last administration, the nation apparently beheld the pendulum swing- ing to the other extreme, not only without regret, but with posi- tive satisfaction. In 1483 Edward died, worn out by dissipation and wild living at the age of forty-two. His eldest son, known as Edward V., was a lad of twelve years; and although Edward's Edward IV., despotic policy had left little to be feared from the Lancastrian sentiment which still lingered among his nobles, the people who had learned to dread a rule of protectors and regents received with a new foreboding of evil the news of the king's death ; nor had they long to wait before their worst fears were realized. 488 THE FALL OF YORK [ei^ward v. Eichard Duke of Gloucester had been commonly recognized as the staunch supporter and confidant of the late king. He had won ffreat credit on the fields of Barnet and Tewkesbury, Richard, ^, , i -, -,. . • •, -, i . ,« , -. . Duke of where he had distinguished himself by personal daring, and had contributed not a little to the success of his brother's arms. He was popular, for the people dearly love a brave man, and they had not yet had an opportunity to peer into the shadows of Eichard's character, although some grim stories were already afloat. Coming to man's estate in an age when political necessity was held to justify the utmost savagery in the butchering of fallen rivals, under a thin veneering of humanism, he concealed a peculiarly hard and cruel nature, which was capable of the blackest crimes, when such crimes were necessary to free him from the presence of an enemy, or to clear his path of a possi- ble rival. ^ Yet he was not devoid of natural affection and was deeply attached to wife and son, and his spirits were visibly affected by their early death. In the last months of his life, particularly, the sense of bereavement weighed upon him until he became the victim of a depressing melancholy ; a feeling of utter loneliness took possession of him. In all of which men saw the judgment of God. No sooner had Eichard learned of his brother's death than he began to scheme for the succession. It was an easy matter, com- paratively, to get rid of the Woodvilles and secure for woodviius, himself the position of protector. The Woodvilles had never been popular; their power which was only of yesterday, had not yet taken sufficient root to enable them to stand without the support of royal favor. For a protectorate, moreover, there was the precedent of 1422. Hence no one showed any par- ticular alarm when Eichard seized the queen's brother. Earl Eivers, and her son, Sir Eichard Grey, and hurried them off to a northern prison, or when it was rumored that two other Woodvilles had fled the country or that the queen with Edward IV. 's second son ^ In a later day he was represented as an ugly hunchback, due perhaps to the commendable feeling that there must be some connection between the character of a man and his physical appearance. It is probable that one shoulder was higher than the other , but not enough to amount to deformity, or to interfere with the most active service on the battle field. 1483] RICHARD OF GLOUCESTER 489 Richard and her five daughters had fled to sanctuary at West- minster. The influence of the iipstart Woodvilles was ended; that was pretty well understood. It was further known that Richard had the sanction of the council; that they had appointed him pro- tector and that the twenty-second of June was fixed for the coro- nation of the little Edward V. There were men on the council, however, who were the sworn friends of Edward IV., and who were devoted to his children, if not to his queen. Richard knew that as long as Richard these men remained he must content himself with QfiXllS COTlZTOt ^^ '^ the council, ^he oflfice of protcctor. The marked men were Will- iam Lord Hastings, the captain of Calais, Thomas Rotherham, the archbishop of York, and John Morton, the bishop of Ely. On June 13 Richard suddenly presented him- self before the council, accused Hastings of treason and without giving him any chance for trial or even reply had him dragged out into the castle yard and executed. Rotherham and Morton were cast into prison. This summary purging of the council was not altogether to the liking of the people, and for the moment their confidence in their favorite was shaken. Yet sus- picion was speedily allayed by the report which was industriously circulated by Richard's friends, that he had discovered a danger- ous conspiracy and that these measures were necessary to preserve the government. Three days later by the aid of the old time- server. Cardinal Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, Richard persuaded the queen to send Edward's second son to join the little king who had been put into the Tower ostensibly for his own safety. With everything now in his hands, with the natural protectors of Edward lY.'s children either dead or in prison, Richard pro- ceeded to the last step. On Sunday June 22 Dr. Richard's Shaw, the brother of the Lord Mayor, preached a June 26, 1483. remarkable sermon from an open air pulpit in St. Paul's Churchyard, in which he attacked the marriage of Edward IV. and Elizabeth W^oodville, and further stated that the children of Duke Clarence could not inherit the throne on account of their father's attainder, and that Richard of Gloucester was 490 THE FALL OF YORK [richabdjii. therefore the rightful heir. Three days later an irregular assembly of Ei chard's friends, which passed for a parliament, formally asserted his title to the crown and petitioned him to assume his rightful heritage. Eichard, after a fine show of hesitation, accepted, and on the morning of June 26 proceeded in state to Westminster Hall. Eichard was fully aware of the precarious nature of his hold on the crown, and at once endeavored by an ostentatious show of jus- tice and good government to cause men to forget if pos- DifflciiUies sible the circumstances by which he had come to the Richard. throne. His danger, however, lay not in the revival of the shattered power of the Woodvilles or the Nevilles or the Lancastrians, but in the disappointed ambition of the men who had helped him to the throne, the ring of politicians who were inspired only by corrupt motives and now expected to be rewarded by enjoying the patronage of the government. The most prominent among these supporters of the king was Henry Stafford, the duke of Buckingham. He was a son of Sir Hum- phrey Stafford and a second Margaret Beaufort, daughter of that Edmund duke of Somerset who had been so unlucky in the last stages of the French war, and had been killed at the first battle of St. Albans in 1455. When therefore Eichard failed to reward Buckingham as he thought he had a right to expect, like Warwick he fell into a mood which prepared him for a leading part in a counter revolution. His first thought was of pressing his own claim to the crown ; for he was not only a Beaufort but a descend- ant of Thomas of Gloucester as well, but at Brecknock Castle, he was brought under the influence of Bishop Morton, his prisoner; and was persuaded to waive his own claim and unite with the Lan- Risin of castrians in pushing the claim of Henry Tudor Earl of Bucidng- Eichmond. The rising met with no success. The earl ham. First ° attempt of Qf Eichmond set out from Brittany but was turned back Richmond, '' ^^^^- by a storm ; swollen streams prevented the insurgents in England from uniting their forces and Eichard easily crushed the isolated outbreaks, taking Buckingham himself, and sending him straight to the block. Yet it was not Eichard's policy now to shed blood and he pardoned the most of Buckingham's followers. 1483-1485] RICHARD'S PARLIAMEI^T 491 Some time during the late insurrection, or just before, while Richard was humoring the people of York by going through the form of a second coronation in their city, the two princes themincL ^^^ ^^^ heen lost sight of since their imprisonment in the Tower, were quietly put to death, and their bodies buried under a stone staircase, where their bones were discovered two centuries later, in the time of Charles II. In 1483, however, the dreadful secret was locked up within the grim, shadows of the Tower, and Richard's popularity was still high. In January the new king assembled a parliament, parliament, which first Confirmed the actipn of the irregular gather- * ing of June, and then passed bills of attainder against Buckingham, Richmond, Bishop Morton, and nearly a hundred others. But Richard displayed little eagerness in punishing his enemies. He was bent rather upon saving his popularity at any price, and at the petition of parliament hastened to con- demn some of the despotic practices of Edward IV., especially his trick of exacting benevolences and the custom of seizing the goods of an accused man before conviction. He also played for the support of the cities by granting greater freedom to commerce ; while a statute, specially designed to encourage literature, forbade any one to hinder a stranger from coming into the country to sell books, "written or printed." No amount of generous concession, however, could dispel the gloom which now began to settle over the new reign. Richard's popularity was fast ebbing; men began to understand fimdmvsof ^^^ ^^^^ character. His only son Edward died in April, re^n^^^ shortly after the parliament had declared hiih Richard's heir ; the death of his wife Anne Neville followed in March of the next year. The question of the succession was thus again opened and a rumor that Richard proposed to marry Edward IV. 's daughter, Elizabeth, aroused such indignation that he was obliged to make a public declaration that such a step had not been thought of. In the meanwhile Henry, Earl of Richmond, was busily laying his plans for a second invasion of England. Richard had used his influence to get him expelled from Brittany, but the French court 492 THE FALL OF YORK [ Richard III. had given him a cordial welcome. Hither had come the exiled lords who had been attainted by Richard's parliament, and by July, 1485, Henry had gathered a small fleet at Harfleur. On Richmond in August 7 he landed at Milf ord Haven in Pembroke with England, about 2,000 men, and began his march across Wales to the Severn. He was among his own people and his army rapidly swelled in numbers as he advanced. Men felt that the blood- stained career of Richard was drawing to its close and hastened to Join the standard of Richmond. One of Richard's lieutenants, Lord AYilliam Stanley, had been put in command of the Marches, but he secretly assured Henry of his support and allowed him to pass on toward mid-England, following slowly in his rear. Rich- ard in the meanwhile was concentrating his strength, and, as Henry drew near, advanced to Bosworth, where he lay encamped on the night of the 21st of August. He was surrounded by treach- ery and treason; he knew not whom to trust; defection was in the air. The night, it is said, he passed in sleepless wretchedness, haunted by terrifying dreams and gloomy foreboding of the day to come. He was up, however, before daybreak, and after an elo- quent harangue to his troops, with his crown upon his head led them to the battle. The armies met on Redmoor plain about three miles from Bosworth. Richard's army outnumbered Henry's two to one, and his men apparently were fast getting the better of their antagonists, when the Stanleys went over to the side of Henry and at once turned the balance in his Bosworth, T^.iT -i rt' ' August 22, favor. Richard saw that all was over, and flinging himself into the press was cut down in an attempt to reach Richmond. The battered crown, which had been struck from his head by a sword cut, was found clinging to a hawthorn bush near by, and was placed by Sir William Stanley upon the head of the victor. Then the soldiers took up the shout and hailed Henry king. So fell the last of the Plantagenets, the soldier kings of Eng- land, to give place to a new race who were, to seek the ends of End of Plan- S^^^ government, the peace and prosperity of the peo- tagenetera. pj^^ j^q^ through violence, but by the surer methods of statecraft. The national estates had passed almost impercep- END OF PLAXTAGENET EKA 493 tibly into the national parliament; but the long struggle for parliamentary rights had so weakened and undermined the strength of the crown, that it was no longer able to control its great subjects, but had become the helpless instrument of their quarrels, used first by one faction and then by the other, in order to give to their wholesale butcheries and confiscations the cloak of law. In time, however, the strength of the nobility was wasted, and then the great middle class was left to assert itself. Its strength had remained intact; it had taken little part in the wars of the barons and had been spared by both sides as a matter of policy ; yet it was weary of the ceaseless anarchy and the blood- shedding. It longed for peace and was content to see the mon- archy grow strong again. To Edward IV. was presented the opportunity of ushering in this new day. The great merchant class were loyal to the House of York, not because of any interest in the mere abstraction of legal succession, but because they saw in it a pledge of better government and better personal security. But Edward had neither the moral seriousness nor the intellectual grasp to comprehend his opportunity; he was too much of an autocrat by nature to care much for the sympathy of the nation ; he thought only of replacing the tyranny of the nobles by the personal rule of an independent king, and recklessly squandered the advantages of his position in his tyrannies and his immoral- ities. Kichard appreciated the full value of what his predecessor had thrown away; but the crimes over which he had mounted to the throne, were even more fatal than Edward's indifference. He saw the new era; the light of the morning of national renais- sance and reformation was full upon his face, but the sins which he had committed prevented him from entering the promised land. This was reserved for his successor, when the monarchy, sup- ported by the loyalty of the nation and vindicated in the peace which it wrought, should enter upon a new era of strength and dignity. PART III— NATIONAL ENGLAND THE EEA OF NATIONAL AWAKENING BOOK II— RELIGIOUS REFORMATION FROM 1485 TO 1603 CHAPTER I THE RESTORATION^ OF THE MOKARCHY HENRY VIL, 085-1509 THE YOUNGER BRANCH OF THE NEVILLES Richard, Earl of Salisbury, killed at Wakefield, 14G0 Richard, Earl of Warwick, the "King-Maker," killed at Bar- net, 1471 I I John, George, Lord Men- Archbishop tague, killed of York at Towton, 1461 Isahelle George, Duke of Clar- ence, d. in the Tower, 1478 I Anne, m. Richard III. killed at Bos- worth, 1485 Edward Plan- tagenet. Earl of Warwick, ex. 1499 Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, ex. 1541 Edward, d. 1484 THE DE LA POLES William, wealthy merchant of Kingston, I founder of family in time of Ed- I ward III. Michael, made earl of Suffolk in 1383, d. I in exile at Paris, 1388. Michael, 2d earl of Suffolk, d. at Har- I ffeur, 1415. Michael, William, = Alice, 3d earl of 4tli earl grand- Suffolk, d. at of Suffolk, daughter Agincourt, 1415 1448 1st duke of Suffolk, murdered 1450 John, = Ehzabeth, of Chaucer 2d duke of Suffolk, d. 1491 sister of Edward IV. John, Earl of Lincoln, killed at Stoke, 1487 Edmund, d. 1513 I Richard, killed at Pavia, 1525, m. Mar- garet of Salisbury Henry, Lord Montague, ex. 1539 Reginald, Archbishop of Canterbury, d. 1558 Geoffrey The fifteenth century compared with the fourteenth had been a century of great material prosperity. A fortunate succession of favorable seasons had brought a corresponding succession of abun- dant harvests; the plague had ceased its ravages and the French 494 PROSPERITY OF FIFTEENTH CENTURY 495 war had run its course. The civil wars of the later period had hardly interfered with the non-military population; the towns had been spared, and the slaughter on the battlefield had Prosperity of for the most part been confined to the nobles and their cm^ry!^^'^ retainers. In the long era of quiet ^which followed, under the beneficent influence of lighter taxation, abundant food, steady prices, and good wages, the population had recovered its losses, and at the close of the century exceeded possi- bly by twenty-five per cent the population of the England of Richard 11.^ Commerce was particularly vigorous and active ; a fact attested by a long series of commercial treaties which extend through the whole century, by which English traders sought to Entiiish secure markets not only in the cities of their neighbors commerce tn »' ° thefifteenth across the Channel, but also in the Hanse towns of the century. ' Baltic, in Castile and Portugal, and even in distant Florence. The materials of this trade were '* wool, wheat, lead, tin, honey, hides, saddlery, hardware, and even guns." The return trade brought wine from Gascony, wine and sugar from Greece, paper from Venice and Florence, silks and stuffs of various hues and kinds, turquoises and rubies, from the Orient, furs and strong, coarse serges and friezes from Ireland, while even distant Iceland poured its stock-fish, eiderdown, and brimstone into Bristol. The dockyards of the east and south were called into unwonted activ- ity; shipbuilding flourished, and the keeping up of a fleet became once more the accepted policy of English kings. For much of the time the government had been bankrupt and its tenure uncer- tain, to say nothing of the presence of actual civil war; Henry V., Henry VI., and Edward IV. had successively debased the coinage, and yet in spite of these influences, merchant and artisan had con- tinued to prosper. The seas were comparatively safe. The ^ At the close of the eleventh century the population of England was included inabout 300, 000 families, representing possibly 2, 000, 000 souls. At the close of the fifteenth century the population had advanced to 4, 200, 000. Allowing for the inroads of the Black Death and the Hundred Years' War, it is fair to suppose that at least one-half of this increase was due to the favorable conditions which prevailed during the fifteenth century. 496 THE RESTORATION OF THE MONARCHY [henbyVII. merchants left the government pretty much to the nobles and neither bothered themselves nor imperiled their interests by mix- ing up their ventures with affairs of state, while the thrifty con- dition of the craft-gilds, who maintained the quality of English goods and the regularity of the output of English shops, enabled them to secure a firm hold upon the markets of Europe. Architecture also felt the new life, although it is indicative of the direction in which the currents were tending, that its triumphs lay not so much in the erection of great pub- Thl^^^^^^^' ^^^ buildings as in the construction of better and more pendicuiar commodious dwellings for the people. Its spirit was practical, materialistic; its right angles and upright lines, its flat arches, square-headed windows and broad window- lights, its square-paneled walling and elaborate ceilings, its low pitched roofs and towering pinnacles, features of the so-called ^jer- pendimilar style, are in marked contrast with the lofty pointed arches, flying buttresses and vast roof spaces of the era which had passed. The change in the style of architecture was not more marked than the changes in the style of dress, particularly of the middle classes who were developing other tastes in keeping Dress, ^yitli their improved dwellings ; the robes of churchmen alone remained as they had been in the thirteenth cen- tury, — emblem of the unerring, changeless orthodoxy of the wearer. Armor also had changed to keep pace with the improvements in offensive warfare which had followed the introduction of gun- powder. It had become so heavy, so elaborate, and so cumbersome that it was rapidly approaching the limit when it would be rio longer possible for the knight to move, much less fight to advan- tage under the increasing weight of steel. It was no unusual occurrence for '^ye brave knight," in the heat and dust and press of battle, to die without mark of cut or thrust, ignobly smothered under his weight of armor. On the other hand gunpowder was coming rapidly into use, especially on the continent. The Ger- mans on the Khine developed a ''light, well-bored hand-gun,' a weapon which was quite a favorite with Charles of Burgundy, who sent 300 of his "hand-gun men" to accompany Edward IV. INTELLECTUAL LIPE OF CEl^TURY 497 in his descent at Ravenspur in 1471. In England, however, the long bow, the traditional national weapon which had won Crecy and Poitiers, still maintained its popularity and prevented the general introduction of^ hand fire-arms ; yet heavy ordnance had been adopted very early, and figured in all the important sieges of the period, particularly at Harfleur in 1415, when the three great guns of Henry V., "the London," "the Messagere," and the "King's Daughter," kept up such a continuous cannonade for thirty days, that the population at last pronounced it "unen- durable" and were glad to capitulate. The eighteen-foot pike, which the Swiss had used to such advantage against the chivalry of Austria, had also become a favorite with the infantry. The importance of drill and training in the use of arms was generally recognized, thus making the military life a distinct profession, and to that extent robbing the old feudal nobility of their occupation. The intellectual life of England had remained at a low ebb until the close of the century. The renaissance was in full tide in Italy, but English ears were so filled with the din of political The-intei- strife or commercial rivalries, that little heed was paid lectiuil life i • • i i of the age. to the quiet-voiced scholar, bent upon the lore of a forgotten world. Within the seclusion of the uni- versities where the atmosphere was freest from the distracting influences of the day, and where much might have been accom- plished for pure learning, the restrictions which had been placed upon discussion since the days of Lollardism, had discouraged research and stifled thought. So keen was the scent of the authorities for heresy, that even those who took up the pen to defend the church, as Bishop Peacock in 1459, were not always happy in satisfying the ultraconservatism of their party and got into sore trouble for their pains. The wise, therefore, did not try to write, and left disputation to the half informed enthusiast. Men were bent upon other things, more engrossing than parch- ment scroll or panel ; even those who wrote books, as the private historiographers of the nobles, wrote to please a very limited constituency rather than to give utterance to great thoughts. Volumes of correspondence, as the famous Paston letters, state 498 THE RESTORATIOK OF THE MONARCHY [henry vil. papers, chronicles, diaries, account books, have survived, but, valuable as they are for the purposes of the historian, they are hardly literature. There was poetry, and much of it; weak imitations of Chaucer, imitations also of the French ballads, and the popular miracle plays, or mysteries, but, although some writers, as Eobert Henryson, still labored quite in the old spirit of Chaucer, in general "the quality of the verse was poor and the thought lifeless." The new inspiration which the century was to contribute to bookmaking was to come, not from the closet of poet or historian or philosopher, but from the shop of the printer. s^^Sd*^ Block printing had been known in England as early as 1350; but in the reign of Edward IV., William Caxton, an Englishman who had formerly settled in Bruges, introduced the new art of printing by movable type. He had already printed abroad the Game and Play of Chess; but at Westminster, where under the special patronage of Edward IV., he set up his press, he attempted far more ambitious tasks : Chaucer'' s Works^ the Morte d' Arthur of Sir Thomas Malory, the Polychronicon of Higden, a history of England to which Caxton made his own additions, bringing the work down to date, the Sayings of the Philosophers^ translated by Lord Anthony Kivers, and the story of Reynard the Fox, It is interesting to note that among Caxton's patrons at this era were Tiptoft, the earl of Worcester, the same who won the unpleasant nickname of '*the butcher" by the scientific way in which he conducted the executions of 1470, and Richard of Gloucester himself. Caxton and his helpers did much to influence the present form of the English language by fixing upon the mid- land dialect as the standard book English; he also used the spelling and inflections of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth cen- turies, thus preserving many survivals of the old inflected Anglo-Saxon, as the final mute e, and by reason of the over slavish imitation of bookmakers since, committing the language to many of the eccentricities, which make the spelling of present-day English so hard to acquire. All in all the age was a great age, although it abounded in deep shadows. Its springs were commercial rather than spiritual THE GREATER ERA AT HAND . 499 or intellectual, and like every commercial age it was also material- istic. Its materialism, moreover, had invaded the high places of state and church ; it had poisoned the motives of king theaac^ and noblc, and had turned politics into a bloody scram- ble for plunder; it had obscured the vision of the people and weakened their grasp upon the supreme principles of righteousness and liberty; it had converted bishops and abbots into thrifty landlords, more anxious to save sheep than to save souls; to extend their temporal powers than to develop the Christian graces among their people. The influence of the church had declined correspondingly, and a spirit of irreligion pervaded all classes. Yet if faith in God were less active, a belief in the devil and his works was never so vigorous ; the existence of witchcraft and the general potency of the black art were com- monly accepted, and figured in more than one great state trial of the century.^ At the opening of Henry VII. 's reign, however, all conditions were prophetic of a greater era at hand. The conditions of the older political life were passing away. The old theories dSands!'^^^ of the state which had served to hold the medieval society together, strange mingling of ideas drawn in part from the ancient Jewish theocracy, in part from the civil law, and in part from feudalism, were steadily yielding to new conceptions of the relations of king and nation.* New ele- ments, also, had been thrust into the body politic as a result of the decline of villainage and the development of the free yeomanry. The wealth of the nation was no longer confined to the manors of the great lords, but was gravitat- ing to the cities and was fully represented in the growing importance of the merchant class. The interests of the people, also, were turning them less to politics and more to trade. The traditions of recent baronial usurpation, moreover, had com- pletely displaced the more ancient traditions of royal encroach- ' For the trial of Joan of Arc, see Colby Selections, pp. 113-117. For case of Eleanor Cobliam, see Green H. E. P., I, 560, 561. 2 For summary of theories of Fortescue, the venerable jurist of Henry VI. and Edward IV., see Stubbs C. H., vol. III. pp. 247-253. 500 THE RESTORATION OF THE MONARCHY [henrt vil. merit upon the constitution. Englishmen feared civil strife more than all other evils and were willing to concede almost any powers to the crown, if only they might secure the peace for which they longed. The demand of the hour, therefore, was for protection against the lawlessness of subjects rather than against the possi- ble encroachments of the crown ; for a crowned constable to appre- hend and punish influential criminals, rather than for pugnacious parliaments; for new markets rather than for foreign conquests ; for the substantial favors of great commercial treaties rather than the enforcement of the claims of the English crown over France. The new king in appearance was spare ; his face was intellec- tual, secretive, cold and severe, suggesting the ascetic. In diplo- macy he was cunning, patient, farsighted, and prac- Hmr^vii^ tical. He had proved himself no mean soldier; yet like all the great kings of England, he was not fond of war. He was a miser not because he loved gold, but by policy; he saw that money was the first condition of a strong government. To him a penny saved was far more satisfactory than a penny coaxed from a refractory parliament. Hence his habits were frugal, and hig court presented but a shabby appearance to those who remem- bered the days of the gay, the magnificent, the voluptuous Edward. The policy which Henry adopted at the beginning of his reign and persistently followed out, is itself the best illustration of the character of the man. He proposed to win the hered- ^oiiml^'^^ itary foes of his house by generous treatment, yet to hold them with a strong hand ; to strengthen the royal authority by reducing the power of the nobles and courting the sympathy of the people, at the same time making his administra- tion independent of the whims of parliament by a business-like management of the public treasury. To carry out this policy he must eschew war; yet he did not propose for that reason to allow England's prestige to suffer abroad; he would win his share in the perpetual scramble of continental politicians by the gentler and less expensive method of matrimonial alliance. This policy Henry followed through his own reign and transmitted to his successors, and although adopted by no one of them in full, although varied by each to meet the ever shifting needs of national or foreign 1485, I486] _ LAMBERT SIMXEL 501 politics, in its essential features, it remained the characteristic Tudor policy. Henry called his first parliament together November 7, 1485. He informed them that he held the crown "by just right of inher- itance and by the judgment of God." They accepted llTdktmcnt^ his statement of fact, and, without raising the question Nnvemhcr?, ^f right, declared "that the inheritance of the crown of England and France be, rest, remain and abide in the person of our sovereign lord. King Henry VII., and in the heirs of his body." They also declared the late King Eichard an usurper, his followers traitors, and then, thinking they had sufficiently vindicated the position of Henry, extended a general pardon to the survivors. It was a politic act and did much to inspire confidence. Then they still further voiced the earnest* desire of the nation for peace by humbly petitioning the king to "deign to marry the Lady Elizabeth York," the daughter of Edward IV. Henry consented, and the marriage was set for January 18, 148G. Thus at last the claims of the two lines of York and Lancaster were merged in the one House of Tudor. The new monarchy was hardly established before its strength was put to the test by a series of risings due to the restlessness of the deposed Yorkists. In 1486 Lord Lovel, a York- YorTcist ris- ings. Lovel, shire nobleman, raised the people of Yorkshire in the Yorkist interest. But the middle class everywhere hurried to the king's assistance. A "marvelous great number of esquires, gentlemen, and yeomen" gathered about Henry, and Lovel and his insurgents were speedily routed. The same year a second attempt was set on foot in Ireland. The great nobles of the Geraldine line took up Lambert Simnel, the son of an Oxford tradesman, and proclaimed him simnciim- to be "Edward Plantagenet, " Earl of Warwick, the son of Duke Clarence and Isabelle Neville, although the real Edward was at the time safe in Henry's keeping in the Tower. It seems strange that men should have believed Simnel's story; but it must be remembered that news spread slowly, and that it was very difficult to set the popular mind right when once misled. The people, moreover, were ignorant and credulous, and 502 THE RESTORATION OF THE MONARCHY [henry Vil. delighted in the marvelous and the improbable. Margaret of Burgundy, Edward IV. 's sister, acknowledged Simnel as her nephew, while John de la Pole, the earl of Lincoln, son of a second sister, openly joined Simnel, together with Lovel who had fled to Flanders after his previous failure. The expedition, composed of a motley crowd of soldiers and adventurers, tfermans, Flemings, and Irish, set sail from Dublin in the early summer of 1487, and soon made a landing in Lancashire. In June Henry met them at Stoke; Lovel and Lincoln were slain; but Simnel was captured and set to work as a turnspit in the royal kitchen. He was not worth the hanging. The rising bore immediate fruit in the revival of the old custom of calling together members of the king's council as a court of special criminal judicature in cases which the ordinary The Court of courts could not reach. Henry's primary object was to b^%4^^ put a stop to the long established abuses of livery of company, which made such risings as those of Lovel and Simnel possible. Parliaments had frequently petitioned against the evil and kings had promulgated laws in response, but in the weakness of the ordinary courts offenders had gone *'unwhipped of justice;" the poor had been oppressed; the courts despised, and the king defied. The evil, therefore, lay not in the law, but in the nerveless arm which wielded the law. What was needed was a court which would be beyond private control, and not subject to packing or intimidation ; and to meet this need a special committee of the king's council, composed of the chancellor, the treasurer, the keeper of the privy seal, a bishop, and a lord of the council, to which were added the two chief justices, was empow- ered by special act of parliament to deal with '^such offenses as livery and maintenance, jury packing, incitement to riot," and, in general, with all offenses where the ordinary courts failed to give justice. Cases of serious complaint, where no redress was offered in the ordinary courts, had frequently been addressed to the king in council, and such matters were commonly transacted in the room in the royal palace known as the Star Chamber where the council ordinarily held its business sittings. What was new, there- fore, w^as not a court of Star Chamber, but the creation of a special 1487] THE COURT OF STAR CHAMBER 503 committee of the council, strengthened by the' addition of the two royal judges and empowered to deal with particular classes of offenders.* Henceforth when a great noble violated the laws, the king's officers seized him, brought him to Westminster, and presented him to the Court of Star Chamber where he was tried and condemned without jury and by secret session, and sometimes it might be even without a hearing. Henry's old friend, the earl of Oxford, was among the first to suffer under the new law; he was fined £10,000.^ Another act no less conducive to the permanence of the present peace prescribed that the service of a de facto king should not be construed as high treason by act of parliament or any suihS^%95. pr<>cess of law. A parliament could not bind its suc- cessors, and yet the effect of the law was to remove an incentive to joining Yorkists' plots. Another law, also servicea- ble to the same end, prescribed that if a decision in case of a con- fiscated estate had been once given and a fine levied with proclama- tion in a public court of justice, then after five years no further claims could be made. While Henry was thus laying anew the foundations of order at home, the managers of the young French sovereign, Charles VIII. had been steadily reducing the remaining feu- Vranceover ^atories of the French allegiance and consolidating the ^jtoni/, strength of the crown. Henry was not blind to the significance of these steps; England was deeply inter- ested, and when in 1490 the advance of the French arms promised the speedy reduction of Brittany, the English saw themselves threatened not only with the loss of an old and useful ally but also with the destruction of their trade with the Bretons, for the lords of Brittany had given special privileges to English merchants. Henry's merchants, therefore, were eager to prevent the absorption of Brittany by the French crown even at the expense of war. Henry, however, felt that his position at home was by no means ^See Prothero, Select Statutes, pp. xcviii-cvii. For some novel and interesting facts concerning this famous court, see also Miss Scofield's Study of the Court of Star Chamber. * For the well-known story, see Green II, p. 70. 504 THE RESTOKATIOK OF THE MONARCHY [henry vii. SO secure, that he 'could afford to plunge into war with the now powerful French monarchy. Yet the nation insisted and through parliament virtually forced the king to interfere. Still Henry entered into the war with anything but a whole heart, and sent over an army of only 6,000 men, entirely inadequate to hold the duchy. The English people were not satisfied; the clamor for war increased, and in October 1492 Henry invaded France in person. He only pretended to make war, however, and was content to allow Charles to buy him off, as Louis XI. had once bought off Edward IV. This way of making '%ar pay at both ends," for parliament had Treaty of already voted enormous subsidies, peculiarly appealed to Augmt!i492. Henry's thrifty nature. The nation was chagrined and angry, but had to accept the result. One reason why Henry had hesitated to plunge into a foreign war was the fear that such a war would offer a new opportunity for the Yorkists to make trouble, and so it turned out. wafbeck Another pretender was found the moment the king had become involved in a foreign campaign. This new claimant was the famous Perkin Warbeck, who asserted that he was Eichard of York, the younger of the two princes who were supposed to have been murdered in the Tower in 1483. As in the case of Simnel, Margaret of Burgundy accepted this pretender also as her nephew, and rendered him all possible assistance; while the king of France welcomed him in hope of gaining some new advan- tage over his enemy. Warbeck was a Fleming of Tournay, hand- some, fascinating, well educated, of kingly bearing and noble manners, and so well tutored in his part that some readily believed in him. He appeared first in Ireland some time in 1492, where he was greeted by the Irish, and acknowledged by the deputy of the king, the earl of Kildare. From Ireland he passed to France, and in 1493 appeared at the court of Margaret. The fact that two pretenders could so readily get the support of the representative of Henry in Ireland, shows how little control he had in this part of his realms, and how little respect the earl of Kildare had for his chief. Henry determined therefore to replace the turbulent earl of Kildare by a more responsible deputy. The 1494, 1495] POYNIKGS'S LAW 505 man whom he selected was Sir Edward Poynings, his old compan- ion in exile, as devoted to his interests as he was able and deter- mined. Poynings began his work by getting possession Ireland. of the Pale. He then compelled the Irish parliament to Law!^49i. pass a series of acts, by which it was declared : first that the consent of the English king and council was neces- sary to the summoning of an Irish parliament ; second, that all bills considered by the Irish parliament must "first be considered by the English parliament ; and thirds that the recent laws of the English parliament were binding upon Ireland. Here was a fit- ting close of that century and a half of English legislation for Ireland w^hich began with the Statute of Kilkenny of 1367, **which made it high treason for an English settler to adopt Irish customs, to speak the Irish tongue, or to marry an Irish woman;'' which in 1465 made it lawful for a freeman to kill a thief on sight, or even one whom he suspected of being a thief; and which now in 1494 deprived the Irish parliament of all power to make its own laws. This action effectually robbed Warbeck of the chance of further assistance from Ireland. In the meantime Henry's agents had also ferreted out a number of men at home, who were charged with being in sympathy with Warbeck and engaged in securing for him a secret fol- DeathofSir lowing in England. At the head of these suspects was starS,i495' Si^ William Stanley, his chamberlain, the man who had made Henry's success at Bosworth possible, and who had crowned him on the field of battle. Like Warwick, the King- Maker, Stanley also had come to lament his successful treason, and was now plotting to undo his work. By order of Henry he was seized, tried, and executed. Whether he were guilty, or not, will probably always remain a question ; but the summary pro- ceedings, the dignity and wide influence of the victim, were a warning to the politicians, and effectually intimidated the secret adherents of Warbeck in England. After purging his own court Henry determined to force the Flemings to expel his enemy. The task was not difficult; for although Margaret persisted in befriending her spurious nephew, Henry knew that the policy of Flanders was determined in the 506 THE RESTORATION OF THE MONARCHY [ Henry Vli. long run by the burghers. Upon the burghers, therefore, he brought his displeasure to bear, proclaiming an embargo upon all goods shipped to England from the Flemish ports. upon Flemish As in the casB of the American embargo against Eng- lish goods in the early part of the nineteenth century, the people enforcing the act suffered quite as much as those against whom the act was directed. In Henry's case, however, the pres- sure upon the Flemish burghers was sufficient to raise such an out- cry that Margaret was compelled to let Warbeck go; and Duke Philip, Margaret's grandson, secured for his compliance a com- mercial treaty with England known as the Magnus Inter cur sus, which guaranteed freedom of trade between England intercursus, and a number of Flemish cities and was of great benefit 1496m - to both countries. The success of Henry's embargo reveals the growing influence of commerce and the commercial classes in shaping the foreign policy of European nations. From Flanders Warbeck attempted to make a descent on the coast of Kent, but was easily beaten off, and finally by way of Ireland reached Scotland. James IV. gave the adven- Scotland, turer a generous welcome, acknowledged him as Edward IV. 's son, and found a wife for him in his own kins- woman Catharine Gordon. He even went so far as to cross the border with his protege, and begin the harrying of the Northum- brian peasants; but Warbeck sickened of this kind of work and returned to Scotland in disgust. Then James grew weary of his high-toned guest who took no pleasure in making war on simple peasant folk and after two years saw him and his wife leave the kingdom without regret. The threat of northern invasion had roused parliament to unusual effort. It granted the king the enormous subsidy of £120,000; and also empowered him to borrow an addi- The visiTiQ of the Cornish tional sum of £40,000. When, however, the ministers attempted to collect the money, there was great dissat- isfaction throughout England, where resistance to taxation was coming to be almost a national tradition. In Cornwall the discon- tent expressed itself in armed revolt; a dangerous band of insur- gents began the usual march upon London and were not stopped 1497-1499] END OF WARBECK'S CAREER 507 until they reached Blackheath. The leaders, among whom was Lord Audley, were executed, but the common people were spared. Warbeck, who had found little sympathy in Ireland, landed in Cornwall some three months after Blackheath, and taking The end of advantage of the continued dissatisfaction of the peo- mrea\%J7- P^®' ^^^ouraged them once more to take up arms. He ^^^^- attacked Exeter but was driven off by the earl of Devonshire, and retired to Taunton. Here his courage forsook him altogether and he fled to sanctuary at Beaulieu in the New Forest. He was taken and brought before Henry at Exeter and humbly confessed all the pitiable fraud. Henry sent him to the Tower and for a time treated him fairly well; but an unsuccess- ful attempt to escape in which he tried to take with him Edward Plantagenet, the genuine earl of Warwick, brought both the unfor- tunate young men to the block. The execution of Warwick was hardly justifiable; the poor young man had been shut up in the Tower since he was a child of ten, and had never done harm to any one. His death removed the last Yorkist of the male line. The creation of the Court of Star Chamber was only one of many indications of the despotic tendency of Henry's administra- _ , ^ tion. Certain very definite checks upon the royal The (Jcapot- i • i t i ism of Henry authority had been clearly recognized both in custom and in formal law before the end of the fifteenth century. These checks may be thus enumerated: 1. A grant of parliament was in all cases necessary to legal taxation; 2. The king might promulgate no new law without the assent of parliament; 3. He might imprison no subject without legal warrant and every arrest must also be followed by speedy trial ; 4. Officers and servants of the crown were liable for every violation of the rights of subjects ; the command of a superior, even of the king, might not be advanced in defense ; 5. The Commons had the right to impeach any of the king's ministers for malfeasance or other misconduct.^ Theoretically, therefore, the liberties of the nation were secure, but in the application of law in individual cases there was still wide opportunity for abuse. Unfortunately also the conditions under which Henry held the crown, frequently justified such evasions *Cf. Hallam, Constitutional Hist, of England, ed. 1880, I, p. 18. 508 THE RESTORATION OF THE MONARCHY [he.vry vii. in the interests of peace and order. Thus in time a series of precedents were gradually established, which practically annulled the law of liberty, just when the subject most needed its protec- tion. Parliament, moreover, not only regarded such usurpations with favor, but supported the king in measures which a hundred years before would have called the nation to arms. This is not to be explained simply by the weakness of parliament, or by the fact that the nobles no longer had within their grasp the means of forcing the demands of parliament upon the king, but rather by the fact that Henry YII. and his successor really represented the policy of the great body of yeomanry and gentry who controlled the parliaments of the sixteenth century. It was in keeping with this same tendency that towards the end of his reign Henry dispensed with the services of parliament altogether. The outcry which had been raised against imces''(k the grants of 1497, had proved to him that even for the raising of subsidies parliament was useless, and that its authority was not sufficient to outweigh the increasing opposi- tion of the nation to taxation. Edward IV. 's method of raising money by benevolences was far more convenient. Henry found it useful, however, in levying his benevolences to respect the sem- blance of law, sometimes by securing the sanction of a council of notables summoned for this purpose, and sometimes by securing an authorization by parliament. For the most part his rich sub- jects responded without protest, accepting the burden as a sort of price which they were paying for the much desired peace and for protection against other and worse kinds of spoliation. In other ways also Henry's agents contrived not only to replen- ish his treasury as he needed funds but to accumulate a hoard which at his death was estimated at £1,800,000. At tfw barons ^^^ beginning of his reign confiscations were numerous, chequer'^ and when these began to fail, the two barons of the Exchequer, Empson and Dudley, proposed to hold all those who had wittingly or unwittingly infringed upon ancient feudal rights of the crown, customs most of them obsolete, and fine the offenders. Fines were also levied without mercy upon all criminals and rebels. Even the Cornishmen, whose 1494] THE LEAGUE AGAINST FRANCE 509 poverty was proverbial, were compelled to pay each his shilling fine in order to secure a pardon after the rising of 1497. Offend- ers who were so unhappy as to be conspicuous for their wealth, were fined proportionately. In the later years of Henry the nations of western Europe began the long struggle to set bounds to the ambition of French kings. The recent rapid advance of France had roused FovcioTi ' alliances of the apprehension and jealousy of her neighbors, and when in 1494 the visionary Charles VIII. entered upon his famous Italian campaign for the purpose of overthrowing the Aragonose princes of Naples in the interest of his own shadowy claims to the Neapolitan crown, his first startling successes led at once to a formal counter-league of the western powers, in which Ferdinand of Spain* and the Hapsburg emperor, Maximilian, bore a leading part. England was hardly concerned in the issue, for it really mattered little to her who controlled Italy or how it was ultimately to be divided. But English statesmen did not yet comprehend the advantages of England's insular position, or the wisdom of holding aloof from continental entangle- ments, in which she had no real interest; to be without an alliance was regarded as a position of great weakness, and hence Henry VII. sought for a place in the new continental system. That this place should be by the side of Hapsburg and Spain was natural. The marriage of Mary of Burgundy and Maximilian had made the princes of this powerful honse heirs to the traditional friendships and enmities of Burgundy, and although the alliance of Charles the Rash with the Yorkists had led him to oppose the Lancastrians, as it had also led the French king to support Henry at first, the fact that the Yorkist- Lancastrian quarrel was now virtually settled and that Henry himself had recently broken with France, the fact that it was in every way important for Henry to maintain England's profitable ^ Aragon and Castile had been united under the joint sovereignty of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1479. To this Ferdinand had recently added Granada by the expulsion of the Moors, 1482-1492. Navarre, the last of the four original Spanish kingdoms, was still independent in 1494. It was added by conquest in 1512. 510 THE RESTORATION OF THE MOJ^ARCHY [hknky vii. commercial relations with Burgundy and that an alliance with Hapsburg would put a stop to Margaret's support of her spurious nephews and save Henry from further annoyance from pretenders such as Simnel and Warbeck, all together induced him to join the league as a kind of silent member. The friendly relations of Hapsburg, Spain, and England thus established in their first alliance against France, were to have the gravest results in shaping the future history of Europe, Thegrcat and of England in particular. In 1496 Jnana of Ara- aiuancesof gon the second daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, Spain, Eng- was married to Philip, the duke of Burgundy, son of Scotland. Maximilian and Mary. In 1501 Catharine, another daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, was married to Arthur, the eldest son of Henry VII., and after Arthur's death the next year, she was pledged to Henry's second son, afterward Henry VIII. An attempt to detach from France her old tradi- tional ally, Scotland, also led in 1502 to the marriage of James IV. and Margaret, a daughter of Henry VII. Of these marriages the Hapsburg-Spanish marriage was to save the papal supremacy in southern Europe; but the English-Spanish marriage was to force the severance of England from the papal system; the Scotch- English marriage was to result in the final union of England and Scotland under a king of the Stuart line. At the time such results were farthest from the minds of the chief actors ; Henry thought only of securing the stability of his throne and the peace of his kingdom, and in these he succeeded. Henry died in 1509. He had done much for England; he had restored the monarchy; established peace; repressed the great nobles ; and compelled all classes to obey the laws. He was not a great legislator; but he was a great peace-officer. From the point of view of the constitution his administration marks the beginning of a serious retrogression; he had little use for parliament, and greatly strengthened and enlarged the authority of the royal council as the chief instrument of government, making it neces- sary, in the next century, to fight over again the quarrel between king and parliament, shedding much blood and squandering much wealth in order to secure the privileges which the parliaments of RESULTS OF HEXRY VII. *S REIGK 511 Henry IV. and Henry V. had enjoyed. And yet just such an administration as Henry VII. gave his people was needed at the close of the fifteenth century to prepare England for the great role which she was to play in the sixteenth century. PROMINENT CHARACTERS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. KINGS OP ENGLAND. Henry IV., 1399-1413 Henry V., 1413-1422 Henry VI., 1423-1461, and 1470 1471 Edward IV., 1461-1483 Richard III., 1483-I4S> Henry VII., 1485-1509 KINGS OF FRANCE. Charles VI., 1380- 1423 Charles VII., 1423- 1461 Louis XI., 1461- 1483 Charles VIIL, 1483- 1498 Louis XII., 1498- 1515 EMPEItORS. Siglsmond, 1410- 1438 Frederick IIL, 1440-1493 Maximilian L, 1493- 1519 SOVEREIGNS OF SPAIN. (CAS- TILE AND ARA- GON). Ferdinand the "Catholic," 1479- 1516 Isabella, joint sov- ereign witli Fer- dinand, 1479-1504 FAMOUS CHARACTERS NOT KINGS. John Huss, d. 1414 .Joan of Arc, d. 1431 (iutenberg, j. ' of the Scots with the French, and had taken advan- tage of Henry's absence to invade Northumberland. But the blow had already been skillfully evaded by Catharine who had promptly roused the council and dispatched an army to the north under the command of Thomas Howard, the earl of Surrey, and his son, also Thomas Howard, the brother of the late admiral. The Howards 516 THE MONARCHY SUPREME [henry vm. had met the Scots on Flodden Field not far from the border and after a most skillfully conducted battle completely routed them ; James himself was slain and his bloodstained plaid sent as a trophy to Henry. The death of King James left the Scottish kingdom to the distraction of a regency and Henry had little to fear farther from this source, but the war furnished him with a pretext and at the close of the season he withdrew from the continent. The man who had done most perhaps to bring Henry into his present frame of mind was Thomas Wolsey, who since 1509 had been attached to the royal chapel and had attained a wS^ great influence over the king. This remarkable man, * 'perhaps the greatest of the long line of ecclesiastical statesmen from Lanfranc to Laud," was the son of a merchant of Ipswich. He had entered Oxford when a mere child and had been made a Bachelor of Arts at fifteen. He had risen rapidly, his unusual gifts having early attracted the attention of the new king, who had a kindly feeling for men who combined with phe- nomenal industry and energy the art of bringing things to pass. Trained as a churchman, Wolsey was yet a man of surpassing worldly wisdom, a politician and a statesman. *'In penetration, in aptitude for business and indefatigable labor, he had no equal." The preparation for the French war had been largely committed to his care, and although at heart opposed to the war, he had thrown all his splendid energy into the work of equipping the army, thereby contributing not a little to its successes. He had also accompanied the expedition to the continent, had shared the hardships of the camp before Terouenne, and had become the king's chief and most trusted adviser. The deep humiliation and anger which Henry felt when once it dawned upon him that his two powerful allies were only playing upon his vanity in order to use him as a cat's-paw, had diplomatic g^^^n Wolsey his opportunity. He had long believed Wohey^i5i4. ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^® interests of England as well as her dig- nity lay on the side of a French alliance, and he at once gave all his attention to securing this object, with the result that in a short time he not only brought about an advantageous peace 1514-1519] THOMAS WOLSEY 617 but had further secured the friendship of France by the marriage of Louis XII. and Henry's youngest sister Mary Tudor. Henry was delighted with the success of Wolsey's plans, and showered upon him a succession of honors and preferments which would have turned the head of a smaller man; in 1514 making him bishop of Lincoln,^ and in 1515 archbishop of York and chancel- lor. In 1517 he also used his influence to secure for his favorite the cardinal's cap and had him appointed papal legate for England. Wolsey now had a free hand, and for the next fifteen years practi- cally shaped and directed the affairs of England both at home and abroad . Louis XII., unfortunately, did not long survive his Tudor mar- riage, and his death, within three months, brought the first diplo- matic triumph of Wolsey to nought. Francis of dilfiom£ Angouleme succeeded to the French throne, January 1, Wouey!''^ 1515; a man fully as ambitious as Louis and with all the fire and energy of a youth of twenty-two in addi- tion. His first exploit was to recover the lost ground of France in northern Italy, winning the brilliant victory of Marignano over _ ^ the Swiss mercenaries of the duke of Milan. The Marignano. September, great powcrs at once took alarm; but the death of Fer- dinand early the next year and the succession of Maxi- milian's grandson, Charles of Burgundy, to the Spanish throne, as well as the approaching reversion of the Hapsburg interests in the east, more than offset any fear of France which may have arisen from the success of Francis at Marignano. Wolsey, true to his policy of favoring the weaker party, succeeded in bringing about a new alliance of England with France, arranging that Tournay ^ ^ ^ should be restored for 600,000 crowns, and that Treat}/ ^/ tt • ^don^ Henry's infant daughter Mary should marry the infant son of Francis. The Scottish allies of France, also, were not forgotten, and finally the new pope Leo X., the emperor, and Charles of Spain were persuaded to enter the peace. It was a great triumph for the Ipswich merchant's son who thus posed as the successful peace-maker of Christendom. In January 1519 all the plotting and sclieming of old ''Kaiser * The year before, Henry had made Wolsey bishop of Tournay. 518 THE MONARCHY SUPREME [henry VIIL Max"^ came to an end, and he followed Ferdinand, his rival and master in craft, to the grave. Who should succeed him eiecttnF^^^^^ in the imperial office? The imperial title was not hered- itary but lay partly in the power of the pope to grant, and partly in the power of seven princes of the empire, called "electors." These electors were the archbishops of Mainz, Cologne, and Treves, the elector of Saxony, the margrave of Bran- denburg, the king of Bohemia, and the count palatine of the Rhine. These seven might present a candidate, who then bore the title of "King of the Romans" and was also titular king of the Germans ; but he was only a sort of de facto emperor until he had been duly crowned and consecrated by the pope. The papal coronation was not a mere tribute on the part of the emperor to the position of the pope in the empire, as when the archbishop of Canterbury is allowed to crown a king of England; it was a confirmation by the church of the clioice of the electors and was necessary to the imperial title. Hence popes might refuse the honor, though emperors elect had not hesitated in such cases to invade Italy at the head of an army in order to force the pope to confer the title, or failing in that, to make a pope of their own. Since the days of the Hohenstaufen, however, the candidates as simply titular German kings had commonly possessed so little political power, that they were content to wait beyond the Alps and secure by diplomacy the approval of an obstinate pope. Of the four candidates who were presented to the electoral college in 1519, Frederick the elector of Saxony, whose pure Ger- man blood appealed powerfully to the national sentiment of the people, was the popular candidate and probably could Election of have had the honor if he would ; Henry VIII. had no Charles V. June 28, 1519. chance at all, nor did any one but himself think seri- ously of his candidacy; Francis I. had a wide reputa- tion as a soldier which greatly commended him to the electors as a promising champion against the Turk, whom recent successes had brought into dangerous proximity to eastern Germany. Francis also possessed unlimited resources for bribery which he ^ For sketch of his character, see Stubbs, Lectures on Mediaeval and Modern History, p. 385 and following. 1519-1521] ELECTIOK OF CHARLES V. * 519 was perfectly willing to use. The fourth candidate was Charles of Spain, young, yet untried and without credit for any personal strength of character; he was also without experience in war and his widely scattered dominions promised to keep him so busy else- where that he could give little attention to defending Europe against the Turk. He was, however, greatly feared by Pope Leo, since in the recent scramble of the powers in Italy the Span- ish-Hapsburg princes had got possession of Naples, and-the pope had no desire to see their influence further exalted in the penin- sula. The pope was also averse to the candidacy of Francis, whose hold upon north Italy at the time was equally menacing to papal independence, and in his heart really favored a third candi.late, possibly the elector Frederick, but in an attempt to play off the two most powerful candidates against each other he contrived to rouse the national sentiment of the Germans who took umbrage at what they were pleased to regard as a papal interference with the rights of the German electors. The pope then in alarm lest Charles should be chosen after all, took up the candidacy of Francis, only to precipitate the catastrophe which be most feared. On June 28, 1519, Charles was elected without a dissenting voice. ^ The pope was in no condition to resist; the religious troubles of Germany were becoming every day more serious; with the powerful support of the new emperor, he might check them; but if Charles were driven into opposition, no one could fore- see the outcome. The pope, therefore, abandoned Francis and secretly allied himself with Charles. ''It is a coinci- dence, remarkable enough, that the edict of Worms" which formally condemned Martin Luther and his writings. Edict of "bears the same date as the day on which, with profound Worms, May i / , \ ^ ^ 26, 1521. secrecy, he (the pope) undertook to become the ally of Charles against Francis."^ Francis had been beaten ; moreover the vast increase of the power of the Spanish-Hapsburg prince made him a more dangerous rival of France than ever, and the alliance of Henry of England ^ Upon the election of Charles V. see Creighton, History of the Papacy during the Reformation, V, pp. 94-109. 2 Creighton, V, p. 157. 520 THE MONAKCHY SUPREME [hexuy viii. correspondingly important to the French sovereign. But Charles also realized the importance of the friendship of England, and just as eagerly sought for an alliance with Henry. woSiMth^ Wolsey, however, who was still anxious to keep the peace Fmnti^"'^ of Europe, sought by holding both suitors at arms length to preserve a sort of balance between them and post- pone the approaching war indefinitely. Interviews were arranged for Henry with each monarch. In May 1520 Charles visited Henry at Canterbury ; and shortly after Henry and Francis met in the neighborhood of Calais, where in a continual round of tournaments, feasts and pageants, glitter and wastefulness, known as the ^' Field of the Cloth of Gold," each monarch attempted to outdo the other in giving evidences of gracious good Field of the will and Confidence. Yet the famous meeting had 1520. ' hardly broken up, before Henry again met Charles at Gravelines. The ingenuity of Wolsey, however, was not equal to the task of keeping the two monarchs from flying at each other, and the next year, April, 1521, Francis invaded almost simultaneously the territories of Burgundy and Navarre. When Charles heard^that Francis had at last broken the peace, he saw his advantage and exclaimed, "Thank God that I have not struck the first blow, and that the king of France wishes to make me a greater than I am ! Either I shall become a poor emperor, or he a poor king." Wolsey's policy now was to keep England out of the quarrel as long as possible. But the commercial inter- ests of England in the Netherlands could not be ignored, and a second visit of Charles to England resulted in a formal alliance with Spain and Burgundy, and the appearance of an English army in France. It was during this alliance with Charles, that the papacy began to loom up before Wolsey as the possible goal of his ambition. Both Charles and Francis had sought to win his sup- Woiseyand port by promising a friendly influence in the College of honor. Cardinals. But Wolsey was unwilling to put himself into the hands of men who only wanted to use him, in order to trick his master into a course which his own judgment condemned. There is, moreover, no reason to doubt his devotion 1525-1527] wolsey's ukpopularity 521 to England or to believe that he sought the papacy un- worthily. Wolsey, at heart, had never been in sympathy with the Span- ish alliance, and when Francis was defeated and taken prisoner at Pavia in 1525, he saw with alarm the growing power of SsCharioi Charles V., and set himself to work to persuade Henry to throw his weight into the other scale for the purpose of maintaining the balance of power. This was not a difficult thing to do, for Henry's arms had accomplished little or nothing in his direct attacks upon France, and the people were growing restless under the increasing load of taxation. Henry, moreover, was getting tired of his Spanish wife and was inclined to treat all her friends as his enemies. In 1527 the troops of Cliarles V. stormed Rome, captured the pope, Clement VII., and after an exhibition of lawless violence which shocked Europe, threw the venerable head of the Christian church into prison. Henry, who was still a zealous Catholic, resented the personal indignity to the pope and sent a formal protest to Charles. He was, therefore, once more in a mood to listen to his minister, and consented for the third time to enter into a French alliance. The third alliance with France greatly increased the unpopu- larity of Wolsey. He had never been loved by the people, and had always been more or less hated by the nobles who ^pu&u!^' ^^^ ^^^^ irritated by his pride and magnificence, but feared him because of his influence with the king. There was also a lingering hostility to France among the nobles, who cherished the old traditions of the ** Hundred Years' War" and could not take kindly to the French sympathies of the court. The Commons also had their grievances, for the chancellor had lit- tle use for a parliament in his system. He believed that a king ought to be able to rule without the aid of his'people and regarded the calling of a parliament as a confession of weakness on the part of the crown and a source of annoyance and vexation. For the first eight years of his chancellorship, he had managed to get along without any parliaments at all ; but the burden of the French war had forced the king to appeal to the people, and Wolsey in the king's name, but against his own inclination, had asked for 522 THE MONARCHY SUPKEME [henry VliL t-he enormous grant of £800,000; and although parliament had given him only about one-quarter of the amount, the increased burden upon the people was sufficient to call forth a storm of satire and invective against the unpopular minister. He was called the ^'butcher's dog," a "mastiff cur;" he was described in doggerel verse as ugly in face and form; it was said that he had no respect for God or man ; that he took bribes of the French ; that he was illiterate, a "poor master of arts whose Latin tongue doth hobble;" so proud and haughty that none of the great lords durst speak, at the council table in his presence. These charges were without foundation, and yet they revealed the dangerous mood of the people. In 1525, the king again attempted to raise money by what he called "an amicable loan" which ''The ami- n - 1 i i i i ^ - cahieioan;' was really the old benevolence, only in a new guise. Englishmen everywhere objected; in many places their ill-humor expressed itself in rioting and acts of mob violence. Even Henry at last saw the impossibility of collecting the money and right royally remitted any further payment. Wolsey it seems had opposed both the tax and the amicable loan, but had been overruled by the king. His office, however, compelled him to superintend the levy, and thus the people had come to look upon him as responsible for the misdoing of their king. Yet the chancellor was not a man to shrink from the unpleasant burdens of his office, and in a spirit of devotion of which Henry VIII. was unworthy, he freely accepted his unpopularity as one of the inci- dents of his position. "Because every man layeth the burden from him," he said, "I am content to take it on me, and to endure the fame and worse of the people, for my good will towards the king, . . . but the eternal God knoweth all." With the church over which the position of papal legate gave Wolsey great power, he was no more popular than with barons and commons. He saw the need of reform, but pro- mfcfm^ctf posed to reform, not the doctrines of the church, nor the relations of the church to the papacy, but the daily life of the clergy. He was also in sympathy with the new educa- tional ideals which had been brought into England by Colet and others, and sought to convert the funds of useless and decayed 1487-1525] THE SUCCESSION 523 monasteries, of which there were a great many in England at the time, into the foundations of schools and colleges. In this he had the full sympathy of both pope and king, and was only follow- ing the policy of William of Wykeham and other conservative churchmen of the past, who saw that there were too many lazy monks in the church to the number of hard students. This great work was fairly begun in 1524 in the founding of Cardinal College at Oxford^ and a grammar school at Ipswich. Like everything else that Wolsey touched these foundations were established upon a scale of magnificence unprecedented; but unfortunately Wolsey was so busily occupied in many things that he had time to carry forward his plans of reform just far enough to alarm tlie short- sighted and not far enough to win the confidence of those who wished for more sweeping results. Thus Wolsey stood in the unenviable position of a great leader without a following, who is feared by all, but trusted by none. It required only a sign from the king for all parties to nfmnr^yS- ^^^^^^^ for his overthrow. This sign was given soon sihierivaJain after the couclusion of the third alliance with France, the successwii. ' but it was due to no fault of Wolsey's. One by one the possible Yorkist claimants of the throne had been removed; Edward Plantagenet the son of Clarence had been executed in 1499; of the sous of Elizabeth, Edward IV. 's sister, John de la Pole,, the earl of Lincoln, had been killed at Stoke in 1487; Edmund de la Pole, the duke of Suffolk, had been executed by Henry's order in 1513, and Kichard de la Pole, the husband of Clarence's daughter Margaret, had been killed at Pavia in 1525. Even the collateral branches of the Beaufort line had not been safe from the ruthless jealousy of the king, when once the succes- sion was in question. Edward Stafford Duke of Buckingham was the son of that Henry Duke of Buckingham who had been put to death by Richard III. in 1483, and hence was the grandson of a Margaret Beaufort. But he was also by direct descent from Anne, daughter of Thomas of Gloucester, a representative of the youngest son of Edward III., and if the legitimacy of the Beau- ^ Remodeled and refounded by Henry VIII. after the great cardinal's fall, as Christ Church, the name which it still bears. 524 THE MONARCHY SUPREME [henry viil. forts were questioned, had even a better right to the crown than Henry VII. He was, moreover, wealthy and powerful, and had been foolish enough to talk about his prospects of inheriting the throne. It was enough to rouse the suspicions of the king, and in 1521 Buckingham was tried upon a charge of treason, condemned, and promptly executed. The succession, however, was still Henry's sensitive point; and the fatality which had attended the children of Catharine began to prey upon a conscience which had had at best but a 'pcmsthe poor training, and was liable to the morbid sensitiveness of a superstitious nature. He began, therefore, to ques- tion the validity of the papal dispensation which had authorized him to marry his brother's widow. Henry's tender conscience, moreover, was greatly reinforced by a violent passion which he had formed for a young lady of the court, Anne Boleyn, a grand- daughter of the earl of Surrey, victor of Flodden. The new fav- orite was not blind to the significance of the attentions of the king but had steadfastly refused to become his mistress. The unfor- tunate Catharine, therefore, was plainly in the way; and, although she had always been a faithful wife and most unselfishly devoted to her husband's interests, with characteristic willfulness, Henry set himself to get rid of her by invoking the technicalities of the Canon Law. The matter was laid before Wolsey who naturally opposed a project which promised complications from which the wisest might shrink. But Henry was stubbornly bent upon his pur- Clement VII. j r r and the di- ' posc and Wolscy, against Judgment and conscience, con- sented to serve his master. In 1527 the king appealed directly to Pope Clement, asking him to relieve him of the bond which Julius 11. had sanctioned. Clement, however, was by no means free to act. The emperor Charles was Catharine's nephew and he had clearly indicated his purpose to support her interests and resent as a personal affront the irreparable wrong which Henry would have the pope commit against her and her daughter. Charles, moreover, was actually in possession of the Holy City, the pope was a captive, and his political power in Italy trem- bling in the balance. In Germany, also, where the Reformation was 1529, 1530] THE FALL OF WOLSEY 525 making rapid strides, the support and friendship of Charles was more necessary to tlie pope than ever. Yet on the other hand the pope feared to offend Henry; he knew the character of the man and did not wish to make him an enemy. He, therefore, chose the hardly less dangerous plan of delay and non-committal. It was Wolsey's policy, however, to force an immediate decision from the pope, and he accordingly pressed for permission to hear the case in his legatine court. Clement could not The trial, refuse and despatched Cardinal Campeggio to act with Wolsey. But Campeggio 's movements were so dilatory that the trial was not fairly opened until June 1529. AVhile Cam- peggio was thus wearing out the patience of Henry by his policy of obstruction and delay, Catharine, satisfied that she was not to have just treatment in any court in which Wolsey presided, appealed directly to Rome in hope of securing a hearing before the pontiff himself. When, therefore, Clement at last interfered and summoned the whole case to his own tribunal, Henry's disgust passed to angry defiance. He knew that he had little to hope from the pope and took his action as equivalent to an adverse decision. Up to this point Henry had regarded himself as a most loyal son of the church. He had even entered the lists against the Ger- man Luther, answering Luther's attack on the seven Wotscl^'idso sacraments of the church in a reply characteristically violent and dogmatic, called the ** Defense of the Seven Sacraments," in which he had upheld the divine origin of the papacy and the authority of the pope in matters of doctrine. The pope, Leo X., pleased by the high quality of the champion, if not by the quality of his work, had bestowed upon him the title of "Defender of the Faith," thereby much elating the royal theo- logian, since now he had a title as high sounding as that of the "most Christian" king of France or the "Catholic" king of Spain. But all was now forgotten in a blaze of wrath against the pope who had dared to thwart his plan of getting rid of his unwelcome wife. His first step was to attack the legate of his own making. Wolsey was in no way responsible for what had taken place ; but he was the nearest and most conspicuous representative of the 526 THE MONAKCHY SUPREME [ IlEMlY VIII. papal dignity. The instrument, moreover, which Henry selected Cor making the attack was the old Statute of Praemunire^ which it was claimed by the crown advisers Wolsey had violated in acting as papal legate. The attack was as mean as the method was unjust and unfair; for Henry himself had secured the appointment for Wolsey and had practically thrust it upon him. Wolsey, how- ever, knew the temper of the king too well to think of resistance ; he knew also the temper and envy of those who surrounded hini too well to think that he could secure a fair trial in any court of the kingdom and, gracefully accepting his fate, confessed his fault and acknowledged himself liable to the full penalties of the law. Henry was somewhat mollified by the humble spirit of his once splendid minister, and after allowing him to endure many petty annoyances at the hands of obsequious servants, finally issued a formal pardon, restoring with it a part of Wolsey's property to the amount of £6,000. Wolsey was then sent north to resume his humbler duties of archbishop of York. Here he spent the spring and summer of 1530, but his spirit was broken and his health rapidly gave way. His enemies, chief among whom was Thomas Howard, now duke of Norfolk, and Anne Boleyn, who made Wolsey respon- sible for the failure of the divorce, still pursued him with a vindic- tiveness which was to be satisfied only by his death. Wolsey, when the first note of alarm had been sounded, with the purest motive had sent an appeal by a secret agent to Francis, asking him to intercede in his behalf. The message, however, had fallen into the hands of Thomas Howard, and was now used as a basis for a new and more serious charge, that of treason. The fallen chan- cellor was at once seized and hurried south with the Tower of London as his destination. On the way his friends, for he still had some, tried to hearten him, but he sadly responded: "I per- ceive more than you can imagine or know; experience of old hath taught me." He was already a dying man. When he reached Leicester Abbey his strength was failing so rapidly that his captors could take him no further. He died on the 29th of November 1530, worn out by toil, broken by the sense of disgrace; *'a very, wretch replete with misery." In his last breath he iStubbs, C. H., Ill, pp. 341, 342. 1530] THE DEATH OF WOLSEY 527 acknowledged his one great fault: *'Had I but served God as diligently as I have served the king, he would not have given me over in my gray hairs. But this is my due reward for my pains and study, not regarding my service to God, but only my duty to my prince. " So fell Thomas Wolsey, possibly the greatest, "certainly the most magnificent in the line of ecclesiastical statesmen." Appear- ing at a time when *'king worship'' was rapidly becoming a sort of religion with a great body of the English people, he could be an * 'absolutist," and yet a patriot; for he sincerely believed that the exaltation of England lay in the exaltation of the monarch. This was both the excuse and the justification of that marvelous magnificence which distinguishes Wolsey among all the great min- isters of great kings; **his palaces, his train of gentlemen clad in velvet of the cardinal color, the eight antechambers rich with hangings, through which suitors passed to his presence; the silver crosses, the pillars and pole-axes, which were carried before him and about him when he went abroad, the prodigal splendor of the entertainments which he gave to king and court," all were justi- fied because they enhanced the glory of a master who could afford so magnificent a subject. His history, bis remarkable rise and no less remarkable fall, reflects both the greatness and the meanness of the king whom he served, who could create him, shower upon him dignities and wealth, who could allow him to bear the burden of the unpopularity which he himself had roused by his own tyrannies and blunders, and then fling him at last as a sacrifice to the vengeance of the people. It was the Tudor fashion. vH" CHAPTER III J THE ECCLESIASTICAL REVOLT OF ENGLAl^D HENRY VIII., 1530-1539 The universal recognition of the authority of the pope by the states of western Europe, is a marked feature of the later middle ages. The lines, however, which defined the limits of recognition that authority, had never been clearly drawn. The authority in world state was in theorv a kind of theocracy, of which Euroue. '^ the real sovereign was God, or Christ. The will of the world sovereign was made known through the ministers ,of the church, expressed in the decisions of councils and synods, but most directly through the divinely appointed head of the church, the pope, the executor of its decrees, the interpreter of its laws and doctrines, and the vindicator of its rights ; and in exercising the functions of this high office, popes had not hesi- tated to rebuke princes, or threaten their kingdoms with the interdict, or the kings themselves with excommunication or depo- sition. In general the acts which brought king or emperor under the papal displeasure were either offenses against the moral law of Christendom or encroachments upon the spiritual authority of the church. Yet owing to the hopeless entanglement of church law and state law, the pope could not submit the representatives of the state to church discipline without encroaching upon the independence of the state. Few, moreover, grasped clearly the idea of the national state ; all Christian men were regarded as members of one common society, represented in the one visible church and united in the one supreme visible head; and although there were many symptoms of independent national life so far as the relations of kings to each other were concerned, and though there had been from time to time vigorous protests against the encroachments of individual popes upon the rights of nations, men were not agreed as to just where the limits of papal authority «nded or the independent rights of the national king began. 528 rwMA >^'"o~-"»hr T LK OLAMOKO AN"' M- . u i. • r et- / ^.^ ^' movement. three distmct but_convergmg Imes: First, the king was moving toward a declaration of the complete inde- pendence of the English Church and the reorganization of the English ecclesiastical system upon a purely national basis; second, the parliament was interested in the reform of those practices of the church which distressed the laity in particular; but third, a far more serious threat to the established order, there was a rapidly increasing body of people, thoughtful and devout, but active and determined, who had caught their inspiration from Luther and his followers, possibly from some lingering fires of Lollardy, and had begun an attack upon the whole system of accepted church doctrine. Their position was a strong one, for 1534-1530] WILLIAM TYNDALE 537 they represented the quickening conscience of England, the pro- test of the better thought of the people against the irreligion and heartless materialism of the age, with which unfortunately the clerical body in the interests of their special privileges and their vast wealth had suffered themselves to be identified. Of the leaders of this third movement, the most important was William Tyndale, who had been a student at the great English universities and there come under the influence of the the English ncw learning. His active, practical mind very early Scrivtures. j ^ conceived the idea of giving the results of the ripened scholarship of the age to the people in the form of an accurate translation of the Scriptures. He soon became satisfied, however, that such a work could not be done in England in the present mood of the clergy, and in 1524 went to the continent, where he met Luther at Wittenberg and finally settled down at Cologne. But here the town authorities made trouble for him and he was forced to retire to Worms where in 1526 he finished the octavo edition of his New Testament, and sent over some three thousand copies to be distributed in England. The translation of the Pen- tateuch followed in 1530. The friends of Tyndale in the mean- time had organized an '* Association of Christian Brothers" who made it their task to bring his translations into direct contact with the people by a wide distribution. They were circulated with tracts of Tyndale, Frith, and Barnes, '* three worthy martyrs and principal teachers of the Church of England." Henry had no sympathy with this phase of the reform, for he hated Luther with all the intolerance of a narrow and obstinate mind and was suspicious of everything that smacked of tht gnirni-^ the Lutheran fiavor. The bishops also had been quick the religious to take alarm at the appearance of Tyndale's New TcfoTm> Testament and published their disapproval of his trans- lations. But while Wolsey remained in power, he had stayed their hands from offering personal violence to the men who were thus using the Scriptures to undermine the authority of the church. More, however, whose legal training perhaps had inspired in his mind a respect for law above the simple dictates of humanity, and who possibly, also, felt the need of vindicating the political reform 538 THE ECCLESIASTICAL REVOLT OF ENGLAND [ Henry vm. with which he was in sympathy from the charge of any complicity in the attack on the doctrines of the church, marshalled all the machinery of government against the ** Christian Brothers" and began a vigorous attempt to uproot the spreading heresies. He had, moreover, already drawn the sword of controversy and had upheld the doctrine of Purgatory against Tyndale and others in a tract called the ''Supplication of Souls." While the king, there- fore, still bent upon his divorce, was striving to frighten the pope into compliance by the threat of severing the ecclesiastical system of England from that of the continent, while the parliament was seeking to relieve the people from the burdens of mortuaries and the neglect of pluralists. More had lighted the fires at Smithfield and begun sending the clearest sighted advocates of the reform to the stake. Between Henry and the pope matters had speedily come to a deadlock. The pope refused to be bullied and announced his determination not to yield ; Henry at a loss as to the toiheuni- next step, yet fully determined as ever to have his way, appealed to the universities of Europe for an opinion upon the crucial question, whether the pope was competent to allow a man to marry his deceased brother's widow; that is. Was a Papal Bull superior to the plain declaration of the Scriptures? The universities took up the question, and amused themselves with it after their ponderous fashion, and finally gave a decision, each in accordance with the political preferences of their respec- tive sovereigns, and so settled nothing. After three years more of vexatious waiting, Henry found that he was no nearer his goal than ever, and turned again to his Reform Parliament Further acts fo^. comfort, seeking through it to renew his attack formPariia- upon the pope. In 1532 it abolished benefit of clergy for all below the rank of deacon ; it also lim- ited to twenty years the period for which lands could be bur- dened vrith the obligation of paying for masses for the dead. Convocation was compelled to agree to constitute no new canons without the king's consent and to submit the existing law to a committee of revision made up of laymen and ecclesiastics. Then the parliament proceeded to threaten the pope more directly 1533] THOMAS CRANMER 639 by empowering Henry to suspend the payments of Peter's Pence and annates whenever he saw fit.* Thus far while the Commons had been practically unanimous in its support of the king, in the Upper House the clergy by reason of their great strength had exerted a powerful "croMmer Conservative influence, so that at times the consent of the Lords -to measures of reform had been secured only with great difficulty; but during the year Archbishop Warham died and Henry hastened to replace him by a very different man, Thomas Cranmer. This man, destined to give his life for the independence of the English Church, was the son of a gentleman of Aslacton, Nottinghamshire, where he was born July 2, 1489. He had entered Cambridge at fourteen, become a fellow in 1510, and had been ordained to the priesthood in 1523, but continued his connection with the university as a lecturer on divinity until 1528. In this year by mere chance the young divine was thrown into the company of Gardiner and Fox, two of Henry's ministers, and modestly proposed to them the plan of laying Henry's diffi- culties before the universities. Henry with bluntness character- istic of the man ordered Cranmer to be sent for at once, declaring "this man I trow, has the right sow by the ear," and committed to him the presentation of his cause before the universities of Europe. Warham died while Cranmer was on the continent, and Henry named him for the vacant see. In vain Cranmer pro- tested that he had been disqualified by a recent marriage; Henry insisted, and upon Cranmer's return he was formally consecrated, March 30, 1533. Henry now had an ally in the place where one was most needed, and by his help proceeded at once to cut the troublesome knot presented by the Canon Law. At the beginning of The divorce xr ^ o o declared, 1533 parliament had formally abolished the right of appeal from, the English ecclesiastical court to Rome, and Cranmer by direction of the king at once took up the question of the divorce, and although Catharine denied the authority of the archbishop's court, the marriage was straightway declared illegal. Henry had already married Anne Boleyn early in the year ; the iSee Gee and Hardy, Docs., pp. 176-186. 540 THE ECCLESIASTICAL REVOLT OF ENGLAND [hknkt Vlll. marriage was now announced and the coronation of the new queen celebrated with a state and magnificence befitting the defiant mood of the king. The divorce and the marriage brought on the crisis. The pope annulled the findings of Cranmer's court and commanded Henry to put away Anne Boleyn before the end of Juiv^%33 September under pain of excommunication. Even Henry paused before forcing this final issue. There was danger of an active interference on the part of Charles V. , when once the fatal bull should leave the Papal Curia. The hearts of the people of England had always been with Catharine, they had cheered her with uncovered heads and shouted "God bless her" as she passed to the place which had been fixed upon for her retirement. For Anne they had little sympathy, and even that soon passed to positive detestation as they better under- stood her character; nor were bold spirits lacking to protest openly against the conduct of the self-willed king. John Fisher, the venerable bishop of Rochester, who had been Catharine's chaplain, had boldly spoken out for her at the first trial before Campeggio and Wolsey, and in 1532 Sir Thomas More had thrown up the seals of his office and retired from public life, rather than be a party to the apostasy of England. Stubborn as Henry was he could not be oblivious to the contempt of men whom he had once admired and respected with all the ingenuousness of youth. Yet Henry had no thought of submission ; he would appeal to a general council of the church first; he would form another league to defend himself against the emissaries of this mad pope, but submit? Never ! It was in this temper that he was brought at last completely under the infiuence of men like Cranmer and Cromwell who were bent upon forcing the separation from Rome and who now easily led him to face the alternative, and answer threat with threat : If the pope did not cancel his decree within nine weeks, Henry would declare the complete independence of England of the papal system. At last the fateful month of September opened. On the 11th the queen gave birth to a daughter whom they christened after Henry's mother Elizabeth. It was a daughter in spite of the pre- 1533, 1534] THE ACT OF SUPREMACY 541 dictions of astrologers and wizards, but the friends of Henry determined to make the best of it. In tlie spring parliament passed an Act of Succession ^ which settled the crown EUzabeth i ^^P^n the children of Henry and Anne, and in the autumn ^f^li^^^^ interpreted it by a second act which further authorized Henry to compel his subjects to take an oath to sup- port the Act of Succession. Any one, moreover, who should utter a word to the disparagement of the king's marriage or of his heirs, should be guilty of misprision of treason and be liable to complete forfeiture of goods and imprisonment during the king's pleasure. More and Fieher refused to take the oath. Fisher was already in the Tower and More was sent to join him. In the meanwhile the pope had refused to cancel his decree, and nothing was left for Henry, unless he would retire from the conflict and restore his injured wife, but to take the iwnrcnfacw ^^^^ ^tQ]}. Accordingly, March 31, 1534 the convoca- mvemher, ^jqj^ Qf Canterbury abjured the papal supremacy; the convocation of York passed a similar decree before May 15; and in November parliament formally decreed that the king was to be henceforth accounted '*the only supreme head on earth of the Church of England called Anglicana Bcclesia.'*^ This act, the famous Act of Supremacy,* the English Declaration of Independence, closes the long series of anti-papal legislation which began with the first Statute of Praemunire in 1353, and now definitely sundered England from the ancient ecclesiastical system of Europe.^ In order to reconstitute the church it was necessary further to pass supplementary acts which also date from this eventful year ThecoroUa- ^^^ ^^^J ^® regarded as corollaries of the Act of Aft of sit Supremacy. By these the annates were added to the premacy. regular revenues of the crown,* the king was empow- » Gee and Hardy, pp. 232-243 and 244-247. 2 Gee and Hardy, pp. 243, 244 and pp. 251, 252. ^ For other important acts of this eventful year, see Gee and Hardy, pp. 195-257. * They were afterward, in the reign of Queen Anne, set apart for the increase of the revenues of poor Hvings. 643 THE ECCLESIASTICAL KEVOLT OF ENGLAND [henry viii. ered to nominate bishops, and the chapter enjoined to elect his nominees under the penalties of Praemunire. Cromwell although a layman was named vicar general of the kingdom, V^tVf^^f ^ position which made him president of convocation CTi ^ch^^^^ ^^^ brought the legislative power of that body directly under the king's control. All the bishops of England, also, were suspended that they might be reappointed under the new law. No attempt, however, was yet made to change the doc- trines of the church. The pope was no longer recognized, but the English Church was still Catholic in local government, worship, and doctrine. The Act of Supremacy was received generally without opposi- tion. The Carthusian monks of the London Charter House dared to protest, and twelve of them were promptly me Act of hanged as a warning to others who might be of their way of thinking. More shining marks, however, were offered by the two distinguished prisoners in the Tower, Fisher and More. Fisher had begun his career as confessor of Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII., and had faithfully served the Tudors for three generations. Few men had exerted a wider or nobler influence. The other victim was a typical product of the Eenaissance. Born in 1478, the son of a crown justice, he was early bred to the law. At Oxford he came under the influ- ence of Colet and Erasmus, and became deeply imbued with the spirit of the newer criticism. The "Utopia," a sort of sixteenth century *' Looking Backward," which sought to expose the evils of the existing order, and at the same time to set forth an ideal community to be found somewhere in "no man's land," entitled More to a fair place in literature. He also won quite a reputation as a lawyer, and as speaker of the House of Commons sufficiently proved his spirit by boldly attacking Wolsey, when Wolsey was in the heyday of his power. Henry at one time was very fond of More, whose refinement, ready wit, and gracious open nature made him altogether a very lovable character, and now really desired to save his old friend. But More had raised an issue not with Henry alone, but with the whole drift of the last ten years of English history, and Henry was powerless; the grim logic of his position 1535] THOMAS CROMWELL 543 virtually forced him to destroy these the truest friends of his youth, the nohlest ornameuts of his reign. As to More and Fisher there are no sublimer instances of heroic devotion to conscience in all history; without the support of the enthusiasm of the martyr, without the sympathy of a powerful following who might look to them for example and inspiration in devotion, with their eyes open, they yet went deliberately to the block rather than deny what they felt to be truth. Fisher was executed on June 22, 1535, and More on July 6, following. It is now time to notice the man who perhaps more than any other is responsible for the later acts of Henry, Thomas Crom- well, "The Hammer of the Monks," and *'the first Cromwell, great Enji j in the reform the Act of Supremacy he had opened the flood gates, and all the tremendous power of the government could not close them again. As early as 1536 the ministers of the church had felt the pressure of the growing dissatisfaction and in order to meet the objections of educated people, and reach some common ground of agreement with those who were beginning to question the teaching of the church, by the authority of convoca- tion had published a series of articles, ten in number, A!rt^u^i536 ^^ which they declared that the Bible and the "three creeds"^ were sole authority for all matters of faith, and explained and enjoined as necessary to salvation the three sacraments, — baptism, penance, and the sacrament of the altar. ^The Apostles', the Nlcene, and the Athanasian. 548 1539] THE SIX ARTICLES 549 The logical sequence of an appeal to the authority of Scriptures, moreover, was a demand for the Scriptures themselves, and in 1539, convocation authorized, also, and ordered to be placed in each church, a version "known as the '* Great Bible." mbie^^l "^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ strictly a new version, but was founded upon the work of Tyndale and Coverdale, Tyndale's fellow in exile, who had published the first complete translation of the Scriptures in English in 1535, the year before the burning of Tyndale at Vilvorde. The ''Great Bible" was accompanied by an introduction from the pen of Cranmer. Here then was a distinct concession of the ministers of the church to the new learning; an authoritative acknowledgment of the claims of reason to a hearing as against the dog- Agmw?n. n^atic methods of medievalism, a public recognition of an authority superior to that of the priesthood. But there was also a vast body of smaller folk, radicals of excitable nature, to whom an appeal to reason meant an appeal to license, and who thought that the abjuration of the papal supremacy per- mitted them to begin at once an open and violent attack upon the doctrines and practices of the church. The ministers of the church felt their weakness and appealed to the king for protec- tion. When, therefore, the new parliament came together in 1539, it determined under the promptings of the Howards, who repre- sented the old nobility, to publish a formal statement of doctrines which were not to be questioned, and to put a stop to the unseemly agitation which had of late invaded the most solemn ceremonies of the church. The result was the famous Six Articles, which may be taken as a fair statement of the faith of the conservative party of reform at the time, as well as an expression of their temper. This ''bloody act," as the radical reformers termed it, neither Catholic nor Protestant, reasserted the supremacy of the king as under God the head of "the whole church and congre- Articies, gation of England," but enjoined the acceptance of transubstantiation, communion in one kind, the celibacy of priests, the observance of "vows of chastity or widow- hood," the continuance of private masses, and the practice of 550 THE PROGRESS OF THE REFORM [henryVIIL auricular confession. Death by fire was prescribed as the penalty for denying transubstantiation. Death was also prescribed, although not by fire, for teaching, or preaching, or maintaining in a public court, views contrary to the remaining articles; for pro- fessing such views in other ways, that is by printing, writing, or by word, for the first offense forfeiture was prescribed, and for the second offense death. For those who denied the articles by open act the penalties were likewise severe.^ The act was to go into effect "after the twelfth day of July." The Six Articles were a direct blow to the hopes of those who were in sympathy with the doctrinal reforms of the Lutherans and a warning of the serious nature of the resistance which Results of the'^Six^^ might be expected. The king apparently had wished to temper the harshness of the law somewhat, but his sympathies with its purpose were so well known that little help was to be expected from him. Cranmer and Latimer had opposed the act in parliament, but Cranmer's timidity and Latimer's declin- ing influence forbade any expectation of shelter from this direction, now that the act had become law. Cromwell also had been more or less in sympathy with the attack upon the doctrines of the church, but he was too much of a politician to attempt to inter- fere where even the king had failed to soften the resentment of parliament against the agitators. He remained silent therefore while the reformation drew the sword against the reformation. If, however, Cromwell could not stay the tide which was bear- ing all before it in parliament, he could yet plan a bold stroke for saving the doctrinal reform. Henry had long since andihf^ Wearied of Anne Boleyn as he had wearied of Cathar- aiiiancT' ^^^' ^^^ ^^^ listened eagerly to rumors of gravest mis- conduct which her enemies were doing all they could to spread. In the early part of 1536 she had been put through the farce of a trial in which torture was freely used in securing testimony, and, although she herself protested her innocence, a court of subservient peers condemned her to death. She was executed on May 19th, and on the 20th Henry married Jane Seymour, to make way for whom, he had been as eager to get rid * For the text of the Six Articles, see Gee and Hardy, pp. 303-319. 153G-1540] CROMWELL AND THE LUTHERAN ALLIANCE 551 of the unhappy Anne as he had ever been to get rid of Catharine. But the blight which had rested on Henry's domestic life, was not to be dispelled. The new queen died October 20, 1537, having survived her predecessor little more than a year. On the 12th, however, she had given birth to the long-expected heir, after- wards known as Edward VI., and as both Catharine and Anne Bole3m were dead at the time of Henry's third marriage, no legal objection could be raised to the right of the young prince to succeed to his father's throne. Thus the question which had so long vexed Henry's mind had been at last settled. After the death of his third queen Henry had remained unmarried for two years; yet he had not been so disconsolate that he fourth could not amuse himself over the various schemes of his ministers for finding another candidate for the dangerous post. For the nation these had been years of great moment. Cromwell was then at the height of his power; his ax dripped with the blood of the Poles and the Courtenays; the proudest of the old Catholic nobility were swept away; the monasteries were suppressed ; the Ten Articles were put forth by convocation and the Great Bible was published. Apparently the reform was carrying all before it. Then the reaction spoke in the Six Articles, and Cromwell, who had gone too far to trim to the shifting wind, saw that only a bold step would save his work. If an alliance could be made between Henry and Francis and the league of German princes which had been formed at Schmalkalden in 1530 for protection against the emperor, then England need have no fear of an invasion by Charles ; and if in addition, Henry could be induced to forget his obstinate hatred of the Lutherans, to enter into a marriage alliance with some one of the powerful German houses of the reform party, the wily minister might hope effectually to counteract the growing influ- ence of the men who had engineered the 8ix Articles through parliament. This was Cromwell's plan, and he so far succeeded as to get Henry's consent to a marriage with Anne, the sister of the duke of Cleves, an important prince of the lower Khine. Henry was not at all pleased with his bride ; it is said that his consternation was so great when he first beheld the plain, expres- 552 THE PEOGRESS OF THE REFORM [henryVIII. sionless face, deeply pitted with smallpox, that he could not utter a word, and forgot altogether to take from his pocket the present which he had brought. Yet he could not draw back, for it would not do to offend the duke of CI eves upon whom the furtherance of the alliance with Francis rested. The marriage, therefore, in spite of the king's disgust was duly celebrated, January 6, 1540. Then for a time matters moved smoothly for Cromwell ; appar- ently he was more powerful than ever; the enforcement of the Six Articles was suspended, the force of the reaction was stayed. But Cromwell was playing a dangerous game and the odds were heavy against him. First Francis definitely announced that he would not ioin the Protestant league: then the Ger- Cromwell, man princes hastened to make their own terms with the emperor. Cromwell's fine scheme had collapsed and Henry found himself left out in the cold, with a fright of a wife on his hands. The enemies of Cromwell, the old conservative nobility, saw their opportunity and proceeded to make the most of it, doing all they could to quicken Henry's disgust and turn his wrath upon the luckless minister. Convocation was ordered to declare the marriage null ; Cromwell was arrested on a charge of treason, condemned unheard by an Act of Attainder, and hurried to the block. The fall of Cromwell was the signal that Henry had thrown himself into the arms of the party of reaction. The political head of this party was Thomas Howard, the duke of reaction. Norfolk. He had fought by the side of his father at Henry and Floddcn ; his brother Edward Howard, the Lord High Howard, Admiral, had been killed in action at sea in the kingf's Julll 1540. service, — something unique in the history of Lord High Admirals. Duke Thomas had been prominent in the active hos- tility of the old nobility to Wolsey and had seen his schemes of family aggrandizement succeed in the coronation of his niece Anne Boleyn as Queen of England, but only to be thwarted again by the counter plotting of Cromwell. Yet he had saved himself in the fall of the unfortunate Anne, bided his time, and now again saw a second great minister hurled from his lofty height while 1543] SECOND PERIOD OF HOWARD INFLUENCE 553 a second niece, Catharine, the daughter of his brother Edmund, became Queen of England. The enemies of the doctrinal reform well understood what was meant by the failure of Cromwell's scheme of a Protestant alli- ance, and set to work in serious earnest to enforce the nerindof^ Six Articles, with grim impartiality hurdling to Smith- SS2e ^^^^ ^^^ deniers of the royal supremacy and the deniers of the doctrine of transubstantiation. For- tunately, however, the triumph of the Howards was short. Within two years Catharine Howard had followed her cousin Anne Boleyn to the block and upon a similar charge. Yet the reform did not at once recover the lost ground. Henry was not inclined to tamper farther with doctrinal matters but preferred to keep things as they were. Cranmer, also, had lost prestige in the fall of Cromwell. Latimer, the bishop of Ely, who had been the most sincere among the advisers of Henry in helping on the doctrinal reform, had resigned on the passage of the Six Articles, leaving Stephen Gardiner, the bishop of Winchester, a bold and honest advocate of the old doctrines, to direct Henry as his chief ecclesiastical adviser. It was his policy to undermine Cranmer and oppose all further innovations. A year after the death of Catharine Howard Henry married for the sixth and last time. The bride was Catharine Parr, whose discretion enabled her to please her lord and keep her sixth mar- head on her shoulders during the remaining years of arineParr, his reign. The marriage was without political signifi- cance. While the events of these years were changing the whole future of English history, no less important and far-reaching changes were taking place in other parts of Britain, and behind TwI^Trf ^^^ green shores of its neighbor across the Irish Sea. Wales, 1536. Wales had been virtually a part of England since the reign of Edward I. but the border counties had been retained in semi-independence, nor had Wales or Chester yet been allowed a representation in parliament. Henry abolished the sepa- rate jurisdiction of the marcher lords, enlarging the Welsh shires and adding five new ones. He also gave Wales twenty-four repre- 654 THE PKOGRESS OF THE REFORM [hexry vul sentatives in parliament, and Chester four, and established at Ludlow a separate council of government, similar to that which he established north of the Humber the next year. Flodden had so crippled Scotland that the Scots had been able to do little harm to England during the minority of James V. The hostility of the clergy to Henry's church policy, how- ever, had greatly strengthened the old French party at the Scottish court, under whose influence the young king had at last reached man's estate. In 1537, in spite of all attempts of Henry to win his nephew's confidence, James had definitely com- mitted himself to the French party by marrying Magdalen, the daughter of the French king, and although the new queen lived only a few months, the alliance was renewed the next year by a marriage with Mary of the powerful family of Guise. Henry, notwithstanding, had still sought to win the favor of his Scottish kinsman, but in 1540 a refusal of James to meet him for a confer- ence satisfied him that Scotland must be counted among his enemies. In the months which followed Cromwell's fall, also, Henry's relations to Francis were becoming every day more strained, and he determined by striking first to anticipate the support which James was certain to give the French in case of war. In 1542, therefore, he sent Thomas Howard to invade the country, but gained nothing save to bring a raid of Scots into England in reply. The Scottish nobles, however, who were divided among themselves, gave the raid only a half-hearted sup- port, and the whole northern army, some ten thousand strong, dis- gracefully fled at the approach of a few hundred border farmers. This affair of Solway Moss broke the heart of the proud young king of Scots; he survived his humiliation only a few days, leaving the crown to an infant daughter a week old. The announcement that he had an heir to his crown brought no cheer to the dying king. "The deil take it," he exclaimed, *'it came with a lass and it will go with a lass I" ^ The ''lass" was Mary Stuart. In Ireland Henry was pursuing his way with characteristic ruthlessness. In 1534 the Fitzgeralds broke out in open revolt, 1 Green, vol. II., p. 210. 1535-1543] HENRY VIII. AND IRELAND 555 occasioned by the arrest of the earl of Kildare. In 1535 Sir Leonard Grey suppressed the revolt, and Henry proceeded to hunt out and destroy every male of the Fitzgerald family. viii. and "J'he Irish parliament, which since the Poynings Acts had remained under the control of the English council, supported Henry even to the recognition of his supremacy over the church, forbidding the use of the Irish language, the Irish dress, and the Irish fashion of wearing the hair. Monaster- ies were abolished ; relics and images were destroyed and English- speaking priests were put in charge of the churches. For the moment Henry was everywhere successful. In 1539 he had pos- session of most of the island, and in 1541 he changed his title from **Lord" to "King of Ireland." Henry rewarded the Irish chiefs who supported him by giving them English titles and the plunder of the Irish monasteries. In 1543 the long-expected war with France broke out and, curiously enough, the ally of Henry was the emperor. Charles was too good a politician to allow the memory of the wrongs war with wliich had been heaped upon the unfortunate Catharine, or the wayward religious ideas of Henry, to debar him from the advantage of a proffered alliance against his old enemy of France. In England the overthrow of Cromwell and the increase of the power of the Catholic nobility naturally drew the country toward Charles, while the influence of Francis in Scotland and the repudiation of his earlier promises to Henry roused again the old latent animosity of the English against the French. Francis, moreover, had put himself outside the pale of sympathy of all Christendom, whether Catholic or Protestant, by making a formal alliance with the Turk. Even Protestant Ger- many drew back in horror from an alliance with a Christian prince who sent his fleets to help Algerian pirates in the sack of Christian cities, and at the Diet of Spires, 1543, voted 24,000 men and a general poll tax in order to assist the emperor in overthrowing the "two enemies" of Christendom. Henry sent a body of six thousand Englishmen to assist Charles on the German border, while he himself attempted to invade France in person. But Charles, true to his Spanish training, was as' treacherous as ever, 556 THE fROORESS OP THE REFORM [henky viil. and while Henry was squandering the blood and treasure of his subjects before Boulogne, Charles was making a separate treaty with Francis at Crepy, in which Francis agreed to abandon the Turks and unite with Charles in a joint attack upon Protestant- ism. Henry in the meantime was left to struggle on alone, hoping to retain the paltry advantage which he had won. An army which he had dispatched into Scotland under Seymour The tvccitii of Boulogne, and Dudley burned Leith and Edinburgh, but, beyond reading the Scots the old lesson, really accomplished nothing. In the summer of 1545 the French made an unsuccess- ful attempt to secure a lodgement on the Isle of Wight and the coast of Sussex. Boulogne, which the English had taken in 1544, also resisted all attempts at recapture. It was possible, there- fore, for Henry to retire with some dignity, and in June 1546 he brought the useless war to a close by the treaty of Boulogne, in which he agreed to surrender the city to the French after eight years upon the payment of 5,000,000 francs. As usual in Henry's continental alliances he had been fooled and betrayed. He had won some advantages but had gained nothing commen- surate with the enormous debt in which the war had involved his government. As soon as peace was assured the king turned his attention to his wasted treasury. The magnificent fund which his father had accumulated had been spent in the wars and fetes of cieHng of the early years of his reign. Vast sums had poured into his treasury from the plunder of the church in Crom- well's days, but this treasure also had soon gone with the rest. Financial obligations, however, were trifling matters for a king who had so ruthlessly trampled upon far more sacred pledges. In 1545 he levied a benevolence, but this had produced only a small part of the enormous sum needed to satisfy the government creditors. Then Henry resorted to the dangerous expedient of tampering with the coinage, reducing the quantity of silver in an ounce of coin first to ten pennyweight and finally to six. In this way Henry was enabled to balance his accounts with his creditors, but with most disastrous effects upon the commercial prosperity 1536-1546] BREAK IN THE REFORM PARTY 557 of the kingdom. The old coins of the realm rapidly passed out of circulation; commercial transactions with foreign countries became almost impossible ; prices rose rapidly, while those who depended upon wages or fixed incomes were thrown into great distress. To add to the confusion Henry discovered a new source of plunder in the confiscation of the chantries, hospitals, colleges, and gilds which piety had once founded, and whose wealth still lay in the control of the church ; and to the vast throng who had been set adrift by the sequestrations of Cromwell, to the greater number who could no longer earn a living at the old wage scale, were now added still another throng of starving idlers, further to depress the wages of the employed and fill the country with beg- gary and robbery and the cities with crime and wretchedness. In the meanwhile the breach between the two wings* of the reform was constantly widening. The act of 1536 which had given to the church the Creeds, the Ten Command- Widening ments, and the Lord's Prayer in English, had been a breach in the i i • • i n • • reform party, great advance. The publication and authorization of the Great Bible had been a further advance. But since the fall of Cromwell the Six Articles had held their bloody sway, and in 1543 Gardiner led a direct attack upon the English Bible, forbidding the reading of it to ''husbandmen, artificers, and journeymen, and to all women except gentlewomen." In 1546 the heresy hunters even invaded the queen's private circle and carried off to the stake her friend, the gentle Anne Askew. In 1546, however, the influence of the reactionaries had once more begun to wane. Henry had again attacked the church in the interests of his depleted treasury. He was also rmction^and growing suspicious of the Howards in the interests of Hmry'8 Princc Edward. The old Cromwellian party were rep- rekjn. resented by Edward Seymour, the earl of Hertford, the little prince's uncle, and by John Dudley, Lord Lisle, son of the finance minister of unsavory memory of Henry VII. 's time. AVith them, in sympathy at least, also stood Cranmer whose won- derful skill in turning the time -hallowed Latin prayers of the church into pure and expressive English, had given the church its first English Litany in 1544. Cranmer lacked the moral courage 558 THE PROGRESS OF THE REFORM [henry viii. ever to become a leader, but his position of archbishop was one of great influence, and he made a powerful second where bolder spirits led. . For two years the king's health had been declining. His once magnificent constitution was breaking ; he had become so weak that he could no longer write his name and was com- pelled to affix the royal assent to the acts of government by a stamp made for the purpose. Yet the spirit burned as fiercely as ever, and when he learned that Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, had quartered his arms with those of Edward the Confessor, indi- cating his direct descent from royal blood, the old wrath which had once been so terrible again blazed up. Surrey was Henry viH., sent to the block, and his father Duke Thomas was also Jan. 28, 1547, arrested and attainted the day of his son's execution. But the next day Henry died before the failing hand could seal the act which had condemned his last victim. The acts of Henry VIII. are the best commentary upon his character. Possibly in the beginning of his reign he was not at heart a bad man. He possessed, however, an inordinate of^Henru^^^^ vanity, an all-consuming self love, which under opposi- tion developed into a savage determination always to have his own way, come what might. Fortunately, or unfortu- nately, his quarrel with the church found a sympathetic echo in the national heart, estranged from the pope by an accumulation of grievances which dated back to the thirteenth century. Here lay the strength of a king, who at any other time would have been resisted, if not deposed by his people. He was also strong in the limits which he proposed to set to his work; for Henry's idea of reform, undoubtedly, represented the exact length to which the average Englishman was prepared to go in breaking with the old system. Only so can we explain the acquiescence of the country in his brutality and his tyrannies. The political and social results of the reign were far-reaching; and yet for this Henry deserves possibly little credit. All Europe was advancing by leaps and bounds, and England in spite of her king was sure to enjoy her share of the new life. She had already passed from a feudal state to a modern nation before Henry began his reign; her population, her wealth, her trade and commerce, 1543] EDWARD VI. 559 had placed her amoDg the great powers of Europe. The nobles, also, had been shorn of political authority and the middle class was beginning to assume its place in the control of the Heriryinthe state. The influence of the church as a political or Hocmi remita social powcr in the nation had already waned, and with the loss of its influence it lost the power of protecting its great wealth from the first greedy hand that discovered the dan- gerous secret. Yet had Henry opposed the reform, had he set the machinery of the state to work to crush heresy in its first forms, as he undoubtedly would have done had he not run foul of the legatine court, it is not at all likely that the Reformation would have taken such firm root in England, at least in that generation. At the time of Henry's death, the son of Jane Seymour was in his tenth year. In character he was all that a prince should be, upright, devout, and seriously intent upon doing good. The one-sided training, however, to which he was sub- jected by his guardians, soon developed traces of his father's self- confidence, harshness, and want of feeling. He became bigoted and superstitiously devoted to doing the work of God as he under- stood it. The mind, moreover, forced by the unnatural work to which it was put, matured more rapidly than the body. There was something abnormal and unwholesome about this child with the cold, solemn face and high forehead, with the sickly undersized body, who shrank from the sports and companionships of child- hood, and preferred to spend his hours poring over stately vol- umes of theology, or discussing abstruse topics with the doctors of the church. There is something also deeply pathetic about this absolute little lord, who needed nothing so much as a mother; a peculiarly sensitive instrument, left to be strung and tuned and played upon by designing men who thought only of using him to carry out their wild schemes of reform, or to inaugurate an era of public plunder and spoliation. The death of Surrey and the arrest of Norfolk had left the radical reform party again in control of the council, and although Henry, in his desire to maintain the existing status, had sought in his will to balance the two parties against each other by refusing to give to either a control in the council, the changing temper of 560 THE PROGRESS OF THE REFORM [edward VI. the nation, where under the grim tutelage of the Six Articles the reform party had waxed in numbers and strength, presented a temptation which such leaders as Seymour, the kind's Edward Sey- f -, ta ji u x • x mi. -i nmur, Lord unclc, and Dudley could not resist. The council ac- Protector January,' cordingly, paying little attention to the desire of the dead king, made Edward Seymour, the earl of Hert- ford, Lord Protector, and by empowering him to act even without the council,* conferred upon him an authority almost regal. Two weeks later, under the virtuous pretense of carrying out the late king's wishes, they made Seymour Duke of Somerset, John Dudley Earl of Warwick, and rewarded other members of the council in the same way with titles and honors. This unseemly haste in title grabbing was an ominous beginning; even Wriothesley, the chan- cellor, who belonged to the party of Norfolk and Gardiner and who had protested against the establishment of the protectorate, was not above being advanced to the peerage as Earl of Southampton. The protector was undoubtedly a sincere man, a good soldier and of proved courage ; but he was also impetuous and conspicuously lacking in judgment. He belonged to that tactless Dangers school of politicians who are ever taking the second before the -, « ,^ n i -k-t it ... protecunate. step before the jSrst. Nor was he long m giving a sig- nal exhibition of his lack of that discretion which is the first quality of statesmanship. At the time of the death of Henry, England was at peace with all the world. But, as the winter so eventful for the cause of the Keformation in Germany passed, more than one war-cloud, portentous of coming storm, drifted above the horizon. Francis followed Henry to the grave on March 31, and his successor, Henry 11. , showed alarming signs of intending to break the last treaty with England. The emperor also was steadily pushing his plans for the dispersion of the league of Schmalkalden, and had not only succeeded in detaching some of its members, but on the 22d of April had surprised the elector John Frederick at Muhlberg, routing his army and taking prisoner the elector himself. These events were far from England, and yet no one could doubt that with Protestant Germany crushed, the next object which Charles would attack would be England herself, provided Henry II. of France should permit it. 1547] SOMERSET AND THE REFORM 5G1 It was at all events a time for the protector to walk warily, to make friends and not enemies. Yet from the first he seemed bent upon making a ffreat Catholic alliance of all Europe Blunders of the protecU/r. against England possible. He offended the French by fortifying the harbor of Boulogne, contrary to the stipu- lations of the last treaty. He offended the Scots by imperiously demanding the fulfillment of a treaty which they had made with Henry VIII. in 1543, by which the Princess Mary was to marry Edward. And when the Scots refused to make good the agree- ment, he crossed the border and defeated them in a PiTikie cieugh,sept. pitched battle at Musselburgh, or Pinkie Cleugh. The victory brought, great gloiy to the protector, making him the darling of the hour, but roused the whole Scottish nation where before there had been of late a growing sympathy with the English Reformation, and ultimately brought about the marriage of the young queen of Scots with the Dauphin Francis, the very thing which this campaign was designed to avert. At home also the protector pursued a like heedless policy. Un- like the most of the politicians who surrounded him, he was sin- cerely devoted to the reform, but with blind indifference The 'pvotect- ^ ^^6 terms of Henry's will. At first Somerset First fall of f ^ . . Somerset, thought of resistance, but an appeal to the country revealed to him the sober truth that his only hope lay in the mercy of the council. This unnerved him ; he confessed his failure, and was allowed to retire in peace, though not without a few weeks of seclusion in the Tower. John Dudley, the earl of Warwick, who had been the chief instrument in the overthrow of Somerset, now became the influ- ential man of the council, but without the title or rank of protec- tor. He was such a man as times of revolution are likely to bring to the fore. He had by diligence and merit worked out from under the shadow of his father's reverses, and had become distin- guished '*as a soldier, a diplomatist, and as an admiral." He had commanded the English fleet in 1545 and won no small glory in bringing the attempted descents of the French of that year to naught. He had been second in command at Pinkie Cleugh. He was shrewd, cunning, and knew how to keep his thoughts to him- self. He was free from enthusiasm both in his faults and his vir- tues. He affected to support the religious reform but, as the sequel proved, his support was a matter of politics rather than principle. * For part of this, Somerset was hardly responsible ; as a result of many causes, prices had risen enormously. 568 THE PEOGRESS OE THE REFORM [edward vi. The council first gave its attention to untangling the skein which had fallen to them from the impetuous fingers of Somerset. They made peace with France though at the sacrifice of counciiin Boulogne. Other measures were not so commendable. nowcT. They proceeded to reduce the outstanding debt of the crown; but unfortunately the members of the council themselves had provided funds for the suppression of the recent revolts and their first care was to secure repayment by allowing each councillor to take a certain amount of bullion in fine silver to the royal mint and receive it back again * 'coined and printed into money current according to the established standard." More than £150,000 '* worth of base silver coin was thrown at once into circulation, deranging prices more than ever, shaking the exchange, driving the gold out of the country," and adding to the multitude of dis- tressing complications already existing. Among these is to be noticed a failure of the harvest which greatly increased the price of bread. The council took the matter up and attempted to fix the price at which grain might be sold. But the measure only exasperated the agricultural classes and did not relieve the dis- tress; the council quickly withdrew the dangerous regulation. At the time of the overthrow of Somerset the tide was already setting strong towards the conservative policy of Henry VIII. The commons of Devon and Cornwall had openly Dudley and demanded the restoration of the Catholic faith and a the reform. re-enactment of the Six Articles. But for Dudley to put himself at the head of this movement meant the restoration of Norfolk and Gardiner, and he very well knew that to restore Nor- folk meant the restoration of the old nobility to power and the speedy end of his own influence. His only hope, therefore, was to make tliorough work where Somerset had begun. Bishops like Gardiner and Bonner were displaced by men like Eidley, Hooper, and Coverdale. The fires of Smithfield were not allowed to smoulder; and the world witnessed the unseemly spectacle of Protestants burning Protestants. In their efforts to enforce the Uniformity Act, however, the leaders had found an ominous and insurmountable obstacle in the courage of the Princess Mary, who by the will of Henry and the law of parliament was the heir to the 1551, 1552] SECOND FALL OF SOMERSET 569 throne. Through all the storm she had quietly but faithfully adhered to her mother's faith, and when ordered to give up the mass, she firmly persisted in the path of duty as she saw it. The council durst not go further; to use violence would bring about the long dreaded alliance of the empire with France and possibly an invasion of England. To destroy Mary would give the emperor a claim upon the crown of England, since he was of Yorkist blood through Margaret the wife of Charles the Rash; a claim which the pope might be expected to recognize as better at least than that of Edward or Elizabeth, both of whom had been born in schism. This constant threat of foreign interference is always to be borne in mind in considering the treatment of Mary at the hands of Somerset and Dudley. In carrying out liis schemes Dudley needed all the available strength of the reform party, and in April 1550 Somerset was again admitted to the council. His influence had ^^&u»h7m' r^pi^^y revived after his fall. Before the unquestioned f/s(me)iet sincerity of the man, the superiority of his personal character, his nearness to the king and interest in his welfare, men soon forgot his mistakes and began to look to him again as the real leader of the reform. But as the autumn of 1551 came in, the reaction in his favor so alarmed Dudley that he began to plot again for his overthrow and suddenly arrested him on the charge of treason. And when he found tliat he could not con- vict him upon this charge, he dropped it for a charge of conspiracy against Dudley himself, and in January 1552 the quondam pro- tector was sent to the block. ^ It was a fatal mistake for Dudley. From that day eyes were opened to the real character of this zealous reformer and men began to detest him. As Dudley realized that his popularity with his party was declining he increased his pretended enthusiasm for the purification of the church. The success of Charles in Germany Reforms of j^^d driven a multitude of Protestant exiles across the sea, who brought the ultra views of the Zwinglian school with them and soon made their influence felt at Oxford and ^ Recent attempts have been made to vindicate the character and work of Somerset. See Pollard's, England under the Protector Somerset. 570 THE PKOGRESS OF THE REFORM [edward VI. Cambridge. Even Cranmer was drifting fast in their wake, and was prepared at last to deny the Real Presence in the mass. In 1552 the Prayer Book of 1549, known as The First Prayer Book of Edioard VI. was superseded by the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI. which embodied many new phrases, showing the Zwinglian drift of the editors and making it no longer possible for the believers in transubstantiation to find shelter within its mel- lifluous cadences. The new Prayer Book was followed by the Forty -two Articles which presented a new statement of doctrine, based on the Lutheran confession. The same parliament also took time from their doctrinal discussions to pass a Poor Law Poor Law which compelled each parish to make a systematic col- lection for its poor, an honest but futile effort to meet distresses which struck their roots far back into the fourteenth cen- tury. The Second Prayei* Book of Edward VI. and the Forty-two Articles indicate the high-water mark of the first period of the reform. The leaders had already outstripped the The high- ^. _,, ^. „ -, ^i_ i_ 1 1 watermark nation. The corruption 01 some, and the wholesale plundering of most, had discredited their principles; and the forces of reaction were gathering, all the more terrible and disastrous in recoil, because for the time repressed by authority and compelled to gather strength in secret. CHAPTER V THE CATHOLIC REACTION EDWARD VI., 1553. MARY, 1553-1558. So far the reform had brought little of peace or contentment in its train. The authority of the church as a teacher of doctrine had been challenged ; its authority as a teacher of righteous- d£S&"^ ness had been broken down. Men no longer sought the confessional, or feared the censure of teachers whom they hud ceased to revere. Rascality ruled in high places; its example Wtis felt through all the inferior walks of life. English goods in the past, like English money, had won a splendid reputa- tion in the marts of Europe, and were received everywhere without question or suspicion. But the general topsy-turvy of moral ideas, which had followed the loosening of religious bonds, soon bore fruit in a decline of national honesty. The government had led the way in putting out a dishonest coinage from the royal mints; English merchants and manufacturers were not a whit behind them in debasing the output of their looms. For a time the decline in the quality of English goods, as the decline in the quality of English money, was not understood by foreigners, and profits increased, but only temporarily; nor was it long before the dishonest merchant began to reap the full reward of this suicidal policy. Bales of English goods were to be seen rotting on the quays of Antwerp or Venice, rejected by the consignees and stamped by the government inspector as fraudulent. To the dis- tress caused by the greed of the landlords was now to be added the distress caused by the greed of the merchants, whose trade was crippled by a decade of dishonesty more than by all the wars of Charles or Francis. The number of the unemployed continued to increase ; even those who had work could no longer earn enough 571 572 THE CATHOLIC REACTION [edwabd VI. to keep themselves or their families. Those who suffered turned upon those who had abundance as in some way responsible for their misery. The proprietary class in turn were fully aware of the growing hatred and suspicion of the people ; they felt their insecurity and turned upon the party in power, seeing in their reckless waste and improvidence, their confiscations and wild financiering, their corruptions and tyrannies, the source of all the present evil. As Edward approached man's estate the more sanguine thought to find in him a remedy for existing evils. The minority rule would soon be ended and the king, of whom none had Diuiie^^ ^^ ^^^^ heard aught but good, would put away his corrupt or incapable ministers and relieve his people of the bur- den of their ill-doing. But this hope was soon to be blighted. As Edward neared his sixteenth year, it became evident to his ministers that he would never, endure the cares of royalty; and Dudley, now duke of Northumberland, began to turn his thought to the succession with the view of perpetuating his own authority. By the terms of 'Henry's will, sanctioned by an act of parliament, the Lady Mary was to succeed Edward in case he should die with- out heirs. Mary's preferences, moreover, were too well known to leave any doubt as to what kind of men would be chosen for her ministers; and with Howard and Gardiner in power Dudley's head would not rest upon his shoulders for a fortnight. Dudley, there- fore, determined upon a scheme which was as bold as it was desper- ate and impossible of success. He persuaded Edward, ostensibly in the interest of the Keformation, to make a will as his father had done before him. By this will both Mary and Elizabeth were to be set aside as illegitimate and the succession was to pass to Lady Jane Grey, the granddaughter of Henry VIII. 's favorite sister Mary, the queen of Louis XII. of France, who had married for her second husband Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. Edward entered into the plan warmly. The will was signed, but there was not time to secure the sanction of parliament. For the same holy purpose, to save the Eeformation, Edward was also persuaded to sanction the marriage of Lady Jane to Guilford Dudley, the son of Duke John. 1553] QUEEN JANE 573 On July 6, 1553 the boy king died. Dudley attempted to keep the secret until he could seize Mary, who was staying at the time at Hiinsdon in Hertfordshire, and dispatched his son jmi^^pro- Robert Dudley, better known afterward as Earl of juiTio' Leicester, to arrest her at once. But Mary's friends were equally alert, and within twenty-four hours after the king's death she was in full flight to join the Howards in Nor- folk, proclaiming her reign as she passed along and calling upon the loyal to join her. In the meanwhile Northumberland summoned the council, announced the king's death, and proclaimed ''Queen Jane." The unfortunate girl who was to be sacrificed to the minister's ambition, was hardly in her seventeenth year. Her beauty, her noble and pure spirit, her innocence and her tragic fate, have made her a universal favorite. One almost marvels that such a flower could bloom in the atmosphere that surrounded John Dudley. She cared nothing for the royal honors and submitted to his plans because she was taught it was her duty. Yet she was by no means a puppet, and stoutly refused to have Dudley's son, her husband, crowned with her. The issue was now fairly joined. To support Queen Jane, meant to support Dudley and the continuance of the policy which "Qtt€en ^^^^ brought such woe and unrest on the land; to sup- '^'Quem^' P^^^ Mary meant an entire reversion of policy and, if Mary.'' nothing more, the restoration of the ecclesiastical laws of Henry VIII. The Lady Mary, moreover, *'had the better right." Apart from the question of her mother's divorce, she had been named as the next in succession by an act of parliament and that law had never been repealed. But above all. Lady Jane stood for the Reformation and Mary stood for the old faith. The nation was weary of reformers who, after twenty years, appar- ently still saw as much to reform as ever. The people, moreover, no longer believed in the sincerity of Dudley, and they wanted a change in hope of bettering the temporal state of the kingdom. From the first then Jane had little prospect of success; however men might respect her character, they regarded her as a crea- ture of Dudley's and felt no fervor in her cause; even in London, where if anywhere Dudley might expect support, his proclamation 574 THE CATHOLIC REACTION [maby had been received by the assembled crowds in silence. The lack of enthusiasm was ominous ; the tide of reaction was coming in, and had the law been on Dudley's side, it is not likely that the nation would have heeded it, when once Catharine's daughter had raised her standard. But now the law was on Mary's side; justice also was on her side, and the sympathies of the nation were with her. The old duke Thomas Howard was still in the Tower; but his sons and grandsons were up, and from far and near the country flocked to their banner. The fleet also declared for Mary, and at last even the Protestant lords went over to her. There was noth- ing left for Dudley but submission; and on July 19 he aban- doned his queen of a week, and himself proclaimed Mary at Cambridge. The next day he was arrested and sent to the Tower. There was no hope for him, and yet with the idea of winning some favor with his executioners he made an abject confession : that his Protestantism had been only a sham, that he was a good Catholic at heart and that he had been all along playing a part. The last was probably the most truthful statement he had ever made during his entire false life. He failed to save himself, but did great harm to the Protestant cause; for the simple folk, who had called him their *' Joshua," and were accustomed to trust him implicitly, naturally began to suspect all professions and believe in no man's sincerity. He, moreover, gave the party who were coming into power, a very low estimate of the sincerity of the whole body of reformers, and by leading Mary and her advisers to think that they were all like him, doubtlessly encouraged the policy of perse- cution. On August 3 Mary entered London. The Lady Jane and her husband were arrested, and in IN'ovember were tried and convicted of treason. But Mary fully intended to be lenient, and had no thought then of shedding their blood. The choice of Mary was the expression of the desire of the nation to retrace its steps. But how far would the reaction go? This would be determined by the character of Mary ^^ and the policy of her ministers. How long should the reaction endure? This would be determined by the extent to which the people would follow their sovereign. The outlook for the reformers, therefore, was not encouraging. The 1553] EARLY MODERATION OF MARY o'J'S new queen was a Tudor, with all the Tudor tenacity of purpose and blind self-will, with a dangerous possibility of ruthless cruelty if roused or resisted. With all the intensity of her Tudor nature, moreover, Mary was devoted to her mother's faith and under strong influence was certain to take up the full restoration of that faith to her people as the one object of her life. At first, however, her course was moderate enough. She had no intention of being severe. The emperor sent her his con- gratulations .and admonished her to move cautiously, Beginning of ^q \yQ content witli the free exercise for herself of her Mary's reign. creed, to take no step without the sanction of parlia- ment and by no means of her own authority to attempt to set aside the Act of Uniformity; her first duty was to bring quiet to her realm ; her prudence and moderation must give satisfaction to her subjects of all opinions. Gardiner, the old bishop of Win- chester, had been released on the day of the entry into London and placed at the head of the council as chancellor. The policy which he outlined for the administration conformed in all respects to the sensible advice of the emperor. The expenses of the house- hold were to be cut down to the scale which had prevailed in Henry VII. 's time. The garrisons of Berwick and Calais were to be placed on a more economical footing ; the navy reduced ; the irregular guard diminished. There was to be no more bribery in the courts of Westminster and among the justices of the peace; **they were to be restored to their authority without suffering any matters to be ordered otherwise than as the laws should appoint." Mary's first acts were in keeping with this program. The late king was buried with the public rites prescribed by the existing law ; Cranmer, who was still at large, was allowed to awmnf conduct the ceremonies. The members of Edward's council who had not supported Dudley, were left in undisturbed possession of their places. The Protestant bishops who had been most pronounced in their later teaching were removed and the old Catholic bishops were restored again to their dioceses. The return of Bonner from the Marshalsea to St. Paul's was like a triumphal procession; 'Hhe people rang the bells for joy." The persecution of Catholics was also stopped; religious b76 The catholic heaction [marv disputations were forbidden, but Protestants were to be protected from the interference of reactionary mobs. To the great majority of the people this was well pleasing. They hailed Mary's accession as the first step toward a return to the policy of her father, and they did not wish to go ^f'^Ma^'T f^^rther. They were not Protestants; but they did not mmf^'^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ Mary declared legitimate to the disparage- ment of Elizabeth's claims as fixed by Henry's will. They had, moreover, dipped too generally into the plunder of the church to wish to see the church restored as it had been in Wol- sey's time; they had no desire to surrender the confiscated lands, which had now been in their hands for nearly a generation. When therefore Mary's first parliament, the most nearly representative of any which had been chosen in England for many years, came together, the most radical of Edward's religious laws, the Prayer Book, and the Act of Uniformity, were swept away; the Mass was restored by a vote of 350 to 80 in the Commons, and the clergy were required to return to celibacy; but beyond this parliament refused to go. It was satisfied with restoring the statutes of Henry's reign; and even here it made exceptions. The Six Articles and the older laws against the Lollards found no favor. Gardiner, the chancellor, was a thorough-going Englishman and had no desire to see either the papal authority restored in England, or the crown bound by a foreign alliance to Zit^andtfie ^^^^ Support of Spain or France. But Mary was already mi'Istian^isds ^^i^ting out from under his influence and had fallen under the power of other counsellors. By them she had been induced to fix her mind upon two projects which she had long cherished in secret; first to secure a marriage alliance with her cousin Philip of Spain, and second to restore England com- pletely to the papal allegiance. In the second she had been greatly encouraged by Renard, the imperial minister, yet he had no desire by pushing it, to imperil the prospect of the marriage alliance. In this he reflected both the ambition and the caution of his mas- ter. Charles, in fact, regarded the marriage alliance as a necessary offset to the alliance of Mary Queen of Scots with Francis of France. It wr.s to be his next move in the great continental 1553] THE SPANISH MARRIaGE 577 game ; the interests of England were of little moment compared with the success of his vast schemes against his rival. But Mary with characteristic Tudor impatience was unwilling to wait for the unwinding of the emperor's plot, and had no sooner made up her mind than she entered at once into secret negotiations with the pope, and Cardinal Pole set out for England. The emperor heard of the measure in alarm and persuaded the pope to call Pole back. In the meanwhile the parliament in its own way was working at the problems presented by the new reign. When it had settled the religious question, it turned to the question of the royal mar- riage. The members were fully determined that a foreign prince should not sit upon the English throne even as the consort of their queen, and on the 16th of November the Speaker of the Commons, in the name of parliament, formally petitioned the queen to marry one of her own subjects. Mary was furious, and as the parliament showed no signs of withdrawing its impertinent advice, on December 6 she sent the members to their homes, — a bad omen for tlie future. In the council the Spanish marriage was hardly more popular. Gardiner who was in touch with the parliament, proposed Edward Courtenay, who as great-grandson of Edward IV. was ami t/je "^'' of the blood-royal and though a subject, worthy by nSSrt-^ae ^i^'th to be the queen's consort. But Mary's mind was made up, — always a serious matter for a Tudor. She, moreover, had formed a most romantic attachment for her Spanish kinsman, whom she had never seen, but whom she imagined to be a paragon of all princely virtues. Gardiner knew his mistress too well to continue his opposition, and wisely determined to prevent so far as possible the evils which might follow the Spanish mar- riage, by prescribing a series of stipulations, in which Chiles pledged himself that Philip should never be more than titular king of England, that England should never be united with Spain under one crown, that all foreigners should be excluded from command in the English army or navy, and that England should not be asked to assist Spain in her wars with France. The council then yielded a reluctant consent. The marriage contracts were signed, and the time for the wedding fixed. bUS THE CATHOLIC REACTION [maby From the nation at large Mary got little comfort. In spite of the concessions of Charles, Englishmen generally believed that England was now to become a mere dependency of oonosUionto ^P^i^? ^^^^ Naples and the Low Countries, ruled by marriaT^ Spanish adventurers and overawed by Spanish mus- keteers. If Protestants and Catholics could agree to make common cause something might be done, but the bitter memories connected with the names of Seymour and Dudley were too fresh to permit the Catholics to join with their recent foes. The Protestant leaders, or rather the wreck of the old party of John Dudley, rallied about Henry Grey the duke of Suffolk, Lady Jane's father, Sir Thomas Wyatt, and Sir Peter Carew, and laid the foundation of an extensive conspiracy with the avowed purpose of preventing the Spanish marriage but really to depose Mary and place Elizabeth and Courtenay on the throne. Time, however, was urgent, and the vigilance of Gardiner forced the leaders to act before their plans were ripe. Suffolk strove to rouse the midlands, but his connection with the late duke of Northumberland prevented the people from rallying to his stan- dard and he soon found himself a prisoner in the Tower. Sir Peter Carew attempted to raise Devonshire but with no better suc- cess, except that he managed to get away to France. Wyatt in the southeast got together some 15,000 Kentishmen and led them to South wark. Mary had no armed force at hand to defend her; the Londoners were in panic and more than half inclined to allow the insurgents to cross the bridge, but the vigorous and courage- ous conduct of Mary, ably supported by the old duke of Norfolk, brought them to their duty ; the bridge was held and Wyatt was compelled to ascend to Kingston where he found a crossing and from whence he managed to fight his way into the city. The quest from first to last was a fool's errand; the little band who had followed Wyatt were overwhelmed and he himself with Suffolk and others were sent to the block. It was inevitable that Suffolk's daughter the Lady Jane and her harmless husband, should be drawn down with her father and his friends, although they had taken no part in the plot. On Feb- ruary 12, the sentence of the year before was carried out. On the 1554] THE PAPAL ALLEGIANCE RENEWED 579 same day Courtenay was arrested and a wholesale slaughter of com- mon prisoners begun. Gibbets were erected over all London, and everywhere the eyes of the people rested on "the hideous spectacle of hanging men." Elizabeth was sent to the Tower; Gardiner and Renard pressed Mary to give consent to her execution and for a few days the ax hung above Elizabeth's head, suspended only by a thread. Her enemies, however, could bring no proof to show that she had been a party to the conspiracy ; the lords, moreover, led by her kinsman, William Howard who commanded the fleet, were determined that guilty or not, she should not be sacrificed, and in May she was finally released. Courtenay also was dismissed and allowed to retire to the continent. lie died at Padua 1556. The ill timed insurrection and the vigorous treatment of the rebels prevented further opposition and in April a new parlia- ment formally sanctioned the marriage contract. The Srw^S^"^ prince arrived in July and on the 25th the marriage ™5S •^^^^^ was celebrated. The pair were thoroughly incompat- ible; Mary was plain, without any attractive qualities of mind or body, and withal was twelve years the senior of her husband. Her health was already breaking; she had grown wan and haggard ; her spirits were easily affected ; all of which did not tend to commend her to a husband who had tolerated the mar- riage at all, simply as a political necessity. He met Mary's ardent devotion with a cold indifference, which soon changed to disgust when he found that the suspicions of parliament and council showed no signs of abating and that lie was expected to play the part simply of gentleman usher to his queen. The next summer he hailed the pretext furnished by the proposed abdica- tion of his father to get himself home as speedily as possible. While Philip remained in England he had counselled his ardent queen to move cautiously in carrying out the second project which was as dear to her as the Spanish marriage. Now, how- The papal ever, the only influence that could have stayed her hand newed, 1554. was withdrawn. The parliament, which had accepted the Spanish marriage, had flatly refused to restore the Six Articles, and a proposition to reenact the laws against Lol- lardy had been lost somewhere between the two houses. But in 580 THE CATHOLIC REACTION [ Mast October when Mary's third parliament 'came together, it was soon evident that while a large majority had no objection to restoring the pope, they were in no mind to renounce the possession of church lands which had fallen to the nation by reason of its share in Henry's acts of spoliation. Mary exerted all her influence to bring over the reluctant members to agree to right the wrong done. The repentance of the apostate nation v^ould have little meaning unless it surrendered the fruits of its sin; nor would the restoration of the papacy be of much practical value if the church were to remain in beggary. In vain Mary and her chancellor pleaded ; in vain Mary sought to set an example by releasing the church lands which were held by the crown. There the matter hung until the pope came to the rescue by formally agreeing to ratify the possession of the church lands by the present holders, on condition that parliament pass the laws necessary to restore the papal supremacy. On the 29th of November parliament voted on the question, whether the country should return to the obedience of the Apostolic see. In the Upper House the assent was given without opposition. In the Lower House, out of 360 members present, only two responded with a negative vote. The next day, St. Andrew's Day, the last of November 1554, the queen, the council, and the members of both houses of parliament, repaired to "Whitehall and kneeling before Cardinal Pole, the papal legate, who with ''ecstatic impatience" had been waiting for this moment ever since the accession of Mary, confessed the sin of the nation and received absolution. England was now once more restored to the church of the continent. It remxained for parliament to undo the hostile legislation of Henry VIII. It was, however, not to be so simple a matter as the vote of November 29 seemed to indicate. "The The ''Great papal Supremacy, the secularization of the church Bill:' J aim- ^ ^ ^ *^,. ^,^. , .,, ary4,i555. property, and the authority of the Episcopal courts, were so inextricably interwoven, the acts or parts of acts bearing on the question were so many, it was not until Jan- uary 4, that the result of the work, known as the "Great Bill," ^ was formally presented to the crown. By this act all the ecclesias- 1 Gee and^Hardy, pp. 385-415. 1555] THE REACTION AT FLOOD 581 tical legislation of Henry Subsequent to the year 1529 was swept away. The limits of legislative reaction were now reached and parlia- ment refused to go farther. The two acts upon which Elizabeth's right to the succession rested had been slated by Gar- atfiooT^^^ diner for condemnation, but parliament refused to touch them save as they affected the See of Rome. It restored the authority of the bishops' courts but expressly denied them the right **to inquiet or molest any person or per- sons or body politic," on account of the possession of any of the sequestered lands or other property of the church. The Act of Mortmain was suspended for twenty years, but '*the spectre of praemunire" was left ** unexercised" to haunt the clergy with all the shadowy terrors which had been imparted to it by the decision of Henry VIII. 's courts. In vain the clergy pleaded that the hated law might be repealed or at least limited in its application; parliament would go no farther. The tide of reaction was at flood. The nation was satisfied ; enough had been done, and here mat- ters might have rested had not Mary made up her mind to force Englishmen to become Catholics in heart as they had thepertsecu- become Catholics again by the laws of the land. As men understood the functions of government, it was entirely within her right to compel her subjects to subscribe to a uniform faith. She was also justified by the customary law of Europe in using violence against those who defied the laws and subjecting them to death by the torture of fire. Henry VIII. had done this and Cranmer had sanctioned it in the case of Ana- baptists. Even Latimer had preached a commendatory sermon when the Catholic Father Forest had been slowly tortured to death in an open Iron cradle which was kept swinging over a slow fire. It was no more than Catholic and Protestant states were doing to their rebellious subjects on the continent. It was nevertheless a grave and fatal error, and did more to defeat Mary's purpose and bring on a new Protestant reaction than all the fiery polemics of men like John Knox and others, foreigners mostly, who had fled to the continent again on scent of the coming storm. Mary had 582 THE CATHOLIC REACTION" [jiABY triumphed over the laws ; she had silenced opposing theorists ; she could not crush the rising spirit of humanity in the hearts of her people. For this reaction Mary herself was largely to blame. Gardiner had favored severe measures with the heretics as with the political rebels, but he drew back when he saw its futility. ity for the Pole Succeeded Cranmer and his position was always persecutions. p , • n i i -i • one 01 great mnuence ; yet he was by no means m sym- pathy with the persecutions. He **publicly told the clergy that the best way of reclaiming the people was not by measures of severity, but by reforming their own lives," and on one occasion at least he dismissed twenty heretics with a mere submission. The Span- ish influence, it is well known, was against the persecutions, not for reasons of humanity, but because Philip and his advisers were wise enough to foresee the ultimate effect upon the Spanish influ- ence in England. But Mary's Tudor blood had been roused by opposition, and with a persistence which at times looks almost like insanity, she pursued her way. Wilfulness assumes queer guises sometimes. In the case of the father, it appeared as vanity, self- love, lust; in the case of the daughter, as duty, tho desire to do the will of God as a bigoted mind understood it. On June 20, 1555 the act which restored the heresy acts of Henry IV. and Henry Y. went into effect and soon the fires of Smithfield were again crackling merrily. Among the first vic- tims were John Rogers, the Bible translator, and Hooper the bishop of Gloucester. Gardiner and others, possibly Mary her- self, did not expect any serious resistance ; a few examples only would be necessary to show the heretics that the government was in earnest. They gave the leaders little credit for sincerity and thought that, like Dudley, the smell of death would frighten them into speedy acquiescence. But these were different men whose faith was now to be put to the test ; nor could tlieir firm- ness be shaken by the sight of the flames. Spectators who came to scoff and jeer, went away thoughtful and reverent. Coverdale was saved by the interposition of the king of Denmark; but Ridley and Latimer sealed their faith at Oxford, October 16, 1555. Latimer was now in his seventy-seventh year, hale and 1556] DEATH OF CRANMER 583 hearty and merry to the last. "Play the man, Master Ridley," he shouted to his fellow, as the executioners were fastening them to the stake, "we shall this day light such a candle in England, as I trust by God's grace shall never be put out." Of all Mary's victims none perhaps had merited her vengeance more than Cranmer. She would not be a woman to forget the part which he had taken in fastening the stain upon Cranmer, her birth. Cranmer bad been brought up for trial in March, 1556. September 1555 at the time when Ridley and Latimer were tried. But he, unlike them, was a regularly consecrated bishop of the Catholic church and his fellow bishops feared to proceed without special license from Rome. When at last in the following February the requisite authority was received, Cran- mer's courage which had never been of the stoutest failed him. He shrank from the torture of the heretic's death, and in hope of gaining his life recanted. His enemies, however, had no thought of allowing their victim to escape and he was condemned not- withstanding. As the end drew near, he recovered his spirit and boldly facing death withdrew his unhappy denial of the Protes- tant faith, thrusting his right hand into the flame first, "that unworthy right hand," as he sadly exclaimed, with which he had signed the recantation. The whole number of executions amounted to 277. The victims were taken almost altogether from the ranks of the com- mon people. No one of note among the laity suffered ; extmto/"^''^ and with the exception of a few ecclesiastics, such as tiww.^^**^^* Ridley, Latimer, and Cranmer, none who could be called prominent. The executions, moreover, were confined almost entirely to the three dioceses of London, Norwich, and Canterbury. In the rest of England all told, they did not number more than fifty. They were enough, however, to stir a deep spirit of hate and resentment among the people and leave an indelible impression upon the English mind which three hundred years have not been able to efface. Mary felt deeply the decline of her popularity. She knew that her people hated her and waited for her death. To add to her sorrow and sense of loneliness, Philip, under the plea of new 584 THE CATHOLIC REACTION [: MABT duties, had practically deserted her. She longed for the love of the husband who never came, and who ceased at last even to write to her. She had prayed for a child : but her Decline of , -, , i n -r, Marrs prayers had been mocked. Even God apparently had abandoned her. She was alone and desolate. She dared no longer trust herself in public, lest she should give way in unseemly outbursts of hysteric passion. She fell into a profound melancholy and great distaste of life. Her councillors knew that the nation, goaded by the brutal scenes which they were called upon to witness, only waited a leader to break into open revolt. Even Bonner hesitated, con- scious of the execrations of the people, but Mary egged him on to do his duty. To her clouded mind all her disappointments were due to her remissness in expelling the spirit of an ti- Christ from the realm. The few Spaniards who remained, also came in for a share of the popular execrations and in their fear pathetically appealed to their master for their recall. Still tlie leaders hesi- tated to summon the people to arms. An armed insurrection would give Philip an excuse for landing his Spanish infantry at once and taking possession of the English strongholds. Once in possession it would be impossible to eject him without the aid of France. From this they shrank. It was, moreover, no longer a secret that the unhappy queen was dying of an incurable malady, that her time was limited, and that Elizabeth would soon mount the throne in her place. One attempt was made by Thomas Stafford, the grandson of the late duke of Buckingham. In April 1557 he succeeded in landing thirty Englishmen and one Frenchman in Sfto#ord'.s; Yorkshire, and actually seized Scarborough Castle, but 1557. ' only to be immediately taken and put to death. The attempt of itself was of little importance; but the expedition had been fitted out in France and gave Mary therefore a pretext for declaring war against France. Philip, who visited England for a few weeks in March, had exerted all his influence for this purpose, and Mary was well pleased to have one oppor- tunity at last of gratifying her husband. England, perhaps in all her history, was never less prepared 1558] THE LOSS OF CALAIS 585 for war. Stephen Gardiner had died at his post November 12, 1555. He had done much to restore the credit of the govern- ment and reduce its indebtedness. But after him the Calais, Jan- conduct of the administration had fallen into incom- petent hands. Mary had been allowed to exhaust the royal treasury in her frantic efforts to refound the abbeys and restore the desecrated church buildings. Many complaints had come from Calais of the beggared condition of its garrison and the ruined state of its fortifications; she had been warned by Admiral Howard of the pitiful condition of the navy. But with the same blindness with which she had urged on the executions of linen drapers and village priests, she had continued to pour out the national treasure in her work of restoring the church. She was now compelled, therefore," to levy forced loans, to lay new duties upon imports and exports, for which the laws gave her no sanction, and to continue the debasement of the coinage. After so much else, these acts completely destroyed what little credit Mary still retained with the proprietary classes, who had not been directly affected by the persecutioi;s. The war itself, moreover, was exceedingly unpopular; the possibility of it was the thing which had been feared from the first, and was the secret of most of the popular suspicion of Philip. When, therefore, early in the new year, the news was brought home that Calais and Guisnes, the last foothold of the English in France, which had been English territory for 211 years, had been taken by the duke of Guise without an effort on the part of the incompetent minis- ters of Mary to save them, nothing was left to complete the general disgust and detestation of the people. No one felt the crushing disappointment of the fall of Calais more than Mary herself. It was to the dying woman the last sign of the Divine disfavor and she roused herself with Death of frantic energy to continue her work. The fiery execu- PiieJSovem- ^^^^^^ Went on with renewed vigor; the rebuilding and beri7,i558. reestablishing of monasteries continued. But the end was not far off. It came on the 17th of November 1558. A few hours later her old friend Cardinal Pole also passed away, broken-hearted it would seem under the treatment of the 586 THE CATHOLIC REACTION [mabt new pope Paul IV. who, inspired by his French sympathies, had made Pole the victim of his hatred of Philip, first depriving him of his legatine powers, and then, to justify the act, charging him with heresy. Mary was a good woman spoiled by the fatal superstition which confounded religion with orthodox opinion. Had she lived in better times she might have proved a worthy queen. ^pMar^^ Eeligions party hatred has made of her a monster, but she seems to have been well educated, amiable in man- ner, and not altogether unpleasing, until she became haggard by disease and a breaking heart. ^ No monarch was ever more con- scientious in the fulfillment of a monarch's high responsibilities; none more sincere in the unflinching pursuit of what she deemed to be right. It was impossible for the daughter of Catharine of Aragon to be other than a bitter enemy of the Reformation. But she was not cruel by nature; few political executions would have attended her accession to the throne, had not the foolish rebellion of Suffolk and Wyatt driven her to measures of severity. Her religious persecutions also were inspired not by a thirst for blood, but by her passionate desire to save the souls of the millions of her countrymen, who, as she sincerely believed, were in danger of eternal damnation because of the errancy of a few religious teachers. In this use of political power she was upheld by the convictions of the most enlightened men of her time. ' Gold win Smith, The United Kingdom, I. pp., 358, 359. CHAPTER VI ELIZABETH; THE REFORM ESTABLISHED ELIZABETH 155fi-15Si THE STUART SUCCESSION Margaret Tudor, eldest daughter of Henry VII. m. (1) James IY. of Scotland m. (2) Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus V.= James V. = Mary of Guise Margaret = Matthew Stuart, Earl of Scotland of Lennox, d. 1571 Mary, = Henry Stuart, liord Charles Stuart, Earl of executed 1587 I Darnley I Lennox James VI. of Scotland, 1567-1625 Arabella Stuart, died and L of England, 160S-16-^ 1615 Although Elizabeth was barely twenty-five when she came to tKe throne, her life had been so fraught with dangers and crowded with experiences that she was already old in wisdom. EUzaheth^^ It is said, that she was very beautiful and possessed all the accomplishments of the great lady of her day; she could speak Latin, Italian, or French, and could read Greek; she was well versed in theology, history, and other branches of the learning of the time. She had her father's masculine will, his shrewd knack of judging men and things, and his coarse but direct way of expressing himself. She had her mother's coquetry and freedom of manner, her vanity and love of admiration; she had her father's fondness for dress and display. But unlike either, her passions were never given the leash. She could be as par- simonious as Henry VII. ; she could be as patient and self-con- trolled in working toward an end. Of personal religion, she knew nothing; conscience with her was a matter of policy rather than of feeling. She could lie most impudently ; she could be as rough and boisterous and profane as one of her Dover sailors. She could be as voluble as a fishwife in the torrent of abuse which she might pour upon the luckless minister who happened to rouse her 587 588 THE REFORM ESTABLISHED [elizabeth wrath, spitting in his face or making his head ring with a sound- ing box on the ears. In state-craft she was a master, and with marvelous insight grasped the conditions which confronted her. And yet possibly her tastes served her here fully as much as her native m^beth shrewdness. She hated extravagance in the use of pub- lic funds; hence her conduct of the treasury was sparing even to parsimoniousness, but in parsimony was salvation. She hated extravagance in religion as well and had no sympathy with the ultra Protestants; hence she was conservative in her religions policy, and probably would have remained a Catholic if the church had not disowned her. As it was, she drifted with the people, restraining the excesses of either party, but yielding when she must to the will of the nation. She hated the French and was suspicious of the Spaniards; hence she would ally herself with neither, but coquetted with both, deceived both, and accomplished her end at last, keeping England out of "foreign entanglements" and giving the country peace for twenty years. In a word she proposed to do nothing, to allow her foreign enemies to wear themselves out in the suicidal struggle which was distracting Europe, while England recovered its wasted energies. This emi- nently shrewd and characteristic policy, with rare skill and patience, she followed steadily during a reign of forty-five years. When Elizabeth began her reign, the realm was in a critical condition. The bitter memories of the past were fresh and the agents of Mary's cruelties still held the high places in Difflcuities chnrch and state. The country was in the midst of a Elizabeth. disastrous war with France and Scotland. The king- dom was practically defenseless; it was without an army, without a navy, and its fortifications were crumbling. The treasury was empty; the currency was in confusion; trade was lan- guishing, and taxes were heavy. During the last three years of Mary's reign, moreover, the land had been ravaged by famine and pestilence, and the people were still suffering. They were just in the mood, therefore, to cast themselves with terrible energy into a reaction which threatened to be even more violent, more terri- ble, more destructive of life and property than the Marian per- 1558] WILLIAM CECIL 589 sedition, if it did not end in civil war. The question of the succes- sion, also, was by no means settled ; the spent storm of the fifteenth century still hovered darkly above the horizon and the queen's right to the throne was certain to be challenged by the Catholic powers. France was sure to press the claims of Mary of Scot- land, and the pope, strongly French in his sympathies, was cer- tain to issue a bull of excommunication whenever the French court gave the word. Such was the forbidding outlook when Elizabeth took up the work of her unhappy sister. Almost the first important act of Elizabeth was to make William Cecil Secretary of State. He was born in 1520 in Lin- colnshire and educated at Cambridge. He had entered ^]!li^"^ into the service of Henry VIII. and after his death had become Somerset's private secretary. Under Dudley's administration he had held high office and, although he had declared for Queen Jane, his life had been spared. During Mary's reign he had remained in obscurity, finding shelter with many others who had been of Edward's court, by conforming to the dominant religion. Another important appointment of Elizabeth was that of Matthew Parker, the old chaplain of her mother, to the position left vacant by Pole's death. Both men were moder- ate Protestants and were one with Elizabeth in her desire to restore the tranquillity of the realm. To Nicholas Bjicon, the brother-in-law of Cecil, was committed the keeping of the Great Seal. The religious question demanded immediate settlement. The nation was still Catholic, both in form and in sentiment, although the people were weary of the church courts and their and^uie^ heresy trials, and were generally disgusted with the Qv^tion tyranny of priests. The new pope, Paul IV., more- over, was apparently inclined to demand the surrender of the church lands, and in that event the papacy also would inevitably come in for a share in the revulsion of feeling roused by the excesses of Mary and her pro- Spanish policy. Yet Elizabeth hesitated to break with the papacy. She was more Catholic than Protestant in her sympathies and had no desire to commit England again to the Reformation. But Anne Boleyn's daughter 590 THE REFORM ESTABLISHED [Elizabeth conld never expect the recognition of Rome. If England were to remain Catholic, Mary of Scotland and not Elizabeth must be accepted as the legitimate sovereign, and Paul IV., a man any- thing but conciliatory, refused outright to recognize the right of the new queen to the succession. If Elizabeth would reign there- fore, she must take up again the work of her father. But here she was confronted by the danger of excessive reaction. The Protestant exiles were already trooping back from Germany and the Low Countries, and, vociferous for change, were inciting the London mob to attack the mass and all popish observances. Yet Elizabeth would not be hurried. She insisted on having mass in Latin, but she permitted the Epistles and Gospels, the Ten Com- mandments, the Lord's Prayer and the Creed, to be used in English. She stopped the persecutions for heresy, but forbade controversy. She refused to disturb Mary's bishops and assured Philip that she believed in transubstantiation. When parliament came together early in 1559 the cautious mod- eration of Elizabeth was fully justified. The most of Mary's ecclesiastical legislation was repealed, but of eighteen legisiatum ^ ecclcsiastical acts of Henry VIII. which had been jirstpariia- repealed by Mary, only ten were revived, and of nine of Edward VI., only one.^ A new Abt of Supremacy declared the queen to be "over all persons and causes, as well ecclesiastical as civil, within these dominions supreme;" but the style "Supreme Head of the Church" was dropped. A new Act of Uniformity also appeared ; but the Prayer Book was so ordered as to hold to a middle course, leaving, in language studiously ambiguous, room for the disciples of all faiths, so that Catholic or Anglican, Lutheran or Calvinist, might find his creed in the common form. "Such ornaments of the church and ministers were to be retained and used, as were in the Church of England by the authority of Parliament in the second year of King Edward VI." These measures were not expected to satisfy the radicals of any party; but they might quiet the apprehension of the mod- erate men of all parties and furnish the basis upon which English- 1 See Gee and Hardy, pp. 442-458. Cf. with Mary's Acts of Repeal, lb., pp. 377-416. 1583] THE COURT OF HIGH COMMISSION 691 men might live at peace with each other. No declaration of faith was to be exacted from laymen. If a man attended church, the requirements of conformity were satisfied. If he absented himself from church, a fine of 12 pence for the household was prescribed. Officeholders, whether lay or ecclesiastical, were required to take the oath of supremacy ; to fail was to lose their position and be debarred forever after from entering the public service. The ecclesiastical officer who took the oath and afterwards refused to comply with the terms of the Act of Uniformity, was to be pun- ished with heavy fines and temporary imprisonment for the first and second offenses; for the third, deposition and life imprison- ment. These requirements for the times were certainly moderate enough; but the last provision showed that moderation was not to be taken as weakness. Elizabeth did not mean to be trifled with. The church as organized by Mary was not so easy to manage. Convocation formally approved of transubstantiation and the papal supremacy. The bishops in the House of Lords The reaction all spoke and voted against the Act of Supremacy, and church when Elizabeth demanded that they should take the oath only one of the fourteen bishops yielded. Of the lower clergy, however, out of 9,000 only 189 refused the oath and threw up their posts. Of the others many, while avoiding the oath under various pretexts, yet indicated their submission to the new order. Elizabeth, who had no thought of driving them to extremes, was apparently satisfied. With the power of making episcopal appointments in her hands, she could wait for a more gradual but surer way of securing a loyal body of ecclesiastics. The Act of Supremacy had also empowered the queen to dele- gate authority to commissioners who should inquire into, and punish, all violations of the ecclesiastical laws of the The Court of kingdom. At first Elizabeth contented herself with musirm, 1683. issuiug Only occasional commissions, but there was so much work to be done and the docket soon fell so far in arrears that in 1583 a permanent court, the famous Court of High Commission, was established, consisting of forty persons, twelve of whom were bishops. 592 THE REFORM ESTABLISHED [Elizabeth Elizabeth found on her accession that Philip II. of Spain seriously desired to be her friend ; for since Mary Queen of Scots was man'ied to the Dauphin, Philip was forced to support alidPhmp Elizabeth against Mary. This necessity was England's salvation; for England in 1558 could have coped with neither kingdom successfully. In his anxiety to retain Elizabeth as his ally, Philip proposed marriage. Elizabeth, however, had no inclination to marry the cold and politic Spaniard of whom she had seen quite enough in her sister's court. Yet it was far bet- ter to keep Philip dangling as a suitor, than to part with him definitely, and this perhaps pleased Philip quite as well, for until his suit should be dismissed, Elizabeth at least would not support his enemies. He remained, therefore, ostensibly her friend, and in the final treaty with Erance, faithfully supported the English claims. The treaty of Ciiteau Cambresis, April 1559, marks the close of the long series of political wars which had been stirred up by the ambition of Charles YIII. Erom this date until tyrisisand the treaty of Westphalia 1648, the wars of Europe are ditwmfoi- no longer fought for mere political advantage, bat *^^^^' ' are dominated by the issues of the great religious con- troversy of the age. The Erench Henry II. survived the peace barely three months, sacrificed to the love of his people for the sport of the tourney. Francis 11. succeeded to the throne and Mary Queen of Scots was thus also Queen of Erance. The union of the two crowns, however, did not last long. Erancis died in 15 GO without issue and Mary returned to her own people. During the fifteen years in which Mary had dwelt in France, con- ditions in Scotland had been rapidly changing. The Eeformation had been given an enthusiastic support by both people matumia and nobility. The nobles still enjoyed their old feudal privileges, and like the English nobles of the fifteenth century, could bring small armies of retainers into the field to defy the crown and the courts. The church was rich and corrupt, and naturally fearing the barons, sided with the crown in its struggle with its great subjects. The barons, therefore, were ready to take 1559] JOHN KNOX 59^ up the Keformation as a new weapon against the crown, since they could thus strike down its strongest ally; but the bishops, encouraged by the turn of affairs in England during Mary's reign, were fully determined to arrest the spread of reforming heresies in Scotland, and had resorted to persecution. When, however, Eliza- beth ascended the English throne, the Protestants took fresh heart. A group of nobles signed a covenant, and styling themselves 'Hhe Lords of the Congregation," demanded the English Prayer Book and prepared to defend their faith. In 1559 the Scottish Protestants received an important accession to their ranks in the person of John Knox. Knox had been taken at St. Andrews Castle by the French in the John Knox, early days of Seymour's protectorate and sent to the galleys; later he had been chaplain to Edward VI., but on the incoming of the Catholic reaction had escaped to the con- tinent. At Geneva he came under the direct influence of John Calvin and adopted his views. From this safe retreat, also, he issued his fiery attack upon Mary, **The Monstrous Regiment of Women." He was imperious, uncompromising, and of dauntless courage. When he returned to Scotland in 1559 he devoted all his terrible logical powers to the attack upon the prevailing cus- toms of the church. His eloquence was irresistible; his stinging satire, his hard scorn, lashed the people to frenzy. At Perth the vast congregation rose from one of his sermons to loot the cathe- dral, smashing the windows, ripping up the pictures, and demol- ishing the images. From Perth the frenzy of destruction spread over Scotland. The Queen Regent, Mary of Guise, attempted to interfere; but the Lords of the Congregation sheltered and encouraged the iconoclasts. Open war broke out. The Regent called upon the French court for help. The Lords turned to Elizabeth, and proposed to her a match with the earl of Arran who stood next to Mary Stuart in the line of succession. But the high-spirited English queen found little to her liking in the weak- minded earl ; moreover, the marriage would have been attended by an immediate attempt to dethrone Mary in Arran's interest, a step which Elizabeth knew w^oiild at once combine the Catholic powers of Europe against her. But beyond mere reasons of state Eliza- /\Mc 594 THE REFORM ESTABLISHED [elizabkth beth had little sympathy with the excesses of the Congregation ; she hated Presbyterianism, detested Knox, and was suspicious of rebels of all kinds. Yet she could not permit the French to regain control of Scotland. She agreed, therefore, against her inclina- tion, to assist the Lords to drive out the French, but they must remain loyal to their queen. In July 15G0 the Treaty of Edin- burgh afforded a momentary settlement, compelling the expulsion of the French and securing toleration for the Protestants. The Scottish reformers, however, were not the kind of men to be satis- fied with half measures, and taking advantage of the recent death of the Queen Regent proceeded to attack the legal foundations of the church, and by act of parliament swept away the old church establishment and enjoined the Calvinistic form in its place. The Lords thus far had supported the reform partly for political rea- sons and partly because they desired to plunder the church as the English Lords had done in the reigns of Henry and Edward. When, however, the time came to enjoy the spoils, they found an insurmountable obstacle in John Knox, who had no desire to see the church stripped to satisfy the greed of the nobles, and threw all his fiery energy into the new struggle between the reformed clergy and the Lords of the Congregation. Things were at this pass when Mary returned to her kingdom August 15G1. She was a gay, light-hearted girl of nineteen, highly cultured, full of the spirit of the French renais- £S( ^^^ sance, and with an irresistible way of drawing the hearts of those who came in contact with her, very marked in contrast with the cold and haughty Elizabeth. Her intellectual powers also were as marked; she could plot with Italian cunning and possessed withal the courage and will to carry out her schemes ; but unfortunately she was not mistress of her passions. She professed herself willing to tolerate Protestantism and asked only that Protestants tolerate her in turn. To this the Lords assented, but Knox, the watch-dog of the new Scottish church, cried out in horror against it, declaring that one mass was **more fear- ful unto him than ten thousand armed enemies. " Between Knox and such as Mary there could be neither sympathy nor compro- mise. 1560] PEACE POLICY OF ELIZABETH 595 An era of turmoil and strife followed. Elizabeth's sympathies were with her sister monarch ; her monarchical instincts always strong with her, as with her father, forbade her to- Eiizabeth's encourasre rebellion. But Mary claimed to be by right nolicy toward, jo Mary. of birth the legitimate heir to the English throne after K^ Mary Tudor, and this claim she would not surrender, y^m^ Elizabeth would recognize her as her successor. This, however, Elizabeth would not do; her Protestant subjects feared the Scottish queen and had no wish to see another Catholic Mary on the English throne. Elizabeth contented herself, therefore, with encouraging the Scottish Lords in order to keep Mary busy at home and prevent the formation of a party in her favor in England; for the English Catholics were just as fearful of a Protestant succession and looked to Mary for the solution of their troubles. The English parliament thought to settle the troublesome question by finding a husband for Elizabeth and more than once petitioned her on the subject; she answered graciously T/ie proposed hut cvasively, and continued to keep her suitors waiting. l^SbethJ^ In 1501 it was supposed that she was about to marry >C Lord Robert Dudley, her first favorite, the handsome but /worthless son of the late duke of Northumberland. For the first ten years of her reign, Elizabeth steadily persisted in her purpose to remain at peace. *'No war, my lords," was her. oft-repeated rejoinder at the council board. Her gov- ofEUmbeih ^rnmcut had been peaceful and economical. The country was recovering rapidly from the disorder which had confronted her on her accession. She restored the coinage in 1560 and recovered the credit of the government. She r^un-ed repaired and garrisoned her fortresses and once more September, brought the navy up to a respectable footing. More- over, her studied policy of conciliation and her persist- ent refusal to side with extremists had created a new national party who put their interests as Englishmen over against those of church or party, and who were increasing every year in strength and num- ber. Her policy of shielding herself from foreign attack behind the rivalry of France and Spain had also succeeded. As the 596 THE REFORM ESTABLISHED ' [Elizabeth Reformation progressed and both, states were weakened by revolts of their Protestant subjects, the prospect of interference became even more remote. It was Elizabeth's policy, moreover, without committing herself, to encourage Protestants on the continent as in Scotland. She particularly feared the Guises, who led the Cath- olic nobility against the Huguenots, and who as uncles of the Scot- tish queen were ready to support her in pressing her claims to the English throne. In 1562, the French queen mother, the famous Catharine de Medici, attempted to give the Huguenots religious toleration, but was bitterly opposed by the Guises. The result was a civil war, in which Elizabeth gave some assistance to the Huguenots and received Havre in pledge. The war, however, was not creditable to English arms and in 1564 Elizabeth retired from the struggle. And, although she continued cautiously to encour- age the Huguenots when opportunity offered, it became more definitely than ever her policy to keep out of war with France as well as Spain. The same policy which led Elizabeth to interfere in the strug- gle of the Huguenots led her also to adopt stricter measures in restraining her Catholic subiects at home. Their sym- Elizabeth pathies were naturally roused by the convulsion which Catholics of was distracting 1^ rance and their attitude was becoming more aggressive. The violent Protestants were also urging the government forward. The Act of 1562 which com- pelled all teachers, all university students, all lawyers and all law officers, and all members of the House of Commons, to take the oath of supremacy, not only rid the government of annoying obstructionists, but made the Commons more strongly Protestant than ever. The next year parliament advanced another step in adding to the Prayer Book the Thirty -Nine Articles^ which were based on the forty-two articles of Edward VI. and broadly defined the doctrines of the Anglican Church, robbing the Catholics of the shelter of the ambiguity of Elizabeth's Prayer Book. These measures, however, were not radical enough to satisfy the ultra Protestants and the same year an unseemly and bitter controversy arose within the Protestant ranks over the continued use of vestments in the church service. Extreme Protestants, 1565] THE PURITANS 597 soon to be known as Puritans, objected to continuing the forms or ceremonies, which had been inherited from the old church. They objected to the Prayer Book, because it had been taken from the old Mass Book; they objected to kneeling at the Division in Sacramental service, because the act appeared like an tcmfrarSs adoration of the Host ; they objected to the sign of The Puritans, ^he cross at baptism, because it seemed to them like an incantation more worthy of paganism than Chris- tianity. They objected also to the claim of archbishop or bishop to the possession of any special spiritual powers. The great body of Puritans had no thought at first of separating themselves from the Anglican Church but sought to continue the reform within the national church, replacing the episcopacy by a government of synods and elders after the Genevan or Presbyterian model. One section, however, known as Separatists, rejected both 'arathS forms of church organization and taught that the only form sanctioned in the Scriptures was the Congrega- tional, based upon the independence of each body of believers. Elizabeth had no sympathy with Puritanism. The quarrel over forms and vestments exasperated her, but she needed the Puritans and knew that they were not to be trifled and the with. After an attempt in 1505 to compel them to conform, she determined to put up with their vagaries and to give her attention to the more serious problems which immediately threatened her throne and which warned her to be tolerant of Puritanism. In 1563 the famous Council of The Council , ^ -, n • ^ i •, 1 T11T ' 1 of Trent, Trent had finished its work. It had become evident to 1545-1563. the leaders of the old church that it was useless to attempt to find any common ground of compromise which would satisfy the reformers, short of the abandonment of the papal sys- tem and the fundamental doctrines of the Catholic Church. Yet it was possible to reform the abuses within the church, the out- growth of feudal influence largely, which had been a cause of grief to good Catholics long before they had' been made the object of attack by Protestants. There was, however, to be no wavering in restating the accepted doctrines of the church or in reaffirming the papal supremacy, and upon this basis arose the movement known m 1 598 THE REFORM ESTABLISHED [Elizabeth as the Counter-Eeformation which was destined to save Catholicism in Europe. Its success was largely due to the devoted energy of the ''Company of Jesus," a new order, which had been panyofjesus established by Ignatius Loyola in 1540. The members were devoted to the restoration of the church ; and to this end they preached, and taught, and sent out missionaries, trained and disciplined to act with the promptness and unquestioning obedience of the soldier. It was this powerful Catholic Puritan^m ^^^^^Jon on the continent, which had been thus success- fully inaugurated, that now aroused Elizabeth by its aggressive vigor and inclined her to look with more tolerance upon the demand of the Puritans for stricter laws in restraining Cath- olics. Thus far Mary had managed to hold her own in Scotland; but in 1565 she determined upon a course which ultimately united Elizabeth, England, and the Scottish people against Mary'sun- her. Bv marrvinef for her second husband Henry fortunate^ h)ve affairs. Stuart, Lord Darnley, the son of her father's lialf- sister, she hoped to unite the two lines of Stuart succession and strengthen her cause. Darnley was weak and vicious, without capacity for politics, personally objectionable to Elizabeth, and a Catholic. But Mary, blind to all peril, deaf to all entreaties, for the moment was infatuated with her tall and handsome cousin, only to repent later of her impetuous folly. The foolish youth proved himself so unworthy of the queen's confi- dence that she refused to allow him to be crowned at her side. He turned for comfort to the Scottish lords, who persuaded him that the queen's secretary, an Italian named David Rizzio, was his rival in the queen's affections, and so worked upon him, that, crazed with jealousy, one eveningjn Miirch 1566, supported by a band of Protestant IoinJsT"^" broke into Mary's drawing-room. The unhappy secretary was seized, dragged from the queen's presence and stabbed to death. In less than a year Darnley himself was assassinated by the connivance of the earl of Bothwell, a wild, law- less nature, who was allowed not only to secure an acquittal by- overawing his judges, but to carry off Mary and marry her, apparently with her consent. 1567-1577] FALL OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 599 This act of Both well was Mary's death warrant. All Scotland believed that she had herself planned the murder of her husband and had willingly sdven herself to Bothwell. The Fall of Mary , . "^ , -, . -r ^ i ,,, Queen of people rose against her and m June 1567, Bothwells retainers having deserted him, Mary surrendered to the Lords at Carberry Hill. Bothwell escaped to Orkney and after a wandering life was seized by the Danes and finally died in prison in 1577. Mary was brought to Edinburgh amid the execrations of the people, and shut up in Lochleven Castle; Darnley's son James, a child one year old, was proclaimed King of Scotland. In May 1568 Mary succeeded in making her escape, and sum- Mau^is^isb-s "toning the Catholics to her side, attempted to regain her crown. But she was defeated at Langside near Glasgow, and compelled once more to flee from the face of her angry people. In Scotland there was no longer resting place or safety for the unhappy queen; in her despair she determined to present herself at the threshold of her sister sovereign and rival, and EfiSabeth. ^.ppeal to her for protection and support. Elizabeth pretended to investigate the matter and called upon the Scottish lords to justify their act of rebellion. In reply, they pro- duced a casket of letters, alleged to have been written by Mary to Bothwell which if genuine proved her complicity in Darnley's murder. Genuine or not, Mary refused to answer the charge or to recognize the commission which had been appointed virtually to try her. She refused also to abdicate in favor of her son, or make any concessions to her rebellious subjects. Elizabeth could not bring herself to give up Mary to her subjects; she dared not offend them by releasing her. Almost against her will, therefore, she was led to confine the exile at Tutbury. Mary's beauty, her wit, her fascinating ways, her misfortunes, made her a dangerous prisoner. Thomas Duke of Norfolk, the son of the earl of Sur- rey, one of Henry VIII. 's last victims, had already become infatu- ated, and encouraged by the support of a number of Catholic nobles, including Thomas Percy Earl of Northumberland and Charles Neville Earl of Westmoreland, proposed to marry Mary, who was to be acknowledged as Elizabeth's successor. Elizabeth 600 THE REFORM ESTABLISHED [Elizabeth promptly threw Norfolk into prison, whereupon an insurrection led by Northumberland and Westmoreland broke out in the Catholic north. But Elizabeth was too quick for the malcontent nobles. She suppressed the revolt with cruelty and severely punished those engaged in it ; every market town between the Wharfe and Tyne was graced with a group of hanging rebels. Northumberland escaped to Scotland but was delivered to Elizabeth and executed in 1572. The time had now come when no amount of skillful fencing could longer delay the crisis which had been threatening Elizabeth ever since her accession to the throne. In February ^hfS-i^iT^ 1570 Pope Pius Y. issued the long expected bull of reS^"^^^^'* excommunication and deposition, freeing all the sub- jects of Elizabeth from their oath of allegiance and in the minds of many not only justifying open rebellion but the secret plot of the assassin. Elizabeth was now strong in the confi- dence of the great part of her people; yet this loyalty had never been put to the test and the open declaration of war by the pope caused no small anxiety on the part of the queen and her council- lors, and naturally roused suspicion and distrust of all her Catholic subjects. She had, however, little cause for alarm. Scotland was now committed not only to the Eeformation but to an alliance with England as well. Mary the only rival whom she might fear was in her hands. The Catholic government of France was strug- gling to retain its position against the rising power of tlie Hugue- nots. Spain was fully occupied in maintaining her hold upon the Netherlands, where her subjects under the lead of William of Orange had arisen against her civil and ecclesiastical tyrannies. Elizabeth, therefore, had nothing to fear from either France or Spain; yet it se3med good policy to make friends if possible, and the subject of a foreign marriage was once more broached. In 1571 the negotiations seemed at last about to bear fruit in a union with the duke of Alen9on, the youngest brother of Charles IX. It is not at all likely that Elizabeth was any more serious now than before, but for eleven years she managed to retain the avowed friendship of France ; the little duke of Alen9on, whom Elizabeth playfully called her frog, came and went, her recognized suitor, Elizabeth always contriving to find excuse for delaying the mar- 1572] THE RIDOLFI PLOT 601 riage and in the meantime enjoying the full benefit of a French alliance as a foil to the threatening attitude of Spain. In case of attack, either country was to assist the other; they were also not to interfere in Scottish affairs nor allow any one else to do so. In 1572 the excommunication bore its first fruits in the Ridolfi plot. Norfolk had been spared in 1569, but learning little wisdom from failure he had continued his plotting, carrying on The Ridolfi ^ treasonable correspondence with Duke Alva in the Netherlands through an Italian broker named Ridolfi. Ridolfi lived in London but his business often carried him to the continent and it was thought that he would thus escape suspicion. But Cecil, now Lord Burghley, early learned of the plot and shadowed the conspirators until he had obtained evidence sufficient to establish the charge of treason, fully implicating Norfolk, Mary, and others. Norfolk was seized and put to death. Before 1571 Elizabeth had not summoned a parliament for nearly five years. She had avoided parliaments as the simplest way of preventing the radical views of the Puritans menfoUdii ^^^"^ coming to the front. But it seemed necessary after the bull of excommunication to give Europe some new evidence of the loyalty of her people and accordingly in the spring of 1571 she called a parliament together. It was over- whelmingly Protestant, for the Supremacy Act had barred out the Catholics; nor did it take long to pass laws against the bringing of papal bulls and other papal documents into the kingdom. When the Ridolfi plot was exposed in 1572 parliament also promptly petitioned for the execution of Norfolk and passed a bill of attainder against Mary. Elizabeth, however, had no thought of sanctioning the latter measure ; she was quite satisfied to have her enemies know that she stood between them and the vengeance of the nation. After the execution of Norfolk, a long period of tranquillity followed. Even the massacre of St. Bartholomew, though it stirred up intense bitterness in England, was not allowed Immidmty. *^ disturb Elizabeth's friendly relations with the French court. The Spaniards continued their desper- ate struggle in the Netherlands and so far from molesting England 602 THE EEFORM ESTABLISHED [elizabkth were not even able to retaliate for the injuries inflicted by English pirates or the encouragement which Elizabeth gave to Philip's rebel- lions subjects. Elizabeth, however, still had no wish for open war with Spain, and in 1575 declined the sovereignty of Holland and Zealand, which was offered her by the Netherlanders. The rest- lessness of the Puritans caused her no little uneasiness, not because she doubted their loyalty, but because they were for driving on the chariot of reform. The parliament of 1572 had proposed further changes in the Prayer Book. The Puritan body, also,had sent in a formal ** Admonition to Parliament," in which they demanded the abolition of episcopacy and attacked the church courts, includ- ing the Court of High Commission. But Elizabeth was not to be hurried and bade her parliament cease the discussion of such sub- jects. It was impossible, however, to keep the people from thinking and talking, and outside of parliament the Puritans were steadily gaining ground. The queen was particularly annoyed Puritanism. ^^ ^^^^^ meetings for '^prophesying, " where it was cus- tomary for the clergy to take up for free discussion some text of Scripture in which the debaters were very apt at finding applications in existing political and religious conditions. She, therefore, ordered Grindal, who had succeeded Parker in 1576, to suppress such discussions. But Grindal was himself too much of a Puritan to wish to see the prophesyings stopped, and refused. Elizabeth straightway suspended him from his office, and the offensive discussions ceased. The whole episode reveals the firm hand with which Elizabeth controlled her church. Her policy toward it was directed entirely ccmtroiof by political motives; nor did she hesitate to plunder oitrm^ quite as ruthlessly as Somerset. She left bishoprics church. vacant for years, while she put their revenues into her own treasury ; she forced bishops to surrender large sums of money from their sees as well as a large part of the lands connected with them. The bishops remonstrated; many of Archbishop Par- ker's letters are wails of complaint against the robbery of the church. But complaints were useless; for Elizabeth had as little respect for the personal dignity of her bishops as for their estates. 1577-1580] drake's VOYAGE 603 The relations of Spain and England during these years were often strained to the point of war. Elizabeth secretly assisted the Dutch, and Philip encourasred her subiects to rebellion. Relation of -^ , i ^ -, .i .i <• i ^^. Spain and Each monarch suspected the other of plotting assassina- tion ; nor would either have grieved if some fanatic had attempted it. Spaniards killed Englishmen wherever they met them, and Englishmen hunted Spaniards up and down the high seas. Yet the two countries were nominally at peace; and the two monarchs were constantly exchanging fair words and large prom- ises. Elizabeth, however, continued to encourage her seamen to prey upon Spanish commerce; her eyes glistened with pleasure at tales of adventure in the Spanish seas, where English pirates boarded the great galleons and turned their tons of precious metal towards English ports. In this half legalized piracy the peo- ple also took a deep patriotic interest; the names of Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher, were honored at every English fire- side. In 1577 Drake sailed for the Pacific, sacked towns and cities along the coast of South America, seized and scuttled Spanish ships, and at last, after planting the English flag in Cali- fornia and sailing clear round the world, entered Plymouth in 1580 with his ship heavily loaded with gold, silver, and precious stones. The Spanish ambassador demanded justice, and Elizabeth protested that he should have it, while Drake sunned himself in the wrath of the great queen, divided his treasure with her, and laughed at the vengeance of the Spaniard. It was piracy, pure and simple; but it was a great school for the training of a navy, and it cost nothing. In retaliation for English piracy, Philip offered assistance to the Irish, who were as usual in arms against England. Queen Mary had planned to settle Irish affairs by the intro- PMUpl!^'^ duction of English colonists and a vigorous suppres- /rSSf*'' ^^^^ ^^ ^^® I^ish in their favor; so little had the religious quarrel yet obscured the original race quarrel. Her plan, however, had not been inaugurated save in the counties of Kings and Queens. Through Elizabeth's reign the old struggle still smouldered, and in 1580 Philip attempted to fan the embers into new flame by sending over a large Spanish force to furnish a rallying point for the discontented Irish. But the Spaniards were 604 THE KEFOKM ESTABLISHED [Elizabeth quickly routed and the danger of Spanish interference in Ireland passed by. The English ferocity towards everything Irish, how- ever, did not cease. Edmund Spenser, the poet, has left a piti- ful picture of the sufferings of the people: ''Out of every cor- ner of the woods and glens they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them; they spoke like ghosts crying out of their graves ; they did eat the dead carrions, happy where they could find them." Elizabeth had now reigned twenty-two years. During the first ten years she had maintained a judicious spirit of conciliation towards her subjects of all creeds. She had frowned andmf^ upon cxtravagaiice of all kinds, and as long as her jS!^^^^^ people observed the laws outwardly she left them to themselves. But during the second decade it had become increasingly difficult to sustain this judicious course, — due mainly to the changing tone of Catholicism itself. Hundreds of English subjects had fled to Spain and other Catholic countries, where they found ready sympathy among their fellow religionists; many also had come directly under the influence of the Company of Jesus and committed their lives to the work of restoring Catholicism in those countries which had lapsed from the old faith. Chief among the English members of the order was William Allen, a graduate of Oxford, who in 1568 had founded at Douai in the Netherlands a college for the training of secular clergy. In 1578 he began to send over his missionaries to England to attack Protestantism in its stronghold. The flrst of these were Eobert Parsons and Edmund Campion. Parsons was cool, calculating, and self-pos- sessed. Campion was an enthusiast, but singularly pure-minded, modest, and gentle. Both men began their work, but each in his own way. Parsons took to political plotting, while Campion labored for the conversion of Englishmen. By the law it was a dangerous thing to celebrate the mass, or to say aught against royal supremacy; it was treason. Heretofore, however, while Elizabeth had left the sword suspended, she had been careful not to execute the terrible penalty. But the renewed agitation roused the government to action. More stringent laws were passed against the Catholics. The maximum fine which might be levied 1578] PERSECUTIONS OF JESUITS 605 upon recusants^ Catholics who refused to attend the Anglican service, was raised to £20 a month. An active search also was made for propagandist missionaries. Campion was taken and exe- cuted. Parsons escaped to the continent. The sword of perse- cution had again fallen, and from this time to the outbreak of the civil war in the next century, the Catholic clergy continued to exercise their functions at the peril of their lives. PROMINENT CONTEMPORARIES OF THE LATER TUDORS FRANCE Francis I., d. 1547 Henry II., d 1559 Francis II., d. 1560 Charles IX., d. 1574 Henry III. Henry IV. d. 1589 d. 1610 SPAIN THE EMPIRB I., 1516-1556 Philip II., d. 1598 Philip III., 1598 - Charles, V 1519-1558 Ferdinand I., 1558-1564 Maximilian II., 1564- 1576 Rudolph II., 1576 — POPES 1523- Clement VII. 1534 Paul III., 1534-1550 Julius III., 1550- 1555 Paul IV., 1555-15.59 Pius IV., 1559-1,566 Plus v., 1566-1572 GreKory XIII., 1572-1585 Sixtus v., 1585-1590, etc. SCOTIiAND James V., d. 1542 Mary, 1542-1567, (d. 1587) James VI., 1567-1625 Ivan IV., the Terrible, d. 15&4 THE NETHERLANDS WlUiam the Silent, d. 1584 MSN NOT PRINCES ARCHBISHOPS OF CANTERBURY William AVarham 1504-1532 Thomas Cranmer. 1533-1556 K(^uii>al(l role. 1556-1558 Mattlunv Parker, 1559-1576 Edmund Crindal, 1576-1583 John WhitKlft, 1583-1604 CHANCELLORS OF ENG- LAND Thomas Wolsey, 1515-1529 Sir Thomas More, 1529-1532, (d. 1535) Thomas Wriothesley, 1544- Stephen Gardiner, 1553- 1556 Sir Nicholas Bacon, 1558- 1579 REFORMERS Tyndale, d. 1536 Zwingli, d. 1531 Luther, d. 1546 . Ix)yola, d. 1556 Calvin, d. 1564 SCIENTISTS, DISCOVER- ERS, AND NAVIGATORS Albuquerque, d. 1515 Vasco da (Jama. d. 1524 Copernicus, d. 1543 Frobisher, d. 1594 Drake, d. 1596 Raleigh, d. 1618 PAINTERS Leonardo da Vinci, d. 1519 Raphael, d 1520 Michael Angelo, d. 1563 LITERARY MEN Si)enser, d. 1599 Shakspere, 1616 Cervantes, d. 1616. CHAPTEK VII ELIZABETH; THE DUEL WITH SPAIN ELIZABETH, 15^i-16a3 The year 1584 witnessed a marked change in Elizabeth's foreign policy. For twenty-six years she had persistently refused to allow England to be allured into war. She had continued to ^tso/ lend the struggling Netherlanders aid, but sufficient only to keep the contest with Spain alive, and when the Spanish complained of her perfidy, she had coolly disclaimed the acts of her agents.^ In 1584, however, a crisis was rapidly approaching in the relation of parties on the continent, and Eliza- beth saw that self-defense required a more positive interference on her part. The death of Alen9on in June had left the Huguenot Henry of Navarre the heir to the French throne, and in their alarm the French Catholics had once more taken up arms. The death of Alen9on, moreover, had virtually dissolved the long alliance of England and France, and in the event of Catholic success France was almost certain to join with Spain against England. If this were not enough to stir Elizabeth out of her negative policy, the assassination of William of Orange on July 10, by leaving the Netherlanders without a leader, promised to end the Dutch war in Philip's favor, and Elizabeth knew well that with France distracted by civil war and the Xetherlanders crushed, Philip would turn upon her in order to punish her for the piracies of her people and her encouragement to his rebellious subjects. The Dutch appealed to Elizabeth to put herself at the head of a Protestant league. Such a responsibility was by no means to her liking, yet she saw that at all hazards the Dutch must be supported; the Armada was already c:i sting its shadows across the southern horizon. At home, also, the friends of the imprisoned Queen of Scots, with persistent faith in their cause, had continued to plot for the 608 1584-1586] DEATH OF MARY QUEEN^ OF SCOTS 607 destruction of Elizabeth, and the complicity of Mendoza, tho Spanish ambassador, in one of these plots had led to his dismissal in June. When, a few weeks later, the news reached Marian England of the success of the plot against William of athome. Orange, the excitement knew no bounds, and in Novem- ber bore fruit in a widely extended patriotic league, or association, for the defense of the queen. Catholic Englishmen as well as Protestants joined the league and swore to defend the queen with life and goods, and if she were assassinated, to hold responsible the person benefited by the act. The * 'person" referred to in these ambiguous terms was of course Mary Queen of Scots. In 1585 parliament legalized the association, and in August Elizabeth definitely broke with Spain by openly entering into a treaty with the Dutch ; in January she sent an armed expe- dition to the Netherlands. Little came of this first open essay of Elizabeth against Spain. The chief incident of the expedition was the death at Zutphen, of the young Sir Philip Sidney distinguished as diploma- Wmtfuhe^ tist, soldier, and poet. . Uis fame to-day rests upon the N^heriands, Arcadia, Robert Dudley, the earl of Leicester, had been put in command of the expedition. He was no match, however, for the duke of Parma, the renowned soldier who confronted him, and returned in a few months, having done little for the Netherlands and embarrassed the queen by accepting in her name, but greatly to her disgust, the title and powers of governor-general. It would seem that the temper of the country and the increas- ing severity of the late acts of parliament ought to have warned Mary's friends of the danger of further plotting against ton plot and the life of Elizabeth. But in 158G a new plot, more death of . , i ,. , Mary Qiieen serious than any yet unearthed, was brought to light; the conspirators were arrested and put to death. But unfortunately for Mary, two letters written by her to Anthony Babington, the chief conspirator, and commending his plot, fell into the hands of Elizabeth's secretary. Sir Francis Walsingham. Parliament had already in the previous year, passed an act in gen- eral but unambiguous terms, empowering the appointment of a 608 THE DUEL WITH SPAIJST [Elizabeth commission to try Mary in case she should be privy to a plot for the assassination of Elizabeth. It was evident enough that her existence was a constant encouragement to plotters like Babington, and with a Spanish invasion threatening, it was hardly good policy to forbear longer. Yet there were serious legal technicalities in the way of a trial; Mary was not a subject of Elizabeth; moreover she had appealed to her as an exile. Even were she subject to the laws of England her part in the Babington plot could hardly be deemed by an ordinary court of law worthy of death. The com- mission, however, found her guilty of complicity, and a few days later parliament by formal vote petitioned that the sentence of death be carried out. Elizabeth signed the death warrant, but refused to authorize the execution. Finally, the council, perceiv- ing that the queen was determined to shirk all responsibility for the deed, gave orders for the execution, and on the 8th of Feb- ruary 1587, Mary, after nineteen years of captivity, was beheaded at Fotheringay. Elizabeth immediately disclaimed the act and with unspeakable meanness, fined and dismissed Secretary Davison who had acted as the instrument of the council. As for the nation, the news of Mary's death was everywhere received as the news of a victory; bells were rung and bonfires were lighted. A great sense of relief came over the people. The last fear of civil war had been dispelled. If, however, the strength of conspiracy had been broken at home by the execution of Mary, the expediency of the measure was by no means justified by the effect abroad. The news ^fi&^s ^^ Mary's death was received at first with incredulity Throad^ and then, when rumor passed into certainty, with a cry for vengeance. In Paris the people raved against the perfidious queen; at Rome the pope solemnly proclaimed a crusade against the heretic monarch; in Spain preparations were made for a holy war against the archenemy of the Catholic faith. Philip, moreover, had special grounds for taking up the bloody scarf of the fallen queen. In the shadow of the scaffold she had sent him a last message enjoining war with England as ''God's quarrel and worthy of his greatness," and named Philip's daughter, descended from John of Gaunt by her mother Philip's third wife, 1587, 1588] THE ARMADA 609 heir to her claim to the English throne. Philip saw himself, there- fore, confronted with a threefold quest: the avenging of innocent blood, the chastisement of the spoilers of the church, and the championship of his daughter's claim to the English throne. Thus, while the execution of Mary had removed the danger of civil war, it had united all Elizabetli's foreign enemies and precipitated the struggle which had been approaching for twenty years. Philip at once turned with serious purpose to prepare a huge armament for the invasion of England. Elizabeth, however, had no thought of waiting for the blow to fall before she o/¥}Mip^^ began action. Though war had not yet been declared, she iS/^^^' dispatched Drake with a little fleet of twenty-four sail to watch the Spanish coast. With a boldness that astounded Europe he ran into the harbor of Cadiz and, in spite of the forts, burned the ships building there for the English expedi- tion and destroyed immense quantities of naval stores. He also made an attempt to enter the Tagus where other ship-building was going on. The destruction of Philip's shipping compelled him to postpone his expedition until the next year. With the humorous bravado characteristic of Shakspere's England, Drake called his exploit *'singeing the King of Spain's beard." Philip pushed on his work with redoubled energy, and in 1588 the great Armada was at last ready to sail. It was Philip's plan to have the fleet act in conjunction with the duke of p\tUip^ Parma, who was to throw an army of 30,000 men into t'^ffu.*^ England from the Netherlands. This army had actually been gathered in the preceding year, but when the Armada finally sailed, it had dwindled to 17,000 men. The fleet consisted of 132 vessels of war and some 40 transports, manned by 7,400 sailors and 19,000 soldiers. No expense had been spared; the expedition was also immensely popular; the best blood of Spain was represented on the decks. In England great dismay took possession of all classes, when once it was known that the huge Armada had actually spread her wings over the ocean, and was drawing nearer with every swelling breeze. And yet the danger was by no means as serious as the people imagined or as tradition has reported. The armament of Philip was greatly 610 THE DUEL WITH SPAIN [elizabetu inferior in real fighting efficiency to the fleet which Elizabeth had prepared to meet it. The English vessels were of an improved type, developed out of the piracies of the last twenty years; they sailed much faster than the Spanish high-deckers, and were more easily managed ; they were also better officered and more effectually manned. They carried heavier guns and more of them, and could fire three shots to the Spaniards' one. The English gunners, also, far outclassed the Spaniards as marksmen. As one of Drake's captains wrote, "Twelve of her Majesty's ships were a match for all of the galleys in the king of Spain's dominions;" and here were not twelve but 197 of these formidable crafts to meet tlie 132 of Philip. To supplement these preparations to meet the fleet at sea, an army of 16,000 men was gathered at Tilbury to defend London, and another army of 30,000 was mustered in the midland Preparation j ,^ . ^t n . of Elizabeth counties ; it was also arranged that upon the first to meet . ^, , -, ..i . .i Philip hy appearance ot the Armada within the narrow seas, beacon fires should be kindled from every hillside in the kingdom and every shire should summon its militia into the field ; that is, practically the whole male population of England were to be called out to confront the Spaniard, the moment he should set foot upon English soil. The English fleet had been divided into two squadrons; the one under Lord Henry Seymour, the youngest son of the Protector, lay off the Netherlands blockading its ports; the other under Lord Charles Howard, grandson of the hero of Flodden, supported by Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher, lay at Plymouth guarding the entrance to the Channel. The Spanish Admiral Medina Sidonia had been ordered to avoid Plymouth, but for some unexplained reason, on July 20, he passed by within easy reach of the town; the English tumofthe Captains at once saw their advantage and in their fleet crafts put out in pursuit. With the weather gauge in their favor they could follow the huge galleons at will, peppering away at them with perfect impunity and darting swiftly out of reach when a Spaniard turned and attempted to close. The two fleets moved slowly up the Channel, keeping up a running fight until they reached Calais on the 27th. Medina Sidonia expected 1588] WRECK OF THE ARMADA 611 to find Parma waiting for him at Dunkirk; but Parma was still at Bruges and nothing was ready. This was bad enough, but the English had followed their quarry to cover, and now, hovering in the offing, showed no inclination to allow the Spaniards to wait until Parma had retrieved his neglect, or his blunder. On the night of the 20th, taking advantage of a northeast wind, they drove a fleet of fire ships into the harbor among the crowded Spanish ship- ping, throwing the crews into confusion, and enabling the English to follow up their success by a direct attack in the morning. As night drew down, the day was going against the enemy; the same wind which had brought in the fire ships, was steadily crowding the Spaniards upon the Flemish shoals and the Armada bade fair to end its career then and there, when the wind veered and enabled the distressed galleons to stand out into the North Sea. The Spaniards were now. thoroughly disheartened; Parma and his army of invasion had failed them; their ammunition had been exhausted ; the crews had suffered serious losses and to round the surviviuff ships had been severely strained by the Scotland. . . , , * ,, , 1 . , , experiences of the past week. All thought of descend- ing upon the English coast was abandoned; yet they durst not again brave the Channel in their crippled condition. There was no help for it; and so they sailed away into the North Sea in the vain hope of reaching home by rounding the northern headlands of Scotland and passing down the west coast of Ireland. The same ill luck, however, pursued them to the end. The English had long since exhausted the ammunition, which the government in accordance with the miserly policy of Elizabeth had doled out in pitiably inadequate quantities, and had given up the chase, but gale after gale broke upon the now doomed Armada. The coasts of Norway, Scotland, and Ireland, were littered with the wreckage. Two thousand corpses were counted on the beach of Sligo Bay. Of the 172 vessels which had so proudly sailed out of the harbors of Spain in the early summer, only fifty-three, shattered and use- less, ever reached a Spanish port again. Philip bore his misfor- tunes with a spirit worthy of a king: ''I sent you out," he said, as the fugitives came crawling back, "to war with men and not with elements." In England the fate of the Armada was greeted 612 THE DUEL WITH SPAIN [Elizabeth with transports of unbounded joy; to the faithful it seemed that as in olden times, God had marshalled the "stars in their courses" to fight for his people, and in the overthrow of the Spaniard had vindicated the cause of the righteous. The power of Spain had long been overstrained by the task which she had assumed of arbitrating the destinies of two hemi- Effectof spheres. But until the failure of her boasted Armada of^the^^^^ the fatal secret had not been divined by her foes. Now, Armada. however, the spell of her great name was broken ; the English became more daring than ever and began a series of attacks upon the exposed coasts, which Philip was helpless to ward off. He sued for peace; but the English had no thought of allowing their prostrate foe to rise, now that they had discovered his weak- ness and had him at their mercy; they had too long feared him to play the magnanimous. They smote again and again, and when Philip died in September 1598, the war was still raging. At home the dispelling of the Spanish phantom which had so long overshadowed the land, gave opportunity for the full play of party animosities; and soon it was evident that Eng- The^'Mar- ^^nd had purchased immunity from foreign attack, only Tracts," ^^ the expense of that unanimity which had made her 1588. heretofore invincible. In the very year of the overthrow of the Armada a bitter assault was made upon the bishops in a series of pamphlets called the ''Martin Marprelate Tracts," the authors of which were Separatists. The government replied by active persecution; some of the Separatists were hanged and many others were driven from the country. Puritans, anxious as they were for reform, were bitterly opposed to the acts of the Separatists. It was not only, however, that the various sects of the reform began to assert themselves more persistently than ever, but parlia- ment, the very stronghold of Tudor absolutism, also EiizcLbeth began to show signs of restlessness and an unmistakable later pariia- disposition to reopen the contest with the crown for ancient rights, now too long not denied but held in abey- ance. Elizabeth had made use of parliaments more freely than any of her predecessors since the days of Henry VI. It was not because she loved them more, but the uncertainties of her position 1571-1601] MONOPOLIES AND PATENTS 613 had forced her to lean often upon the nation, and give to the world arrayed against her the oft repeated evidence of the loyalty of her people; if legal technicalities cast a shadow across her right to the throne, she was undoubtedly the nation's choice. Elizabeth fully appreciated the moral effect of this fact, and when once the reli- gious question was settled, took no important step without first giving her parliament an opportunity to set the pace. It was part of her statecraft. The consciousness of parliament of its own dig- nity had naturally increased as a result of this renewed activity, and had expressed itself, as naturally, in a demand for the respect of its ancient privileges. As early as 1571, when the queen had ordered Strickland to absent himself from the House because he had dared to discuss ecclesiastical reforms, the House had shown so much feeling that she had withdrawn her command. In 1570, however, when Peter Wentworth claimed for the House perfect freedom of speech, he was silenced, and in 1593 the queen went so far as to arrest certain members for discussing forbidden topics. Thus the House was learning to reassert its old privileges of freedom from arrest and freedom of speech^ and although the first steps were taken with evident timidity, and progress was slow, a new spirit was quickening into life, which had been unknown in the days of Henry VIII. In 1601 this spirit successfully expressed itself in a yet bolder protest on the subject of monopolies and patents. By long custom the government claimed the authority to grant to indi- ^7idmi^nt»' ^^^^^^^ ^^ companies the sole right of making or deal- ing in a particular article, or of carrying on a specified trade. Thus in 1600 the East India Company had been given a monopoly of the trade with the East Indies. Some monopolies and most patents were commendable, since without them the trade in question could not be carried on, the goods could not bo manu- factured, oy the new process or invention could not be introduced. The difficulty was that English monarchs had often granted monopolies and patents, where they were absolutely unnecessary and only served the purpose of filling the pockets of courtiers at the expense of the subjects. Such was the monopoly on playing- cards held by Sir Walter Raleigh. There were monopolies also on 614 THE DUEL WITH SPAIN [Elizabeth leather, salt, currants, iron, "ashes, bottles, bags, shreds of gloves," vinegar, coal, lard, oil, fish, and a hundred other com- modities. One angry member, on hearing the list read, had bitterly cried out, "Is not bread there?" and insisted that "if order be not taken for these, bread will be there before the next parliament." In 1601 the eyes of parliament were opened to the significance of the grievance, and the members arrayed themselves in an ominous majority against the privileges which the queen had showered upon her subjects. One of the commoners in a quaint arraignment of the nuisance declared: "It bringeth the general profit into a private hand, and the end of all is beggary and bondage of the sub- jects." Elizabeth saw that she must yield, though at the begin- ning of parliament she had forbidden the Commons to debate the question. She now declared in a touching speech that the griev- ' ance should be amended, thanked the members for their zeal and kindness, and assured them of her good will and affection. "There will never queen sit in my seat," she asserted, "with more zeal to my country, or care to my subjects. . . . And though you have had, and may have, many princes more mighty and wise sitting in this seat, yet you never had, or shall have, any that will be more careful and loving." After freeing the country from foreign danger, Elizabeth turned upon Ireland with more determination than ever. In 1594 RMnaof ^^^^ Irish of Ulster rose under Hugh O'Neill, Earl of O'Neiiiin Tyrone; Spain sent assistance the next year, and in Ireland. 1593^ O'Neill inflicted a serious defeat upon the English at the Blackwater. Elizabeth sent to Ireland as her commander, the earl of Essex, her last favorite, a showy but inferior man. Essex was defeated by O'Neill and returned to England in disgrace. He had come home without leave which was equivalent to deserting his colors, and Elizabeth could not forgive the offense. The earl was thrown into prison and, though released and death the next year, was permanently out of favor. Over- whelmed by his disgrace, he plotted to remove the queen's ministers by force and compel her to name others who would be devoted to his interests. It was a dangerous scheme, for to fail was to submit himself to the penalties of high treason. 1C0M603J SIR FRAXCIS BACON 615 But Essex thought his grievances were such as to justify the wild- est hazard, and in 1601 he rode into London at the head of a few friends and called upon the citizens to rise in his favor. The call to arms, however, met with no response ; he was seized, tried, and sent to the block. One of the queen's attorneys at the trial of the earl was Sir Francis Bacon, who, although he had been befriended by Essex, had now appeared against him. Bacon has been much blamed Bac^^^^^ for this, but without discrimination. He was a cold, and consequently an unpopular man ; he was witty and sarcastic, making few friends and many enemies; he was ambitious and not free from the sway of the meanest passions, especially the desire to shine as a fine gentleman. He spent so much in show that he was forever borrowing and begging, demanding promo- tions, rewards, and offices, and leaving his honest debts unpaid. Notwithstanding these reprehensible features. Bacon was one of the great men of his day and deserves a place in the memory of mankind for his unselfish labors in the cause of science and humanity. He was a great lawyer, a politician, a man of the world, and above all a statesman, seeing clearly what was possible and what was not possible, and quite as clearly the means of attain- ing a desired end. The queen died in 1603 at the ripe age of seventy, revered and beloved by her people. Walsingham had preceded her in 1590 and Burghley in 1598. Her last great minister Elizabeth, was Burghloy's son Robert Cecil, later earl of Salisbury. In his hands the queen's cause was well served, and at her death he had made all things ready for her successor. Elizabeth's reign raised England to the first rank of European powers. She had been successful in war and prosperous in peace, and, under the confidence which she created, the English o/reigrT^^ people began to seek new and richer fields for the exer- cise of their energies. Of the men who were thus alhired to careers of exploration and adventure, the namo of Sir Walter Raleigh is perhaps the best known to Americans. He was a man of marvelous energy and ability, and has left a record as explorer, soldier, statesman, colonizer, and scholar. But 616 THE DUEL WITH SPAI:N" [Elizabeth his bad qualities were quite as eminent as his good. He was cruel, domineering, corrupt, and faithless; and at Elizabeth's death he was probably the most unpopular man in England. He made several attempts at colonization in America, chief of which was the expedition to Virginia in 1584, all unsuccessful but of value in preparing the way for the great era of colonization to follow. Among others who tried to colonize new lands or to open new avenues to commerce were Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who inspired the earlier schemes of Ealeigh; Sir John Hawkins, who introduced African slaves into the Spanish colonies of America; Drake also, famous for his exploits against the Spaniards and his voyage around the world; Frobisher, who sought for a northwest passage; Richard Chancellor, whose efforts to open up a northeast passage to India brought him to Moscow in 1553 and led the next year to the forming of the famous Moscovy Company, antedating by forty-six years the founding of the yet more famous East India Company. In England itself men were at no less important tasks. Sir Thomas Gresham founded the Royal Exchange in 1560, and put in operation a reform of the currency, which was successfully carried through by Elizabeth's ministers. The result of all this busy striving was the enrichment of Eng- land, and the further strengthening of the middle class which Henry VII. and Henry VIII. had done so much to foster. In the first parliament of James, it is estimated that the House of Commons represented three times the wealth of the House of Lords. Equally great were the literary triumphs of Elizabeth's reign. The early Tudor period had been comparatively barren. Sir Thomas More and the Bible translators, Tyndale and triumphs of Covcrdalo, have already been mentioned, Cranmer's reiSn^^^^^ power is shown in the Prayer Book of Edward. In poetry Skelton was popular; Wyatt and Surrey also had won unfading laurels before they staked their lives in the mad game of politics. These, however, were only pioneers; their work, an earnest of what was to come after in the full blaze of renaissance which marked the latter days of Elizabeth. Of the masters who belong to this later era, who have made this reign an epoch in the development of English literature, no name LITERARY ACHIEVEMENTS OF REIGN 617 is SO niiiVersally known and honored without question, as that of William Shakspere. But close behind him there rise a score of others: Spenser, famous for his Faerie Queen; Raleigh, poet and writer of elegant prose; Marlowe, the dramatist whose marvelous lines entranced those who listened ; Ben Jonson, scholar and wit ; Bacon, associated with the earlier triumphs of inductive science; Sir Philip Sidney, the poet of feeling and skill ; Beaumont and Fletcher, famous yoke-fellows in play-writing; Greene also, and Peele, Webster, Ford, and a host of others only a little less worthy. These are the men who helped to make Elizabeth's reign memorable, and to perpetuate the glory of England and her queen. The century had been filled with fathomless turmoil and cease- less strife. The foundations of the deep had been broken up, and the disturbed waters in wild tumult had surged and End of the resurged in their efforts again to secure equilibrium. mth oentui-y. The closiug years of Elizabeth's reign marked the period when that equilibrium was once more temporarily re- stored. The struggle of Germany with Charles V. had ended in 1555 in the Peace of Augsburg; a treacherous peace with its legal recognition of the Protestant states and '*its wretched rule of mock toleration." Philip and the League had failed to prevent the accession of Henry of Navarre in France; and although Henry had sealed his success by embracing the faith which he had been all his life fighting, he did not forget his old allies and friends, and in 1598, by the Edict of Nantes, secured toleration to the French Protestants. The same year the long struggle of France and Spain ended in the Peace of Vervins. Philip II. died within the year, and his son Philip III. , who had none of his father's taste for war and intrigue, whose character was the best pledge for the continuance of the peace, succeeded him. With Philip II. gone and France at peace with Spain, the English had little excuse for carrying on the war farther ; all active interest in the original issues of the war had long since been lost in the new objects which were already drawing the energies of Englishmen into other chan- nels. Formal peace, however, was not declared until the second year of the new reign. PART III— NATIONAL ENGLAND THE ERA OF ISTATIONAL AWAKENING BOOK III— POLITICAL REVOLUTION FROM 1603 TO 1689 CHAPTER I THE BREACH BETWEEN KIN^G AND COMMONS JAMES 1., 1603-1625 CHARLES 1., 1625-1628 The long struggle between the king and the Commons, which virtually began with the first parliament of James I., was the result of an inevitable clashing of the two systems which Nature of the strucjqieof had bccome embodied in English laws by the close of the Stuarts , , rn t t^ • i . i i -. ■,- withth^i the iudor reriod: the older parliamentarv system of parliament. . , . , -^ -j the Lancastrian kings, and the newer system of gov- ernment by council, inaugurated by the Tudors.^ The first had been sanctioned by a body of formal statutes, which had slowly accumulated during the two centuries that followed the grant- ing of the Great Charter. These statutes, however, had been allowed to lose their force in the reaction which followed the civil wars of the fifteenth century. The Tudor sovereigns had not repealed them; they had simply not used them; and at the open- ing of the seventeenth century, although the statutes still survived, they served to furnish a theory, rather than a fact, of government. The Tudor system of government by council had been allowed to grow up during the sixteenth century, when the baronage were weak and the Commons had not yet learned their strength, when ^ For a review of the constitutional questions involved in the great struggle of the seventeenth century see Prothero's Select Statutes, etc. Introduction. 618 THE INEVITABLE CONFLICT 619 England was confronted by powerful foreign foes and the nation was more anxious to preserve its strength in unity and harmony, than to secure its liberties by emphasizing the rights of the indi- vidual under the laws. The Tudors, moreover, never worried themselves over the theories under which they exercised their authority, but were quite content with a growing body of prec- edents, which, so long as they remained unchallenged, justified almost any extension of the royal prerogative. It was impossible, however, for two systems so opposite in kind to continue to exist side by side without coming into conflict sooner or later. Even during Elizabeth's reign, after frievitaS^^ the destruction of the Armada had revealed to the nation its strength, rumblings of the coming storm are to be heard in the protests and petitions of her later parliaments. It was not, however, until the Stuarts, by their novel theories of *^royal prerogative'' and ''divine right," attempted to justify the system which they had received from the Tudors, that the nation, acting through its parliaments, roused itself to compel the crown to conform its acts to the statutes of the realm, which had been long since established, but since the close of the Wars of the Roses had been practically laid aside. Tlie parliament asked for no rights which had not been granted to the nation in the ancient laws and customs of the land. The king proposed to exercise no prerogatives which were not recognized in the precedents of the past. Had the first two Stuarts been wise sovereigns of the type of Edward I. or Elizabeth, they would have conceded the theory and might have saved the fact; but unfortunately for them- selves, fortunately for the nation, they were not wise, and attempted to meet the venerable theories of the English Constitu- tion, which had long since assigned to the king a very definite place in the English system, with new and monstrous theories of royal supremacy, borrowed in part from the Roman Civil Law, and in part from current theological ideas of a party in the English Church. The sixteenth century could furnish a precedent for almost any abuse of royal authority, for almost any outrage of the rights of subjects; but English kings had made too many conces- sions to powerful refractory parliaments, they had been too often 620 Kl^a AND COMMONS [jamesi. deposed and their ministers slaughtered, to afford any standing ground for a theory of "divine right" or of authority above the laws of the realm. The successor of Elizabeth with his crown became heir also to the arbitrary system of the Tudor s and the numberless abuses > which had crept in as a result of tlieir long impunity in '^terU^^ violating the letter and the spirit of the laws. As the government was ordered, its chief instrument was not the parliament but the king's council, or Privy Council, by whose counsel and advice the king issued proclamations which had the effect of laws. This council at the accession of James consisted of about eighteen members^ and included the chief officers of state: the Lord High Chancellor, who was the head of the legal system of the kingdom, President of the Court of Chancery and Chairman of the House of Lords; the Lord High Admiral, who was commander-in-chief of the navy; the Attorney General and the Solicitor General, who were the law officers of the crown, who advised the king on legal questions and managed the law cases in which the crown was involved. Following these were the several secretaries of state, who had risen to great prominence under Elizabeth, who attended to most of the details of administration and conducted foreign affairs. Another peculiar feature of the Tudor system was the existence of a group of irregular courts, vested in each case with special jurisdiction and to that extent invading and setting cour^^^^^ aside the older common law and equity courts of the realm. Some of these courts were very ancient, ante- dating the Tudor period, and like the common law and equity courts had sprung from the original judicial powers of the king's council. It was in keeping, however, with the despotic tendency of the Tudor reign to increase and greatly extend the powers and jurisdictions of these courts, until at the opening of the Stuart period fully one-third of the population of England had been removed from the jurisdiction of the common law courts. These irregular courts had been authorized by acts of parliament and were as legal as the more ancient courts of law and equity; but ' Prothero, p. xcix. THE COURTS 621 they had been left more latitude in methods of procedure and had developed customs, which were, if not tyrannical, certainly contrary to the spirit of English law, and often invaded rights which were commonly supposed to be secured to all Englishmen by Magna Charta and other subsequent ordinances and statutes. Thus it was their custom to try cases without a jury and compel the pris- oner to testify against himself; nor did they hesitate to use torture to open the lips of a reluctant witness. The most important of these Tudor courts were the famous Court of Star Chamber, the various councils by which the north and west were governed, and the Court of High Com- Tucu>r courts missiou. The courts of common law and equity were and common i i j j » . . i »/ law courts, the old and familiar Court of Exchequer, the Court of Common Pleas, the Court of King's Bench, and the Court of Chancery; the first three had received their final form as early as the time of Edward I. ; the fourth as early as Edward III. When the special courts were first created, they were perhaps justified by the conditions which called them forth. As time passed, however, they were for the most part^ no longer thetinecuii neccssary, and became more arbitrary and cruel. Men charged with petty offenses were dragged before the Court of Star Chamber, fined enormous sums and imprisoned for years, or they might be punished by having the ears cut off or the nose slit, or in other humiliating ways. The Court of High Com- mission also was not behind in inflicting penalties as severe, though not as barbarous, for such crimes as staying away from church or holding a prayer meeting in a private house. In addition to the abuses which had sprung of the extra legal powers which parliament had conferred upon the Tudors, there were others also, some of which were survivals of older abmcl^^^^^ feudal customs, and some had grown up out of prec- edents which the Tudors had established, which had passed heretofore unquestioned. To the former belonged the right ^ As late as the administration of Wentworth in the reign of Charles I., the Council of the North continued to perform a real service in dealing with the lawlessness of powerful subjects, where the authority of the ordinary courts broke down entirely. 622 KING AN^D COMMONS [james i. of purveyance by which the officers of the crown could demand the goods of subjects, or their services, at the crown's price. In this connection is also to be mentioned the right of granting monopolies and patents, which had become so great an evil in the later days of Elizabeth. The Tudors had also, whenever it arievcmces P^e^sed them, continued to exact forced loans and benevolences. Other sources of grievance against the crown had arisen from the determination of the government to compel all the people to conform to the legal model prescribed in the authorized church. These were some of the points upon which it was impossible for the crown and the nation to remain long in harmony, if the new monarch insisted on going on in the old way. The dis- atissue^^ pute, however, over this grievance or that, must not obscure the real point at issue. It was not merely a struggle over particular abuses, but over the whole system of arbi- trary government which had been built up by the Tudors, of which the abuses were the fruit. The question of ultimate sovereignty was really at stake. Did the king enjoy certain prerogative rights, bestowed upon him by divine law, which made him supreme in any conflict with the laws and customs of parliament or the liberties of the nation? Or was the king simply a minister of the state, created by the state, empowered to act in the name of the state, and himself responsible to the laws of the state, as these laws had been defined and authorized by himself in conjunction with the national parliament? The questions, moreover, which confronted James were not all born of English politics or the strifes of English sectaries. He was also king of Scotland, and king of Ireland, and each mx)Mems country had its government separate from that of Eng- land although it recognized a common king. Each coun- try, moreover, had not only its own problems to settle, it had also another very distinct series of questions which had arisen out of its relations to England ; problems all of them fully as impor- tant and puzzling as those which confronted the king in his English domain. There were gra^'e continental questions as well, which were also pressing for immediate settlement, questions which had CHARACTER OF JAMES I. 623 grown up out of the struggle of Holland and Spain, and again of Spain and France, in all of which England had been more or less involved in spite of the conservative policy of Elizabeth. It was a time, therefore, when England more than ever needed a king who should be resourceful, sagacious, and broad enough in his sympathies to touch all the manifold interests which James^i^^ ''"^ the English crown had come to represent at the opening of the seventeenth century. But unfortunately James I. possessed no one of these needed qualifications. He was thirty- seven at the death of Elizabeth and had been a king since infancy ; but he belonged to that class of minds who never learn anything and never forget anything; hence his experience in Scotland had profited him little. He had been well educated and knew more of the history of his own country and of neighboring peoples than most of the statesmen of liis time. But his learning had brought him little wisdom and left him only a conceited pedant, absurdly vain of his accomplishments, with unlimited confidence in his own powers, and ready to be victimized by the first designing courtier who loudly sounded his praises as '*lhe British Solomon." His contemporary Henry IV. of Franco called him the ** wisest fool" in Europe. He was, moreover, incapable of ''taking trouble in thought or action," and hence was irresolute, suspicious, depend- ent, and "an easy prey to the passing feelings of the hour." He had none of the Tudor trait of securing personal respect ; he was tactless in managing those who opposed him; but tolerated familiarity in men who posed as his confidential friends, who fawned upon him and secretly despised him. Yet there was some good in this pedant king; he was affable, moral, and actuated by the best of motives. In some things he was even in advance of his times ; he hated war and was Failure to understand "intellectually tolerant, anxious to be at peace with the English. "^ . . '^ -, ^ -, . ^t those whose opinions differed from his own. He was above all things anxious to be a reconciler, to make peace where there had been war before, and to draw those to live in harmony who had hitherto glared at one another in mutual defiance. He was penetrated with a strong sense of the evil of fanaticism."* 1 Gardiner, History of England, 1603-1642, I, pp. 48, 49. G24 KING AND COMMONS [jamesi. He wished particularly to treat the Catholics with lenity. He saw also that the peace of the island depended upon the complete union of England and Scotland, and sought this union as a definite policy. But unfortunately, like many a wiser man of his day, he failed utterly to understand the Puritans. A bitter experience in Scotland had taught him to hate its officious Presbyterianism, and to long for the land where the ecclesiastical lords were the servants of the crown, not its masters. Hence when he entered England he proposed to do what he could to strengthen the hands of the bishops, and would make no concessions to the party who were cry- ing out against the corruptions of the established clergy. He saw in the^cry for ecclesiastical reform, only an attack upon the crown itself; as he was fond of saying, *'No bishop, no king." He thought he knew the English character and plumed himself on his ability to give the Englishmen just what they wanted. Yet almost his first act on entering the country was to hang an ordi- nary pickpocket without trial. Later he assured his dismayed parliament: "The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth; for kings are not only God's lieutenants upon earth and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself they are called gods. ... as to dispute what God may do is blasphemy, so it is seditious in subjects to dispute what a king may do in the height of his power. "^ When James reached London he found the court divided into two parties, as they favored continuing the long war with Spain or bringing it to a close. The natural instinct of James The court parties of was for peacc and this threw him at once under the influence of the powerful little man, who for nine years remained his chief minister of state, Robert Cecil, son of the late Lord Burghley. The leader of the war party was Sir ^Raie\ Walter Kaleigh who had been captain of the late queen's guard. His qualities were of the showy kind, that figured best in leading forlorn hopes, or in planning novel expedi- tions for colonial settlement. He had never been popular with his contemporaries and his pronounced partiality for war as well as his iProthero, S.S. pp. 293-295; also Lee, Source Book of English History, p. 337. THE COBHAM PLOT G25 reputation for intrigue had kept him out of Elizabeth's Privy Council. In marked contrast with this showy man of the camp and the sword, was the quiet little man of the cabinet ceciT^ and the pen; a tireless worker who could turn off enough work for a dozen ordinary men and who soon made himself indispensable to the new sovereign. The king never loved the little minister, but he liked his conciliatory, tactful ways, so dear to sovereign hearts of the kind that James possessed, and he needed him. So Cecil was retained and Raleigh dismissed. The king and his minister at once set about making peace with Spain, and a defensive treaty with France. This policy was bitterly opposed by Raleigh and his friends, and they so far for- TheCobham, got themselves as to discuss apian for getting rid of plot, 1603. Cecil by force. Lord Cobham, a friend of Raleigh, also entertained the idea of placing Arabella Stuart * on the throne. There was some wild talk, in addition, of getting help from Spain. While Cobham and Raleigh were thus casting about in their minds for the best way to get rid of Cecil, some of the Catholic priests and their sympathizers, who were greatly incensed plot '^^^ ^^ James because he had not lived up to certain prom- ises of toleration which it was alleged ^ he had made while in Scotland, were also talking over a scheme, equally wild and impracticable, of seizing James and frightening him by threats of personal violence into keeping his promise. This plot is known as the hye plot in distinction from the plot of Raleigh and Cobham which was designated as the main plot. The two plots had no connection, save as George Brooke, a brother of Lord Cobham, was connected with both. But it pleased Cecil to arrest all concerned and try them as though the plots were one. The evidence was slight, and yet in the prevailing fear of revolution which had become almost a mania, the people were hardly in a mood to dis- tinguish between a desire to get rid of a popular minister and 1 See table p. 587. 2 James had declared that he would not exact the recusancy fines, which to him was too much like making merchandise of conscience. See Gardiner, I, pp. 99, 100. 626 KIKG AND COMMOKS [jamesi. treason against the crown itself, and Cecil had no trouble in secnr- ing the conviction of Cobham, Brooke, Raleigh, and others. Brooke and Watson, a Catholic priest, were hanged; but Cobham, Raleigh, and Lord Grey de Wilton, a Puritan, were respited and sent to the Tower. In the meantime James had been brought face to face with the religious problem in a still more annoying form in the shape of the " Millenary Petition," ^ so called because purporting to ton Court have the support of "more than a thousand" clergrvmen conference, ^"^ Janimry, of the established church. The tone of the document was moderate enough. It represented those who desired '*not a disorderly innovation, but a due and godly reformation," and among other things petitioned that men appointed as clergy- men might be better qualified to preach, or that those already in office might be compelled to set apart a portion of their living to maintain men who could preach ; that the number of livings held by individuals might be restricted ; that the prayer book be relieved of certain terms which belonged to the older Catholic service ; that church songs and music be moderated to better edification ; that the Lord's Day be not profaned; that the *'longsomeness" of the service be abridged; and that kneeling at communion, or bowing at the name of Jesus, or the giving of the ring in marriage be not required. Moderate as was the tone of the document, it had emanated from the Puritan wing of the church, and the conservative elements at once took alarm, the two universities leading in the tirade against those who publicly found * 'fault with the doctrine or discipline of the Church of England." James undoubtedly meant to give the petitioners a fair hearing; the demand that clergymen should be able to preach rather appealed to his shrewd sense ; and he appointed the 14th of January for a conference at Hampton Court, in order to hear arguments of the contending parties for and against the petition. For a whole day he listened to the discussion patiently, but at the second meeting an unfortu- nate mention of "presbyters" by one of the disputants, roused the king and he plunged into the debate. "Presbytery," he shouted, "agreeth as well with monarchy as God with the devil;" he ^ Gee and Hardy, pp. 508-512; also Gardiner, I, pp. 148-158. 1605] THE GUNPOWDER PLOT 627 would make the Puritans conform, or "harry them out of the land, or else do worse." The conference from which so much was expected, broke up in confusion. It had ended in the total defeat of the Puritans; nor was the wrath of the king to pass with a harmless outburst of hot words. Early in 1605 he compelled the Puritan clergy to vacate their pulpits. Peace within the church was henceforth impossible. The king's treatment of the Catholics was as reckless as his treatment of the Puritans. James respected the old church as the mother of the Anglican Church, and he desired that iheCatiioUcs ^^^ Catholics should be tolerated. He honestly wished nnwder%ini ^^ remit the payment of the "recusancy fines" and in f ovember4, general to mitigate the action of the severer Tudor 1605. laws.^ Yet the Catholics were far from satisfied; they wished James to restore to them all the rights of citizenship, a thing which he conld not do without the consent of parliament, and, when in 1604 parliament compelled him to allow the "penal laws" against Catholics to be executed, a few hotheads determined upon a plan which only the wildest desperation could justify even to themselves. They proposed to blow up the House of Lords at the moment when, at the opening of parliament, the king should go there with his council to meet the Commons. Then having swept away the entire Protestant government, King, Lords, and Commons, they would raise the country and put one of James's children on the throne. The leader was Robert Catesby, a man of good family, of great energy and courage, with whom were associated Thomas Percy of the old Northumberland family, Thomas Winter and others ; not least among them was Guy Fawkes, a Yorkshire soldier of fortune, who had fought for Spain against the Netherlanders. The plotters got control of the cellars under the House of Lords and here stored a quantity of gunpowder. But happily the date for the assembling of parliament was put off, and, in need of funds, the conspirators were tempted to enlarge the number of those who were in the plot. One of these new membei:s of the conspiracy, Sir Francis Tresham, in his desire to save his brother-in-law, Lord Monteagle, let out the dangerous secret. The day for the meeting iProthero, S. S., pp. 17, 75, 76, 88, 89-93. 028 Kli^G AJ^D COMMONS [james i. of parliament had been finally fixed for the 5th of November, but on the night of the 4th the ministry had the cellars searched and found Fawkes in charge of the powder barrels. The other con- spirators were already assembled at Bunch urch in Warwickshire to carry out their part of the plan, when they heard that Fawkes had been discovered. They fled to liolbeche House in Worcestershire and here made a brave fight for their lives. Catesby, Percy, and two others, were slain. The rest, most of them wounded, were taken to London, and there, with Fawkes, put to death with all the barbarity which the times permitted. The results of the plot were disastrous to the Catholics. The exasperated country was not inclined to make much distinction between the few enthusiasts who had ensraffed in the Effect of Gun- _ . ^ , it,. powder Plot desperate enterprise and the great body of their co-reli- tionof gionists. The country was thoroughly alarmed, and in response to the cry for severer measures in addition to the old laws, which had been burdensome enough under Eliza- beth, parliament enacted that no Catholic should practice law or medicine or hold any office in the government, whether civil, military or naval ; no Catholic could inherit real estate ; live in London, unless engaged in trade; go more than five miles from his home, or appear at court. His house also was to be always open for inspection. All Catholic books were to be destroyed. It was a criminal offense to send a child to a Catholic school in Eng- land or abroad; while the attempt to convert a Protestant to Catholicism was to be punished by hanging. It took James even less time to embroil himself with his parlia- ment than with the religionists of his realm. His first parliament was summoned in March 1604. In his directions to the Godwin's electors he had warned them against sending to parlia- ment any outlaws, or bankrupts, or men noted for superstitious blindness or turbulent manners. This was whole- some advice but the returns were to be sent to the Court of Chancery for review, and if any were not satisfactory they were "to be rejected as unlawful and insufficient." Here was a very important principle involved, which if unchallenged would prac- iProthero, S. S., pp. 325-331 and 280-293. 1604] GOODWIN'S CASE 629 tically leave in the king's hands the right of settling contested elections, and at a crisis enable him to determine altogether the complexion of the Commons. Fortunately a test case presented itself at once, in one Francis Goodwin, who had been sent up from I^nckinghamshire. Goodwin was an outlaw, that is, he had an unsatisfied judgment of a court hanging over him, and was at once disqualified by the Court of Chancery. A new election was ordered and Sir John Fortescue was returned. But when parliament met, Goodwin claimed his seat, and the Commons raised the point of privilege and sustained him. James denied their point on the ground that all privilege liad its source in the king's grant. The Commons, however, carried the day; both sides withdrew their candidates, but the king recognized the right of the Commons to decide contested elections. No sooner had Goodwin's case been closed than the Ilouse found another of its privileges violated. One of its members named Sherley had been arrested for debt, ^ though according to mST^^'* parliamentary privilege, no member could be arrested during the session of parliament except for treason, felony, or breach of the peace. Another quarrel followed which ended finally in the release of Sherley and a new recognition of the principle of freedom from arrest. Another matter which James had upon his heart, was the organic union of the two kingdoms. The object was wise and statesmanlike, but the English and Scots had not yet James and forgotten the bitter past; the old hatreds still smoul- the union. © r 7 dered, and neither people regarded a closer union with any favor. Yet farseeing statesmen like Sir Francis Bacon saw that the Union of the two countries was not only desirable but inevitable, and used their influence to persuade the two parlia- ments to appoint committees to consider the matter. The com- mittees met and agreed to recommend a commercial union, by which the tariff wall existing between the two countries should be thrown down, and free trade established except in the matter of English wool and Scotch cattle. The hostile border laws were also to be abolished, and neitlier country was to afford asylum to the ^Prothero, S. S., pp. 289, 290 and 320-325. 630 KING AKD COMMOXS [jamesL criminals of the other. They also recommended that Scotsmen born before the accession of James, the ante-nati^ should be nat- uralized in England by an act of parliament, and that Scotsmen who were born after the accession of James, the post-7iati, should be declared naturalized from birth. This report, which was cer- tainly moderate, and, if adopted, would have made a good begin- ning, was returned to parliament in 1606. But James who was impatient to have a legislative union established, managed to prejudice his case by his tactless impatience ; he delivered long, tire- some speeches in broad Scotch, urging the bewildered parliament to act, and making no effort to conceal his contempt for the argu- ments of the opposition. The parliament was not to be lectured into compliance. There were grave questions of royal prerogative involved. English merchants, also, were afraid to face the free rivalry of Scottish thrift; and English politicians had no wish to share fat offices of state with James's countrymen. Parliament, therefore, went no farther than to abolish the old border laws which had grown up in a time when the two nations were at constant feud. In 1608 in the test case of Eobert Colville, who had been born in Edinburgh in 1605, the English judges, by declaring him to be a natural subject of the king of England, admitted all post-7iati to naturalization. Here the matter rested until the Act of Union of 1707 permanently united the two people in one state. During the thirty odd years in which James had been reigning in Scotland, he had been forced to accommodate himself to the meagre revenues of a country which was proverbially of the new poor. He was not, however, thrifty by nature, and when he found himself called at last to reign over a country which had the reputation of being rich, like a poor trades- man who suddenly finds himself a millionaire, he began to spend money as though he expected never to see the bottom of the new treasure chest. He expended £100,000 upon his journey from Scotland, the funeral of Elizabeth, and his coronation. In his second year he squandered £426,000 and incurred debts to the amount of £735,000. The annual income of Elizabeth had amounted to about £300,000, and with the utmost frugality had 1606-1610] THE GREAT CONTRACT 631 barely sufficed for her needs.* The prodigality of James, therefore, soon forced him to apply to parliament for help. But parliament was in no mood to look leniently upon such "needless and unreasonable" extravagance, and, instead of money, gave the king a lecture. Cecil, now earl of Salisbury, proposed to help the king by increasing the tax on certain imports and exports, impositions^ basing his action upon the right of the king to regulate foreign commerce. His position was contested by a London merchant na ed John Bate,^ but was sustained by the Court of Exchequer; the judges ruling that the king by royal prerogative might regu- late foreign commerce. Upon this ruling, in 1608, Salisbury, who had recently added to the duties of secretary those of lord treas- urer as well, issued a new book of rates, which covered almost all articles of export or import and was intended to increase the royal revenues by about £70,000 a year. The precedent was too danger- ous to allow to lie long unquestioned, and the impositions were very soon given a conspicuous place in the list of grievances which the Stuart parliaments were drawing out against the administration. In 1610 Salisbury brought forth another measure known as the Great Contract ^^ by which he proposed, in return for the payment of a lump sum to be applied to the crown debts, and a Contract, regular yearly income of £200,000, assured by a per- manent tax, to surrender the old feudal dues and the irregular profits of purveyance; the king also agreed to consent to a bill against impositions. There was much to be said in favor of this plan which promised so many mutual advantages both to king and people, and the Commons actually agreed to the general prin- ^ This revenue was derived from the crown estates, the ecclesiastical first fruits and tenths whicli the crown had enjoyed since Henry VIII. 's time, various feudal incidents, and tunnage and poundage which it w^as the custom to grant to each sovereign for life upon his accession. These constituted the ordinary revenues of the crown and were sufficient to meet its ordinary needs. When there were special needs, such as might arise from war, a special parliamentary grant was necessary. Since the fourteenth century it was customary to raise such extra funds by a gen- eral tax on the yearly value of land and on personal property, the subsidy. See Prothero, S.S. Introduction pp. Ixix-lxxxiv. 2Prothero, ^. >Sf., pp. 340, 343. 3 Prothero, S. S, pp. 295, 296. 632 KING AND COMMONS [iamesi. ciple of the Contract, but, unfortunately, Cecil, in order to prepare the way for his contract, had invited the Commons to present their grievances; they had taken him at his word, and in the alterca- tions which followed, the Great Contract was lost sight of in the larger questions of law and right. James became satisfied that nothing more could be done with his first parliament, which had been in existence now since 1604, and on February 11, 1611, sent them to their homes, with much ill-feeling on both sides. Fortunately the growing distrust of king and parliament, which had thus far marked the first years of James's reign, had not inter- fered with a great work which since 1604 had been thorized quietly carried on by a committee of learned divines, who the Scrip- represented both parties in the English Church. This work was the famous "King James Version of the Scriptures, " which was completed and published in 1611, and, in spite of an early unpopularity and of many attempts since to secure greater accuracy of statement or more scholarly representation of Scriptural thought, still holds its sway among English-speaking peoples as the most popular version of the Bible. Xot less perplexing than the questions which confronted James at home were the questions which grew up out of the English hold upon Ireland. When Essex returned from Ireland in 1599 he had left the island in an uproar. His suc- cessor Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, found Dublin and a few miles of the surrounding country virtually all that remained in the hands of the English. He was, however, a practical, thought- ful man, with the instincts of a soldier, and within three years had ended the revolt and regained possession of the island. A famine, which had followed the war with frightful ravages, com- pleted the soldier's work. The energetic deputy covered the country with fortresses, small, but well garrisoned and provisioned, and so overawed the Irish nobles, that the earl of Tyrone submitted, and the earl of Desmond fled to Spain. Mountjoy was followed by Sir Arthur Chichester who made an able and determined effort to restore the conquered counties by introducing the English system of government in the place of the old tribal system. The tribal chieftains became simple landlords. 1607-1611] THE PLANTATION OF ULSTER 633 and their subjects tenants, who instead of the old irregular levies were henceforth to be liable to their lords only for fixed dues or services. Chichester also attempted to convert the ChYhester country to the Protestant faith, which was already the religion by law, but which had never extended farther than the bishops appointed by the government, — a set of men for the most part notoriously unfit for their posts. The deputy had the Bible and Prayer Book translated into Irish and attempted to reform the church. But the dispossessed Irish priests refused to leave their charges, while the English of the Pale clung to the old faith quite as stubbornly as the Irish ; "and the sole result of the deputy's efforts was to build up a new Irish people out of the English and Irish upon the common basis of religion." Other troubles were also brewing. The Irish chieftains did not take kindly to the loss of their tribal jurisdic- tions and their right of levy upon their clansmen ; they objected also to the interference of the new law officers in their quarrels, and began to prepare for war. The English hold upon the coun- try, however, was too strong to be shaken off, and in 1607 Tyrone abandoned the struggle and retired to the continent. If Chichester could have had his way something might now have been done for Ireland, for the people as a whole were not altogether averse to the new order, and were beffinninsr The ^'Planta- ^^, ^,^, -, ^ , \ ji-xt-x tirni of ^ to understand the advantage of quiet and of the protec- tion of the civil courts against the tyranny of their old lords. But, unfortunately for both England and Ireland, James and his council now determined to interfere and deliberately adopted a gigantic plan of spoliation. They declared two- thirds of the north of Ireland confiscated to the crown and proceeded to allot the lands to Scotch and English colonists. This colonization of north Ireland, known as the "Plantation of Ulster," was car- ried on with the usual indifference of a conquering people to the rights of a subject nation. The choicest lands were taken for the settlers, and the Irish were forced to content themselves with what was left. The new settlers, of the fervid Scotch Presbyterian type mostly, were energetic and thrifty people, and soon gave a good account of themselves in their growing wealth and prosperity. 634 KING AND COMMONS [jamesi. But nothing of this prosperity was for the dispossessed Irish. Keduced to enforced poverty by being despoiled of their lands, hated and distrusted by the conquerors as "alien" and Catholic, and despised as "barbarians," they lost all faith in English jus- tice and handed down to the generations to come, hatred of the English and defiance of the hand that had despoiled them, as a sacred duty, to be observed with a devotion kindred to that with which they cherished the religion of their fathers. The years which immediately followed the dissolution of James's first parliament, were full of important incident. In 1612 Salisbury died and James, like Henry III., undertook ihefavorUes ^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^ chief minister. Like Henry III also he soon fell into the hands of unworthy favorites, much to the disgust and scandal of the realm. The first of these was a handsome Scotchman named Robert Carr, whom James made first viscount of Rochester and then earl of Somerset. Carr knew little of business; yet James gave him his complete confidence, the effect of which was soon seen in the renewed confusion into which the finances of the administration fell within a year after Salisbury's death. In 1614 Carr's infljience began to wane before that of a new rival for the king's favor, George Villiers; and in 1616 his career at court was cut short in consequence of the crime of his wife, who had succeeded in poisoning her enemy Sir Thomas Overbury. James, also, had ideas of his own about the proper foreign policy for England. "He wished to put an end to religious warfare and to persuade the Catholic powers and the Protestant The fovcixiTi poiicijof powers of the continent that it was for their real inter- est to abstain from mutual aggression. Why should not he and his family be the centre round which this new league of peace should form itself?" ^ The thought was noble and worthy of James's peace-loving principles, but entirely visionary and impracticable as all but James knew. The years 1609-1613 saw various marriage projects advanced in which the children of James of marriageable age were concerned and for whom at different times alliances were proposed with the Catholic courts of 1 Gardiner, II, p. 138. 1611-1624] GEORGE VILLIERS 635 Spain, France, and Tuscany. In these negotiations James seems to have been the only party seriously in earnest. He was, more- over, vigorously opposed both by Salisbury and his own eldest son Prince Henry, especially in the plan of an alliance with Spain, and largely by their influence in 1611 he was persuaded to consent to a union of his daughter Elizabeth with Frederick V., Count Palatine of the Rhine, head of the league of German princes known as the Protestant Union. The marriage was celebrated two years later when both Cecil and Prince Henry were in their graves. The early death of this fine young prince seems to have been an irreparable loss to England. He was a thorough Protestant in his sympathies and of unusually sound sense for a Stuart. Although he had not yet reached his twentieth year he had given the friends of his country great reason to expect much from him. He saw what James did not see, that England's future lay in encouraging rather than repressing her Protestant tendencies; he saw also that Protestant Germany was the natural ally of England, and had accordingly greatly favored the marriage project of his sister Elizabeth. He appreciated also the value of such men as Raleigh, and had said of his father's treatment of the old soldier of Eliza- beth: **My father is the only sovereign of Europe, who would keep such a bird in a cage." His loss was deeply felt. After the death of Prince Henry and Cecil, James veered back again to his earlier idea of a Catholic alliance as the best means of George Securing a general peace. In this he was urged on by o/BucJiing-^^ Goorge Villiers, who had succeeded Carr as the king's evil ham. genius. Villiers was advanced rapidly; in 1616 he was created a viscount, in 1617 an earl, in 1618 a marquis, and finally in 1623 duke of Buckingham. He had great personal magnetism; was gallant, kind hearted, impulsive, and not averse to hard work. He was, moreover, a very different man from the type of Gaveston or Carr. He dreamed of great things, but lacked the practical judgment necessary to turn them into realities. He was respon- sible for most of the later blunders of James. In the meanwhile the personal administration of the king had brought matters to such a pass that he could no longer put off calling a parliament, and in 1614 issued writs for the election. 636 KING AND COMMONS [jamesL When the new parliament came together, although it was alleged that some of the friends of the king had "undertaken" to secure returns favorable to his designs, it was found that the theAddied spirit of the members was Just as intractable as ever, ^'JZ^^^The^' and before they would pass an act to help the king out takers '" ^^ ^^® difficulties, they insisted that he should listen to their grievances. They were furious over the alleged attempt of the "undertakers" to influence the elections; they protested against the impositions ; they protested against the ejec- tion of the Puritan clergy ; they protested against the favorites, and in general against most everything the king had done or had failed to do, since he began his reign. James, however, soon grew weary and sore under the incessant scolding of his "faithful and loving Commons" and, fully determined if possible to get along without this ungracious monitor in the future, dissolved his second parliament before even a single bill had been passed. The king's friends dubbed it in derision "The Addled Parliament." The parliament was not the only body against whom James was compelled .to defend the prerogatives which he had received from the Tudors. From the first he had shown a disposi- Th6 inde- peiidenceof Hon to sustaiu the special courts whenever they came Dismwsaiof into couflict with the common law courts. The com- mon law judges on their part felt an instinctive hos- tility to the extra legal powers which had descended from the Tudors. Their leader was Sir Edward Coke, eminent among the jurists of James for his knowledge of the common law. He had held the office of attorney general under Elizabeth, had been made Chief Justice of Common Pleas by James in 1606 and Chief Jus- tice of the King's Bench in 1613. Coke took his stand upon the principle that all questions of law between the king and the nation, that is questions of prerogative, should be submitted to the courts. He also upheld the supremacy of the common law courts over the extra legal courts by declaring the right of the common law judges to limit the jurisdiction of these courts in special cases, and in supporting this view he had not hesitated to issue an injunction against the court of High Commission or to reverse a decision even of the court of Chancery. In his defense of the 1616] SIR EDWARD COKE 637 dignity of the common law courts the courageous chief justice had more than once been brought face to face with the king. In one of these altercations James had declared of Coke's position that it placed the king under the law, ** which is treason to affirm." To which Coke had coolly replied by quoting a maxim of Bracton: "The king ought not to be under any man, but under God and the Imu.''^ In 1616 the contention between the king and his chief justice reached a crisis in wliich the king flatly contended that in any case in which the prerogative of the crown was concerned it was the duty of the judges to stay proceedings until they had first consulted the king. Coke saw that the whole question of the independence of the courts was at stake and brought all his wealth of legal learning and powers of argument to bear. James bullied and blustered, but mere volubility of which he was always a master, was no match for the learning of the chief justice, and failing of other ways to silence his antagonist James dismissed him from "the office which he had magnified so highly." By the dis- missal of Coke "James obtained at a blow all that he had been seeking by more devious courses." The common law judges henceforth held their offices practically as well as theoretically at the pleasure of the crown; "the prerogative was safe from attacks from judges who, comparatively at least with the men who had held office before the fall of Coke, were dependent upon the favors and the anger of the crown. " During all these years Sir "Walter Raleigh had remained in prison where his unfortunate plot against Cecil had brought him in 1603. He had amused himself by writing books and expemim devisiug impossible schemes for bettering the financial %^^^^^^^' conditions of the government. At last the report of the existence of a gold mine in South America won the ear of the king, and in 1617 Raleigh was fitted out with a ship and sent to the Orinoco to find his marvelous mine. He was warned, however, not to molest the Spanish or in any way embroil James with Spain. The expedition was a pitiful failure. Raleigh's men, apparently against his orders, attacked the Spanish town of St. Thomas, and refusing to go farther forced him to return empty handed. The English applauded the storming of St. Thomas and 638 KING AND COMMONS [jamesL saw no crime in it; but James was bent upon maintaining his friendly relations with Spain, It was determined, therefore, to sacrifice Raleigh to the demand of Spain and accordingly soon after his return the sentence of 1603 was carried out. The people had long since forgotten the former unpopularity of Raleigh and looked upon him *'in the tragedy of his death" almost as a martyr. James was now the most unpopular man in England. The immediate outbreak of the Thirty Years' War, however, soon drew the attention of the people to other objects and offered James an opportunity of recovering their confidence. Outbreak of But he had learned nothing by his blunders, and obsti- the Thirty Years' War nately persisted in his course of antagonizing the nation at every step. In 1618 the Protestant assembly of Bohemia had refused to recognize longer as their king Fer- dinand, the head of the Austrian Hapsburgs, and had offered the throne to the Protestant Prince Frederick of the Palatine. Fred- erick accepted and was crowned August 26, 1619. Two days later Ferdinand was elected emperor and at once brought the imperial power to bear against his rival. James was anxious to help his son-in-law, but it troubled him to reconcile his own position as champion of peace and the divine right of kings with the support of one whom he feared miglit be technically a rebel. He hesitated and dallied, and in his despair sought the interposition of Spain. He was foolish enough to think that by securing the marriage of Prince Charles with the Infanta of Spain, he might connect him- self with the Catholic party in Europe and enlist Spain actively in behalf of his daughter's husband. The Spaniards, however, had no thought of supporting Frederick, but instead made ready to attack the Palatinate on their own account. Yet they were will- ing to let James hope, so long as he kept out of the war. In 1620 Frederick suffered a serious defeat near Prague; the Spaniards also invaded the Palatinate. It was evident that James must interfere if his son-in-law were to be saved. Still The third parliament he hesitated. His people were furious, and from all summoned. .^ ,, „^ ..ir.. T^,-r»i- sides arose the cry for war with Spam. But Bucking- ham, who had unbounded confidence in his own powers and was still hopeful of bringing about a general reconciliation through an 1621-1624] IMPEACHMENT OF BACON 639 English-Spanish marriage, insisted that there be no war; and yet it was not repugnant to his plans to make use of the existing war fever in order to put England on a war footing;— a threat which Spain might well hesitate to challenge. Accordingly James's third parliament was brought together in 1621. His attitude was con- ciliatory and coaxing; he deprecated *'the undertakers" whose mistaken zeal in his cause had made so much trouble with his last parliament; he pleaded for time in carrying on the present negotia- tions, but declared his intention, if the negotiations failed, of beginning war at once in defense of his son's territory and the Protestant religion. The Commons promptly voted the war sup- plies, and then as there was nothing else to do, they vented their impatience in a series of inquiries into the perennial subject of domestic grievances. In this they were supported by the vener- able ex-justice Coke, who in spite of his years had come back to the attack on the king as full of fight as ever, and determined to carry on in the parliament the struggle which he had been forced to drop in the courts.* The House first attacked the old abuse of monopolies and patents, in which James and his courtiers had been driving a thriving trade, and although they were not abolished until 1624, the protest was not lost. They then turned mentof^ upon Sir Francis Bacon, Coke's old enemy, who was attorney general at the time of Coke's dismissal, but had since been made chancellor, and impeached him upon charges of corruption. Bacon confessed and threw himself upon the mercy of the peers. The king remitted the penalty but a valuable precedent had been established. The Commons had recovered an old and important weapon against crown ministers which since the impeachment of Suffolk in 1450, had been left to rust along with other forgotten but not outworn constitutional forms. It was found to be just as terrible and just as efficient as ever, and from tliis time forward, during the whole Stuart period, there was scarcely a parliament that did not try to mark some minister for impeachment. ^ For service of Coke in the third parliament of James and general estimate of his character see Gardiner, IV, 40, 41. 2Prothero, S.S.. p. 3S4. 640 KII^^G AND COMMONS [jamesi. In the meanwhile parliament emboldened by its successes began to show an alarming disposition to help the king in his "negotiations." It learned, also, that he had proposed Mrw^mon ^^ ^^^ Spaniards to secure toleration for English Catho- ncTlveech ^^^^t ^^^^ ^^ show their temper the Commons decreed that the recusants should pay a double share towards the war fund ; they also petitioned the king to put the laws against Catholics in force, and asked him to secure a Protestant bride for liis son. Encouraged by Buckingham and Gondomar, the Span- ish ambassador, James forbade the members to discuss "myster- ies of state" and covertly threatened the leaders by announcing his right to punish members for their conduct as members of the House. This direct attack upon the right of speech again brought forward the old lion Coke, and under his leadership the Com- mons ordered to be enrolled upon their journals the famous opin- ion "that the liberties, franchises, priyileges, and Jurisdictions of parliament are the ancient and undoubted birthright and inherit- ance of the subjects of England; and that the arduous and urgent affairs concerning the king, state, and defence of the realm and of the Church of England, and the making and maintenance of laws, and redress of grievances, which daily happen within this realm, are proper subjects and matter of counsel and debate in parlia- ment; and that in the handling and proceeding of these businesses every member of the House hath, and of right ought to have, freedom of speech, to propound, treat, reason, and bring to con- clusion the same. " ^ In connection with these discussions are to be noted the names of John Pym, a young member from Bedford- shire, and Thomas Wentworth, a member from Yorkshire, names soon to be household words in England. James sent for the Journal and tore out the protest, and then dismissed parliament. He also sent Coke, Phelips, and Mallory to the Tower, and confined Pym to his house. With the obstinate tenacity of a small mind James continued to cling to his Spanish marriage scheme. But matters were pressing in the Palatinate. The Protestants had placed their cause ^ Prothero, Introduction, pp. Ixxxvii-xcviii. and pp. 117 133, 255, 310- 316 and 320-339. 1624] CHARLES AND BUCKINGHAM 641 in the hands of Mansfeld, a reckless soldier of fortune, who was not only no match for Count Tilly, the general of the Catholic League, but had alienated the friends of Frederick by towin Spain ^^^ reckless treatment of the peasantry of the Rhine country. The Protestant Union withdrew from the struggle ; Heidelberg and Mannheim fell ; Frederick fled to Holland and his electoral honor was given by the Emperor Ferdinand to the duke of Bavaria. James in his despair listened to .a wild scheme of Buckingham's, and sent him with Prince Charles to Madrid to push the suit in person. The appearance of the two at the Span- ish court compelled the Spaniards to throw off the mask, and even Buckingham saw at last how useless it was to expect Spain to unite with England against the other branch of the House of Austria. Had the attempt been made earlier good might have come of it, though not in the way that James had planned. But now Spain had carried its purpose; the Palatinate was ruined; Frederick had been punished and the Spanish court sought only to shake off the English without a quarrel. Buckingham and Charles returned angry and disgusted, and as determined to make war on Spain as before they had been set upon the alliance. The nation which had been furious ami^chaS ^hcn the object of the prince's expedition became i?25'"^^*' known, went wild with joy when he returned without his bride. The favorite leaped at once into unbounded popularity. James, broken in body, the result of his ungoverned habits of eating and drinking, and worn in mind by anxiety and vexation, thought no longer of resistance. He left the conduct of affairs virtually in the hands of Charles and the duke. Parlia- ment was summoned; few voices were raised for peace; a large sum of money was voted for the war. Parliament, however, refused to trust the king and placed the disbursement of the money in the hands of a commission. The lord treasurer, Mid- dlesex, opposed the war and at the instigation of Charles and Buckingham was impeached on a trumped-up charge of corrup- tion. The king looked on passive but disgusted and cynical. When he heard of Charles's part in the impeachment of Middlesex the old wit flashed up, and he shrewdly remarked: *'He will live 642 KINO AKD COMMONS [charlks i. to have his belly fall of impeachments." The session ended in general good humor and the members went home, well satisfied with themselves and the young prince who was soon to be at the head of the government in name as he was now in fact. Buckingham and Charles now had the power in their hands, but with inconceivable blindness, instead of letting the marriage question rest, began negotiations with the French king MistaTiesof Louis XIII. for the purpose of securing the hand of BacMnqham . . n^ . -r it • t and Charles, his sistcr Henrietta Maria. James had promised parliament not to interfere with the laws against recu- sants, but Louis insisted upon a promise of toleration for English Catholics. Parliament, moreover, had indicated its desire to attack Spain directly on the seas, her only vulnerable point; but the advisers of the king thouglit only of winning back the Palatinate. Twelve thousand Englishmen were enlisted and sent into the Rhine country and placed under the command of the ruffian Mansfeld, where they were left to die of cold, famine, and pestilence. To add to the general discontent the marriage treaty with France was duly signed, and the English government pledged itself to support the French king against his enemies, — an unfor- tunate pledge which was construed by the people later as a promise to assist the French king against his rebellious Protestant subjects. Here was trouble enough for the future, and in the midst of the confusion, the old king died, March 1625. The death of James made little change in the political outlook. The new king was a handsome, taciturn man of twenty-five, with a full share of those external graces of royalty which his S'orSer '* conccited father had so sadly lacked. He was dignified, temperate, and serious; he had, moreover, little use for the empty-headed parasites whom his father had kept about his court. He was industrious ; but possessed no great ability. He was reserved and cold. He was lacking both in frankness and decision ; and as is common with vacillating natures was incurably obstinate. He could neither think clearly nor express himself clearly. It was impossible to tie him down to any promise, or bind him to a fixed policy. And yet he prided himself on his con- sistency. He was disposed to treat his people kindly, but had no 1625] FIRST PARLIAMENT OF CHARLES 643 appreciation of their wants, and understood their temper even less than his father. All in all he was entirely unfit to play the king in such perplexing times. The political creed of Charles was a short one; he believed in the **divine right of kings" and also in the **divine right of bish- ops." There was no place for a parliament in his sys- tem, except as a cumbersome and annoying method of securing money for the purposes of government. He had learned nothing from his father's blunders; he prided himself rather on having had so good a teacher. From the first Charles was at war with parliament. It met in June 1025. The French marriage had taken place in May. The Commons were not pleased, nor did they approve the of'vlSS''^ attitude of the king toward the English Catholics, p^iiament. whom he was striving to protect in accordance with the marriage contract. They were inclined to find fault, moreover, with the management of the war; they distrusted Charles and most his favorite Buckingham, whose influence at court was greater than ever. When Charles asked for a liberal grant to meet the burdens of the war, they petitioned for the enforce- ment of the laws against recusants and gave him but a small part of the money needed. The old tariff on leather, wine, and wool, known as tunnage and poundage, which for one hundred and fifty years, it had been customary to grant to every king for life,* they voted for one year only. The bill failed to secure the assent of the Lords, and the revenues from this source, which had become very important in consequence of the steady growth of English commerce, would have been cut off altogether had not the king insisted on collecting the tax without an act of parliament. Another grievance, fully as serious, grew up out of the promise of Charles to assist the French in the war against Spain. He had lent a man of war and seven merchant ships to his new allies ; but Richelieu, the keen minister of Louis XIII. , had no intention of entering upon a foreign war, before he had reduced the strength of the Huguenot cities somewhat, whose semi-independence, secured by the Edict of Nantes, might prove a serious threat to ^ Prothero, Introduction, Ixxii-lxxviii, pp. 25, 26. 644 KING AND COMMONS [charles r. the peace of the realm. Hence the rumor quickly spread in Eng- land, that Englishmen had been sent to help Richelieu crush French Protestants and added greatly to the disquiet and irri- tation of parliament. The members at last turned upon Bucking- ham, whom they Justly held responsible for the French alliance, and attacked him by name. The king to save his minister dis- solved his first parliament. The parliaments were now steadily feeling their way back to the old constitutional grounds which they had occupied in the days of Henry IV. when they had nominated the of^ChaHes^ king's council. But for the king to yield to this claim *^ rUament ^^^ ^^ renounce a right which his predecessors had enjoyed since the days of Edward IV. Charles could not be expected to give up, therefore, without a struggle, for the essence of royalty in his way of thinking lay in the right of the king to name his own ministers. Parliament controlled the situa- tion, for it had left the king practically without funds, and he was compelled to call his second parliament at once. He thought if he could get rid of such leaders as Coke, Phelips, and Went- worth, he might control the other members, and hit upon the novel device of naming these men as sheriffs of their several coun- ties, an office which debarred them from standing for reelection. By long-established custom the appointees could not refuse this high mark of the king's favor and esteem; but the cause suffered in nothing for a new leader was found in Sir John Eliot, a Cornish gentleman, with the fiery eloquence and devotion to popular rights of a Patrick Henry; easily stirred to indignant anger, warm- hearted and sympathetic, quick and keen, but not farsighted, and a thorough-going radical. He had once been a friend of Buck- ingham, but his eyes were now opened to the real worthlessness of the minister, and the House had hardly opened when he began the attack by demanding an inquiry into the conduct of the public business. The second parliament met in February 1626. During the interval an expedition had been dispatched to Cadiz with the idea of seizing the Spanish treasure fleet. The sailors, however, had accomplished nothing beyond getting gloriously drunk on Spanish 1626] TYRA]SrNi:ES OF CHARLES 645 wine, and the expedition had returned in disgrace. The House laid the responsibility upon Buckingham ; it was one more evi- dence of the corruption and demoralization which he Attempt U) 1 i • ,1 IT • rni , i impeach had wrought m the public service. Ihe vote to im- peach was carried, and Eliot and Sir Dudley Digges presented the charges of the Commons before the Lords. Charles had protested when the vote was presented in the House, and now in his indignation, under the pretext that the two spokesmen of the House had used seditious language, he threw them into prison. The other members, however, stood by their colleagues and refused to do any business until they had been released. The king yielded and the attack upon the favorite was re- sumed ; to escape the issue the king was again forced to dissolve parliament. It was now evident even to Charles that nothing was to be got out of parliament without the dismissal of Buckingham and this he was determined not to do. To add to his difficulty, cCSS^^""^ he found himself threatened by war with France in spite of his recent alliance; he was too weak to face the Spaniards on the seas, or to assist his ally Christian of Den- mark, who had been defeated at Lutter, and was suffering for lack of the help which Charles had promised. Money Charles must have, and if the parliament would not give it to him, he must raise it without parliament. He determined therefore to resort to the Tudor expedient of a **free gift;" and when the people refused to give, in his anger he resorted to the more dan- gerous expedient of a forced loan. But here he met with resist- ance in the courts as determined and perplexing as in the Commons. Chief Justice Crewe of the King's Bench was dis- missed. Those who refused the loan were thrown into prison if rich ; if poor they had soldiers billeted on them, or were pressed into the army. Eliot and Went worth and most of the leaders of the Commons, who were among the intractable, also found their way into prison. When five of the imprisoned attempted to sue out a writ of habeas corpus, by which the king's officer was com- pelled to specify the reason upon which he detained the prisoner, the king announced that it was not necessary for him to give any 646 KING AND COMMOKS [chables i. reason for imprisoning his subjects, except that such was his good pleasure. To add to the excitement and confusion, war with France now began in real earnest. The English had seized French vessels on charge of carrying contraband goods to the Spanish tf^oTi^iH Netherlands, and the French had retaliated by seizing the English wine fleet. Charles sent Buckingham with an armament of 6,800 men to assist the people of LaEochelle, who were threatened with attack by the French government. Buck- ingham attempted to take the fort of St. Martin on the island of Ehe which was held by the government troops and commanded the entrance to the harbor, but after losing half his men was compelled to retire. Buckingham had really shown some traits of a competent commander; but the expedition had been badly organized and poorly equipped; his soldiers were mostly raw recruits, pressed for the occasion. He was therefore hardly responsible for the failure. But public opinion was now too thor- oughly wrought up to judge him fairly. The people laid to his charge not only the disgrace suffered by English arms but the loss of the thousands of men who had been forced to give up their lives in the profitless errand. The breach between Charles and the nation was now all but irreparable. Time might heal it, were he at peace, and were it possible to get along without a parliament. But he was Serious do r nature of not at peace ; on the contrary he was confronted by a hreach of Mug and war with the two greatest powers of the west; the country was defenseless and the treasury empty. He must nerve himself to meet another parliament. CHAPTER II THE ERA OF ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT CHARLES I., 1628-1640 The urgency which compelled Charles to summon a parliament warned him also to assume an attitude of conciliation. But the men who had suffered by the forced loans were in no The third mood to be coaxed or wheedled. The campaign was of Charles I. bitter, and the returns went overwhelmingly in favor of the popular party ; the nation evidently was with the men who had resisted the king, and had sent them all back. They were all there ; Coke, Wentworth, Eliot, Pym, and many others, destined to emerge from the obscurity of private life in the exciting struggle of the near future. Their recent sufferings had made them desperate while the consciousness of popular support and that they spoke for the nation, made them bolder and more dangerous than ever. A wiser man than Charles would have moved warily ; revolution was in the air. It did not take the leaders long to form a plan of action. Coke, the veteran of many legal battles, was selected to attack the right of arbitrary imprisonment as claimed by the king ; Sir mom adopt John Eliot, as bold and irrepressible as ever, was to apetition lead the attack upon the right of the crown to make forced loans ; while Wentworth, so soon to draw back from the popular cause, but still high in public confidence and the virtual leader of the Commons, was to attack the general lawlessness of the servants of the crown. Their first thought was to register the displeasure of parliament on the recent acts of the crown in a series of resolutions based upon an appeal to the statutes and precedents of the past. Many vigorous debates fol- lowed in which it became increasingly evident that statute and precedent were not altogether on one side; a decision which Coke himself had made in 1609, when he sat upon the bench, was 647 648 ERA OF ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT [charlks I. cited against him. It was also evident that, however the resolu- tions might be worded, they were virtually an arraignment of the king, and some, as Wentworth, who cared little for theories of the constitution and much for the dignity of the administra- tion, wished to '*save the king's face" as the Chinese proverb runs. The Commons, therefore, under Wentworth's inspira- tion, decided to bring in a bill which, while ignoring the question of what had been law, should set definite legal limits to the activities of the crown for the future. Here, however, Went- worth, was defeated by the king himself, who had not yet learned to trust the clear-sighted leader of the House and further had no wish to be confronted by a list of prohibitions such as he knew that Coke and Eliot would certainly present to him. He thought, therefore, to avoid the issue, by asking the Commons whether his * 'royal word and promise" were not sufficient guarantee for the observance of the laws of the realm. The Commons were willing to give up the bill ; but they were not satisfied with a general ''blanket" promise, and insisted that there be some definite under- standing between king and parliament as to what were the customs of the realm. At the suggestion of Coke, therefore, they changed the bill to the form of a petition of right which stated the griev- ances of the nation, recited the existing laws bearing upon each, and called upon the king to give his word that hereafter he would instruct his servants to obey them. That is, instead of making a new law, the Commons proposed to fall back upon the appeal to existing statutes. A petition really offered them a great advan- tage over a bill, since the bill must wait until the end of the ses- sion for the royal assent, but a petition, which was of the nature of a truce or convention, could receive an immediate answer from the king, and yet, when so approved by the crown, was none the less a statute, having the effect of a reenactment of the older laws involved. The air thus having been cleared, the Commons might proceed with confidence to the consideration of the Subsidies for which the king asked. Thus appeared the famous Petition of Rights an event fully as noteworthy in the annals of English constitutional history as the appearance of the Great Charter in the reign of John. Like the 1628] THE PETITION OF RIGHT G49 Great Charter it purported to be simply a restatement of the laws of the realm ; like the Charter it in reality challenged the whole drift of the English constitution for the century preced- The Petition *' ■»■ of Right, ing, and diverted it into entirely new channels; like the Charter it marks, not the end of a struggle passed, but the beginning of a struggle at hand; yet, like the Charter also, it was a great gain for the popular party, for it cleared their minds, and set before them a definite scheme, or party platform; that is a statement of the things which they proposed to secure.^ The chief objection of Charles to the Petition was centered upon an article which appealed to a law of Edward III. against suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, that forbade the »igmd, royal judges to refuse the writ under any circumstances. The king looked to the Lords for help, and for a moment, although they supported the Petition, they threatened to endanger its whole force by proposing to insert a clause which dis- claimed any purpose on the part of the petitioners to detract from **that sovereign power" wherewith the crown had been vested for the protection of the subject. The House, however, stood firm and the Lords withdrew the objectionable amendment. Charles then consulted his judges, who encouraged him to think that, although accepting the Petition, by the delays of the courts he might yet after all defeat the habeas corpus section. Fortified by this decision, the king yielded, but in terms so ambiguous that the suspicions of the Commons were aroused. In their anger they brought out the old whip, which had so often made Charles quail before; they proceeded to draw up a formal remonstrance, and, finally as their courage rose, attacked the duke of Buckingham by name as "the grievance of grievances." Charles attempted to stay action by forbidding the Commons to proceed with the remonstrance, but at the threatened impeachment of the favorite, he yielded, and on June 7 appeared before the Houses, and pro- nounced the ancient formula,^ which long usage had established as the legal mode of giving the royal assent. The members broke * For text of Petition of Right see Taswell-Langmead, pp. 453-456, or Gardiner's Const. Docs, of the Puritan Revolution, pp. 1-4. ^Soit droit fait comme est desirex; "Let the law be as desired." 650 EKA OP ARBITRAKY GOVERNMENT [charles i. into a storm of applause ; the good news ran into the streets ; can- non were fired, and bonfires lighted. Throughout the kingdom there was wild exultation over the victory, which all supposed had now set the long quarrel forever at rest. In the exuberance of good will the Commons at once granted five subsidies, amounting to about £350,000, which they had virtu- ally promised in case the king signed the Petition, and A remon- i ^ ^ . strance then proceeded to consider the granting of tunnage and poundage for life. Unfortunately, however, for the continuance of this good feeling, the suspicions which the recent conduct of the king had awakened were not quieted, and before settling the question of tunnage and poundage, the Commons after all determined to present a remonstrance, setting forth their opinions of the general conduct of the government, particularly of the continued levying of the duties in question without the sanction of parliament ; also to call for the removal of Bucking- ham from the king's service. To prevent the delivering of this remonstrance Charles adjourned parliament for six months. In this memorable session parliament had also taken up the grievances of the Puritans against the Arminians, as the anti-Cal- vinist party in the church had now come to be called, ^trwThurih. ^^^^ Arminius a Dutch reformer who had opposed the sway of the Genevan's theological ideas in the Low Coun- tries. The English x\rminians protested against the extreme Prot- estantism of the Puritans, holding that the doctrines and ceremonies of the English Church, sanctioned by the practices of a thousand years, should be maintained, and that it was not necessary to repudiate these in order to repudiate the teachings of Papal Cathol- icism. The party had long exercised a great influence at Oxford and had advanced rapidly under James. They leaned naturally toward Episcopacy as the Puritans leaned toward Presbyterianism. With the Stuarts, moreover, they had many things in common, and in the recent quarrels were inclined to support the crown as the Puritans were inclined to support the Commons, denouncing the parliament and preaching the payment of the forced loan as a duty. As soon therefore as parliament had been prorogued, Charles hastened to show his appreciation of these voices that had 1628] WILLIAM LAUD 651 been raised in his behalf in his time of need ; he brought William Laud from the unimportant see of Bath and Wells to the great see of London; he rewarded others by promotions and richer livings. Laud was thoroughly detested by the Puritans. He was a little, red-faced man of mean appearance, a scholar of some ability and undoubtedly sincere; but he was also narrow- Lmid^m minded, obstinate, and devoid of tact. In the great Puritan stronghold of London he was soon in hot water. He attempted to assure greater respect for the ''Com- munion Table" by ordering it to be placed at the east end of the churches, whereas the Puritan had adopted the practice of plac- ing it at the side of the church, near the pulpit. The Puritans, also, had generally adopted the practice of itinerant preaching and lecturing. But Laud would allow no clergyman to preach save in his own pulpit, or where he had been specially licensed by his bishop. Some of these matters in this practical age seem trivial enough, but to the Puritan, Laud's innovations were the first step backward toward the old church, and the diocese soon became the scene of bitter strife. Thus the schism which was opening in the church became identified with the schism which was opening in the state. Two other events of this period also powerfully affected the drift of parties: the defection of Wentworth from the popular party, and the assassination of Buckingham. The reiffn Wentwoi'th ^^ •' ' c *-' and Biickiiig- of Wentworth in the Commons had ended when the bill was dropped for the Petition, and the reign of Eliot and Coke had begun. He had nobly led in the attempt to defend the nation against the disorder which was sure to follow the continued violation of the rights of subjects by the king's officers. He now shrank from the greater disorder threatened by what he believed to be a direct attack upon the dignity of the crown. His lips, however, had been closed by the very power which he had sought to serve, and, through the rest of that memorable session, he had sat sullen and silent. Made as he was, he could not follow in the wake of such as Coke or even Eliot ; nor yet could he long remain silent or allow his splendid G52 ERA or ARBITRAKY GOVERNMENT [ciiarlesI. powers to rust in inaction. He therefore withdrew from all further opposition in the House and soon entered into the king's sernce as heartily and energetically as he had once led in the Commons. Charles, on his part, who now began to understand the man, although he never fully trusted him until the very last, admitted him to the peerage as Baron Wentworth, and finally sent him home to Yorkshire as president of the Council of the North, where his fearless energy performed a real service in reducing the lawless elements of that much-distressed region. Later Charles gave him a place in the Privy Council. Buckingham was murdered at Portsmouth, August 23, by a poor fanatic, named Felton. The murder was inspired by per- sonal spite and not by political hatred, and yet so ofm^kirig^ unpopular was the duke, that the people took up the ?S^' ^^^" ^^' assassin as a hero, a martyr, and followed him to the Tower with benedictions. To Charles, Buckingham was the real martyr. When parliament met again in January it was soon evident that the death of Buckingham had made no difference in the Dissoiutwnof position of parties. The struggle went on just as liammfof^^ before. The question of tunnage and poundage was M^archio ^^ ^^^^ taken up. Merchants, encouraged by the 1629. remonstrance of the last session, had refused to pay the tax on the ground that it was contrary to the Petition of Right, and the king's officers had seized their goods. The House, excited and angry over what they regarded as the king's mendacity, although nothing had been said about tunnage and poundage in the Petition, summoned the royal officers before them to answer the charge of collecting money illegally. Charles, however, would not allow the officers to appear, declaring that he alone was responsible for what had been done. Meanwhile, the House had also been waging warfare upon the Arminian clergy. Charles, who as usual did not understand the real spirit of the Commons, thought to give their ardor a chance to cool off, and resorted to the expedient of preventing action by a series of adjournments. But this only annoyed and irritated, and when on March 2, 1629, the Speaker, in accordance with instructions. 1629] ELIOT'S RESOLUTIONS 653 attempted to declare the House adjourned for the third time within a fortnight, two members, Holies and Valentine, hurled him back into the chair and held him down while the doors were locked against the entrance of the king's messenger. A wild tumult followed, in the midst of which, while the Speaker struggled and wept, while the House raged, while swords were resoiutitms ^^^^ ^^^ blows were falling, Eliot managed to present three resolutions which declared all those who favored Popery or Arminianism, all who supported the king in the collect- ing of tunnage and poundage without the consent of parliament, or even those who paid the illegal imposts, to be capital enemies to the kingdom and the Commonwealth.^ When the Speaker refused to put the resolutions. Holies promptly put them for him, and the House carried them by tumultuous shouts of applause. Then the House adjourned. The Eliot resolutions were a declaration of war; the House had declared its purpose to hold those who supported the crown henceforth as traitors to the kingdom and the common- of^EUor^^^ wealth. The king acted just as Eliot and his followers Vaimiine^ no doubt knew that lie would act ; he dissolved parlia- ment on March 10,* and arrested the men who had been prominent in the scenes of March 2. They pleaded that they were not answerable outside of parliament for deeds within its walls; but the judges refused to admit the plea, fined the culprits heavily and sent them to prison to remain until they should sub- mit to the king. Of the ten men who were arrested all but three soon yielded. Eliot after three years confinement succumbed to the damp walls of the Tower, dying there of consumption in 1632, but stout of heart and unconquered to the last. Valentine and Strode were not released until just before the assembling of the "Short Parliament" in 1640. Eleven years of arbitrary t3rranny were now to pass before Charles again summoned a parliament. The period is known as the first era of Stuart despotism. Its history is the record on the ^For text of resolution, see Gardiner, Const. Docs., pp. 16, 17. 2 For the king's declaration of reasons for his actions, see Gardiner, Const Docs., pp. 17-31. 654 ERA OF ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT [chablksI. part of the king of a desperate struggle to secure financial independ- ence with little heed to the spirit of English laws; on the part of the nation, of a like struggle to secure its rights The eUven within the constitution. In this struggle, the common years of ^ 007 f^r^S' l^w courts, subservient as they were to the crown, were yet the only hope of the people, deprived now of the championship of parliament. In one way, however, these years were not without compensation. It was useless for the king to think of taking any further part in the great war which was still desolating the continent, and he made the best terms he could with his enemies, coming to terms first with France in 1629 and with Spain in 1630. He did not abandon the hope of saving the Palatinate for Frederick, however, and occasionally attempted negotiations with that end in view ; but his promises or his threats were alike despised by men who had no respect for a prince "who had neither soldiers to fight nor money with which to equip them. Had Charles been a thrifty monarch like Henry VII., the task to which he now set himself would have been difficult enough. But he was not thrifty ; as Henrietta Maria said of raisiw him, he was always ''a poor housekeeper," and the treasurer, Lord Weston, was soon at his wits' end to secure money to defray the most ordinary expenses of govern- ment. The king's officers still continued to collect tunnage and poundage, in spite of the threatening remonstrance of the last parliament. At first the merchants protested, and some even braved the wrath of the Privy Council, one Kichard Chambers bitterly declaring in their presence that even in Turkey, "mer- chants were not so screwed and wrung" by the government. Yet as it became evident that parliament could not protect them, the merchants submitted and made the best terms they could with the king's collectors. The duty derived from tunnage and poundage alone, however, was far from sufficient to ■ meet the needs of the court, and in 1630 the king resorted to the old expedient of Distraint of Knighthood,^ compelling all men of full age holding lands to the value of £40 a year to receive knighthood or pay a fine. Tunnage and poundage had irritated the great merchant iProthero, S. S., pp. 133, 176. 1633, 1634] FIBST LEVY OF SHIP MONEY 655 class; this expedient touched the rich landowners, who might well plead that present conditions, so foreign to feudal customs, had virtually annulled the old law, "which had not been put in force for more than a century." * In 1633 the king's ministers hit upon a still more ingenious but offensive device for filling the royal coffers. They established special forest courts and called upon all holders of The forest titles and land, that had once been forest land, to prove their titles. Some families had been in possession of such estates since the thirteenth century, but if the deed were lost or contained a flaw, so that the owner could not make good his title when challenged by the king, he was compelled to pay a heavy fine ; for by English law no length of possession could give a title against the king. In 1632 the king had also returned to the granting of monopolies, although he kept within the letter of the law of 1 624 which had forbidden such grants to individuals, by creating corporations to enjoy the privileges of the royal grant. Corporations began to blossom without number ; individuals by organizing into a company and making a handsome donative to the royal treasury, might secure the sole right of selling such articles as coal, brick, soap,* beer, wine, starch, or any one of a score or more of the common objects of daily consumption. The king's ministers in the meanwhile were ransacking the records for other precedents which could be turned to the enrich- ment of the treasury without a technical violation of The iiTst lew of ship the law. In 1634 they hit upon the perilous expedient October 20, of levying a direct tax upon certain towns under the guise of the ancient ship money. Charles had lately been seriously debating a project of alliance with the Spaniards against the Dutch. But England had no ships, and Charles had no mind to call a parliament to ask for money for such a purpose. William Noy, his Attorney General, pointed out to him that the laws of England imposed upon the coast towns the duty of fur- » Gardiner. VII, p. 167. 2 For the interesting soap monopoly — "Papal Soap," etc., see Gardiner VII, pp. 71-76. 656 EKA OP ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT [charlesI. nishing ships for the navy in times of danger'.^ Some recent piracies on the coast were thought to be of sufficient importance to supply the conditions which justified a resort to this ancient custom, and on October 20, 1634 Charles issued the first of the series of famous writs. ^ By this writ the magistrates of London and other port towns were ordered to provide a certain number of ships of war to be ready at Portsmouth on the first of the follow- ing March, and empowered to assess the inhabitants for the pur- pose of building, equipping, and maintaining the ships and their crews for six months. The tonnage and equipment were also specified, but the ships ordered were so large that most of the towns could not build them in their own yards, and they were therefore compelled to give the money instead. The writ of October 1634 had been limited to the coast towns; but the next year, August 4, Charles repeated the experiment and upon a much larger scale, sending the writ to every mrdwritf county of England and Wales, thus virtually demanding money since the towns of the interior could not be expected to build ships themselves. The king justified the exten- sion of the writ by the plea that, since the whole country was to be benefited by strengthening the navy, the whole country ought to bear the burden. It took no clear head to see the purport of this levy of ship money. The tax was not large; yet a small tax could establish a precedent, and if once fixed, there was nothing to pre- vent the king from freeing the crown forever from parliamentary control. The issue of a new book of rates, which added £10,000 to the royal income, also called attention to the progress which the king was making in securing an independent royal revenue, and when, October 9, 1636, a third levy of ship money was ordered, it could no longer be doubted that the king proposed nothing less than to establish in this form a permanent annual tax. All classes united in condemning the measure, but Charles, fortified by an earlier decision of his judges that ship money was legal in case of danger, and supported by the sympathy of Laud ^ Ships had been levied upon the coast towns by Elizabeth and as late as 1626 by Charles himself. 2 For text of writ see Gardiner, Const. Docs., 37-39. 1633-1636] AKCHBISHOP LAUD 657 and the expressed wish of Wentworth that the system might be ex- tended to the support of the army as well, prepared to collect the tax. Then some of the bolder spirits determined to John Hamp- ^cr\it the matter out in the courts, and refused to ddft s case* ^^ pay the tax until the king should sue for it. Among these was John Hampden, a young Buckinghamshire squire. The tax for which he was held, levied upon some lands in Stoke Mandevill-e, amounted only to the pitiful sum of twenty shillings, but he determined not to pay it, until the Court of Exchequer had heard his case. The earlier opinion of the judges, as well as their well known subserviency to the king, did not afford the people much hope of a fair hearing. What was their surprise and joy, therefore, when it was learned that five of the twelve judges had objected to the writs. Yet technically the victory was with the king and he insisted that all arrears must be paid at once. Tyranny could go no farther; parliamentary government in Eng- land apparently was at an end; Euglishmeu wore to be governed henceforth without any "king-yoking policy." Fortunately, however, there was another cause as dear to the hearts of the great mass of the English people as their political liberties, in which they saw what they wanted even huiumof^ more clearly and definitely, and that was their Puritan- Canterhury, jguj Charlcs had already identified himself with Laud's scheme of reform in his London diocese, but in 1633 he was rash enough to make him archbishop of Canterbury. Laud at once determined to carry out his ideas of ecclesiastical reform in the larger sphere in which this elevation now gave him a free hand. He raised his friends to the high places of the church, and then with the support of the Court of High Commission began to rule the Puritan clergy with a rod of iron. In 1634 he reissued James's "Declaration of Sports," which permitted good church people to engage in archery and dancing on Sunday after- noon ; a measure which deeply offended the entire Puritan com- munity by publicly authorizing the desecration of their one holy day. He also revised the old custom of "metropolitan visita- tions," traveling over his archiepiscopal see, prying into the practices of each church, large or small, sending obstinate clergy- 658 , ERA OF ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT [chablesI men before the Court of High Commission, and setting things to rights according to "the pitch of reformation which was floating in his own brain." The indomitable archbishop spent the three years from 1633-1636 in the highly important service of introduc- ing the quarrel about vestments and the proper placing of church furniture into every little village in England, and succeeded in so irritating and alarming the people that they were thoroughly con- vinced that he intended nothing short of the restoration of the authoriby of the pope. During these years of unchecked tyranny the Star Chamber also contributed its share to the disquiet and irritation of the Puritan community. In 1628 Dr. Leighton a Scotch onhtcimrt Physician who had settled in London had got up a %}mmber petition for the abolition of Episcopacy, which he pre- sented to parliament. The next year he published his petition, which he had elaborated into a book, attacking both the king and the bishops, and laying to their charge all the sins of the English people. In 1630 the vigorous author was sentenced by the Star Chamber to be flogged, have his nose slit, one ear cut off, and his face branded. Another victim of Star Chamber justice was William Prynne, who in 1633 published a venomous attack upon the stage which the Puritans had already marked as perni- cious and immoral. The stage had degenerated in the era which had followed Shakspere, and there was much ground for Puritan hostility. But unfortunately for Prynne the king and his court were great playgoers and the queen had herself taken part in a pri- vate mask. The result was that the Star Chamber took the matter up, and Prynne was expelled from the bar, deprived of his uni- versity degree, set in the pillory, and shorn of his ears. In 1637 Prynne again fell into the hands of the Star Chamber. Laud and Laud with his other mischievous activities had the censor- ship of the attempted a vigorous censorship of the press. But secret presses continued to thrive; frequently also books were sent to Holland for printing; and in spite of Laud's vigilance, a vigorous and stirring literature, representing the views which he was struggling to repress, was steadily gaining circulation among the people. Among the leaders in this under- 1633-1639] WENTWORTH IN IRELAND 659 ground warfare were the irrepressible Prynne, now more dangerous than ever since he had lost his ears, Henry Burton a clergyman of London, and Dr. Bastwick a physician of Colchester. The three men were seized and received the sentence of the court. Public feeling was roused to the boiling point. An immense crowd cheered the "three renowned soldiers of Jesus Christ" and strewed flowers in their way as they passed to the pillory. Not satisfied with cutting off the ears of Bastwick and Burton and gleaning Prynne's stumps, the court sent the culprits to remote prisons at Carnarvon, Lancaster, and Launceston. Even here friends were found to minister to the victims of prerogative, and Charles was finally compelled to send them off to the Channel Islands in order to get them out of all touch with their sympathizers. In the other domains which recognized the Stuarts as sover- eigns, the king's policy of having his own way in spite of the prejudices or preferences of the people, as in England, in Ireland, was succeeding wherever physical force, or the brutality of the courts, could overawe the people, and with the same results. In 1632 Went worth had been appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland and the next year entered upon the administra- tion of his duties in that long-abused land. Chichester had retired in 1614, and his successors had continued the settling of English colonists until the parts of Leinster included in Wexford, Longford, and Westmeath, and Leitrim of Connaught, had become anglicized in much the same way as Ulster. The last and the deputy, Falkland, had arranged with Charles in return for certain concessions to secure him a grant of £4,000 a year in order to meet the expenses of the Irish army. By these concessions, "Graces" as they were called, Charles agreed to allow the Irish to take an oath of allegiance instead of the oath of supremacy; to abolish the fine for not attending church; to accept a title to land of sixty years standing as final even against the crown. When Wentworth took up his duties, however, the subsidy had not yet been passed upon by the Irish parliament ; hence the question of the Graces was still pending. The new deputy was a thorough-going man of affairs and prided himself on systematic methods in which there was no play for 660 ERA OF ARBITRARY GOVERN^MEN^T [charles i. sentiment, no favor for the rich, no compassion for the powerful. This system he called "Thorough." He at once introduced some much-needed and wise reforms both in the civil mvam^^^ service and the army, where the peculation and job- ^Thorough." ^^^^ ^^ officials had introduced general confusion. He also attempted to impart some dignity to the State Church, which, plundered by government officials and debarred from the sympathy of the population, was leading a beggar's life, loved by none and despised by all. It soon became evident, how- ever, that AYentworth had been guided in these measures, not by any sense of justice, but merely by reasons of policy. He per- suaded the Irish parliament to vote a large subsidy to the crown, and then announced that the Graces, to which the king had given his word, should be submitted without the clause designed to protect and assure the Irish landowners. His real purpose appeared later, when he began to make plans for a plantation of Connaught similar to that of Ulster. Great indignation and unrest followed; no landowner could feel sure of his title, when the king's word could be so lightly set aside by his minister. Wentworth was in the midst of these schemes for spoiling the land- lords of Connaught, when Charles and Laud decided that they needed him and his system of Thorough at home. In the meanwhile the principles of Charles and Laud were working out results in a distant quarter of the world in ways that they little thought of. Far back in Henry VII. 's reign of^ChariS' England had thought to get her share from discovery thfcoSies!^ in the new world by fitting out the Cabots and sending them off into the western seas. They brought back a better knowledge of the great northern continent, but in the midst of the stirring scenes of the Tudor reigns Englishmen had little thought of the new world, save as a place to hunt for gold mines or Spanish treasure fleets. Nevertheless the discoveries of the Cabots served as a foundation upon which to base claims, when in the later years of Elizabeth men like Sir Humphrey Gil- bert and Raleigh pointed out the advantages of securing in the new world colonies, or trading stations, similar to those which European nations had long maintained in the Orient as the basis 1607-1640] ENGLISH COLONIES IN NEW WORLD 661 of their oriental trade. No one yet dreamed of the advantage which these settlements in the western wilderness would offer to England in the future in furnishing a field where her excess popu- lation might find room, or of the new empire which was to grow from such small seed. Still trading companies had fu^\tf ^^^^ organized, and had proceeded to plant stations on the western shores of the Atlantic. It was not, how- ever, until the year 1607 in the settlement of Jamestown, that these efforts attained any success. Almost at the same time another colony was settled in the Barbadoes. Great difficulty was fonnd in persuading Englishmen to leave their native land and face the trials and dangers of the wilderness simply upon the pros- pect of gain ; nor was it until the more powerful motive of religion and love of liberty came to the help of the trading companies that their early plantations began really to flourish. In 1620 the famous little band of Brownists, or Separatists, who for aHrm%2o some years had been living in exile in Holland, encour- aged by the patronage of the London Company, deter- mined to try their fortunes in the new world. They landed at a site which John Smith had already named New Plymouth from the home of the great western company. The coast was bleak and unpromising, and the New England winter, which had already begun, gave them but a surly welcome. From the first their life was a hand to hand struggle with death. Few recruits joined them, for the life of exile had as yet little attraction for the sturdy English yeoman. After 1629, however, the alarming strides which the despotism of church and state were making at home, the revelation of the weakness of parliament in the presence of a wil- ful monarch, led many to despair of ever securing in England the rights which the laws had promised them. A new tide, therefore, from the great Puritan class very soon set in towards ^ratuiris ^^^ shore of Massachusetts Bay, and the emigrants were 'tiaV!^^^ soon numbered by the thousands. The exiles, however, had no idea of extending the toleration to others which they sought for themselves. It was not long before a sort of Puritan Star Chamber in the new world was as busy whipping backs, or slitting noses and cropping ears, as the more august body 662 ERA OF ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT [ Charles I. at home. Yet there were some who felt the inconsistency, and dared to raise their voices in favor of real freedom of worship or of religions thought. Among them was Roger Williams who had joined the colony in 1631, who first saw clearly that the only sure way to secure toleration was to make matters of religion indepen- dent of the state. The Massachusetts Bay colonists were not ready for, such radical doctrines, and finally, in 1637, drove out Williams and five others of the same mind, to seek a new home on the Narragansett Bay where they hegan the settlement of Rhode Island. While the Puritans were thus seeking to escape the rod of the church which sought to make them conform to its hated cere- *• monies, it would be strange if those who stood at the andthe^^^^ other extreme of the English religious community, who coUmy^i6%. ^^^ borne a much heavier burden of persecution and for a far longer time, should not also cast longing eyes to the new world, where they might be free from the hated recusancy laws, and where their own ministers might- teach them with- out the constant tlireat of the hangman's cord. The leaders of this movement were the fine old Catholic family of the Calverts, at whose head was Lord Baltimore. They named their settlement after their Catholic queen, Marylaud, and Charles had Religious ■, • -, -i ^ ^ ■> Meratum their charter so drawn as to admit full relis^ious liberty. by law in Here was a practical solution of the question of tolera- Maryland. . ^ tion. From the first. Catholics and Protestants dwelt together in the colony upon equal terms, and by common consent questions of religious difference were ignored; their first free assembly confirmed by formal law to members of all religions, free- dom of worship and political equality. Laud was not pleased to see Englishmen thus escaping from under the discipline of his Court of High Commission and attempted to keep avowed nonconformists at home by ^^Laud persuading the council to forbid noblemen or gentry to emi^ratifm. ^^^^^ ^^^^ kingdom without the royal license and by compelling people of lower rank to present a certificate of conformity. This, however, did not check the flight of non- conformists who continued to flock to the new world by the thou- 1593-1597] laud's REFORMS IN SCOTLAND 663 sands, until the outbreak of the civil wars promised them better things at home. They were a hardy race, these exiles for con- science sake ; uncompromising moralists, who made of religion a system, not of loving service of one's fellow men, but of grim prohibitions; unlovely they were, and yet sturdy material for the planting of a nation. It has been estimated that at the outbreak of the American Revolution seventy- five per cent of the people of English blood of the northern colonies were descendants of the men and women who had been driven out of England by the tyranny of Charles and his little archbishop. Laud's attention, however, was soon diverted to Scotland where there was far more to attract his mischievous itching for reform than in the humble colonies. In Scotland the nobles reforms in and people, it will be remembered, had combined for the overthrow of the ancient church. They had had no Henry VIII. or Elizabeth to restrain their excesses, and it was not long before the nobles and the Protestant clergy were quarrel- ing over the division of the spoil. In this strife the nobles got the lion's share. Bishops were retained, but they were ushered into their office without consecration and were allowed Tlic ''Tuichan no jurisdiction. Their principal function was to draw what was left of the revenues of the church from the people, and hand them over to the nobles. The shrewd Scotsmen were not deceived, and in derision called them *'tulchan bishops," from the tulchan^ or decoy calf, which the Scotch farmer was accustomed to set up alongside of a bereaved cow to persuade her to let down her milk. After a bitter struggle of over twenty years, the people finally got rid of Preshytcri- ^^^ tulchan bishops and succeeded in introducing iMied ^^^^^ Presbyterianism, pure and simple. The "affairs of the 1592-1597. church were to be regulated by a General Assembly, composed of clergymen and laymen, elected for that purpose. From the assembly there was a regular graded series of similar bodies leading down through provincial synods and presbyteries to the local kirk session. James got little comfort out of these republican bodies; the ministers showed little respect for royalty and fearlessly abused him from their pulpits. An attempt on his 664 ERA OF ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT [charles i. part in 1597 to punish such insolence, brought on a tumult, and the king was compelled to flee from Edinburgh, only to return Reestablish- ^^ ^ ^^^ wccks witli an armed force, sufficient to restore ^P^/y^^,. order. The nobles, also, came to his help ; the rule of the 1597. clergy was overthrown, and the hated tulchan bishops were brought back. In 1618 James forced through a packed assembly a nominal acceptance of the so-called Articles of Perth, by which communicants were to kneel to receive the The A.rticles of Perth, Lord's Supper, Easter and Christmas were to be kept, the Lord's Supper and baptism might be administered in private houses in case of serious illness, and children be con- firmed by bishops. Here, however, James was shrewd enough to stop, and here matters rested, until Laud took the hard-headed Scotsmen in hand to mould them to his ideas of uniformity. The Church of Scotland was to be a complete copy of that of England, a difficult end to gain eveu had Laud and Charles been wise men. Ill October 1625 Charles had issued an Act of Revoca- Revocation, tiou, by which the church property in the hands of the nobles was to be turned over to the crown. The act, although modified by a subsequent offer of compensation, at once alienated the nobles, and left the king without the support of the only party which had been willing to help him. He now attempted to force the Prayer Book upon the ministers and increase the power of the bishops. The cry of popery was raised, and all classes united with the ministers in opposing the innovations. In the summer of 1637 the attempt of the dean of Edinburgh to use the hated forms, brought on a riot in which stones were „, thrown, cathedral windows smashed, and the bishop ''Tables/' narrowly escaped with his life. The year was spent in a vain effort of king and people to come to some agreement, which failed because neither would yield. In 1638 the Scots committed their interests into the hands of four committees, or "Tables," one for each of the four orders, the nobles, the gentry, the tumaicove- clcrgy, and the cities. The first fruit of the labor of the Tables was the famous "National Covenant" by which the people bound themselves to resist all changes in religion "to the utmost of the power that God had put in their hands." THE FIRST bishops' WAR 665 The document was signed amidst great enthusiasm. All classes were represented, and '*such as refused were accounted no better than papists." Charles saw that he must yield, or lose Scotland. He was without money ; his army was small and poorly equipped ; and in TheAssem- ^^^ condition of the English temper, which was as uim^ow threatening as the temper of the Scots, he knew he 1638. could not depend upon England in case of war. He therefore allowed his representative, James Hamilton, to withdraw the Prayer Book, to the great joy of the Scots. In November 1638 Hamilton summoned a General Assembly at Glasgow. The laity predominated, and when their spirit warned Hamilton that nothing but continued opposition was to be expected, he attempted to dissolve them. They in turn denied his right, as a repre- sentative of the state, to interfere in spiritual matters, and pro- ceeded to abolish the Episcopacy. No one believed that Charles would submit, and the Scots prepared to fight for their cause. In the summer Charles gathered an army of twenty thousand pressed men, taken from the northern counties, and advanced to Berwick. The Scots faced them at Dunse Law twelve Bhihnpy miles away, inferior in numbers but superior in training and morale, and everything else that goes to make up an efficient army. Many, like their leader Alexander Leslie, had already periled their lives in the Protestant cause in Germany, and were not afraid of powder. Charles for once took counsel with discretion, and on the 18th of June, in the Treaty of Berwick, agreed to refer the grievances of the Scots to a free parliament and assembly. When the new assembly came together, however, it simply reenacted the acts of the assembly of Glasgow; the parliament, from which the bishops were excluded, was about to confirm its acts, when Charles pronounced it adjourned. The angry Scots, in reply, denied the right of the king to adjourn parliament without its consent, charged Charles with trickery and deceit, and prepared again for war. It was at this moment that Charles, at Laud's suggestion, sum- moned Wentworth from Ireland to a place in the council. From the first the influence of the minister with the king silenced all 666 ERA OF ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT [charlesI. other voices. He saw that Charles must force the Scots to sub- mit, but that to do this he must have the help of the nation. A Scottish war might again unite parties and lead the in the obdurate parliament to relent and open its purse strings. council. -r» -T • r jr o But conciliation was necessary; and as a first step Valentine and Strode were released from the Tower after eleven years of imprisonment. The effect, however, was largely lost by the appointment to the Great Seal, of Finch, the Speaker of the parliament of 1620, the very man whom Valentine and Holies had held in the chair while Eliot offered his famous resolutions, and who had since made himself specially obnoxious by an unqualified support of ship money. Wentworth also was made earl of Straf- ford. The fourth parliament of Charles met on the 13th of April 1640. Many changes had taken place since the last parliament came together. Eliot had died in prison; Coke and The ''Short . ^ , ^ ^ ^ „^ / , ' Parliaments others Were also dead, and W entworth had ffone over to A.pril 1640. the enemy. But John Hampden was there, the hero of the ship money fight, and John Pym also was there, now sixty years of age, a veteran in parliamentary warfare, who had sat in every parliament since 1621. He had once held a position in the Exchequer ; he had also a strong personal influence among the Puritan nobility, and was thus, both by his experience in handling state affairs, and his friendships, the most considerable personage among the Puritan commoners. The. friends of the king attempted to make much of the threat of a Scottish invasion and of war with France, since it was known that the Covenanters had, quite in the old way, appealed to the traditional foe of England for help. They made no effort to deny the existence of grievances, but asked first for the voting of supplies, the passing of a tunnage and poundage bill, in order that when the country had placed itself on a strong footing against foreign enemies, parliament might at leisure consider domestic grievances. But Pym, seconded by Hampden, came at once to the point at issue and insisted that the question of grievances be settled first before a subsidy should be voted. Charles appealed to the Lords, and they voted that the subsidies ought to come first; but the Commons 1640] THE SHORT PARLIAMENT 66? held to the position taken by Pym. Charles then by the advice of AVentworth, who knew what stuff these Commons were made of, proposed to give up ship money. Wentworth also advised Charles to ask only for a moderate subsidy. But instead Charles asked for nearly a million pounds to be raised by twelve different sub- sidies. The Commons asked Charles to give up the practice by which he compelled each county to furnish what was conduct^ called "coat and conduct money" for the men whom it sent to the field. In the bloodless war, which had just closed, Yorkshire alone had been compelled to furnish £40,000 for the levies which the county had sent to Berwick. Charles saw that he could do nothing with his parliament, and on ' May 5 decided upon a dissolution at the very moment when the Com- mons were about to pass another petition, virtually expressing their sympathy with the Scots, and calling upon the king to make terms with them. The fourth parliament, known in parliamentary history as the *' Short Parliament," had sat just three weeks. Charles was now left to face the Scots alone; the calling of a parliament had only helped to stir up English popular feeling and given strength and body to the opposition. Wentworth, EhwUmd "* ^^ dauntless as ever, would hear of no further conces- sion; he advised the king, therefore, to fight, to take the money which parliament had denied him, for, since the nation's life was at stake, he was **absolved from all rules of government." He also offered Charles the Irish army *Ho reduce this kingdom;" — fatal words which were not forgotten. Charles hesitated to bring over the Irish, but he besran to press troops for a second Bi.s/jo/>.s' ' Bishops War. He called on the people of London for Wav 1640, a loan, but they refused it. He applied to the courts of Denmark, Holland, Spain, and even the pope, for aid, but to little purpose. The Scots were eager for the fray and crossing the Tweed advanced to the Tyne where they easily scattered the half- hearted troops of the king, who had been stationed at Newburn to hold the passage of the river. It was clear enough to most men that the scheme of arbitrary government had now run its course. Yet both Charles and his council shrank from again confronting a parliament. In their 668 ERA OF ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT [chaelesI. dilemma they fell back upon the ancient expedient of summoning a magnum concilium instead, in the hope of securing from the nobles the support which they could not expect from magnum ^^^ representatives of the people. Charles was at York, sepSb^er whither he had gone to support by his presence the It^itm!^^ men who were superintending the northern levies, and here the great council was to meet him on the 24th of September. But before the day came Charles himself had become satisfied that he could not avoid summoning a parliament, and at the opening session of the council announced the issue of writs for November 3. The peers nevertheless remained in session until October 28, and during that time performed a real service for the king. They raised in London upon their own security a loan of £50,000. They also bore no small part in securing the Truce of Ripon, by which the Scots were to hold Northumberland and Durham, until a definite peace could be concluded by the advice of an English parliament. Charles, also, was to allow them £850 a day to meet their expenses; the limit was fixed at two months. All parties were thus waiting for the assembling of Charles's fifth parliament. The presence of the Scottish army was a guar- antee that its demands should be heard. The tyranny of Charles I. was at an end. CHAPTER III THE LONG PARLIAMENT AND THE CIVIL WAR CHARLES /.. 1640-1646 The fifth and last parliament of Charles I., destined to be famous among English parliaments as the *'Long Parliament," assembled on the 3d of November 1640. The elections PariianSt " ^^^ ^^^^ conducted in the midst of the utmost excite- ment. Pym, Hampden, Holies, and a score of others, had ** stumped" the counties, strengthening the faltering, rousing the laggards, and clearing up the doubts of the wavering. The character of the new House fully justified these efforts. Never had a House been gathered so overwhelmingly in sympathy with the popular cause. The great merchant class, proverbially conserv- ative and cautious where business interests are concerned, was conspicuous for its meagre representation. But country gentle- men and lawyers, university men the most of them, as proverbially radical and uncompromising when once aroused, were there in great numbers. As when that other famous gathering of farmers and lawyers met at Philadelphia one hundred and thirty-six years later, here was guarantee that there would be no compromise with tyranny, no hedging or faltering, until the great cause for which the people had sent their representatives to Westminster should be secured. And yet these men were not mere revolutionary theorists such as wrought such havoc among the institutions of Europe in French Revolution times. No one had any thought of deposing Charles, much less of substituting another form of gov- ernment in the place of the ancient government by King, Lords, and Commons. Yet all were determined that the tyranny represented by the systems of Wentworth and Laud must come to an end. They proposed, moreover, to do this, not by revolution, but by refor- mation; not by destroying the king, but with the aid of the king; 669 670 THE CIVIL WAR [chaelesI. not by making new laws or establishing new institutions, but by enforcing the old laws and respecting the old institutions. From the first the natural leader of the popular party in the House was John Pym. With him were associated John Hamp- '^King ^®^' John Scldcn, Denzil Holies, who had helped to Pym/' i^qI^ Speaker Finch in the chair, William Strode who had recently been released from the Tower, Oliver St. John who had made a reputation as Hampden's lawyer in the ship money case. Sir Arthur Haselrig, Sir Harry Yane, **young in years, but in sage counsel old," who at twenty- one had been governor of Massachusetts, and last but not least, the man of tew words who was destined to translate the speeches of Pym and Hampden into terms of powder and lead, the great man of the era, Oliver Crom- well. Of all these men, as a debater, as a leader of party, Pym stood easily first; and his enemies, paying unintentional tribute to his powers, soon dubbed him in derision "the king of the House." There was a prevailing belief among all parties that Went- worth, now earl of Strafford, and Archbishop Land had conspired to overthrow parliamentary government and restore upnnstraf- Catholicism. So common was the belief that neither 'Lau£^ man could count on the support of any party, and with remarkable unanimity the House, as the first step towards putting the government upon a working footing, appointed a commission to inquire into the conduct of the two ministers. For Strafford the case wore a serious aspect. The popular leaders knew his ability and his energy; they feared him and were determined on his destruction. Yet Charles implored Strafford to leave the army and come to London, assuring him on his word that he "should not suffer in his person, honor, or for- tune." Strafford was the last man to flinch before such a call, and deliberately entering the death-trap, put himself at the head of the council as "thorough" and dauntless as ever. Still he saw the danger, knew that the impeachment was coming, and proposed to Charles to make the treasonable correspondence of the popular leaders with the Scots, the basis of a counter impeachment. Pym, however, was too prompt for the wavering monarch and struck first. On November 11 on the basis of a vague charge of 164l] ATTAINDER OF STRAFFORD 671 treason, prepared by the House, Strafford was arrested by order of the Lords and committed to the Tower. On December 18 Laud also, on motion of the same indefatigable Pym, was impeached of high treason, and the Lords as promptly sent him to the Tower. Finch, now Lord Finch, and others fled to Hol- land. The trial of Strafford began in March, but it was soon evident that the charge of treason conld not be established. Pym had secured a copy of a copy ^ of the notes of the elder attainder of Vane, purporting to give the exact words of Strafford's unfortunate advice to the council at the time of the First Bishops' War. The fatal words as reported ran: **You have an army in Ireland, you may employ liere to reduce this kingdom." But no amount of legal hocus pocus could con- strue the proposal to bring over the Irish army to support the king as ^treason against the king. The Commons, however, were determined to have the life of the hated minister, and when it became evident that the prosecution was breaking down for lack of evidence, they resorted to a bill of attainder which passed by a vote of 204 to 59. The Lords hesitated, but Pym had unearthed a plot to which the queen, if not 'Hw^Armu Charles himself, was privy, for bringing the northern army to London, rescuing Strafford, and overawing the Commons. There were also rumors of the approach of a French force by sea, which was to meet the queen at Portsmouth and unite with the king's troops. Excitement in London ran high; the trained bands were called out; and a petition calling for the death of Strafford was signed by twenty thousand persons. The Lords yielded to the excitement and passed the bill. Only the king's signature now remained between the faithful minister and a traitor's death. Charles for a moment hesitated, and then, seek- ing to save his self-respect by the pitiful plea that he feared for the safety of his wife and children and his kingdom, gave way. It was not the first time that the nation had had an opportunity ^ The origiDal notes had been burned by order of the King, but Vane had first taken a copy which his son Sir Harry Vane had found among his papers and in turn copied and brought to Pym. 672 THE CIVIL WAR [chaeles i. to estimate the value of a king's word.* Strafford was beheaded on Tower Hill, May 12, 1641. The death of Strafford was a tribute to his ability. The Puritan leaders feared him more than they feared the king; and they destroyed him, not so much for what he had done, but for what he might do. In the six months which had elapsed since the arrest of Strafford several notable acts had passed the Commons.^ Early in the session they had recalled Prynne and his fellow First reforms suffercrs who had tasted the justice of the Star Cham- of the Long Parliament, ber, and they now proposed to make such exercises of royal power impossible in the future by abolishing the whole list of special courts, sweeping away in a single act the Star Chamber, the Council of the North, the Council of Wales, the Council of Lancaster, and the Council of Chester, and restoring thereby one-third of the people of England to the jurisdiction of the common law courts. The same day, July 5, 1641 EJizabeth's Court of High Commission was also abolished. Lest niaiaM!^ ministers should be encouraged in lawlessness by the absolute control which the king held over the times for the calling of a parliament, it was decreed that no more than three years should henceforth elapse between parliaments, and that when assembled, a parliament must sit for at least fifty days ; arrangements, moreover, were made for the holding of elections independently of the crown, should the king refuse to issue the proper summons.^ Other abuses, also, were swept away. Ship money was declared illegal and the decision against Hampden reversed. Distraint of Knighthood was abolished and the forest commission condemned. The ''Impositions," and the unauthor- ized levy of tunnage and poundage, suffered the same fate, and the unhappy collectors were made responsible for the moneys which they had taken from citizens in the name of the state, — a most wholesome lesson to law-breaking servants of the crown in the future., Parliament then sought to strengthen the law courts ^ Lee, Source Book, pp. 357, 358. 2 Gardiner, Const. Docs., pp. 106-122. ^Gardiner, Const. Docs., pp. 74-84. 1641] REVOLUTIONARY DRIFT 673 by decreeing that the judges should hold office during good behavior and not be liable to removal at the king's pleasure. Thus far the efforts of the Long Parliament had not been revolutionary. They had simply attacked the prerogatives which the Stuarts had derived from precedents left by the ^ry^driftof Tudors and struck them off one by one, until they had ParUament shattered the whole Tudor structure and leveled it with the dust. But the witless intrigue of the queen in the Army Plot, which had turned all London npside down, had deeply stirred parliament ; under the intense excitement its work began to assume a new character, and parliament itself began to change from a body of dignified and sober reformers into a gathering of feverish revolutionists. The precipitation of the attainder of Strafford was the first symptom of this change. More significant still, on the day when Charles put his name to the bill of attainder, he was also compelled to sign another bill which decreed that the existing parliament should not be dissolved with- out its own consent. The revolutionary purport of this measure at the time was perhaps not observed; the promoters thought only of preventing the king from carrying out his part of the Army Plot. Yet parliament had really taken from the king the consti- tutional right of appeal to the nation, and left him henceforth no means of getting rid of a refractory parliament other than civil war. They had shorn the king of the one method of controlling parliaments, which by the laws was unquestionably his, and legis- lated themselves into power by his side as an independent olig- archy. As long as the nation supported the parliament, and the king remained without a party, the full significance of the act would not appear; but let the king once secure a considerable party in the nation, civil war would be inevitable. For the moment, however, no one saw the shadow. The nation was overwhelmingly with the parliament; and parliament had acted thus far virtually as a unit. When a minority had paruet^^^^ spoken, as in the opposition to the attainder of Strafford, the disagreement had been not upon the principle, but upon the question of the best method of procedure. The parliament was satisfied with its work, confident in its 674 THE CIVIL WAR [charles l. strength, and had no wish to interfere with the king farther. It voted tunnage and poundage, and arranged for a poll tax, graduated from £100 to 6d. In August the claims of the Scots were also satisfied, their army sent home, and the English army disbanded. The political questions apparently were now settled ; the king was still without a party, and probably would have remained so, had not the unwise zeal of some radical Puritans thrust the Dtmsion of , thepartyof religious questjon to the front and given it a new prominence. Laud and men, who had acted with him, like Mainwaring, had forfeited all consideration on the part of parliament, and the disposition to depose and punish them was practically unanimous. But many members, distinguishing between the incumbent bishops and the Episcopacy, and sincerely attached to the system established by Elizabeth, did not wish to go farther. To many others, however, the system of Episcopacy was so closely associated with the tyranny which they were seek- ing to overthrow, the support, which convocation had given tlie crown both by its money grants and its teachings, so marked, that there seemed to be no middle ground. In London especially, hostility to the Episcopacy ran so high that a petition for complete abolition, known as the *'Eoot and Branch Petition,"^ received fifteen thousand signatures, and in response to this petition, on May 27, 1641, Sir Edward Dering presented in parliament The'^Root the '*Root and Branch Bill." The unanimity which and Branch ■,-,.,-,, « Bill," 1641. had prevailed heretoiore was at once threatened. Falk- land, Digby, Hyde, and Selden, drew off from their old companions, and made so brave a fight, that the bill had not reached its final stages when the session closed in September. Outside of parliament also the waves of controversy were beat- ing high. The people were flooded with tracts for and against the episcopal forms. Bishop Hall of Exeter published war!^^^^ a '* Humble Remonstrance" addressed to parliament, and five Puritan clergymen answered him in a tract remark- able, not so much for its contents, as for the curious pseudonym, "Smectymnuus", which they attached, made up of their several * Gardiner, Const. Docs., pp. 67-74. 1641] THE INCIDENT 675 initials. Prominent among those who took part in this tract war, was John Milton, who in ponderous but sonorous prose denounced the bishops and made Episcopacy responsible for all the failures of the Keformation. The result of this unfortunate strife was to divide the ranks of the reformers and give ecclesiastical questions a prominence over the questions, of constitutional reform, which they did not deserve. Charles, in the meanwhile, had gone to Scotland in the hope of securing the support of his Scottish subjects, by granting the demands which he had before resisted to the point of ScoSandT ^^''^^' ^"^ ^^^^ court was still the center of intrigue, and dent '^^641 ^^^ unfortiuiate affair, known as the ** Incident," a plan, formed like the Army Plot by some hot-headed courtiers, for securing and possibly destroying the popular leaders in the lato troubles in the northern kingdom, completely defeated the pur- pose of the king. Yet he would not give up the idea of getting aid from Scotland and made Leslie, the leader of the Scots in the Bishops' Wars, Earl of Leven ; others he honored in similar ways. He was not unaware, also, of tlie significance of the quarrel of his enemies at home over the church question, and sought to add fuel to the flame by sending a declaration to the English Lords, *Hhat he was resolved, by the grace of God, to die in the maintenance of the discipline and doctrine of the Church of Eng- land, as established by Elizabeth." Parliament now began to realize the mistake of raising the religious question. Since the death of Strafford, Charles had done little to regain confidence; his actions in Scotland BranVhBiU ^^^^'® regarded with positive suspicion. The Root and d>-->ppcd, Branch Bill was therefore abandoned for the present, and arrangements were made for storing the arms of the northern army at Hull and guarding the Tower of London. A quieting appeal also was issued to the people, asking them to withhold action and wait for parliament to mature its plans for the reformation of the church. A sort of committee of safety was appointed with Pym at the head, to remain in London and keep watch of the drift of affairs. Then, on September 9, parlia- ment adjourned until October 20. 676 THE CIVIL WAR [cuakles i. When parliament met again, it had hardly begun the busi- ness of the session when most disquieting news reached it from Ireland. The successors of Strafford had pushed for- revoit^^ ward his scheme of colonizing Connaught and were in full sympathy with the plan of crushing the Catholics. But Charles had been intriguing with the Catholic lords, and, by conceding all that the Irish parliament demanded, was seeking here, as in Scotland, to get support for an armed interference in England. As a result of this encouragement the parliament and people of Ireland soon passed beyond the control of the authorized deputies of the king, and on October 23 the whole north broke out in revolt. Everywhere the English settlers were taken by surprise and driven from their homes with great suffering. The rebels had rejected a proposal of wholesale massacre ; but the wrongs of the Celtic population were many, the religious hatred was intense, and, when once the people saw their oppressors fleeing for their lives, their homes in flames, the temptation to acts of barbaric ferocity was too great to be resisted. This was the news which reached the English parliament soon after the opening of the new session, yet it knew not how to The Grand ^^^' ^^ ^^^^ afraid to entrust the king with an army, «trSe,JVo- ^®^^ ^® should make common cause with the Irish for vemher, 1641. the suppression of the liberties of England. It was decided, therefore, to ask the Scots to send a force equal to what might be raised in England in order to counterbalance the army which parliament was compelled to raise but which it feared would pass into the king's hands. To Pym, Hampden, and other radical leaders, moreover, with the Irish revolt confronting them, with disquieting rumors of the king's perfidy coming from Scotland, and the increasing strength of the party of reaction in the Houses, it seemed necessary, if what had been won was to be saved, not to allow the king to obscure, or the nation to forget, the real ground upon which the quarrel had been begun. In November 1641, therefore, they brought before the House a monster document of two hundred and six clauses, known as the Grand Remonstrance. This document was designed primarily as an appeal to the nation. It was in reality a vigorous arraignment of the king and 1641] THE GRAND REMONSTRAKCE 677 defense of the parliament, accusing the king's councillors and the bishops of deliberately attempting to overthrow the laws of the kingdom and restore the papacy. It proposed, moreover, for the future that the royal councillors should be named in accordance with the wishes of parliament ; and that a convention or assembly of Protestant divines, both English and foreign, be called together *'to consider all things necessary for the peace and good govern- ment of the churches;" the results of the work of the ecclesiastical assembly were to be confirmed by parliament and thus made the law of the land.^ Such a measure, proposed at such a time, could have but one result; it at once completed the division in the ranks of the parlia- mentary party which had been threatened by the agita- Breakinthe ^. ^. r^ ^ -, -.^ , t^-m i- i.i j- pariiamen- tion over the Itoot and Branch Bill of the precednig session. Reconciliation was henceforth impossible. The new Episcopal party gathered its strength for the issue, and the struggle began. On the 22d of November the battle opened at noon and waged until the falling shadows of a bleak November day compelled the ushers to bring in candles ; afternoon passed into evening; still the debate thundered on. At midnight the Remon- strance was carried by a majority of eleven votes in a house of 307 members. But so evenly were the two parties balanced, that when a motion was made by the victors to print, that is virtually to send out the appeal to the nation, the minority returned to the conflict and the storm broke out again with greater fury than ever. So intense was the excitement, that at times twenty members were on their feet at once, shouting and waving hats and swords like madmen. Finally at four o'clock of the morning of the 23d, all disputed points were waived by an adjournment,^ and this memorable session of the Long Parliament closed. "The Civil War was all the nearer for that night's work. " Two days later the king returned to London. The reaction had been gaining ground rapidly. The wealthier citizens of London were restless under the heavy taxation which parliament had ^ For this remarkable document and the king's reply, see Gardiner Const. Docs., pp. 127-158. 2 The motion to print was not carried until Dec. 15. 678 THE CIVIL WAR [ciiarlesI. recently imposed upon them, and Episcopalians everywhere saw a threat of persecution in the program laid down by the Grand Re- monstrance. On the 1st of December the lengthy doc- iondw*^ ument was presented to the king and on the 23d he re- turned an answer, in which he acknowledged nothing and granted nothing. In the meanwhile Charles had sought to assure the opposition by renewing his pledge to govern according to law, and maintain the church of Elizabeth and King James. But even the king's friends could hardly take his promises seriously when he continued to belie them in his acts. He placed his guard around the Parliament House under the command of Dorset, and December 23, the day of his reply to the Grand Eemonstrance, dismissed Balfour, the lieutenant of the Tower who had refused to allow Strafford to escape, appointing in his place Lunsford, a notorious bully. The excitement at Westminster, therefore, was not allayed; in the palace yard collisions were frequent between the king's guard and mobs of Puritan sympathizers, who swarmed there whenever the cry was raised that parliament was in danger. So great was the excitement that Charles was compelled at last to remove Dorset's guard and turn the safe keeping of parliament over to tlie magistrates of Westminster. Lunsford also was soon after removed from the command of the Tower. The Grand Remonstrance had now drawn the lines sharply in the House. The majority of the Root and Branch reformers was small, but it was determined and could be depended mSrS^me ^^' Charles, however, still controlled the Lords by cemtm-'iSti ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^ bishops, whosc solid vote would always give him a working majority with which to defeat any hostile mea^ire which might pass the House. But in the pres- ence of the boisterous mobs which daily surged about the Parlia- ment House, blocking the ways and preventing egress or ingress, the courage of the men of peace failed them, and, pleading that their lives were in danger, they refused longer to attend the sit- tings of parliament. On the 29th of December twelve bishops, headed by Williams, the recently made archbishop of York, formally protested against the legality of all proceedings under- taken during their absence. To their surprise their protest was 1641] THE FIVE MEMBERS 679 answered by an impeachment; the Lords sustained the impeach- ment and the seats were vacated. With Williams and his fellow bishops in the Tower, the Upper House passed permanently under the control of the opposition. The king was now desperate; he could no longer dissolve parliament at will; the withdrawal of the bishops had deprived The "/ii'c ^^^ ^^ ^^® ^^^^ means of checking the Commons in a 7amiar^' Constitutional manner. Still he vacillated. He 1642. sought to win Pym by offering him the chancellorship of the exchequer, but'two hours later gave the office to Culpepper ; Falkland, who had headed the opposition to the Root and Branch faction in parliament, he made Secretary of State. To add to his disquiet, the king learned that the Commons were considering a plan for impeaching the queen for treason. Her danger was real ; no one knew how many of the facts connected with her intrigue with the pope, with the leaders in the Army Plot or with the Irish rebels, were in the hands of Pym and Hampden. Urged at last by the imminence of the crisis, Charles determined to save the queen by striking first, and on the 3d of January, 1642, impeached Lord Kimbolton and five members of the House, Pym, Hampden, Holies, Haselrig, and Strode, **for having traitorously invited a foreign power (the Scots) to invade England." The right of the king to impeach a member of the House was by no means clear, and the Commons paid no attention to the demand of the king for the delivery of the five members. The morning passed and noth- ing was done ; then about three in the afternoon, after the king had given every opportunity for the five marked men to get out of his way, he led a noisy throng of armed men through the streets to the House and demanded the five members. Advancing to the Speaker's chair, he turned and looked about the room. He was not a coward. He had left his escort without and he stood there alone facing the Commons. * 'Where are they?" he asked Speaker Lenthall. But Lenthall, assuming the position of respect in the presence of majesty which convention prescribed, firmly but respectfully refused to use "eye or tongue," save as the House should direct him. Again Charles looked the silent House in the face and then retired, baffled, beaten. It was the 680 THE CIVIL WAR [chakles l. falsest of all the false steps which he had yet taken during the eighteen years of his reign. As he turned to leave the House, the ominous silence was broken. Cries of "Privilege!" "Priv- ilege!" attended him into the lobby. The House rose in tumult and followed the five members into the city, where the sympathy of the people promised them protection. Charles, however, was for once overawed ; and not knowing what the Commons might do in their desperation, or where they might attempt to strike next, on the 10th of January he retired to Hampden Court, abandoning his capital and the resources of the state to the parliament. On the 11th the Commons returned in triumph to Westminster. "War was now certain unless the king should yield at all points. The radical majority of the parliament had triumphed and pro- ceeded at once to secure its triumph by assuming: The Militia control of the military resources of the governmeut. It first sent a bill to the king which "disabled all persons in holy orders from exercising any temporal jurisdiction or authority." Charles, possibly hoping that this would quiet the waters, consented; thus agreeing to the permanent exclusion of the bishops from the Lords. But the House was not satisfied, and next sent him a Militia Bill, which called upon him to sur- render to parliament the entire control of the militia, the only armed force in the kingdom, by allowing parliament to appoint its officers. The king, however, would go no farther. "No, not for an hour!" was his angry answer. The House then Ordi^ncT determined to abandon the form of a bill and push through the measure as an ordinance of parliament, that is to enforce it without the king's consent. This of course was revolution, pure and simple, and on the king's part there could be only one reply. He had already sent his wife and children out of the kingdom, and on August 22, he raised the royal standard at Nottingham. It was the sign that civil war had begun. The war which was now to desolate England for ten years is known in English History as the "Great Rebellion" or the "Great Civil War." Sometimes taken with the stirring events of the epoch which precedes and the epoch which follows, it is called the "Puritan Revolution." The name is not inapt, for a religious 1641] ISSUES OF THE WAR 681 purpose was quite as prominent in the minds of the contending parties as a civil purpose. The fears of a restoration of the papacy, which pursued the Puritans, were so mixed up in wf i^i?^ their minds with a desire to secure the civil rights which War, the ^ i^sw"^ the king had violated, that they looked upon themselves as fighting for Protestantism fully as much as for political liberty. The lovers of the Prayer Book and Episcopacy, on the other hand, although they mistrusted Charles and con- demned his past tyrannies, believed that they must support him or be prepared to accept any restrictive laws which the Puritans might see fit to impose. For the same reason the entire body of English Catholics, who were certain to be persecuted if the Puritans were allowed to rule the state, although they had no rea- son to expect much from the Episcopal party, thought it safer to take their stand with them and support the king. But all Puritans of whatever stripe, Presbyterians, Independents, Separatists, Brownists, or Anabaptists, men who believed in Root and Branch measures, the great mass of the **God fearing" yeomanry, the tradesmen of the towns, rallied to the support of the parliament. Thus the religious lines were distinctly drawn. The political issue, however, though confused with the religious in the minds of most, was by no means lost sight of. Here too the iJsuf^^Th^^ radical leaders in parliament had left no middle ground Sftf'"^'"" ^^^ '"^^^y subject of the king. On the 2d of June they had sent to Charles at York nineteen propositions, in which they demanded that they be allowed to name the king's council, his officers of state, his lieutenants of fortresses, and his judges; that he confirm the Militia Ordinance and permit them to reform the church in accordance with their ideas; that is, parliament virbually asked the king to surrender what was left of royal authority, leaving him little more than the name and dignity of king. Now there were many men, especially among the nobility, who, while they had no sympathy with the methods of Laud or the Court of Star Chamber, and had voted steadily with the majority for the long list of abolitions in the first session of the Long Parlia- ment, wliile they had little belief in Charles personally and had even voted for the attainder of Wentworth, yet loved the king- 682 THE CIVIL WAR [ Charles I. ship with a great and patriotic love, as the symbol of the unity and strength of the nation, and, with no feigned alarm, now beheld the Puritan leaders bent apparently upon humiliating the crown to the dust. Charles had made concessions, and these men, among whom were Hyde and Falkland, believed that he had gone far enough. They had made a brave fight against the Eoot and Branch Bill, and again against the Grand Remonstrance, and they now knew that the time for debate had passed. When, therefore, Charles raised his standard in August, these men, including a full majority of the Lords, were ranged at his side. The social lines which divided the two camps were by no means so clearly drawn. The rufiSers, the thorough-going courtiers, soldiers of fortune many of them, and, like the king's Vme!^^^^^ nephews Prince Eupert and Prince Maurice, of noble blood, the gay worldlings of the court who hated Puritanism and despised Puritans by instinct and by training, and who cared not a straw for the principles of religion or liberty, were to be counted for the king. And yet it would be an error to represent the struggle as a war of classes. There was no distinct appeal to rival social elements as in the later French Revolution ; and, although the majority of the nobility and the gentry were with the king, these classes were also well represented on the other side; their representatives furnished the generals and statesmen, who were to conduct the counsels of the parliamentary cause to a triumphant issue.- Geographically, also, the lines were nowhere distinctly drawn. London was the stronghold of the Puritans, and York of the king. The south and east were overwhelmingly for the par- ^aUinS' liament. The north and west including Wales were for the king. And yet during the war, there was more or less fighting and bloodshed in almost every county in the king- dom. All in all, however, geographically the advantage was with the parliament. It controlled the most opulent and populous counties and thus readily found men and money for its armies. It controlled the great seaport populations of the south, and thus not only carried with it the fleet, but also was able to recruit its strength as more ships or seamen were needed. It could also 1642] DKIFTING INTO WAR G83 guard the coasts, prevent the king from getting supplies by sea, while it transported its troops at will, and threw them into any seaport town threatened by the land forces of the king. For three months previous to the setting up of the royal standard the country had been steadily drifting into war. In April Charles had attempted to get possession of the SS^war great arsenals of Hull, but Ilotham, the parliamentary governor, had refused him admission, and the military stores consisting of a complete equipment for sixteen thousand men were brought to London. In the first week of July, parlia- ment had appointed a Committee of Safety, of which the prominent members were the two Puritan nobles, Essex and Saye and Sele, and the Commoners, Pym, Hampden, Holies, and Waller; ten thousand men, also, were levied for immediate service and Essex appointed commander-in-chief. On the loth blood was shed at Manchester, where Lord Strange had undertaken to interfere with some townsmen who were attempting to carry out the Militia Ordinance. Four days before, the House had already declared Charles responsible for beginning war; and on the 18th of August they had further declared those who supported the king, traitors. During all this time there had been more or less pretense of negotiation, but parliament had little confidence in the result, and had continued to push forward its preparations for SepUmber^,' armed resistance. Kimbolton, Hampden, Holies, and ^^'*^' others, raised regiments at their own expense. The eastern counties formed an alliance to defend parliament, known as the Eastern Association. London, also, raised eight thousand men and put them in the field. On September 6 the last lingering hope of averting the conflict by negotiation was abandoned, and on the 7th the royal governor. Goring surrendered Portsmouth and all its stores to Sir William Waller, a member of the Committee of Safety. Parliament now had twenty thousand men under its orders and, two days after the capture of Portsmouth, sent Essex forward with the purpose of immediately attacking the king at Nottingham. Charles, however, had no thought of risking all upon a single encounter at this stage of the conflict; the levies from Wales and 684 THE CIVIL WAR [chahles I. the northern counties, moreover, had not yet joined him. He had therefore retired towards Shrewsbury on the 7th. Essex followed him, throwing garrisons into Northampton, Coventry, paigTof' and Warwick, and took up a station at Worcester, where, Edgehiii. ^ short time before, the first serious encounter of the war had already taken place in which Rupert's horse had easily scattered one of the newly-raised cavalry regiments of the parliament. By the 12th of October the king's western and northern levies had reached him, and with fourteen thousand men he thought himself strong enough to begin the march upon Loq- Battle of EDGE HILL ^ Sunday Oct, 23, 1642. Parliamentary irmy Worse foot Kings Army Horse ■■■ Foot C;^iB don. Essex hurried after with a slightly inferior force, and on the 22d of October found the king in a strong position on Edgehill. On the afternoon of Sunday the 23d the king led his army down from the hill to meet his foes. Eupert again easily routed the Puritan horse, but the Puritan infantry held their own, and when at dnsk Rupert returned from the pursuit he found the king's men withdrawing to Edgehill. The battle, however, was inde- cisive, for the complete demoralization of Essex's cavalry compelled him to retire to Warwick the next day, while the king's army once more resumed its march, passing through Oxford and Reading. Yet his movements were so slow that Essex was not only able to 1642, 1643] CAMPAIGN OF EDGEHILL 685 follow him again, but reached a strong position on his flank at Kingston. Charles, however, did not care to try the mettle of the sturdy Puritan infantry a second time, and instead of turning aside to measure swords with Essex, pushed straight on to Lon- don. At Brentford, eight miles from Westminster, Rupert again scattered the Puritan horse, but two miles farther, at Turnham Green, the king found the trained bands of London drawn up in dense masses across his path. With Essex so near he feared to chance a battle and, after a useless cannonade, retired to Oxford. Here he established his headquarters for the rest of the war, set- ting up a government and, January 1044, calling together a royalist parliament, composed mostly of the members of the Long Parlia- ment who had fled from Westminster. Thus ended the first campaign of the war. It had been inde- cisive and left matters about where they stood on September 7. It had revealed to Charles, however, the determined c^pailn spirit of the men who defied him; it had also revealed of 1642. ^^ ^YiQ Puritan leaders the immense superiority of the royalist horse. During the winter the two armies of Essex and Charles faced each other between Oxford and London, but nothing was done. There were also some futile attempts at negotiation, but no revival of confidence, due partly to the continued efforts of Charles to get troops over frofn Ireland, and also to his efforts to sow dissensions among the parliamentary leaders. As the spring came on fighting began all over England. In the main it went against the parliament. Some petty victories of the early year were more than offset by later losses. Tl^tTJ!}'.^ Essex took Reading but hesitated to advance on Oxford. On the 16 th of May Sir Ralph Hop ton defeated the earl of Stamford at Stratton and secured Cornwall for the king. On the 18th of June Hampden received his death wound at Chal- grove Field, in a futile attempt to cut off a band of raiders under Prince Rupert; *'a gallant man, an honest man, au able man, and second to none living." On the 30th of June William Cavendish Earl of Newcastle defeated Lord Fairfax at Adwalton Moor, a vic- tory which left Hull, already closely besieged, the only parliamen- tary stronghold in Yorkshire. On the 5th of July and again on 686 THE CIVIL WAR [oharles i. the 13th, Hopton, the victor of Stratton, defeated Waller, who had been holding the Severn valley in order to prevent the Welsh from reinforcing the king at Oxford, and on the 26th Rupert took Bristol. Charles now proposed that Newcastle and Hopton bring their victorious armies and join with him for a march on London. But the Cornish men would not leave their homes to the Gloucester, mercy of the powerful garrisons of Plymouth and Exeter; the Yorkshire men were as unwilling to march south until Hull had been reduced. The garrison of Gloucester, also, held the bridge over the lower Severn, and the Welshmen would not march to London until the town had been taken. Charles, therefore, contrary to his better judgment, was compelled to engage in a series of sieges against cities for the most part with an open seaboard. Prince Maurice, Rupert's younger brother, was sent against Plymouth and Exeter; Newcastle pressed the siege of Hull; while the king with his main army marched upon Glouces- ter. Pym called upon London for an army to relieve Gloucester, and the trained bands promptly responded, giving him an army of fifteen thousand men. Rupert's cavalry failed to check the advance and on September 8 Essex marched into the city. From the first the Puritans had felt a deep sense of dependence upon God ; they were fighting his battles; **G5d had called them to do the work." The timely arrival of Essex, therefore, when only three barrels of gunpowder were left in the city, was looked upon as a special interposition of Providence, and the grateful citizens in- scribed above the gate, *'A city assaulted by men but saved by God." It was the crisis of the war. The relief of Gloucester saved Ply- mouth and Hull, possibly London also; for had these cities fallen, The crisis ^^ ^^^ probability London could not have resisted the passed. combined force which the king would then have con- centrated on the lower Thames. Charles now manoeuvred to prevent the return of Essex to Lon- don ; the result was the first battle of Newbury, fought on the 20th of September, twenty-seven miles from Oxford. The foot wrestled for hours from hedgerow to hedgerow. Rupert's cavalry 1643] OLIVER CROMWELL 687 as usual scattered the Puritan horse. He then turned upon the Londoners, but for once his terrible cavalry had found a foe F* b tti worthy of their mettle. When night came the Puri- fe^embe^' tan infantry still held their ground. They had lost 20, 1643, heavily but the king's losses were greater, among them the gallant Lord Falkland. The king withdrew to Oxford, leav- ing the way open to London. The triumph at Newbury of the Puritans, or *' Roundheads," as the gay '* Cavaliers" of Rupert had begun to call them, was fol- lowed three weeks later by a successful sortie of the Puritan)^ in garrisou of Hull, which compelled Newcastle to raise the North ' jt the siege. On the same day, the 11th of October, Kim- bolton, recently become earl of Manchester, won a decisive victory at Winceby. This battle is famous as the first to bring Oliver Cromwell into prominence. This remarkable man, destined to be the great man of the cen- tury, a quiet, unobtrusive squire of Huntingdonshire, had been sent up to the Long Parliament from Cambridge bor- Cromweii ^^g^^» having already appeared at Westminster in 1G28 and again in the Short Parliament in 1640. He was not a talker ; and although he had supported Hampden and Pym steadily in the voting, his position as a member of the Long Parlia- ment had not been prominent. But when the time for action came, he went down to his home to take part in the organization of the Eastern Association. Although a cousin of Hampden and a member of parliament, he sought for himself no higher position in the army than that of a single captain of cavalry. He was present at Edgehill and had managed to hold his troop together, one of the few cavalry companies that did not flee at the first charge of the cavaliers. He saw, moreover, the reason of the worthlessness of tlie Puritan horse. **Your troops" he said to Hampden '*are most of them decayed serving men and tapsters, and such kind of fellows, and their troops are gentlemen's sons and persons of quality. Do you think that the spirits of such base and mean fellows will ever be able to encounter gentlemen that have honor, courage, and resolution in them?" In the months following Edge- hill Cromwell had returned to his home and there brought together 688 THE CIVIL WAR [charlbs I. a cavalry regiment of a very different mettle. As he himself expressed it, he proposed to match "men of religion," against the **king's gentlemen of honor." The result was the organization of the famous '^ Ironsides;" a body of men who possessed the loftiest religious enthusiasm, tempered and hardened by the severest discipline. At Winceby, Cromwell and his famous regi- ment led the van of Manchester's army. From this time he and his men are conspicuous figures in the war; equal to Rupert's terrible cavaliers "in dash and daring," and more than equal in drill and self-restraint. In December the parliament sustained a serious loss in the death of Pym, who had become the virtual leader of the adminis- tration but had succumbed to the anxieties and burdens League and of his position, laying his life on the altar of English liberty as surely as Eliot or Hampden. As his last service he had secured the formal alliance of the parliament with the Scots in the "Solemn League and Covenant," by which the English bound themselves to support a Scottish army in Eng- land, and to reform the Church of England "according to the example of the best reformed churches," — a phrase understood by the Scots to mean the Presbyterian Church. Vane, however, who hated intolerance and saw clearly that "new presbyter" was "only old priest writ large," insisted on adding the clause "and according to the Word of God." This was a mere subterfuge, adopted in order to leave the whole matter open, since the "Word of God" when consulted by Independents would not favor the Presbyterian system. The Scots, however, apprehended no difficulty because the Presbyterian party in England was much larger than the Inde- pendent party, and an assembly of Presbyterian divines had' already met at Westminster in July, 1643, and were busily engaged in making a plan for the reform of the English Church on a Presbyterian basis. Charles also in the meanwhile had been seeking allies, and in September had entered into a preliminary truce with the Irish, known as the Cessation of Arms. Thus the king was in the pop- ular mind more than ever allied with the cause of the supporters of the pope; while the Solemn League and Covenant also helped 1644] MARSTO]^ MOOR 689 to strengthen the common belief that the struggle was for Prot- estantism against "popery, prelacy, superstition, heresy, schism, and profaneness. " The Irish truce, however, brought rn^iiSh^ very little advantage. It released the English army Tfwc'essa- which had been stationed in Ireland, but the troops had tionofArms. Y^Q^j.^iy reached England when they were routed by Fair- fax at Nantwich, and the majority of the survivors at once took service under the parliament. On the 19th of January the Scots under David Leslie crossed the border twenty thousand strong, and uniting with Fairfax, suc- ceeded in shutting up in York Newcastle and the M?)!lryuiu army with which he had swept Yorkshire the year ^^^^^- before. In April they were joined by Manchester with the army of the Eastern Association. Charles fully realized the importance of saving Newcastle, and accordingly ordered Rupert to raise an army and advance to his relief. On the 30th of June Rupert and his troopers reached Knaresborough on the Nidd. When the allies heard of his approach they raised the siege of York and, advancing across Marston Moor, took up their station at Skip Bridge, a short distance below Knaresborough. 690 THE CIVIL WAR [chahles I. But Rupert by a hasty flank march, passing the Swale at Thorn- ton Bridge, gained the left bank of the Ouse, entered the city, and joined Newcastle before the allies could stop him. It was a mas- terly movement. York was saved and the king's cause was once more in the ascendant. Rupert, however, who now commanded both royalist armies, was determined to fight, and leading out the combined forces, faced tlie allies on Marston Moor. When Rupert had completed his formation, the day was done, July 2.. and, as the enemy were apparently quiet and determined to act on the defensive, he decided to postpone the battle until the morning; ranks were broken and supper was ordered. The enemy, however, watchful and alert, looking down upon the camp of Rupert from the higher ground which they had held since morning, and divining liis change of plan, decided to seize the moment of inattention and attack at once. On the left wing Cromwell's horse supported by Leslie, for the first time met the famous cavaliers of Rupert and after a stubborn contest proved their superiority by driving them from the field. On the right wing, however, the Fairfaxes were beaten by Goring. The Scots in the center were also beginning to give way ; when Cromwell, keeping his men well in hand, returned from the pursuit of Rupert, and at once attacked Goring and drove him from the field; then rallying Fairfax's men he came to the relief of the Scots. This movement decided the day. Newcastle's infantry fought desperately; some regiments perished to a man, but they were unsupported and heroism could not save them. NcAvcastle fled to Flanders. Rupert with his shattered cavalry succeeded in getting back to the Severn. The allies had won the first decisive engagement of the war; the north now passed into their hands. In the south affairs were not going so well for the parliament. While Leslie and Fairfax were besieging Newcastle in York, Waller had marched out of London at the head of the trained campaign^ bands, intending to unite with Essex for a joint attack of 1644. upon the king at Oxford. When they learned, how- ever, that Charles had slipped away into Worcestershire, it was determined to leave Waller to carry on the siege, while Essex marched into the southwest. Charles saw his advantage, and at 1644J LOSTWITHIEL 691 once turning upon Waller, beat him at Cropredy Bridge and so discouraged his raw levies, that they retired to London. Charles then hurried after Essex and surrounded him at Lost- 'A^^ust^w^ withiel. The foot were compelled to surrender; the cavalry cut their way through to Plymouth; Essex made his escape to London by sea. Thus the reverses of Charles in the north were offset somewhat by his successes in the south. If he had lost an army at Marston Moor, the Puritans had lost an army at Lost withiel. R^it^of II -j^Q ]^ad lost the northern counties, the Puritans had lost the western counties. Leslie might have led his Scots into southern England and more than made good the loss of Essex's infantry, but the royalist earl of Montrose was creating such a diversion in Scotland that Leslie dared not pass the Humber when he might soon be needed beyond the Tweed to save the Low- lands. The parliamentary leaders, while thus unable to concentrate their forces and take advantage of their great victory at Marston Moor, were also divided among themselves as to the ammiume ultimate object of the war. The conduct of the war lary leaders, bad been entrusted to a joint committee of both king- doms. The committee, however, was large and unwieldy, and seriously divided upon ecclesiastical questions but more seriously upon the final issues of the war. The Presby- terians at heart were royalists and desired only to bring the king to terms. The Puritan nobles, moreover, were thoroughly alarmed at the democratic tendencies which the war was developing, and did not wish to crush the king altogether, lest the rising tide of revolution sweep away their privileges as well in the overthrow of the monarchy. The Independents, however, had no sympathy with the lingering royalist sentiment of their allies, and, while they had not yet advanced so far as to desire the destruction of the king, much less the monarchy, saw clearly that their lives or their property could be secure, only after they had completely crushed the last vestige of royalist military power and restored peace to the nation upon their own terms. These dissensions were soon to bear fruit on the field of battle. 692 THE CIVIL WAR [charles L After Marston Moor, Manchester and Cromwell, leaving Fairfax with the Scots to reduce Pomfret and Newcastle-on-Tyne and The second watch the progress of affairs in Scotland, had marched mwhury. south to prevent the return of Charles from the west drSmweUand and protect London. They met Charles at Newbury Manchester. ^^ October. The Puritan army was greatly superior, and only the unwillingness of Manchester to crush Charles alto- gether, prevented Cromwell and Waller from repeating the triumph of Marston Moor. The inertness of Manchester at once brought the quarrel of Independents and Presbyterians to a head. Crom- well brought charges against Manchester in the House, and Man- chester replied by preferring counter charges against Cromwell. The quarrel rapidly developed into a struggle to get possession of the army. In this struggle the Presbyterian majority apparently had their own way at first, and on November 24, parliament sent to the king at Oxford a series of twenty propositions to serve as a Negotiations ,.« ,.,. ^-r«^,i > - ,- atuxbri^e, basis lor negotiation. On January 30, the negotiations were formally opened at Uxbridge, and continued for three weeks. They failed, however, chiefly because the Presby- terian commissioners demanded that Charles should take the cove- nant; the demand that he should give up the command of the militia was hardly less objectionable. The failure of negotiation naturally produced a reaction, and parliament, with renewed deter- mination to win, addressed itself to the reorganization of the army. The'^New ^^^ February it passed the '*Xew Model Ordinance" and S^I^'^The -allowed it in April by the famous "Self-Denying Ordi- •^^^ordi^^' iia^^ce." By the one, it proposed to enlist a new army nance." ^f 14^000 foot, 6,000 liorse and 1,000 dragoons; the recruits were to be taken from among the veterans of Essex and Waller and Manchester, and were to serve to the end of the war; strict discipline was to be introduced and regular wages pre- scribed. Commissions were given for merit only, and the gentlemen officers, who had heretofore monopolized all the appoint- ments, were compelled to share their honors with ''plain russet coated captains," who had given evidence of their ability to command men in the tumult of battle. The officers also were 1645] EXECUTION OF LAUD 693 compelled to take the covenant. By the second ordinance it was enacted that all officers of the army and navy who were also mem- bers of parliament, should resign their commissions within forty days. In this way it was proposed to weed out Manchester and Essex, but unfortunately Cromwell also was included. Sir Thomas Fairfax, the son of Lord Fairfax, who had proved his ability in the northern campaigns with his father, was made commander-in-chief. A rank of lieutenant-general, carrying with it the command of the horse, was created but significantly left vacant. One other event shows the increasing strength of the extreme party at "Westminster. On the 10th of January, the little old man, whose mischievous itching for reforms had done Executiminf ' . ° Laud, Jan- 80 much to stir UD the present strife, was taken from uary lo, 1645. ,,^ iii-T, «,. the lower where he had been confined smce 1G41, and executed under sentence of the Lords. His death was a simple act of vengeance. His influence had long since disappeared; unlike Strafford, there was no occasion to fear him. Charles in the meantime, while Fairfax was organizing the '*New Model," as the reconstructed army was called, had begun the campaign by leaving Oxford, where he was blockaded June 14, by Fairfax, to attack Leicester. If successful he would 1645. . gain a central position of great advantage. Fairfax marched north with the idea of forcing a battle. On June 13 he was joined by Cromwell, who, at the solicitation of the offi- cers and men of Fairfax's command, had been appointed by parlia- ment to the still vacant post of -lieutenant-general. The next day was fought the battle of Naseby, in which the New Model com- pletely justified the wisdom of its projectors, destroying the royal- ist army and leaving only a shattered remnant of the horse to draw off with Rupert and the king. But more serious to the king's cause than the defeat, was the capture of a box of secret dis- patches by which the whole history of his intrigues with the French and the Irish became known, and the little lingering confi- dence of the English in his good faith completely destroyed. Shires where thousands had sprung to arms when the king first unfurled his banner, refused to fight longer for the perfidious Stuart. 694 THE CIVIL WAR [charlbs I. Montrose in Scotland, September, 1644 to Sep- tember, 1645. Battle of NASEBY July 14, 1645 In Scotland the victories of Montrose still gave the king some slight hope. Montrose had left York after Marston Moor and made his way across the border disguised as a groom. Once in the Highlands he had pTpt himself at the head of the Macdonalds. Then followed a series of daring and brilliant mana3uvres in which he defeated the Covenant- ers, September 1, at Tippermuir, and again, September 13, at Aberdeen. These victories cleared the eastern Lowlands and brought the Gordons to his side. Early in February he overthrew the Campbells un- der Argyll at Inverlochy. The report of these victories compelled Les- lie to send two of his best offi- c e r s , Baillie and Hurry, to revive the drooping spir- its of the Cov- enanters, and check the vic- torious career of Montrose. They were no match, however, for the energetic young royalist commander, and, after a long series of manoeuvres, were beaten at Auldearn, May 9, again at Alford, July 2, and finally at Kilsyth, August 15. These victories made Montrose master of the Lowlands. But unfortunately his Highlanders, after their custom, insisted upon going home to secure their booty, and left him with a much weakened force to meet David Leslie in person, who was hastening up from the south with the veterans who had fought at Marston Moor Montrose 1645] ROWTON HEATH 695 was attacked at Philiphaugh, near Selkirk, September 13, and his small army completely routed. In one day the fruit of all his victories had been swept away and nothing was left for the young commander but to get out of the country as quickly as possible. His youth, his single-hearted devotion to the king, his rapid suc- cesses, the suddenness and completeness of the overthrow, mark his career as one of the most romantic chapters of the war. The end of the war was now in sight. On July 15, a month after Naseby, Fairfax had defeated Goring at Langport. Mont- rose, however, at the time was still in the high-tide of The end of . , -, -, ^ -, , • * • • , i i • theFirxt victorv and held out a promise of success, if the kiuff Civil War. 7 o could only join forces with him. Charles accordingly was hurrying north with his last army, when, September 24, he was stopped near Chester and again defeated at Rowtoii HeaSTsen- H®'^^^^- ^ ^^^ days later came news of the disaster at umher,24, Philiphaugh, and the king returned to Oxford, satis- fied that his kingdom was not to be saved by the appeal to arms. Ilis armies had been destroyed or scattered. He had made arrangements witli Edward Somerset, Earl of Glamorgan, to bring over ten tliousand Irish soldiers, but Glamorgan had been wrecked on the Lancashire coast. The Irish allies of Charles did not appear, and the project, when known, only added to the bitter- ness of his enemies. His scheme for securing continental help fared no better. Henrietta Maria had succeeded in hiring the services of ten thousand men of the duke of Lorraine, but neither the Dutch nor the French would supply the necessary ships for getting the duke and his mercenaries over the sea. To add to the discomfiture of Charles, he had scarcely reached Oxford, after the retreat from Rowton Heath, when he heard that Bristol had been stormed and Prince Rupert had surrendered. In the spring of 1G46 the army of the west also surrendered to Fairfax, and in June the Puritans took possession of Oxford. Although a few detached castles still held out, Charles was in despair, and determined to throw himself upon the old-time loyalty of the Scots, in hope that he might find better terms with them than with the parliament. Accordingly in May, he suddenly appeared in the Scot camp before Newark, the last of the midland fortresses 696 THE CIVIL WAR Tcharles I. to resist, and there gave himself up. They received him kindly and sent him to Newcastle, to be kept as a sort of hostage until the questions which the war had raised between the two kingdoms should be settled. Harlech, the last of the royalist strongholds, continued to hold out until the next year. The "First Civil War" was ended. CONTEMPORARIES OF THE EARLY STUARTS 1603-1650 KINGS OF FRANCE Henry IV., iesthe called the "Agreement of the People."* The first ''Agreement , . . » , , • , -, ,^ t ^ ,. j. ,^ of the Pea- article of this plan proposed the dissolution of the existing parliament in the coming April; but the Rump had its own program to carry out, and quietly ignoring the demand of the officers for an early dissolution, on February 13, appointed a Council of State to exercise the executive func- 1 Gardiner, Const. Docs., pp. 270-282. 708 PARLIAMENT AND THE ARMY [the Commonwkalth tions of government. On March 17 it proceeded to abolish the office of king, and declared any one who attempted to assist the heirs of Charles Stuart to regain the crown, to be traitors to the state. On March 19 it also abolished the House of Lords, declaring it to be "useless and dangerous," and on May 19, it declared "the people of England and of all the dominons and territories there- unto belonging . . . to be a Commonw^lth and Free State by the supreme authority of this nation."^ If, however, the Rump had apparently ignored the Agreement in refusing to abolish itself also among the rest of the wreckage of Charles's reign, the leaders had no wish to cut loose from the army. Not only were Cromwell and Fairfax made members of the Council of State, but in the ordinance of March 17, the Rump formally pledged "to put a period to the sitting of this present parliament as soon as may possibly stand with the safety of the people that hath betrusted them," and of "the government now settled in the way of a Commonwealth." This hesitation of the Rump to vote its own death warrant, was not due altogether to an unworthy desire on the part of its members to cling to power as long as possible. The and the danger to the "betrusting" people was real, to say nothing of the new Commonwealth. If they should allow the people to elect a new parliament, in their present temper there could be no question as to what kind of parliament would be returned ; — a parliament which would at once undo all that had been done, proclaim Charles II., reestablish Episcopacy, and begin a long series of confiscations, executions, and a general persecution of Independents. The men in the army, however, who had secured the adoption of the Agreement by the council of officers, were not satisfied. They represented the dangerous element known as Levellers, who, under the guidance of men like "Free-born John Lilburne," had been made to see the real drift of affairs, and declared that the laws were overthrown and "the military power thrust into the very office and seat of civil authority." This was true enough, but, unfortunately for their influence, Lilburne and his followers had begun the propaganda of an uncompromising ^ For this series of documeuts, see Gardiner, pp. 394-397, 1649] THE LEVELLERS 709 and impossible democracy, which was to be adopted, not only in the state, but in the army, and which would certainly result in the subversion of all order, social or military. That Cromwell, who had heretofore been regarded as the mouthpiece of the army, was made a member of the Council of State, did not increase the popularity of the Kump with the Levellers, for Cromwell had now become the special object of their scorn and suspicion. **You will scarce speak to Cromwell," declared the arch Leveller, Lil- burne, "but he will lay his hand on his breast, elevate his eyes, and call God to record. He will weep, howl, and repent, even while he doth smite you under the fifth rib." The council, how- ever, feared the Levellers more than they feared any possible ambition of Cromwell, and turned to him as the one man who was able to save the state and society from these seventeenth cen- tury anarchists. "You must break these people in pieces," said Cromwell, "if you do not, they will break you." Here is the secret of CromwelFs later power. The air was quivering with revolution yet to come; the wildest theories were abroad; theories which threatened the very foundations of society. The state was drifting without a helmsman ; a strong man was needed to save the old social order from total wreck. In spite, therefore, of the warning of the Levellers, who shrieked that Cromwell would make himself king, all the conservative elements still in power turned to him, the child of the revolution, and called upon him to save them from the forces which they themselves had unchained. The discontent was widespread; mutinous outbreaks took place in London, Banbury, and Salisbury. But Cromwell and Fairfax, under the commission of the council, crushed them with an unsparing hand. Yet there were only three execu- tions, — a cornet and two corporals. Lilburne already was in the Tower and in October was tried on the charge of stirring up treason in the army, but acquitted. The rest of the mutineers were received again into the ranks. Cromwell, with his practical common sense, his deep conservative instincts, saw that, with Ireland in uproar, Scotland hostile, and the great mass of the English people disloyal and ready to take advantage of the first sign of weakness on the part of the government, it was no time to be discussing theories of 710 PAELIAMENT AND THE ARMY [the Commonwealth government, or quarreling as to the ultimate forms by which the state should be administered. The Enmp, therefore, was left to continue its revolutionary powers for four years longer, while he turned with the New Model to complete the work which it had begun. ^ The Irish, it will be remembered, had begun a revolt in 1641 which had soon drifted into a war of Catholics against Protestants, of the original Celtic inhabitants and the old Anglo- im the Civil ^^rman aristocracy against Anglicans and Puritans. War, 1641- But the outbreak of the Civil War in England had en- 1649. " tirely changed the earlier character of the struggle. In 1642 a "General Assembly of the Catholic Confederates" was held at Kilkenny, — a sort of National Irish Parliament. It entrusted the government to a "Supreme Council" and made Owen O'Neil commander-in-chief. It was with this government that Charles concluded the Cessation of 1643, that stirred up so much bitter- ness at home. In 1645 Charles sent to Ireland, as his agent, the earl of Glamorgan, to get the Catholic Confederates to send help to him in England. In return, by the "Glamorgan Treaty," he virtually consented to the reestablishment of the Catholic Church in Ireland. During these years of trouble, the unenviable post of king's deputy, or lieutenant, had been held by a high-minded Irish noble, James Butler, who was first Earl, and then Marquis, and finally Duke, of Ormond. He was able and popular, a staunch royalist, and kept up a brave fight against overwhelming odds. In 1647 Dublin was surrendered to the Puritans and Ormond retired to England. Then, also, the Anglo-Norman Lords and the native Irishry began to fall out over the question of the restoration of the papal authority. The death of the king, however, had at once healed all differences. Ormond had returned the year before and, under pledge of removing the disabilities of the Irish Cath- olics, had already rallied the Catholic Lords and the Protestant royalists to his support. When news reached him of the end of the fatal tragedy at Whitehall, he had proclaimed Charles II., and even the Ulster Presbyterians had joined his standard. He was further strengthened by the accession of royalist refugees from England; the fleet, also, the greater part of which had gone over 7 MANZ-Chicmgo 1649] CROMWELL IN IRELAND 711 to the king at the outbreak of the second Civil War, was brought around to the coast by Prince Rupert and awaited to assure the new King Charles a safe landing whenever he should appear. The parliamentary general, George Monk, still held Dundalk, and the gallant Colonel Michael Jones held Dublin; but these two posts were almost the only footholds which the Commonwealth had continued to retain, and even these were besieged by the Irish in overwhelming numbers. If Ireland, therefore, were to be saved to the Commonwealth, and the reaction in England prevented from securing here an important base for the future, action must be taken at once. The government turned to Cromwell and found him and his Ironsides just as ready to fight royalists in Ireland as in Eng- land. When, however, Cromwell landed on the 15th Cromweiun ^^ August, the cHsis was already passed. Dundalk had Ireland, 1649. fallen, but Colonel Jones had made a sortie with his little garrison of five thousand men and so com- pletely shattered Ormond's force, that when Cromwell appeared, the Irish, instead of meeting him in the open field, retired behind the high walls of such fortresses as Drogheda and Wexford, in hope of tiring him out by a series of vexatious sieges. But they hardly knew the man with whom they were now dealing. On the 3d of September Cromwell appeared before Drogheda, and on the 10th summoned its garrison of 2,800 men, the flower of Ormond's English soldiery, to surrender. The garrison refused, and the next day Cromwell took the place by assault. No quarter was given; every man in arms was slaughtered outright, save a few who were shipped off as slaves to the sugar plantations of the Bar- badoes. The men of the cassock who were found in the city suffered the fate of the soldiers. Cromwell's excuse for this mas- sacre was that it would deter others from resistance and, by short- ening the war, *'tend to prevent the effusion of blood in the future." The next month the garrison of Wexford suffered the fate of the defenders of Drogheda. It was not necessary to repeat the bloody lesson a third time. To most of the garrisons the sum- mons to surrender was sufficient. While Cromwell was thus vigorously putting down the royalists on the land, Blake was push- 712 PARLIAMENT AND THE ARMY [the Commonwkalth ing the royalist navy upon the Irish seas until Eupert was glad to retire to Portugal. In March Cromwell returned home at the urgent summons of parliament, and left the completion of his work to Ire ton. The English who remained suffered severely from fever; some of their best men died ; among them Jones, and finally Ireton himself. But the hope of the Stuarts of securing help in Ireland had vanished ; and with the Stuart passed also the last chance of a successful Irish revolt. The Catholic form of worship was suppressed; the lands of the Celtic proprietors were confiscated and turned over to Puritan veterans or sold to speculators, "Undertakers," who promised to find settlers. An iron rule was introduced, rapine and murder punished, and peace once more reigned over the desolate country. Cromwell had been called home by the threat of a new war with Scotland. After the overthrow of Hamilton at Preston, Argyll, supported by the old Covenanters, who had here- Charles and tofore actcd with the English parliament, once more gained control of the government and renewed for the moment the old understanding. The Scots, however, were not pleased by the late drift of affairs in England and when they heard of the execution of the king, as they were an independent people, they at once invited the Prince of Wales to be their king, but stipu- lated that he take the Covenant. Prince Charles was at this time about twenty years old, with a well established reputation for general frivol ousness and insincerity. He was witty, keen, and with many intellectual qualities of a high order, but utterly lack- ing in the moral fiber necessary to success in a desperate under- taking. Between him and the Scottish Covenanters there could be little in common; nor was he eager to seize a crown tagged with their hated Covenant. He preferred, therefore, to make an effort to secure the prize in such a way, that he should be bound by no promise. Accordingly he secretly commissioned Montrose to try his fortunes again in the Highlands, and raise if possible the old royalists whom he had so often led to victory in 1645. The clans, however, showed little enthusiasm for the rising, and the few men whom Montrose brought with him from Holland and the Orkneys, were easily dispersed at Corbiesdale. 3 MASZ-Chic»go ' ! Hi ' \ i ^4-5 t't 1650] CROMWELL IN SCOTLAND 713 Montrose was soon after betrayed by a Highland chieftain, brought to Edinburgh, and there hanged at the Market Cross. Charles was mean enough to repudiate the high-souled warrior, April 27, ' who had so nobly laid down life in his service, and, seeing that there was no chance of securing the crown by means of a royalist rising, accepted the terms of the Covenanters swallowing the National Covenant as well as the Solemn League and Covenant. He gave his word, moreover, to act always with the parliament and to establish Presbyterianism both in England and in Ireland. He landed at Speymouth the month after Montrose's death. The Rump in the meanwhile had been following the drift of events in Scotland with watchful heed ; they knew that Charles would never be satisfied with Scotland alone, and Retirement ^ , - -, -^ of Fairfax, determined to strike at once and expel him before he Cromwell in -, -, ^ -, •, , , mpreme had gathered the strength of his little kingdom. Fair- command. - , . i • • i i . fax, who up to this point had retained his commission in the army, objected to violating the Solemn League and Covenant upon the ground of mere *' human probabilities," and threw up his commission rather than lead in a war against his old allies. Cromwell was at once advanced to the vacant post of Lord General. Li July 1650 Cromwell crossed the border with an army of six- teen thousand men supported by the fleet, which followed the coast to furnish them with supplies on the march, for ScSK"*^ the Scots as usual had completely wasted the country. He found the Scots under the command of David Leslie, in a strong position near Leith, but, after manoeuvering for a month without dislodging them, he was compelled to retire to Dunbar. Leslie followed him warily and seized the Hill of Doon above Dunbar, at the same time sending a detachment to seize Cockburnspath, a sort of Thermopylae, where the Lammermuir range comes down to the sea, leaving scarcely room for a coach to pass ; the way was so narrow that a handful of determined men might hold it against an army. There were only two ways for Cromwell to get out of the difficulty; he might storm the enemy's position on Doon Hill, or he might embark his troops and steal 714 PARLIAMENT AND THE ARMY [the Commonwkalth away by sea. But fortunately for Cromwell, Leslie, who had grown overconfident, possibly^ and feared only the escape of the English, on September 2, moved down into the low ground by the sea in order to get within striking distance should the enemy attempt to decamp. Cromwell saw his advantage and under cover of the night following, which was dark and stormy, brought his army into position to attack Leslie's right wing on the flank. The attack began at four in the morning; the Scots were taken entirely Firth ^or^j, '<^WMbM by surprise; many of the officers had sought shelter from the storm in neighboring farmhouses and were not with their regi- ments. The right wing was doubled back upon the center and soon the whole body was thrown into hopeless confusion. At daybreak the entire Scottish army was scattered among the Lammermuir hills, and Cromwell's road to Edinburgh lay open. It was one of the most masterly actions of the war and displayed Cromwell's military genius at its best. He had turned what, on the evening 165l] WORCESTER ' 715 of the 2d of September, promised to be a humiliating defeat into a splendid victory.^ Edinburgh opened its gates and before the end of the year all southern Scotland lay at the mercy of the English. From Dunbar Leslie retired to Stirling where he again took up a position too strong to be assailed in front and in close communi- cation with the northern districts which lay behind vades Eno- liim. CromwcU in order to turn Leslie's position crossed the Forth, and placed himself in his rear. The movement, however, left the road into England open; Leslie thought he saw an opportunity, by making a rush for the border, of getting into England before Cromwell and encouraging a gen- eral rising in the name of Charles IL, who had been crowned King of Scotland at Scone in January. In August, therefore, Leslie suddenly broke camp, and began a series of forced marches for the border. Cromwell, leaving Monk in Scotland, hurried after Leslie with his main body, sending Lambert ahead to turn him from London. Lambert easily outmarched the Scots and, passing Leslie while he was still in Cheshire, seized all the roads to Lon- don. Leslie was thus forced into the valley of the Severn. Here in the past the Stuarts could always count upon a strong following, but the Englisli of the Severn had no liking for this king who came upon them at the head of an army of Scotsmen. Fairfax came from his retirement to put himself at the head of the militia. Everywhere the country was rising, and on September 3d, just one year after Dunbar, Leslie found himself at Worcester, confronted by Cromwell with thirty thousand men. His own force did not exceed eleven thousand. The Scots faced these tremendous odds and fought with the heroism of despair. Leslie, Derby, and Lauderdale were taken. Only a remnant of the army managed to get back to Scotland. Charles, assisted by English royalists, who had refused to fight for him, escaped from the field, and, after six weeks of wandering, through a series of romantic adventures which have- long since attracted the eye of the novelist, at last reached Brighton and got away to France. The submission of Scotland followed ; the Presbyterian Assemblies *For a recent important contribution upon Dunbar, see Firth, Tlie Battle of Dunbar, in Transactions of Royal Historical Society, 1900. 716 ' PARLIAMENT AND THE ARMY [thk Commonwealth were suppressed, and Argyll, after holding out a year in his castle of Inverary, agreed that Scotland should be united with England into a Commonwealth without king or lords. Cromwell, after 'Hhe crowning mercy," as he styled the victory of Worcester, returned to London and quietly assumed his old duties in connection with the several committees of the council. While Cromwell had been establishing the authority of the Commonwealth within the British Islands, Admiral Blake, hardly less eminent in naval warfare, had been extending its The Com- ,. ^. ^_^ . ' ^ . ^ „ -, monweaith prestige upon the seas. He had driven Rupert from tlie fill fhP ^Pft^ -L C-J X X Irish coast, followed him to the Tagus, and finally com- pelled him to cross the Atlantic, where Rupert hoped to find shelter among the English harbors in the West Indies. When, however, Rupert appeared in the western seas at the end of May 1652, he found that the last colony had submitted to the Commonwealth and that the English ports in the new world also were closed to him. Rupert had no recourse left save to throw himself upon the hospitality of the French. He was received of course, for the French have always loved Englishmen who fight against England. As soon as his squadron was refitted, he again faced the open sea, looking for English merchantmen ; a career of piracy was virtually all that was left for the dashing cavalier. But the storms of the tropics, however, were to prove more fatal than the guns of Blake, and after losing the great part of his fleet in a hurricane off the rocks of Anegadas, he returned to Europe early tbe next year, to disband his crews and sell his few surviving ships to the French. Wherever the English flag floated, on land or sea, the Common- wealth was now recognized. The Commonwealth had never been popular in the courts of Europe. Yet Spain had no motive for interfering in the domestic affairs of England and soon recognized the new govern- "Srmwmm mcnt. The young king of France, on the other hand, in Europe. ^^^ ^ cousin of the exiled Stuart, and the sympathies of the court were easily enlisted in his favor. French and English merchantmen, also, as usual in troubled times, had begun to prey upon each other, and the English had licensed this piracy by issu- ing regular letters of reprisal. The French government was 1650, 165l] ENGLAND AND THE DUTCH 717 grieved very naturally, and refused to recognize the Common- wealth unless the letters of reprisal were withdrawn. In the Hague it might be expected that England would find friends. But a series of grievances, sprung of commercial rivalry and dating back as far as the reign of James I., had S n'ttOMe"^ been nourished by both people, and had kept alive a feeling of bitterness, which had more than once been fanned into acts of open hostility. The Stadholder William II., moreover, was the son-in-law of Charles I., and had given asylum to English royalists as freely as the French ; some of the hot-headed followers of Montrose, who had fled hither after Philiphaugh and had been roused by the execution of the king, in May 16-1:9 had murdered the envoy of the new-made republic, three days after his arrival at the Hague. The Dutch government, instead of offer- ing redress for this outrage, presented a formal remonstrance against the execution of the king. In 1650 William II. died, and although the Hollanders refused to continue the office of Stad- holder, the change did not increase the influence of England, since the supreme authority in the States -General of the Seven Prov- inces, rested in the hands of a body of rich merchants, who par- ticularly cherished all the old grudges and more than ever feared the commercial activity of the English. In 1651 the Dutch saw these fears fully justified in the passage by the English parliament of the famous act known afterward as the First Navigation Act. By this act foreign vessels were forbidden to bring into an English port any goods other than those produced in their own countries. The measure was not aimed particularly at the Dutch, but was designed rather to favor the English carrying trade. But it affected the Dutch most, for they had become the common car- riers of Europe, and were vigorous competitors of the English in their own ports. Henceforth no Dutch merchantmen could bring into England, or take out to the English colonies, anything save the products of the Low Countries. A far more serious cause of quarrel lay in the claim of the English privateers of the right to seize and bring into port for trial Dutch vessels suspected of carry- ing French goods. English sailors, moreover, were not over nice in handling Dutchmen, and it was no uncommon thing to put 718 PARLIAMENT AND THE ARMY [the Commonwealth them to the torture to force a false acknowledgment of French goods. In 1652 these seizures rapidly increased, and the Dutch saw their carrying trade, which was the chief source of their wealth, in danger of utter destruction. Another cause of irrita- tion, also, was given by the English revival of the old Plantagenet claim to sovereignty over the British seas. The Dutch were not to fish in the seas without paying a tribute for the privilege, and flag and sail must be dipped whenever a Dutch vessel passed an English flag Avithin these waters. The most serious of these grievances, however, was the claim of a right to seize Dutch ves- sels in search for French goods. The English were undoubtedly acting within the old law ; for the principle, which is now com- monly accepted, that the flag covers the goods except in case of contraband of war had been only recently introduced by the Dutch themselves in their treaty with Spain of 1648. At the opening of 1652, therefore, the two countries were rapidly drifting into war. The Dutch have always been a proverbially patient people, but the English tyranny on ^war ^^® ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ passing beyond the limits even of a Dutchman's patience. Yet the Dutch navy was but poorly prepared for war and the government hesitated to instruct its admiral, the famous van Tromp, to resist. However, when questioned about his custom of dipping the flag, his answer had an ominous sound: "When the English are the stronger, then we lower the flag, otherwise not." The government evidently was satisfied and left the old sea dog to settle the matter in his own way. The English council had been by no means a unit in pressing these obnoxious measures upon the Dutchmen. The army as usual was jealous of the navy and had little interest in Cromwell to a War whicli must be fought at sea. To Cromwell and Dutch war. Q^]^gj.g^ ^ ^^r with the Dutch seemed almost like a war upon their own kindred ; at one time a Utopian scheme of uniting the two republics into one great commonwealth, had found con- siderable favor with the council, and envoys had been actually sent to the Hague to broach the matter. Vane and others, how- ever, who were deeply interested in building up English commerce 1653] THE FIRST iDUTCH WAR 719 and looked upon the war as the surest way of accomplishing this end, carried their point, and the Dutch were left the alternative, either to fight or submit. In May hostilities were begun by Blake and Van Tromp off Folk- stone. In July parliament declared war. Several minor engage- ments occurred during the summer and early autumn ijutciiwar without any particular advantage on either side, but on hepun,May the 30th of November 1G52 Van Tromp, after eight hours of hard fighting off Dungeness, with ninety ships defeated Blake with forty ships. The blow was so serious that tlie English feared that a blockade of the Thames would follow. The peace party, toward which Cromwell himself leaned, who depre- cated a war with their fellow Protestant republic as the height of folly for both countries, urged a speedy peace, but Vane and Mar- tin were still all-powerful in the Rump and the council, and instead of suing for peace, sent out a new fleet under Blake, Dean, and Monk. On the 18th of February, off Portland Bill, the Eng- lish fell in with Van Tromp in convoy of the Bordeaux fleet, and, in a running fight of three days, completely discomfited him, capturing eleven ships of war and thirty merchantmen. The reversal of the fortunes of war, however, came too late to save the Rump. It had never been popular ; nor had it been able to court popularity by diminishing taxation. It had dUi'mmae- attempted to save those who were loyal to the Common- Runw^^^*^^^ wealth from some of the burdens of the. war by despoil- ing the *'Malignants," as the royalists were called, either confiscating their estates outright or imposing a ruinous compo- sition. But the injustice of these acts had only reacted upon the Rump, and charges of corruption and favoritism, too well founded in many instances, were freely circulated and believed. Outside of Westminster, moreover, certain wild plans of reform were daily winning new adherents, particularly in the army. Conspicuous among these reformers were the Fifth Monarchy Men, to whom belonged some men of considerable influence, as Major General Harrison. They believed that the second coming of Christ was at hand, and that it was the duty of the godly to use force in ushering in that event by establishing the rule of the saints on earth. The 'j'^O t»ARLiAMENT AND THE ARMY [the Commonwealth propagation o-f siicli views naturally increased the general dissatis- faction with the Kamp, whose rule had now come to be regarded as responsible for the slow pace with wiiich the hoped-for social and religious reforms had appeared. The members cared little for the dissatisfaction of the country, but they knew that they could not defy the sentiment which was growing in the army. \Yhen, there- fore, the battle of Worcester brought the army home again, and the leaders once more began to take an active part in politics, the Eump was forced to act, and in November 1651, it definitely fixed upon November 3, 1654, as the day when it would formally retire. The members then turned their attention to closing up tlieir work and preparing for their successors. In February 1652 they passed an act of oblivion which was to cover all offenses of both parties prior to the battle of Worcester. They made provision, also, for the payment of all sums due the soldiers. They still feared a free, popular election, however, such as the army demanded, and in August Sir Henry Vane introduced a measure by which the present members were to retain their seats and new writs were to be issued only for those election districts wliich had been deprived of representation by Pride's Purge, or by death, or other cause; the new members further were to be approved by the old Eump. The *' Perpetuation Bill," as it was called in derision by the enemies of the Rump, which proposed not to elect a new parlia- ment, but simply to recruit the old one, naturally did 2VjeRwwi/) not satisfy the army. The leaders protested, and in April 20, hope of reaching a compromise, a series of informal conferences were held in which the matter was dis cussed freely between Vane, Whitelock, and others of the Eump, and Cromwell, Harrison, and other representatives of the army. On the evening of April 19, 1653, a conference had been held at Crom- well's lodgings and had broken up as usual without an agreement, but with a tacit understanding that another conference should be held before final measures were taken. When, therefore, the next morning, word was brought to Cromwell that parliament was about to pass the bill after all, he summoned a company of the men who had long learned to obey him without a question, and went with them to the parliament house. Leaving his men in the 1653] THE RUMP EXPELLED 721 lobby he entered the House. As he belonged there and was dressed in citizen's clothes, his entry probably attracted little notice. For awhile he listened to the debate and waited; but when the motion was made for the third reading, he arose and began to speak. At first his manner was quiet and under full control. But as he continued to speak of the injustice, the self- seeking, and abuse of high power, of the men who sat before him, he warmed to his work and with soldier like bluntness singled out Vane, Martin, and others as the objects of direct attack. The first surprise of the members passed off, and Sir Peter Went worth arose to call the daring debater to order, but Cromwell turned upon him and shouted, *'Come, come, sir! we have had enough of this ! I will put an end to your prating !" Then facing the door, he bade Harrison call the soldiers. The doors flew open; arms gleamed in the old hall, and the Rump was ignominiously turned out into the world. Neither the Rump nor the Long Parlia- ment, however, was yet to pass into history. Under the law of its own making none but the Long Parliament could dissolve the Long Parliament. CHAPTER V CKOMWELL AND THE PROTECTORATE OLIVER CROMWELL, J653-1658 RICHARD CROMWELL, 165ti-1659 Cromw ell's position was now a difficult one. All the old recog-' nized agents of government had been swept away; King, Lords, and finally Commons, each in succession had been Cmmweif swept into the pit of its own digging. Cromwell was the general of the army ; but when had a general gov- erned England by right of his military commission? Even the Rump had been sanctioned in the minds of thousands of English- men by some last clinging shreds of legality, associated with the sacred name of parliament which it still bore and with the legis- lative functions which it had continued to exercise; — name and functions which doubtless had obscured in the minds of many the real fact that since the death of the king the actual governor of England had not been parliament at all, but the army. But now the bald truth could no longer be disguised; the revolution had degenerated into a successful military mutiny; the army had turned upon its legal superiors, driven them from power, and assumed direct control of all the resources of the state. In the nature of things, however, this new order could not be permanent; mere physical force alone, without legal authority, could not long command the obedience of Englishmen. But what should take its place? Could a form of government be devised, which would satisfy the popular respect for law, save Cromwell from the oppro- brium of instituting military rule, and thus, by anticipating the inevitable reaction, save the Commonwealth? This was the problem which confronted Cromwell when, on that memorable April morning of 1653, he returned to his lodgings with the key to the Parliament Hall in his pocket. Some hoped, and perhaps expected, that Cromwell would make himself king. 722 1653] THE PROVISIOKAL COUNCIL 723 They saw no hope for the country, no protection for business or trade, unless a strong hand should seize and direct the state; and who could do this better than Cromwell? It was due views of the no doubt to this vcry natural enthusiasm for the suc- cessful general that Cromwell's portrait, adorned with three crowns, mysteriously appeared in the London Stock Ex- change, with these significant lines written underneath : "Ascend three thrones, great Captain and Divine: By the will of God, Oh Lion, for th'are thine." * But such a consummation of the revolution could only be sup- ported and maintained by the army, and Cromwell was too shrewd to adopt a course which would commit him altogether to the army as the sole support of his authority. The army was as full of visionaries and ^-cranks" as an Independent *' prophesying" meeting; the great mass of the soldiers, moreover, had no wish to see the Rump replaced by a one-man power. Some of the gen- erals, as Ludlow in Ireland, much as they disliked the Rump, had openly expressed the strongest disapproval of the act of the 23d; and others who acquiesced, were known to disapprove, while states- men like Vane, Martin, and Bradshaw, who had been turned out with the Rump, were deeply offended and might be expecte'd to make trouble sooner or Liter. Some hoped that Cromwell would restore the old order by bringing back the Stuarts; others, that he would call a free parliament ; but whatever view men took of the future, all saw that for the moment Cromwell was master of the situation and it was for him to say what should replace the Rump. Fortunately for the peace of England, Cromwell had no theories to exploit, but, with the same practical sagacity with which he had won his battles, addressed the new The provi- sumai cqun- task which confronted him. On April 29 he called about him a provisional Council of State, consisting of seven men from the army and three civilians. The **Decem- virate," as the royalists called the new council, was apparently as representative a body as Cromwell, under the circumstances, was ^ There were ten lines in all. For full stanza see Gardiner, Common- wealth and Protectorate, II, p. 238. 724 - THE PROTECTORATE [ Olivkr Ckomwell able to bring together. He offered a seat to Fairfax, and would have invited Vane also, if the officers had permitted it. As constituted, the council was sharply divided into two parties: the friends of Cromwell, who wished at once to make him protector if not king; and the men who suspected Cromwell, of whom the leader was Harrison who was irrevocably opposed to a one-man govern- ment and wished to put the administration in the hands of "the saints." But the man who held the balance of power, was *'Bot- tomless" Lambert; — an epithet which Cromwell had fixed on him because of his sphinx like reticence in expressing his real views. He had great influence among the common soldiers, and even among the royalists, who conceived the idea that he was secretly in favor of bringing back tlie Stuarts. Much as Cromwell disliked Harrison's plan of turning the government over to a Sanhedrim of pious fanatics, the uncertainty „ . . which attended Lambert, the desirability of securing Promsionfor 7 ./ o calling a the Support of Harrison and his followers, induced him parliament. ^ ^ , ■ at last to consent to giving the "saints" a trial. The Independent ministers in each county of England were invited in the name of the General and the Council of the Army, to consult with their congregations and submit the names of such persons as they considered fit to sit in parliament; the nominees must be faithful, fear God, and hate "covetousness," — the Puritan's name for political corruption. On the 28th of May the replies were all in, and the council proceeded to select 129 representatives for Eng- land. To them were added five for Ireland and six for Scotland. "For the first time in history a body was to meet in the name of the three peoples." The Council of State, now increased to thirteen members, busied itself in the meantime with the ordinary routine of govern- ment. There was much to be done in the way of mfJuncu. i"eform, but Cromwell and the other members evidently had fully accepted the merely provisional nature of their powers, and refrained from prejudicing or anticipating any of the measures of the nominees to whom they intended to commit the real work of government. One departure from this policy is worthy of notice. Bear-baiting and bull-baiting had long since 1653] THE XOMIKATED PARLIAMENT 725 aroused the disapproval of the Puritan conscience, not because the custom gave ''pleasure to the spectators," but because it fostered immorality. The provisional council, therefore, while mppressed^ Waiting for the assembling of the new parliament, thought the matter urgent enough to act at once, and accordingly ordered the obnoxious custom to be suppressed, and appointed a committee, of which Colonel Pride was a member, to carry the order into effect. The body of nominated commissioners, for parliament it can hardly be called, at last assembled on July 4. One of the mem- The ''Nomi' ^®^^ from London was a Baptist preacher, leather mer- ^'Li?«e '^ chant, and politician, who was apparently well known Parliament Jq the city, and whose unfortunate name, Praise-God Barbone, doubtless had already been the subject of many a merry jest. x\t all events the name was now too much for the wags, who straightway christened the assembly **Barebone's Parliament." As might be expected from the method of selection, the great body of the nominees were men of the very highest integrity. Some possessed real ability ; but the most were lacking in practical wis- dom. In his address at the opening session, Cromwell told them that they had been invited to rule England because they were godly. It was soon to be proved, however, that godliness, at least of their kind, was not the fittest qualification for the office of legislator in such troubled times. On July 5 the nominees took up their quarters in the old House of Commons and proceeded to organize. Francis Rous, the Failure of ^uthor of the metrical version of the Psalms so long nated^Pariior ^^^cd in the Puritan churches, was elected Speaker; and merit Cromwell, Lambert, Harrison, and Desborough were invited to take seats as members. On the 6th the commission voted to call itself a parliament, and later continued the authority of the existing Council of State to November 3d, at the same time increasing the number of councillors to thirty-one. Crom- well, being a member both of the parliament and the council, as well as General of the army, retained his position of central influ- ence. Harrison, however, was the natural leader of the enthusiasts in the House, and it was not long before he had gathered about 726 THE PROTECTORATE [omveb Ceomwell him a considerable party, not a majority, bu . earnest, aggressive, and strong enough to have their way in most ordinary sessions, when the fall membership was not present.^ After the routine of organizing the government was completed, the members addressed themselves to the serious reforms which demanded their attention. Very soon, however, it became evident to the outsiders, if not to themselves, that they were peculiarly unfitted for the work to which they had been appointed. In all their number was not to be found a single practicing lawyer; lawyers apparently were scarce among '*the godly kind." Nevertheless, Barebone's Parliament went at its work with sublime self-confidence. Most of the proposed reforms, however, it must be admitted, although all more or less radical, were certainly sound, and have since been ado2)ted by succeeding parliaments even to the abolition of the Court of Chancery. Thus they proposed to establish county courts for the recovery of small debts ; they abolished imprison- ment for debt ; they declared in favor of paying salaries to judges, instead of supporting them by fees ; they compelled the registra- tion of marriages, births, and deaths; made marriage a civil rite; attempted to simplify land tenures, and desired to establish an improved system of poor houses. They proposed, also, to do away with the appointment to church livings by private persons, as well as the whole system of tithes. Such reforms, sensible as they seem to-day, were too vigorous for the seventeenth century. The law- yers, the clergy, the country gentry, Lambert, even Cromwell him- self at last, looked on in consternation. Yet Cromwell, the only man who had the power to interfere, hesitated. It would not do to invade the Parliament House with soldiers a second time. Some of his friends, however, including Lambert, who had now thrown all his support on the side of Cromwell, decided to relieve the General of his embarrassment, and on the 12th of December bv preconcerted arrangement came together at an unusually early hour and, vot- ing to give back their authority to Cromwell, declared the assembly at an end. When the other members arrived, they found that they had been dissolved by their own act and nothing was left for them ^ A list published in Gardiner, II. , 259 makes the number of the "moderates" 84; of the "advanced party" 60. 1653] THE INSTKUMENT OF GOVERNMENT 727 but to acquiesce and go home. The whole nation gave a sigh of relief; the lawyers of the Inns of Court celebrated the event with boisterous rejoicings. It is too much to believe that Cromwell, shrewd as he undoubt- edly was, had foreseen how the experiment of Harrison and the saints would turn out ; but had he foreseen it, he could merit of not havc adopted a course which would have contributed more to his own strength, or more certainly driven the men of property to him for protection against the possibilities of further revolution, which lurked in the vagaries of radicals like Ilarrison. Even Lambert saw that the only hope of saving the state lay in Cromwell. When, therefore, on December IG, Lam- bert came forward with a scheme which placed monarchical power in the hands of Cromwell, all except the extreme sectaries and those who had opposed the dissolution of the Long Parliament, were ready to accept it as the wisest possible solution of the pres- ent difficulty. This plan, embodied in "The Instrument of Gov- ernment,"^ is particularly interesting to an American, because it based political authority, not upon the law of custom, but upon a written constitution as in the United States, and, if not the first,^ is certainly the second of its kind of modern times. It provided for the three kingdoms a common government to consist of a chief executive to be styled the Lord Protector; a Council of State of not more than twenty-one members, nor less than thirteen ; and a parliament of one House, consisting of 4G0 members, thirty of whom were assigned to Ireland and thirty to Scotland. Oliver Cromwell was named in the document as the first Lord Protector, and was further declared to hold the ofiice for life. The office, however, was not to be hereditary, and upon his death, the coun- cil were to appoint a successor. The members of the Council of State, also, were named in the document to the number of fifteen. In case of death or removal of a member for any cause, the parlia- ment was to submit to the council six names, from which they in turn were to select two ; from these the protector should appoint * See Gardiner, Const. Docs. , pp. 314-325. 2 American writers are accustomed to claim this honor for the Funda- mental Orders of Connecticut of 1638-39, 728 THE PROTECTORATE [oliver Cromwell one to fill the vacancy. In case of corruption or malfeasance, a joint committee of parliament and council were to investigate and pronounce punishment, "which punishment might not be pardoned or remitted by the Lord Protector." The parliament was to be elected by a new apportionment based upon population, in which the ** small boroughs" were to be no longer allowed a representa- tion. Those who possessed a property of the value of £200 were to be electors in the shires, provided they were not Catholics, or had not fought against parliament. The Lord Protector, assisted by the Council of State, was to exercise full executive power, including the command of the army and navy. Before the meeting of the first parliament the council might also issue ordinances which should have the force of law until parliament could take action upon the same. In general, parliament was to be the sole law-making body, having full legislative power, save as limited by the terms of the Instrument. Bills were to be presented to the protector for his consent. • If he saw fit to object, the pai'liament was bound to consider his opinion, but he had no right of absolute veto. His consent, moreover, must be given within twenty days, or "satisfaction to the Parliament within the time limited," other- wise such acts became law without the consent of the protector. A new parliament must be elected every three years, and in case the proper officers failed to issue the writs within the prescribed time, then the sheriff and local officers were to proceed without writs and hold elections as though writs had been issued. The power of dissolution rested with the protector, but no parliament could be dissolved until it had been in session for at least five months. All who professed "faith in God by Jesus Christ" were to be protected in the exercise of their religion as long as they did not interfere with others or disturb the public peace, "provided this liberty be not extended to Popery or Prelacy." So far there is nothing in this constitution which Washington, in all his unself- ish integrity and magnanimous confidence in the judgment of the people, might not have given under similar circumstances. But the meat of the nut, of which all the other forty-one articles are after all only the husk, lies in the XXVII Article, which reveals the same old military boot still planted upon the neck of the 1653] THE PROTECTORATE ESTABLISHED 729 prostrate nation, which no amount of polishing or furbishing can disguise or make more attractive. By this article it was prescribed that a standing army of 30,000 men was to be regularly sup- ported by parliament, likewise "a convenient number of ships for guarding of the seas;" £200,000 per annum were to be raised to meet the ordinary expenses of government, not to be * 'taken away or diminished, nor the way agreed upon for raising the same altered, but by the consent of the Lord Protector and the parliament." Ostensibly the Instrument of Government was designed *'to set up a sort of strictly limited monarchy and a strictly limited parliament, mutually dependent on each other, so as to prevent the danger of either party becoming supreme." In reality it did nothing of the sort, but put almost unlimited power into the hands of Cromwell. When parliament was in session, a check, apparently, was placed at his side, but the fact that parlia- ment was forbidden, without his consent to reduce the standing army, enormous for these times, and that the army was placed by formal law entirely under his control, completely nullified the independent authority of parliament, and, in reality, reduced any opposition which it might offer, to the nature of advice or at best a protest. The council, however, adopted the Instrument, and, on the 16th of December 1653, Cromwell was solemnly inau- gurated in Westminster Hall. There were not lacking those who saw through the tissue of the new constitution which the friends of Cromwell had given the Commonwealth. Some of them were the politicians Reception of ^ ^ -, ii t,. -itt^t the imtru- who had opposcd the dissolution of the Lonff rarlia- ment, but they were without influence and the new pro- tector could affoi'd to ignore them. But when Harrison and the officers of his way of thinking declared that they had been deceived and cheated, the case was more serious, and the protector at once clapped Harrison and his friends into prison and deprived them of their commissions. Whatever others might think, Cromwell evi- dently had taken the Instrument of Government seriously, and henceforth there was to be no trifling with his dignity or question- ing of his motives. In general, the nation apparently was satis- fied : if the Stuarts could not be brought back, the mad career of 730 THE PROTECTORATE [oliveb Chomwell revolution at least was stayed and a strong hand grasped the reins. The Instrument of Government provided that the first par- liament should meet in the following September. During the intervening months Cromwell turned to the task of ius- The adminis- , . „ . , . , . , '' tratmn of tifjing the new arrangement in the minds of the public by the efficiency and moderation of the measures which he adopted for the peace and relief of the country. The Dutch War naturally demanded his first attention. The war had never been popular ; its advocates had advanced the plea that it was to favor British commerce, but its effect had been to destroy DutchWar. ^^i^i^h commerce almost entirely. Moreover, Crom- well himself had never favored the war, so that when the victory of February 1653 had been followed by a second vic- tory in June, and a third in July, in which Van Tromp was killed, the way was open for closing the war upon terms most favorable to England. Unfortunately, however, during the days of the Nominated Parliament, the proposal of terms on the English side lay with the Council of State where Cromwell had by no means held a free hand, although his influence was always great, and the council would be satisfied with nothing but a complete submission and amalgamation of the Netherlands with Eng- land. This was later changed to a proposal of alliance against all states which sustained the Inquisition, in which the two great Protestant naval states were to indemnify themselves by formally partitioning the colonial fields of Asia and America; England was to surrender her East India Company's possessions to the Dutch, and they in turn were to assist England in driving the Spaniards out of the Western Hemisphere. Finally, however, even these demands were pared down to a simple defensive alliance, a recognition of England's supremacy in the British seas, and a secret clause by which the Estates of Holland were to exclude the Honse of Orange permanently from the stadholderate. Claims for dam- ages which had been incurred by both sides, not only during the war, but during the long period of trade rivalry preceding, were, for the most part, to be adjusted by commissioners. On April 19, 1654 the treaty was ratified by the protector. 1654] REFORMS OF CROMWELL 731 The Dutch War and the negotiations which followed, reveal the approach of an era in whicli the advantages of trade and commerce, rather than religious enmities, push to the front as the atiwMd^^ great cause of international struggle. The old objects of warfare have not yet been altogether put aside, but they no longer dominate. The light of the morning is in the words in which Cromwell outlined to the Dutch commissioners the advantages of a policy of alliance for both people: The interests of both nations consisted in the welfare of commerce and navigation ; the industry of the Dutch ought not to be prevented, but the English could not be deprived of the advantages which nature had given them in the way of good harbors and geographical situation ; the world was wide enough for both peoples; if they could only "thoroughly well understand each other," their countries would become the markets of the world and dictate their will to Europe. With the same clear-sighted energy the protector turned to domestic affairs. The church naturally first attracted his atten- tion. Here anarchy had reigned for years. Each con- and the gregation followed the form or service which it chose, church. o o » and livings were held by all sorts of clergymen, from the followers of the old Anglican form to the radical Independents. Parliament had practically replaced the Covenant by the *' Engage- ment," by which a clergyman simply bound himself to be faithful to the Commonwealth. Many abuses had crept in, however, and many unworthy men had taken advantage of the absence of super- vision to secure livings. But this was no part of Cromwell's idea of toleration, and in March 1654, he created by ordinance a commission of thirty-five members, called "Triers," to pass upon the personal character and sufficiency of all nominees for livings. A second ordinance, issued in August, appointed commissioners in each county to eject men of scandalous lives who already held livings. The protector also turned his attention to tlie courts and appointed a mixed commission of lawyers and laymen to consider the present abuses and difficulties, and reduce the over- re/wms grown bulk of the Common Law to some practical form. To relieve the Court of Chancery, which had escaped the "Root and Branch" work of the Nominated Parlia^ 732 THE PROTECTOEATE [ Oliver Cromweli. merit, he empowered other courts to try equity cases until the docket had beeu cleared. In Ireland Cromwell steadily pursued the later English policy which had been inaugurated by Chichester and Falkland. His lieutenant, Fleetwood, and after him Cromwell's son admiMra- Henry, ruled with an iron hand. The men who were ^Ireland implicated in the earlier massacres were hanged or banished and their estates confiscated. The confisca- tions at the expense of Catholics continued steadily to the advantage of the English soldiery and the Adventurers. Crom- well would "meddle with no man's conscience," as he wrote to the governor of New Ross in 1649, yet apparently in his scheme of toleration he had no place for the Mass. The Catholic religion was virtually proscribed and the persecu- tions of the priests continued. The Irish parliament, also, was abolished. The same vigor was shown by the protector in the administra- tion of Scottish affairs. Here the Eump had placed an able lieu- tenant in George Monk, who after the disaster off and Scot- Dungeness had been transferred to the navy where he served during the rest of the war as "General at Sea," and proved himself as able as upon land. After the close of the war Cromwell sent him back to his old command in Scotland, where much rough work still remained to be done in the reduction of the Highland clansmen who had rallied about General Middle- ton and were making a forlorn stand for Charles II. Monk proved himself an adept at mountain warfare and it was not long before he compelled the last clansman to lay by his claymore and wait for better times for his beloved "Charlie." Presbyterianism was dethroned and all Protestant faiths were placed upon an equal footing before the laws. By the bigoted Scots, however, toleration was regarded with little favor; nor could the benefit which Scot- land received from the Navigation Act, or the right of free trading with the English colonies, the substantial results of which were manifested by an unexampled era of peace and prosperity, make the Scotsman see in the Cromwellian rule anything more than "a wicked paltering with error and sin." 1654J CROMWELL'S FIRST PARLIAMENT 733 For nine months, now, the affairs of the new government had been progressing most successfully. An unpopular war had been ended; abroad the English flag was respected as it had CromweWs ^^^^ ^GQn since the days of Elizabeth ; at home peace and administra- qujet reigned; the laws were honored, and trade and commerce were rapidly recovering from the paralysis whicli had attended the Civil War. The supreme test of the new constitution, however, was yet to come. The first Protectorate parliament met on September 3, 1G54. The protector had carried out his agreement in good faith, and the new parliament represented fairly the several first uariia- Protestant factions of the state : Presbyterians, Royal- ists, Republicans, and Cromwellians. Bradshaw and Haselrig were there, and Vane was denied a seat only by his own reluctance to submit to the Protectorate. As soon as the mem- bers were assembled, the Presbyterians and Republicans joined forces to strike at the root of CromwelPs authority, claiming the right to revise the Instrument of Government, and denying to the protector the coordinate authority sanctioned by the existing settlement. Cromwell reminded the members of the conditions upon which they had accepted oflftce, and insisted that each mem- ber should pledge himself not to attempt to alter the form of gov- ernment. About two hundred and thirty members signed the agreement ; the rest were excluded from the House. The most of those who refused to pledge themselves were Independents. The Presbyterians were thus left in control, and, while not nomi- nally attacking the Instrument, yet continued to discuss its terms, specially limiting the provisions for securing religious toleration, and going out of their way to take up the case of a demented Quaker, named Biddle, who had managed to give special offense by the way in which he aired his views. Five lunar months had now passed and nothing had been done. Even the voting of much- needed supplies for the army and navy had been neglected, and Cromwell in despair determined to take advantage of the right conferred upon him by the Instrument,^ and on January 22, 1655, dissolved his first parliament. ^Cromwell has been accused of violating the Instrument here; but 734 THE PEOTECTORATE [oliver Cromwell Cromwell had acted technically within the powers conferred upon him by the new constitution. Yet he lost many friends. The unlovely jangle of the military spur had been heard absSfniie ^g^^^? ^^^^ however small the sympathy which men might have with the conduct of the parliament, it was apparent to all that any parliament could be but a paper parlia- ment so long as a word from the protector was sufficient to send the members packing again. Plots broke out among the Levellers in the army. The royalists were greatly encouraged; in March it was necessary to use the military to put down an insurrec- tion at Salisbury. The leaders were executed. Merchants, also, refused to pay the imposts, on the plea that the government had no right to levy taxes without an act of parliament, and appealed to the courts. But Cromwell promptly dismissed the judges whose loyalty he had reason to doubt, exactly as Charles I. had done in the days of Hampden and ship money. He went a step beyond Charles or even Wentworth, and virtually placed all England under martial law; dividing the country into eleven dis- tricts and placing over each a major general, responsible only to the protector and the council. A tax of ten per cent w^as levied upon the royalists to defray the expenses of the new military gov- ernors and their assistants. Cromwell, further, turned upon the Episcopalian clergy, whom he, with justice perhaps, suspected of sympathizing with the recent revolts, and forbade them to teach in a public or private school, or to preach or to administer the sacra- ment, or to use the Prayer Book. The major generals also carried things with a high hand, organizing the militia, collecting taxes, and imprisoning the enemies of the government without resort to civil forms, and in a short time peace and order were restored. Englishmen had refused to accept the compromise which the army had offered, which, as Cromwell doubtless wished, in time might possibly have established a constitutional government in fact as well as in theory ; they were now compelled to obey Crom- well as a military despot. Blackstone, and after him Plallam, long ago pointed Qut that by English law a "month" was always to be taken as a lunar month unless other wise specified. 1654-1656] THE SPANISH WAH 735 In the autumn of 1654 war had virtually begun between the Commonwealth and Spain. The causes of the war are not easily understood. The weakness of Spain was well known to The Spanish European statesmen ; Spain, moreover, was a Catholic country, and Cromwell's Puritan conscience would feel none of those qualms which disturbed him when news was brought of the victories of Blake and Monk over the Protestant Dutch- men. But there were other reasons for war which any modern statesmen would wholly approve, such as the stubborn refusal of Spain to recognize the right of England to trade in the West Indies even with her own colonies, or the refusal to exempt Englishmen from the laws of the Inquisition. The latter fact alone, perhaps, is sufficient explanation. For whatever vacillation Cromwell may have shown in supporting other principles wliich are supposed to be characteristic of his foreign policy, upon this point he was always definite: Protestant Englishmen abroad were not to be interfered with on account of their religion. The fact, further- more, that France agreed to grant toleration to Englishmen, is sufficient to explain the French alliance of 1657 which gave England Dunkirk, and brought a division of the New Model to the conti- nent to show Frenchmen and Spaniards what war was like. The chief incidents of the Spanish War are soon told. In 1655 Penn and Venables took Jamaica and added it permanently to the list of English possessions in the New World. iiieidentsof In February 1650, Spain formally declared war, and in War. April 1657 Blake performed his famous feat at Santa Cruz which rivaled Drake's exploit of 1587. Pass- ing the batteries which guarded the entrance he sailed into the harbor, and, after a stubborn fight, burned and sank a fleet of sixteen Spanish galleons, and then retired without the loss, of a ship. In the meanwhile Cromwell had been compelled by the needs of his foreign war to summon another parliament. It met in September 1656 and mav be fairlv taken as represent- Thc second j j r parliament ing the height of Cromwellian influence. The vigorous of Cromivell. & & & foreign policy of Cromwell, the declaration of war by the Spanish king, the exploits of Blake, a procession of twenty- 736 THE PROTECTORATE [ Oliver Cromwell eight cart loads of bullion, the plunder of the Spanish treasure fleet, grinding and creaking through the streets of London on their way to the Tower, had revived again traditions which had come down from the days of Elizabeth, and appealed powerfully to the patriotic sentiment of all classes; at the same time sub- stantial peace and prosperity at home had gone far to reconcile many of the malcontents to the new order. Nevertheless the council found it necessary to deny seats to about one hundred of the returned members whose anti-Cromwellian sentiments were regarded as a menace to good order, leaving the new parliament so thoroughly Cromwellian that for several months nothing hap- pened to disturb the placid current of routine. The members showed their sympathy with the protector by voting large supplies and declaring plots against his life to be treason. Cromwell on his part was not behind them in giving evidence of his good faith and confidence. When they refused to approve the act of the council which had created the "government by major generals," he promptly recognized the right of interference as prescribed in- the Instrument and withdrew the major generals. In March 1657, however, all earlier effusions of confidence were outdone. The parliament, as a part of a general plan known as the Petition and Advice^ \>j ^hich it was proposed to "^^d^d^^ reorganize the government somewhat more in accord- ance with ancient English traditions, formally agreed by a vote of 123 to 63, to confer upon the protector the title of king. Cromwell was not only to assume the title of king with power to nominate his successor, but parliament was henceforth to consist of two houses, — an elected "House of Commons," and a second, styled the "Other House," the members of which were to be appointed by the king for life. Additions to the Council of State were to be made by the king with the consent of the council and parliament. It was also proposed to give to the government a yearly income of £1,300,000 to be continued during the life of the king. Toleration was to be assured to all except Papists, Prelatists, and blasphemers. Out of respect for his old comrades in arms, who had no wish to serve a "King Oliver" any more than they had to serve a King 1657] THE PETITION^ AND ADVICE 737 Charles, Cromwell refused to accept the royal title, and his par- liament dropped the offensive word from the new constitution. In this form Cromwell accepted the Petition, and ZitZ-^ on June 26, 1657, was solemnly installed for the stalled under second time as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. the Petitum. Cromwell was now king in everything except in name; the title, the very crown, had been offered to him and it had been his to decline it. Strange to say, moreover, Presbyterians, Royalists, and some of the nobles, honestly desired to see thePeti- the change wrought. A king, it was said, was neces- sary in order to govern England ; all the laws and insti- tutions presupposed a king, depended on a king, and could not be fitly administered without a king. But the army said. No; and even Cromwell must bow to the army. So he pushed the tempting bauble from him, for he dared not step out from the strong plank upon which he had stood so securely these many years, and trust himself to a party composed of men who had been for the most part his enemies. But even as it was, he soon found he had taken a step which he could not retrace. Lambert, the author of the original Listrument, claimed that he had been deceived and refused to take the oath of allegiance. But more serious trouble followed when the parliament reassembled for its sec- Dissoiution oud sessiou in January 1658. The members who had parliament, been excluded from the first session had been allowed to return. A number of Cromwell's friends, also, had been transferred to the new House of Lords. Thus an assembly which six months before had offered a crown to Cromwell, was transformed into a body pugnaciously hostile to kings and lords on principle. Haselrig opened an attack upon the new House of Lords; the Commons sustained him, refusing to recognize '*the Other House" or transact any business with them. The govern- ment was at once thrown into confusion ; everything came to a standstill ; and on February 4 Cromwell in great disgust dis- solved his second parliament. He warned the members that they were only playing into the hands of the king of Scots ; as for him- self he was sick of the whole business, and declared with a pathos which has the ring of sincerity: **I would have been glad to have 738 THE PROTECTORATE [olivku Cuomwell lived under my woodside, to have kept a flock of sheep, rather than undertake such a government.'" The strong man, in short, was breakiog under the load which he had assumed. Ills which he had contracted among the north- ^ ,^ , ern lowlands in the campaign of Dunbar had ever since Death of r- n Cromwell, been hard upon his track. On August 6 his favorite daughter Elizabeth Claypole died. The unremitting care which he had given her in her last illness, and the new burden of grief which entirely overwhelmed him, were too much for his failing strength; he followed her by just four weeks, dying on his lucky day, the double anniversary of Dunbar and Worcester. Thus passed the man whom the world is just beginning to understand. He was a practical ^ h ard -fi sted^ fmnnwi ^ yet capable of tenderness almost feminine. In will, he Crmmueii.^^ was gigantic, inflexible; in intellect, slow, unimagi- native, but profound; in thought, conservative, yet progressive; in purpose, sincere and upright; yet, in spite of all, he was doomed at last to stand alone, because in an age of fanati- cism he was the only fanatic who remained sane. In his idea of religious toleration he was a man of .the nineteenth century. He succored the Quakers. He tried to save the poor madman James Naylor, who imagined himself the Messiah. He tried to protect the Unitarians, from whom the ordinary Puritan drew back in horror as blasphemers ; he allowed Episcopalians to live in peace; he permitted the Jews to return to England, for the first time since their expulsion in the reign of Edward I. He promised Mazarin that, as soon as possible, he would secure toleration for Catholics also. As Cromwell belongs to the nineteenth century in his ideas of religious toleration, in his political toleration he belongs to the twentieth century. "He was a republican who had no hatred for monarchy as an institution; he was a monarchist who helped to establish a republic as the only refuge from the tyranny of a bad king. He was a radical who hated radicalism, a Leveller who hoped to bring back a House of Lords." At a time when the revolution was forcing all sorts of political theories into luxuriant growth, he remained without theories himself, and sought to select from the wreckage of the older system, only PERSONAL TRAITS OF CROMWELL 739 what was durable, and what promised best to restore order and peace and liberty to the England which he loved. It is no marvel that men who thought that they held a monopoly of truth, regarded him sometimes as wicked and self- seeking, sometimes as a time-serving hypocrite, but always as lukewarm. He is described as of ** great and majestic deportment and courtly presence." He loved the manly sports of hunting and horsemanship. He loved music, delighted in art, and fram^^ was fond of surrounding himself with learned men. On public occasions none could be more dignified; yet he knew also how to unbend when within the inner circle of friendship; he could make doggerel verses to amuse his children, could crack rough jokes or smoke a pipe with his friends. He hated affectation. "Paint me as I am," he said to Lely, "rough- ness, pimples, and warts, otherwise I will not pay you a farthing." Like Washington, "his temper was terrible when aroused;" then strong men trembled in his presence. In religion he was sincere and ardent; in private life he was simple and loving. He had nothing of Napoleon's vanity in his public achievements; he thought little of his place in history; he was not "the child of destiny," but simply "a mean instrument to do God's people some good." At forty-two he was a plain Huntingdonshire squire. Yet at forty-three he took up the study of war and soon secured a place among the world's greatest captains. At fifty he turned to politics and soon won for himself a place among "the most vigorous and resourceful of statesmen." Guided by the sure instincts of a great, strong nature, enthusiastic, yet always practical, he advanced step by step to that position from which for him there was no escape save death. It is true that he won his place by the sword, that he ruled by the sword; and yet only the sword could save England from anarchy and secure the fruit of that liberty for which a generation of Englishmen had struggled. On the death of Cromwell, his eldest son Richard passed quietly to the vacant post of protector. Thurloe, the protector's secre- tary, who had most to do with bringing forward the new Crom- 740 THE PROTECTORATE [richard Cromwell well, boasted "that not a dog wagged his tongue, so great was the calm." And yet the threat to the peace of England lay in the neutral character of the man whom Thurloe had Richard . Cromwell, douc most to Drinff forward. No man could be more Protector. unfitted for the post for which he had been chosen. He knew nothing either of war or politics; he was idle, easy-going, and without enthusiasm, indifferent to any business more serious than hunting or horse racing. In January 1659, the third protectorate parliament assembled. The members from England and Wales had been elected by the old constituencies as represented in the Lon^ Parlia- The third protectorate mcut, rotteu boroughs and all. The thirty members for Janimry, ' Ireland and the thirty for Scotland, however, had been chosen as in the first two protectorate parliaments. The parliament in the main favored the new protector, but the army was disappointed that one should be placed over it who was no soldier, and who did not even belong to the "godly kind." Fleetwood and Desborough, the one, Kichard's brother-in-law, and the other, his uncle, proposed to take from the protector his mili- tary powers by making Fleetwood commander-in-chief. Richard demurred; the Commons sought to strengthen his opposition. But, when the officers came to him and offered him the choice of the support of the army or the parliament, he was forced to yield, and on April 22 dissolved his parliament, even before it had voted the usual supplies. The dismissal of the third protectorate parliament was a fatal mistake. Richard was not strong enough to face the storm which an attempt to levy taxes without parliamentary sanc- reSmed^^ tiou would Create. So a parliament of some kind must nrotect&rate ^® called, and in May the Rump, which Cromwell had so summarily driven out in 1653, was allowed to return to Westminster. Thus the revolution had begun to retrace its steps. Vane, Bradshaw, Scot, and Haselrig, ardent republicans all, became at once the men of the hour. This undoubtedly was what the army wanted, for the old republican spirit, which Oliver had repressed with so much difficulty, was once more supreme among the soldiers. The Rump very naturally addressed itself to 1659] THE RUMP RESTORED 741 the restoration of the republic, and after making arrangements to pay the protector's debts, insisted that he lay down his office, and he, apparently nothing loath to be rid of an honor which had brought him only trouble and sleepless nights, left Whitehall on May 25, never to return. He retired into private life, too harmless to be molested in the several revolutions which followed, and died at last at a green old age in 1712. While the Rump was thus winding up the affairs of the pro- tectorate ill a bloodless counter revolution, the war which repre- sents Cromwell's foreign policy was coming to a successful close. In 1657 Cromwell had agreed to send over fcJi%f^"^" ^^^ thousand of his Ironsides to join the French in an attack upon what was left of Spain's possessions in the Low Countries. Mardyke was soon taken and in 1658 the vic- tory of the Dunes forced the surrender of Dunkirk, and the next year Spain made her peace with France by the Treaty of the Pyrenees. England received Dunkirk, and France, Roussillon and Artois, as the spoils of the war. It has been customary to censure Cromwell's intervention as a serious blunder. The results cer- tainly favored France far more than England, and possibly laid the foundations of the future power of Louis XIV., raising up in the place of moribund, bankrupt Spain a new rival to England in the France of the eighteenth century. Yet only prophetic wis- dom could have foreseen this issue in the middle of the sixteenth century. All the traditions of the century past pointed to Spain and not to France as the foe of England ; to cripple Spain was to assure the future not only of England but of Protestant Europe. CHAPTER VI THE STUART REST0KATI02!?" THE COMMONWEALTH, 1659, 1660 CHARLES IL, 1660-1667 The restoration of the Stuarts followed the abandonment of the protectorate as a political necessity. The Rump, reduced to about forty members, was again in power, and although ti!)n^poiit- ^^ straightway assumed all its former airs, declaring wai neces- the acts of the protectorate illegal, and commanding the major generals to refund the taxes which they had collected, no one took the fussy little oligarchy seriously, nor could any stretch of friendly imagination regard it longer as a parliament, or devise any theory by which it might be regarded as a legal government. By whom then should the authority of the state be exercised? Should a new Instrument of Government be struck out and some new experiment of military rule be tried? If the great Oliver were still alive, this might be possible; but he was gone and the mould was broken. Moreover,^ in the collapse and utter prostration which had followed the over-tension and over- excitement of revolution, in the complete failure of so many schemes for curing the ills of church and state, the nation had lost confidence in itself. More serious still, it had lost that splen- did moral energy which had inspired it to attempt great things, and now sighed for the old tutelage. Hence, long before the year 1659 had run out, the hopelessness of attempting to continue the Com- monwealth was generally apparent, and the most had begun to look for the return of the Stuarts and the reestablishment of the old monarchy as the quickest way out of a bad business; — the surest way of establishing order and confidence upon a permanent foundation. 743 1659] MONK MARCHES UPON LONDON 743 In the Slimmer some dignity was imparted to the Rump by the prompt suppression of a royalist rising in Cheshire, where Sir George Booth, a Presbyterian, and a member of the SecWmof Long Parliament, had managed to get a considerable OcM!er^%59 ^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ ^e\d. Lambert, however, was the real hero of the war, and an ill-advised attempt to remove him and Desborough, revealed the slender platform upon which the new power of the Eump actually rested. Lambert simply marched his men down to AYestminster, and turned the self-styled parliament out with even less ceremony than Cromwell had used in 1653. Lambert and Fleetwood then essayed to play over again the role of the Great Protector. But the feeble imitation of the roar of the dead lion only excited derision and contempt. The authority of the self-appointed leadere was defied; their right to collect taxes denied; and at last even their own soldiers grew rest- less and disgusted with the farce. Then the leaders fell into an aimless wrangle among themselves, and finally in December Fleet- wood in sheer desperation again brought back the Rump. In the meanwhile disquieting rumors were reaching London from Scotland, where George Monk was still in command, sup- ported by the old Commonwealth army of occupation. marches from He was a silcnt man, who knew how to keep his coun- Scotlaiid. . T . . t . , sels; a simple soldier, neither politician nor fanatic, but shrewd enough to see what the outcome of so much indecision and weakness must be. At the outbreak of the Civil War he had been in the king's service in Ireland, had crossed over with the army in 1044, and, after the defeat at Nantwich, with many others had taken service under the parliament. His ability was recognized by Cromwell; he rose rapidly and bore no unimportant part in establishing the prestige of the Commonwealth. He had steadily supported Cromwell but he was not pleased with the drift of affairs at Westminster after the protector's death and was also not slow to express his disapproval of the conduct of the generals. On January 1, 1660 he crossed the border. Lambert advanced to Newcastle to hold the Tyne, but his soldiers refused to support him and showed their ill will by frequent desertions ; and when in addition to these discouragements Lambert learned that Fair- 744 THE EESTOllATIOJq^ [chablesII. fax had raised the Yorkshire militia in his rear, he saw that resistance was useless and allowed Monk to march upon London. When Monk entered the city, he found it in wild uproar. Its representatives had been among the Presbyterian majority who had been expelled from the Long Parliament in 1648 and SSthe ^^^ ^^^y council had now taken the broad ground that, ^^^'^^^*^^*^- "since they were denied representation in parliament, they would pay no taxes until the vacancies had been filled. Monk saw the justice of their claim; he felt also that only by a new parliament could the existing difficulties be settled. On February 16, therefore, he declared for a free and full parliament and compelled the Rump to call back the excluded members. The moderate party were thus again brought into power. They pro- ceeded to appoint Monk commander-in-chief of the army and Montague admiral of the navy, imprisoned Lambert and Vane, ordered tlie election of a new parliament, and then, March 16, 1660, voted their own dissolution. Thus at last the Long Parlia- ment by its own act, was properly dismissed into history; and for the first time in twenty years the legal voters of England had an opportunity to express their opinions in a free general election. There could be little doubt as to what kind of government the new parliament would favor. But no effort was made to control the elections or commit the members. Monk had kept 'wmof^Breda ^^^^ ^^^ counsels, declaring that if his shirt knew what was in his head, he would burn his shirt. Charles in the meanwhile was at Breda in North Brabant, surrounded by a little court of exiles who had continued to cling to the Stuart House in the midst of its misfortunes. Their turn was at last coming. Charles, however, was under the control of wise coun- sellors, and on April 4 he issued from his asylum the famous Declaration which still farther cleared the air and helped to win the confidence of the hesitating. He promised a general pardon, but left exceptions to be made by parliament as well as the final disposition of confiscated estates. He also pledged himself to support a measure for the full payment of the arrears which were due Monk's soldiers and to receive them into his service. He promised further that "no man should be disquieted for differences 1660] THE CONVENTION PARLIAMENT 745 of opinion in matters of religion which do not disturb the peace of the realm," and that he would accept any act which parliament might pass with this object in view. The new parliament, which assembled on the 25th of April, is known as the "Convention Parliament" because the writs had not been issued in the king's name and to that extent were hm^of^uie technically irregular. The Lords, with the exception PaiMammt ^^ ^^® bishops, who had been legally excluded by statute, assembled in their old accustomed place. Here the cavalier spirit naturally ran high; but in the Commons, since the Malignants, or radical cavaliers, were still disqualified, the more conservative royalists, represented mostly by the Presby- terians and moderate Episcopalians, were in the majority. The Declaration of Breda, in which Charles had virtually left the future adjustment of affairs to parliament, particularly appealed to this body, who, while it wished to get away from Cromwellianism, had no wish to see the principles of Laud or Strafford reinstated. In spite, therefore, of an attempted revolt by Lambert who had escaped from the Tower, in spite of the protests of Ilaselrig and Ludlow, in spite of the tracts of Milton who frantically urged upon the people the advantages of the republican form of govern- ment, in spite even of the efforts of Fairfax and ^lanchester who would hold Charles off until more definite pledges had been secured, the parliament declared that "according to the ancient and fundamental laws of this kingdom, the government is and ought to be, by King, Lords, and Commons," and invited Charles Stuart to assume the royal authority. On the 28th of May IGGO, his thirtieth birthday, Charles entered London. He is described as tall, dark, with prominent features; not handsome, yet fascinating in manner and Character brilliant in speech, abounding in patience and good Charles II. humor, and of marvelous tact. But under all this charming exterior he concealed a nature which was selfish, unscrupulous, deceitful, and capable of the grossest debauchery. For ten years, however, he had now been before the public, and these baser elements of his nature were well under- stood. Cromwell had said, when asked to treat with him, "He is 746 THE EESTORATIOI^ [ Charles II. SO damnably debauched, that he would ruin us all." Yet Charles was no fool; under an exterior which made him appear always trifling and indifferent, he concealed a natural sagacity, certainly an unusual trait in a Stuart. He had also been tutored to good purpose by the events of his chequered career, and had no wish to "set out on his travels again." He had studied well his father's career, and saw that his father's mistake lay in allowing himself to appear as the responsible agent in carrying out his policy of repression. He deliberately adopted, therefore, the wiser, if not the more honorable policy, of throwing all respon- sibility upon his ministers, and keeping himself in such a position, that he might at any time disclaim their acts. This policy he had already inaugurated when he had so heartlessly left poor Montrose to suffer for his devotion in 1650. At his coronation Charles made Edward Hyde, his old tutor and the companion of his wanderings. Earl of Clarendon and advanced him to the position of chancellor. At this of^Chalflt''^ time Hyde was fifty-one years old. He had been a member of the Long Parliament and had voted for the attainder of Strafford. But like Falkland and others, he was devoted to the Anglican Church, and had quarreled with the radical reformers over the Root and Branch Bill, thus making the first division in the Long Parliament and ultimately creating a king's party. Of others who received the new king's favors were Monk who was made Duke of Albemarle, and Charles's brother, James Duke of York, who was made Lord High Admiral. James was a convert to Catholicism and as devoted to religion as the king was indifferent. With him was associated the Commonwealth admiral, Montague, who was made Earl of Sandwich. Anthony Ashley Cooper, another Commonwealth man, was made Chancellor of the Exchequer and raised to the peerage as Lord Ashley. The Convention Parliament at once took up the business of adjusting the kingdom to the new order, proceeding upon the lines suggested by the Declaration of Breda. An Act of Indem- nity and Oblivion, covering all offenses committed since the out- break of the Civil War, prepared for the proclamation of a general amnesty, from which only those were exclnded who had brought 1660] THE CONVEKTIOX PARLIAMENT 747 the Ifite king to his death. The bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, Pride, and Bradshaw were taken from their graves and hung in chains from tall gibbets, while London roared with applause. Fi'fcfmlen- ^J"^? Blake, who had died on the way home from Vera ment"'^^^^' ^^^^z, the mother of Cromwell, and others were torn from their resting places at Westminster and tlirown into a common pit. Then, having glutted their ghoulish vengeance on the dead, the avengers turned upon the living. Twenty-nine were held for trial. Harrison and nine others were condemned to death. Martin was imprisoned in Chepstow Castle where he died in 1G81. Haselrig and Lenthall were declared incapable of office for the rest of their lives; Whitelock was left to die in obscurity. Lambert and Vane, who were not regicides, were spared for the present. The marvel is that more did not suffer; but Charles took no delight in blood-shedding for its own sake. He was shrewd enough, moreover, to see that moderation would make him no enemies while an unseemly vindictiveness might. A far more difficult question to settle was the disposal of the claims to the forfeited estates. Those who had fought for the father and shared the exile of the son surely ought Z(£^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^ ^^^^ "^ penary. Yet the new king, after the promise of indemnity and oblivion, could not deprive the present holders of lands which had in most instances been obtained by open purchase. Moreover, the men who had restored Charles were in 'many cases the very men who had profited most by the parliamentary forfeitures. In general no rule was established and the individual cavaliers were left to fight the matter out in the courts and get what redress they could. To them the Restoration had offered only a cold cake; bitterly they commented on the humanity of the Convention Parliament; the Act of Indemnity they called "an Act of Indemnity for the king's enemies and an Act of Oblivion for his friends." The difficult task of paying off and dismissing the old Crom- wellian soldiers was next taken in hand and entrusted to Monk. He performed his work so well that in a very short time the veterans of the Commonwealth wars had returned to their old peaceful occupations. The prejudice against a standing army was 748 THE RESTORATION [charlesH. as strong as ever, and it was at first intended to disband all the regiments, but an outbreak of a small band of Fifth Monarchy enthusiasts, who by the violence and suddenness of Fwcomnum- ^^®i^ attack terrorized London for a few hours, impressed bandecL^'^ upon the government the importance of having a body of disciplined men within call. Three regiments, therefore, in all about five thousand men, were retained. These regiments were Monk's own regiment, the famous "Cold Stream Guards," a newly organized regiment know^n as "The King's Horse Guards," and a third regiment stationed as a garrison at Dunkirk. They were uniformed in the famous scarlet coat, which had already been worn by Cromwell's Ironsides in the French campaign. With the artillery they formed the nucleus out of which has developed the modern regular army of the British Empire. In order still further to remove all temptation to revolt, parliament directed the dismantling of the walls and fortresses of all the inland towns of England. The walls of Oxford, York, and Chester, however, were spared for the sake of the loyalty of these cities to the late king. The Convention Parliament was by no means a body of mere blind reactionaries. They had no wish to restore again the machinery of the old arbitrary government of Charles RevMion^ I., which the Long Parliament had swept away. The Star Chamber and the Court of High Commission were left to rest in their graves. No effort was made to revive ship money or benevolences or forced loans; no one raised the question of the right of the crown to levy taxes without the consent of the nation given through its representatives. Even the Privy Council might not venture again to issue its ordinances as laws upon sub- jects where parliament had spoken. So, also, the vast body of out- worn feudal precedents which Charles I. had sought to revive in the interests of his treasury, were now formally and finally abol- ished; and the old medieval system of subsidies was abandoned for the system of regular assessments which the Commonwealth had introduced. To indemnify the king for the surrender of feudal revenues, he received an hereditary excise on liquors, which then amounted to about £300,000. Thus, although the Common- 1660] THE CAVALIER PARLIAMENT 749 wealth had gone, the work of Coke and Eliot, of Hampden, Pym, Vane, and Cromwell, was not to be undone. England had at last shaken herself loose from feudalism and the middle ages; her people had established their right to make their own laws and levy their own taxes for the needs of government. The entire tissue of prerogative theories had been riven and blown away in the storms of the Revolution. Hereafter, when law is violated by the crown or its officers, it is done by fraud or open violence, but not under the pretext of superior right. On December 29, 16G0, Charles dissolved his first parliament, — his "healing and blessed parliament" as he called it; and on May 8, his second parliament met. The royalist reaction in The Cnvnlier Parliament, the Country had now progressed so far that very few of the moderate men of the first parliament had been returned. Instead, a body of bitter reactionaries came together, "more jealous for royalty than the king, more jealous for Episco- pacy than the bishops," and determined to take vengeance on their old enemies and ignore all the acts of the Long Parliament which had not been sanctioned by the formal assent of King, Lords, and Commons. Of the acts which had been passed before 1G42 and had received the sanction of the king, only two were repealed ; but the repeal of these two, the Triennial Act and the act which excluded the bishops from the House of Lords, laid the foundation of the second Stuart Despotism. Two other acts also revealed the drift of the new parliament. It was declared that the command of the militia lay in the hands of the king and, further, that even a defensive war against the king was unlawful. So eager was the new parliament for vengeance that the gov- ernment could with difficulty persuade it to confirm the various conciliatory measures of the last parliament. It was Execution of .!; ,,1 tti Sir Henry determined to have blood; and Lambert and Vane Vane, 1662. . . . , ' „ _ , were brought to trial on a charge of treason. Lambert escaped the death penalty, only to be imprisoned for life, but Vane was condemned to a traitor's death. That more victims did not suffer was due, not to the temper of parliament, but to Charles himself, who had no sympathy with what his over ardent friends called "justice." 750 THE RESTOKATION [cuarles ll. The burning question of the hour was still the old question of chiirch settlement. The majority of the nation, perhaps, would have been well pleased with a settlement upon the basis Ziemenfof ^^ some such plan as Cromwell had favored, known as timi^^^^^^ the '* Comprehension," because it comprehended all the various Protestant bodies, leaving the bishop to be simply an overseer of the church, associated in his diocese with a council of presbyters but shorn of all authority as lord. Charles had practically declared for such a scheme when he was playing for the support of the Presbyterians. As far as his own religious preferences were concerned he leaned towards Catholicism; his dissolute life, moreover, put an insurmountable barrier between himself and the leaders of the Presbyterian party. Presbyterian- ism, he had said, was "no religion for a gentleman." If he must choose. Episcopacy from his point of view would be the least objectionable. Charles, therefore, now that he had won his throne again, could have no other motive save the honor of his word, which never weighed heavily with him, in resisting the efforts of Clarendon and his Cavalier Parliament, who were determined to restore the whole Anglican system. Their purpose was embodied in a series of tyrannical acts known as the "Clarendon d^CodT^"^ Code."^ Of these the "Corporation Act," passed in 1661, required all local borough officials to receive the communion according to the rites of the church, take the oaths of supremacy, allegiance, and nonresistance, and renounce the Covenant; the "Act of Uniformity," passed in May 1662 , required all beneficed clergy to use the Prayer Book, and further threatened to deprive of their livings all who, not having been ordained by a bishop, should fail to secure such ordination before the 24th of August following, — St. Bartholomew's Day. When the fatal day of August arrived, some two thousand men, rather than be faithless to conscience, turned their backs upon their pleasant homes and went out, many of them with families, to 1 They were The Corporation Act, 1661, The Act of Uniformity, 1662, The Conventicle Act, 1664, and The Five Mile Act, 1665. See Gee and Hardy, pp. 594-623. 1662] THE DISSENTERS 751 penury and actual want ; for beyond a few months' salary no other relief was given. The two thousand clergymen included Pres- The found- hyterians, Independents, and Baptists, "probably the hod'^'^o?^ most zealous ministers of the gospel in England," '"Dissenters." henceforth to be merged in the great body of "Dissen- ters. " Of dominant Puritanism we hear no more. Even the Presbyterian renounced all hope of enforcing his scheme of gov- ernment upon the nation, and looked only for some form of tolera- tion by which he might be left in peace in his peculiar form of worship. It was impossible, however, to keep such men from preaching or attempting to minister to those of their flock who clung to them in their misfortune. Yet even here the hostility o/D^ntS-s ^^ ^^^ Cavalier Parliament followed them. The "Con- venticle Act" of May 1G64 declared that any meeting of more than five person's for religious worship in ways other than those prescribed by the church was an "illegal conventicle;" the first offense to be punished by fine and imprisonment, the second offense by a heavier fine and longer imprisonment, and the third offense by a fine of £100, or transportation for seven years. The Conventicle Act was followed in October 10G5 by the "Five Mile Act" which forbade the dissenting clergyman to teach in any school, or to come within five miles of any corporate town or any place where he had once been pastor. The local magistrates, that is the Cavalier squires, who were empowered to convict without a jury and condemn even to the sentence of transportation, administered the acts with cruel zeal. Spies and informers did not hesitate to use the cloak of piety in order to ply their nefarious trade. The Dissenters would not yield their right of worshiping God in their own way. Thousands were cast into the filthy and unhealthy dens which passed for prisons, where the weak and the infirm quickly succumbed and the strong came forth after a few months fmiandfhe ^^^^en in body if not in spirit. John Bunyan, the vil- PrSiS.'**' ^^^^ pastor of Bedford, passed eleven years in the vil- lage jail. It was during this period that he sent forth his "Pilgrim's Progress" to comfort and direct his fellows in persecution on their way to the Celestial City. The lot of the 752 THE RESTORATION" [charles IL Quakers was particularly hard. Their gentle manners, coupled with the most indomitable obstinacy in refusing to take the ordi- nary court oaths, at first puzzled and then roused the fury of the country squires. Some four hundred of them at one time lay in the London jails, and a thousand or more in the other prisons of the country. Laud himself could hardly have done more. Yet there is this difference to be noted between the work of Laud and that of Clarendon. The Clarendon Code was due not so much The worTi of . . . ,..,.. ,„, Laiidand to reliffious animositv as to political animositv. The Laudian persecutions were carried on without parlia- ment and contrary to the laws, hut the Restoration persecutions Avere carried on by the special sanction of parliament and under the laws. The Laudian persecutions were supported by the king and his bishops, and continued in spite of the protest of the nation; the Restoration persecutions were supported by a power- ful national party who had their way in spite of a good-natured king, who was too shrewd to interfere, but who of himself would have preferred toleration. Laud, moreover, aimed to make the church independent of parliament, but the authors of the Restora- tion persecutions were interested rather in asserting the authority of the restored parliament over those elements of the nation which they justly regarded as responsible for the excesses of the Civil War. Although eager to restore the church as the buttress of Cavalierism, they had no desire to put the clergy back upon the pedestal from which the Puritans had once thrown them doAvn. The very parliament which passed the Clarendon Code, in 1662 took from the Convocation the right of ecclesiastical taxation and vested it in the House of Commons, where clergymen were not allowed to sit ; thus merging the last of the group of powers, which had constituted the dignity of the once great First Estate, in the fiscal and political powers of the body which had come to repre- sent the common nation. The age in fact was anything hut a religious age. The nation was drifting rapidly from its old moorings, and coming to look upon all theological divergences, not by any means with indiffer- ence, but as a matter of personal politics rather than personal reli- 1661] THE RESTORATION IN IRELAND 753 gion. The real religion of the governing class, the only religion in fact which ever took hold upon the imagination of the Cavalier, j^ ,. , was a sort of king-worship, which all bat apotheosized ufe^Jf'^^ the late king and forced the church, in return for sup- hngjand. port and protection, to take up the propaganda of mon- archy as the form of government specially pleasing to God, with the accompanying doctrines of divine right, passive obedience, and nonresi stance. In Ireland the restoration of royal authority was a simple mat- ter, but the conflict of cross interests made the final adjustment of claims and titles even more difficult than in England. Wminire- In the first place there was the great garrison of Crom- wellian veterans and their friends, who had settled in the most choice parts of the island. Then there were the loyal Cavaliers who had sacrificed all for the king, and who naturally expected to be rewarded to the extent, at least, of getting back the lands which they had lost in consequence of their loyalty. In the third place there were a few royal favorites as the king's brother James Duke of York, Albemarle, and others, to whom the king had made large promises of Irish lands ; and finally there was the older Celtic Catholic population, who had reason to think that their loyalty to the Stuarts deserved protection at least. The high-minded Ormond, the Lord Lieutenant, nobly wrestled with the problem. He dared not disturb the old Cromwellian soldiers, lest he rouse them to open revolt, and by the Act of Settlement, 1G61, confirmed them in their present possessions as well as the English Adventurers who had- settled under the pledge of Charles I. A new adjustment, four years later, evened matters up some- what between the Cromwellian settlers and the royalists ; but the Catholic Irish population were left in possession of less than one- third of the island. An even more serious matter for Ireland was the dissolution of the union, an act which committed England to her later Irish policy, with all the vexing questions growing out of it, depriving Ireland of the benefit of the Navigation Act and preparing the way for a systematic and deliberate policy of fatten- ing English farmers and merchants at the expense of Ireland. This policy began to bear fruit in 16G5 when the English parlia- 754 THE EESTO RATION" [cuarles ii. merit forbade the Irish to export to England either cattle, or meat, or butter, thus cutting off Ireland from the possibility of develop- ing as a grazing country, for which both soil and climate specially adapted her. The restoration of the Irish parliament further prepared the seeds of future bitterness by placing the Celtic Catholic population at the mercy of laws made by the Protestant minority, who now held the great part of the lands of the island and controlled the local parliament. The Anglican Church, hated alike by Irish Presbyterian and Irish Catholic, was also brought back to add still another element of discord and misery in the future. Yet in spite of the wrongs of the pe'ople, in spite of disturbances caused by "Eapparees" and "Tories,"^ for twenty- five years after the return of the Stuarts the land was substantially at peace and there was much prosperity for the Protestant settlers of the north, although little for the subject Celts of the south and west. The Scots had never liked the Cromwellian union, partly because Cromwell had maintained it in a somewhat arbitrary way, and partly because the Scots were still by tradition suspicious of the English, l^he abandonment of the union, therefore, followed at once upon the withdrawal of Monk's army, and Scotland again became a separate state, bound to England only by the possession of a common king. Like Ire- land she lost the benefit of the Navigation Act, the privilege of trade without restriction in the English colonies as well as freedom of trade with England, but she got back her precious ministry and her parliament. All acts passed subsequent to 1632 were swept away by the "Rescissory Act." The bishops were restored, but without their powers or the fatal Liturgy of Laud. The royalists, however, were not willing to stop with merQ reac- tionary legislation. The blood of Montrose was still unavenged, and, to satisfy the cry for vengeance, Argyll was arrested in Lon- don and hurried back to be put to deatt upon the nominal charge of complicity in the death of Charles I. The Presbyterian clergy, 1 Bands of desperate outlaws, who sought to avenge the wrongs of the Irish people by preying upon the settlers of English blood. 1662] THE RESTQRATIOISr IK SCOTLAND 755 who had protested against the promise of toleration^ given in the Declaration of Breda, found themselves like their English brethren compelled either to accept the hated Episcopacy or to face a life burdened with persecution or, at best, penury. All political power, both administrative and legislative, passed into the hands of a com- mittee, nominated by the crown and composed of a set of men among whom the ruffians, Middleton and Lauderdale, soon became conspicuous, whose native coarseness and overbearing brutality were not improved by a habit of almost perpetual drunkenness. **It was a mad, roaring time." Middleton and Lauderdale let loose their troopers to hunt down the Covenanters among the western hills and moorlands. The spirit of these Covenanters, however, was quite different from that of the inoffensive Quaker or even the nonconformist of the south. Persecution did not make them meek ; the preacher's cloak as often covered a sword or pistol as a Bible, and the stealthy gathering for prayer was more than once -the prelude to a fierce battle with the king's men. The spirit of such men could not be broken, even when the High- landers were sent into their homes to dragoon them into submis- sion. The Restoration made little difference in the foreign policy of England so far as alliances were concerned, but its spirit was very different. Clear-headed Englishmen, including Claren- tinnandfor- ^^^^ himself, already saw the menace to England of the ErwUind^'^^ growing power of France, but Charles saw only the immediate benefit which the support of the French monarchy promised him. In 1662 he married the Catholic princess, Catharine, who was a sister of the king of Portugal, the old ally of France against Spain. Bombay and Tangier came to England as the price which Portugal paid for this alliance. The English were not pleased with the increase of their Catholic allies, and when, the same year, Charles parted with Dunkirk, the Great Pro- tector's last acquisition, selling it to the French for £250,000, even the bliadest of royalists felt some chagrin in comparing the subservient position assumed by his beloved king with that inde- pendent dignity which Cromwell had maintained in the face of other nations. 756 THE RESTORATpN [ Charles II. Charles had received popular support in an attack which the Convention Parliament had made upon the carr}ung trade of Holland in renewing the old "Navigation Act" of the Renewal of -r> ^ni cnmmerciai Rump. Charles, also, was determined that his sister's attack upon Holland. son should DC restored to the Stadholdership, from Second Dutch , . , , t^ War, 1665- which the Dutch Eepublicans, the brothers De Witt, were keeping him. Old trade jealousies, too, hardly allayed by a treaty which Clarendon made in 1662, burned as fiercely as ever. Hostilities soon began both in Africa and in America, wherever English and Dutch merchants or colonists came into contact. Clarendon struggled against the war spirit, but the merchant influence w^as too strong for him, and for two years the English and Dutch carried on a desperate contest on the seas. The English navy was paralyzed by mismanagement and knavery, and vast sums were squandered to no purpose. The heroes of tlie war on the English side were the veterans Rupert and Albemarle; on the Dutch side De Ruyter. The war closed with the peace of Breda, July 1667, leaving England in possession of New Amster- dam, which had been taken by Admiral Holmes early in the Avar. It was rechristened New York in honor of the king's brother, the Lord High Admiral, and at once took a high place among the important English colonies in the New World. Charles's ally, Louis of France, had supported the Dutch in the war, first because the merchant oligarchy who ruled Holland and opposed the Prince of Orange, were French both in policy and in sympathy, and second because he did not wish to have his English protege grow so strong that he could not be controlled. While England was engaged in the Dutch War, there occurred one of those visitations, always mysterious in an era when little was known of the simplest laws of sanitation, but to-day Via ue^md ^6^dily ascribed to the open sewers, lack of drainage, polluted water, and filthy tenements, the common features of life in a European city down to the present century. In the summer of 1665, it is estimated, over one hundred thou- sand persons perished in London; whole families were swept away ; business was abandoned and all who could, fled the city. The streets were deserted by day, and at night the silence was 1666, 1667] THE GKEAT FIRE 757 broken only by the dismal creaking of the dead-cart, and the yet more dismal cry of the driver, as from time to time he stopped his cart and summoned the terrified watchers within to bring out their dead. In marked contrast with the conduct of the Episco- palian clergy, the dissenting clergymen, Presbyterian, Bap- tist, and Independent, returned to the doomed city to minister to their old parishioners in their day of mourning. Some even preached from the vacant pulpits of the deserted city churches. When the terror had passed, and the skulkers returned, the only reward which parliament vouchsafed to the heroic men who had braved death in the performance of duty was the "Five Mile Act." London had hardly recovered from the paralysis which attended the plague, when there fell upon the city another calamity, which was in all probability a blessing in disguise and prevented Fire, Septem- the return of the pestilence. At two o'clock of tlie morning of September 2, 1666, a fire, the result of a mere accident, broke out in a bake shop in Pudding Lane; a violent gale was blowing, and the flames rapidly swept through the city. The fire raged for four days, burning eighty-nine churches, including St. Paul's Cathedral, and 13,200 houses, leaving two hundred thousand persons homeless, and subsiding only after four-fifths of Old London had been laid in ashes. Curiously enough the Catholics were charged with burning the city, and a monument was erected to commemorate the awful crime. The charge rested upon no evidence; the Dissenting ministers or the king might have been accused with equal justice. It shows how deeply the old enmity and suspicion, born of the sixteenth century, had eaten into the very blood of the nation. Hatred of Catholics was the birthright of the new generation of Englishmen. Thus far Clarendon had in the main been responsible for the conduct of the Restoration government. He was an able man of affairs and a loyal minister; but he was not a great The fall of ^ ^ ^ ^ -,-,.. . rr.^ -r^ , Clarendon, statesman nor a successful politician. The Presby- terians could never forgive him for the Clarendon Code; the royalists could not forget his honest adhesion to the Act of Indemnity. From Charles, however, he might reasonably 76S THE RESTORATION [chaulesII. expect a cordial support; his long tried friendsliip, Ins real service to the Stuarts in exile, his no less real service in organizing and establishing the restored government upon a solid basis, could not be ignored by a man who had any sense of personal honor. There was little, however, in common between the high-minded royalist, who drew his conceptions of duty and loyalty from the age of Elizabeth, and the dissolute and easy-going king of thirty, who was more bent upon getting funds with which to keep his mis- tresses in good humor than he was upon preserving England's prestige abroad or equipping fleets to fight her battles. Claren- don, moreover, never took any pains to conceal his disapproval of the unclean creatures who surrounded the king, nor of the license of the court which the king so shamelessly encouraged. An open breach between the king and his faithful minister had mmipinlm^' ^^^^^^^^ ^^ December 1G62, when the king, taking iS^^' advantage of the adjournment of parliament, published a declaration softening somewhat the harshness of the recent Act of Uniformity by permitting individuals to violate the law without punishment. Charles had little sympathy with the humble Dissenters, but he hoped to protect the prominent Catholics of his court. When parliament met again, it at once compelled the king to withdraw his declaration. In this first serious quarrel between Charles and parliament. Clarendon took sides against the king and openly opposed him in the House of Lords. As long as Clarendon had the support of parliament, however, the king feared to interfere with his minister. But a late misfor- tune of the Dutch War, in which a Dutch fleet had entered the Medway and burned an English fleet at Chatham, the disgraceful sale of Dunkirk, for both of which Charles was to blame and not Clarendon, the Great Plague and the Great Fire, for which neither was to blame, turned the popular tide against the minister. Even the parliament, royalist as it was, had grown weary of a man who had declared that "its power was more, or less, or nothing, as the king pleased to make it. " When, therefore, on the 10th of October 1067, Clarendon was impeached at the bar of the House of Lords as the scapegoat for the disasters of the Dutch W^ar, he stood alone. Of the twenty-one articles brought against him, no one 1667] THE FALL OF CLARENDON 759 was really serious ; and yet, knowing the men with whom he had to deal, he saw that his only safety lay in flight. On the con- tinent he spent his last days in completing his celebrated work, 'The History of the Great Rebellion.'' He died in 1674. The fall of Clarendon marks the close of a distinct period in the reign of Charles II. Clarendon had sought to restore the king- ship ; but to restore the old kingship of the Tudor period was no longer possible, for the king must henceforth govern in the pres- ence of a parliament. At first this was not understood; the parlia- ment was more loyal to the kingship idea than Charles himself. But "the honeymoon of the Restoration was now over and only an uneasy wedlock remained;" the Cavalier Parliament had lost its *' impulsive loyalty," and soon degenerated into the parliament known by the less honorable, but no less merited, name of the ''Pensionary Parliament," whose loyalty could never be depended on by the king without a preliminary course of careful nursing and manipulation. The king on his part shaped his policy more and more definitely towards the restoration of the Catholic Church, while the parliament rallied what little sense of self- respect remained, to defy him and impeach his ministers. CHAPTER VII THE BIRTH OF THE WHIG PARTY CHARLES II., 1667-1685 The history of the last eighteen years of the reign of Charles II. turns upon the efforts of the king, firsts to secure toleration for the Catholics, and second^ to defeat the schemes of a WMg%c!rty. Powerful party of reaction, which proposed to exclude his brother from the succession on account of his adhesion to the Catholic faith. The purpose of Charles appenls powerfully to the love of fair play of the present age; especially since, in order to secure the equal standing before the laws of his co-reiigionists, he was willing to confer the same boon upon Protestant Dissenters. But unfortunately, when Charles saw that he could not gain his ends through regular constitutional methods, he resorted to the devious ways of secret treaties with the French, and thus in the minds of Englishmen identified himself and his cause with the sins of Louis XIV. against the public law of Europe, and brought on a powerful anti-Catholic, anti-French reaction, which in time gave birth to a new political party sworn to exclude Catholics of whatever degree from all part in the govern- ment at home, and to check the aggressions of Louis XIV. abroad by setting bounds to the further expansion of France. After the fall of Clarendon Charles undertook for a time to be his own chief minister. He found the council, however, which now consisted of about fifty members, too unwieldy for ''Cahair easy manipulation, and dropped into a habit of con- sulting informally a group of special favorites, a council within the council, before submitting matters of importance to the larger body. Five men enjoyed this special confidence during most of the time between the impeachment of Clarendon and the beginning of the career of Danby; Clifford, Arlington, Bucking- 760 1668] THE CABAL 761 ham, Ashley, and Lauderdale. When arrayed in this order, the initial letters spelled the unfortunate word "Cabal," which was at once fastened upon the junto as appropriately descriptive of their aims and underhand methods. Of the five, two, Clifford and Arlington, were Catholic at least in sympathy ; one, Lauderdale, was the renegade Covenanter who since 1663 had been virtually dictator in Scotland; one, the cleverest of them all. Lord Ashley, was a renegade Commonwealth man, who as plain Anthony Ashley Cooper had served in the Barebones Parliament, a sort of political infidel who had tried all parties and believed in none; and last, the son of the old favorite of Charles I., George Villiers Duke of Buckingham, "the maddest, wittiest, most profligate man in Eng- land." ^ Men of such widely divergent principles, and of no prin- ciples at all, could never form a strong coalition; they could not form a ministry in the modern sense, for they rarely acted together and never had the confidence of parliament; they did not consti- tute a secret council, for the king never trusted them all at once. They were simply a group of favorites such as had surrounded Edward IL or Richard IL, who owed their power largely to personal and individual influence over the king. They were the kind of men who are commonly produced by revolution, thorough-going spoilsmen, bound to no policy, always watching for the least veering of the wind, and ready to trim sail accord- ingly. Soon after the Cabal came into power, Louis XIV. began to push forward his ambitious scheme of enlarging France at the expense of those territories of Spain, Lorraine, and the Alliance Empire, which lay between him and the Rhine. He found a plausible pretext for seizing the Spanish Netherlands in the plea that these lands, in consequence of the death of Philip IV. of Spain, had "devolved" upon his daughter^ the French Queen, to the exclusion of her younger brother, the sickly Spanish king, also a Charles II. In the war which fol- lowed, known as the "War of Devolution," the French easily ^ For Macaulay's brilliant portraits of the members of the Cabal, see "Essay on Sir William Temple. " 762 BIRTH OF WHIG PARTY [charlesII. overran Flanders. The Dutch, however, had no desire to see the powerful French monarchy advance to their very doors, and in 1668, through the offices of Sir William Temple, succeeded in securing an alliance with England and Sweden against the further aggressions of France. The menace was sufficient ; Louis had his own colonial possessions to protect; he had no wish to enter into a war in which the two most powerful navies of Europe would be arrayed against him; and by the Treaty of Aachen, 1668, grace- fully restoring a great part of the territories which he had seized, ostensibly yielded his claims upon the Spanish Netherlands. Yet Louis had changed, not his purpose, but only his method of attack. He saw that before he could seize the Spanish Nether- lands he must crush Holland, and accordingly, to attain Treaty of this end, he first bought Sweden and England out of the Triple Alliance; he also secured the non-interfer- ence of the Empire by .promising upon the death of his sickly brother-in-law, the Spanish Charles II., to share with Leopold, the emperor, the plunder of Spain. In England the course of events greatly favored Louis. In 1668 Charles, supported by the entire Cabal, attempted to persuade parliament to enact a *' Comprehension Bill," designed to "comprehend" some of the nonconformist bodies within the established Church and secure general toleration. Parliament, however, not only rejected the Comprehension Bill, but in 1670 reenacted the Second Con- venticle Act, and increased the severity of some of its measures. Charles, therefore, in despair of securing toleration for Catholics by constitutional measures, after a secret consultation with the duke of York, Arundel, and the two Catholic members of the Cabal, determined to appeal to Louis. Here was Louis's opportunity, and he quickly took advantage of it. In June 1670 the two powers signed the secret Treaty of Dover, in which Charles agreed to unite with Louis in making war upon the Dutch, and Louis agreed to pay him £230,000 per annum and give him control of thirty French ships. Charles, furthermore, was to declare himself a Catholic, "as soon as the affairs of his kingdom should permit." Louis on his part if needed was to support Charles in England with six thousand French troops and a further subsidy of 1672] THE TREATY OF DOVER 763 £134,000. If Charles of Spain died without male issue, Charles of England was to support Louis in seizing the Spanish domin- ions, and receive in payment Ostend, Minorca, and certain terri- tories in America. Charles was fully aware of the dangerous nature of his contract with Louis and carefully kept the secret even from the non-Catholic members of the Cabal, tricking them with a sham treaty, which was published in 1672 as the real Treaty of Dover. At the opening of 1672 Louis and Charles were ready to carry out their joint plot against the Netherlands and against the laws of England. Parliament had not been in session for carry out ten mouths and although it had provided liberally Tredti/of for the English fleet before adjournment, additional Dover, 1672. „, ^ ,^ -,.,-., funds were necessary for the meditated attack upon Holland. At Clifford's suggestion Charles adopted an expedient, called '*the Stop of the Exchequer," which Colbert, Louis's The ''Stop great finance minister, had recently used with success. Exchequer r The plan was to fatten the treasury by the simple expe- 1672. ' dient of not paying out the interest due upon loans which the goldsmiths, the bankers of the era, had lent to the gov- ernment on the security of the revenues. Tho money did not belong to the goldsmiths but to the people, ** widows and orphans" many of them, who had entrusted this money to the goldsmiths in the capacity of bankers. The result, however, was not exactly what Charles had planned ; the depositors were ruined of course, but the credit of the government, also, was shattered. The panic was so great, that two days later Charles had to promise that at least one-half of the accrued interest should be paid. Nevertheless, the "locking of the Exchequer" left in the treasury about £1,300,000 for present need. For this brilliant financial operation Clifford was raised to the peerage and appointed Lord High Treasurer. On March 15, Charles undertook a still more unpopular measure, in issuing a second Declaration of Indulgence in which he "suspended the execution of all and all manners of penal laws in matters ecclesiastical against whatsoever sort of nonconformists or recusants." In this, unlike the attempt of ten years earlier, 764 BIRTH OF WHIG PARTY [Charles ii. Charles was supported by his chief ministers ; in reward he made Ashley Earl of Shaftesbury, and before the year was out also Secrnid Dec- appointed him Lord Chancellor. Two days before the indulgence Declaration, the English Admiral Holmes attacked the March 15, Dutch Smyrna fleet which, unsuspicious of danger, was leisurely pursuing its way up the Channel, and on March 28, war was declared. It was like a thunder clap from a clear sky; the Dutch were unprepared and taken entirely by sur- prise. The French rapidly overran the southern prov- Joint attack 7 ^ of Emiand mces, and migrht have taken Amsterdam had they not and France i i ■ • i i • upon the wasted their time on the less important border towns. Dutch 1672' When they reached the sea provinces De Witt, the Grand Pensioner, cut the dikes and by flooding the country forced the French to withdraw. The people, however, believed that De Witt and his brother, who had been heretofore pronounced in their French sympathies, were responsible for the war and its miseries. Riots broke out in the cities ; De Witt was torn to pieces by a furious mob; the government of merchant princes which had ruled the country for twenty-two years was overthrown and the Stadholderate restored. The new Stadholder was William, Prince of Orange. On his father's side he was a great-grandson of the famous William the Silent ; on his mother's side he was a grandson of Charles ^Orange. ^' ^^ England, and after the children of James Duke of York, the next heir to the English throne. He is described as a sickly, thoughtful young man of twenty-two; cold, unattractive, and distant in manner, but a daring statesman and capable of devising and carrying out the greatest political combi- nations. Some of his countrymen were for giving up the struggle with France altogether, and, putting their families and their wealth on board their ships, migrating as a nation to their pos- sessions in Java. But William had no thought of turning his back upon the dreary little land which his fathers had won from the Spaniard ; sooner than yield, he declared to Buckingham, he would die on the last dike. While the French found themselves thus baffled on the land, the English were not rendering them much assistance on the seas. 1672] THE TEST ACT 765 In June 1672 the duke of York had barely held his own against De Ruyter in South wold Bay on the coast of Suffolk. In 1673 the Dutch retook New York and renamed it after their S^imr heroic Stadholder, New Oraage. In August they won a substantial victory off the Texel. At the opening of 1673 the English parliament assembled after a recess of twenty two months. It found its work very definitely cut out. The old anti-Catholic feeling was thoroughly aroused, and the members began an attack both upon the Declaration of Indulgence and upon the Dutch War. They did not question the king's right to pardon an individual who had been convicted of violating a law, but they denied his right to grant a wholesale pardon before the commission of crime; a right which amounted virtually to the power of annulling any law which parliament might pass Even the Protestant nonconformists joined in the protest and refused to accept relief at the expense of the funda- mental principle of the English Constitution, which required that all laws be made by the consent of King, Lords, and Commons. **I had much rather see the Dissenters suffer by the rigor of the law, though I suffer with them," said the heroic Alderman Jjove, *'than see all the Laws of England trampled under the foot of the Prerogative." Charles saw that it was useless to persist; the Protestant members of the Cabal, especially Shaftesbury who had by this time got some inkling of the real nature of the league with Louis, urged the recall of the offensive proclamation, and on March 8, it was withdrawn. Parliament, however, had no thought of stopping simply with the withdrawal of the Declaration. The people were furious and parliament determined to strike back at the king and AH'' am the ^^^ Catholic ministers by passing a "Test Act," which Cabal ^^ provided that all persons holding any office under the crown, must at once take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, publicly receive the sacrament according to the Anglican custom, and disavow belief in transubstantiation. This act, unlike most previous acts of the kind, made the test com- pulsory and made no exception in favor of peers. The act effec- tually put an end to the influence of the Cabal. By the terms of 766 BIRTH OF WHIG PARTY [charlesU, the Test Act the Catholic members were forced to withdraw. Shaftesbury, who was now thoroughly aroused by the trick which had been played upon him by the sham Treaty of Dover, had supported the Teet Act, and was dismissed in November. Buckingham was dismissed under pretext of the opposition of the Commons, but really because he had fallen under the disfavor of one of the king's mistresses. The duke of York also, who in 1669 had publicly announced his conversion to the Catholic faith, was debarred by the Test Act and was forced to resign the position of Lord High Admiral. This was the most signal triumph of the opposition. The next step of parliament, after demolishing the Cabal, was to put a stop to the Dutch War, and in 1674 they compelled Charles to withdraw from the French alliance and accept the Peace of Westminster. Louis's plans were working out on the continent with hardly better success. Instead of having Holland at his mercy, he had found himself ultimately confronted by a powerful French- coalition, made up of Holland, Brandenburg, Spain, and the Empire, with the possibility that it would soon, be Joined by his late allies. This coalition was the work of the new Stadholder, who had devoted all his splendid powers to arousing Europe against French ascendency. He had not been successful in war, however, and despite his heroic efforts the French continued to win victories. Louis might succeed, therefore, if he could only keep the English from actively joining the league against him. To this he gave his whole attention. Sir Thomas Osborne, who was made Earl of Danby in 1674 and had succeeded to a position of control in the government after the collapse of the Cabal, accepted the principles of the Triple Alliance, and prob- ably would have led parliament into an active espousal of the cause of the Dutch, had not the Protestant parliament feared to trust the king with the command of an army, lest he use it to carry out the plan, for which they now generally gave him credit, of trying to force Catholicism upon England. Louis, however, could hardly feel safe against the threatened interference of Eng- land, and, to secure Charles, made with him a new secret treaty in which he agreed to pay the English king £100,000 a year on 1676-1678] i)AKB1f 767 condition that he make no engagement with any foreign power without his consent. The danger, however, was still very great, that the anti-French sentiment of parliament would throw all caution to the winds and force Charles to begin war, in spite of his promises or the bribes which he had taken. In 1677 an English army was actually assembled to be used against France, and in November Danby secured the marriage of Mary, the eldest daughter of the duke of York, to Louis's arch enemy, William, the Stadholder. Louis saw, therefore, that it was useless to seek to control the foreign policy of England longer, and in 1678 succeeded in securing the Treaty of Nimwegen, which put an end to the war but left in his hands Franche-Oomte, the **free county" of Burgundy, and twelve of the cities of the Spanish Netherlands, including Cambrai and Ypres. Danby had been in power now five years. He had managed to keep his place by the cleverest time-serving. He had, moreover, coolly adopted bribery as a regular means of encourag- vower *^ ^"S ^ reluctant parliament, not only freely using tlie royal patronage, but directly and unblushingly setting aside a certain part of the royal income each year for buying parliamentary votes. Clifford had used bribery, it is said, as a means of influencing parliamentary action, but Danby reduced corruption to a system. It is also to be noticed as a curious coin- cidence, that about this time the English constituencies ceased paying regular salaries to their representatives in parliament. Seats were so much in demand at the by-elections that no direct pecuniary compensation was necessary to bring forward aspirants for political honors; it was pretty well understood that a seat in piirliament carried with it ample rewards far beyond any petty wages offered by tax burdened constituencies. By a skillful manipulation of his '* system of influence" Danby had managed to gather to his support a considerable party, very respectable in numbers if not in character, known as the "Court Party," whose ostensible platform was the support of the Church of England, the strengthening of the royal prerogative, and a friendly attitude toward the Dutch. There was little sincerity, however, in their pretensions; and their leader did not hesitate to 768 BiRtH OF WHIG PARTY [cuaules il. use his alleged friendship for the Dutch as a means of blackmail- ing Louis, even acting as Charles's agent in negotiating the secret treaties of this era. The Court Party, however, were Partir^and ^^ ^^ means left to have their own way, or to secure p^artv'^^^^ all the plunder for themselves. There had been no gen- eral election since 1661, bat the change in the temper of the country had been reflected somewhat by a corresponding change in the temper of many members of the Cavalier Parliament ; vacancies also had occurred from time to time and new members had been returned who represented even more directly the changing sentiment of the people. The struggle over the Declaration of Indulgence and the Test Act had also given to the opposition some coherence, revealed to the leaders their strength, and fur- nished them with a definite platform. In distinction from the Court Party they were called the "Country Party." The first serious tilt of the Country Party with the government occurred in 1675. Danby thought to get rid of the men in parlia- ment whom he could not reach by his system of influ- re^ttanc'e ^^^® ^J securing a sort of political Test Act, known as Biii^prii, the ''Placemens" or ^'Nonresi stance Bill," which 1675. ' proposed to require every officer in church or state, and every member of parliament, to declare upon oath, that it was unlawful to take up arms in the king's name against the king's person or those commissioned by the king, and that "he would not at any time endeavor the alteration of the government in church or state." The bill was defeated largely by the efforts of Shaftesbury, who upon retiring from the council had taken his place in the House of Lords, and, putting all his abilities of debate and intrigue at the service of the Country Party, had from the first been recognized as a leader. He was beaten in the Lords by the vote of the bishops, but only to carry on the fight in the Commons, where, supported by the opposition leaders, he managed to get the two Houses embroiled over a question of privilege, and raise such a storm that Charles was obliged to prorogue parlia- ment before the bill was put to a final vote. In November, four months later, parliament again came together; but the quarrel was renewed as bitterly as ever, and 1678] TITUS GATES 769 Charles quickly adjourned the House, this time for fifteen months. The agitation outside of parliament, however, still continued. The chief center of disturbance were the coffee houses ; fwmef^^^ an institution which had come in with the introduc- tion of the new beverage from Turkey. At these houses wits and politicians gathered to regale themselves with the brain clearing drink, and discuss the issues of the day. In December Charles attempted to close the coffee houses on the ground that they encouraged ''false, malicious, and scandalous reports. " But the attempt raised such an uproar that the procla- mation was hastily withdrawn. When parliament assembled again in 1677 the Country Party, believing that their strength would be greatly increased by a new general election, attempted to force a dissolution, but the leaders only got into the Tower for their pains. Buckingham, Salisbury, and Wharton were soon released, but Shaftesbury was locked up for more than a year. With all this by-play, the frequent and prolonged adjournments, the imprison- ment of Shaftesbury, Louis had much to do. His money worked the secret wires ; — to what extent will never be known. Charles was evidently fast losing control of his Long Parliament; yet Louis did not want a new parliament, for he well knew that in the present temper of the country, its first act would be to declare war against France. Charles did not want a new parliament for he was equally certain that a new House of Commons would at once begin a vigorous attack upon the Catholics. Hence Louis bribed freely and Charles was perfectly willing to take his money. At this stage of the quarrel a new weapon was suddenly put in Shaftesbury's hands. In August, 1678, one Titus Gates, a clerical adventurer, who had been first Separatist, then Anffli- The Papist ^ J ,, . -.1 . . V. .1 1- • plot of can, and iinally a pretended convert to Catholicism, Titus Oates. ' ^ ui 4. . • i,- . f came forward with a most astonishing story of a Catholic plot, in which Charles was to be murdered and the duke of York made king, London was to be burned, the Protestants butchered, and the old faith established by French soldiers. Gates named, also, a number of people who were privy to the plot, finally even the queen herself. The story carried its refutation in its very extravagance; but in the excited condition of the popular T'J'O BIRTH OF WHIG PARTY [chaulks ir mind, men were ready to believe anything. Other knavish in- formers as Bedloe and Dangerfield also took advantage of the general panic, and joined Gates in the profitable trade of swearing away the lives of Catholics; the jails were filled with suspects; judges browbeat juries into giving verdicts, and a number of victims were sent to the gallows. When parliament met in October the excitement was still at its height, and Shaftesbury cunningly seized the moment to secure the passage of a "Parliamentary Test Act," which Danb^^^"^ excluded "Papists" from both Houses of Parliament. The duke of York was excepted on his own motion, but only by two votes. Five Catholic lords, also, were sent to the Tower. The opposition then turned upon Danby, and in December impeached him upon evidence of a letter furnished by the French king himself, who hated Danby and regarded him as his enemy. In this letter, acting under the direction of Charles, Danby had instructed the English ambassador to ask for money for his master. Charles was eager to save Danby and also to pre- vent inquiry, which might lead to anything but pleasant results for himself, and finding that only a dissolution would do it, dissolved the Cavalier Parliament on the 24th of January 1679. Eighteen years of misgovernment, the suspicions connected with the Dover Treaty,^ a common belief in the purpose of Charles and his brother to restore Catholicism to England by French aid, had long since cured the Cavalier Parliament of its gushing royalism. To the last, however, it retained its old bitterness against all kinds of nonconformists, and no small part of its later enmity to Charles was due to the conviction of his intended treachery to the Angli- can Church. The apprehensions of Charles and Louis were now fully realized. When the new parliament came together in March, out of nearly five hundred members, there were not thirty who could be depended on to support the king. It was well known that beside the attack upon Danby, there would be a direct attack ^ The existence of the secret treaty of Dover was not definitely estab- lished until the 19th century. 1679] IMPEACHMENT OF DANBY 771 upon the king's brother and an effort made to exclude him from the succession. This to Charles was now the all-important issue, and to save his brother, he determined to yield upon The third . , . . ... parliament all miuor poiiits, in hope of disarming his enemies by of Charles II. -vx- mu- v -u t • ri(lgo\vater. He was closely followed by the roy.il army under command of Louis Duras Earl of Feversham, and John Churchill. Monmouth knew that as he could not advance, he must fight at once, and on the night of July 5, determined to take advantage of a dense fog which had set- tled down over the half reclaimed marshes of the Sedgemoor flats, and make a desperate attempt to surprise Feversham and Churchill as they lay in their camps. The undertaking was one of great 1685] SEDGEMOOE 785 danger; Monmouth's troops were without discipline and unac- customed to the voices of their officers; the country was cut up by broad, deep ditches, well filled with water ; it was so dark that a pikeman could not see his fellow who marched in the rank before him; the enemy, moreover, were experienced campaigners, and knew well their trade; there was not one chance in a thousand of success. Yet in the very boldness of the enterprise, there was hope, and as the event proved, Monmouth's plan was not altogether foolhardy. But in the moment when his men were rushing upon the foe, a broad canal, filled with black water to the brim, sud- denly revealed itself in the darkness, stretching along their whole front and effectually preventing any further progress. Lord Grey with Monmouth's cavalry fled, but the infantry stood their ground and delivered their feeble fire at the regulars across the moat, who, from behind its safe cover, answered with deadly precision. Still the raw farm lads held their own until Fever- sham brought up his artillery. Then they broke and fled. Monmouth, who had early left the field, was taken a few days later in the New Forest and brought to London. Parliament had already passed an act of attainder, so that there was no obstacle in the way of an immediate execution. He was beheaded on Tower Hill, July 15. After the battle Kirke, the colonel of the Tangier regiment, who had learned his trade in warring with Moslems, had succeeded Feversham to the command, and let loose his "Lambs" j^mhs'^and ^^P^^^ ^^^® peasants of the west, following the fugitives AssiS^^ms ^^ tlieir homes and hanging them, without form of trial, over their own door steps. Nothing was to be seen, it was said, but **forsaken walls, unlucky gibbets, and ghostly car- casses. The trees were loaden almost as thick with quarters as leaves; the houses and steeples covered as close with heads, as at other times with crows or ravens." The jails, also, were crowded with the trembling victims. James, however, was not satisfied, and sent out a commission of five judges, headed by the terrible Jeffreys, to finish Kirke's work. The circuit was long known as the "Bloody Assize." More than 300 were hanged, and upwards of 800 more deported and sold as slaves to the planters in the 786 THE WHIG REVOLUTION [james ii. Barbadoes and Jamaica. At Winchester the commission stopped to try and execute Alice Lisle, who had been guilty of giving shelter to one of the fugitives as he fled from the battle. Sh.e was advanced in years, and a widow of one of Cromwell's lords. Another victim was Elizabeth Grant, who was convicted of a like charge, and burned alive at Tyburn. When Jeffreys returned, as a reward for his work, he was made Lord Chancellor. The influence of these successes upon the king's mind was soon apparent. The failure of Monmouth had proved that the day had gone by when insurgents might hope to cope umm James successfully with the troops of the king. Only trained soldiers could meet the "regulars" of the government. The nation, moreover, was now apparently all Tory. The doctrine of nonresi stance had become the accepted political tenet, not of a party, but of the English people. James knew, also, that in an emergency he might, like his brother, depend upon the support of the French king who had already sent him, as an earnest of his good will, a dole of £67,000. His obstinacy and intolerance of opposition, which were always marked traits, increased accord- ingly; he began to cherish visions of the ultimate restoration of the Catholic faith in England, and saw himself again in possession of those prerogatives which the crown had once enjoyed in the days of Elizabeth and his grandfather; nor was it long before he had definitely framed a policy of aggression towards the laws and the ecclesiastical establishment of England, belying his recent fair words, and putting the nonresistance principles of his staunchest Tory friends to the test; During the summer, while Jeffreys was browbeating terrified witnesses and bullying frightened juries into giving their consent to the burning of old women and the hanging of sim- ti!mofT)w' P^® peasant folk, the spirit of passive endurance w^iich Nantes 1685 ^^^ ^^ ^^^® taken possession of the nation, received a yet more disquieting shock from the progress of events across the Channel. Since the time of Henry IV. the Protestants of France had rested securely under the protecting shadow of the Edict of Nantes. But in the summer of 1685, Louis XIV. saw fit, not only to recall this Edict, but actively to enter the lists against 1685] POSITION OF JAMES 787 the newly outlawed Huguenots, and summoned all the machinery of the state to crush religious dissent. It was one of the most foolish of all Louis's acts of tyranny, and dealt a blow Effect upon ^q q^q prosperity of his kingdom, from which it never recovered. According to Evelyn, the famous diarist, * 'even the Papists did not approve of it. " To Louis's ally, the new king of England, it was even more serious. Troops of refugees, who a short time before had been among the most pros- perous of Louis's subjects, but now were stripped of all save their lives, began to reach England. They were at once taken in and cared for by their fellow Protestants, and the story of their wrongs quickened the latent distrust wliich, in spite of the prevailing Tory doctrines, Englishmen had always felt for their Catholic king. They did not stop to make distinctions, but confounded the tyranny of the French king with the faith which was still proscribed in England by the accumulated laws and traditions of a century. When the parliament, which had given such evidence of its loyalty in the spring, assembled in November, its temper had perceptibly changed. James asked for the repeal of temper of the Test Act and for an increase in the standing army, but met with a refusal so peremptory that he did not propose a third measure, which he also had in mind, the repeal of the Habeas Corpus Act. Even the council had taken on some- thing of the new spirit which was abroad; so that the king thought himself called upon to dismiss Halifax, the old champion of legitimate succession. Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Kochester, the brother-in-law of the king, also had protested against some recent acts, which might be regarded as a public sanction of the mass, and, although Hyde was retained for a short time longer, he fell under the king's displeasure. The contention of James was specious enough : that subjects capable of being useful to the state ought not to be debarred from public service by reason of their creed, and that all of^james^^^ religious tests as a qualification for office ought to be removed. The motive of James, however, as the sequel proved, was not so commendable. He had no intention of giving the great nonconformist body a share in the government 788 THE WHIG REVOLUTION [james ll. equal to their influence, or commensurate with their ability. He proposed, rather, to free himself from the shackles of the religious test in order that he might use the patronage of the crown to entrench the Catholics in the public offices, and thus, by sur- rounding himself with a group of Catholic officials, control the state to his liking. It is difficult to believe that the man who inaugurated the "killing time" in Scotland, ever had any real sympathy with the principles of liberty of conscience, or freedom of worship, or that he proposed to shelter the Protestant non- conformists for other than ulterior motives. James had now had his first quarrel with parliament and had met his first rebuff. Under similar circumstances his predecessor would have quietly dropped the matter and waited for Act and the the present revulsion of feeling to pass away. But the obstinate nature of James was aroused, and after a brief session of three weeks, he prorogued parliament, and invoked the law courts to assist him in overthrowing the Test Act. He had already given his confidence to four men who were in full sympathy with his motives and had had more influence with him than his councillors of state. These men were Richard Tal- bot Earl of Tyrconnel, who was familiarly known in the court as *'Lying Dick Talbot," Henry Jermyn, Edward Petre, a Jesuit, and Eobert Spencer Earl of Sunderland, a cold hearted, corrupt man, who believed in nothing but himself, and was ready to turn Catholic to please the king if that were the next thing on the slate. It was by the advice of these men that James proceeded to attack the Test Act through his dispensing power, looking to the subservient judges of the Kings Court to give his position the sanction of law. A friendly suit was arranged by which an action was brought against Sir Edward Hales, a Catholic colonel, by Godden, his coachman, on the charge of accepting a commission in the army in disobedience to the Test Act. The 'case^wm decision was given in June 1686. Of the bench of twelve judges, eleven supported the Dispensing Power of the king. Chief Justice Herbert declared that in as much as the laws of England were the king's laws, it was for him to dis- pense with penal laws in particular cases, whenever he saw fit. 1686] ATTACK ON THE CHURCH 789 Upon the basis of this astounding decision, which threatened the entire legislative authority of parliament, James proceeded at once to fill all possible places in the army and the civil service with his co-religionists. In order to entrench himself in the state church the king fol- lowed a somewhat similar method. As the royal prerogative empowered him to suspend the action of the Test Act onthf^^^ in secular cases, it was claimed also that the authority Sr^'*' which the Act of Supremacy conferred upon the king, empowered him to suspend the Act of Uniformity of Charles II. The process, however, of waiting for vacancies in church livings in order to fill them with Catholics, proved too slow to satisfy James, who was now thoroughly warmed to his work. On July 14, 1686, he instituted by patent a ** Commission for the Trial of Ecclesiastical Causes," expressly empowering it to exercise its* authority, "notwithstanding any law or statute to the contrary." The jurisdiction of the new court did not extend to the laity, but so far as the clergy were concerned it was virtually a revival of the old Court of High Commission. It was composed of seven members. Jeffreys, the Lord Chancellor, was president, and no session could be held without him. The king of course had no legal right to create such a court ; it was not only a direct usur- pation of powers which parliament had once by law explicitly denied the crown ; it was also a flagrant invasion of the rights which Tory churchmen had secured for themselves as a reward for their support of the Stuart Restoration. The first act of the new court, also, showed that the seven commissioners were fully deter- mined to sing to the score which the king had set them. Dr. Sharp, Dean of Norwich, had preached a sermon in which he denied that obedience to the papal authority was necessary to membership in the body of the Catholic Church. Henry Comp- ton. Bishop of London, was instructed to call Dr. Sharp to account for his unseasonable words. Compton, however, refused and was at once suspended by the new Court of High Commission. The old Court of High Commission of Elizabeth had been set up to protect the legal church of the realm against the annoying attacks of nonconformist fanatics. The new court of Jaiiies was 790 THE WHIG REVOLUTION [ James II. established evidently to bind the tongues of churchmen and pre- vent any unseemly attacks upon the religious system represented by the king. In the spring the movements of the king became yet more menacing, and popular suspicion and discontent continued to rise accordingly. The refusal of parliament to allow James James pre- to increase his standing army compelled him to look resistance. elsewhere for increased military support, should it be needed. Ireland offered a most favorable recruiting ground for such a Catholic army. But it was necessary to have a Lord Deputy in Ireland who would not be unnerved by any Eng- lish sympathies, when the king should need the help of an Irish army in England. "There is work to be done in Ireland," said James, "which no Englishman can do." Acccordingly in Feb- •ruary the elder Hyde, Lord Clarendon, was recalled, and Talbot was sent out in his place. The younger Hyde, Lord Rochester, was removed from the council. The temper of London James feared somewhat, and marched an army of 13,000 men to Houn- slow Heath and there encamped them in order to overawe the city. In the meanwhile he continued to fill all the high places in church and state and army with Catholics, or with lukewarm Protestants who held religious principles lightly and responded to no call save that of selfish interest. James now felt himself strong enough to begin the direct attack upon the restrictive religious legislation of the past two generations. On April 4, 1687, he issued his famous uono'/in^^^' ^declaration of Indulgence, which suspended by royal A'^rit4%687 pi'oclamation all the laws against Catholic or Protestant Dissenters. The Declaration on the one hand was a defiance to the old high church party who had given birth to the Clarendon Code; on the other it was a direct bid for the support of Protestant Dissenters. James evidently thought that the Tories would live up to their principle of nonresistance, and that the Protestant nonconformists would gladly acquiesce in a meas- ure so clearly in their interests. But he was soon to find that in both cases he had gravely misread human nature. When he attempted to present a Benedictine monk to the University of 1687] THE DECLARATION OF INDULGENCE 791 Cambridge for the degree of Master of Arts, the authorities flatly refused to confer the degree unless the candidate should take the oath prescribed by law ; and it was necessary for the Commission for the Trial of Ecclesiastical Causes to take Dr. Peck ell, the vice chancellor of the university, in hand. The occurrence of a vacancy in the presidency of the Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford, gave James another opportunity to enforce his peculiar views of religious liberty, and Oxford, an opportunity to practice its favor- ite doctrine of nonresistance. James attempted to force upon the Fellows, Samuel Parker, the recently appointed bishop of Oxford, who was in sympathy with James's religious views. But the Fellows, instead of submitting, elected Dr. Hough, their own candidate. Here again the Commission was called upon to inter- fere; and Dr. Hough and the Fellows who supported him were summarily turned out. The nonconforming bodies were no better pleased with James's efforts in their behalf. The promise of toleration deceived them no more than in the time of Charles II. With the exception of a few, as the Quaker, William Penn, all took their stand with the Tory churchmen. Thus the aggressions of James were slowly but surely consolidating against him a deter- mined body of resistance, in which Whigs and Tories, regardless of political differences, and Anglican churchmen and nonconformists, regardless of religious differences, stood together for the inviola- bility of the laws of the land. On the surface, however, the affairs of James were progressing well enough. With men like Jeffreys on the bench, with men like Sunderland and Petre to advise him, and men like I'al- James ana i -n i thecorpora- bot, iieversham, and Churchill in command of the army, apparently he had nothing to fear. James's position, however, had still one vulnerable point, and he now gave his attention to the strengthening of this point. On July 2, 1687 he dissolved his first parliament, which he had not allowed to sit since December 1685, and at once set about getting together a new parliament better to his liking. He detailed certain of the Privy Council, and sent them around to "regulate" the corpora- tions. His eyes were not yet open to the real temper of the Prot- estant nonconformists, and he still fondly believed that if they had 792 THE WHIG KEVOLUTION [james ll. the opportunity, they would join the Catholics in electing the kind of men he wanted for his parliament. The Tory members Avho had been added to the corporations in 1683, therefore, were carefully excluded, and Protestant nonconformists put in their places. The justices and deputy-lieutenants of the counties, who refused to promise compliance with the wishes of the king, were also removed. Nearly one-half the lords-lieutenant were allowed to resign in order that Catholics and Dissenters might be appointed to their places. Non resistance had now reached its limit. The remodeling of the corporations and the filling of the county offices with the religious friends of James spread consternation every- Deciaratton ^^^^^' ^^ high ran the feeling, that when the work aence^^ was done, and the membership of the corporations was remodeled to the king's liking, even his obtuse mind began to comprehend the real temper of the nonconformist bodies, and he dared not issue a call for the new parliament. Yet he had no thought of yielding, and on April 25, 1688, with the sanction of his Privy Council, he reissued the Declaration of Indulgence and ordered it to be read in all the churches; in London, on the last two Sundays of May, and in the rest of the kingdom, on the first two Sundays of June. If the measure were designed to put the doctrine of non resistance to the test, James ought to have been satisfied. When the first Sunday appointed in May came, only four of the clergy of London read the Declaration, and in each case the congregation refused to stay to hear the proclama- tion. But far more serious than the action of individual clergy- men or congregations, was a formal petition which on the 18th of May was presented to the king by seven bishops, in which they besought him not to force them or their clergy to break the law. The seven bishops were Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, Ken of Bath and Wells, White of Peterborough, Trelawney of Bristol, Lloyd of St. Asaph, Turner of Ely, and Lake of Chichester. When James was confronted by the petition, he was furious at what he was pleased to regard as the raising of the standard of rebellion, and bitterly taunted the petitioners as good churchmen who questioned the Dispensing Power of the king. Tlie act of the bishops, however, was soon to bear fruit. Tory churchmen, 1688] THE SEVEN BISHOPS 793 now that their bishops had protested, no longer hesitated, and when the first Sunday of June came, scarcely any one consented to read the Declaration. James turned his wrath upon the seven bishops, and on the 8th of June, sent them to the Tower, on a charge of publishing a seditious^ libel. The people gathered in vast crowds to see the seven quiet faced men pass The ovTcst ami trial of under guard to the great state prison, and as they passed along shouted after them benedictions and pray- ers for their safety. The trial was brought on before the Court of Kings Bench on June 29. The crown lawyers in order to prove the indictment, descended to trickery in which the clerk of the court and Sunderland joined. Late at night the jury, which had been chosen in accordance with the corrupt methods of the day, retired to consider their verdict. Few people in London slept that night. The city, at fever heat, waited while the jury deliberated, and when in the morning the foreman, to the sur- prise of all, pronounced the talismanic "Not guilty," the words were caught up by the watchers and in a few minutes were shouted by waiting multitudes in the streets; the whole city, Whigs and Tories, churchmen and dissenters, went wild with joy. Even the soldiers on Hounslow Heath, who had been called to arms to suppress mob violence if need be, caught the contagion and shouted and cheered themselves hoarse with the townsmen. The news ran like wildfire along the country roads, and village after village caught up the joyous shout of triumph. Even from distant Cornwall came back the refrain of the Cornish miners who loved the sturdy Bishop of Bristol as one of their own race: " And shall Trelawney die, my boys ? and shall Trelawney die ? Then thirty thousand Cornish men will know the reason why." The bishops were not the only cause of all this popular excite- ment. Two days after the arrest of the bishops, Mary of Modena, the second wife of James, had ffiven birth to a son, The birth of James James Francis Edward. Under the intense excitement Francis Ed- ivarci stiiart, of the moment, men were willine: to believe any extrav- June 10, 1688. 1 1 « , , T , ^ 1 1 . agance, and the fact that none but James s Catholic friends were present to greet the prince on his arrival, gave color to the story, which was soon widely believed, that the prince was 794 THE WHIG REVOLUTION^ [James II. not a royal child at all, but had been smuggled into the palace by a Jesuit trick, in order to defeat the succession of James's eldest daughter, 1>he Princess of Orange. The rumor was without foundation; but the ^appearance, at such a time, of a direct heir to the throne, who would be certain to be reared in the faith of the father and mother, precipitated the crisis. The Protestant nation had up to this point endured James, because they thought his reign could not in the course of nature last long. But now they saw the promise of a Catholic rule indefinitely prolonged, unless prevented by immediate action. The leaders, however, were wary. The fate of Monmouth's revolt had shown the uselessness of pitting untrained men against the regular army of the king. They turned, therefore, to the only man who could help them, who had a trained army at command and whose interests might incline him to prevent the theatened Catholic succession. On the day after the acquittal of the bishops, seven men, regardless of any previous party affiliations, sent an invitation to William to bring a Dutch army into England and save the nation from the rule of popery. Of the seven men the earls of Devonshire and Shrews- bnry, Henry Sydney, brother of the late Algernon Sydney, and Admiral Edward Russell, cousin of the late Lord William Russell, were Whigs. The Tories were represented by Danby, Charles II. 's old minister. Lord Lumley, and Henry Compton, the suspended bishop of London. The message it is said, was carried to William by Admiral Herbert disguised as a common seaman. When the letter of the seven reached William he was just fac- ing another great war with Louis XIV. In 1686 he had com- pleted the coalition against France, known as the whiSlcon^^ League of Augsburg. It included all the great powers ^miuam ^^ Western Europe; Spain, the emperor, the North German princes, Sweden, and the United Netherlands. In 1687 Bavaria, Saxony, the leading princes of Italy, and even the pope, secretly promised their support. The league had been formed without regard to ecclesiastical lines and had been inspired solely by the aggressions of Louis upon his weaker neighbors. The letter of the seven, therefore, offered a tempting opportunity 1688] THE LEAGUE OF AUGSBURG 795 to William ; by detlironing James he might detach England and Scotland from their quasi alliance with France, and by adding them to the League complete the cordon of hostile powers which he had been drawing about Louis. It was an opportunity to be greeted with fierce joy by a man who beheld at last the realization of the passion of his life within his grasp. And yet the dan- gers were great. A direct attack upon James must appear to William's Catholic allies as a direct attack upon their religion, and might lead to the disruption of the league which he had built up at the cost of infinite pains and patience. Louis, also, could not be expected to look on in apathy, while William overthrew James and added England to the enemies of France. Simply the gathering of an army would be enough to arouse the wary Louis's suspicion, and the moment the Dutch fleet faced the Channel Louis might be expected to throw an army into Holland. But an even more serious difficulty lay at home. The federal government of the United Netherlands was a cumbrous affair resembling somewhat the government of the United States of America under the Articles of Confederation. It was designed to foster local liberties rather than to support a powerful national government. The Stadholder had no authority to levy taxes or raise troops or declare war without the consent of the States-General. The States- General, moreover, was not a compact body like the present American Congress, but a loose convention of envoys or delegates sent from the various provincial states all mutually independent. But further, a fact still more fatal to concerted action, each pro- vincial state was in like manner simply a confederation of smaller states, each of which reserved the right to pass upon the acts of its representatives. Before the Stadholder could act constitution- ally, therefore, he must take every city of the confederation into his confidence and secure its consent. Secrecy was of course impossible. The old pro- French oligarchy still had a powerful following in many of the cities, especially in Amsterdam, and French gold might be expected to play an important part in rous- ing the old party of the De Witts to vigorous opposition. It was a task from which a man even of William's patience and deter- mination might shrink. 796 THE WHIG REVOLUTIOlf [James IL With strange blindness, however, Louis himself persisted in removing all obstacles from the path of William. In the first place, Louis selected this moment to open a quarrel SmiJxjF ^^^^ ^^^ P^P^ somewhat similar to that of the old quar- vom^^^ rels of the English kings with the pope over annates. He had compelled the French clergy to support him ; and in 1682, they had formally declared in a council at St. Ger- mains, that kings were not subject to the pope in things temporal. In other words the French monarch was in some such position as Henry YIIL in 1533, when he was sending Protestants to the stake for denying the authority of papal doctrines, and Catholics, for upholding the authority of the pope. • In 1688 the quarrel passed into open rupture. The archiepiscopal see of Cologne was vacant. The pope. Innocent XL , and the emperor had united upon a candidate, but Louis, who had no wish to lose the control which he had recently secured on the Lower Ehine, proposed with the support of a French army to set up at Cologne his ally Fiirsten- berg. Bishop of Strasburg. The pope, also, had not only disap- proved of the foolhardy course of James in England, but was deeply offended by his partiality for the Jesuits, who for some time had been in ill odorjvith the Holy See. Instead, therefore, of opposing William, the pope was ready to support him with his blessings; he had shrewdly discerned that the interests of Europe lay in crippling the power of Louis and staying the hand of James. With the same blindness Louis persisted in strengthening the anti-French sentiment among the Dutch burghers, by foolishly forbidding: his own people the use of Dutch linens and and the woolen goods or even the eatmg oi Dutch herrings unless they had been cured with French salt. And as if this were not enough, by beginning an attack upon the Pala- tinate far from the Dutch borders, he not only saved William from the fear of immediate invasion, but enabled him to rely with con- fidence upon the support of the "Great Elector," Frederick William of Brandenburg, who although he lay on his death bed, yet sent forward enough troops to hold Louis in check and thas protect the Netherlands. 1688] ENGLISH SENTIMENT AFFRONTED 797 So far Louis was doing all that he could to help William; yet it would be strange if James also could not lend a hand in the last moment. Louis had offered James the support of his Loms^and fleet, and announced to Europe that any measures directed against James would be regarded as a declara- tion of war against France. But James with touching national pride repudiated the insinuation that a king of England was a dependent upon France like the elector of Cologne ; he needed no French ships and would take care of himself without French aid. Louis took the snub, left James to himself, and bent all his ener- gies upon establishing Fiirstenberg in Cologne. Thus, one by one, all possible obstacles which might arise in William's path from sources out of England, were removed. William, however, might still question how the Eng- frtmStlna- ^^^^^ would regard a foreign interference, supported ImtimelT^^ ^^ ^ foreign army. Would not the old national senti- ment, regardless of party or religious division, rally to the support of James at the last moment, as it had once rallied to the support of Elizabeth when Catholic and Protestant forgot their differences in the presence of the Spanish Armada? But here also James did not fail him. James was not pleased by the way in which his English soldiers on Hounslow Heath had approved the acquittal of the seven bishops. He broke up the camp, therefore, and scattered the English troops in detachments about the country, while he brought over a body of Irish sol- diers to overawe the capital. English national prejudices were thus already thoroughly aroused, but in a way which would lead the people to hail the landing of an army of Protestant Dutch- men almost as fellow countrj-men. In addition to this affront to national pride, always tender upon the subject of an invasion of England by Irish soldiers, James gave yet another fillip to Wil- liam's cause by ordering that the names of all clergymen who had refused to read the Declaration of Indulgence, be returned to the Ecclesiastical Commission. Some 10,000 of the English clergy thus saw themselves threatened with the tender mercies of Jeff- reys and his Court of High Commission. This order, with the appearance of Irish Catholic soldiers in the camp before London, 798 THE WHIG REVOLUTIOK [jamesII. completely demolished what little there was left of nonresistance sentiment. All England was ready to receive William and his foreign soldiers with open arms. Even Sunderland saw that the days of high Tory rule were over, and with Churchill sought to make friends with William by sending him secret information of the progi'ess of affairs at Whitehall. Thus "with stern delight William looked on while his adver- saries toiled to clear obstacle after obstacle from his path." Even Amsterdam, where French influence was always strong, ofjame^^^ and whos^ oligarchy were ever suspicious of the des- potic tendencies of the House of Orange, raised no objection when the States-General was called upon to give its consent to the proposed expedition. James had heard first of the warlike preparations of William from Louis, but had been inclined to credit the report to Louis's desire to scare him into an alliance with France in the opening struggle with the pope. But other rumors had followed fast, and at last the unpleasant truth was forced upon his obtuse mind that unless he could secure the support of his own much wronged people, nothing could save him. In the forlorn hope, therefore, of conciliating his Eng- lish enemies, James began a series of sweeping concessions; the lords-lieutenant and magistrates were restored ; Bishop Compton was allowed to resume his duties; London and other cities and boroughs w^ere hurriedly given back their old charters; the Ecclesiastical Commission was dissolved; even Dr. Hough and the Fellows of Magdalen were reinstated. He further announced that he depended solely on the loyalty of his subjects, and offered to give satisfactory evidence of the genuineness of the new Prince James. In his frantic efforts to win the support of his people, he even published a general pardon. But it was too late; the devil was evidently hard sick and no one would believe now in his profes- sions of repentance. On the 10th of October William issued from his palace at Loo a declaration designed to justify his actions in the eyes of Europe as much as to disarm the suspicions of the English. He reviewed the arbitrary acts of James, proclaimed his own right of inter- vention as the husband of the heiress to the English crown, and 1688] LANDING OF WILLIAM 799 assured the people of England that he came only to secure a free parliament, pledging himself to abide by its decision. On the 16th of October he set sail with some 600 transports, S^/S^ ^^^ about 50 men-of-war as a convoy. Contrary wamm''^ winds, however, drove him back, and he did not succeed in reaching England until November 5. He landed at Brixham in Torbay, and with the little army of 13,000 which he had brought with him, marched to Exeter, where he waited for the gentry of the west to join him. Few, however, came to him at first; the memories of Sedgemoor and the Bloody Assizes were too fresh upon the minds of the western people to permit them to respond lightly to a first call to arms. But after two weeks the outlook began to brighten ; good news also reached William from the north, where Danby and Devonshire were raising the people in his name and had taken possession of York and Nottingham. James in the meanwhile had roused himself to repel the inva- sion. He had depended upon his fleet to prevent the landing of William, but the storm which had delayed William had ranks of held tlie king's ships in the Thames. The king had also gathered an army of about 40,000 men, which lay at Salisbury, where he joined them on the lOth, preparatory to disputing the eastward march of William. William's army bore no comparison to that of James, but like Henry VII. under similar circumstances, he was assured of wide spread disaffection in the camp of his adversaries and boldly pushed forward. At Winchester the advance-guards met and a slight skirmish ensued, in which James's troops were routed. Here also the defection of James's supporters began, when Viscount Cornbury went over to William. He was followed soon after by Churchill. At Andover, Prince George of Denmark, husband of the king's second daughter Anne, also left the royal army. James was disheartened by these deser- tions, and accepting the fact that he could not depend upon his army, began his retreat upon London. When he reached Lon- don he learned that Anne herself, escorted by Bishop Compton, had joined the northern insurgents. "God help me,'* cried the ruined man, as he wrung his hands, ''my own children have deserted me." 800 THE WHIG EEVOLUTIOIs^ [jamesII. The defection of his children seems to have broken the spirit of the king, and he thought now only of saving his throne by yield- ing. He promised the Lords to call a parliament and James in directed Lord Chancellor Jeffreys to draw up the writs. Ijimdon. His ^-x i t . . / „,.. . , . , first flight. He also agreed to negotiate with William and appointed Halifax with two other commissioners to represent him at a conference. The commission met William at Hungerford December 8, but instead of awaiting the result of the conference, or the meeting of parliament, on the morning of the 10th, the king sent away his wife and son, and at three o'clock of the morning of the 11th himself stole away to the coast, having first, with a childish idea of making as much trouble as possible, burned the writs for the call of parliament, thrown the Great Seal into the Thames, and left orders for Feversham to disband the troops. As soon as the flight of the king was known, the Lords assumed the government of the city, and attempted to preserve The "Irish ^^'^^^j pending the unfolding of the next act of the D^ember revolution. In a few hours, however, the populace 12-13, 1688. also had learned of the flight of the king, and for a night and day London lay in the hands of the mob, who vented their fury in a senseless looting of the chapels and better houses which belonged to their Catholic fellow citizens ; even the embas- sies of the Catholic powers did not escape. Then followed a night of panic, long known as the "Irish night," the terrors of which were as senseless as the former fury. The rumor had spread that the disbanded Irish regiments were marching to sack the city, and during long hours London waited behind closed barricades, startled by every unwonted sound and expecting each moment to learn that the massacre had already begun in the streets. In the early morning of the 12th Jeffreys had been found hiding in a waterside tavern at Wapping where in the disguise of a sailor he was watching his chance to get away, and only the interposition of the authorities, who bore him off to the Tower, had saved him from being torn to pieces by the infuriated mob. A diligent search was also made for Petre, but he had made his escape with better success. Finally by the exertions of the mayor and the city officials supported by the Lords, the anarchy was allayed 1688, 1689] THE CONVENTION 801 and a messenger sent to William to invite him to march into the town. James, in the meantime, accompanied by Sir Edward Hales, the man whose friendly suit with his coachman had broken down the Test Act, had first made his way to Vauxhall and then, fliiiMof disguised as an ordinary country gentleman, had got a ship and started down the river. But near Shippey he had been overhauled by some common seamen, whose suspicions were aroused by the evident desire of the party to escape notice. They were not certain whether they had caught a smuggler or a runaway priest, and brought the king to Feversham. Here he was recognized and returned to Whitehall. William was not pleased with the return and sternly insisted that the king leave Whitehall, and on the 18th of December sent his Dutch guards to escort him to Rochester, where he had every opportunity to escape if he wished it. James took the hint, and on the morning of December 23, left England forever, joining his wife and son in France. Louis gave him a courteous greeting, assigned the palace of St. Germains for his use and allotted him a pension of £40,000. On the day that James left London, William entered the city and took up his quarters in St. James Palace. The streets every- where were gay with orange ribbons ; courtiers flocked SdwT*^* to the palace to make their peace with the coming man. Some urged William to claim the crown at once by right of conquest ; but he wisely remembered the pledge which he had made at Loo, and by the advice of an irregular assembly composed of the Lords and some gentlemen who had been members of par- liament in Charles XL's time, determined to call a Convention as Monk had done under similar circumstances thirty years before. The new parliament, known as *'the Convention," met January 22, 1689. Its first work was to give legal sanction to the pres- ent order. It was not as easy to come to an affreemeut The second . , , . . , , « -if. Convention m determining the future government of the kingdom. January ' The Whigs were in a majority in the House, but the Tory sentiment among the Lords was still strong. The Commons easily carried two resolutions ; the first declared that James had broken the original contract of king and people, that 802 THE WHIG REVOLUTIOI^ [.tames il. by withdrawing himself from the kingdom he had virtually abdi- cated, and that therefore the throne was vacant; tlie second, that experience had taught that it was *'not consistent either with the safety or welfare of the kingdom to be governed by a popish prince." The second proposition was the principle of the Exclu- sion Bill, but the old Tory Lords, who had denied the theory in 1G81, could not now deny the fact. It was carried unanimously. The first proposition, however, was not to be so easily disposed of. The Tory lords refused to accept a declaration which conceded the whole Whig theory of a contract between king and people as the basis of government. After many conferences and various inef- fectual efforts to change the unfortunate words so as to satisfy everybody, the Lords finally gave way and the Whig resolutions were adopted in their original form. But when the theory of the abdication had been agreed upon, the theory of the new succession was still to be settled. The Tories fought for the right of here- ditary succession; and to satisfy them it was about to be conceded, that by the abdication of James, Mary as his heir was by that fact queen, since the throne could never be *'vacant." William was to be named regent. Here, however, a new obstacle was found in William himself, who refused, as he put it, to be made *'his wife's gentleman usher;" nor was Mary content to accept a position, which would make her husband her subject. There was, therefore, no resource left but to accept fully and without qualification the Whig doctrine of the right of parliament to deter- mine the succession, and William and Mary were named joint sovereigns, but "the entire, perfect, and full exercise of the royal power and government" was placed wholly in William's hands. The revolution was now complete. Not only were the Whigs in power, but the Whig theory of the state had been formally embodied in the constitutional law of England. A very The ^^Decla- . ^ ^ .. .jxi,j t rationnf important work, however, remained to be done. In 1660 the Presbyterians had made no conditions with Charles II. and bittterly had they repented of their folly. The Whigs did not intend to repeat the blunder. Accordingly a com- mittee of the Commons hastily drew up a *' Declaration of Eight,", which they submitted to William not as a new law, but as a sim- 1689] . :n^ature of the revolution 803 pie statement of the rights of Englishmen as they already existed under the laws of the land. It reviewed the violation of these laws by James, and so served also as a formal justification of the Revolution. The hurried work of the committee was accepted by both houses almost as it stood. William and Mary ratified the act, and on February 13 they were formally tendered the crown and proclaimed King and Queen of England. At last England's era of revolution had ended with the victory of the parliament and the Protestant religion. In the revolution of 1G49, the parliament had failed because the Puri- oHhe^R^vT ^^^ "^y^ng of the Protestant body had attacked the ^mo mid 1688 Episcopal wing and so given the king a party. In their attempt further to secure their power the Puritans had been compelled to assume unconstitutional grounds, and thus had arrayed against themselves the native respect of Englishmen for the laws and traditions of the past. In the Revolution of 1688 the king stood out alone, the enemy of the established church and the enemy of the laws. Charles II. had gathered about the crown a powerful party, the fundamental tenets of whose political faith were: firsts that the king ruled by **indefeasible hereditary divine right;" and second^ that to resist him was **wicked and unchris- tian." But James by his pitiable ignorance of human nature, by his still more pitiable obstinacy, in four short years had managed to squander this wealth of loyalty, and when he came to face the nation, was politically bankrupt. The revolution, also, which expelled James was not a revolution in the sense that the struggle of the Long Parliament with Charles I. was a revolution. It did not result in any chansre in Nature of ^ t. ^ ^i i i theremiu- the lorm 01 government. But though no change was tmn which -,.!<. i -, i i . deposed made m the lorm, a very marked change was made m the theory of government. The social and religious institutions of England remained unaltered, but the views which Englishmen took of these institutions, and of their relations to the king and to themselves, were no longer what they had been at the close of Charles II. 's reign. Ostensibly a dynasty com- mitted to the Catholic faith had been rejected for a dynasty committed to the Protestant faith. Yet the movement was 804 THE WHIG REVOLUTION . [jamesII. quite as much political as religious; it was inspired quite as much by hatred and suspicion of Louis XIV. and the theories of monarchy which he represented, as by hatred or suspicion of the pope. Its parentage dated back not to the Thirty-nine Articles or the Eoot and Branch Bill, but to the Triple Alliance, the Test Act, and the Exclusion Bill. Its tri- umph in the transfer of the crown to William and Mary by act of parliament, established as a part of the fundamental law of Eng- land those principles which had been the rallying cry of the infant Whig party in the days of Shaftesbury and Eussell, but which had been rejected in the defeat of the Exclusion Bill, and stamped as treason in the exile of Shaftesbury and the execution of Russell and Sidney. In the place of the Tory doctrines of "divine right" and "nonresistance" the nation had accepted, as the only work- able theory for a constitutional monarchy, the Whig doctrine, that the king is only an official who rules by the consent of the nation, and who may be removed by the same power, if he fail in the work to which he is called. PART IV— IMPERIAL ENGLAND THE ERA OF NATIONAL EXPANSION 1689 TO THE CLOSE OF THE 19TH CENTURY CHAPTER I THE BEGINNING OF PARTY RULE IN ENGLAND AND THE FOUNDING OF BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY . WILLIAM AND MART, 16H9-1694 WILLIAM III, 169*- 1702. THE RIVAL LINES OF STUART » Mary* II., 1558-1587 James I., 1587-1625- \ i i i Henry, d. 1612 Charles J., 1625-1649 Frederick of = Elizabeth |_J Palatinate | Charles T I., Jamet< II., Mary=William Henrietta= Philip, Rupert Maurice Sopliia 1649-1685 11)85-1701 of Orange Duke of m. Orleans Elector (d. 1701) of Hanover James III., Anne. MARY=WiiiiiiAMlII., Anne Maria=Victor Amadeus I 1701-1765 1702-1714 1689-1702 I of Savoy, First George I., King of Sardinia 1714 Charles III., Henry IX., Charles Emanuel III. 1765-1788 1788-1807 I Victor Amadeus I Charles IV., 1807-1819 rict(yr, 1819-1824 Francis TV , Duke=3f ary III., 1824-1840 of Modena [ Francis I., 1840-1875 Elizabeth of Austria=Ferdinand, d. 1849 I a. IV., Louis of Bavaria= Jfarj/ Iv., 1875- ? Robert, Prince of Wales, b. 1869 ' The names in italics indicate the so-called legitimate sovereigns of Great Britain ; the dates, the time when each was lawfully entitled to the crown according to the Jacobite theory. 2 Mary Queen of Scots according to the legitimists' theory was Mary II. of England. 805 806 BEGINNING OF PARTY RULE [william and Mary The period included between the accession of William and Mary and the death of Anne presents a continuous theme whether viewed from its constitutional or its international aspects. ofthTera'of ^^'^^^ ^^^ ^ne point of view, the history of the period is Arme^^ ^^ ^^® rccord of the successes of the Whig leaders in secur- ing the results of the Revolution at home; from the other, it is the record of the successes of William and the generals of Anne in securing the results of the Revolution abroad. At heart both William and his successor were in sympathy with the Tory ideas of royal prerogative, and little inclined to accept the series of restrictions with which their parliaments Ann^f^rcld sought to fcncc them round. But the Toryism of the the^Whias ^^^ ^^ Charles and James still cast its shadow across the Revolution and left no place within the pale of * 'divine right" and *'nonresistauce" for the "Dutch usurper" and his wife or her sister, the undutifol children, whose crime was not justified, but made blacker, by their nearness to the father and brother whom they had supplanted. Hence both William and Anne, like Elizabeth, though in sympathy with the conserva- tive elements of their time, were compelled by their position to cast in their lot with the radicalism which they abhorred, and submit to the parliamentary yoke, albeit never with meekness. And just as Elizabeth, though at first more than half Catholic, by the logic of her position, was forced to establish and defend Prot- estantism in England, so William and Anne, also, although Tory at heart, were forced to further the great Whig idea of parlia- mentary government. The Whig leaders on the other hand by no means grasped the full significance of their recent triumph ; they hesitated to s^ive their full confidence to the new kinff, in the first Attitude of ^^ ^ . _ -, . XI the Whig place becausc ne was kmsr, ana m the second place leddevs. because he was "Dutch William;" nor .could they ever forgive him for the crime of not having been born an Englishman. They had at first, moreover, only a half heart in his foreign wars; and yet, as the logic of the king's position compelled him at last to court their favor, so their position com- pelled them also not only to support him bu.t to accept his foreign RESULTS OF CONCESSIONS 807 wars as well. Thus it came about that the half Tory king and the all Tory queen consented to the strengthening of the parlia- ment at home, and the Whig parliament consented to the strength- ening of the crown abroad. The results of this mutual surrender of sympathies were far- reaching. In the first place, there was introduced into the customary law of the English Constitution the principle ^f,^™^^^o of party rule which led up naturally to the full accept- ance of the cabinet system in the reign of the first Hanoverian king. In the second place England was ushered into the arena of European political strife as a controlling power ; the now antiquated insular policy of the Tudors was displaced by the broader and more aggressive policy of modern times, and the nation led out by easy stages, through her constantly expanding commerce and waxing colonies, to the establishment of the ocean empire. Of these results, the first may be regarded as the culmi- nation of the era of struggle passed, the final triumph of the national parliament over the irresponsible monarchy; the perma- nent substitution of the king by parliamentary sanction for the king by divine right; of the government by statutory law, for the government by prerogative. The second may be regarded as the opening act of the era of struggle to come, which was to continue, with intermissions of varying length, to the final triumph at Waterloo, and end at last in the establishment of the permanent naval and commercial supremacy of England among the great powers of Europe. The first impetus towards this larger life into which the English race were now to be fully ushered, came from the commercial and naval enterprise which marked the closing years of the of modem reign of the great Elizabeth. It was then full time that commercial Englishmen awoke, if they were to have their share of the trade of the new worlds which the discoveries of Columbus and da Gama had opened up. The only territory beyond their own borders which they effectively held were Ireland and the Channel Islands. Even the Isle of Man, which had passed under the overlordship of the English king as a result of the Scot- tish wars of Edward I., was still held in the semi-independent 808 BEGINNIKG OF PARTY RULE [wiloam axd Mary relation of a medieval vassal kingdom.* Everywhere the ground was preempted by ambitious and jealous rivals. Spain, although she had already entered upon her decline, still maintained her stubborn monopoly of the Western seas, closing her colonial ports to all foreign nations and treating their merchantmen as pirates, whenever found in western waters. The Dutch had successfully entered the field held by the decaying commerce of Portugal, dot- ting the shores of the Indian Ocean, of Africa, and America with their trading stations, while their carriers fretted the waters of every sea and crowded English vessels even in their own home ports. In the latter days of Elizabeth's reign, however, English seamen and merchants had fully made up their minds to have their share of the world's trade, and henceforth paid little heed to claims based upon the preemptions of Dutch or Spanish. In 1600 the English East India Company entered the eastern seas and challenged the Dutch on their own ground. In 1612 they set up their first factory at Surat. In 1639 they built another station at Madras on the Coromandel Coast, and in 1668 they became possessed of the island of Bombay.^ Its insular position and magnificent harbor furnished a new starting point in the history of English enterprise in India. In 1690, in William's reign, the East India Company also got possession of three villages on the Hugli known as the Presidency Towns^ the site of the later Calcutta. They made little effort, however, to displace the Dutch in Ceylon or the archipelago. The teeming interior offered a far more promising field for commercial enterprise, and in a short time comparatively, the English had extended their traffic over the greater part of India. In other lands, also, foot to foot, English seamen and merchants wrested his trade from the ubiquitous Dutchman. In Russia, which was then counted among the bar- barous countries of the world, the English had been pioneers in the founding of the Muscovy Company in the reign of Mary, and although confronted with many discouragements since, they had ^ This relation continued until 1765. 2 This was a part of the marriage portion which Catharine of Bra- ganza brought to Charles II. in 1661. In 1668 he transferred it to the East India Company. 1612-1632] ENGLAND IN WESTERN HEMISPHERE 809 held their own. In the Baltic Ijrade, however, the Eastland Com- pany was confronted by Dutch traders. So too the Royal African Company^ which was specially befriended by Charles II., carried on a fierce struggle with the Dutch for the control of the slave trade with the West Indian Colonies. In the western seas also, the English had their triumphs. English buccaneers, *Hhe first apostles of free trade," waged a relentless war upon the Spanish monopolists. English Enginndin colonists souffht out the fertile islands of the Lesser Hemisphere. Antilles, which the Spaniard had passed by altogether in his search for gold. In 1G12 Bermuda was settled. In 1625 the first English landed at Barbadoes and St. Chris- topher, sharing the latter with tlie French, and in 1G28 colonists began to overflow into the neighboring Nevis and Barbuda; in 1G32, into Antigua and Montserrat. It was to these islands that Cromwell and the Long Parliament shipped off the thousands of Scotsmen and Irishmen who were taken in the later battles of the Civil War, leaving them to wear out their lives as white bond slaves. Bristol merchants also carried on a nefarious traffic with these porta in white slaves, which they obtained by a heartless system of kid- napping among the poorer laboring classes in England. Here also the Eoyal xVfrican Company found a ready market for their black slaves. The greatest triumphs of English trading and colonization enterprise, however, were reserved for the east coast of North America, where in the seventeenth century were planted the famous group of colonies which were destined to grow up into the United States of America. There was little in the beginnings of these later attempts, to foreshadow this destiny. The Spaniards and the French had already been before the English in the south and north. The Eng- lish had scarcely appeared in the James River, before the Dutch- men also appeared in the Hudson and coolly took possession of the finest harbor on the whole coast, naming the surrounding region New Netherlands, while the Swedes soon after planted their standard on the lower Delaware. Then came the opening acts of the great political struggles of the seventeenth century at home; but instead of weakening colonial enterprise, these struggles gave 810 BEGINNING OF PARTY RULE [william and Mart a new impetus to the colonies of England in the New World and soon enabled them to outstrip all rivals. In 1655 the war of Cromwell with Spain added the rich island of Jamaica to what England already possessed in the West Indies. Even the navigation laws, although resented by the colonists at first, by strengthening English commerce, in the end greatly strengthened the English colonial settlements. Charles 11. as- well as Cromwell fully appreciated the advantages to the crown and the nation of a vigorous colonial policy. His Dutch wars completed the line of English colonies on the coast by securing the New Netherlands and the Jerseys as permanent English possessions. His encourage- ment and support led to the settlement of the Carolinas in 1663, and to Penn's famous experiment on the Delaware in 1681. In 1670, at the instance of Prince Rupert, Charles chartered the Huclso7i Bay Company^ giving it a monopoly of trade and settle- ment in the region about the great northern inlet, which it named Ruperfs Land in honor of its princely patron. Thus when William began his reign English enterprise had already laid a noble foundation for the development of future empire. Though late in the field, the English were AmMtmmof everywhere winning their way by superior strength, superior energy and ability, too often supported by **evil daring" or stimulated by most unscrupulous greed. They had long since left Portugal far behind in the race; they had crippled the Dutch carrying trade by the ''Navigation Acts;" they had also fought the Dutchmen on the seas, destroying their com- merce and robbing them of their colonies; and in 1689 only Spain could boast of colonies which equalled the English either in extent or importance. But now a new danger began to threaten these thrifty offshoots of the parent tree. France as yet had lagged behind the other colonizing nations of Europe. She had planted some trading stations along the St. Lawrence, and her pioneers had, penetrated far west into the regions of the Great Lakes and the upper Mississippi. She had also managed to secure a footing here and there in other parts of the world. But her wars at home, the ambition of her kings to build up a great European power, had occupied her adventurous spirits in home fields and left her colonies 1664-1681] THE FRENCH I>^ THE NEW WORLD 811 to languish ; few of them had passed beyond the trading station stage. Louis XIV., however, as a part of his general plan for the expansion of French influence, had determined that France also should take her place among the great commercial and colonizing powers. His personal reign had hardly opened before he began to cast greedy eyes upon the Indies, and in 1664 he chartered the French East India Company. In 1681 La Salle pushed across from Lake Michigan to the Illinois and, passing down to the Mis- sissippi, finally reached the Gulf of Mexico, claiming for his sov- ereign the whole country under the name of Louisiana. To secure this vast territory would enable the French to dominate the con- tinent of North America. On all sides French enterprise was quickening with life, and although at the accession of William, Louis's plans were not yet fully developed, English merchants were beginning to fear the French, as they had once feared the Spaniard and later had feared the Dutch. It took no seer, tlierefore, to dis- cern the nature and extent of the next struggle. The era of reli- gious wars had passed; the era of commercial wars had already begun. The medieval wars, moreover, had been petty, confined to feudal forays and tedious besiegements of fortress cities. The wars of the early modern -period had been national wars in which great armies had been mobilized, and pitched battles had been fought; but compared with the struggle of the era at hand the arena had been limited, the results insignificant. Now the ocean as well as the continents, was to be the field of battle; the firing line was to girdle the globe, and the spoil of battle was to be the commercial supremacy of the world. At the time of his accession, William was forty years old. Like his great namesake, the Norman William, he had never had a boyhood. He had entered the world in the midst of waiiamiii. i'^t^'igi^G and revolution. His shoulders were early shaped to the x3ares of state. At thirty he was a vet- eran, tried in council and experienced in war; at forty he was a sage, with an insight into the political and social movements of his times which was almost prophetic. No abler man ever ascended the English throne. Yet he was cold, reserved, as were all his race, the effect of which was heightened by an indifferent com- 812 BEGINNING OF PARTY RULE [william and Mary mand of the English tongue. He did not know how to arouse enthusiasm. He lived among a people who were nationally bigoted, yet he made no effort to disguise his preference for the land of his birth, or to hide his lack of affection for the land of his adoption. His health was frail; his body was frequently racked with an asthmatic cough, which compelled him to seek seclusion whenever the cares of state or of war gave him the opportunity. The part of the affable master, therefore, which the disreputable Charles II. could play with such grace and to such purpose, was not in William's repertoire, and, although after Mary's death he made several trips through the country and succeeded in arousing some show of enthusiasm, he was never a popular monarch. The task, moreover, which confronted William was by no means simple. Whigs as well as Tories hesitated to commit them- selves to the unqualified support of the new monarch ; DiffleuMes ^ the Whigs ou principle were as unwilling to strengthen pfmWm. his hands as they had been to strengthen the liands of his predecessor ; the Tories out of sympathy with the king whom they had helped to undo, did not wish to see the king de facto, so thoroughly established in his position as to remove all hope of the return of the king by -divine right. Then, too, the men with whom William had to deal were the politicians of the Restoration, and the corrupt practices of a generation could not be unlearned in a day. He found himself surrounded by a set of vile fellows who must be managed by bribery, or not at all. The reaction, also, which is always sure to attend any violent popular upheaval, followed in this case almost before James was out of the kingdom, and the Tory leaders would probably have taken active steps to bring on a counter revolution at once, had it not been for James's persistent loyalty to the Catholic faith. As it was, during William's entire reign there was much desultory plotting, a wide spread treason of spirit, if not of overt act, and a general feeling of dissatisfaction, that at times influenced even the loyal Whigs. William, like Charles II., began his reign with a Convention which declared itself a parliament. The members were of course overwhelmingly Whig, as the first Convention parliament had 1689] THE BILL OF RIGHTS ' 813 been overwhelmingly royalist, and soon outstripped the king in their desire to punish old enemies. They managed, however, to place upon the statute books some excellent laws by 'c^mvmum ^^^^^ ^^^ principles of the Eevolution were definitely iiwBm^of' secured. They abolished '^Hearth Money," which had o!S^^' 1689 ^^^^ levied since 1653. They showed their Whiggism by fixing the revenues of the crown at one-third less than the amount which a Tory parliament had given to James, and also by limiting the grant in time. William felt deeply the lack of confidence and protested, but to no purpose. The Whigs, and after them the Tories, persisted in the custom of limited grants in order to compel the king to keep the promise of hold- ing frequent parliaments, which he bad made in accepting the Declaration of Eights. A similar security was also devised in fix- ing the time limit to the military powers of the crown. By the Declaration of Rights it was declared to be unlawful to keep up a standing army in time of peace without the consent of parliament. It was also declared unlawful to suspend the ordinary civil courts in order to enforce military discipline. The mutiny of a Scottish regiment, however, showed the danger of adhering too literally to this restriction; and parliament was forced to pass the ''Mutiny Act" which fully authorized the courts martial, but by limiting the act to six months saved the valuable principle of the Declaration. Experience has fully justified the wisdom of these measures, and each year since, with some exceptions, the Mutiny Act and the money bills have been regularly renewed. This important series of constitutional legislation was completed in October 1689 by the passage of the famous Bill of Rights, which made the Declaration of Rights of February a part of the fundamental law of England. The religious problem was as difficult to settle as ever. The Catholics had clung to James, and, in the nature of things, had little to expect from the new order, save an increased TheTolera- -^ . fi i mi. t^ ^ x ^ turn Act, seventy in the recusancy laws. The Protestant noncon- 1689- formists, however, had stood by the state church in the day of trial, and they certainly had some reason to expect a light- ening of the burdens which a cavalier parliament had thrust upon them. But magnanimity was not a weakness of the Whig leaders. 814 BEGINNING OF PARTY RULE [william and Maby The king, who was tolerant both by nature and by policy, desired to see the Test Act abolished, but the Whigs gave him little encour- agement. Daniel Finch, the earl of Nottingham, sought to solve the difficulty by broadening the church establishment so as to include the less radical Dissenters, but met with no success. A Toleration Act, also largely the work of Nottingham, succeeded better. By this act^ Protestant dissenters were allowed freedom of worship on condition that their meetings be held in registered meeting houses with doors open to all, that the worshipers take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and that the minister subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles, excepting those parts which dealt with the authority of the church. Baptists were permitted to omit also the article which affirmed infant bap- tism. Quakers were to be allowed by the courts to affirm .instead of taking the oath. Catholics and Unitarians were excepted from the benefits of the act. The act has been broadened from time to time since; but the old Test Act and its fellow the Corporation Act remained on the statute books until 1828. Dis- sidents, whether Catholic or Protestant, were not admitted to the uniyersities until 1871. The Toleration Act received the assent of William and became law in May 1689. While the moderates were thus trying to 'find some standing for nonconformists within the laws, the ranks of nonconformity received a new accession from the very men who had \tror8*^' most bitterly opposed the Toleration Act. Under the lead of Archbishop Bancroft, a body of about three hundred clergymen, including all the nonjuring bishops of 1689 except Trelawney, refused to take the new oaths of allegiance and supremacy. The government waited a year for these "unrecon- structed" Tories to accept the new conditions, and then deprived them of their livings. The nonjurors insisted on regarding themselves as the true Church of England, and continued as a distinct body until the death of their last bishop in 1805. Long before parliament had completed the adjustment of the laws of England to the new conditions, it had become evident that to establish the Revolution in the other parts of the Stuart domin- ^Gee and Hardy, Docs., p. 654, 1680, 1690] LONDONDERRY AND ENNISKILLEN 815 ions, something more vigorous was needed than the enactment of good laws. Tyrconiiel had assumed the duties of Lord Deputy in Ireland in 1687. He hastened the work of placing lution in the civil and military offices in the hands of the Catholics ; a Catholic judiciary, also, reconstructed the Corpora- tions. This work had now continued for two years and with such success that when in March 1689 James came to Ireland in hope of saving one of his kingdoms at least, he found the Catholic popula- tion in full control of the administration, and the parliament which he assembled at Dublin, at once proceeded to register in formal enactment, not so much their loyalty to James, as their hatred of his enemies. They denied the right of an English parliament to bind an Irish parliament. They abolished the appellate jurisdic- tion of the English courts over the Irish courts. They repealed also the Restoration Acts of Settlement and of Explanation. They then massed together in the "Great Act of Attainder," **the law without a parallel in the history of civilized countries," the names of 2,445 Protestants, who without trial and without hearing were thus condemned to death, their property confiscated, and their families reduced to penury. Yet this measure seems to have been inspired by political rather than by religious hatred. It was^ in fact, a sort of compromise with those who were urging James to authorize a general massacre of all the Protestants in the island, — a *'work of utility and piety" specially urged by the French envoy Avaux. The Protestants, however, fully believed that the massacre was about to take place, and from all southern and eastern Ireland began flocking into the northern counties, where the ^/umdm- overwhelming Protestant strength of Londonderry and ErmLkmcn -^^^i^iiskiUen promised them a refuge in the coming storm. At Londonderry the population had defied the newly established Catholic Corporation of Tyrconnel, elected Prot- estant governors, and declared for King William, For 105 days, an Irish army of 25,000 men under Richard Hamilton was held at bay from behind the crumbling walls; and when at last on July 30, Colonel 'Kirke, now in better business than when he was hanging Devonshire peasants, broke the boom which Hamilton had 816 BEGIJ^N^ING OF PARTY RULE [ William and Mary thrown across the river and relieved the city, only two days' rations remained. The Irish army at once raised the siege and began to retire towards the south. On August 2, the men of Enniskillen, who had passed through a similar siege, defeated their opponents under Justin M'Carthy at Newtown Butler. William, who all this time had been hampered by the treason, the corrup- tion, and inefficiency of his officials at home, had been able to do nothing beyond sending out the relief expedition under Kirke; but in the autumn he managed to get over a small army of English and Dutch under the command of his great Marshal Schomberg. The camp fever, however, prostrated Schomberg's men; the winter came and nothing was accomplished. Yet the northern counties bad been saved, and when in June William Battle of himself landed at Belfast with an Anglo-Dutch army of July 1, 1690. 36,000 men, affairs at once took on a new aspect. The Irish had not lent tliemselves readily to military disci- pline and, although Louis had sent over 5,000 Frenchmen to assist his ally, the army of James was no match for its opponent, either in number or discipline or equipment. The Irish, however, had taken up a strong position on the Boyne and here William attacked them on July 1, 1690. His men boldly plunged into the river and fought their way to the other bank, dispersing the enemy and win- ning a complete victory. Nothing but the loss of Schomberg and the fine work of the Irish cavalry and of the French under Lauzun, prevented AVilliam from annihilating the Irish infantry. James had withdrawn from the field early in the action. At Dublin he showed his appreciation of the brave men who had rallied about him in his last effort to save his crown, by annonnc- Fii^htof i,^g Iq the Corporation of the city that the Irish were all lAmerick covvards. After delivering himself of this important information he fled to France. At Limerick the Irisli, although deserted by the king who was unworthy of their loyalty, made a brave stand; a brilliant sally, led by Patrick Sarsfield, destroyed William's siege train and virtually forced him to raise the siege. In September he returned to England, leaving the direction of further operations in the hands of Ginkel, one of his Dutch officers. At the end of the year, however, in spite of some 1691] TREATY OF LIMERICK 817 successes of Churchill, now earl of Marlborough, who had led an independent command in the south, fully one-half the island was still in Irish hands The next year Louis sent over St. Rath to help Tyrconnel, and the struggle reopened with vigor on both sides. Ginkel carried the line of the Shannon with great difficulty, capturing Athlone, only to find the enemy again confronting him at Aughrim. Here St. Ruth fell and the Irish lost 6,000 men. Gal way also was taken and in August only Limerick remained. After two months of hard fighting the brave Sarsfield, who had succeeded Tyrconnel, was compelled to surrender. Limerick capitulated on October 3. The terms were generous and in very different temper from James's Act of Attainder. All Irish offi- cers and soldiers who desired, were to be conveyed to France free of charge, with all their personal property. Certain religious and social immunities, also, were guaranteed. The military terms of the treaty were carried out. Thirty-four thousand Irish soldiers and their families withdrew to France, where the most of them took service under the French king and nobly sustained the honors of their race and of their foster country as members of the famous **Irish Brigade." The civil terms of the treaty, however, were never fulfilled. L^pwards of four thousand families viokitionof were deprived of lands, which aggregated over 1,000,000 of Limerick, acres. The Irish parliament, once more in the hands of the Protestant minority, then set itself to stamp out Catholicism altogether. In 1695 all officers of the government and all professional men were required to take an Oath of Abjura- tion, by which they denied the doctrines of the Catholic Church. Catholic schoolmasters were forbidden to teach ; Catholic parents were forbidden to send their children abroad to be educated; priests or monks were ordered to leave the island, and those who returned were to be hanged. Catholics could not make wills; they could not succeed to property. If a son became Protestant, he inherited all the property to the exclusion of brothers and sisters who remained true to their faith. When Catholic parents died, their children, if minors, were handed over to the care of Protes- tant guardians. This legislation, known as the "Penal Code," was the work of the be-Protestanted parliament of Ireland, and was 818 BEGIKNIlirG OF PARTY RULE [william and Mabt designed to secure the permanent ascendency of the Protestant Enghsh minority. This much Protestant Ireland was doing for Catholic Ireland. The English parliament, dominated by the greed of English landowners and manufacturers, could not be expected to be more merciful. In 1665 they had excluded Ireland from the benefit of the Navigation Act, and further had for- bidden Ireland to send to England live stock or grain. In 1699 parliament imposed a ruinous duty upon all Irish woolens brought into England. The effects of this selfish policy toward Ireland, the result of the wretched jealousy of English farmers and manufacturers, may be seen in the two centuries of poverty which have since been the lot of the Irish, who, dwelling in a land fitted by nature for grazing, might have grown prosperous and contented if allowed to supply the swarming cities of England with meat and the products of the dairy. Instead they have been committed to small farms, to the spade instead of the plow, to the potato, a most treacherous substitute for grain in a w^, heavy soil, and to the accompaniments of extreme poverty, — fre- quent famines and a wretched existence in dreary hovels. It is hardly to be wondered that Ireland soon became a land of smug- glers, *'a recruiting ground for the armies of Catholic Europe, and a seed plot of disaffection!" Scotland made no such determined resistance as Ireland to the new Stuart king. Yet her people had had no more share in sending the invitation to William, and the withdrawal TheRevoiu- of troops by James gave occasion for outbreaks and tvm in Scot- . . ^ ^ . , ° ^ land, 1688-92. uprisings, which caused grave anxiety at the Council Board of the new government. On the 14th of March, 1689, a convention, summoned at William's suggestion, met at Edinburgh to consider the situation. The Whigs were in a pow- erful majority, and on March 18, James's representative Graham of Claver house, now Viscount of Dundee, left the city. As soon as Dundee was gone, the convention offered the crown to William; but first secured themselves, by drawing up a Scottish Declaration of Rights, called the "Claim of Rights." On May 11, William and Mary formally accepted the crown and took the Scot- tish coronation oath. The ceremony was held at Whitehall in 1689] KILLIECRANKIE 819 the presence of Scottish commissioners. In accepting the Claim of Eights William virtually promised to abolish "Prelacy," and accordingly the next year, the old Presbyterian system of govern- ment was once more, and this time permanently, restored in the national kirk of Scotland. In the Highlands Dundee rallied the old Tory clans which had once gathered at the call of another Graham, the ill-fated Mar- Dundeein ^^^^ ^^ Montrose. On July 27, after the troops of lanS^^^^ the new government had successfully toiled up the pass a-ankie ^^ Killiecrankie, they were suddenly set upon by Dun- Juiy 27,1689. (jee and the clansmen, and scattered with considerable slaughter. Dundee, however, was slain in the first shock of the battle, and the Highlanders, instead of attempting to follow up their victory, disbanded and returned to their homes. All immediate danger was thus at an end. But the temper of the Highlanders was so well known, that William could hope for no peace until the country was either reduced or pacified. To reduce it by force of arms was a serious task from which William might well shrink. The country, however, was wretchedly poor and many of the clansmen were in debt. William determined, there- fore, first to try what power gold would have in securing the good will of the people. £15,000 were set apart for this purpose, and every chieftain who should come in of his own accord and take the oath before January 1, 1G92 was to receive a share. The high- spirited Highlanders made it a point of honor not to hasten to accept terms which they dared not refuse. In this struggle to be last, Mac Ian Macdonald won; he did not take the oath until six days after the time appointed. He returned to his home, thinking that his allegiance had been accepted, well satisfied with himself. The Campbells, however, the old Whig clan of Argyll, were bitterly hostile to the Macdonalds of Glen- coe, and seized upon the opportunity to persuade William's advis- ers, the Dalrymples, to exterminate the whole Glencoe Febrtiary clan. In an evil hour for William's reputation he grave 13 1692- his consent. In the dead of winter a file of English soldiers entered the glen and were received as friends by tlie unsuspecting Macdonalds. At midnight they arose, set fire to the 820 BEGINNING OF PARTY RULE [ William and Maky houses of their entertainers and began an indiscriminate massacre. Many were cut down in cold blood, many more, who escaped the massacre, perished of cold and hunger in the mountains. The most that can be said for William, is that when he signed the order for the execution of a whole clan, he did not know how the order was to be carried out. The active support which Louis gave to James made it easy for William to secure the primary object of his interference in English affairs, — that is, to add England to the League of The War of Auorsburff. In May 1689 Endand formally declared the English ° ? ^ ^ -,. * -.-.-r^,., SuccessUm. war against 1* ranee, and m August a body of English troops under Marlborough shared in a defeat of the allies at Walcourt. The ostensible object of the war was to con- fine Louis to the boundaries of his kingdom as prescribed by the Treaty of the Pyrenees. But the English fought also for the special purpose of keeping James out of England and putting an end to the Catholic-French influence which had so long dominated in English politics; and thus the war is known to Englishmen as the "War of the English Succession." It was marked by an almost unbroken series of French victories upon land. On the sea also it opened under the most gloomy prospects for the Eng- lish. On June 30, 1690, the day before the battle of the Boyne, Admiral Arthur Herbert, now Lord Torrington, lost the battle of Beachy Head. So complete was the disaster that for two maAoo years the French controlled the Channel and the Eng- lish were in constant fear of invasion. Had William failed at the Boyne, and had James been a little more discreet in publishing lists of the Englishmen whom he proposed to hang when he "came to his own again," it is very likely that James would have regained his throne. So fair, in fact, were his prospects that many of the servants of William, among them Marlborough and Admiral Eussell, by entering into secret correspond - La Ho ue ^^^^^ with James, had begun to prepare themselves for May 16, 1692. another revolution. Fortunately, however, a victory of Russell off La Hogue once more adjusted the scale in favor of England and restored English supremacy in the Chan- iiel. It is characteristic of the lurid atmosphere which hung over 1690] THE ACT OF GRACE 821 the English politics of the day, that at the time of his victory Russell was in actual correspondence with James, and excused him- self for wrecking the fleet of Louis by the plea that his professional reputation was at stake. In contrast with the brilliant success of his treacherous admiral, William himself was beaten in August 1G03 at Steinkirk and again in July at Landen. In the meanwhile William was carrying on a weary struggle at home with headstrong parliaments and perfidious ministers. So disheartened was he that more than once he threatened tinn Pnriia- to tlirow UD the STame, leave the English to settle their missed, Jan- quarrel with James and Louis as best they might, and lUlTlJ 27, 1690. . . »/ o ' retire to his tulip beds at Loo. In January, 1690 he finally broke with the Convention Parliament. The vindictiveness of the Whigs had been thoroughly roused by the foolish violence of the parliament which James had called at Dublin, and nothing would satisfy them but vengeance for all that they had suffered since 1681. William had hoped for the passage of a *iBill of General Indemnity," but the angry Whigs introduced so many exceptions that the pretence of amnesty was a farce. Accord- ingly on the 27th the Convention Parliament was dismissed. The new parliament revealed the marked increase of Tory sen- timent in the country, and William, to ensure friendly coopera- tion with his ministry, dismissed some of the radical secmui Whigs and filled their places with Tories. Danby, now Marquis of Caermarthen, became William's chief adviser, while Godolphin and Shrewsbury were retired. The Tory parliament was a little more generous with William than his late Whig parliament. Eight hundred thousand pounds were granted for life, and £600,000, derived from the customs, were granted for five years. From these sums, £700,000 were set apart to meet the king's personal expenses, which then included the salaries of all purely civil officials. This appropriation came to be known as the *' Civil List." William was also grati- *^Act of Grace:- May fied bv the passiuff of an "Act of Grace" which prom- ised amnesty for all past political offenses. The few exceptions were practically nominal ; they included about thirty people, of whom some were safe in France with James, and others, 822 BEGIKKIKG OF PARTY RULE [william and Mary the surviving members of the commission who had sent Charles I. to the block, had long since likewise taken themselves safely out of England. The years 1693 and 1694 are marked by a series of remarkable financial measures, the wisdom of which has been justified by the experience of two centuries. These measures were, first the founding of the National Debt, and second the establishment of the Bank of England. The drafts which the war was making upon the treasury, compelled William to face the alternative of bankruptcy or of ask- The found- ^^^ ^^^ frcsh grants from parliament. Various expedi- Natimiai ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^'^ tried for augmenting the income of the Debt. government without overmuch straining of existing laws. The Long Parliament had exchanged the old medieval subsidy for a regular property-tax. But the property- tax had gradually degenerated into a simple land-tax. In 1692 a new valuation of lands that were subject to the tax was made, increasing the revenues from this source from £500,000 to £2,000,000. In 1691 a poll tax was levied; in 1694 a series of stamp duties was for the first time systematically arranged and carried out. The duty varied from Id. to £2, and was levied upon wills, marriage certificates, and other legal documents. The poll tax did not pay, and was soon given up. The stamp duty, how- ever, survived the war, and has remained ever since a profitable source of an ever increasing branch of the English revenues. These expedients helped ; but it would take many such rills to meet the constant demand of the war. What was needed was a full stream sufficient to meet the war needs of the hour. The country was prosperous in spite of the war. Money was really abundant for all kinds of private business enterprise. How could the govern- ment coax a larger amount of it out of the coffers of the strong headed burghers, without arousing their suspicions or raising the old cry that had been so fatal to Charles I.? Charles Montague, a young Whig connected with the treasury, proposed the simple expedient of borrowing the money, not by the old fashioned and unbusiness like method of a short loan on the royal credit at a high rate of interest, but of a long loan at a low rate of interest. 1694] DEATH OF MARY 823 In 1693 the scheme was inaugurated by a loan of £1,000,000, which was to be repaid by a complicated system of life annuities. Thus came into existence the National Debt, so called in distinc tion from the old royal debts, which were always regarded as inse- cure and had been doubly unpopular since the Stop of the Exchequer of Charles 11. The popularity among the merchants of London of the new loan as an investment, was the best assurance of the final success of a war, in which, as Louis had acknowledged, the '*last pistole" would win. Encouraged by the success of his loan, the next year Montague came forward with another scheme which had been devised by a Scotch banker, William Paterson. By this plan, for rmntofthe which Montagiie secured the consent of parliament, Ermiami, those who subscribed to a guarantee loan of £1,200,000 July, 27, 1694. ^ ^ . ° ' ' at 8 per cent., were incorporated as the ** Governor and Company of the Bank of England." The bank, in a word, proposed to monopolize the banking business which the goldsmiths had heretofore carried on with the government, and give its depositors better security by reason of its chartered privileges. To William the benefit was two-fold; it gave him a means of securing ready money, which was limited only by the confidence of the people ; it also gave him the assured support of the capitalists, who had pur- chased the stock of the bank, and of the vast army of depositors, who knew that if James ever got back to London, not a pound of their money, either of principal or interest, would they ever see again. The year 1694 closed in deep mourning for king and people. On the 28th of December the gentle Mary, after a brief illness, succumbed to the smallpox. Her death filled many Mary%e- "^^^^ ^^^^ gravest apprehension. For, although she had S.^^^^^' ^^^^ ^^^ government of the kingdom entirely to her hus- band, her gracious and tactful ways, as well as her nearness to the direct Stuart line, had done much to strengthen William where he most needed help. William had been sincerely devoted to his queen, and his pathetic loneliness appealed for sympathy wherever Jealousy of Dutch influence had not stifled all noble sentiment. 824 BEGINNING OF PARTY RULE [williamIII. Other events, also, helped to bring about a revulsion of popu- lar feeling in the king's favor. Six days before the death of the TTie'Trien- ^^^^eu, he gave his consent to a "Triennial Act," which December ^® ^^^ vetocd five years before when presented to him 22, 1694. ]jj }jjg ^hig parliament. By its terms, henceforth no parliament could remain in power longer than three years. By the Triennial Act of Charles II. it had been already decreed that the king should not allow more than three years to elapse without a parliament. The powerful Whig opposition in William's second parliament had borne no small part in securing these measures. It was due to the Whigs, also, that, in the months following Mary's oftheTm-fes ^^^^^^ there was unearthed a shameful and widespread t/ievrms!^^ corruption which had poisoned all the springs of pub- lic service. The East India Company had obtained a renewal of its charter in 1693. It was now discovered that the old company had distributed £80,000 in securing the support of those in power. Danby, the head of the party, who had recently been made Duke of Leeds, was implicated, and although the impeachment failed, solely by reason of the mysterious disappear- ance of the chief witness, and the discredited minister retained his position for some time longer, his influence was shattered. Another prominent Tory, Sir John Trevor the Speaker of the House, who had been an old henchman of Jeffreys and was now the chief dispenser of Tory corruption funds, also came to grief. Another event of considerable importance dates also from the closing session of William's second parliament. During the reign of Charles I., the government had sustained a riffid cen- Freedomof i • <. i mi thevress sorship of the press. The unfortunate experiences of the allowed. i i i t-, ^ n . luckless Frynne lully prove that it was a serious matter to fall foul of this authority. After the Restoration by the '' Licensing Act "of 1662, parliam.ent had not only authorized the crown to renew this arbitrary watch upon the output of the press, but had limited the whole number of master printers to twenty, and further had prescribed that no printing could be done at all, save in London, York, and the two universities. This act had been renewed since from time to time. The last renewal expired 1695] FREEDOM OF THE PRESS 825 May 7, 1695, and parliament refused to repeat it. Thus, almost without comment, was at last won the cause of the free press, for which Milton had striven in his day, and in defense of which he had written his famous Areopagitica. Thereafter a man might publish in England without official restriction, — subject only to action at common law should his publication prove to be '* libelous, seditious, or blasphemous." In August 1695 William scored his first real success against the French on land. In 1692 Namur had been taken by the French and fortified by Louis's great engineer Yauban. lapSeof ^^ ^^^ garrisoned by 16,000 men. But in 1695, in auiofthl^^ spite of Louis's efforts to hold the place, it was retaken ment^mT"' ^J William. This reversal of French arms, tlie first on land in half a century, was received by the English with a burst of enthusiasm, and when William returned in October he found himself at last a popular hero. He determined to take advantage of the change of sentiment of the people towards himself, as well as of the disfavor into which the recent disclosures had brought the Tory leaders, to dismiss his second parliament and appeal again to the nation. The step was fully justified by the result ; the electors returned not only a Whig parliament, but a parliament fully in sympathy with the king in promoting the war. It was about this time that William began to reconstruct his ministry upon a plan suggested to him by Sunderland, who had not changed his coat so many times that he could not Whig still be useful to the party in power. The frequency with which treasonable plots among the Tory leaders had been brought to light, the assurance which William felt of the treachery of some and the unworthiness of others, had led him to depend more and more upon the Whigs, in spite of his dis- trust of their radicalism. At first, like Washington, he had thought to ignore party differences, and, by selecting for each post the most capable man, not only reward both parties impartially, but secure a thoroughly representative ministry. The plan, how- ever, had worked no better than when Washington had Hamilton and Jefferson ever quarreling at his council board, and to secure peace, William was compelled to select men who at least could 826 BEGIJs^NING OF PARTY RULE [wiihamIII. give promise of working together. The changes which he made during the tenure of his second parliament had revealed the great advantage also of having for advisers men who could command the sympathy and confidence of a majority in the Commons. When it became evident, therefore, that the Whigs were to return to power, William made a clean sweep of the 1'ory members of his council and filled their places with pronounced Whigs. Thus the first distinctively Whig ministry came into exist- ence, and the principle of party government was fairly inaugurated. Of this, the first Whig ministry of the many to follow in the next two centuries, Wharton, the author of LiUihtUero, the man rpj^ who boasted that he had whistled a king out of Eng- '' Junto." land, was the party manager. He was without scruple in private life and without conscience in public life. He was a profligate himself, and never hesitated to corrupt others for liis own ends. Swift called him "a universal villain." Yet Wharton had one *' black virtue:" through ill repute and good repute, be was intensely devoted to his party. He knew, moreover, all the outs and ins of political management; he abounded in evil daring, and in spite of his vices was person.illy liked by the people. He is the first of modern political ^'bosses." Associated with Wharton in the management of the party were Somers, Russell, and Mon- tague, constituting what was called the "Junto." Russell had no more conscience than Wharton, but was without his devotion to party or his genius for party leadership. Somers was "the good man of the machine." Yet even his virtues were somewhat sharply defined, and shone rather by contrast with their setting, as so often happens in the case of the good man in the modern political junto; some shades of grey may look white by the side of black. Montague, the fourth man of the Junto, was the Robert Morris of the Revolution. He had served through the earlier parliaments in a subordinate position at the Treasury, and in reward for his service he had been made, first, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and finally. First Lord of the Treasury. It was due to his fine genius, not only that the new government was put upon a safe financial footing, but also that the solid foundations were laid upon which British financial policy has since rested. 1696] THE RECOINAGE ACT 827 Among the first acts of the new parliament was a measure designed to regulate trials for treason, making it impossible to con- y^g vict men upon such evidence as had sent William Russell aTT^ and Sidney to the block in 1G83. The prisoner was to 1696. be presented with a copy of the charges against him, and a list of the panel ; he was also to be allowed the services of a lawyer. Further he could not be convicted without the sworn testimony of two witnesses. While this wise and humane measure was before parliament, some forty desperate adherents of the exiled Stuart were planning to assassinate William as the first step in preparing for active interference on the part of Louis. The plot was discovered in February, 1G96, and added greatly to the increasing popularity of the king. The Houses voted to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, in order to enable the government to detain suspects until suffi- cient evidence might be found against them. They also voted that the tenure of a parliament should not expire at the death of the king. The members of the Commons formed a ** Loyal Associa- tion," which was sworn to avenge William's murder, and to main- tain the Bill of Rights. Out of 530 members 420 took the oath, a fact which shows the strength *of William's support in the Lower House. This miserable plot was responsible also for the last death by Act of Attainder. Several of the suspects had been executed under the terms of the new Treasons Act. But in the case of Sir John Fen wick, of whose guilt apparently there was no question, the disappearance of one of the two witnesses for the state, m;ide his conviction impossible. The Whig leaders, however determined not to allow the man to escape upon a mere techni- cality; and on January 11, 1697, after a struggle of two months succeeded in getting through the Houses an Act of Attainder. To the triumphs of the year 1696, is to be added yet another, the greatest of the brilliant measures of William's finance minis- ter. In his scheme of raisiner money upon the srovern- age Act," ment credit, Montague had met no small difficulty in the fluctuating value of the coins themselves. Not only had the government debased the coinage in the past, but in spite of severe laws, coins in circulation had been clipped and battered 828 BEGINNIllfG OF PARTY RULE [williamIII. until they were beyond recognition. The coins of full intrinsic value, that is the new coins from the mint, speedily disappeared; many were sent abroad to meet the foreign bills of English mer- chants. As a result, investments were always uncertain at best, and were made with an ever increasing timidity. Long time loans were refused altogether, for no one knew in what kind of money they would be paid. In 1696 parliament passed the *'Eecoinage Act," by which on May 24 mutilated coin was to cease to be legal tender. The government in the meantime was to redeem the clipped pieces, paying out in return a new coin, circled with the milled edge^ a recently invented device to prevent clipping. A new loan of £1,200,000 was necessary to meet the expense of the redemption and the recoinage. On October 20, 1696, Montague put the finishing touches to his great plan for placing the national credit upon a sound basis, Montaaue's ^^ presenting to parliament three resolutions: first, Resolutions, that the Commons should support William against all foreigner domestic enemies; second, that the standard of money should be altered neither in fineness, nor in weight, nor in denomination; third, that all deficiencies in parliamentary grants made since the king's accessioti, should be made good. The first resolution brought out the unprecedented grant of nearly £5,000, 000 for the war. The second resolution was opposed by some well meaning financiers who believed that a debasement of the coinage would help the government, but was finally carried. The third resolution, which pledged parliament to make good defi- ciencies amounting to more than £5,000,000, was followed by the "General Mortgage," which pledged the general revenue of the state to make good the nation's liabilities, should the taxes specially designated at any -time fail to meet the object specified. The principles of sound policy here laid down, which at once effectually restored English credit, have remained undis- „„ , , turbed ever since, — the foundation of the magnificent Montapues strength of the modern British state. Louis had financial => measures. already admitted that final victory lay not with the heaviest battalions but with the longest purse. His financiers were trying all manner of expedients to match this splendid 1697] RY8WICK 829 showing of financial strength of William's government; but they failed utterly to comprehend the very first element necessary to the development of the financial resources of a state, — the con- fidence of the people in the integrity of the government and in its ability to keep its promises. In the autumn of 1696, therefore, the time was not far off when Louis must confess himself beaten. The futility of the Jacobite plots for the restoration of James, the growing RyHwick, strength of William in England, his recent successes abroad, the utter exhaustion of France, and the sheer weight of Louis's foes, who pressed him upon every side, at last opened his eyes to the hopelessness of the struggle, and in Jan- uary he was glad to open negotiations with England. In the fol- lowing autumn the series of treaties known as the Peace of Ryswick, put an end to the struggle of nine years. To the Eng- lish the thing of chief importance in the treaty with Louis, was the formal recognition of William as King of England, and of Anne as his successor. Louis might continue to shelter James, but he pledged himself no longer to support his pretentions to the English crown. To satisfy the League Louis agreed to surrender all territory which he had taken since the Treaty of Nimwegen, with the exception of Strasburg. It was the first serious check to outward expansion which France had received in a hundred years. The Peace of Ryswick marks the beginning of a new era in the reign of William. The nation caught a glimpse of the full signifi- cance of the plans which their king had carried through A new era in to a triumphant peace, and for the moment Enerlish- William's ^' \ ,a ,\^ t . -, , . reifirw. men realized that they were living under the reign of one of the greatest of English kings. The Whig par- liament caught the contagion of enthusiasm and set to work to pay the bills which the war had incurred, doubling the tariff on many articles and securing a new loan of £2,000,000 through the English Co7npany^ — a company of London merchants who for several years had been trading in the East Indies and now received a charter, on condition of floating the government loan. William, however, was not destined to taste the sweets of popu- larity long. Ever since the close of the Hundred Years' War, the 830 BEGIN-NING OF PARTY RULE [william ill. Tudor policy, which on the one hand forbade foreign states to inter- fere in British affairs, and on the other forbade England to become a party in any of the purely continental quarrels, had icaicondi- been virtually the accepted political creed of the of William's nation Like the American Monroe doctrine, the Tudor English policy had never passed into formal law, and yet it had always formed a powerful reactionary influence for peace, whenever English ministers seemed inclined to take part in continental quarrels. Now when the war of the English Succession had been brought to a successful conclusion, what most Englishmen did not understand was that in accepting the head of the Augsburg League as their king, with him they had also adopted the great continental quarrel with France, which had now been raging for a hundred years and was by no means ended. In other words England had forever abandoned her insular isolation, and in spite of herself had become a continental power, and a deeply interested party as well in maintaining the existing political balance of Europe. William saw this ; it was in fact for this very purpose that he had accepted the English crown and brought England into line with the League. When, therefore, in order to put the country again upon a peace footing, parlia- ment determined to cut down William's army from 80,000 men to 10,000 and also to allow the Mutiny Act to lapse, it met a very determined resistance on the part of the king. The childless Charles IL of Spain, the innocent cause of so much strife, was nearing his end at last. The son of Louis XIV. was the nearest of three heirs to the Spanish throne, and William had no reason to think that Louis with the enormous possessions of the Spanish house at stake, would hesitate a moment in setting either the Dauphin Louis or one of the Dauphin's sons upon the Spanish throne. It was altogether advisable, therefore, as the most certain way to prevent war, to keep the government upon a war footing until the crisis should be passed. But the Whig parlia- ment, moved by the traditional suspicion of great standing armies, appealed to the accumulating national debt, which had already reached the appalling sum of £14,000,000, and to the unpreced- ented taxation which was no longer necessary now that the country 1698] FIRST PARtlTiOX TREATY 83l was at peace, and demanded a reduction of expenses. This posi- tion was certainly plausible, and when William protested, when he pleaded the danger of future war, he found but scant sympathy among a people who were not yet awake to the new conditions, and were still inclined to regard the quarrel of William with Louis as none of theirs. In January 1698, accordingly, parliament granted funds sufficient only to keep on foot 10,000 soldiers and 13,000 sailors, and William was compelled to accept these provisions. In the meantime William was carrying on secret negotiations with Louis, in order if possible to make a peaceful adjustment of the Spanish succession. Beside the Bourbon princes, First Parti- Joseph the Electoral Prince of Bavaria, who was an with France, infant of five years, and the Emperor Leopold were also directly interested ; and on October 11, 1698, France, England, and the Netherlands formally agreed that in case Charles II. died childless, the infant Joseph was to have Spain, the Span- ish Netherlands, and the provinces of Spain in America and the Indies; Louis the Dauphin was to have Naples, Sicily, and the Tuscan ports with the Basque province of Guipuzcoa in the Pyrenees ; while the second son of Leopold, the Archduke Charles, was to have Luxemburg and Milan. The necessary secrecy of these negotiations, which had been carried on during the whole summer at William's palace at Loo, naturally aroused a good deal of suspicion in England. in^v^and ^^^ nation was weary of war; and they thought the surest way to guarantee peace was to continue to cut down the army. In the new parliament, therefore, which had been summoned by the provisions of the Triennial Act, the Tory influence was once more in the ascendant and parliament proceeded to reduce the army still further. It insisted, moreover, that none but men of English birth should be enrolled, thus ungraciously compelling William to send home his favorite Dutch guards. The Commons further humiliated William by vigorously attacking Montague and Russell. Ultimately they compelled them to throw up their commissions, and thus broke up the Junto which had come to be hated and suspected almost as much as the Cabal. Not satisfied with these successes the Commons also attacked 832 BEGINNING OF PARTY RULE [william 111. William at another tender point by proposing a commission to investigate the manner in which he had disposed of the forfeited Irish lands. The measure was forced upon the Lords by "tack- ing" it to the regular appropriation bill, which the Lords were compelled to accept or reject as a whole. Accordingly the com- mission was appointed, and in the autumn of 1G99 they were ready to report. It was found that 1,700,000 acres had been confiscated, of which about one-fourth had been restored to the original owners and the rest had been given to William's favorites, several of whom were foreigners. During the session of 1699 and 1700, parliament did little else than discuss these grants ; and finally, by forcing a "Resamption Bill" upon the Lords by the same tactics which they had used in the autumn, compelled the king to consent to the vesting of all such land grants in the hands of parliament. While the English parliament thus seemed bent on humiliating their king and destroying the moral effect of his previous successes, the question of the Spanish succession was again thrown The Second ij^to confusiou bv the death of the little prince of Partition -J ^ ^r^H'' . ^ Bavaria, and in March, 1700, a second Partition Treaty March, 1700. '. ' ' •' was arranged by William and Louis in which the Arch- duke Charles was to have Spain, the Spanish Indies, and the Spanish Netherlands, while the Dauphin was to have Milan in addition to what had been assigned him by the first treaty, to bo exchanged later for the Duchy of Lorraine. The second treaty gave little satisfaction to anybody. The emperor was not pleased with a plan which forced him to exchange Lorraine for Milan; while Louis used his influence to persuade Charles II. to disregard the treaty altogether and name as his sole heir Philip of Anjou, son of the Dauphin. The Spaniards, moreover, were specially incensed, when they learned that their old foes, England and Holland and France, proposed to dismember their empire. "Poor old Lord Strutt fell into a great rage when he heard that his runaway servant Nick Frog, his clothier John Bull, and his old enemy Louis Baboon had drawn out his will for him. "^ On November 1, 1700, a month after the signing of the will, Charles ^ Dr. Arbuthnot in a pamphlet of the time. The probable origin of the nickname, John Bull. 1701] ACT OF SETTLEMENT 833 died, and on the 15th Louis threw over the second Partition Treaty and accepted the Spanish crown for Philip. William and his friend Heiiisius, the Pensionary of Holland, bitterly upbraided Louis for his perfidy. But Louis paid little attention to their scoldings. He had correctly calculated that in the present state of public affairs in England, it would be impossible for William to induce the nation to take up arms, and in April 1701, William was compelled to recognize Louis's grandson as Philip Y. of Spain. While the death of Charles had thus raised again the question of the Spanish succession, in the preceding July the death of William of Gloucester, the only surviving son of the The "Act of Princess Anne, had also raised again the old question Settlement " June 12, 1701. of the English succession. From the point of view of the average Englishman, the question was of far greater importance than the succession to the Spanish throne. Parliament, although still Tory, took the matter in hand and in June, 1701, passed the ''Act of Settlement," * by which Sophia of Hanover, granddaughter of James I. , was named as the next heir to the throne. The attitude of parliament towards William's foreign schemes is shown by the provision which forbade the king without its consent to go to war for the defense of any dominion which did not belong to the crown of England, or to leave the kingdom, or to appoint to the Privy Council any but native Eng- lishmen. The sovereign must also be a communicant in the established Church of England. The universal acceptance of Whig principles even by the Tories is further shown in the pro- vision which forbade any holder of any office under the crown, or of any place of profit, or of any pension, to serve as a member of the House of Commons. The judges were to hold office during good behavior, were to be placed upon salaries, and could be removed from office only upon the request of both Houses of par- liament. Further, "no pardon under the Great Seal was to be pleadable to an impeachment by the Commons." The Act of Settlement is another important waymark in the progress of the formal constitutional law of England. Even the Tories had accepted the results of the Revolution as final, and had virtually 1 Lee, Source Book, p. 431. 834 BEGINXING OF PARTY RULE [william ill. advanced to the ground once taken by Eussell and Shaftesbury. They had not only affirmed the right of parliament to fix the suc- cession by law, as against any claim based upon divine right by inheritance, they had also, by making the judiciary independent of royal control, struck from the king's hands the last weapon by which he might attack the liberties of the subject. While the Tory parliament had been venting its malice upon William, and driving from office the few Whigs who still remained in his ministry, the country was already stirring with Jacobite signs of reaction. On June 17 the impeachment of Somers, the last of the Whig ministers, broke down for lack of evidence. Ominous petitions, also, began to come to the Commons from various parts of the country, praying that *'his majesty might be enabled powerfully to assist his allies before it be too late." The nation was in fact slowly coming to its senses. The Franco-Spanish alliance threatened to throw open to French commercial enterprise, the door which Spain had heretofore closed to the whole world. Louis, moreover, had in February thrown French troops into all the Dutch barrier towns which the Treaty of Eyswick had turned over to Dutch occupation, and had coolly announced that the previous renunciation, which Philip had made of his claims to the French crown, was void. If more evidence were needed to assure the nation that William was right in his attitude of suspicion toward the French king, it was given by Louis himself, when on the death of James II. in September he promptly recognized the son of James as King of England. The nation took fire at what they regarded as the perfidy and insolence of Louis, and once more turned to the Whigs for guidance. The new parliament met in December and at once passed a Bill of Attainder against the new "James III.;" and by another bill compelled all civil officers, ecclesiastics, members of universities, and school masters to renounce upon oath "the pre- ^AUiance^^^ tended king. ' ' William had already begun measures August 28, for the renewal of the struggle with France. In Sep- tember, he had committed England to the "Grand Alliance," a new coalition which was to carry on the work of the old League of Augsburg, and had sent over Marlborough with 1703] DEATH OF WILLIAM 835 every soldier he could muster to help the Dutch hold their frontiers. But suddenly in the midst of the busy preparations for the war, the noble spirit which had foreseen from the beginning the renewal of the struggle, and had pleaded in vain for the support of short- sighted parliaments in order to avert the calamity, had taken its flight. In February 1702 the king had been thrown Death of ^ , . , mi i. i, .. i^ ^ . . ^ . i William,^ from his horse. The fall itself was not serious but the sickly body, worn out by toil of mind and vexation of spirit, rapidly succumbed to the fever which followed the shock. The conduct of the war passed into other hands, but the work of William was accomplished. CONTEMPORARIES OF THE LATER STUARTS 1650-1714 KING OP FRANCE EMPERORS KINGS OF SPAIN RUSSIA Louis XIV., d. 1715 Ferdinand III., d. 1657 Philip IV., d. 1665 Peter the Great, d. 1725 Leopold I., d. 1705 Charles II., d. 1700 Charles VL, d. 1740 PhiUp V., d. 1746 EMINENT FOREIGNERS (not Sovereigns) Mazarin, d. 1661 Moliere, d. 1673 Colbert, d. 1683 Corueille, d. 1688 Racine, d. 1699 BRANDENBURG, PRUSSIA Frederick William, "the Great Elector.' d. 1688 Frederick I., King of Prussia, d. 1718 Frederick WilUam I., d. 1740 EMINENT ENGLISHMEN Clarendon, d. 1674 Shaftesbury, d. 1683 Bunyan, d. 1688 Dryden. d. 1700 Locke, d. 17(M Addison, d. 1719 Marlborough, d. 1722 Newton, d. 1727 Defoe, d. 1731 Pope, d. 1744 Swift, d. 1745 Charles XI., d. 1607 Charles XII., d. 1718 CHAPTER II THE COMPLETION OF THE WORK OF THE REVOLUTION" ANNE, 1702-1714 CLAIMANTS TO SPANISH SUCCESSION Philip III., = Margaret of Hapsburg King of Si)ain 1598-1621 Philip IV., 1621-1665 m. Maria = Ferdinand II., I Emperor 1637-1657 (1) Elizabeth of Bourbon,- d.1645 Louis XrV.,= Maria Theresa King of France, 1643-1715 (2) Maria Anna I LeoiK)ld I., Era- m. peror I 1658-1705 Charles II. of Spain, 1665-1700 Louis, the Dauphin, d. 1711 Louis, Duke of Burgundy, d. 1712 Louis XV., h., 1715-1774 Philip, Duke of Anjou and Philip V. of Spain, 1700-1746 Margaret Theresa (1) — ' — (2) Eleanor Maria Antonia, j ^| wi. Maximilian, Joseph I., Charles Elector of 1705-1711 VI., Bavaria 1711-1740 Joseph Ferdinand, d. 1699 By the terms of the Revolution Settlement, Anne the youngest daughter of James II. succeeded to the crown of William III. At the time of William's death she was thirty-seven years Queen Anne, ^ -^ 1702-1714. old. She had been early married to Prince George of Denmark, an empty headed toper, of whom Charles II. once declared that he had tried him drunk and tried him sober, and found noth- ing in him. The couple had had a number of children, but none of them had survived. Anne herself, the "good Queen Anne," was a well meaning, kindly natured woman, but dull and easily led, although liable to dangerous fits of obstinacy if not carefully managed. At heart she was a Tory ; and yet, as with William, her position finally compelled her, if not to enter the Whig camp, at least to tolerate a Whig ministry and to support Whig measures. 836 -T--Tr- i n-rT i ri|>- f^n^li ( i / ^ s ^ ?p LADY MARLBOROUGH 837 Thus in spite of herself Anne was forced to take up the work of the Revolution, In this course, however, the new queen was directed not by any intelligent grasp of the political elements which confronted her, Sarah ^^^^ ^J ^^® ambitious instincts of a clear-sighted, beau- jfady^ari- ^^^"^ woman, wlio had gained a complete ascendancy borough. Q^^p i\^q mind of the princess long before she became queen, and who steadily used her influence to advance the interests of herself and her husband, the brilliant earl of Marlborough. This woman who began her career as simple Sarah Jennings, a penniless lady in waiting, was an interesting compound of imperious pride, arrogant wilfullness, seductive beauty, and shrewish temper. By her good natured mistress she was regarded with idolatrous affec- tion, and admitted to an intimacy becoming only in equals, where the august titles prescribed by the stately court etiquette of the eighteenth century were dropped, and the subject became **Mrs. Freeman" and the sovereign '*Mrs. Morley." Now the imperious "Mrs. Freeman" was no more a Whig at heart than her mistress, but her keener wit grasped the situation as Anne's slow moving mind could not. She saw, moreover, the possibilities which the war offered to her husband's ambition. While the beautiful Sarah reigned, therefore, the new government was committed to the policy of William, and her gifted husband, fully the equal of William in diplomacy and his unquestioned superior on the battle field, found ample scope for the free exercise of his splendid talents as chief of the Grand Alliance. The last parliament of William, which by the act of 1G96 remained in session after his death, continued preparations for war j^j^^ and on May 4 formally declared against France. Lady Churchill, Sarah's influence was sufficient to secure for her hus- Hiari oj Marlborough, band an important place in the counsels of the queen, 'and his prominence at once marked him for high command. At the time he was fifty-two years old, an age when the work of most men is done. It is true that he had been familiar with camps since boyhood and had seen much hard service, but he had never before been entrusted with the sole command of a large army. He had, moreover, during several years of William's reign remained 838 WORK or revolution completed ^ [anne under a cloud of disfavor which he had brought upon himself by reason of a treasonable correspondence with the exiled Stuart, and which ought to have retired permanently any ordinary man. The persistent friendship of Anne, however, had brought the favor- ite forward again even before William's death, and now secured for him the position of commander-in-chief of the allied armies of England and the Dutch Eepublic. Never was favoritism more signally justified by the results. For out of this treacherous court- ier the war soon developed a military genius with few equals and no superior in the eighteenth century. Yet marvelous as was Marl- borough's skill in winning victories, no less marvelous was his skill in managing timid councils or stupid allies. In charm of person and grace of manner, the English commander was irresistible. With inexhaustible patience he combined matchless tact and a com- posure which was never ruffled. He was never in a hurry, never vexed, never worried. Whether on the battlefield, where his troops were mowed down by the thousands before his eyes, or in the council chamber, where the atmosphere was heavy with stupidity or lurid with treachery, the same indolent calm pervaded his man- ner. Patience was his sovereign cure for all ills. ''Patience," he loved to say, "will overcome all things." Morally, however, this man of marvelous intellect, of unique genius, was no whit above the level of the average politician of the Eestoration. He was prudently familiar with the vices which disgraced the "gentleman" of his time, a slave to the meanest avarice, a time-server who was shamefully faithless to obligation, a traitor to two kings; and yet for ten years by sheer intellectual force he exerted an influence in Europe which "the crown of Great Britain had not given to William III." The position of parties at home was naturally influenced by the struggle to which William had committed the nation. The enthusiasm which had elected William's last Whig and the war parliament rapidly cooled when the gigantic nature of the contest began to be understood. The nation shrank from new burdens of taxation ; it shrank from the new perils which confronted its commerce on the seas. The first par- liament of Anne, therefore, showed very marked Tory gains. Marl- 1702, 1703] MARLBOROUGH ON THE RHINE 839 borough's misplaced Tory sympathies also favored the gathering of a Tory ministry, so that it was not long before the weight of the increased Tory strength in the government began to be felt in the laggard support which the ministry gave to the war. Eng- land, however, could hardly withdraw, now that Louis's armies were in the field. The fate of the Dutch Kepublic also was a matter of some moment, for English commerce in the Netherlands was at stake. Yet to the ostensible purpose of the war, the res- toration of the Spanish throne to a Hapsburg dynasty, the Tory ministry were wholly indifferent; they regarded the quarrel as something with which England had no business to meddle. It was not long, therefore, before the leaders had agreed upon what may be called the Tory policy of conducting the war. Operations at sea were to be confined to protecting English commerce and English colonies ; operations on land were to be confined to the defense of the Dutch border, while the emperor was to take care of himself and secure the Spanish crown for his son if he could. This policy would keep down expenditure, incur few risks, and enable England to withdraw at an early opportunity. The activities of the English, therefore, were directed at first to the Netherland borders, where the French already held most of the Spanish territory ; and Marlborough, much to his dis- Maribor- taste, was forced to content himself with a series of ninjh on the ' lower Rhine, sieges bv wliich he won the border fortresses. This 1702, 1703. O J work, though trying to the patience of the English commander, was nevertheless most valuable from a military point of view. It cut off the French from the lower Rhine and freed Hol- land from all danger of invasion. For this brilliant work, the result of two years of hard campaigning, Marlborough was raised to ducal honors. These early successes of Marlborough were in marked contrast with the fortunes of the allies in other quarters. In 1702 the imperial army under Prince Eugene of Savoy barely of the allies, escaped annihilation in northern Italy. A premature 1702 1703 attempt upon the coast of Spain met with no better success. On the middle Rhine the French and their Bavarian allies completely outgeneraled Louis, Margrave of Baden, and opened a 840 WORK OF REVOLUTION COMPLETED [' way by the Danube into the very heart of the emperor's Austrian dominions. The next year offered somewhat better results. In October Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, joined the alliance, and in December Portugal cast in her lot with the enemies of France. The geographical position of these new allies was of considera- ble importance, and yet there was great danger that the war would be ended before any advantage could be taken of the of'BUnhSm. ^^^^ accession of strength to the Grand Alliance. Aus- tria was in fact now entirely isolated from her allies and exposed to the direct attack of the French through Bavaria. If Louis could once throw an army of French and Bavarians Franco-Bauarian Army r^ Horse Toot ■■§ Battle of BLENHEIM or HOCHSTADT August 3-13, 1704 around the Austrian capital, he might force the emperor, the nominal head of the league, to terms, and end the war. This was Louis's plan for the campaign of the year 1704. Marlborough saw the danger, and coolly ignoring the instructions of his government, resolved to save the emperor at all costs. To allay the timid fears of the Dutch, he made them believe that he intended to make a campaign on the Moselle, where Villeroy lay at Trier. But instead of entering the Moselle valley, he boldly pushed on to the 1704] BLENHEIM 841 Main, marched up the romantic valley of the Neckar and, thread- ing the passes of the Black J Forest, joined Prince Eugene at Ulm, and on the 13th of August confronted the French and Bavarians near Ilochstadt on the Danube. The enemy, who were superior in numbers and artillery, held a strong position on the southern slopes of the Nebelthal, with their right BienhJim resting on the Danube near tlie little village of Blen- Auu^i3^%o!t ^^^^- Eugene on the allied right was unable to reach the enemy who were protected by a low marshy ground in their front; but on the left Marlborough, after a series of costly repulses, succeeded in breaking the French center and compelling the 14,000 French troops who held the village of Blenheim to surrender. Of the splendid army which Louis had massed on the Danube in the early summer, hardly 20,000, less than one-half, succeeded in getting back to the Rhine. The immediate results of the victory were the rescue of Vienna, the expulsion of the French from Bavaria, and the clearing of Elsass and the Lower Moselle. The moral and political effects of the battle were even greater ; the prestige of French arms, which rested upon fifty years of almost unbroken victory, was dispelled; the English public repudiated the cautious policy of the Tory min- isters and demanded a more vigorous prosecution of the war, worthy of the victor of Blenheim. It was high time for the nation to interfere. The Tories had early taken advantage of their strength in the new government to attempt to secure permanent control of the Commons WriesSse-^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^'^^^ of excluding nonconformists from the Stpower.' niunicipal corporations. Protestant nonconformists had discovered that they could evade the law by receiv- ing the sacrament once a year according to the ritual of the Church of England, and still remain for the rest of the time in active connection with their separate congregations. As the Protestant nonconformists generally were TVhigs, this custom of ''occasional conformity" had added greatly to the strength of the Whig party. Hence if the (Corporations could be purged of these Whig occasional conformists, the Tory politicians might secure an indefinite tenure of power. Some good men undoubtedly felt that 842 WORK or revolution completed [anne the church was drabbling herself in thus allowing unscrupulous politicians to profane her sacraments, and when the Tory Notting- ham raised the cry, "the church in danger," the High Church element in nation and parliament had been quick to catch the alarm and rally to the support of the Tory leaders. Anne, also, who was a devout "church woman," sincerely desired to see the church free from the reproach of helping dissenting politicians. In November 1703, therefore, Henry St. John introduced the "Occasional Conformity Bill," which prescribed that any one who attended a dissenting meeting house, after having qualified for oflBce, should be at once dismissed and heavily fined. Marlborough, although a Tory and although he had been largely responsible for the forming of Anne's Tory ministry, had no wish to see a measure carry which might be fatal to his borough schomcs of prosecuting the war. Yet he had not dared the ultra to opposc the Torics openly, and had contented him- self with secretly backing the opposition of the Whig Lords, who were strong enough to throw out St. John's bill when it came to them from the Commons. He endeavored to conceal his real sentiments and silence the cry of unfriendliness to the church by persuading the queen to surrender the annates, which the crown had enjoyed since the time of Henry YIII. This fund, still known as "Queen Anne's Bounty," was devoted to the sup- '^Queen P^^^ ^^ Small benefices. The Commons, however, had Bounty'' guessed Marlborough's secret and took a mean revenge 1704. for their defeat by refusing to add a grant of money to his recent ducal title and by throwing every possible obstacle in his way in the prosecution of the war. Marlborough saw that he could expect little support as long as such rabid Tories as Nottingham and Rochester remained in the ministry, and used his influence to replace them by more moderate men, but Tories still, as Robert Harley and Henry St, John. Parliament, however, was still against Marlborough. During the months which preceded Blen- heim, the attack of the ultra Tories had been specially bitter, and when they ^learned of the march into the interior of Germany, they were furious and swore that they would bring the duke to the block. A defeat, or even a partial success, would probably 1704, 1705] CAPTURE OF GIBRALTAR 843 have put an end to Marlborough's career then and there. Instead, however, came back the news, first a rumor and then a certainty, of the greatest victory which English arms had won on the continent since the days of Agincourt. Marlborough saw his opportunity, and by the support of his wife persuaded Anne to appeal to the country. When the new parliament assembled in 1705, a powerful Whig majority showed conclusively that the nation approved of Blenheim. Marlborough, who had now drifted far from his old Tory moorings, hastened to put himself in line with the reaction by forming a coalition between the moderate Tories and the old Whig Junto. That he did not go farther was due probably to his respect for the queen's antipathy to Whigs. For Anne was by no means a cipher in politics. The center of interest in the war during the year after Blenheim drifted to Spain. Marlborough was secure from the attack of the Tories at home, but abroad he was doomed to meet with Thfy W(iT in Spain, disappointment. lie planned first to attack France bv 1704 1705, XXX V the Moselle, but he could not induce the imperial gen- erals to take their armies so far from home. Then he thought to penetrate the French lines on the Dyle and attack Villeroy at Waterloo, but the deputies of the Dutch States refused to support him. So the year was frittered away and nothing was done. In Italy there was also the same record of divided counsels and aimless timidity. From Spain, however, the allies got more comfort. In 1702 the Anglo-Dutch fleet had begun operations on the coast, bombarding Cadiz and destroying a treasure fleet in Vigo Bay. Little, however, had been gained until about four weeks before the Battle of Blenheim, when Admiral Eooke surprised and took Gibraltar. The next year, 1705, Admiral Leake strengthened the Capture of foothold of England on the peninsula, by defeating SwgS"'' *^^ French fleet, first off Malaga and again almost 3,1704. under the shadow of Gibraltar. Later, Charles Mor- daunt, the eccentric earl of Peterborough, made a daring but successful attack on Barcelona, and on the basis of this success Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia accepted the Archduke Charles as ''Charles III." of Spain. The Dutch States now began to realize the mistake which they 844 WORK OF REVOLUTION COMPLETED [' had made in fettering the eagle, and when the year 1706 opened, left Marlborough free to strike the enemy where he would. On the 23d of May he found the French army under com- May^23^i706. ^^^^ c>f Villeroy posted about the little village of Ra- millies, about thirty miles from Brussels. The French were drawn up on high ground protected by a marsh and extending along the arc of a bent bow, facing inward. The English and Dutch occupied the line of the taut string. Marlborough seized I French Army Army of the Allies ] First Position I Second " the opportunity offered by this formation, and taking advantage of the inner and shorter line, began a series of feints along the whole front, under cover of which he massed his troops on his left wing ; then hurling himself upon the French right, in a brilliant charge which he led in person, overwhelmed the enemies' right wing, and doubling back the center and left, was soon chasing the scattered fugitives into Brussels. The execution of this masterly manoeuver took less than an hour and a half. The French lost 15,000 men, their guns and their baggage, and left the line of 1706, 1707] UIn^ION of ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND 845 the Scheldt open to the allies. Marlborough moved on to Brussels, the capital of the Spanish Netherlands, and proclaimed "Charles III." Ghent, Bruges, Ostend, and Antwerp yielded, and by the end of the campaign, of all the Spanish Netherland cities only Mons and Namur continued to hold out for King Philip. This auspicious opening of the year 1706 was soon followed by like successes in Italy where Prince Eugene defeated a French army at Casale, saved Turin, and opened the way for an Austrian army to enter Naples in October and proclaim '* Charles III." in the capital of Spanish Italy. Charles had already been pro- claimed by Peterborongh in Madrid in June. At home Marlborough's ''composite ministry" had added still another triumph which contributed not a little to the moral weight of England abroad, by terminating the old personal union The union of Endand and Scotland and nnitinff the two people of Enaland .^° - . j. oi. --Lju jj and Scotland, into One organic state. Such a union had been dreamed of by Edward I., and its importance fully grasped by James I. ; it had existed for a few years under the Protector, but had been abandoned again at the Restoration. In 1600 the Scots were the most ardent advocates of separation, but independ- ence had brought them little comfort. They found themselves shut out from the advantages of the Navigation Acts; they lost their trade with England and her colonies ; their commerce was ruined. The Kestoration government, moreover, which was bad enough in England, had been worse in Scotland, where a council of jobbers liad exploited the country with the aid of thumbscrew and dragonnade; corruption had poisoned the courts of justice; the national religion had been driven to the hills and the hated Anglicanism of the south again forced upon the people. William had been wise enough to leave the Scots to their Pros- by terianism ; but he had earnestly desired political union. Events, however, instead of supporting the king or allaying the Scotland suspicions of the Scots, had conspired to increase their after the kevoiution. discontent. The restoration of the Presbyterian Church had strengthened the old hostility to the south by appealing again to the smouldering ecclesiastical hatreds of the century. The tragedy of Glencoe, for which a feud of two High- 846 WORK OF REVOLUTION" COMPLETED [anne land clans was largely responsible, was regarded as the crime of an English king against Scotland. In 1695 William Paterson, the erratic genius who had devised the Bank of England, set afloat another scheme which was to give Scotland her share of the colonial trade of the Compamj, world and make the promoters fabulously rich. His scheme was to plant a colony of Scotsmen on the Isthmus of Darien, and by securing an easy and safe transit across the isthmus provide a far more direct and satisfactory communi- cation between Asia and Europe than the long and dangerous pas- sage around the Cape of Good Hope. It is the fashion of historical writers to laugh at poor Paterson 's dream. But it was the dream of a genius, not of a madman. He saw what the modern pro- moters of the various isthmian canal schemes have since seen, that if once the traffic of the two oceans could be diverted to the isthmian route, there would be untold wealth in the control and handling of it. Poor poverty ridden Scotland got one glimpse of the seer's vision, and went as daft as the French of the last generation over the Panama canal. Unfortunately for Paterson and the multitude of Scotsmen who invested their small hoard- ings in his project, Scotland, unaided, had neither the wealth nor the industries to set such a scheme fairly on its feet. The Eng- lish, ever jealous and suspicious for their own trade supremacy, had no thought of turning from the established sea routes in order to encourage Scottish colonists or enrich Scottish capitalists. The Spaniards, also, aroused by the threatened invasion of their rights, waged relentless war, and leaguing with the deadly climate, soon dispelled the dreams of the unhappy wretches who went out to gain a fortune in the new world, only to find a grave. The Scots, who could not see that the enterprise was doomed to fail from the first, were inclined to ascribe the failure to anything except the true cause, and laid all the blame upon English influence. The loss of so much good Scotch money was followed by a paroxysm of resentment, which rapidly passed into a dangerous attitude of settled hostility tb England. The wiser leaders on both sides of the border fully realized the danger of allowing the reviving spirit of animosity to grow 1704, 1705] THE BILL OF SECURITY 847 unchecked, and in the interests of peace began again to consider seri- ously the question of the organic union of the two kingdoms. • The first commissioners, however, separated without results, Tfie '■'■Bill of T T r > Security:' and when the Scottish parliament met in May, 1703 the worst fears threatened to be realized. The anti- English elements pushed through a series of articles aimed directly at the existing union, declaring that the Presbyterian Church *'is the only church in the kingdom," and demanding further that the officers of state in Scotland be appointed by the Scottish estates. They forbade any sovereign of England after Anne to make peace or war without the consent of the Scottish parliament; they declared that if during Anne's reign freedom of trade and free- dom of religion were not guaranteed to Scotland, the successor of Anne, while of the Protestant line, must not be the same as the successor to the English crown, thus threatening to part com- pany with England altogether. Anne of course refused her con- sent to these measures; but in 1704 the last article, known as the *'Bill of Security," was again presented to her, and accepted in hope of conciliation. The English, however, were in no conciliatory mood, and met threat with threat. . In the fall of 1705 parliament passed an "Alien Bill" which threatened to take from the Biiir^ml^ Scots the rights which they had enjoyed since the time of James I., by once more treating them as aliens. The importing of their staples, cattle, sheep, coal, and linen, was also prohibited, and the border fortresses restored and fortified. The act was to go into effect after Christmas, 1705. These acts, which portended war, brought to their senses the men on either side of the border who were still amenable to reason, and in April, 1706, a new body of commissioners was appointed, thirty-one on each side. The recent prestige of English arms abroad which deprived Scotland of all hope of help from France, as well as the tact and patience of Godolphin, Somers, and Montague, carried the day for peace; and in December twenty-five articles of union were formally accepted by the commissioners and submitted to their respective parlia- ments. The two most difficult points to settle had been the represen- tation to be allowed Scotland in the English Commons, and the 848 WORK OF REVOLUTION COMPLETED [anne relation of the Scots to the English national d6bt. The English House of Commons in 1706 numbered 513. If the Scots were Terms of admitted upon the basis of population they would be unwn. entitled to 69 members, but if they were admitted upon the basis of wealth they would be entitled only to 12 mem- bers. The one adjustment would be as unfair to the English tax payers, as the other would be unsatisfactory to the Scots. A com- promise was therefore agreed upon and the number fixed at 45, 30 of whom were to be chosen by counties, and 15 by boroughs.^ Beside the representation in the Commons, the Scots were to be entitled also to 16 peers in the Upper House, who should be elected by the Scottish peers at the beginning of each parliament. A yet more serious question lay in the English debt, which now amounted to upwards of £20,000,000, while the Scottish debt amounted to £160,000. Here also skill and patience carried the day. The English agreed to pay the Scots £398,000, with which to pay off their national debt and close up the affairs of the Darien Company, while the Scots assumed their share of the Eng- lish national debt. Other points were not so difficult to settle. The two peoples were to form one kingdom to be known henceforth as "Great Britain ;" the sovereign was to be determined as already pre- scribed by the Act of Settlement. Each new sovereign must swear to maintain the Presbyterian Church as the established Church of Scotland. The laws of trade, excise, and customs, were to be common to both kingdoms; other laws of Scotland were to remain unchanged, but subject to revision by the parliament of the United Kingdom. The judicial system of Scotland was also to remain unchanged, but an appeal might be lodged from the Scottish court of Session to the House of Lords. Scotsmen, moreover, were to have all trade privileges enjoyed by Englishmen. Coins, weights, and measures were to conform to English standards. At last all questions were settled, and all claims adjusted, and on January 16, 1707 the Scottish parliament accepted the condi- tions of union by a vote of 110 to 69; the English parliament ^ This arrangement remained until 1833 when the representation was raised by the Reform Bill to 58. By the second Reform Bill 1868, it was increased to 60. In 1884 it was further increased to 72. 1707] THE ACT OF UKIOK" 849 accepted them on March 6.^ On May 1 the famous "Union Jack," which had been designed by James I., representing the union of the „ . two peoples by the blending of the cross of St. George effected, 1707. ^th the cross of St. Andrews, was for the first time flung out to the breeze. The first British parliament met in October. The jealous suspicions of the Scottish clergy of the English bishops, Scottish patriotism so called, narrow and shortsighted, Englisli Jacobitism, which saw its last hope blasted, Advantage English commercial interests, and Anglican church tr) Scotland, interests, all had fought the union m its inception and made as much troubre as possible after it had become an accomplished fact. But what was done could not be undone, and in the presence of the substantial advantages which came to both peoples, opposition soon ceased. Glasgow opened a flourishing trade with the American colonies and before the gen- eration had passed could boast of sixty-seven vessels engaged in the American trade. The trade in linens and woolens sprang into new life. Products hitherto of little value, with new markets soon became sources of national we.dth. Agriculture also assumed a new appearance, and though it failed to keep pace with the growing warehouses of Glasgow, or the shipyards of the Clyde, the new prosperity was felt and appreciated. Civilization followed hard upon the heels of new wealth. The people began to live in better, cleaner, and more comfortable houses. The old hereditary jurisdiction of the Highland chieftains gave way to the laws and law courts of the south. Military roads threaded their way among the mountain gorges ; rocks which once echoed with the scream of the northern eagle, or the shouts of rival clansmen at slaughter, soon began to respond to the hum of peaceful factories or the shout of the plowman or the shepherd. While Englishmen at home were thus securing the results of victory, the tide was already turning against the allies on the con- tinent. In the winter of 1706 and 1707, Louis had the allies, made overtures of peace, offering to give the Dutch the barrier fortresses and leave Charles in possession of Spain and the Indies, if only Philip might be allowed to keep ^ Lee, Source Book, p. 445. 850 WORK OF REVOLUTION COMPLETED [anne Milan and the Sicilies. But tlie allies, now confident of com- plete success, had no thought of allowing Louis a part of the loaf, which had been virtually snatched from his hands. A new element, however, upon which the allies apparently had not reck- oned, was now thrown into the scales. The Castilians them- selves rallied to the support of the dispossessed Bourbon and early in the year, with the help of a new French army, brought Philip back to Madrid in the wake of the retreating Hapsburger. Eugene in Italy was hardly more successful than Charles in Spain, and even Marlborough made but indifferent progress in Flanders. The next year, 1708, opened dubiously for the allies. A threatened descent of the Pretender upon the Scottish coast retained Marlborough in England until it was certain paignofi708. ^^1^^ ^hc Stuart prince had returned again to Dunkirk. When the Duke reached the Netherlands he found the towns which he had won two years before voluntarily opening their gates to the French. Ghent and Bruges had already received French garrisons, and to save Oudenarde, the duke crossed the Scheldt and on July 11 forced the French to fight him before the town. He had only 80,000 men to pit against the 100,000 of the French marshals. Burgundy and Yendome. But the opposing generals were jealous of each other and so confused their subal- terns by contradictory orders, that Marlborough was permitted to outflank and cut off a whole detachment. It was no such victory as Blenheim or Eamillies, but it was enough to check the advance of Louis. Marlborough would have moved upon Paris at once in order to force Louis to terms under the walls of his capital, but the timidity of the Dutch and English statesmen kept him upon the borders and compelled him to be content with the capture of Lille, the strongest of all Louis's magnificent frontier fortresses. Louis had long since lost his zest for the war. His marshals evidently were no match for the terrible "Malbrook." Each campaign, moreover, rolled the tide of war nearer to the French capital. The next battle would undoubtedly be fought on French soil. France, moreover, was exhausted; her resources spent; the sufferings of her people terrible. Louis, accordingly, sent Torcy in the spring to treat for peace. He would yield all A;^;tiUi t- .''l -X ©i.^. l^i- :^;^^^V 1709] MALPLAQUET 851 that the allies were contending for; he would submit to the exclu- sion of Philip from Spain, allow the Dutch to hold ten fortresses on the border, and retire to the old boundaries which France held in 1648 at the time of the Peace of Westphalia. He would also acknowledge Anne, drive James the Pretender out of France, and destroy the fortifications of Dunkirk, which had been the favorite port of the French privateers. The allies, however, were not satisfied. Possibly they distrusted Louis; possibly, moved by a sense of justice, they proposed to compel Louis to undo his own work; possibly Marlborough was not inclined to surrender his profitable post of commander-in-chief; but whatever the motive, in an evil liour they refused to accept Louis's overtures, unless he would consent to send his own French armies to drive his grandson out of Spain and restore the kingdom to the Austrian prince. It was bitter medicine and Louis refused to take it. "'It I must wage war," he declared, "I prefer to wage it against my enemies rather than my children.'' The nation, suffering and burdened though it was, rallied with fine spirit to the support of the aged monarch. Something of the old national pride flashed up; and late in the summer of 1709, he was able to throw Marshal Villars with an army of 70,000 men into Flanders, in the hope of saving the wreck of the French border cities. Tournay had fallen, and Marlborough and Eugene were before Mons. With 80,000 men they at once advanced to meet Villars and on September 11 found him posted in a strong position at the village of Malplaquet. Marlborough with his usual cold blooded determination to win, massed his troops and hurled them upon the French center, the weak point in Villars' line. He won the day but it cost him 21,000 men, twice the loss of the French. The enemy, moreover, retired in good order. Mons fell, but it was the only reward of the dearly bought victory. At home the Whigs had been steadily gaining ground. The first parliament of Great Britain which had been called together in October 1707, saw the fall of the coalition ministry; Anne, in spite of her aversion to Whigs in general, in February 1708 was compelled to see even such moderate Tories as Harley and St. John replaced by the representatives of the old Whig Junto, Wharton, 852 WORK OF REVOLUTIOK COMPLETED [anne Somers, and Russell, now Earl of Oxford. Anne was not pleased. She did not object to party government when a Tory parliament allowed her to select congenial Tory ministers, but to The TThia o j 7 Junto be compelled now to face at her Council Board these power, 1708- disguised republicans, as she regarded the ultra Whigs, to her was slavery. She turned to Godolphin who still kept his place at the head of the council largely on account of his friendship for Marlborough, and besought him to free her from the presence of these obnoxious ministers. But for three year^ she had to submit. When she showed signs of breaking away, the imperious Sarah stormed and went into hysterics, and Marlborough threatened to offer his resignation. So the queen bore her chains as meekly as her Stuart nature would allow, bravely keeping up her self respect by presiding in person at every meeting of her council, and insisting that every measure presented by her ministers should first be laid before her. In 1711, however, the good queen was permitted to see her distasteful fetters broken. The nation had grown weary of vic- tories that brought no peace, and when news came of Secondfaii the slaughter at Malplaquet, the feeling of triumph Juntu. was stifled in the horror of the "deluge of blood." Marlborough and his Whig ministers were made respon- sible for the prolongation of the conflict, and under the inspiration of the hungry politicians of the opposition, the people were willing to believe Marlborough and his Junto capable of any villainy in order to further their own schemes, nor did it increase their popularity, that soon after Malplaquet, it began to be rumored that a third overture had been rejected in which Louis had vir- tually conceded everything except the one point of sending Frenchmen into Spain to fight his grandson. While matters were thus rapidly approaching the boiling point, a trivial affair, such as in • ordinary times would have passed probably without notice, brought on the crisis. Dr. case^nw^^^ Sacheverell, a popular clergyman of Tory sympathies, in a public address went oat of his way to attack the Revolution, the Protestant succession, and the Whig administra- tion. The Whigs thought that, in consideration of the existing 1710] FALL OF MARLBOROUGH 853 tension, such boldness ought not to pass unnoticed, and deter- mined to discipline the meddlesome preacher. Instead of leaving him to the courts, however, they foolishly resorted to the cum- bersome machinery of impeachment. The trial occupied parlia- ment for more than three weeks, and ended in a virtual acquittal. A nominal suspension of three years meant nothing in the pres- ence of the new and powerful friends whom the martyrdom of the noisy doctor brought to his support. To Anne the champion of old-time Toryism was a hero, and she marked him at once for preferment. She also welcomed the unmistakable evidences of the incoming tide, and without waiting for the return of the new parliament, dismissed Sunderland, son of the old earl of James II. 's time, Godolphin, and others. Harley was brought back as chief of the administration. St. John became Secretary of State, and Rochester, Lord President. Godolphin's son and Sunderland had married daughters of Marlborcfugh, so that the dismissal of the two ministers 'was the beginning of the disruption of the *' Family Party," as the ministry of Marlborough was called by his enemies. A marked change had also come over the household of the queen. Harley had placed at her side his kinswoman, Abigail Hill, Mrs. Mashani, whose gentle demeanor and quiet, cf^r^iiite tactful ways, in such contrast with the explosions to which the stormy Sarah was liable, had steadily won the confidence and affection of her mistress, and had finally dis- placed the older fa7orite altogether. The rupture came soon after the close of the Sacheverell trial, when the imperious duchess left the court for good. As Harley foresaw, the fall of Marlbor- ough soon followed the retirement of his wife. With the ministry and the Commons against him, the queen's favor gone, and peace at hand, his brilliant talents were no longer needed. For ten years he had been the virtual ruler of England, and had con- trolled the march of affairs on the continent as no emperor since the days of Charles V. But his influence had rested upon the universal fear of Louis; and now that he had dispelled the bogy- man, his own influence was gone. A host of libel ers, in whose mean souls there was little appreciation for the duke's greatness, 854 WOKK OF REVOLUTION COMPLETED [anne set their imaginations to work to invent charges of peculation, fraud, and even cowardice. The people who had long since turned from their idol, listened eagerly to these counsels of his enemies, and waited for his dismissal as eagerly as they had once joined in triumphal processions to St. Paul's in his honor. In vain he attempted to make peace with the now all powerful Tories. His overtures only lost him the respect of his remaining Whig friends, and enabled the Tories effectually to defeat his plans for the further conduct of the war. Yet when he returned to England at the close of the campaign of 1711, he had influence enough left to induce the Whig Lords to declare against peace. The Tory ministry, however, by the simple expedient of creating twelve new Tory peers, were able to swamp the Whig majority in the Lords, secure Marlborough's dismissal, and condemn him on a charge of peculation to the amount of £250,000. With the fall of the duke all serious opposition to the peace on the part of England ceased. The death of the Emperor Joseph in April 1711, had put the main point at issue The TvcO/tics x j. ' j. j. of Utrecht, between France and the allies in an entirely new light. The Archduke Charles had not only succeded to the hereditary domain of the Austrian House of Hapsburg, but he was also chosen to succeed his brother as emperor. It was obviously inconsistent, therefore, for the allies to continue a war which had been undertaken to preserve the balance of power in Europe, in order further to expand the already vast domain of the House of Hapsburg. The recent birth of an heir to the elder brother of Philip of Spain, also greatly diminished the possibility of Philip's ever succeding to the French throne. The cause of the balance of power could be far better served, now that France had been seriously crippled, by leaving the Bourbon king on the Spanish throne. Accordingly, in March 1713 the series of treaties, known as the Peace of Utrecht, were signed by the plenipotentiaries of all the powers concerned, with the exception of the Emperor. These treaties were of vast moment not only to England and her colonies, but to all western Europe, and cast their shadows clear across the eighteenth century and far into the nineteenth. France agreed: 1714] THE TREATIES OF UTRECHT 855 1. To recognize the Hanoverian succession. 2. To cede to England St. Christopher, the French claim to the Hudson Bay territories, Acadia,^ and Newfoundland. 3. To pledge herself to accept from Spain no commercial priv- ilege which would give her any advantage in her trade with Spain or the Spanish Indies. 4. To renounce her claim of the right to seize a neutral vessel carrying the property of a hostile power. 5. To restore his lands to the Duke of Savoy, and recognize him as King of Sicily. 6. To recognize the Elector of Brandenburg as King of Prus- sia and consent to the enlargement of his domain in the west. Spain agreed : 1. To cede Gibraltar and Minorca permanently to England. 2. Not to alienate any of her South American possessions to France or any other European power. 3. To confirm a recent Assiento by which the exclusive right of importing negro slaves into the Spanish Indies had been con- ceded to Great Britain, and to allow one English ship of 500 tons to trade yearly with the Spanish colonies. On March 6, 1714 the generals of Louis and Charles, also, made a definite treaty at Rastadb. And in September following, the whole empire acceded to a general treaty at Baden in Switzerland. By this treaty the Rhine became the definite boundary between France and South Germany; the upper Palatinate passed into the permanent possession of Bavaria; Austria was confirmed in her Italian possessions, and was allowed to annex the Spanish Nether- lands, subject to a joint occupation of the barrier cities with the Dutch. The gain to Great Britain was very great. The commercial privileges which were accorded her, alone more than compensated ,, , ^ for the enormous debt of £34,000,000, which the war Value of . 7 7 7 fiT^^htt saddled upon posterity. The Protestant succession Great was Safe. The possession of Gibraltar and Minorca, Port Mahon, secured the entrance to the Mediterra- nean. The withdrawal of the French claim to the Hudson Bay * Nova Scotia. 856 WORK OF REVOLUTION COMPLETED [aknb territories adjusted the balance of power in !N"orth America, although Canada and the Mississippi valley were still to be fought for. The war, also, kept France from securing a partnership in the Spanish monopoly in the West Indies; and scored a new advantage for England in its commercial rivalry with the Dutch, by obtaining in the Spanish Indies besides other privileges the control of the slave trade. The *'Good Queen Anne" did not long survive to enjoy the peace which she so dearly loved. She died August 1, 1714, a month before the last of the treaties was signed. The Arme,^^ gain of the Tories had been substantial and their ^i^i«« 1, return to power, apparently, was to be permanent. In 1711 parliament had enacted a "Property Qualification Bill," which forbade any one who did not possess an income from' land of at least £600 a year to sit in the House of Commons for a county, or an income of £300 a year, for a borough. The restriction did much to perpetuate the power of the landed aristoc- racy, strengthening them against the rising influence of the commercial classes; it remained unchanged until 1858. In 1711, also, the Occasional Conformity Bill became a law, and thus, for a time at least, Whig nonconformists were excluded from the boroughs. Even the extreme Tories, the Jacobites, took heart, and under the inspiration of Bolingbroke's* leadership laid their plans to deliver the crown upon the death of Anne to her dis- possessed brother. But the end came before the Tory leaders were ready to act, and George of Hanover passed quietly to the English throne. Before Anne is dismissed, the England over which she ruled should receive a. passing notice. During the seventeenth century the population had steadily increased. LondoUj as of^Anne^^^ always, was the one great city of the kingdom. Fully one-tenth of the population were hived among her nar- row and ill-smelling streets. The commercial influences of the age had also markedly increased the population of the great seaport towns of the south and west. Yet Bristol, the second city of the ^ Henry St. John was made Viscount Bolingbroke a short time before Anne's death. THE ENGLAND OF ANNE 857 kingdom, conld boast of only one seventeenth of the population of the great Thames port. In spite of its prosperity, however, Lon- don was not a pleasant place to live in. The great fire of Charles II. 's reign had offered the opportunity of securing wider streets and better drainage, and the government had formally commis- sioned the famous architect of the Restoration, Sir Christopher Wren, to furnish plans for the new city. In the haste to rebuild, however, Wren's plans had been ignored, and in the reign of Anne the city with its teeming population of 700,000 souls was just as dirty and unhealthful as ever; the death rate exceeded the birth rate each year, sometimes in plague years reaching the appalling total of 80,000. The ancient watch service, the duties of which were sustained by old men whom age and rheumatism had incapacitated for ordinary labor, had long since been outgrown. Roistering young men of fashion made night hideous with their wild pranks, roaring through the streets, driving honest folk in terror into their homes, and upsetting the watch or beating him with his own staff should he attempt to interfere. Footpads lurked in the dark shadows; thieving and housebreaking were common, and robbing was frequently attended by murder. For, in consequence of the severe penalties which the harsh code of the day prescribed even for trivial offenses, the thief, if discovered, was generally certain to kill his victim rather than fall into the clutches of the law. The sword or rapier was a part of the dress of every^ gentleman; while '*your good man" went equipped with a stout oaken cudgel or bludgeon, in the handling of which he was an artist. The condition of the poorer classes of the kingdom was far worse in Anne's reign than at the present time. Henry VIII. and Elizabeth had tried branding, ear piercing, and whip- ping to stop vagrancy. Elizabeth had allowed the "tramp" to be seized and reduced to servitude by any one who should put a collar on him. Charles II. had sent his vagrants to the colonies. In Queen Anne's reign they were pressed into the army and carried off to the continent to furnish marks for French cannon. The Poor Laws of Henry VIII. as left by Eliz- abeth, still remained in force. Each parish was compelled to look 858 WORK OF REVOLUTION COMPLETED [anne after its own poor, keep up its *'poor house," find work for those who could work, and apprentice the children. The number of "freeborn Englishmen" who were cared for in this way is start- ling, — 1,300,000, or one-fifth of the whole population. At the present time the proportion is about one to thirty. England was still an agricultural country ; the great staple was grain. Prices depended upon the harvest, and fluctuations were frequent and violent. In 1699 wheat rose to 56s a The staples; quarter, but in 1702 an abundant harvest brought it grain and • ^ r. ^ tt- i t • • tDooi. down agam to 25s. Wool was second m importance to grain. Even in the old Plantagenet days the English meadows had been famous for their sheep. Manufacturing was still in its infancy, due partly to the con- servatism of the people, and partly to the crude appliances used. Edward III. had brought over weavers from the Mamifac- Netherlands to show his people how to manufacture turing; wool, . i mi t^ <» • cottm.iron. their own wool. The reformation, also, had greatly reinforced the colonies of foreign cloth workers. Englishmen, however, were loath to believe that as good cloth could be made in their own looms as on the continent, and in the sixteenth century it was found necessary for parliament to protect and encourage the home industry by special laws. The manu- facture of English cloth, thus favored, was steadily advancing. Leeds, though insignificant compared with the modern city, was already recognized as the center of the trade. The cotton industry was far behind the woolen, yet in William's reign the manufacture of cotton was of sufficient importance to secure the prohibition of Indian muslins and chintzes. The fibre was brought from the colonies to be made up in England. In 1701 the exportation of cotton goods from England amounted to £23,000. • The coal fields were as yet hardly laid open. Coal was used for cooking and heating, but iron smelting had to depend upon the forest oak. Sheffield was already famous for its cutlery, although the output was small. The weaving of silk, the making of glass. paper, and hats, received a direct impetus from the thousands of Huguenots who were driven out of France by the tyranny of Louis THE ENGLAND OF ANNE 859 XIV., and had brought with them to England their knowledge of these useful and important industries. The condition of the English laborer was far below the pres- ent; yet he was much better off than his brother on the continent. His pay was lOd a day; a soldier received 8d. A French The laborer. , , . • -, « i rm i i • soldier received 3d. ihere was nothing, however, to encourao^e small savings; there were neither savings banks nor opportunities for small investments. Yet the living of the laborer was good; meat was much cheaper than now, compared with the rate of wages. Tea and coffee had not yet come into common use. Wine was beyond the laborer; for beverage his choice was limited to spirits, cider, beer, milk, or water. Beer was the favorite. The quantity consumed per annum is startling; a quart a day, it was estimated, was brewed for every man, woman, and child in England. Tea had been brought into the country early in the seventeenth century by the Dutch, but it was still regarded as a great luxury, a gift for kings. Mr. Pepys mentions in his diary his first cup of tea as an occasion of some moment. In the eighteenth century, however, with the expansion of trade, tea drinking extended rapidly though the price was still high varying with the quality from 13 to 20 shillings per pound. Coffee entered England a little later than tea, having been first introduced at Oxford by a Cretan student just before the meeting of the Long Parliament. Its use, however, spread rapidly, and the coffee house soon became a social power. Anne's reign is famous for its brilliant authors. ** There is probably no period so short, in which so many famous works have been given to the world. ' ' It has been called the ^nAge^of' *'Augustan Age" of English Literature; an Augustan ut^ature ^S®' however, without its Augustus or its Maecenas. And yet though great patrons were not conspicuous, successful authorship had never before paid so well. Addison made his fortune by a single poem. Pope, Swift, Defoe, all the great literary lights of the age knew how to make themselves use- ful to the politicians who dealt in patronage, and freely devoted 860 WORK OP REVOLUTION COMPLETED [anne their splendid talents to the party warfare of the day. Swift's Drapier Letters in 1724 forced George I. 's ministers to with- draw a project for furnishing Ireland with a new coinage known as "Wood's Pence," while Defoe's True Born Englishfnan ^rst opened the eyes of his fellow citizens to the real greatness of William's service to England. The introduction of Party government made the newspaper necessary. The occasional pamphlet had performed a real ser- Eariy news- ^^^^ ' ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^ every way desirable to secure a large papers. ^m^ regular circle of readers in order to present the purposes and plans of rival party leaders to the public. It was in this service that pens such as were wielded by Swift or Addison, Bolingbroke or Defoe could be of most service. Thus in 1709 was born Steele's Tatler, more journal of literary criticism than news- paper, to give way in 1711 to the more famous Spectator of Addison and Steele. This last was a more ambitious sheet; it appeared daily and performed the work both of the modern magazine and the modern newspaper, combining dignified discussions of Milton's Paradise Lost, or the ancient ballad of Chevy Chase, or reflec- tions on Westminster Abbey, or a discussion of the Exchange or the Bank of England, with criticisms of the outrageous hoops worn by the ladies of the period or of the custom of wearing patches on the face. In the next era the party organ pure and simple appeal's in the famous Craftsman, CHAPTER III WALPOLE AND THE FIRST ERA OF WHIG RULE GEORGE I., m4-trJ7 GEORGE II., 1727-1742 DESCENT OF THE HOUSE OP HANOVER James I. I I I Charles I. Elizabeth = Frederick V., Elector of the Palatine )hia= Sophia = Ernest Augustus, d. 1714 I Elector of Hanover George I. King of England 1714-1727 George II., 1727-1760 Frederick, Prince of Wales d. 1751 George m., 1760-1820 I George IV. William IV. Edward, Duke of Kent Ernest Augustus. King 1820-1830 1830-1837 | of Hanover 1837-1851 Victoria = Prince Albert of 1837-1901 Saxe Coburg With the accession of the House of Hanover the political waters, which had been kept stirred up for more than a generation, speedily cleared. As long as Anne remained upon her father's throne, there was hope that at the last moment the affection of the people might be turned to the dispossessed prince, who what- ever his faults was not responsible for the father's blunders and above all things was not a foreigner. But with Anne gone, and the House of Hanover actually in possession, all hope of a repeti- tion of the peaceful restoration of 1660 vanished. Scarcely more promising was the prospect of regaining the Stuart throne by violence. The downfall of the supremacy which France had so long enjoyed in Europe, the opening of new issues, which drove the French government to seek an alliance with the Hanoverian king, instead of plotting for his overthrow, denied the Jacobites all farther hope of French support. If Scotland were still independ- 861 862 FIRST ERA OF WHIG RULE [geobgeI. ent, the Jacobite sympathies of the Highland clans might be used to advantage, and a foothold be won here for the Stuarts in spite of the apathy of their old ally of France. But the organic union of England and Scotland had greatly diminished the probability of final success in any attempt to rouse the clansmen, and although the thing was tried the year after the accession of George, it resulted in complete disaster. But more serious still for the future of the Jacobite cause, the last years of the recent wars had witnessed a very marked change in the temper of the English people; partly the effect tofhstrwS.^ of the lassitude which naturally followed so many years m&oHes ^^ high, tension, aad partly the effect of the new oppor- tunities of commercial enterprise, which drew the energy of the nation into other channels than those of politics and war. The age of sentiment had passed ; an age of cynical indifference was at hand, wherein fervor was regarded with suspicion and devotion as hypocrisy, wherein the easy-going indifference which the Restoration had applied to morals was now applied to politics. "For forms of government let fools contest, Whate'er is best administered is best." A worthy sentiment perhaps, as the courtier poet of Anne's reign meant it, but unfortunately, to the average politician of the time, *'best" meant that he got his share of the government patronage, or worse, public plunder, and no questions were asked. "Patriots!" sneered Walpole, the great minister of George I., "I can make any number of them in a moment." Theories of state or church, or doctrines of royal right, no longer affected men as much as the fact of power and the immediate prospect of personal profit. Englishmen were no longer willing to die for a sentiment, but they would girdle the globe in pursuit of trade. Hence the Jacobite found little support for his now antiquated doctrine of king-right by divine appointment; but Hanoverian George, although never loved, hardly respected, although a foreigner who knew little of English and less of English institutions, stood for the new material prosperity which had followed the successful issue of the late war; and the nation, more bent upon money-get- ting than king-making, had no wish to disturb him. 1715] EN^D OF OLD TORY PARTY 863 The same causes which stifled the last hopes of the Jacobites, also permanently retired the old Tories as an active element in the political life of the nation. With William or Anne End of the ^^ ^^® throne, whose political sympathies were colored mrlyand ^^^^ Something of the old ideas of royal prerogative, trumnh^rf there was still place for a party that stood for the the whi^s. defense of royal authority against the encroachments of parliament, or of the Anglican Church against the encroachments of nonconformists. With George, however, the Tory's brief was gone. The new king was fully aware of the debt which he owed the Whigs, and, without taking trouble to com- prehend the English Constitution or enter into the merits of party controversy, he committed himself unreservedly to the control of the Whig leaders and allowed them to fill the places of the govern- ment with their partisans. Furthermore, he knew so little English that he left the council chamber to his ministers and accepted their decisions with full confidence that they understood better than he what was best for the crown and best for the nation. The more violent Tories like Bolingbroke and Ormonde fled to the con- tinent. Some like Sir William Wyndham remained to gather together the wreck of the party in the forlorn hope of holding the Jacobite wing together. But this only hastened the passing of the older Toryism. The great bulk of the party had never seri- ously desired the Stuart restoration. They understood full well that a Jacobite triumph would mean the repudiation of the national debt and the destruction of the public credit. Even the clergy and the country squire felt their ardor cool in the presence of the new and vast interests of the commercial classes ; interests which were not so widely divorced from their own that they could afford to imperil them for the sake of sentiment. The story was fully told by the results of the first general election of the new reign. Barely fifty members of the old Tory DL^soiution following woro returned. Bolingbroke heard the news party^^^^ across the channel and from his safe retreat wrote, "march, 1715. ' « The Tory party is gone. ' ' It was i he quietus of older Toryism, written by the man who more than any other living Englishman represented its aims and its spirit. The party novv 864 FIRST ERA OF WHIG RULE [georokI. bad no excuse for existence, and no one saw the fact more clearly than Bolingbroke, or felt more certainly that a revival of Toryism would be not only useless but aimless. With Ormonde, therefore, he turned to find occupation in the train of the exiled Stuart; while the men who had formed the body of the party folded their tents and abandoned the field, leaving the Whigs to quarrel among themselves over tlie spoils of victory. The overwhelming character of the Whig victory and the long, unbroken tenure of Whig rule which followed, were of the gravest importance in the future history of the constitution, in wmaJ sig- the permanent establishment of those principles for the Whig which Riissell had laid down his life and Shaftesbury had gone into exile. In the long era of Whig supremacy the theories of the Revolution fast hardened into custom and cus- tom soon passed into unwritten law. The old constitution, unchanged in form, was gradually supplanted by a new constitu- tion of conventions, or understandings, not recognized by the statute law, yet intrenched in the habit of political thought of the nation. In the theory of the constitution the executive power still lay in the hands of the king, but in the new unwritten constitution it was left in the hands of a small committee of ministers, the cab- inet, who held their position by reason of the confidence and sup- port of a majority of the House of Commons. The House of Lords, also, lost its coordinate power as a legislative body. The ministry, controlled by the Commons, and itself in control of the executive, had learned the trick of forcing its measures upon the Upper House, by resorting to the expedient which the Tories first devised, of creating enough new peers to swamp the opposition; a measure which it has been hardly necessary to use since, for the threat gener- ally has been sufficient to compel the opposition lords to acquiesce when once confronted by a united and determined House of Commons. The supremacy of the Whig party, however, was by no means an unmixed good. The moral tone of the era was too feeble to resist the ordirary effects of overconfidence on the part of the accredited leaders of the triumphant party. The peaceful waters of the political pool became stagnant; security bred corruption to CHARACTER OF WHIG RULE 865 which the local institutions of the eighteenth century all too read- ily lent themselves. In the counties freeholders had votes ; but under the continued concentration of estates the number of of the Whig freeholders was rapidly diminishing. In the boroughs the franchise was fixed by no general principle. In a few towns manhood suffrage prevailed ; in more, household suffrage ; in most, the franchise had fallen into the hands of self -perpetuating corporations. The proportion of representation was even more arbitrary and irregular; an obscure Cornish village could boast of as many members in parliament as one of the great shires of the kingdom. Outside of London, Westminster, Bristol, and a few other towns, where some electoral freedom still existed, the local administration lay in the hands of a close oligarchy, who in the absence of any moral motive readily yielded to the control of the great Whig proprietors, and thus easily fell a victim to bribery. So common was corruption, so profound the sleep of public con- science, that the barter of seats in parliament carried with it little opprobrium. For the most part the trading was done without attempts at disguise or concealment. Even the staid old town of Oxford thought it not beneath her dignity to advertise her seats for sale. Rival families spent vast sums in electoral contests. West Indian planters and East Indian merchants poured out money like water when their vested interests demanded a free hand in an approaching parliament. Parliament, moreover, always sat with closed doors ; the report of its debates was forbid- den, and if perchance some rumors of the nefarious log rolling within ever got beyond the walls, a swarm of subsidized scribblers sat with pens ready dipped in honey or venom to defend patrons or attack their detractors. The clergy, which in ordinary times may be counted upon to sound the first note of warning against corruption and wickedness in high places, manifested all the moral lassitude which ofThecUr^ pervaded other ranks of public service. The church "slept and rotted in peace." The establishment w^s still revered as a semi -political institution; but the clergy as a body were despised. The great landowners used their right of appoint- ment to church livings to supply snug incomes for younger sons, 866 ' FIRST ERA OF WHIG RULE [george I. who though in orders retained all the vices and faults of their class, drawing the tithes, often of more than one parish, and leaving the work to half fed curates. The great house had its chaplain, who was only a higher grade of menial, who was expected to leave the table when the sweets were served; who fell an easy victim to the amiable manners of his fellow servants and generally ended by marrying a waiting maid. Bishoprics were listed as political patronage to be gained by lobbying and intrigue, nor were the characters of the men who succeeded in winning the prizes above the methods used. The bishop lived in his palace, and rode to his cathedral in coach and four, attended by servants in livery. His parish clergy or his curates he left to struggle in wretched poverty, too often furnish- ing the type of ecclesiastical vagabond familiar to the readers of the eighteenth century novels. The bishop himself moved in the highest circles, intrigued, fawned, palavered, and apologized when he mentioned his wife in good society. Yet all the clergy were not time-servers ; there were among them still many men eminent for piety and learning, who gave themselves freely and with purest motive to the service of the church ; but such men were respected not for their cloth but for themselves. The preaching, however, even of the best, was tinctured with the prevailing rationalism. It was dull and lifeless, and devoted largely to answering the cavils of the fashionable deism of the times, rather than to feeding the devotional spirit of the people or laying the founda- tions of personal righteousness. Butler's "Analogy" fairly repre- sents the direction in which the best thought of the church was exerting its energy. Few of the great churchmen of the age, however, were leading the thoughtful, useful life of the revered Bishop of Bristol.^ Churches were abandoned to decay; the people, left with teachers whom they had ceased to respect, or with no teachers at all, lapsed into a state which bordered on heathen- ism. Among the nonconformists religious life was of far higher tone, but their number was diminishing and the old fervor cool- ing; enthusiasm was not popular. ^ The Analogy was published in 1736. Butler was made Bishop of Bristol in 1738. GENERAL CHARACTER OF ERA 867 In general there is little in the era of the first Georges to attract the lover of his kind ; court annals abound in materials for the gossip, or the sensation monger; politics are hope- characUr lessly corrupt; religion is a hollow cant or a lifeless deism ; the home life of the people, declining. The age of heroism, the age of sublime themes whether in literature or life, has passed. The age that could produce "The Paradise Lost," has given way to the age that can produce "The Eape of the Lock;" the age that could produce "The Pilgrim's Progress," to an age that can produce "The Travels of Lemuel Gulliver;" the age tliat could produce Oliver Cromwell has given way to an age that can produce Robert Walpole. Yet though morally decadent, though to the lover of goodness or greatness, a dreary wilderness where selfishness, insincerity, and cynicism reign, the era of the Georges was yet a preparation for the greater era to come. In the commercial treaties which were secured as a result of the war of the Spanish succession, and in the later treaties of the era of Chatham, English statesmen laid anew the foundations of England's commercial greatness, enlarg- ing and strengthening the entire scope of colonial enterprise and preparing for the advent of a new England beyond the seas. Of even greater importance, both to the new England to be, as well as to the old England of the United Kingdom, was tlie final acceptance in the political creed of the nation of those principles of parlia- mentary government which the Whig leaders had wrought out of their great revolution. Yet the moral life of England was not dead, not even paralyzed; it was only sleeping, worn out, utterly exhausted by the struggle of the century passed. England needed rest to prepare for the era of Whitfield and the Wesleys, of Wil- berforce and Howard, of Bright and Cobden. The great W^hig leaders were fully represented in the first min- istry of George I. Marlborough, the recognized chief of the party, was there, but his strength was broken and his splendid career vir- tually ended. ^ The labor of organizing the new government fell to younger and more vigorous men. Lord Townshend, as Northern ^ Marlborough lived on in premature dotage until 1722, a mournful wreck of the once splendid duke. 868 FIRST ERA OF WHIG RULE [george I. Secretary of State,^ was virtually chief minister; with him were associated Shrewsbury, Sunderland, Pulteney, and Kobert Wal- pole. The last, about whose career the reigns of the hmdrSS' ^^'^^ ^^^ Georges center, was born of Yorkshire parent- fcpS?^^^ ^^^ ^^ S^^^ family. He had come to manhood in the stifling atmosphere which marked the period of the later Stuarts, and had learned to suspect goodness atid despise senti- ment with the contempt of a hardened politician. He was endowed with sound judgment, although prone to be misled at times by a habit of cynicism, which he shared with most of the prominent men of his age. His business abilities, however, were of a high order and his influence even in the reign of Anne was of moment sufficient to secure him the position of Secretary of War in the Whig ministry which Marlborough and Godolphin called to their support in 1708. He took office at the accession of George as Paymaster of the Forces, but later, October 1715, was advanced to the more important position of Chancellor of the Exchequer. The parliament which met in March, 1715, reviewed and con- demned the negotiations by which the Tories had forced the . . Treaty- of Utrecht upon the country. They also passed nessofthe Bills of Attainder against Bolingbroke and Ormonde; while Harley, now Earl of Oxford, the late Lord High Treasurer of Anne, was impeached and sent to the Tower. The prosecution, however, was without other ground than party vin- dictiveness, and after dragging along for two years,, the case was finally dropped. A belated attempt of the Jacobites to attempt of raise Scotland in the name of ''James VII,"' still 1715- further increased the strength of the Whigs. In Eng- land Jacobitism was dead; and although Lord Derwentwater, a grandson of Charles II., and a few country gentlemen took up arms in Northumberland and Lancashire, the great mass of the Tory gentry looked on with indifferent apathy, while the Whig ^ The Secretary of State for the Northern Department dealt with the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Poland, and Russia. The Secretary for the Southern Department dealt with France, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Turkey. Both dealt with home affairs. In 1782 the North- ern Secretary became the Foreign Secretary, and the Southern Secretary became the Home Secretary. 1716] THE SEPTENNIAL ACT 869 government set itself in motion to crush the rising. On November 13, 1715 the English Jacobites were compelled to lay down their arms at Preston on the Kibble. On the same day the Scottish Jacobites under command of John Erskine Earl of Mar, ** Bob- bing John," were effectively checked in an indecisive action at Sheriffmuir. In December James appeared on the scene, but he had no faith in his cause and was without the courage to put him- self at the head of a forlorn hope. On the 4th of February with Mar, he sailed away again, leaving Derwentwater and his com- panions inarms to make the easiest terms they could with -the hangman. This ill-fated and ill-managed expedition proved two things: first that the Jacobite leaders were utterly reckless and incom- petent and unworthy of confidence; and second^ that niaiAcw the English gentry did not intend to risk their necks Man 1716 o J for any Stuart Pretender ; — facts which greatly strength- ened the Whigs and their Hanoverian dynasty. Yet so little enthusiasm was there over the phlegmatic George and his ugly mistresses, that in the spring of 171 G the Whig leaders determined not to risk the return of a Tory majority when the three years limit jprescribed by law should have expired, but to make sure of retaining the power in their own hands by extending the parlia- mentary term to seven years. The act, known as the "Septennial Act," brought out the severest criticism; and yet, that it still reniains the law of England, may be taken as fair evidence that the wisdom of a longer parliamentary term has been justified by experience. The Whigs were destined to suffer the lot of most great parties when left without opposition. They soon began to quarrel among themselves; and in 1717 finally split into two ^iiigparty factions, the One rallying around Townshend and Walpole, and the other around Stanhope and Sunder- land. The cause of the quarrel was the question of the attitude which England should take toward the wars of the Hanoverian Electorate. Since the beginning of the century, Sweden had been at war with Denmark and Norway. In 1715 Denmark sold Bremen and Verden to the Elector George This purchase 870 FIRST ERA OF WHIG RULE [geohge I. involved Hanover in the great northern quarrel, since Denmark had only recently acquired these regions by conquest, and the king of Sweden was by no means inclined to renounce his claims. The Act of Settlement of 1701 had sought to protect England against complications which might arise from the position of Hanover upon the continent by forbidding the king to involve England in war for his foreign possessions without the consent of parliament. When, therefore, in 1716 George proposed to send an English fleet into the Baltic to defend his new acquisitions, he met a deter- mined opposition in the Townshend faction. As a result Towns- hend was forced out of his secretaryship, and compelled to accept the viceroyalty of Ireland, while Stanhope, who was in sympathy with the king, became the Secretary of State for the Northern Department. In 1717 Stanhope succeeded in concluding a Triple Alliance between England, France, and Holland, and virtually committed England to the support of Hanover against Sweden. Townshend, Walpole, and Methuen withdrew from the ministry, and joining with the Prince of Wales, began a furious opposition in parliament against the foreign policy of the government. Both Stanhope and Sunderland, the First Lord of the Treasury, were able men, and under their leadership the Whig policy of undoing the work of the Tories continued even more hrme^iMnis- vigorously than under Townshend. In January 1719 noiicy^'^^^ they swept away the Occasional Conformity Act, and even proposed to abolish the old Test Act in favor of the nonconformists ; but public opinion was not yet ready to throw the door wide open, though willing to open it enough for Protes- tant dissenters of easy conscience to squeeze through. Another measure of the Stanhope ministry also failed, which if carried, by restoring to the House of Lords its power as a coordinate branch of the legislature, would have completely changed the char- acter of the English Constitution. This measure, the "Peerage Bill," proposed to take from the crown the right of creating peers at will, by limiting the number which could be made at any one time to six, and replacing the sixteen elective Scottish peers by twenty-five hereditary peers. Largely owing to the vigorous attacks of Walpole the Peerage Bill was defeated by a vote of 269 1718-1721] FOREIGN POLICY OF STANHOPE 871 to 177. The opposition bad now proved its strength, and Stan- hope to save himself was glad to accept a reconciliation with his old colleagues. In 1720 both Walpole and Townshend were taken back into office. The foreign policy of the Stanhope ministry was even more thoroughgoing in its Whiggism than its domestic policy. In the Triple Alliance we once more greet the genius of uliliStru'^ the third William. France had been compelled not pomi^'^ only to abandon the policy of Louis XIV., but to reverse it altogether. The Regent Orleans, who was interested in securing his own succession in case the young King Louis XV. should die without direct issue, and therefore needed the friendship of England, was entirely willing not only to assure England and Holland of the separation of the crowns of France and Spain, but also to pledge himself to expel the Pretender from French territory and support the Hanoverian succession. The Spanish Minister Alberoni still further threw the game into the hands of the Whig ministers by seizing Sardinia in 1717, and Sicily in 1718, thus reopening issues once settled by the Treaty of Utrecht, and driving the emperor to cast in his lot with the Triple Alliance. Spain, like France seventeen years earlier, was now isolated; but unlike France, she had neither resources nor prestige on her sicje, and when in 1718 the English Admiral Byng destroyed her fleet off Cape Pesaro, with her territories invaded both by England and France, she was glad to make peace, and accept the partition of the Spanish dominions as prescribed by the Treaty of Utrecht, leaving Sicily to the emperor, and Sardinia to the House of Savoy. The same good fortune attended the Stanhope ministry in deal- ing with the Baltic states. In December 1718 the romantic Charles XII. was shot before Frederikshald in Norway, End of the -, o j i j^ -. -. -. , i • ru/rthern and Sweden, no longer feared-, soon dropped back into StVUQQlC. •11 • • n t • its old position of second rate importance. One by one the northern powers made peace; some like England passed into active alliance with Sweden against Eussia, which was already the great threatening power of the north. In 1721 Peter the Great, also, consented to lay down his arms, and by the Treaty of Nystad 872 FIRST ERA OF WHIG RULE [George I. completed the quieting of the Baltic. Thus once more the policy of William had been vindicated, and equilibrium had been restored in Europe. The triumph of the Stanhope ministry seemed complete. Eng- land was respected; the conventions of Utrecht reenacted and the peace of Europe placed upon a firmer foundation than seaBuSbU'' ^^^^- ^^^ ^^ the vcry triumph of the ministry, hovv- of the Stan- ^^®^» ^^^ ^^ come its Undoing. As the continual suc- liopeminxs- ^egg Qf ^he allied arms assured the issue of the Spanish war, and Englishmen began to understand that the House of Hanover had come to stay, public confidence increased rapidly, and in the assurance of good times coming, a feverish desire to get in ahead of the tide by means of happy investments took possession of the people. In the main the fever of specula- tion was directed toward mercantile adventures in Spanish waters. For two centuries Englishmen had been taught to believe in the untold wealth of the Spanish seas; it was part of the accepted com- mercial creed of the age. But up to the signing of the Treaties of Utrecht, Englishmen had entered these seas only as poachers with their lives in their hands. Still the rewards were correspondingly great, and with the declining ability of Spain to patrol these waters and maintain her old-time monopoly, this illicit trade had steadily increased. In the year 1711, Harley, then of Anne's Tory ministry, had sought to turn this trade to account, by funding a floating debt of £10,000,000 upon the basis of securing by grant of parliament the monopoly to a company known as the South Sea Com'pany. Two years later this child of the Tory administration was further endowed with the Assiento, which had been wrung from Spain as one of the conditions of the Treaty of Utrecht. In the meantime, while the great companies continued to coin wealth out of the commercial advantages which had been won for them by English blood, the public debt had continued to pile up until it had reached the grand sum total of £36,000,000. Each ministry in turn had wrestled with the vexatious problem, and by every possible scheme known to the financiers of the eighteenth century, had sought to lighten the ever-increasing burden. When, therefore, in 1719, the directors of the South Sea Company came forward 1720] SOUTH SEA BUBBLE 873 with a scheme to buy up the outstanding seen ri ties of the govern- ment to the amount of £32,000,000, paying the present holders in South Sea stock, and agreeing to a reduction of the interest from seven and eiglit to five per cent, and after 1727 to four per cent, Aislabie, the Lord Treasurer, eagerly accepted the proposal and consented to use the influence of the government to assure the public of the prosperity of the company, or in modern phrase to "boom" its stock, in order that the present holders of the govern- ment annuities might be induced more readily to exchange these safe investments for South Sea stock. Large sums accordingly were spent in bribing ministers and "fixing" members of parlia- ment, in order to secure a formal approval of the scheme. The Bank of England, also, had to be reckoned with as a vigorous rival for government credit, and when it entered the field offering, in addition to the lower rate of interest, a direct cash bonus, the South Sea Company took up the challenge, and outbid its rival by promising a bonus of £7,500,000. In 1720 parliament gave its approval and South Sea stock at once rose enormously. Its shares jumped from £100 to £1,000. The fever of speculation seized the public, and disap- of the pointed bidders, not to be baffled in tlieir eager expecta- tion of sudden wealth, plunged into all kinds of "wild cat" schemes of turning speedy fortunes. Specious "bubble com- panies" multiplied rapidly; the public were in a gullible mood, and madly invested in projects for "importing jackasses from Spain," in projects for securing perpetual motion, and for making salt water fresh; one concern went into the market to sell stock "for an undertaking which should in due time be revealed." The South Sea Company began to fear for its own credit, and attacked some of the bubble companies as illegal. Then the reaction came, and the whole edifice of cards came tumbling down. South Sea stock "slumped" from £1,000 a share to £135. L^niversal panic and distress followed. Many rogues had profited; but many the stanhope honest people had been caught and saw their property swept away of a night. The government in particular became an object of general execration. The Stanhope ministry was attacked. Aislabie was expelled from parliament upon a 874 FIRST ERA OF WHIG RULE [Geobge L charge of * 'infamous corruption." Craggs the Postmaster Gen- eral committed suicide. Stanhope, while defending himself in the House of Lords, fell down in an apoplectic fit and died next day. Sunderland was charged with corruption but was acquitted. His name, however, was too closely associated with the luckless min- istry; he was compelled to retire.^ Walpole and Townshend, fortunately for themselves, were not members of the ministry when the scheme was first set on foot. Townshend's ^^^Ip^le had openly denounced it, and sought to expose mini^ry ^^^ folly. Men who had been deaf then, now turned to saves till ^^^ ^^^ assistance. He was made First Lord of the wreck, 1721. Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, while Townshend was advanced to Stanhope's position of Secretary of State. The new ministry set to work to restore public credit. The directors of the company were compelled to forfeit £2,000,000 from their private estates; the government renounced its claims to the promised bonus, most of which had not yet been paid. Thus the company, by meeting its debts, was enabled to continue its legit- imate line of business and was soon again upon a solid basis. The government regained the public confidence and quiet was restored. Of the men to whom the administration was now entrusted Walpole was unquestionably the ablest. He understood commerce and finance, and clearly grasped the importance of mUcu^^^'^ *' making the exportation of English manufactures, and the importation of the commodities used in the manu- facturing of them, as practicable and easy as possible." This policy, which by Walpole's inspiration was thus laid down in the address of the king to his second parliament, explains both the success of Walpole and the long tenure of power which he now enjoyed. In 1721 he induced parliament to admit thirty-eight different articles of raw material free of duty. The following year he abolished upwards of a hundred export duties. He also intro- duced the system by which imported goods are allowed to remain ^ Charles Spencer, third earl of Sunderland, not to be confused with his more famous or rather infamous father, Robert Spencer, second earl of Sunderland, the minister successively of Charles II., James II., and William III., who had retired in 1697. 1730] PEACE POLICY OF WALPOLE 875 in warehouse in bond until sold by the importer. Upon some raw materials as silk, he allowed a rebate when exported again in the manufactured form. He also allowed the colonies to import lum- ber free. In 1730 he permitted the Carolinas to export their rice to any part of Europe; and shortly the rice of America, which before could be sold only in the mother country, drove the rice of Egypt and Italy from the European market. Above all, he realized the full importance of peace to any durable national pros- perity. *'The most pernicious circumstances," he said, "in which this country can be, are those of war; as we must be losers while it lasts, and can not be great gainers when it ends." Elizabeth her- self was not more determined to keep England at peace, and to the very end of his career, in spite of the never ceasing pressure exerted by a determined ** Jingo" opposition, the great minister held to his peace policy. The increasing prosperity of the country soon justified the soundness of these measures. The annual exports of England doubled in thirty years. In George II. 's reign the Success of »> •' cj o waipoie's exports of Pennsylvania increased from £15,000 to half a million. The trade of Jamaica at the close of the century equaled that of all the American colonies put together at the beginning of George I. 's reign. The other colonies shared in this prosperity in accordance with the importance of tlieir prod- ucts, and began to pour a new wealth into the lap of the mother country. The increase in population, also a symptom of pros- perity, kept pace with the development of new sources of wealth. Manchester and Birmingham doubled in a generation. Liverpool sprung at one bound, — it sounds like a tale of the American west, — from an unknown country town to the third port in the kingdom. Land, also, increased in value and rents rose proportionately. In Burke's time rents had risen fifty per cent over the prices which had prevailed at the beginning of the century. The same sound businesslike principles were applied to the management of the several offices of the government. In spite of Thrift of the increase of wealth upon all sides, the most rigid istratwn. economy was followed in the expenditure of funds; the debt was steadily reduced and taxes lessened wherever possible. 876 FIRST ERA OF WHIG RULE [gkorge l. At the death of George I. in 1727, the public debt had been reduced by £20,000,000. After the collapse of the South Sea Bubble, the remaining years of the first George's reign passed quietly enough. When the machinery ran so smoothly and so noiselessly, there was ofG^we^i li^^l^ f^^ parliament to do; less for the professioual agitators. In 1724 there was but one division in the House of Commons. In 1722 another Jacobite plot was unearthed, known as the Atterbury Plot, from one of its principal promoters, Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Eochester. But although many arrests were made and the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended for a year, there was only one execution. So profound was the sense of security that Bolingbroke was permitted to return the next year. The year of Bolingbroke's return was also marked by a quar- rel in the ministry which resulted in the retirement of Carteret to the viceroyalty of Ireland; Thomas Pelham Duke of Newcastle first came into prominence as his successor in the Southern Secre- taryship. Henry Pelham, a brother of Newcastle, was made Sec- retary at War. On June 10, 1727 George I. was suddenly stricken while traveling in Hanover. It has been the fashion of gossippy essayists and others, to poke much fun at the first George and George I., his '*Maypole" and his "Elephant;" but for the time he was by no means a bad king. He was not a striking personality, either physically or intellectually ; yet he was diligent in business, quiet, and cautious. It is true that he was without enthusiasm himself and without ability to awaken it in others. But enthusiasm in the early eighteenth century was at a discount; the sentiment of loyalty was fast disappearing; the veil had been hard stripped from monarchy, and Englishmen were coming to look at the thing in the cold practical sense of Defoe's couplet: "Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things; The good of subjects, is the end of kings." What was wanted was a lay figure upon which to hang the crown and trappings of royalty, and stupid, phlegmatic George, who cared not a stiver for the dignities of the crown so dear to the 1725-1730] TOWKSHEND AND WALPOLE 877 Stuart heart, who was content to let his ministers conduct the government as long as they let him visit his beloved Herrenhansen occasionally and confer fat titles upon his ugly mistresses, was all in all just the man for the emergency. The accession of George II. made little difference in the drift of English politics. The new king was a vigorous hater, "full of fire and temper," and an utter "stranger to benev- cessionof olcnce." IIc had hated his father while he lived; he hated the English as a race of "king killers and repub- licans." He hated his father's great minister, and thought to get along without him. But his clever wife, Caroline of Anspach, an honest, true-hearted woman, who understood the English as her husband did not, and knew the value of Walpole, used her influ- ence so wisely, that the second Townshend ministry was continued virtually without a break. Since the collapse of the Stanhope ministry, Townshend had in the main continued to direct foreign affairs. His course, how- ever, had not run over smoothly. The proud Elizabeth Tmomhend of Farnese, whom Carlyle has dubbed the "Termagant of Spain," who ruled not only her husband but his kingdom as well, smarting under the humiliation of Spanish defeat, in 1725 succeeded in persuading the emperor to enter into an alliance with Spain against France and England, with the two- fold object of striking at England's commercial supremacy in India and China by bolstering up the Ostend East India Company, and of robbing England of her gains in the Mediterranean by recovering Gibraltar. The reply of Townshend was the counter League of Hanover^ in which England, France, and Prussia, joined later by Sweden, Denmark, and Holland, united to confront the new union of Spain and Austria. Walpole had opposed the League of Hanover, and with Cardinal Fleury, the able minister of Louis XV., continued to struggle for peace. The war spirit, however, was again quickening in the nation and wily politicians were, as always, at hand to fan the glowing embers into flames for purely political purposes. Townshend soon had a vigorous and noisy fol- lowing; in 1730 the tension became so great that George had to decide which of the two ministers should be retained. He held on 878 V-.5 FIRST ERA OF WHIG RULE [George II. to Walpole, and Townshend retired to his country seat in Xorfolk, — forsaking politics for turnips. The era which was marked by the growing estrangement of Walpole and Townshend, is famous for the growth of the new Tory party. Bolin^broke's brief experience as a Jacobite The birth of ^ -^ • /» i i • i the new plotter had satisfied him of the uselessness of support- ToTxi x)Q/rtii> ing longer the lost cause, and he had returned to plunge once more into the political arena as a reconstructed Tory. He accepted the Hanoverian succession, but proposed by uniting the discontented Whigs, the scattered fragments of the old Tory party, and such Jacobites as would join them, to organize a thorough- going party of opposition. In this he was ably supported by Carteret, Pulteney, Wyndham, and others. They were known as the Hanoverian or Constitutional Tories. Their principles, how- ever, are not so easy to describe; but upon one point they were thoroughly united. They were against the government; their object was to overthrow the Townshend ministry by making as much mischief as possible. In December 1726 they started the famous Craftsman^ an opposition newspaper, whose columns for ten years continued each week to exploit the ideas of the new Toryism, fiercely attacking at every point the foreign and domestic policy of the government. In the opposition literature of the period is to be found Bolingbroke's famous pamphlet On the Idea of a Patriot King and Thomson's still more famous song Rule Britannia^ destined to sing its way into the heart of the English nation. The war cloud which had been raised by the Treaty of Vienna, and which threatened at one time to devastate all Europe, soon blew over. Gibraltar was besieged for a time by the The war cloud dis- Spaniards, and an English fleet blockaded Porto Bello in South America. The emperor, however, became satisfied that his Ostend plan could never succeed in the face of the hostility of the sea powers ; while the scheming of Spain in the Mediterranean roused his fears for his own Italian possessions so that he was far more inclined to fight Spain than assist her against England and France. He had a project, also, which was much nearer to his heart than even the Ostend East India Company, and 1729-1732] THE FIRST BRITISH PRIME MINI^t^ER 879 that was the succession of his daughter Maria Theresa to the undivided Hapsburg possessions. In return, therefore, for a promise of supporting her succession, which had already been legalized within the empire by a Pragmatic Sanction, the emperor consented to yield the point of dispute which had arisen between him and Elizabeth of Farnese over the succession of her son Don Carlos to the Duchies of Parma and Piacenza, and the Treaty of next year, 1731, the Second Treaty of Vienna, concluded by the emperor with England, Holland, and Spain, laid the trouble which the First Treaty of Vienna had raised. By the Treaty of Seville of 1729 between England, France, and Spain, Spain had virtually yielded her claims to Gibraltar and Minorca, and confirmed the trading privileges which had been given to England by the Treaty of Utrecht. The Second Treaty of Vienna was largely the work of Walpole. Although at one time nearly every state of Europe, small or great, had been marshalled upon one side or the other, his patience, his farsighted determination to avoid war, had at last won ; and what had threatened to be one of the most bloody and destructive of European wars, passed off mostly in a harmless exchange of protocols. The dismissal of Townshend left Walpole the unquestioned head of the ministry. William and Anne had been compelled to adopt the policy of securing a ministry in touch with theflrst ' tlie prevailing spirit of the Commons, but in both cases the sovereign had remained the head of the ministry; the ministers, moreover, were often not congenial among themselves, and seldom united upon any one policy. But under the Han- overian princes it became necessary to find a substitute for this royal head by exalting to the position of supreme authority within the cabinet, one minister who for the sake of harmony and unanimity should be allowed virtually to select his colleagues, and should be responsible for the conduct of their departments as well as his own. The principle of collective responsibility to parlia- ment was not yet understood or insisted upon, and for a long time to come parliament continued to deal with individuals rather than with the cabinet as a whole. And yet as the first to insist upon the principle of political unanimity and of active cooperation 880 FIRST ERA OF WHIG RULE [GEORaK II. within the ministry, Walpole is justly called tho first British Prime Minister. The practical wisdom of Walpole is shown in nothing so clearly as in his management of the much vexed question of toleration. The excitement which had attended the Whig attack on SSto ^^- Sacheverell in 1710, the rioting, and finally the toleration. Overthrow of the Whig party, had taught him the danger of interfering with the traditions of the Established Church, and although he supported the repeal of the Occasional Conformity Act in 1719, he was not inclined to go further, but contented himself with securing the Annual Indemnity Act, by which the government virtually connived at violations of the law on the part of nonconforming office holders. Twice he refused to support a measure designed to repeal the Test Act, and in 1736 he withdrew a bill which proposed to relieve the Quakers of the dis- abilities under which they had so long and so unjustly sujffered. In both cases his reasons were the same: he did not wish to awaken "the sleeping dogs" of ecclesiastical intolerance. Yet the spirit of toleration was steadily growing. In 1736 the death pen- alties for witchcraft were abolished. In 1732 the Protestant ref- ugees from Salzburg and Cambray were received with open arms, and the next year Oglethorpe was permitted to establish his philan- thropic colony in America. Walpole himself was too much of a worldling to show any active sympathy with the more direct phases of religious or reform- ing activity. He had no place for what he called the CSSire- "ugly enthusiasm" of the Wesleys. He was far more ■fiSe ma^ deeply interested in the bettering of the commercial life of England, and was steadily feeling his way to more scientific methods of securing national revenues. In 1733 he pro- posed to reduce the direct land tax from four shillings on the pound to one, and to make up the deficiency by an excise on salt. The excise ^^^ Same year, also, he proposed to apply the excise toimcco^^^ principle to wine and tobacco; that is, instead of col- proposed. lecting the duties at seaports when the goods entered the country, customs, he proposed to collect the duty when the goods were distributed within the country, the excise. The 1734] THE EXCISE BILL 881 great advantage of the excise over the customs is that it reduces smuggling and enables the government to save a large revenue which would be otherwise lost. It also favors legitimate commerce by protecting it from competition with illicit importa- tions. It was estimated at the time that of the £800,000 which was due the government on tobacco alone, scarcely one-fourth found its way to the government coffers. But unfortunately ever since the era of the Rump there had existed a latent prejudice against the excise. The opposition made the most of their oppor- tunity, and after a bitter struggle of three weeks, in which Wal- pole's majority sank from sixty to seventeen, forced him to with- draw the obnoxious though wise measure. In the defeat of the Excise Bill the opposition scored their first great triumph, and in the general election which followed in 1734 they proceeded to make the most of it. The numer- fmmriarice ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^ parliament was slight, and yet they were "/ ^l^gn^^^ beginning to see their way more clearly, and were able to go before the country as the advocates of somewhat more definite principles. The chief of these was that the king ought to be the king of the nation, and not the tool of a party, and that the business of the state ought to be in the hands of a group of the best men of all parties and not of one man. From Bolingbroke's pamphlet the opposition got the name of "Patriots;" not a bad name for a party, who were bent upon making capital by parading sentiment as against the cold-blooded commercial motives which had thus far guided Walpole in shaping public policy. The old Jacobites, also, were dropping out one by one, and with each death the dread of a Stuart restoration lost its hold upon the public mind. Men began to regard the new party with more favor, and to recognize the fact that an attack upon Whig min- isters did not necessarily mean an attack upon the Protestant suc- cession. This feeling was confirmed when upon the retirement of Bolingbroke, the public saw the Prince of Wales, Frederick Louis, putting himself at the head of the opposition and gathering to his camp all the discontented elements, including not only older men, like Chesterfield whom Walpole had dropped from his ministry because he had not agreed with him on the Excise Bill, grizzled fighters 882 FIRST ERA OF WHIG RULE [geobgbU. like Pulteney or Wyndham or "Downright" Shippen, the acknowl- edged leader of what was left of the old Tories, but the new gener- ation of younger politicians also, *'the boys" as Walpole contemptuously called them, yet "boys" from whom he was soon to hear, for of them was William Pitt, "the terrible cornet of horse." In 1736 the ministry was further annoyed by disturbances in Scotland known as the "Porteous Riots," which grew out of the "Gin Act" of that year. In 1703, Paul Methuen, Act'' and the ^^^^ English minister at Lisbon, had succeeded in Rili^^me persuading Portugal to join with England in a sort of reciprocity treaty, in which Portugal agreed to allow English woolens to be admitted to Portugal duty free, and Eng- land agreed to allow Portuguese wines to enter with a duty always one-third less than the French wines. As a result of this treaty the heavier port wine very soon supplanted the light French clarets as the drink of the English gentry, and had not a little to do with the hard drinking of the fashionable set of the eighteenth century. The laborer, however, who was not to be behind his betters, found solace in his gin, which could make him just "as drunk as a lord," and for far less money than the fashionable port. The general low state of morals, also, helped to increase the popular vice of the era. In the hope, therefore, of checking somewhat the use of high spirits, as well as to make an article of such common consumption a source of revenue, by the Gin Act the government sought to impose a heavy license upon the sale of gin. The people did not take to the new act kindly. In Edinburgh when an illicit seller named Wilson was executed, the crowd attacked the city guard with stones. Porteous the captain gave the order to fire. Several of the populace were killed. Porteous was tried for mur- der and condemned to death but reprieved. The mob then stormed the prison, and lynched the impetuous captain. Walpole with good judgment did not try to punish the rioters, but compelled Edinburgh to pay to the widow an indemnity of £2,000. In the meanwhile Walpole had ample opportunity abroad to carry out his peace policy, which virtually amounted to the old Tory policy of non-interference. In 1733 there broke out upon the con- 1735-1739] WAR WITH SPAIIf 883 tinent another one of those lamentable succession wars which wrought such havoc in Europe during the first half of the eight- eenth century ; this time the quarrel was over the Polish m^p^Sh^^ succession. Walpole, in spite of the solicitations of siwcession, Rassia and Austria, stoutly held aloof; and while Aus- 1733-17ii5o . . tria, Germany, and Russia were bending all their efforts to crush the Bourbons, Walpole could boast that among the fifty thousand slain not an Englishman was to be numbered. In 1735 the War of the Polish Succession came to a close and the Third Treaty of Vienna once more adjusted the rival claims of the European states. The close of the Polish war, of England howcvcr, left Walpole to face a dangerous issue of his and France. • i • i t-i i j . l j own, in which England was to appear not as second but afl principal. Since the death of the Regent of Orleans and the birth of an heir to Louis XV. , France had drawn away from England and once more approached the other branch of the Bour- bon family. While the Polish War was in progress, the two Bour- bon governments had entered into a solemn compact, known sometimes as the * 'Treaty of the Escurial" and sometimes as the '*Bourbon Family Compact," in which Spain agreed to assist France in case England took sides with Russia and Austria in the Polish War, and France pledged to join Spain in opposing the further commercial expansion of England. When the Third Treaty of Vienna freed the hands of the Bourbons, Spain prepared to carry out the terms of the Family Compact. She complained of the violations of the Treaty of Utrecht, by which the English were allowed, besides the privilege of the assiento, to send one ship a year with a general cargo to the Spanish-American ports. The English, however, had disregarded the limitation, and the govern- ment had allowed a profitable smuggling trade to develop in these waters. English merchants on their part complained of the tyranny of the Spanish customs patrol, and of the seizing and searching of English ships. A merchant captain, named Jenkins, carried about with him his ear, done up in cot- ton, as a trophy of Spanish brutality. Popular feeling ran high, and in 1739 Walpole was at last compelled very much against his will to declare war against Spain. 884 FIRST ERA OF WHIG RULE [georgeII. The Spanish War, however, was soon forgotten in the prospect of a greater struggle, which was precipitated by the death of the emperor in October 1740, and the immediate outbreak ^JlP v4 U^fT") (171 Succession, of war between Austria and Prussia. The sluggish way in which Walpole had conducted the Spanish War, tlie barrenness of the war of events, the well known peace policy of the minister, and his virtual abandonment of Austria, the old ally of England in the Polish Succession War, were now used by the opposition with telling force. The general election of 1741, in which Thomson's Rule Britaymia^ with its refrain "Britons never, never, never shall be slaves," played an important part, went against the government to the extent that the Walpole majority was cut down to sixteen. When the new Tjarliament met in December, a determined struffffle Walpole, was begun against the now unpopular minister. He was still strong enough to prevent an impeachment ; but the strength of the opposition proved to him that it was impossible longer to control the House, and in February 1742, he resigned. The king stood by him to the last, and upon his resignation raised him to the peerage as Earl of Oxford. His day of usefulness, how- ever, was gone. He had long suffered from ill health and sur- vived his fall only three years. He died in 1745. It is Walpole 's glory that he saw clearly that what England most needed was peace, and that for twenty years he persistently followed out this policy. To accomplish this he aban- w7i^o{/ doned the old Whig ground, war with France and active interference in European politics, and camped upon the old Tory ground, alliance with France and non-inter ference. "His fall," says Ranke, "was the fall of the political system based upon the union of Hanover and the Regent of France." "His ministry," says Hassall, "forms a parenthesis in the oft-recurring struggle between England and France, which, beginning in 1688, continued till 1815." CHAPTER IV THE PELHAMS AND PITT. THE OCEAN EMPIRE SECURED OEOROE II., 17421760 OEOROEIIL, 1760-1763 The fall of Walpole was the signal that the age of cynicism was at last drawing to its close. The "Patriots" had appealed to the quickening belief of the nation in goodness, and offaUof although to the older members of the group, the hard- ened politicians, this ostentation of patriotism was little more than a new trick of the game, the people were coming to believe in the disinterestedness of their leaders, and had loyally answered their appeal. Outside of parliament there were many evidences of this better life of the nation. About the time of the death of George I., a few earnest Oxford men had united in a club to discuss TiMMxford religious questions. Their interest in religious matters soon took a very practical turn; they went out from their meetings to visit the sick and the poor, and the prisoners in the Oxford jail. The leader in this movement was John Wesley, son of Samuel Wesley, rector of Ep worth, Lincolnshire. He was ably supported by his younger brother Charles, and by George Whitefield, the son of a Gloucester innkeeper. In 1735, the Wes- leys went out to Oglethorpe's new colony in America, to conse- crate their zeal to missionary work among the Indians. But the enterprise was not successful and they returned in 1738, to begin a greater work among the heathen at home. Here they were joined by their old friend Whitefield. Their fervor, their zeal, their plain and searching preaching moved in strange ways the simple folk who gathered by the thousands to hear them. The clergy of the day, accustomed to the sober and decorous, but life- 885 886 THE OCEAN EMPIRE SECURED [george il. less methods of the generation past, could not understand these new voices crying in the wilderness, and refused to allow the preachers to use their churches. Then the Wesleys turned to the fields, the ''byways and hedges," and began those tireless mis- sionary journeys over the land by which they stirred England as she had not been stirred since the early days of the Reformation. Sometimes they were hooted and pelted by brutal mobs ; often they were in danger of their lives; nevertheless they persevered, tireless in their efforts to awaken England to a better life. Wesley, however, was far more than a mere religious agitator. He saw with a statesman's insight, that what had been won, could be retained only by organization, and accordingly began ofthf^^^^ to lay the foundation of an organized society, the mem- Omrch^^ bers of which were soon known as ''Methodists." The organization grew rapidly; its usefulness expanded and deepened with every year. At the time of John Wesley's death, 1791, it numbered more than a hundred thousand adher- ents. Wesley himself did not wish to break with the mother church ; but it was no longer possible to keep the new wine in the old bottles, and soon after his death the Methodist body withdrew entirely from the established Church. W^hitefield, unlike the Wesleys, was a Calvinist of the older Puri- tan sbhool. He had, moreover, none of Wesley's forethought or genius as an organizer. As the Arminianism of the dutmovement ^^sleys became more pronounced, he drew off and 'England. attached himself to the Countess of Huntingdon, a woman of deep piety and earnest devotion, who attempted to establish a Calvinistic wing of the Methodist move- ment. In England, however, Calvinistic Methodism never suc- ceeded in taking root. But in Wales, where a similar awakening had been in progress since the beginning of the century, Calvinistic Methodism spread rapidly, and in 1811 also separated from the Established Church. In Scotland and Ireland, where religious con- ditions differed widely from those in England, Methodism received little encouragement, but in the new world it readily found a home; and here foundations were laid, deep and broad, upon which the modern American church has since grown up. 1742] METHODISM 887 Great as were the direct influences of the Methodist movement, its influence outside the ranks of Methodism proper was even greater. The English clergy felt the general toning up ^tMUm ^^ ^^® religious atmosphere; the gambling, fox hunting, absentee clergyman of the age of Sterne gave way to men like Toplady, the author of Bock of Ages, or John Newton, the ^'converted slave dealer." The open profligacy that had disgraced the upper classes began to hide its face ; literature ceased to be foul, and with a new inspiration became itself an instrument of further progress. The new life breathed a spirit of unwonted philanthropy into English society, invading the prisons, and recognizing the rights of the victims of justice. It invaded the penal codes as well and infused here a clemency before unknown to English law. Even the black man was not forgotten, and the movement set on foot which was ultimately to result in the abolition of slavery throughout the British dominions. The state, also, found itself confronted with a new duty in the educa- tion of the masses and the protection of the victims of commercial greed. The fall of Walpole made little change in the personnel of the ministry. The great peace minister had long since ceased to lead, and so slightly had the modern idea of cabinet govern- TTie new o j o ministry, ment taken hold of the political mind, that when he left the ministry, of those who held high office under him, only Harrington the Secretary of State, saw fit to resign with his chief. Of the two oflOices which Walpole had held, Spencer Compton, now Lord Wilmington, a nonentity who owed his pre- ferment solely to royal favoritism, was made Lord Treasurer, and Sandys was made Chancellor of the Exchequer. The place vacated by Harrington was given to Carteret, who was the master mind of the group. He was a man of mettle, with a taste for grand coali- tions, who believed that he was called upon to **make kings and emperors and maintain the balance of power in Europe." He was, however, unfortunately given to drink and when in his cups he was without reason or discretion. At a time when all Europe was rushing to arms, a more unsafe man could not have been chosen to direct the foreign affairs of England, 888 THE OCEAN EMPIRE SECURED [geoegb IL It is not necessary to enter into the * Wangled web of armed law suits" known as the War of the Austrian Succession; in order to understand the position of England and the results fhfwafof^ attained, it is sufficient to state the general motives of ^sucfessioru^ ^^® ^^^' ^^^^ ^^^ cmperor Charles VI. succeeded to the Hapsburg possessions, he made a will by which all his hereditary dominions should pass to his son and after him to his eldest daughter. Charles had not only persuaded the Ger- man Diet to accept this will as a law of the empire, but in the several treaties which he made with foreign powers during his reign, he secured also the consent of Spain, Eussia, Prussia, Great Britain, and France. When he died, therefore, in October 1740, since his only son had preceded him by some years, the Hapsburg dominions were to pass by the law of the empire and the guar- antee of Europe, ** whole and undivided, to his daughter Maria Theresa. " It also seemed probable that she would secure the imperial crown for her husband Francis of Lorraine. The tempta- tion, however, offered by a possible dismemberment of Austria, was too strong for the princes who could advance any claims to Hapsburg territories, and within two months of the death of Charles, an appeal was made to arms. Frederick II. , the youug King of Prussia, set the ball rolling by invading Silesia in Decem- ber 1740 and in a few months all Europe was in commotion. Even those princes who had no claims in the case, were compelled to embrace one side or the other, as they saw themselves threatened by the advantages promised to old hereditary rivals. George II. belonged to this latter class. As Elector of Hanover, he had no wish to see Prussia, his old rival in north Germany, exalted at the expense of Austria, and was eager to champion the cause of the Austrian queen. In the meanwhile Charles Albert, Elector of Bavaria, who claimed the whole of the Hapsburg dominions, had succeeded in drawing most of the German states into a league with involved in France, for the maintenance of his claim, and in 1741 began war on his own account. Frederick had also drawn near to France, though he much preferred to head a league of the German princes himself. Maria Theresa, on the other hand, 1742] WAR OF AUSTRIAN^ SUCCESSION 889 found a ready ally in Russia; for the Russian sovereign was no better pleased than the Elector of Hanover to see Prussia increas- ing its strength. To prevent Russia from attacking him in the rear, Frederick had by French influence succeeded in getting Sweden to attack Russia. In May Spain also Joined the Bavarian league and agreed to attack the Austrian possessions in Italy. Finally in January 1742, the Elector of Bavaria obtained the imperial crown as Charles VII. Thus the attack of Frederick upon Silesia had within eighteen months arrayed all Europe in two hostile camps. The pot was thus well boiling, when in February 1742 Walpole retired to the peerage, and Carteret, with exalted ideas of his own ability and of his personal importance in working out the involves destiny of England, assumed direction of the foreign policy of England, and although England still had the war with Spain on her hands, plunged into the melee. The influ- ence of this new accession of strength to the Austrian cause was at once felt. In August the English Admiral Mathews destroyed a Spanish fleet in the harbor of Saint Tropez, effectually preventing Spain from interfering with Austria in northern Italy. The indomitable queen, who had pacified Frederick by the cession of Silesia, with renewed energy turned upon the French and Bava- rians, who had recently entered Bohemia, and by the end of the year had expelled them and regained control of the country. The next year opened with even more signal successes for the Austrian and her allies. In 1742 she had stood at bay behind her boundaries. She now assumed the offensive, entering timis%^^i743. l^^^aJ*ia and driving Charles from his own Electorate, while an army of English, Hessians, and Hanoverians beat the French at Dettingen^ on the Main. As a result of these successes Germany was cleared and an Austro-English army held the line of the Rhine. * George II. commanded the allies; the last instance where an English king has commanded an army in person. The battle, however, was an absurd affair. The victory was due to the endurance of the English, rather than to the generalship of the king. 890 THE OCEAN EMPIRE SECURED [GEOBOEn. Thus far Carteret's program had been carried out with results that Marlborough might have envied. But unfortunately, just at the moment when an honorable peace lav within his The AustTO- Sardinian grasp, he was seized with an inspiration, for the bril- september liance of which more can be said than for its sanity. George II. had favored the war because he feared Prussia; but Carteret had feared the new ascendency which the war promised to the older enemy of England. He was not satis- fied, therefore, with simply vindicating the integrity of the Haps- burg inheritance; he proposed to complete the humiliation of France by forming against her a counter league of England, Austria, and Prussia. This was not an easy matter; the wound which Frederick had dealt to Austrian pride was too grievous to be easily healed or forgotten. Yet the overconfident Carteret believed that he knew how to salve the injured pride of his southern ally, and proposed that Austria and Sardinia enter into a league, by which the Austrians were to seize Naples and hand it over to the Elector of Bavaria. He, in turn, was to cede Bavaria to Maria Theresa. Thus the Austrian queen was to be reconciled to the loss of Silesia, by being allowed to extend her power in south Germany. Carteret, however, had not calculated upon the possible prefer- ences of the third member of the proposed alliance against France, who had his own notions about the future arrangement to carteret'8 of the map of Europe, and saw in the proposed exten- sion of Austrian influence in Germany as well as in the exaltation of Hanover, a menace to the future of Prussia. The English minister had failed, also, to calculate upon the preferences of the other German princes, who had no wish to encourage their powerful neighbors in the idea that Germany was a cheese, to be carved and devoured at will. Carteret, moreover, had forgotten Spain altogether, who had no idea of renouncing her claim upon Naples, for the purpose of healing the breach between Maria Theresa and Frederick. Carteret's scheme, therefore, instead of humbling France, sim- ply sent all Europe into a turmoil again, and postponed peace indefinitely. Spain drew nearer to France, renewing the Family Compact, and agreeing to make common cause with her against 1744, 1745] THE PELHAM MINISTKY 891 her enemies. When the Austrian army set out for Italy in the spring, Frederick at once invaded Bohemia, beginning the second Silesian war, and in May with other German princes The second „ ., ..-,,1 ^-T ^ -ii aj_ Silesian formally joined the t ranco - Spanish league. At home, also, a serious reaction set in against Carteret. Public confidence in his judgment and ability as a leader was shat- tered. The minister, moreover, was personally disliked for his imperious ways, and what little influence he had left, rapidly waned before the onset of the Pelhams,^ who seized the moment to got rid of their unpopular colleague. Carteret had clung to the old policy, so dear to George II., of favoring Hanover, but the Pelhams, under the pretext of favor- ing England instead of Hanover, had proposed to revert Zii^tf^^ again to the policy of William and Anne and make the Netherlands the base of English operations on the con- tinent. Upon this issue the quarrel finally reached a crisis. Carteret, now Lord Granville, resigned, and Harrington, the former colleague of Walpole, returned to his old post of Secretary of State. In January 1745, by the Treaty of Warsaw the Netherlands were formally admitted to a league with England, Austria, and Saxony-Poland. In one other respect, also, Pelham, who was the recognized head of the new ministry, showed his dis- position to return to the old ideas of William's reign. Instead of making his administration a strictly party ministry he sought to strengthen it by taking men not only from the opposition Whigs, as Chesterfield and Pitt, but from the Tory ranks as well. Although the new ministers had come into power as a protest against Carteret's war policy, they were forced for a time to shoulder the burden of the war, nor were they ministry more succcssful. The western Netherlands, which the Treaty of Utrecht had given to Austria, as usual presented a tempting point of attack to France. Maria Theresa was so busily occupied with Frederick, that she was compelled to entrust the defense of these territories ^ Wilmington had died in 1743 and Henry Pelham had succeeded to the post of First Lord of the Treasury. 892 THE OCEAN EMPIRE SECURED [gkobge II. to her allies, and thus threw the burden of saving the Austrian Netherlands almost wholly upon England. The Dutch were in no condition for war; the barrier fortresses, which had been entrusted to their keeping, had fallen into decay, and their armies were far from a war footing. Of the eight fortresses barrier four fell in five weeks, and while Louis XV. marched June and soutli to savc Elsass from an attack of Charles of Lor- raine, Marshal Saxe began the siege of Tournay. The allies aroused themselves, and in May 1745, George IL's son Wil- liam Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, advanced w^ith an army of English, Dutch, and Hanoverians, to relieve the city. They were met by Saxe at Fontenoy on the 11th and suffered a serious repulse. Tournay, Ghent, Ostend, and other Xetherland towns fell to the French a§ the spoil of victory. The cause of the allies had fared no better in the fighting in Germany. In 1744 Charles of Lorraine had been driven out of Elsass and gradually forced back across Bavaria. In October Seckendorf had entered the Bavarian capital and restored Charles YII. to his ancestral estates. In June of the next year Charles of Lorraine fell into the hands of Frederick at Hohenfriedburg and was driven out of Silesia; on September 30 he was again beaten at Soor in Bohemia, leaving Frederick to punish Saxony for its temerity in joining his enemies. In the meanwhile a new, and, at the time, apparently a more serious danger threatened England at home and compelled ^r her for the moment to leave the Dutch and Hanoverians New ittTmX ^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ French as best they could by them- 1744-1746. selves. In February 1744, Charles Edward, the son of the Stuart Pretender, * 'James III.," had set sail for England, con- voyed by a French fleet under command of the famous Marshal Saxe ; but the expedition first fell foul of the English Admiral Norris and then was still further misused by storms, so that Prince Charles had to return to France for a fresh start. The French at the time were turning all their energies to the Austrian Xetherlands, and it was not easy to induce Louis to devote any more money to an experiment that had so often failed. But Charles Edward was not to be discouraged, and taking advantage of the victory of Fontenoy, accompanied by seven companions, he 1745] THE PRETENDER 893 managed to get off in a single ship, and after spending six weeks in the Hebrides landed on the wild coast of western Scotland. For three weeks the cause of the little band of adventu- rers looked black enough ; yet when the royal standard was finally raised in Glenfinnan the Stuart could count fifteen hun- dred clansmen in his following. Slipping by Cope, who was approach- ing with three thousand regulars, on September 3 he entered Perth, and on the 17th at the Town Cross in Edinburgh proclaimed ** James VIII." Four days later he routed Cope at Preston Pans. His army now numbered six thousand men, but the Lowlanders held aloof and the Highlanders hesitated to march further south. But the tact and patience of Charles at last won the clansmen, and after two months' waiting he deter- mined to make a dash into England. By marching down the west side of the island, he avoided an army of ten thousand men who held the Tyne at Newcastle, and reached Derby on December 4. It was already evident, however, to no one more than to the daring leader himself, that the venture was hopeless. He had expected to be joined by the Jacobites of England but mm'fS'^the although he had marched through tlie old Jacobite Xrt^^ftWe counties hardly a man had stirred. The people came out "to see the pretty soldiers pass;'* but hardly two hundred men joined the Prince from the time that he left Scot- land. Manchester had lighted its windows in his honor as he passed through, and had sped him on his way with a gift of two thousand pounds, but the husbands and fathers were too busy with other things, to turn aside to peril their lives in a struggle in which their interest had long since ceased to be other than a mere matter of traditional sentiment. The policy of Walpole had done its work. Peace, prosperity, and security had given Englishmen something better to fight for than the time-worn claims of a for- gotten dynasty. The Prince was now in the heart of England with only his five thousand Highlanders to depend upon, while from all sides powerful armies were rushing to close in upon him. There was only one thing for him to do. On December G, he raised his camp and began the return march, eluding his foes and reaching Glasgow 894 THE OCEAN EMPIKE SECURED [geobgb U. twenty days later. Here new reinforcements from the Highlands raised his army to nine thousand men, and on January 17 at Fal- kirk he turned and attacked General Hawley, who had the Jacobite followed him from England. Again the rush of the Highlanders bore all before them; but their bravery was useless. Other English armies were advancing from the south. The Highlanders themselves had lost heart, and when on April 16, the Prince faced Cumberland near Culloden, he could marshal only five thousand men. Three times the Highlanders charged; but their wild rush had no terrors for the seasoned troops, veterans of the continental wars, who now confronted them. Charles fled from the battlefield, leaving his clansmen to be hunted down by the soldiers of Cumberland, who did their bloody work so thoroughly that their leader was known ever after- ward as the "Butcher." After a series of adventures Charles finally reached France in the autumn. He died at Eome in 1788. He left a brother. Cardinal Henry of York, who survived him nearly twenty years. With the death of the latter in 1807 the direct line of the * 'legitimate Stuarts" ended. Jacobitism was now dead and buried. The government, how- ever, in its fright determined to strike vigorously; some eighty of the followers of Charles were brought to the gallows; three hundred and fifty were transported; three Scottish lords were beheaded and some forty other persons of rank attainted. The Highland chiefs were compelled to surrender their hereditary jurisdictions to the crown in return for a money payment. The people were forbidden to wear the tartan. Feudal Scotland passed away and '*the sheriff's writ soon ran through the Highlands with as little resistance as in the streets of London." The defeat of the English in the Netherlands and the appear- ance of the Pretender had only strengthened the purpose of the Pelhams to end the war, and on December 25, 1745, in u^uidraws ^^^ ''Convention of Hanover," England made her peace uentaTwars ^^^^ Prussia and left Maria Theresa to fight out her quarrel by herself, more than ever determined to win back Silesia, now that the plan of giving her Bavaria had failed. In the Netherlands, however, the struggle with France still lin- 1750] THE CALENBAR BILL B95 gered on until 1748, when the "Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle," (Aachen) restored the old status quo, — England giving up her con- quests by sea and France her conquests by land. The quarrel of England and Spain was also included in the Aachen settlement, but the two governments continued to bicker over the question of indemnity until 1750, when the '^Treaty of Madrid" finally settled their long-time trade quarrel. After the Treaty of Aachen the Pelham ministry moved on quietly enough until the death of Henry Pelham in The Pelham 1754. The public debt had reached the unprecedented home affairs, sum of £78,000,000 ; but in 1750 Pelham succeeded in reducing the interest from four and five to three per cent, thus greatly diminishing the annual burden. By reason of this saving the government was able to devote some funds to the encouragement of learning; a measure which resulted the Bntwh in the acquisition of the collections which have formed Muaeiim. the nucleus of the British Museum. Pelham, also, sympathized with Walpole's policy of religious toleration. In 1751 an effort was made to secure a bill for the naturalization of the Protestant French refugees who, upon the renewal of persecution by the French authorities in 1750, had begun again to flock to Eng- land. In 1753 a bill was passed by which resident Jews were to be naturalized. In the next session, however, owing to a revival of popular prejudices, encouraged by the jealousy of British mer- chants, it was repealed. In 1751 Chesterfield intro- d^rmiirmiA^^^^^ his ''Calendar Bill," by which the New Style, as the Gregorian calendar was called in England, was made legal. By this bill the English year was to begin henceforth on January 1 instead of March 25, and the eleven days between September 3 and September 13 inclusive were cut out of the Calendar. The measure aroused a good deal of feeling at the time. Pelham opposed the new Calendar as a "newfangled" idea, although Gregory XIII. had devised it in 1582, and the Catholic countries of Europe had virtually been using it ever since. The opposition politicians, in the general stagnation of politics, seized upon it as an "issue" in the general election of 1754, and tried to rouse the country with the cry, "Give us back our eleven 896 THE OCEAN EMPIRE SECXJRED [georgeIL days." Another important measure of the era was the "Marringe Act" of 1753, by which only such marriages were recognized as legal as were performed by a regular clergyman of the Anglican Church after the banns had been published for three successive Sundays in the parishes of the bride and bridegroom. A penalty of seven years' transportation imposed on the celebrant put an end to the romantic marriages so long associated with the name of the Fleet. In 1751 the death of Frederick Prince of Wales greatly weak- ened the Whig opposition, and the king felt himself strong enough to compel the Pelliams to allow Earl Granville to ofanviiie. return as President of the Council, while Bedford, the Southern Secretary, gave way to Holder nesse. On March 6, 1754, Henry Pelham closed his long and useful career. He had been a timid man, without any of Carteret's brilliant dash. But his timidity had served him a good turn; for it led him to surround himself with a corps of able men, who imparted an unwonted solidity and strength to his ministry as a whole, at the same time that the reaction from Carteret's methods enabled him to restore the saner and syrer peace policy of Walpole. Thomas Pelham, the duke of Newcastle, succeeded to Henry Pelham's place as First Lord of the Treasury. After a brief trial of Sir Thomas Kobinson as Secretary of State, the The New- . . . *^ , i -, ccuitiemin- position was givcn to Henry Fox. Pitt who had opposed Robinson lost his position in the ministry. The new ministry, however, was already sailing in troubled waters. France and England, so effectually kept apart at home by the Channel, "the accursed ditch" as Maria Theresa had called it, were already beginning to crowd each other along their outposts in the new world and in India. England's American colonies had been growing rapidly during the century and their population already mounted up to nearly Condition of ^nc-fourth of that of the mother country. Their wealth in^thenew^ ^^^ increasing even faster than their population. In world. lY^Q northern colonies this wealth was still pretty evenly distributed. The democracy of wealth was also attended by a democracy in education; illiteracy was virtually unknown. 1752] ENGLAND AND FRANCE IN NEW WOKLD S9t In religious beliefs the colonists varied widely, but their differences took on nothing of the political pugnacity of the old world. The mother country had for the most part left them to themselves, content to monopolize their trade with the old world. The colo- nists were satisfied; the right of monopoly was the commonly accepted doctrine of Europe, and restriction in trade was fully compensated by the protection which the colonists enjoyed as British subjects. They led a free and independent life, proud of their institutions and proud of their birthright as Englishmen. From the first the relation of the English colonists to their French neighbors had been one of suspicion. Each new outbreak in Europe had had its echoes in the western wilderness, Fralwein^'^ where the three great wars which had followed the woridL^ Revolution were known respectively as ** William and Mary's War,'* ** Queen Anne's War," and **King George's War." Heretofore, however, these colonial wars had been largely sympathetic and had no real occasion in conditions existing in the new world. But soon after the Treaty of Aachen the French began to show alarming signs of making good their claims to the great Mississippi basin by assuming an aggressive attitude towards the few English colonists who had had the hardi- hood to penetrate the Alleghanies and settle about the upper streams of the Ohio and the Kentucky. The French had already built two lines of forts and block houses; the one extending from the present site of Chicago along the Illinois to the Mississippi, and the other from the present site of Detroit along the line of the Wabash to the Ohio. They now began a third line from the eastern end of Lake Erie to the point where the two great rivers of western Pennsylvania unite to form the Ohio. Here in 1752, Duquesne, the new governor of Canada, built the fort which bore his name. The English ministry were not blind to the signifi- cance of these encroachments and encouraged the colonial govern- ors to assert their claims to the disputed territories. The more remote colonial governments, however, were by no means inclined to enter into an expensive war for objects in which they regarded themselves as hardly concerned. Even Pennsylvania was inclined to content itself with the region east of the mountains rather than 898 THE OCEA]sr EMPIRE SECURED [qeouge ii. violate the religious principles of its Quaker population by going to war. A feeble attempt of Virginia to reduce Fort Duquesne in 1754 still further satisfied the home government that its active assistance was needed, and in 1755 it determined in concert with the colonies to take active means to break down the new fence which Duquesne had drawn across their western frontier. The British officers, however, unacquainted with frontier fighting, were no match for the French and their Indian allies. On July 9, 1755, the British General Braddock, while marching to attack Fort Duquesne, was taken in ambuscade and lost more than one half of his little army of fifteen hundred men. The erection of Fort William Henry on Lake Qeorge to confront the Frencli fort at Ticonderoga, and the deportation of the French settlers of Acadia which had fallen to the English as a result of the War of the Spanish Succession, could not atone for Braddock's defeat. The government could not shut its eyes to the seriousness of the situation. England was again confronted by a war with France. Since the accession of the Georges, in every struggle of Eng- land on the continent the vulnerable point of England lay, not in America or India, but in Hanover, and although in the wmof West- act which had made George I. king, English statesmen Janua7-v, had attempted to disclaim any responsibility for the continental possessions of his house, the enemies of England were not inclined to respect the disclaimer, or distinguish between the possessions of the King of England and the possessions of the Elector of Hanover. Carteret had boldly accepted these conditions and made a league between England and Hanover the pivot of his foreign policy ; a measure which pleased no one more than George II. himself. But the nation had repudiated Carteret and his policy, and the Pelhams had returned to the older policy of depending upon Holland rather than Hanover as a base of oper- ation against France. The Dutch, however, had proved but a broken reed, and in 1755, the Newcastle ministry was as hard put to it as ever for an efficient ally on the continent. In a war with France, Austria, the long time enemy of the Bourbons and ally of England, might be depended on; but if Austria entered the lists, Prussia would be sure to arm %pmst Austria, and the necessity 1756] THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR 899 of protecting Hanover would again confront the English. If, however, Prussia could be persuaded to unite with England against France, the old time feud of France and Austria might prevent Austria from joining with France. But George, as Elector of Han- over, had no wish to see Prussia, his rival in north Germany, strengthened by a league with England, and proposed instead to subsidize Russia to defeud Hanover. Here a new difficulty con- fronted the mitiistry, for Frederick declared that he would never suffer Russian troops to enter German territory, and even Newcastle refused to support the king iu a measure which was sure to add the now powerful military state of Prussia to the enemies of Eng- land. The proposal to subsidize Russia, therefore, was finally abandoned, and George was compelled to enter into the '* Conven- tion of Westminster," by which both Hanover and Prussia were to remain neutral in case of a war with France. The English ministers, however, were not left long to congrat- ulate themselves on the success of their diplomacy. They had not taken into account the bitterness of Maria Theresa's alliance of feelings towards Frederick. No sooner had she heard France,' and of the Convention of Westminster than she at once dispatched messengers to Paris to offer her support to her old foe. She was already certain of the support of Russia, whose wayward Czarina Elizabeth had suffered from the caustic wit of her brilliant neighbor and made no secret of her desire to overwhelm Prussia, and in fact for ten years had been in secret league with Austria against Frederick. When, therefore, on April 22 the Russian minister formally proposed to Austria to unite the arms of the two powers for the dismemberment of Prussia, the Russian government was simply pursuing a policy long since consciously adopted. Thus if the English ministers had assured themselves of the safety of Hanover, they had little but mischief to expect from the secret messages which were passing between Vienna and the capitals of France and Russia. Thus began the ** Seven Years' War." The outlook for Eng- land was gloomy enough. Braddock's defeat was still fresh in the popular mind. Boscawen had attempted to prevent the French from sending reinforcements to Canada and had failed. In India 900 THE OCEAN EMPIKE SECURED [geoegeIL there had just closed a long and bloody struggle between the agents of the English company and the agents of the French com- pany, in which the English had held their own with The Seven great difficulty and had been saved only by the daring Years' War *-' •' .j j o begun. of the young ensign Robert Olive. The ministry in their efforts to save Hanover had won Prussia, but they had lost Austria and made an enemy of Russia, who had no cause of quarrel with England whatever save her new friendship for Frederick. Moreover, while the ministry were thus botching the whole matter of a foreign alliance, little was done to prepare for the immediate strain of the war ; not only were incompetent men left in command of the fleets, but when 1756 opened, the government did not have three regiments in England that were fit for service. France, on the other hand, with a vigor and energy that reminds one of the great days of Louis XIV., was not only fully prepared, but was moving promptly and swiftly to take full advantage of the dilatory English ministry. In April 1756 the duke of Richelieu began the siege of Port Mahon in Minorca, the *'key of the Medi- terranean," at that time regarded of more importance than Gibraltar. Admiral John Byng, the son of the Admiral Byng who had won such honors for the English flag in 1718, was sent to relieve the garrison, but retired to Gibraltar, and allowed the whole island to pass into French hands. Evil news also came from America where in August Montcalm had captured Fort Oswego on Lake Ontario. But, if this were depressing, from India came news that roused Englishmen to madness. Surajah surajah Dowlah had become Nawab of Bengal early in 1756. '^Biack'Hou He was a sworn enemy of the **hatmen" as he called 1756. ' the Europeans, and roused by the long struggle between the English and French which had just closed in June, he laid siege to Calcutta and forced it to surrender in four days. Happily the women had been taken on board the ships in the river and had already sailed away with the governor. But the little garrison of 146 men were shut up for safe keeping in the old gar- rison prison, a strong room twenty feet square and ventilated only by two small iron barred windows. Here without air or water, the prisoners were left through the stifling hours of an Indian midsum- 1757] THE KEWCASTLE-PITT MINISTRY 901 mer night. In the morning only twenty -three of the one hundred and forty-six men were alive. When the story reached England of that night of horror in the '* Black Hole of Calcutta," where strong men in the agony of suffocation wrestled in the darkness and trampled upon each other in a mad struggle to get near the two holes that served for windows, the people iu their wrath turned upon the duke of Newcastle, whose incompetence they made responsible for the long series of blunders and misfortunes. In November Newcastle resigned, and the enthusiastic support of the great commercial class practically forced upon the king William Pitt, the one man whom the nation had come zatlmofm'e to look upon as able to save England from going the PiitSiittry. way of her possessions in the Mediterranean. The Whig oligarchy, however, who had so long ruled Eng- land, were suspicious of the brilliant minister, who, although he had been in parliament since 1735, was still a poor man. His integrity was a constant rebuke to his corrupt colleagues, nor did he try to conceal his contempt for them and their methods. The king, also, did not take to the haughty minister, nor could he forget his violent opposition to the Russian subsidy treaties. The nation was for Pitt; but it was still the day of seven-year parliaments, and the principle of giving the people an opportunity to express their opinion at a crisis by a new election had not yet been adopted. Newcastle, moreover, the late minister, who under- stood and practiced the old Danby methods of ** influence," was the expert master of the House, and used his power so effectually that in April 1757 the king ventured to dismiss Pitt and recall New- castle. Then followed a bitter struggle of three months which ended at last in a compromise, in which Newcastle remained Lord of the Treasury, but Pitt and Holdernesse became the Secretaries of State. As thus organized, the new ministry was one of great strength. Pitt, with a foresight and enthusiasm all but inspired, fully grasped the opportunity which opened before England in the strength of -,./.»•;., ^ . , ^ , „., the new direction 01 colonial expansion and conquest. When the coolest statesmen were gloomily discussing the loss of the colonies altogether and the collapse of England's prestige among the powers of Europe, Pitt saw England rising from the 902 THE OCEAN EMPIRE SECUEED [qeorgeII. struggle, her glory undimmed, her prestige unmatched, and her colonial empire without a rival. He saw too, what had been hidden from the petty politicians of his day who had for a genera- tion been knocking their heads together in the murky atmosphere of parliamentary quarrels, that the salvation of Britain lay in adopting a more generous attitude toward the greater Britain beyond the seas, in treating British communities everywhere as members of the governing firm and not as subject peoples to be ruled as servants or to be exploited for the enrichment of a few- monopolists at home. So broad were his sympathies that he conld find place in this larger family even for Hanover; he declared that Hanover was as dear to him as Hampshire, that he knew no local attachment, and that it was a matter of indifference to him where a Briton was cradled. Nor did his lofty faith in the destiny of his country, or the fervor of his enthusiasm outrun his ability to inspire others or command the elements of success. He possessed a marvelous skill in selecting his agents. His courage was infectious, and no man left his presence without something of his confidence. Newcastle was bad company, and it seems strange at first thought that a man of Pitt's undoubted integrity should ever consent to accept such a running mate. But Pitt's weakness lay in dealing with the House. Though called the "Great Com- moner," no acknowledged leader ever had less personal influence than he among the politicians of his day ; and yet to succeed as a minister, he must have the steady support of the Commons. He left Newcastle, therefore, to manage the House, while he, to use his own expression, '^borrowed Newcastle's majority" to save the British Empire. The alliance of Prussia had as yet not been of any service to England. It had not even saved Hanover. In August 1756 Frederick had struck at the nearest of his possible The war on enemies, the elector of Saxony, taking Dresden and nent,i756. compelling the surrender of the Saxon army at Pirna. The act was legally a serious violation of the laws of the empire; for Saxony had not yet openly joined the enemies of Frederick. But Frederick had received conclusive evidence that the moment the elector dared he would join the foes of Prussia. 1757] THE PAETITIOI^r TREATIES 903 Frederick's enemies raised a great cry in order to make the most of what they were pleased to style the wanton aggression of the Prussian king, and in 1757 succeeded in putting him under the ban of the Empire.* Frederick's showy victories, therefore, had only raised up new enemies and hastened the scheming of the old. In February Rus- sia and Austria at last ao^reed upon the terms of a Par- The Parti- mn Treaties, tition Treaty, and in May Austria and France signed a similar treaty at Versailles. Saxony-Poland, Sweden, and the elector of the Palatine, as well as Austria, France, and Russia, were to be the beneficiaries. Frederick had not been ignorant of the purport of the diplomatic haggling which had been going on at Paris and Vienna, and if he had struck without waiting for his enemies to complete their plans, it was to secure the first advantage in the unequal conflict which he knew was at hand and was inevitable. He was not deterred, therefore, by the outcry which his attack on Saxony had raised, and followed it up in the spring by the invasion of Bohemia. On May 6 he won a hard fought battle before Prague, but in June he was defeated by Daun at Kolin and compelled to withdraw. His enemies followed him into his own territories. Daun and Charles of Lorraine swept into Silesia, while a Russian army of 100,000 men poured into eastern Prussia, taking Memel and defeating Frederick's Marshal Lehwald at Gross-Jiigersdorf on August 30. The Swedes, also, who had joined in the war, were pouring into Pomerania. The French in the meanwhile had advanced from the west, seizing the possessions of the Prussian monarch on the lower Rhine, entering western Hanover, defeating the duke of Cumberland at Hastenbeck July 26, and finally driving him back to the Elbe, where they compelled him in the *' Convention of Closter-Seven" to agree to disband his army altogether. While Frederick's enemies were thus pressing upon him from all points of the compass and the erasure of Prussia from the map of Europe seemed at hand, his allies were repeating the series * The Emperor Charles VII. had died in Jan. 1745 and Maria Theresa's husband, Francis, had been elected to succeed him, (Sept. 13) in spite of the opposition of Frederick. 904 THE OCEAN^ EMPIRE SECURED [georqk II. of failures of the preceding year. The unlucky Byng was court- martialed and shot on his own quarter-deck, — as Voltaire observed, Further **^^ cncourage the rest." An expedition under Ilawke dSisr8 ^^^ Mor daunt against Rochefort ended in ignominious 1757. disaster. Loudon and Holbourne set out to take Quebec but accomplished nothing. In August Fort William Henry, after a brave defense by the gallant Colonel Monro, was forced to capitulate, and a part of the garrison were massacred by a lot of drunken savages who had broken away from the control of Montcalm and his officers. It was at this darkest hour of the struggle, when Hanover had been forced to pledge itself to a disgraceful neutrality, when Prus- sia had been overrun, when the navy of England had theude'm? ^^^^ driven from the Mediterranean, when her troops had been expelled from the Ohio country and the last vestige of her power had been destroyed within the basin of the St. Lawrence, that the unseemly quarrel between the Whig leaders was healed, and Pitt, given a free hand in the conduct of the war, began to marshal the mighty strength of the empire and impart something of his own feverish energy, his enthusiasm, and his sublime courage, to the armies and navies of Britain. The strings thrilled with a new touch. Frederick recognized the hand of a master and exclaimed, "At last England has brought forth aman. " Yet the first successes were quite independent of any influence of Pitt or his fellow ministers. At the very darkest moment of Frederick's career, when England was paralyzed and Hanover disarmed, when his own kingdom was overrun from the east and the south, and his enemies were actually levying requisi- tions in the streets of Berlin, the cloud suddenly rifted at Ross- bach; on ]N"ovember 5, 1757, Frederick swept down upon a com- bined French and Austrian army of twice the size of his own and completely overwhelmed it. A month later a second victory at Leuthen recovered Breslau and saved Silesia. In the meanwhile swift sailing ships were bringing great news from India. Olive, whom ill health had compelled to return to England, was again on his way to the scene of his earlier triumphs, when the Seven Years' War opened. At Madras he heard of the Black Hole of Oal- 1757] PL ASSET 905 cutta and at once prepared to show Surajah Dowlah how Englishmen could fight when once their blood was roused. After a few, sharp, quick blows, by which he recovered both Calcutta and Hugli, in February he compelled the terrified Nawab to make peace. The French, however, and not the English, were still the great people of India, and the rumor of the new war encouraged Surajah Dowlah to think that with their support he had no occasion to fear his recent foes. But Clive, without waiting for the treacherous Nawab to strike, at once began hostilities on his own account and in May took Chandernagor. The Nawab sum- moned his vassal princes to arms, and on the 22d of June lay encamped on the plains of Plassey; a vast host of 35,000 foot and 15,000 horse, supported by 50 cannon. To oppose them Clive could muster only 800 Europeans and some 2,000 Sepoys, or native Indian troops, and 8 cannon. A council of war advised a retreat; but Clive knew that the hosts of Surajah Dowlah were honeycombed with dissatisfaction and treason ; he held in his own hands the strings of an extensive plot among the Bengalese, and, knowing that if these men were to be trusted he really had nothing to fear, on the morning of the 23d he advanced to give battle to his huge antagonist. The vast host which covered the plain was thrown into confusion as soon as the English cannon shot began to ricochet among the dense ranks, and at the first charge of the English broke and fled. The moral effect of the victory upon the oriental mind was final. The superiority of the English sol- diers and of European methods of war over the Indian was accepted, and from henceforth the supremacy of the English in the Orient was unquestioned. Pitt's policy was simple. He proposed to support Frederick by restoring the military strength of Hanover and by pouring Eng- lish gold into the wasted treasury of Prussia, while he v^icu himself gathered all the fighting strength of the British Empire to meet France on the seas and wherever their colonial interests came into contact. Accordingly he persuaded George to repudiate the Convention of Closter-Seven while he gathered an army of English and Hanoverians on the Elbe under Ferdinand of Brunswick, one of the ablest of Frederick's generals; 906 THE OCEAN EMPIRE SECURED [george ii. in April he agreed in a new subsidy treaty to furnish Frederick with £670,000 a year. In America, he planned for a grand series of attacks along the whole line of frontier. The uniform success of these enterprises vindicated their wisdom. On July 8, Aber- crombie failed in the attack on Ticonderoga. But on the 26th, Boscawen and Amherst took Louisburg and as a result the English secured both Cape Breton Island and St. John, now Prince Edward Island. In August Bradstreet with a colonial army cap- tured Frontenac, and in November Forbes took Fort Duquesne and renamed it Fort Pitt. In other parts of the world the same intelligent vigor brought equal laurels to the English arms. In May the English seized Fort St. Louis in Senegal, and in Decem- ber added Goree Island off Cape Verde. Expeditions Avere also dispatched directly against the arsenals of St. Malo and Cherbourg. The French saved St. Malo, but Cherbourg and its stores were destroyed. In June the Prince of Brunswick defeated the French at Crefeld and drove them out of western Germany. Frederick in the meantime continued to hold his own, on August 25 beating the Russians at Zorndorf on the Oder, and though surprised by Daun at Hochkirchen in October, finally drove the Austrians out of Saxony. The next year, however, was gloomy enough for Prussia. From all sides Frederick's powerful neighbors advanced to attack his little kingdom. On August 12, a combined Aus- The year of o ' Minden, trian-Russian army routed him at Kunersdorf. A few Quiberon, days later Daun took Dresden, and an attempt of the Prussians to regain their lost ground met with a terri- ble punishment. Yet Frederick had no thought of submission, and winter found him still at bay behind his frontiers, as plucky and determined as ever, while his enemies were practically back to the point from which they had started in the spring. Moreover, if the year had gone hard against Frederick, the tide of fortune had rolled in strong for England. The year 1759 was the year of Minden, Quebec, and Quiberon. France had planned to match the mighty armament which Austria and Russia were to pour into Prussia, by throwing an army of 50,000 men into Hanover. Prince Ferdinand was compelled to retire before the advancing 1759, 1760] THE YEAR OF QUEBEC 907 army, losing many men at Bergen on April 13. But in August, although greatly outnumbered, he confronted the French Marshals, Contades and Broglie, at Mindeii. The chief feature of the battle was a noble charge of six English regiments, which broke the French center and in an hour's time decided the fortunes of the day. The French army, completely shattered, was compelled to fall back on the Khine, and Hanover was again saved. So rapidly came the victories now that Englishmen ceased to wonder; Byng and Minorca, Braddock and Fort Duquesne, were forgotten in the marvelous news that came from Madras, from Ceylon, from Guadeloupe, from Havre, which Rodney bombarded for fifty hours, destroying an entire fleet which was equipping for a descent upon England, from Lagos in Portugal where Boscawen sank the French Mediterranean fleet, and again from Quiberon Bay, where on November 20, Sir Edward Hawke in spite of rocky reefs and rolling seas, engaged and annihilated the French Channel fleet. Then the bells had hardly ceased ringing when from America came the news of the triumph of the year, the capture of Quebec by Wolfe on September 18. The English had now passed from a war of defense to one of conquest. It was Pitt's purpose to exterminate the sea power of France and appropriate her colonial possessions wher- chaiwein ever they fell into the hands of the English. The the war, 1760. next year the nagging enemy was pushed more remorselessly than ever. On January 22 Count Lally, the son of an Irish refugee, who after the retirement of Dupleix had been made the French Governor- General of India, was defeated by Colonel Eyre Coote at Wandewash, and in 1761 the siege and capture of Pondi cherry virtually ended the French occupation of the Karnatik. Although the trading stations were restored in the subsequent treaty of peace, the now well established supremacy of England on the sea put an end to all further competition in India. England was mistress in the Orient. In America the French with their forts gone, Quebec taken, and Montcalm dead, made but a feeble resistance, and with the surrender of Montreal on September 8, 1760, the French occupation of Canada also came to an end. 908 THE OCEAN EMPIRE SECURED [geoege ill. On the continent, however, England's ally was beginning to show unmistakable signs of exhaustion. Prussia could not stand the terrible strain much longer. England might continue her supplies of money, but she could not restore the young manhood of Prussia, with whose graves a score of battlefields were fur- rowed. Prince Ferdinand kept up the fight in Westphalia, but he was forced to allow the French to winter in western Germany. Frederick himself could not turn rapidly enough from frontier to frontier to meet his many enemies, and the very moment when far away in the south he was retaking Leipsic and overwhelming Daun at Torgau, the Russians were ravaging Brandenburg and occupying Berlin. Torgau, November 1760, was the last pitched battle of the war on the continent. George II. had died October 25, 1760, and with the new king an entirely new phase was given to English politics. George III. shrank from the war of conquest which Pitt was now waging ; but more serious than his opposition to Pitt's policy of * 'coloring the map red," was his determination to end the long reign of the Whig oligarchy and rescue the crown from the tyranny of the constitutional conventions by which the Whigs had main- tained their power. He had been nurtured in the atmosphere of Bolingbroke's ''Patriot King," and believed in his right to govern as well as his right to reign. He believed, also, that if he would escape slavery to a faction he must place himself above parties. From the first, therefore, the new king was opposed to the Newcastle-Pitt ministry, and was determined to end both the armaments of Pitt and the methods of Newcastle. His Nfl?^tie- ^^^^^ adviser was John Stuart, Earl of Bute, his old Pitt minis- tutor, a Tory of the Bolingbroke type, who regarded the overthrow of the Whig power of paramount importance to all other issues. In March, upon the retirement of Holdemesse, Pitt's colleague in the Secretaryship, Bute was put in his place. Between Pitt and Bute there could be no harmony and on October 5, 1761 Pitt offered his resignation. "He had been called to the ministry," he said, "by the voice of the people and as he was accountable to them, he would not remain responsible for meas- ures which he was not allowed to guide." In May 1762, upon the 1761-1763] THE TREATY OF PARIS 909 withdrawal of the subsidies from Prussia, which had so long formed the basis of the Newcastle- Pitt policy, Newcastle also retired. Thus ended one of the strongest ministries that England has ever known ; but its work was already done. In August 1761 Spain, led by her new king, Charles III., renewed the (^ peace. lamily compact with I ranee, but her assistance counted Bourbon little in the balance against the overwhelming supe- Family Com- . . - -^^ , , ^ » & ^ pact, August riority of England. In August 1762 Rodney took Havana and in October Draper took Manila. It was evident that it was useless to carry the war further; the interfer- ence of Spain had only dragged down her colonial empire with the wreck of the French. In November preliminaries TheTreatyof . i -r^ . , , -, Parui,Fehnir 01 pcacc wcrc Signed at Fontaineblean, and on February 10th following, were finally accepted at Paris by the three western powers, Great Britain, France, and Spain. By the terms of these treaties (1) France ceded to England Canada and Cape Breton Island, the Island of Granada in the West Indies, and her possessions in Africa on the Senegal; the Mississippi was recognized as the boundary between Louisiana and the British colonies. (2) Spain ceded Florida to England, having already received Louisiana from France as indemnity. (3) England restored to France Goree in Africa, the Islands of Martinique, Bellisle, St. Lucia, and her French conquests in India; to Spain, all conquests in Cuba including Havana. Manila was restored without any equivalent as the news of its fall did not arrive till after the peace preliminaries had been signed. Elizabeth of Kussia, the old enemy of Frederick, died in Jan- uary 1762. Her successor was the young and brilliant Peter III. who was an enthusiastic admirer of Frederick and has- HifberSburg, tcued to transfer the support of Russia from Austria to Feb. 15, 1763. ppyggig^^ j3^^^ f^i^Q Russia-Prussian alliance had hardly been concluded when Peter Avas murdered by his German wife, who succeeded him as Catharine II. and at once reversed the past policy of Russia by withdrawing from all interference in German affairs. France had long since become too weak to help Austria, and Austria alone could scarcely hope to cope with Prussia. 910 THE OCEAN EMPIRE SECURED [ George III Prussia on the other hand was bleeding at every vein and had no wish to carry her duel with Austria farther. Accordingly on February 15, five days after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, at the Saxon castle of Hubertsburg Prussia and Austria also agreed to lay down their arms. The territorial lines were restored virtually as they had existed at the beginning of the war. But Prnssiii remained in possession of Silesia; her claim to rank among the great powers of Europe had been established. ■ Thus at last the war which had been begun by the aggression of France in the new world, which had destroyed the light in hundreds of thousands of European homes, which had seSn^Ymrs' devoured untold wealth, was ended. What had been ^^^' gained! By the powers on the continent nothing; but by England everything. Spain was allowed to get back her colonies, but France, who had been the cause of all the trouble, had lost her splendid empire beyond the seas ; while England at once mounted to the supremacy which she has since enjoyed as the one great ocean power of the world. Yet England also had not been without fault in the matter and her day of humiliation and punishment, coming from a source from which she least expected it, was not far off. Her complete triumph over France in the new world, made the American Revolution not only possible, but inevit- able. In 1763 the French statesman Vergennes declared that in winning Canada England had removed the only check which could keep her American colonies in awe; ''She will call upon them to contribute towards supporting the burdens which they have helped to bring upon her; they will answer by striking off all dependence." CHAPTER V GEORGE III. THE FIRST PERIOD OF TORY RULE AND THE LOSS OF THE AMERICAN COLONIES GEORGE III., 1763-17ii3 The sixty years of the reign of George III. is the era in which the England of the Restoration passes into the England wliich we know to-day. The England of 17G0 was not very George in.'s different from the England of IGGO. The foreign sitimi perujd. wars of the Commonwealth and the early Restoration era had left England in control of tlie carrying trade which had once enriched the Dutch. The wars which had followed the Revolution had also tended to enrich the commercial classes, greatly extending and deepening all channels of commercial enter- prise. Manufacturing industry had grown steadily, particularly in the half century which had followed the death of William, and the center of population had continued to move from the region of the southern seaport towns to the new manufacturing towns of the north. Yet the great bulk of the population were still earning a livelihood in the old way, either by farming or trading. The rough goods worn by the common people were largely made in England; but production was limited by old methods. The machines which were used for making cotton goods, were hardly in advance of those used in India. The iron furnaces of Sussex and Surrey were still stoked with wood from the neighboring forests. There was coal in abundance stored away in the rocks, but there was no machinery by which it could be mined to advantage. The primitive means of communication still in vogue, were as serious a drawback to the development of industry or trade as the lack of machinery or coal. Goods were still trans- ferred to or from inland towns by pack horses in the hill country or by ponderous wains in the low country. The condition of the roads, wretched at all times, but at certain seasons altogether 911 912 FIKST PERIOD OF TORY RULE [george ill. impassable, added greatly to the difficulty and expense of trans- portation. The huge wagons dug the roads into ugly ruts or stirred them into bottomless quags. The road menders dumped into such places endless cart loads of loose stones, but only to add to the discomfort of the passengers or encourage the profanity of the drivers. The model of Bunyan's Slough of Despond could be found upon most any of the great transinsular highways, swim- ming with fathomless mud and fringed with broken cart wheels or abandoned wains. In the early years of George III.'s reign, however, all this began to change. A remarkable series of inventions greatly increased the efficiency of labor, while numerous and innvinnim^^ widely extended improvements in the means of trans- ma}£g^ portation correspondingly facilitated the distribution of the increased output. The flying shuttle which had been invented by John Kay in 1733, had doubled the productive power of the weaver ; but the weaver was still handicapped by the difficulties which attended the old methods of spinning, by which his yarn was supplied. A generation passed and the art of cloth- making seemed to have reached the limit of improvement, when in 1769 a series of advances was inaugurated in the invention by a Bolton barber named Richard Arkwright, of a system of spinning by revolving rollers. The next year James Hargreaves, a weaver of Blackburn, took out a patent for his spinning jenny, which multiplied the efficiency of the old hand spinning a hundred fold. Nine years later Samuel Crompton combined the ideas of Ark- wright and Hargreaves in his '*mule" and added the spindle car- riage, which prevented the annoying breaking of threads. These improvements, used first in the manufacture of cotton, were gradually applied to woollen manufacturing as well. The first effect of these improvements in the art of spinning was to produce a great deal of anxiety and even actual distress. Yarn making soon outstripped weaving. The spinners A-typlication of^teamto found it difficult to dispose of their products; prices fell, and the old fashioned hand spinners, unable to com- pete, began to be crowded out. Relief came in a corresponding revolution in the art of weaving, which followed the remarkable 1764-1785] IMPORTANT INVENTIONS 913 inventions that date from the year 1785. The steam engine had already been in use for some time as an adjunct to mining, where it furnished the power for the pumps. It was, however, a clumsy, impractical, primitive sort of machine, and each year cost a small fortune in fuel. In 1764 the attention of James Watt, an instru- ment maker of Glasgow, had been called to the machine then in use, and after ten years of vexatious disappointments, he finally succeeded in making the improvements which have given us the useful machine of modern commerce. Of one of his earlier" experi- ments he writes in grim humor : *'The velocity, violence, magnitude, and horrible noise of the engine gave universal satisfaction to all beholders." In the twenty years which followed. Watt's perfected machine came into general use, furnishing the motive power in almost all kinds of manufacturing industry, in weaving among the first. In 1785, Edmund Cartwright, a Yorkshire clergyman, took out a patent for a power loom ; a clumsy machine at first, which required the attention of two men, even when running at a low rate, but it kept the mules busy. Later he perfected his machine, and it began to be felt as a new power in all kinds of textile industries. Afterwards he also patented a wool-combing machine which greatly improved the quality of the wool and did the work of twenty hand combers. The extensive introduction of labor saving machinery at once disturbed the old industrial equilibrium. Workmen saw their livelihood taken from them, and turned their fury upon Social results the new inventions. Spinning Jennys and power looms machinery, were smashed by infuriated mobs. At a time when Cartwright had just received an order from a Manches- ter firm for four hundred of his power looms, his factory was burned, probably the work of incendiaries, and a bill was actually presented in parliament, which forbade the use of his wool-comb- ing machine under severe penalties. The improved methods of manufacturing, however, very soon increased the demand for labor. New enterprises invaded the quiet moorland valleys of the west and north, where the cheap coal and abundant water supply offered special advantages. Older sites, as Norwich, Leeds, and Halifax, rapidly increased their output. The population, also, 914 FIRST PERIOD OF TORY RULE [gkobge ill. naturally drifted to these centers, doubling and trebling in a very few years. It was upon the iron trade that Watt's great invention perhaps had the most direct influence. In 1740 the entire production of England did not exceed 17,350 tons. The engine of ofiron!"^^ Watt at once made the deep mining of coal practicable and thus removed the last difficulty in the way of iron smelting. The years 1755 to 1762 saw works started in Stirling- shire, in South Wales, and in the neighborhood of Birmingham, where Watt himself became a partner in the Soho works. By the end of the century the annual output of England had reached 170,000 tons. Other industries also shared in the new era. The cheaper manufacture of iron affected in turn every other line where iron tools or iron machinery were used. In 1763 the potteries of South Staffordshire, where Josiah Wedgewood succeeded in producing the famous "Queens Ware," had begun to attract attention. In 1785 these potteries employed 15,000 men. In 1773 plate glass making was begun in Lancashire. The increasing volume of trade, the shifting of population to new methods of gaining a livelihood, the changing social condi- tions, in turn demanded better methods of communica- Eff^upon iifyij OP exchange. During the first fourteen years of George III. 's reign parliament passed 452 separate acts for repairing roads. The turnpike, or toll road, became general, and before the end of the century smooth, hard roads stretched away from all the great cities, along which stage coaches made regular and, for the time, rapid trips, carrying mail and passengers with dispatch and some comfort; over four hundred towns could boast of one mail a day. One wonders that the long and close acquaintance of the Eng- lish with the Dutch had never suggested the adoption as an English institution of the canal, which was as well suited to burning some parts of England as to Holland. It was not, how- ever, until 1761 that the islanders seriously took to canalling, when Francis Duke of Bridgewater with the help of the self educated engineer Brindley, built a canal from his Worsley 1761-1793] THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 915 collieries to Manchester. Later he extended his canal to the Mersey, thus connecting Manchester and Liverpool, and diminish- ing the price of coal in Manchester from seven pence per hundred to three and one-half pence. The example of the successful work- ing of this ship canal and the profits which came to the enterpris- ing dnke, who was thus made independent of the whims of the Mersey, were not lost upon the public. In a short time a canal- building craze took possession of investors in some such way as the railroad building craze has from time to time caught the American public. Within George's reign nearly 3,000 miles of canals were constructed; 105 acts sufficiently testify to the interest of parliament. The chief of these great works were the ship canal between the Forth and the Clyde, begun in 1768 and completed in 1790; the Ellesmere Canal, begun in 1793, connecting the Severn and the Mersey, by crossing the valley of the Dee over a marvelous viaduct whose arches were sprung seventy feet above the river; and the great ship canal which enabled siiips to reach Gloucester from the lower Severn. These waterways were to the industrial England of the last two Georges what the railways have been to the England of Victoria, or to the America of the later nineteenth century. They furnished the means by which heavy goods, especially machinery, could be transported to distant points safely, easily, and cheaply. The development of new lines of industrial activity acted directly upon the entire English social structure. The volume of trade steadily increased, but the increase called out a Social (m>ects fierce, keen spirit of competition. The wise, the cun- revoiution. ning, and thrifty survived ; while the stupid, the lazy, and the thriftless were crowded to the wall. The suc- cessful operators began to combine forces ; the master workman, working in his own cottage, assisted by one or two journeymen and an apprentice lad or two, gave way to the wealthy manufac- turer who reared a huge factory and gathered into it a small army of men, women, and children, who toiled long hours feeding his machines while he sat in his office dividing his attention between his balance sheet and the market. The picture is not an attractive one; the new '* captain of industry '' was often hard, illiterate. 916 FIRST PERIOD OF TORY RULE [george III. without heart or culture; he looked upon his workmen as he looked upon his machines, — to be easily worn out and to be as easily replaced. The workmen were poor and ignorant ; all their surroundings were brutalizing. They were without schools and without churches. Their working days were spent in dreary hours of toil in dark, ill smelling, dingy factories; their nights in shabby, ill kept, and unhealthy brick cottages ; their Sundays in the public house. For this weary multitude the state did nothing, save to recruit their ranks from the children of the poor-houses, who were regularly transported to the slavery of the factory as soon as they were able thus to relieve the public of their keep. The state had no thought of protecting the factory hands from the greed of the master ; the new towns were not represented in par- liament ; labor was not yet organized, and the toiling multitude had no means known to the constitution by which they could command the attention of the men who made the laws and quar- reled over the patronage of the government. Yet these workmen were not so sotted that they could not think. In a blind, vague way, they realized that something was wrong somewhere, but they could not tell just what or where. Hence they offered a ready field for the agitator, eagerly listening to the most dangerous and violent doctrines which at least promised to punish their oppressors. Side by side witJi the development of the industrial life of England there was also progressing a like revolution in the agri- cultural life of the people. The causes were virtually revthiWrn^^^ the same: the increase in population, the greater demand for the products of farm labor, and the encour- agment to capital to concentrate in the interests of economy and larger profits. At the beginning of George III. 's reign, by the old system which had been handed down from generation to generation, probably from days which preceded the Norman Con- quest, the land about a village was still cultivated in common. The farmers had little skill, little capital with which to keep up stock and tools, and little inducement to improve the land. Drainage was impossible; winter crops could not be grown; sheep and cattle were left to herd promiscuously; disease generated easily ; and any improvement of live stock was not to be thought of. 1785-1793] ARTHUR YOUNG 917 The increase of population, however, soon began materially to affect the demand for farm products, and not only encouraged the adoption of improved methods, but also hastened the A^TicuUure ^^^^^ ^^ Capital toward agricultural industry. Waste lands were brought under cultivation; the open field system began to be abandoned and the rights to the commons extinguished. Marling became general; a fourfold rotation of crops took the place of the old wasteful three field system ; the culture of the turnip, corn, and rye grass, was introduced. Scien- tific methods of breeding also were adopted. In 1785 the famous Leicestershire sheep appeared, ** giving two pounds of mutton, where there was only one before." The long horned "Dishley breed" of cattle also won a worthy reputation; later to be sup- planted by the more famous *'Durham," the short horn breed of the Tees valley. For the spread of more intelligent ideas on the subject of agri- culture, much credit is due to the agricultural and economic writer, Arthur Young. He traveled extensively in -^.J^JlJ"*" England, Wales, Ireland, and France; observed closely and scientifically the agricultural conditions of the era; made extensive experiments himself; gathered useful statistics, and sought to diffuse a more scientific knowledge of agriculture through the country. In 1793 he was appointed Secretary of the Board of Agriculture. The improvements were very great, but there was also much loss and suffering. New ideas had invaded the old stolid life of the country side; but they brought changes in their ffAnTcailsed ^^^^^ ^^ marked as those introduced by the factory sys- change!*^^ tem in the cities. The old farmer had led an independ- ent, contented life; his fields were small, ^ but he could eke out his meagre earnings by setting up a small factory in his house. He was generally sure of his market. The government encouraged exportation of grain and when the price fell below 48 shillings a quarter, added a bounty of 5 shillings. But now the ^ The average acreage to each farmer was about eighteen acres of arable land and ten acres of meadow. The ''Enclo sure Acts 918 FIRST PERIOD OF TORY RULE [george in. capitalist farmer came in; small farms disappeared and with them the common field farmer, who became a "hired day laborer." Three thousand "Enclosure Acts" were passed in the ^of r^ig^ ^^ George III. By the middle of the next century reS^^^^'^ seven million acres had been taken from the people and turned into private property. Like the factory, the farm was conducted more scientifically, with better tools and with better results, but the average agricultural laborer had no share in the fruits of this prosperity. The expense of living was increasing, but the awful pressure of subsistence compelled the laborer to compete with his fellow, until at last it became neces- sary for the state to add to his wages by way of a poor law dole. At the opening of the next century it was estimated that one seventh of the population received relief under the poor law. A strange phenomenon! England was getting richer but pauperism was increasing at an appalling rate. The anomaly, however, is not hard to explain. Abnormal conditions, favored by unjust laws, enabled the employer to monopolize all the profits. The old yeomanry were SfiSed^^^ gone and the small squire was following him rapidly. The land was passing into the hands of an ever nar- rowing circle of wealthy land owners, who made laws in their own interests, shut out competition of foreign food stuffs while they forced their laborers to work for wages below the possibility of living, and then, when they had pauperized them, called upon the state to piece out their wages with a dole by way of charity. There were not wanting those who read intelligently the signs of the times, and boldly sought to put the finger on the cause of the accumulating miseries of the people. In 1776 ^Samsmith. ^^^^ Smith, a Professor in the University of Glasgow, published his Wealth of ]S'atio7is^ in which he proposed to throw down the artificial restrictions which human laws were throwing around the life of the nation, causing the congestion and the poverty; only by free trade could a healthy condition be restored once more. He was widely read and studied, and his views soon began to affect the policy of statesmen like the younger Pitt, who tried to carry them out, when he came to be Prime THE ENGLAND OF GEORGE III. 919 Minister of England. Other voices were not so hopeful. In 1798 Malthus sought to show that the evil lay in overpopulation, and that improved methods of production were of little use, when the rapidly increasing population was ever eating itself poor. It was over this new world, stirring with unwonted life, that George III. was called to reign. The eighteenth century system was breaking up. The old trading and farming Eng- over^McT^ land was merging in the industrial Great Britain. The uriHcaUed' factory systcm was increasing the population of the to reign. towns and in turn opening new avenues for the accumu- lation of private wealth, undermining the strength and influence of the older rural population, widening the gap between wealth and poverty, drawing the laboring classes into the stifling atmosphere of the factory town and the workshop, bringing in new conditions and raising new problems, in the light of which the maxims of the older statesmen appeared shallow and puerile; their principles, outworn cant ; their boasted policies, useless rubbish. At the time of his royal grandfather's death George III. was twenty-two years old. The nation hailed his accession with bois- terous enthusiasm. Unlike his Hanoverian predeces- Qeor^fiii^ sors he was thoroughly English both in his tastes and his habits. His courtesy won friends; his personal purity won confidence and esteem. He could **name every ship ii^ the English navy; had the articles of war at his finger's ends; paid his bills every quarter; wore none but clothes of English manufacture," and "like a decent Christian" attended church every Sunday, Prayer Book in hand, accompanied by his wife and attended by his numerous children as soon as they were old enough to sit out the service without disturbing the slumber of their august father. Yet this monarch of homely habits, whose irreproachable life was so marked in contrast with the stupid libertinism of his predecessor, had his serious defects. His education had not been neglected, but it had been faulty. With a right royal license he persisted in spelling the mother tongue in his own way. Some of his eccentricities would delight the modern spelling reformer. Thus "bottles" under the royal hand was always "botills," but "champagne" masqueraded as "shannipane." His ideas were a 920 FIRST PERIOD OF TORY RULE [george ill. curious deposit of ignorance, bigotry, and stupidity. He was, moreover, hopelessly, incurably obstinate; a trait which he owed to the unfortunate combination of a narrow intellect "with strong will, high courage, and vigorous character." When the new king began his reign he undertook the praise- worthy task of breaking up the ring of old Whig families which had controlled the government since the days of Anne. Gmwefn. He called himself a Whig of the Revolution. He had no sympathy with the principle of party government ; he believed that as king it was his duty to ignore parties alto- gether, to select the best men for his ministry, and, by control- ling them himself, restore to the crown the power which the Whig leaders had so long usurped. In this program George partly suc- ceeded and partly failed. He broke up the old Whig ring; vindicated the right of the sovereign to choose what ministers he would, and once more made the royal power a reality. To accom- plish this end he was compelled to draw near to the Tories, who had been freed from the blight of Jacobitism, and now most nearly represented the ideas of the king himself. It took the slow mind of George, however, some time to grasp the real conditions which confronted him; but by 1770 he had learned his lesson; and from 1770 to the end of his reign, in fact until 1830, the Tory rule was virtually unbroken.^ Outside of parliament it had been long understood that the Houses were in the hands of a corrupt ring, and that they no longer represented the will of the nation; the old distinctions varw^^'^ between Whig and Tory, also, had lost their meaning, and the people discovered with delight that at last England again had a king who proposed to rule as well as reign. Within parliament, George found little trouble in drawing about himself a party devoted to his ideas ; for high as was his ultimate aim, although he hated the corrupt rule of the wealthy Whig fam- ilies as much as Pitt, he did not hesitate to adopt Newcastle's methods in making friends. When bribery failed, he used intimi- dation. Discontented Whigs, like the elder Fox, who thought that 1 There were two brief interims, 1782-1784 and 1806-1808, when George was forced to accept ministers of the Whig faith. 1762] JOHN WILKES 921 they had not received their due share of public plunder, hailed with delight the rising of the new sun in the political firmament and hastened to secure each his orbit in the new group of satellites. The Tories ranged themselves on the king's side as a matter of course. It was not long before the "King's Friends" began to be known as a secret influence in parliament, always to be reckoned with. Bute's administration was a short one. In 17G3, within two months of the signing of the Treaty of Paris, he gave way to George Grenville. Grenville was honest himself, but Bedford min- he was compelled to yoke with the duke of Bedford for the sake of his following in the Commons, which he maintained by all the corrupt methods of Walpole and Newcastle. Two serious blunders have rendered Grenville 's administration memorable, the Wilkes Affair and the Stamp Act. Since the expiration of the Licensing Act of 1095, the ffovern- T7i€ oovcm c3 ' o merit and tiie ment had contented itself with restricting the activity of "the press" by levying upon each newspaper a duty, which had increased from one penny in 1712 to four pence in 1760. The Whig oligarchy was too strongly intrenched to worry itself over any criticism which came from parties outside of parlia- ment, although a breach of the law of libel or of the privilege of parliament might be severely handled by the courts. But in the storms which followed the accession of George, the governing oligarchy became more sensitive and soon showed symptoms of returning to older methods of interfering with the freedom of the press. In June 1762 John Wilkes, a worthless demagogue, likewise member of the House of Commons, began an opposition newspaper which he called The North Briton. In the famous and the "No. 45," wliich appeared in April 1763,^ he attacked Briton, a recent royal address in which the kme: had com- JVo. 45." mended the Peace of Paris to his parliament. Wilkes, assuming that the speech was the work of the king's ministers, declared it to be "the most abandoned instance of ministerial ^ Lee, Source Book, pp. 467-473. 922 FIRST PERIOD OF TORY RULE [george ill. effrontery ever attempted to be imposed upon mankind." The king was deeply off ended by what he regarded as a personal attack, and insisted that the Secretary of State, Lord Halifax, should issue a general warrant for all concerned in the issue of the offensive No. 45 of The North Briton. Some forty-nine persons, including the publishers, printers, and lastly Wilkes himself, were drawn into the official net. So far the course of the government had been easy enough, but when the king- wished to punish the insolent pamphleteer by imposing upon him something more than a simple m^couris^ arrest, he was made at once conscious of the wide differ- ence between the England of the later eighteenth cen- tury and the England of the days of Stuart tyranny. To punish Wilkes he must resort to the courts. The judges, moreover, were no longer the creatures of the king. The act of 1701 had taken from the crown the right to dismiss judges at pleasure; George III. himself, at the beginning of his reign, had abandoned the ancient custom by which the commissions of tlie judges were regarded as lapsing with the death of the last king, and, further, had separated the salaries of the judges from the civil list, thus sweeping away almost the last vestige of the old dependent judi- ciary. When, therefore, Wilkes appealed to the courts, his appeal was treated very differently from the way in which such appeals were treated in the days of Judge Jeffreys. In May, upon a writ of habeas corpus, Wilkes secured a hearing before Chief Justice Pratt of the Common Pleas, and upon pleading his privilege as a member of parliament was released. Justice Pratt, also, condemned the general warrant as illegal, and in July several of the printers recovered damages. Later, Wilkes himself received £1,000 damages from the Under-Secretary of State, Wood, who had carried out the directions of his chief in seizing Wilkes's paper. He began suit against Halifax, also, for illegal imprisonment and won after a fight of six years. Wilkes was now the popular hero of the hour. Even Pitt sup- ported him upon the broad ground that an illegal arrest was an invasion of the liberties of the people. The king, however, was not satisfied, and by his influence in the House persuaded the 1765] THE STAMP ACT 923 Commons to enter the lists where the courts had failed him. They declared the unfortunate No. 45 to be *'a false, scandalous, and seditious libel," refused to allow the privilege of parlia- ^rUament ^^^^^ ^o cover the culprit, and ended by formally expel- ling him from the House. Wilkes had also fallen foul of the Upper House where he was brought to book for printing and privately circulating a coarse parody on Pope's "Essay on Man," called an "Essay on Woman," and also for printing a blasphemous imitation of the"Veni Creator." The Lords declared the publica- tions a breach of privilege and a "scandalous, obscene, and impious libel." But unfortunately for the effect of these well merited reproofs, the chief accuser of Wilkes was the profli- gate Lord Sandwich, renowned for his prolonged bouts at the gambling table, which he would not leave even for meals, and where his servant was accustomed to bring him the light refection which still bears his name. The people, who were fully convinced of the corruption of parliament, regarded the formal denuncia- tion of their idol as one more evidence of his worth. The govern- ment, encouraged by the acts of the two Houses, resumed the prosecution upon the charge of libel, and Wilkes, no longer pro- tected by the privilege of a member of parliament, fled to the continent, allowing his case to go against him by default. In February 1704, he was formally outlawed by decree of the court. The government had carried its point, but every step taken had been "ill advised, vindictive, and substantially unjust," increasing its discredit with the people and awakening a dangerous spirit of insubordination. The second serious blunder of the Grenville- Bedford ministry was the passage of the famous "Stamp Act. " The recent wars had raised the national debt to £130,000,000. The minis- Act:' March, try accepted the obligation of reducing this burden, now that peace had been restored, but the method which Grenville proposed was unfortunately as annoying to a large part of the British Empire as the old ship money of Charles I. He proposed (1) to establish in America a portion of the British regular army amounting to 10,000 men. To support this resident gar- rison he proposed (2) to tax the colonists by requiring "all bills, 924 FIRST PERIOD OF TORY RULE [geokge iii. bonds, policies of insurance, newspapers, broadsides, and legal documents to be written on stamped paper sold in public offices." He also proposed (3) to enforce strictly the laws against smug- gling.^ No one was surprised more than Grenville himself at the reception of his proposals by the colonies. Parliament had long been accustomed to regulate colonial port duties. The loyalty of the Americans had been abundantly proved by their devotion to the common cause in the war which had just closed. The war, moreover, had been begun in order to defend the colonies against the aggressions of France ; and no part of the empire had profited more by its successes. The Stamp Act, however, had raised a question which was by no means new in the colonies: Wiiat right had the distant British parliament, a body in which Americans were not represented, to levy an internal tax upon America with- out asking the consent of her people? Here was the crucial point. Other grievances were not wanting, but all sank into minor impor- tance beside the greater grievance of ''taxation without represen- tation." Before the full significance of Grenville 's measures, however, became apparent in England, his ministry had come to an end. The immediate cause of his fall was an attempt to The ''Regency exclude the name of the king's mother from a ' 'Reffcncy Bill-andthe _^...,, ,.,,,, ^ i ^i i -, i, RocMngham Bill which had been made necessary by the shadow of insanity which was already hanging over the king. The House refused to allow the omission, and the king, to get rid of the minister whom he could not forgive for the proposed slight to his mother, after vainly seeking Pitt's support, in July 1765 threw himself into the arms of the old Whig ring. The suc- cessor of Newcastle was the marqnis of Rockingham who was selected to head the new ministry, but although he did not favor the corrupt methods of the old Whig regime, his conservatism denied him the support of the liberal wing of the party, and his ministry soon went to pieces. It survived long enough, however, to undo some of the mischief caused by his predecessors. It persuaded the House to condemn general warrants, although the formal bill was rejected by the Lords; it also restored commis- * Lee, Source Book, pp. 474, 475. 1766] THE PITT-GRAFTON MINISTRY 925 sions to certain officers in the army who were memhers of par- liament and had been deprived of their commissions by the king, because they had not voted to suit him. But most impor- tant of all, the Rockingham ministry secured the repeal of the Stamp Act, although it left an opening for future trouble in the accompanying ''Declaratory Act," in which the authority of parliament over the colonies in legislation and taxation was formally asserted. After a year Rockingham was retired and a new ministry was formed under the nominal head of Pitt. Much was expected of this ministry. The king understood Pitt better Fitt-Grafton ^^^^^ ^^^ 1700. He saw that Pitt was as hostile to party rninistry, government as himself; that he hated the old Whig oligarchy, and that he really wished to curtail the power of the Commons in the interests of a purer administra- tion. Pitt, however, stood upon ground where George IIL's nar- row mind would not allow him to follow. For Pitt had fully grasped the corollaries of the Revolution, the freedom of the press and the right of Englishmen to the protection of English laws wherever they dwelt under the English flag. Hence Pitt fully recognized the significance of rising political consciousness in the American colonists, and boldly championed their claims to the full privileges of Englishmen. Illness, however, prevented him from taking in the administration the active part which belonged to him. His dislike of party government, moreover, had led him to make up his ministry of men chosen from different political fac- tions. As Burke described it, it was **a piece of diversified mosaic, patriots and courtiers, king's friends and republicans, Whigs and Tories, treacherous friends and open enemies; so that it was a curious show, but utterly unsafe to touch or stand on." Pitt selected for himself the unimportant position of Privy Seal, largely because the lighter duties of the office were better fitted to the condition of his health ; but the position brought him into the peerage as Earl of Chatham and thus deprived him of much of the popular esteem and confidence which had been his in the days when he gloried in the name of "The Great Commoner." While he was at home shut up in his room, subject to alternate 926 FIRST PEKIOD OF TORY RULE [geobgeIU. fits of intense nervous irritation and despondency, the wreck of his former self, his ministers were upsetting his most cherished schemes. He had denounced the Stamp Act, fought for the repeal, and bitterly opposed the Declaratory Act; and yet in 1767 his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Charles Townshend, turned once more to Grenville's plan of taxing America, and procured the passage of the '^American Duties Bill," an act which imposed a series of customs and duties on certain articles imported into America, as white lead, painters' colors, paper, and tea. Like the Stamp Act, this act was designed not to regulate trade but to raise revenue. As with the Stamp Act, in order to justify the measure, it was proposed to apply the revenues to the expenses of colonial government. The next year the ministry still further attempted to show its good will towards the Americans by the appointment of a Secretary of State for the colonies. Since the reign of William the affairs of the colonies had been left to a committee of the Privy Council, known as the "Board of Trade and Plantation." This committee, however, had no standing in the ministry proper, and in the pressure of many things, the colonies had been left pretty much to themselves. Grenville's unfortunate attempt to do something for the colonies, it is said, was due to the fact that he insisted on reading the mail from America. In the general election of 1768, Wilkes, who had recently returned from France, again came to the surface as a popular agitator, demanding a reform of the entire parliamen- cmiin^ tary representative system. There was certainly ground enough for Wilkes's contention that the new and grow- ing towns of the north and west should be represented. It was further estimated that in the whole population of 8,000,000, there were not 160,000 men who possessed the franchise. Many boroughs were virtually owned by individual families and were treated as a part of the family estates. The only way by which parliament could be freed from its thraldom to the crown, or from the corrupt practices of the borough owners, was to enlarge the franchise. It was unfortunate that so good a cause had so base a champion. 1768] ST. George's fields 927 Wilkes was returned by the voters of Middlesex. On the first day of the session, April 27, 1768, he gave himself up to the Court of Kings Bench and, being refused bail, was sent to f" Sr^^^ ^ prison while the question of outlawry was argued. A deeply interested crowd of people gathered in St. George's Fields outside the prison walls. Lord Weymouth, the Sec- retary of State, apprehending an attack by the mob, sent word to the Scotch regiment in charge of the prison to fire on the crowds in order to disperse them. Five or six people were killed and a number wounded. Wilkes, who lay helpless within the prison while his friends were shot down outside, vented his wrath by sending to the St. James Chronicle a copy of Weymouth's direc- tions to the troops with some scathing comments of his own, in which he referred to the results of Weymouth's work as "the horrid massacre of St. George's Fields." The whole affair did not tend to increase the favor with which the government regarded Wilkes, and when on June 8, Chief Justice Mansfield reversed the sentence of outlawry as illegal, and released the prisoner, it was only that he might commit him again on the original charge of libel, and sentence him to twenty-two months' imprisonment and a fine of £1,000. The king, in the meanwhile, supported by parliament renewed his efforts against Wilkes with increased vindictiveness. The Lords saw fit to construe the letter to St. James Chronicle as attack (Til *'a seditious libel," and called upon the Commons to Wilkts. unite with them in punishing the demagogue. The Commons responded by once more expelling Wilkes and adding to the old charges, the new one of a libelous attack upon the Secre- tary of State, the enormity of which was increased, since at the time of the offense Wilkes was under sentence of the court. The electors of Middlesex replied by reelecting Wilkes. The next day, upon the ground that a condemned man could not be eligible, the Commons declared the election void. A third election was then held in which Wilkes received 1,143 votes, and his opponent, Colonel Luttrell, only 296 votes. The Commons awarded the seat to Luttrell. Whatever may have been the justice of the original case against 928 FIRST PERIOD OF TORY RULE [geokge ill. Wilkes, the Commons were now palpably in the wrong. Vigorous champions, also, who saw that beyond Wilkes the really great cause of the right of constituencies to choose their own rep- Agitationin . • i -, behalf of rescutatives was at stake, rose to sustain the dema- Wilhcs. The ''Junius ffoffue. Amouff them were Burke and Grenville, but most, the mysterious satirist who masqueraded under the name of "Junius," who during all the year 1769 kept assail- ing the king and his ministers, painting in darkest colors the prevailing corruption and weakness of the government, and rousing his victims to fury by his merciless castigations.^ A series of libel prosecutions followed; but the secret of Junius 's identity was so well kept that to this day the authorship of the mysterious letters is not certain, although it is now generally ascribed to Sir Philip Francis, who became prominent in the later attacks on Warren Hastings. The people were deeply moved, and monster petitions were sent up to parliament from different parts of the kingdom; one from Yorkshire, presented by Rockingham, was said to con- tain the names of 10,000 freeholders. London made Wilkes an alderman, and about the same time he won his long delayed suit against Halifax, in which he secured a verdict of £4,000. The government had won technically, but its vindictive injns- tice had called English radicalism into being, and parliament although responsible only to a very limited constit- Thebeginnin^ . ., ,g nn^j. i j (p' agitation uency, yet saw itself compelled to lace an awakened mentary public Opinion that voiced itself in monster petitions, through the press, and from the platform. From 1769, a memorable date, until the outbreak of the French Revolution, the demand of the nation for parliamentary reform steadily in- creased in seriousness and persistence. In the meanwhile the Chatham ministry from which so much had been expected was rapidly going to pieces. In September 1767 Townshend, the Chancellor of the Exch-equer, Chatham^ died and was succeeded by Lord North. Other mem- ministry mo ^^^^ resigned, and their places were filled by new men. In October 1768 Chatham, the nominal head of the ministry, disgusted with the attitude of his ministers toward * Colby, Selections, etc., p. 256. 1770] LORD NORTH 929 the stirring questions of the hour, also resigned, and committed himself to the cause of parliamentary reform. Grafton, his suc- cessor, managed to keep things going for two years longer, when he too resigned, to give way to Lord North. In Lord North the king found a minister after his own heart. He is described as a ''coarse and clumsy looking man, near- sighted, with a wide mouth, thick lips, and inflated Lm-d North, visage;" yet he had a sunny disposition, an unruffled temper, tact, and wit. He possessed, also, with much ability a large experience in the affairs of government, nor were the many disasters which are associated with the twelve years of his administration, due to lack of judgment on the part of the minister, as much as to the persistent interference of the king, with which North in his easy-going good nature only too readily acquiesced. For he accepted witliout reserve the principle that as the king's appointee, he belonged to the king, and that he was bound to carry out the king's policy rather than his own or that of any party. He allowed the king to interfere in all home, foreign, and colonial affairs and to direct the policy of the cabinet about as he pleased, while his colleagues conducted them- selves simply as heads of departments, sticking to their desks, and doing their best to carry out the king's wishes. During the long era of the North ministry English politics were concentrated chiefly on the important constitutional issues which had grown out of the Wilkes case and the situa- ^/w^. ^^^^ ^^ America. The policy of the party of reform gradually shaped itself into a definite demand for the curtailment of the privileges of the Commons, and for more direct responsibility to their constituents. Grenville in 1770, just before his death, introduced a measure which transferred the decision of disputed election cases to a special committee of thirteen, which examined witnesses under oath and swore to decide according to evidence. His plan remained in force until 1868 when the parlia- ment once more returned to the practice of the fourteenth century and relegated the settlement of disputed elections to the courts. Another measure, which swept away a vast amount of fraud, denied the right of servants of members of the House, to share in 930 FIEST PERIOD OF TORY RULE [gkorge ill. the privilege of immunity from arrest. A ruling of Justice Mansfield in one of Wilkes's libel trials, in which he had allowed the jury to pass upon the fact of publication only, and had Libel Act,'' reserved to the judge the right to determine the libel- ous character of the published matter, remained in force until the law of libel was amended by the "Fox Act" in 1792. In 1771 Wilkes took a prominent part in defeating an attempt of the Commons to punish a London printer named Miller, who had recently begun to publish the reports of their debates. In their efforts to arrest Miller the Commons became embroiled with the authorities of London. The arrest of the mayor. Brass Crosby, was the signal for the outbreak of riots; mobs paraded the streets, and the Commons in alarm at the storm which their efforts to arrest a simple printer had raised, quietly receded from their position. Since then the right of the public to know what is doing in parliament has been tacitly conceded. There were other measures, also, of a different character which reflect the times in another light. In 1772 North secured the passage of the "Royal Marriao^e Act" The ''Royal , , . , , <. -, ^ o ■-, , Marriage by which a member of the royal family must secure the king's consent before contracting a legal mar- riage. The act is still law. In 1773 the East India Company had fallen into dire straits. Bengal had been desolated by a famine that was followed by the usual pestilence. Half the population, it was said, The ^'Reau- r r ^ ^ lating Act," perished. Madras, also, was devastated by wars hardly Death of less disastrous; the funds of the company were so reduced that they were forced to appeal to parliament for relief. A committee of inquiry was appointed which took up the subject of Indian administration, and upon the basis of their work North presented the famous "Regulating Act," which was to have such dire consequences in another part of the British Empire. By this act the company were allowed to export their bonded tea direct to America free of the ordinary English duties, but subject to a slight duty at the American ports. He also granted the company the loan of £1,000,000, but took out of their hands a part of their political authority by establishing a 1774-1780] THE GORDON RIOTS 931 supreme court, appointing through parliament a new council, and making the governor of Bengal Governor- General of India. War- ren Hastings under this law became the first Governor-General of India. In the discussions which attended the passage of the Regulating Act, Olive, who had been raised to the peerage, came in for a full share of censure on the basis of the alleged corruption which had attended his administration in the East, and although the formal act of censure was softened by a formal recognition of his "great and meritorious service" to England, the condemnation of the House so preyed upon his mind, that he broke under the strain and soon after took his life with his own hand, November 22, 1774, dying at the age of forty-nine. The position of the Catholics in England early demanded the attention of government. The sentiment of toleration was stead- ily growing; moreover the old conditions which had mot^'nso^ given birth to the existing code had changed, and to many statesmen it seemed that the time had come to lighten the burdens of their oppressed fellow countrymen. In 1778 Sir George Saville introduced the **Relief Act" for the repeal of the act of 1700 which had forbidden the celebration of the mass under severe penalties and had debarred Catholics from acquiring a title to land, save by descent. Saville's bill passed without serious opposition, but in the next session a proposal to apply a similar measure to Scotland at once aroused all the latent traditional hostility of the Scots to the Catholics, and rapidly developed a vigorous opposition, culminating in a series of riots, in which Catholics and the Protestants who favored toleration were the victims. The agitation spread to England where it found a leader in the young and fanatical Lord George Gordon. On Friday June 2, 1780 a crowd of 60,000 people gathered about the Parliament House with a petition for the repeal of the Relief Act, and when parliament showed no disposition to comply, with cries of '*No Popery" turned to the looting and burning of pub- lic and private buildings. Jails were destroyed and criminals liberated. The city authorities were helpless, and for several days the city lay at the mercy of the mob. Wilkes, who was now an alderman of London and had a considerable following among the 932 FIRST PERIOD OF TORY RULE [georgeIII. people, proved so useful in suppressing the disturbance that the Privy Council thanked him formally. The demonstrations failed altogether to force the repeal and in the end really strengthened the cause of toleration. During this period two men had come into special prominence, Edmund Burke and Charles James Fox. Burke was born in Ire- land in 1729. His father was a Protestant attorney Burke!'^ of prominence and his mother a Catholic. He attended Dublin University, but met with indifferent success as a student, taking little interest in the prescribed studies. He studied law but disliking it, chose the uncertain profession of letters. His father in disgust withdrew his allowance. The act of the father was the making of the young man, who was thus thrown upon his own resources and compelled to grapple with life in serious earnest. He began by practicing oratory in the debating societies of Convent Garden and by writing for book- sellers. He did not enter the political arena until nearly forty; "I was not swaddled and rocked and dandled into a legislator," he wrote just before his death. In the House he was at once recognized as a man of power. Inferior to Fox as a debater and surpassed by Pitt in fire and majesty of declamation, he excelled all in correctness of diction, in range of knowledge, in power of imagination, and in depth of philosophical reflection. There was apparently no limit to his power of applying himself long and arduously to any matter which he took in hand. He spent fourteen years in the effort to master the affairs of India, and suc- ceeded after * 'laborious effort in laying the foundations, once and for all, of a moral, just, philanthropic, and responsible public opinion in England with reference to India, and in doing so per- formed perhaps the most magnificent service that any statesman has ever had it in his power to render to humanity." The accession of Charles James Fox to the Whig party was mainly due to the teaching and influence of Burke. Fox entered parliament in 1768 before he was legally qualified, not having com- pleted his twentieth year. He had accepted his politics from his father, the Henry Fox of George II. 's time, and accordingly had first joined the Tory ranks. The story of his private life is 1770-1774] THE BOSTON MASSACRE 933 highly discreditable. Gaming was a passion which, notwithstand- ing a large inheritance and the repeated assistance of friends, kept him in a state of chronic bankruptcy. He drank; he James^ox ^^^ profligate ; yet he possessed a charm of manner, a sweetness of temper, which endeared him to his friends and evoked the admiration of his opponents. *'He is a man," said Burke, "made to be loved, of the most artless, candid, open, and benevolent disposition; disinterested in the extreme, of a temper mild and placable to a fault, without one drop of gall in his whole constitution." He was dismissed from the Tory ministry in 1774 as the result of a personal quarrel with Lord North, and although he did not ally himself at once with the Whigs, he began to attack the policy of the government toward America. While the better elements within parliament and without, were thundering away at the corruption of North's administration, the situation in America was every day becoming more crit- ^Masslwre^ ical. The spirit of resistance, which had subsided for March 5, ^ scason after the repeal of the Stamp Act, was blazing np again more fiercely than ever. The colonial gov- ernors were constantly quarreling with the colonial legislatures ; and when parliament proposed to bring to England for trial men accused of treason, whom colonial juries refused to convict, the colonists answered by a sort of boycott of English merchants, such as they had attempted after the passage of the Stamp Act, agreeing not to import or use English goods. The soldiers quartered in America were also a source of constant friction, and finally came into open conflict with a mob of men and boys in the streets of Boston. Several of the mob were shot down. The first to fall was Crispus Attucks, a colored man. Even Lord North hesitated to push matters further, and deter- mining to try conciliation, repealed the duties of Townshend, except that on tea, and allowed the act by which fJ^&ion soldiers were quartered on the colonists to expire. The government pledged itself, also, to raise no further revenues in America. These measures for a time promised to improve the situation; but the underlying causes of discontent remained. Occasional outbreaks of lawlessness, the attitude of 934 FIRST PERIOD OF TORY RULE [qeoegb m. the resident representatives of the crown toward their fellow col- onists, the treatment of Franklin who was the accredited agent of several of the colonies at the English court, kept the public mind irritated and fanned the ffrowina^ spirit of opposition. The '^Boston „, . . , , i t n . -, Tea Party,'' Ihe American tea duty had been retained, partly to Dec. 16 1773. T r J assert the right of the British government to tax the colonies, and partly because it was more of the nature of a trade regulation and did not affect English manufactures. The colo- nists, however, refused to use the tea. The removal of the English export duty of 12 cents per pound in the interest of the East India Company still further complicated matters, by threatening every small merchant who had already bought his tea. When the tea ships arrived, for the most part, they were sent back with their holds unopened. Some, however, did not get off so easily; in Boston a company of citizens, disguised as Indians, boarded the vessels and threw their entire cargoes into the sea. Parliament was naturally exasperated at the untoward results of its efforts at conciliation, and responded to the act of the citizens of Boston by a series of measures known in America as Tlie ^^Intoler- able Acts," the "Intolerable Acts." The harbor of Boston was 1774. closed, a severe blow to the prosperity of the contuma- cious city; the charter of Massachusetts was remodeled so as to place the powers of government largely in the hands of the crown and its appointees ; the right of the people to hold public meet- ings was abridged. It was provided, also, that any one indicted for murder or any capital offense, committed while aiding a magistrate to suppress disturbances, might be sent for trial to any other colony or to Great Britain. General Gage was appointed military Governor of Massachusetts and empowered to quarter soldiers upon the inhabitants. The attack upon Boston at once roused the sympathies of the other colonies. Although Boston had first drawn the wrath of parliament, all felt that the cause was common. The old rivals of Boston, Salem and Marblehead, offered the Boston merchants the use of their wharves and warehouses without cost. Other places sent supplies of rice and corn to feed the Boston poor. Virginia sent resolutions of sympathy and other colonies imitated her exam- 1774] FIRST AMERICAN CONGRESS 935 pie. A system of committees organized resistance, and a "Solemn League and Covenant" was formed by which the colonies bound themselves to have no commercial intercourse with ConUnentai ^^^^^ Britain until the unjust acts were withdrawn. cmigress, ^ movement for a general Congress was set on foot, and on September 5, 1774, delegates met at Philadelphia, representing every colony except distant Georgia. They drew up a series of addresses to the colonies, to the Canadians, and to the king and people of England. They also framed a decla- ration of rights setting forth the points at issue in a clear and statesmanlike manner. They had no wish to separate from the mother country; they acknowledged the general legislative author- ity of parliament and its right to impose such commercial regula- tions as might be deemed for the best good of the empire. But rather than submit to taxation by parliament, or to acts which violated their liberties, they would appeal to the sword. They adjourned to meet in the following May to consider the king's reply to the address and determine upon the next step. Tlie colonists were now rapidly drifting into the War of the Kevolution. *'The die is now cast," wrote George III.; **the colonists must either submit or triumph." The Eng- cnwiseis lish officials who surrounded the king laughed at the at home. . ^ . ... t^.,.i mi i -, ,^ idea of resisting a British army. They remembered the dissensions and jealousies which had crippled the colonists at the outbreak of the last war and did not believe them capable of any continued concerted action. *'The Americans will be lions while we are lambs," General Gage assured the king; "but if we take the resolute part, they will undoubtedly prove very meek." Some, however, saw with a clearer eye the serious nature of the impending conflict. Burke and Chatham recognized the sound- ness of the principle upon which the colonists had taken their stand, and boldly raised their voices for the cause of liberty. These colonists were Englishmen and were entitled to the rights of Englishmen ; the fact that they had been cradled in America did not justify parliament in withholding these rights. "I rejoice that America has resisted," Chatham cried. "Three millions of people, so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to sub- 936 FIRST PERIOD OF TORY RULE [ George III. mit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest." He moved an address to the kiDg, praying him to remove the British troops as soon as possible, as the first step towards *'a happy settlement of the dangerous troubles in America."^ Other measures of conciliation were proposed, but before parliament could make up its mind to act, the war had begun. On the night of April 18, 1775, General Gage sent out the unfortunate expedition to destroy the stores at Concord that resulted in the battle on the green in the quiet village i!^^ton^^ of Lexington; a small band of farmers and mechan- ics, who had hurried from their plows and their forges at the first alarm, stood for one moment to face the British regu- lars and then fled. They left sixteen of their number lying on the green behind them, some shot to death and others writhing in the agony of ghastly wounds. It was not a battle, hardly a skir- mish, but it was enough to call the young nation to arms. The whole countryside rose, and when the English, after accomplish- ing their task, began the homeward march from Concord, from all sides the infuriated farmers began pouring in a deadly fire upon the retiring columns. From barns, from haystacks, from hedges, from stonewalls, they kept up an incessant fire, and nothing but the approach of a relief party of nine hundred men saved the detachment from complete annihilation. The news of the day's fighting spread rapidly, and from all eastern Massachusetts the hardy yeomanry began to pour into the improvised camps about Boston, and Gage found him- Junen?775 ^^^^ compelled to face a regular siege. On the 17th of June the insurgents attempted to fortify the peninsula which stretches around Boston harbor to the left. The result was the action known as the Battle of Bunker Hill. Fifteen hundred inexperienced troops, after toiling all night to cast up intrenchments, found themselves in the morning, weary with toil and faint for lack of food, exposed to a galling fire from the .Eng- lish ships, and then compelled to face a direct attack of the English infantry. Boldly they stood their ground; twice they ' Lee, Source Book, p. 479. 1776] AMERICAN DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 937 scattered the English columns and drove them down the slope; a!id then, when their powder was gone, they faced the advancing ]-egulars with stones and clubbed guns, and retired only at the point of the bayonet. Under the conditions the attempt to fortify and hold such a position would be condemned by all the rules of wair and the brave fellows were severely punished for their temerity, or, rather, their ignorance of the military science. Yet the act had most important results. The Americans had proved that they were not the cowardly, raw yokels who would throw down their guns and run at the first smell of powder, such as English officials had so often represented. The prestige of the English army was shaken and its morale weakened. The battle of Bunker Hill, also, greatly strengthened the war spirit in the colonies. The second Continental Congress had met as agreed in May. They had come together osten- 'Smtinentai ^^^^^ ^^ ^ peacB Convention ; but found themselves com- cmigress, pelled to assume the functions of a governing body and shoulder the responsibility of conducting a war. Yet they bravely faced the issue. On June 15, 1775 they appointed George Washington, who had seen severe service in Braddock's ill-fated campaign, commander-in-chief of the colonial armies, and at once inaugurated a series of vigorous measures for making the military strength of the colonies felt by England. Ticonderoga and Crown Point, the gateway to Canada, were surprised and cap- tured. And though an invasion of Canada failed, it was more than counterbalanced by the success of Washington in compell- ing Gage's successor Howe to evacuate Boston in March, 1776. These events had powerfully accelerated the drift of Amer- ican opinion toward independence. W^hen the first Congress came together few thought of independence as either tion?/iade-' Possible or desirable. The colonies instructed the Tuiu^4^i776 ^ielegates, while securing the redress of grievances, to labor, as Massachusetts put it, for 'Hhe restoration of union and harmony between Great Britain and the colonies, most ardently desired by all good men. * * But the lingering loyalty of the people was fast ebbing under the pressure of the contest ; and when the king, unable to persuade Englishmen to enlist in the 938 FIRST PEKIOD OF TORY RULE [george ill. nefarious war which his own stupidity had raised, began to buy- up Hessian peasants and ship them to America in order to shoot down Americans, there was no place longer for old fashioned loyalty. Nor was all the indignation felt by Englishmen on this side the water. Chatham, never more terrible to those who were sinning against liberty than in these later days, rose from his sfck bed to hobble into the old hall which he had so long honored by his noble championship of the cause of the Greater Britain and with almost his last breath protested against the suicidal course of the government. **You cannot conquer America," he cried; *'if I were an American as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms, never, never never!" In America the rising indignation swept all before it, and on the night of July 4, 1776, amidst the most intense anxiety, the Continental Congress gave the memorable Declaration of Independence to the world. The months which followed were marked by varying fortunes on either side, until the victory of the Americans at Saratoga effectually turned the tide. Congress, through its October 17 agent Silas Deane, had already secured material aid iSresMfte from France in money, arms, and equipment; but the disaster to the English arms at Saratoga encouraged the French government to make a treaty of alliance with the colonists by which they were recognized as independent states, and England was forced to begin war with France. In 1779 Spain also declared war on Great Britain, and in 1780 the northern powers entered into an "armed neutrality" to resist England's assumption of the right of search. England thus saw herself not only baffled in her attempts to reduce the colonies, but seriously menaced by the general attitude of the European powers, from Russia to Spain. The situation of England was now extremely critical. Northern Europe was hostile and war had actually begun with Holland. The French navy, which had been enlarged and strengthened Fresh diM- , ^ . ^-T' . . ^ <. . i <• cuitiesfor bv Louis A VI. , was provmef itself more than a match for England. ^ . ^ . ' ^ _ .^ _ , . . England on the seas. Ireland, which was m a far worse condition politically and commercially than the colonies had ever been, was also on the verge of revolt. Five-sixths of the popula- 1781] END OF AMERICAN WAR 939 tion were Catholic. Of the remaining one-sixth the Presbyterian settlers of Ulster formed one-half, but were as completely excluded from participation in the government as were the Catholics. Only members of the Established Church were allowed to share in the administration of government or of justice, and even this handful of the population were controlled by a few wealthy and corrupt landowners. The Irish parliament was the mouthpiece of the Privy Council in England; English laws had long since destroyed Irish commerce and agriculture in agUation ^^® interests of English merchants and landlords. Yet the new movement which now shook Ireland was not inspired by the suffering and poverty of the misgoverned ma- jority; but by the ruling class who believed that the time had come to demand legislative independence. It was sustained, moreover, by the eloquence of Grattan and Flood in parliament and by an armed force of 80,000 volunteers whom the English government had called out to provide defense for Ireland under threat of a French invasion. It was no time to think of resistance, and Lord North, taught at last by his experience with the Amer- ican colonies, yielded and the burdensome restrictions under which Irish commerce had struggled for a hundred years, were removed. The succeeding ministry abandoned the English claim to legislative and judicial supremacy, and for eighteen years Ireland enjoyed a kind of Home Rule. The government, however, was still conducted in the interests of the Protestant minority. In 1781, when Cornwallis, who had been shut up in Yorktown by a combined American and French force, was at last compelled to surrender, the climax was reached in the American End of the , . ,,_.- . ______ ^ American struggle. \V hen the news reached England, Lord North abandoned all hope of a successful termination of the war; '*0h God," he cried, ''it is all over." The unhappy minister had attempted to resign before, but the king had con- tinued to cling to him with the persistent obstinacy which had already brought so much misfortune in its train ; and even now he would have prolonged the struggle, but the sentiment of the country had set so strongly against North, that George was forced 940 FIRST PERIOD OF TORY RULE [georgeIU. at last to yield, and on March 20, 1782 the North ministry came to an end. The same bitter alternative compelled the king to accept a Whig ministry, though it implied the over- North. Sec- throw of the system which he had been so Ions: striving ond Rocking- , , ., ^ t^ i • ham minis- to build up. Kockmgham agam became the head of the administration with Fox and William Petty, Lord Shelburne, leader of the Chatham Whigs, as the most important members. The avowed purpose of the ministry was to secure peace on the basis of the independence of the American colonies. But the ministry was weakened by dissensions. The king intrigued with Shelburne against the other members. Shelburne, who disliked Fox personally, wished to take up Walpole's old policy of alliance with France, delaying peace with America till France could be included in its terms. Fox wished England to join in a defensive alliance with Russia and Prussia, and favored an immediate peace with America. After fifteen weeks of fruit- less discussion Rockingham died. He was succeeded by sheihume Shelbume ; Fox, Burke, and Ashburton withdrew. At ministry. ' . . the same time the negotiations for peace received a favor- able impulse from a victory which Rodney won over de Grasse in the West Indies, and also from the failure of a combined French and Spanish attack on Gibraltar, the culmination of a three years' siege. France and Spain were convinced that England might still prove a dangerous enemy, and in January 1783 agreed to preliminaries at Versailles. Similar articles had been accepted by Great Britain and the United States in the preceding November, and on Septem- ber 3, 1783, formal treaties between Great Britain, the ^im.^^^ United States, France, and Spain, were signed at Paris and Versailles. Great Britain ceded to France Tobago in the West Indies, and the Senegal region in Africa; Spain retained Minorca and Florida ; the independence of the United States was recognized and the boundaries of the new nation were established. Though England had regained her control of the sea, the loss of her American colonies was a heavy blow and seemed to many even of her own people to have deprived her of her position as a great world power. CHAPTER VI THE SECOND PERIOD OF TORY RULE AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OEORQE lU., 1783-1815 For twelve years George III. had now been king after his own ideal, he had not only reigned, he had governed. The results, however, were by no means ^such as to commend a rule of king further trial of the experiment. The crown had lost one-half its territories ; its hold upon Ireland and India had been seriously threatened, if not weakened; England had been humbled before her old traditional foes in Europe, and her public debt had been increased to £250,000,000. Even North, who had so often sacrificed his own judgment in supporting the Tory idea of king government, now went over to the "king's enemies,'' openly declaring that henceforth the appearance of power was all that was left for a king of England. King-power in England was dead. The decree of Fox, that the king must never again be allowed to be his own Prime Minister, was accepted as final ; the government by departments was tacitly abandoned and the cabinet system of Walpole accepted as a permanent feature of the unwrit- ten constitution. The tenure of the new Whig ministry, however, was destined to be short. Fox, Burke, and Ashburton, who had resigned when Lord Shelburne became Prime Minister, now ioined The Whig ministry, forccs^with the North Tories, and in February succeeded 1782 1783 in forcing Shelburne out of ofiice. The Whigs had been in office barely ten months; yet they had undone much of the mischief wrought by the George III. -North ministry. They had accepted the results of the American War and made peace with the United Colonies and their allies; they had quieted Ireland by granting legislative and judicial independence; they had also done 941 942 SECOND PEEIOD OF TORY RULE [geobgbIU. tardy justice to Wilkes by expunging the proceedings of the Mid- dlesex election case. During the twelve hungry years of opposi- tion, the party cry had been for economic and parliamentary reform, and the Whig ministers had signalized their return to power by cutting away many of the barnacles that had fastened upon the public service as a result of George III.'s personal methods of winning '^friends;" they had debarred revenue officers from voting at parliamentary elections and secured the exclusion of government contractors from the House of Commons ; they had restricted the regular pension list and abolished secret pensions and useless offices. Yet when the reform ministers hastened to give pensions to their friends in order to make the most of the old system before the new pension law should come into opera- tion, it was evident to the people that the politicians, true to the traditions of the gild, were only playing at reform as a bid for popular favor. It was something, however, that politicians were beginning to fear the public pillory and that they recognized the necessity of at least seeming to be honest. Any feelings of disappointment which the public may have felt with the conduct of the Whig ministry were soon forgotten in the positive shock which followed the announcement The Fox- of a coalition of the high-toned Fox Whigs and the tion, 1783. North Tories under the nominal leadership of the duke of Portland, but with Fox and North as Secretaries of State. The new ministers cited the precedent of the Pitt-New- castle coalition, and appealed to the present necessity of uniting all factions to save the state. The people refused to believe that two such bitter political foes as Fox and North, who for twelve years back had filled the air with the din of personal recrimina- tion, had joined hands for any other purpose than to keep them- selves in power and more securely control public patronage. The new coalition ministry, therefore, though for the time strong in the Commons, began its career under a cloud of popular disfavor. The king, moreover, was against it. He had always detested Fox, and would not forgive North for his recent desertion. He had for five weeks struggled for his right to select his own minis- ters, but had been compelled at last to accept the men who com- 1783] WILLIAM PITT THE SECOND 943 manded the votes of parliament. He fretted and worried under what he called his * 'thraldom," and told the new ministers to the face that they need never expect his support. This was no idle threat, for the king still retained a considerable personal influence, particularly in the House of Lords, and upon the presentation of Fox's "India Bill," secured its defeat in the Lords, and taking advantage of the increasing disfavor of the coalition, on December 18 ordered Fox and North to deliver up their portfolios. The bill itself was not objectionable. The East India Com- pany as a result of the powers originally conferred upon it, had developed tyranny in its worst form, that of an ^[^d' Bill " irresponsible private corporation which exercised all the power of a sovereign state, maintaining armies, making treaties of peace or levying war, and disposing of the property and lives of millions of helpless subjects, without other object than the enrichment of the distant stockholders at home. Men like Burke who had much to do with framing the Fox Bill, had felt deeply the wrongs under which the East Indians suffered, and saw no hope of improving their condition until the political powers of the company were put in the hands of commissioners responsible to parliament. But the public refused to believe in the sincerity of Fox's philanthropy, and saw in the measure only one more scheme to increase enormously the patronage which was already at the disposal of the coalition. Hence the Indians had to wait until a champion should present himself whose hands were clean. The great Chatham had died in 1778 in the midst of the American War, his last speech a protest against "the dismember- ment of this ancient and most noble monarchy." tTe Second*** When his speech was ended he fell back in a fit, and was carried home to die a few days later. May 11. His eldest son, who bore his title, was a man of second-rate powers, but the younger son, born in 1759, who bore the father's name, had inherited not only his high-souled integrity but much of his power as a leader, although without his fire. From childhood the younger Pitt had been trained by his august father for public life. Under such tutelage the susceptible mind matured fast and the 944 SECOND PERIOD OF TORY RULE [gbobgk ill. yoitth soon developed remarkable powers as a debater and leader. He was scarcely out of his teens when he first entered parlia ment, and soon became prominent as an earnest advocate of parliamentary reform. When Fox resigned from the Shelburne ministry in 1782, Pitt, although then but twenty-three, was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, and now, a year later, upon the fall of the coalition he was invited by the king to form a new ministry. The appointment was greeted by the hoary -headed politi- cians with shouts of derisive laughter. The new government was dubbed ''the mince pie administration;" it was made put^^^ ^-^ to be devoured before the Christmas holidays were over. The king, it was said, had entrusted the empire to "a schoolboy, who ought to be sent back to school." Yet for seventeen years this schoolboy was to maintain his place at the head of the government, and carry England safely through one of the most trying periods of her whole history. Derision soon turned to admiration; "He is not a chip of the old block," exclaimed Burke, when he had learned the worth of the man, **he is the old block itself." Here in a word was the secret of the phenomenal career of this precocious youth. He was his father's successor in more ways than one; he had succeeded not only to his name and much of his ability, but with a tact and business knowledge of his own, he had also fallen heir to his father's popularity. All the glorious traditions associated with the career of the father, his championship of parliamentary reform, of the rights of Britons, of the dignity of the crown against the rule of the old Whig oligarchy, and of the integrity and dignity of the British empire, all now passed to William Pitt the younger. In the appointment of Pitt, the king apparently had reasserted the outworn Tory doctrine of his right to name his own minister in spite of the opposition of the Commons, and for the ^'dPitf moment the popularity of the new minister made the elevation of Pitt appear like a real triumph of the king. But George soon found that in Pitt he had no such pliant servant as in North; William Pitt and not George III. was now Prime 1784] APPEAL OF PITT TO THE COUNTRY 945 Minister of England. Yet loath as George was "to give up his old ideas of personal government, he was compelled to cling to Pitt. It was, moreover, the wisest thing to do; for it brought the nation to the support of the king against the parliament, and matched the coalition of \Yhig and Tory politicians by a counter coalition of king and people; and king and people won. For some months Pitt's position was precarious. The coalition fully expected shortly to return to po\ver. Pitt could not per- suade a single member of influence in the Commons to Pitttofhe^^'^ enter his cabinet, and was compelled to take his miiiis- country, ^^rs from the Lords. In the Commons he stood almost 1784. alone, — a young man of twenty-four confronted by such leaders as Fox, North, Burke, Sheridan, and Erskine. Again and again he was defeated by large majorities, yet he would not resign. With the support of the king he might appeal to the nation, but the temper of the people was not yet assured, and the young minister hesitated to commit his cause to a popular election without something more definite than a mere personal issue. Here, however. Fox unintentionally came to his support. Fox feared a dissolution, and in order to be beforehand, called in question the right of the crown to dissolve parliament without the consent of the Commons. The position of Fox at once fur- nished the issue for which Pitt waited, and in the spring of 1784 he determined to appeal to the country. The people saw in the opposition of the politicians only a determination to make the Commons independent not only of the king but also of the nation ; in Pitt they saw the champion of the interests of the nation against the politicians, or what in America would be called *'the ring," or ''the machine." The victory of Pitt was over- whelming ; the opposition lost one hundred and sixty members, and Pitt with a free hand addressed himself to the great work of restoring the resources of the country wasted by the recent war. The Whigs had had their opportunity and had abused it. After twelve years of opposition, in which they had made reform the rally- ing cry of the party, the nation had taken them at their word and placed them in power. But the old instincts of the politician had proved too strong for the leaders, and the people in disgust 946 SECOKD PERIOD OE TORY RULE [ George III. had hurled them from power, and turned to the young man, who with the king and his great name made a party all by himself. Pitt now had six years of unbroken peace in which to set his house in order. He had posed heretofore as a reformer, but in office his enthusiasm for reform gradually gave way to The six years the safer maxims of the practical statesman. Among 1784-1790. his first measures he took up the Indian question, and in 1784 proposed a new India Bill, which left the gov- ernment and the patronage of the company still in its hands, but placed over it a responsible board of control, subject to removal by the crown. This arrangement continued in force until the abolition of the company in 1858 after the Sepoy Mutiny. In 1785 Pitt approached the dangerous question of parliamentary reform in the same judicious way. His plan, however, which proposed to buy up the rotten boroughs and the exclusive corpor- ations in the interests of an extended franchise, met with little support from the radical reformers, while the king and Pitt's Tory supporters, who were suspicious of all reform measures by instinct, also opposed the bill, and it was lost. Pitt, apparently, was satisfied that the times were not ripe for parliamentary reform, and although it was the cause to which he had first given his heart, he now dropped the subject in order to tarn to other reforms in which he had the support of his party. ^ Here also he was not always to have his way. In 1785 he was again defeated in a measure which proposed to establish free trade and commer- cial equality between Ireland and England. But in 1786 in secur- ing a commercial treaty with France, which abolished most of the protective duties between the two countries, he was more success- ful. In both these measures Pitt was directly influenced by the free trade views of Adam Smith, to which he had long since been a convert and which he now tried to put into practical operation. In 1791 he divided Canada into two provinces and gave the people representative institutions. * Pitt in private always called himself a Whig, and yet he was sup- ported by the Tories and was appointed to office in defiance of the Whig doctrine that a minister should always have the support of parliament. 1788] TRIAL OF WARREiq^ HASTINGS 94? It was upon his own office, that of the treasury, that Pitt brought his splendid business abilities to bear with the most marked results. The legion of sinecure offices con- rej^orms^^ nectcd with the customs was swept away; the collecting of duties was simplified ; smuggling, which robbed the government annually of upwards of two million pounds, was discouraged, partly by reducing certain duties and partly by trans- ferring others to the excise list; the franking privilege which had been grossly abused by members of parliament, was restricted; treasurers and paymasters who had been allowed to leave office with large accounts unsettled, were brought to book, and the entire system of administering the finances was reorganized and put on a sound basis. When taunted by Burke with prying into holes and corners after *' vermin abuses," Pitt declared that he would not be justified in omitting *'any exertion that might tend in the most minute particulars, to promote that economy on which the recovery of the state from its present depressed situa- tion so much depended." The event, however, about which public interest specially centered during the first period of Pitt's administration, was the impeachment of Warren Hastings upon the charge of ^yayrin high crimes and misdemeanors connected • with his Indian administration. He had returned to England in 1785 and was almost immediately attacked by his defeated rival, Philip Francis, the supposed author of the ** Junius" letters, and by Burke and Sheridan. The trial began before the House of Lords in 1788, and dragged on for seven years, when Hastings, embittered in spirit and with diminished fortune, was finally acquitted. The great moral awakening which had been stirring England since the beginning of the careers of Wesley and Whitfield, the ^^ ^ ^ influence of which had been felt even within the murky Tvccu/ Or prison atmosphere of corruption and bribery which surrounded reform. ^ f . . the court, was now beginning to make itself felt in two very practical directions, — prison reform and opposition to the slave trade. The prisons of England in the eighteenth century were a reproach to civilization, to say nothing of Christianity. 948 SECOND PERIOD OF TORY RULE [geoege in. To avoid the window tax, originally imposed in 1696, prisons had been built with little or no light; they were, moreover, always overcrowded, filthy, and haunted by contagion. The *'jail fever" executed more criminals, it was said, than the hangman. It was not unusual for both judge, and jury to contract the fever during the course of a trial, and atone with their lives for the inhumanity of the system of justice which they represented. Jails were let upon a sort of contract system, and the jailers sought by means of petty persecutions, more or less brutal, to wring the largest pos- sible fees from the victims whom justice placed at their mercy. The debtor and the hardened criminal, the innocent and the guilty, male and female, old and young, were herded together without sufficient food, air, or water. Even those who were acquitted, or who were discharged by the grand jury, might be dragged back to prison and held until they could satisfy the monstrous charges of the ogre whom the state had put in charge of the jail. The public had not been altogether blind to these abuses; as early as 1726 parliament had been forced by certain disclosures connected with the Fleet Prison to undertake an inquiry. It does not appear, however, that much came of these investigations, and it was- not until fifty years later that the matter received the John serious consideration which it deserved. In 1773' Howard. John Howard, a quiet gentleman of Bedfordshire, was appointed sheriff of the county. His duties brought him into contact with the miseries of the jail population. Inquiry and travel soon revealed to him that what was going on at Bedford was the common experience of jail life over all the British Islands. The man, who up to this moment had been leading the useless life of a valetudinarian, had at last found his mission. He hence- forth devoted his fortune and his life to the noble purpose of confronting England and Europe with the wrongs which society daily heaped upon the innocent and helpless. He visited the prisons; he went alone and unattended into the pesthouses of Constantinople, where he could hire neither physician nor dragoman to follow him; he put himself on board an infected ship bound for Venice, that by personal experience he might know the horrors of 1774-1783] JOHN HOWARD 949 the Venetian lazaretto. After twenty-seven years of arduous toil and incessant danger he died at last of camp fever in Russia. Of him and his work Bentham wrote: "In the scale of moral desert the labors of the legislator and the writer are as far below his as earth is below heaven. His kingdom was of a better world ; he died a martyr, after living an apostle." In England Howard was very early permitted to see some results of his work. In 1774 he was summoned before parlia- ment to give testimony upon the condition of the formin^' Ehglish jails, and his disclosures had much to do in Botany^Bav ii^^ucing parliament to undertake the reforms which followed, chief of which was the abolition of jailers' fees and of the numerous abuses which had sprung of the custom. Justices of the peace, also, were required to see that jails were kept in a sanitary condition and that proper infirmaries were provided for the sick. In 1788, as the result of an effort to secure a more healthful location for the English convict colony. Botany Bay on the southern coast of Australia was selected, and the first load of convict colonists sent out to begin the English possession of the continent of the southern seas. Captain Cook had explored this coast nearly twenty years before and upon the basis of this exploration the English founded a claim to the whole island, although it had been long known to Europeans. It is not surprising that while the conscience of England was thus awakening to its obligations toward the helpless and the unfortunate, some mentors should arise to call attention tradf^^^ to the horrors of the African slave trade. Up to the third quarter of the century the Quakers had stood almost alone in denouncing the traffic in human flesh. Wesley, it is true, had denounced it; but men like Whitefield favored it, and John Newton, long after his conversion to the Evangelical faith, continued to command his slaver. Yet the consciences of good people could not rest easy under the accumulating horrors of the trade, rumors of which from time to time reached Eng- land.^ In 1772 Chief Justice 'Mansfield gave his famous decision ^ In 1783 the master of a slave ship found that his cargo was infected with contagion and deUberately threw 132 negroes overboard, because if 950 SECOND PERIOD OF TORY RULE [qeobgeIII. that a slave brought to England became free. In 1787 the "Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade" was formed, the leading spirits of which w^ere Thomas Clarkson and William Wil- berforce. In 1788 the Society got a promise of assistance from Pitt, and the government made an effort to lessen the horrors of the passage from Africa to America by limiting the number of negroes which might be carried in a single cargo. The colony of Sierra Leone, also, was established in western Africa as a refuge for freed slaves. There was too much capital invested in the lucra- tive trade, however, to make the victory an easy one. One-half the wealth of Liverpool, it was said, came from this source. The king and the Tories oppos'ed the reform on principle ; and when the French Revolution attacked slavery, the conservative English- man who had wavered before, was satisfied; that "the atheists and anarchists of France" had abolished slavery was reason suffi- cient for upholding the trade in England. Yet men like Clark- son and Wilberforce continued the struggle, and after repeated efforts, the trade was finally abolished by the act of 1807. In Pitt's foreign policy there was nothing of the "benevolent tolerance" which marked his handling of these domestic ques- tions. The recent partition of Poland had apparently pJyuIS'^fmt whetted the appetite of the Russian Catherine II. for more plunder of the same kind, and in 1783 she seized the Crimea, proposing to destroy Turkey and reestablish a Greek Empire, but under Russian control; in the north, also, she was threatening Gustavus III. of Sweden. To overawe Russia and meet this new menace to the existing balance of the northern powers, Pitt proposed an alliance of England, Prussia, and the Dutch Netherlands. Frederick, however, could not forget Bute's treachery, and as long as Frederick lived any active con- cert of England and Prussia was hardly possible. But the death of Frederick in 1786 removed the last obstacle, and two years later a new Triple Alliance was duly formed for the purpose of "pre- serving the public tranquillity and security, for maintaining com- they died on his hands, the owners would have to bear the loss, but if he threw them overboard for safety, the loss would fall on the insurance companies. ■PRT r \ I /*" iwf- u-,\ n:' ' 3 > '"^^iuk I 1791] PITT AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 951 mon interests, and for mutual defense and guarantee against every hostile attack." In the north the protest of the Alliance was successful; but in his efforts to mediate between Kussia and Turkey, Pitt, who was the head of the Alliance, was not so suc- cessful, although he succeeded in detaching Austria from the support of Eussia. The Triple Alliance, however, was soon to be called upon to grapple with a series of problems very different from those sug- gested by the aggressions of Russia in the Baltic or the Early am- Euxine. Within a few months after the formation of tude of Great uru^rds ^^^ Alliance, the first notes of coming revolution were Rev^iuSon sounded through France. Yet up to the time of the attempted flight of the French king in June 1791, the course of events in France elicited approval rather than alarm in England. The fall of the Bastille had been hailed with positive enthusiasm, and democratic societies, warmly sympathetic with the principles of the Revolution, had begun to come into prom- inence. Yet such movements owed their strength largely to academic interest, rather than to political discontent, and it soon became evident that the natural conservatism of the English people was taking alarm at the rapidity with which the radical element was winning control across the Channel.* Pitt, however, who looked upon the Revolution with coldness, but not with distrust, had no thought of interfering; he desired the continu- ance of peace in order to carry out his plans of financial reform and of commercial and industrial expansion. The menace to the peace of Europe was still supposed to lie in the east, and in the presence of the ambitious schemes of Catharine, England no more than Austria or Prussia had any wish to tie her bands by inter- fering in the domestic affairs of France. With the year 1791, however, the conflagration in France developed so rapidly that her neighbors saw that to protect their own property, they must turn firemen and lend a hand to their Bourbon fellow; in August Frederick William of Prussia and the Emperor Leopold II. met at Pilnitz and declared against the ^ As early as 1790 Burke had sounded a note of warning in his "Reflec- tions on the French Revolution." 952 SECOND PERIOD OF TORY RULE [geobqe ill Kevolution. The wrath of the revolutionary party in France was particularly aroused against Austria because of the well-known sympathies of her court with the hated Marie Antoin- Beginning of the war ^ the ette, and although the Declaration of Pilnitz was with- pubiicagainst drawn within two months after the convention, in April Europe, 1792. following France declared war. In September the National Convention abolished the Bourbon monarchy, and declared France a Republic. In December Louis XVI. was tried and on January 21, 1793, executed. In October following, his Austrian queen suffered the same fate. The death of the weak but innocent king, the prison massacres, and the other atrocities that followed each other so rapidly during this dreadful year, filled Europe and especially England with horror. At the same time the advance of the French upon Holland made war with England inevitable. In the hysteria of revolution frenzy which had seized upon France she had, in fact, run amuck into the whole circle of neighboring states and compelled them to arm in self-defense. Thus the young Republic soon had a serious war upon her hands; Holland, Prussia, and Austria attacked her on the north-east and east; Sardinia and Spain upon the south, and England upon the sea; while within her borders dangerous insurrections against revolu- tionary tyranny had already sprung up in La Vendee and Brittany and in the great southern cities of Marseilles and Lyons. For this strange war of infatuation France was poorly prepared ; her recruits were raw and without discipline, and fled in wild panic at the first attack of the allies. Yet her energy quickened with resistance, and before the year closed her armies had driven the allies from her northern frontier; Toulon had fallen, and the domestic revolts had been stamped out. The next year, 1794, saw Holland not only overrun and conquered, but organized upon the French model into the'*Batavian Republic," and her arms turned upon her late allies. Only at the seaboard was the victorious march of the young Republic checked; on the ^'Glorious First of June," 1794, Admiral Howe caught the French fleet off Ushant, and all but annihilated it. England easily took possession of the French East Indies, and when Holland was forced to join France, England also seized the Cape of Good Hope, Ceylon, Java, and the Spice Islands. 1795] THE FIRST COALITIO]^ 953 But the picking up of distant islands in the southern seas could not materially affect the great continental struggle. The allies, moreover, were fully as much inclined to fly at each Failure of other as to continue a contest in which France had tion, 1795. proved fully able to defend herself. Austria and Prus- sia still cherished the old enmities born of the struggle of Frederick and Maria Theresa; both feared Russia, and when the Polish revolt of 1794 under Kosciuszko led up to the third partition of that unhappy country in the following year, the two powers, although subsidized by England, withdrew their troops from the Rhine. Austria and Sardinia kept up the strug- gle in Italy; but it was evident that the coalition had broken down. In April 1795 Prussia made peace with France at Basle, and in July Spain also made her terms. A belated royalist rising in La Vendee did nothing to turn the scales; it was overwhelmed by Hoche at Quiberon on July 20, and the prisoners, including many of the emigre, were massacred in cold blood. In England the reaction against the Revolution increased in intensity with the successes of the French. Parliament passed laws against suspected aliens, and against treasonable servative Correspondence with France. The various societies, also, which had been formed in sympathy with the objects of the Revolution, if not with its methods, were put under the ban. In the general panic the Habeas Corpus Act was sus- pended, and finally in 1794 the leaders of the ''London Corres- ponding Society" were tried for high treason. The panic, however, was subsiding and the leaders of the society were acquitted. In the meanwhile the Committee of Public Safety continued its reign of terror within the boundaries of France, until at last the members began to turn their fury upon each other. End of the No man was safe from suspicion, and to be suspected Terror, 1795. was to be devoted to the guillotine. The reaction began in 1794; the death of Robespierre and the fall of the Jacobins, followed by the establishment of the Directory in 1795, gave a new phase to the Revolution. The defection of Prussia and Spain left Britain, Austria, and Sardinia to carry on the struggle alone. The cause of the allies, 954 SECOND PERIOD OF TORY RULE [gkoege m. however, was by no means hopeless. The Republic had long since exhausted its financial resources, and the Directory had very early proved its inability to solve the vexatious prob- mice of Bon- leuis which confronted it. The spirit of its armies was Italy, 1796, still good; yet half-starved, half-clad, ill -paid regi- ments, without proper arms or equipment, could not hope to keep the field before the well appointed armies which the allies, supported by English gold, continued to put in the field against them. But at this moment, the waning prestige of the Directory was reinforced by the splendid genius of Napoleon Bonaparte, a young Corsican officer of twenty-seven, who had recently been put in command of the French army in Italy. At the head of the ragged troops of the Eepublic, by a series of brilliant movements, remarkable for their rapidity and vigor, he forced Sardinia to sue for peace, drove the Austrians out of Italy and compelled the frightened emperor to accept the Peace of Campo-Formio, October 1797. He had already entrenched the French in Italy by organizing the conquered territories into vassal republics under a French protectorate. While Britain was thus shorn of her last ally upon the land, she still maintained her command of the seas. But the transfer of the support of Spain to the side of the Republic in continwd Ausfust 1796, had once more raised the naval power of siiccess of <=> y r British at France, alreadv reinforced by the alliance of the Dutch, sea, 1797. ■> J J ^ ' to a respectable footing, and enabled it to compare not unfavorably, in numbers at least, with the navy of Great Britain. It takes something more than ships and men, however, to win bat- tles at sea. On February 14, 1797 Sir John Jervis with fifteen ships defeated a combined fleet of twenty-seven French and Span- ish ships off Cape St. Vincent, and on October 11, Duncan defeated the Dutch off Camperdown. These successes were of the utmost importance, because if the French could once succeed in breaking through the wall of ocean, they were certain to make trouble in Ireland, if they did not attempt a direct invasion of England from France. England was now feeling the severe depression that is always incident to any prolonged war. Her great minister had 1793-1796] EFFECT OF WAR Ilf ENGLAKB 955 not desired the war; he had little sympathy with that undiscrim- inating hostility towards France which inspired the great majority of Englishmen. The war, moreover, had un- warupon^^ done in part the work of his financial reforms. Taxation ^ixicma "^^ ^^^ increased and the debt had been swelled by new loans. In 1793 more than one hundred English banks had failed, and in 1797 the Bank of England had been forced to suspend specie payment. The navy, upon which so much depended, was growing mutinous and discontented. The service was badly managed ; the] men were suffering from scanty and unwholesome rations; their pay was poor, and the very year of St. Vincent and Camperdown, formidable mutinies broke out at Spithead and the Nore. Ireland, also, was a constant source of anxiety. The reforms which had followed the American War had proved a disappointment, and instead of giving to Ire- land a satisfactory government had only riveted more closely the hold of the corrupt local oligarchy. The Catholic peasantry, whose wrongs were hardly less than those of the French peas- antry, formed secret organizations, like the '*Peep of Day Boys," and terrorized the ruling minority by their secret outrages. The Anglican Protestants in turn, under the encouragement of the government, organized societies of ** Orangemen" and repaid out- rage with outrage. Attempts at reform, connected with the names of Grattan and Fitz-William, were made, but to no purpose. In 1796 the ** Society of United Irishmen," in which Presbyterians of Ulster made common cause with the Catholics of the middle and upper classes, in despair of securing redress from England, sent Wolfe Tone to France to appeal for aid. The Directory welcomed the appeal, and in December dispatched 20,000 men under Hoche to assist an Irish revolt. A storm dispersed the ves- sels and Hoche was obliged to return. The leaders in Ireland were seized ; an insurgent camp at Vinegar Hill was carried by assault, and the danger was over. The Directory, in the meanwhile, made a second attempt, but although the French force landed, the crisis was passed, and after a few successes the French surrendered to Cornwallis, the Lord Lieutenant. The increasing pressure at home and the constant threat of trouble in Ireland, were not 956 SECOKD PERIOD OF TORY RULE [GEOEGBin. without their influence upon Pitt, and although public opinion still ran strong against any thought of peace, he determined to seek some opening for an understanding with France. All efforts, however, failed, chiefly because Pitt would not consent to allow France to retain her acquisitions in the Netherlands. The two implacable foes then once more addressed themselves to the struggle. Bonaparte, whose recent successes had made him an all powerful influence in France, persuaded the Ea&^^^ Directory to enter upon a scheme wiiich even to-day looks more like the wild vagary of a dreamer than the sober plan of a man of affairs. He proposed to attack England in India, by first securing a base in Egypt and Syria. Yet visionary as the scheme appears, it might have succeeded, had it not been for the active vigilance of Nelson, who on August 1, 1798, anni- hilated the French fleet in Aboukir Bay and thus severed Bona- parte's communications with France. Victorious as was the little army of invasion, without reinforcements, and without connection with France, final success was impossible. After overrunning Egypt, destroying the Mameluke power, and invading Syria, Bonaparte was at last compelled to retrace his steps, and leaving his army in Egypt in command of the brave Kleber, he ran the gauntlet of the English fleet, and in November 1799 reached France in safety. Pitt, in the meanwhile, had fallen back upon his old tactics and sought to reach France by forming another coalition, in which England, Eussia, and Austria were the chief members. TheSecmd Catharine II. had died in 1796, and her successor, Paul 1798,1799! I., had abandoned her policy of aggrandizement in the east, to join the western powers against France. Tur- key, roused by the attack of the French upon Egypt and Syria, had also joined the league. Prussia, however, refused to abandon her neutrality. The attack was begun upon the whole line of the recent conquests of France. In Italy and western Germany, the Austrian and Eussian armies were everywhere successful, and had soon undone the work of Bonaparte. Only in Holland and in Switzerland, which had been organized in 1798 as the "Helvetic Republicr," the French managed to hold their own. 1799, 1800] THE BILL OF UNION 957 At this point Bonaparte landed. The Directory was thor- oughly discredited ; its corruption was a matter of common belief ; its incompetence had been fully established. Bona- of^sBrmn- P^^'^^ grasped the situation at once. He first unseated ber 9^1799"^' *^^® Directory and secured for himself as * 'First Con- sul," the authority of a virtual dictator; he then turned upon the enemies of France. He succeeded in detaching from the alliance the Czar Paul, whose enthusiastic admiration for ''the man of the people," rendered him an easy victim to the blandishments of the First Consul. Bonaparte then crossed the Great St. Bernard and in June 1800 fell upon the Austrians at Marengo, while Moreau won an even more overwhelming victory over a second Austrian army at Hohenlinden. The strength of Austria was broken, and at Luneville, February 1801, the emperor was glad to accept peace on the terms offered by the First Consul. Thus a second coalition had dashed itself to pieces upon the young Republic, and England was left again single-handed to face her enemy. Her position was worse than it had of'^Jiand ^®®^ ^^ ^'^^'^- "^'^ *^® other burdens incident to the war, was to be added the disheartening influence of a depreciating paper currency. The land tax had risen to 4s in the pound, and in 1799 an income tax had been added, which taxed all incomes above £60 a year. Abroad, also, a reckless disre- gard of the rights of neutrals had led the Baltic powers, Sweden, Denmark, and Prussia, under the leadership of Czar Paul, to revive the armed -neutrality of the period of the American war. This action was ominous ; Bonaparte was known to be intriguing with the sea powers against England, and Pitt saw himself in turn threatened with a dangerous coalition. Ireland was still a subject of deep anxiety to English states- men. The failure of the attempt to govern Ireland by an inde- pendent Irish parliament had only emphasized the needT ^^mi^f ^^^ ^^ some more satisfactory plan of conciliating the hostile SS?"''" elements in order to save Ireland if possible. Pitt accordingly brought forward a plan of legislative union, which resembled the union that already existed between England and Scotland. It was accepted by the Irish parliament 958 SECOND PERIOD OF TORY RULE [gkoege iii. in February 1800, by the British parliament in July, and went into force on the 1st of January 1801, creating *'The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland." The Irish were to be represented in the common parliament by four spiritual lords, twenty-eight temporal peers, chosen by the Irish peerage for life, and one hundred members for the Commons, chosen sixty-four for the counties, thirty-five for the boroughs, and one for the University of Dublin. The Anglican Church of Ireland was to be united to the State Church of England. Taxation was to be distributed proportionately; the national debts of the two countries were to be kept separate ; and no restrictions were to be laid on commerce between the two countries.^ By the terms of the *'Bill of Union" Ireland apparently was receiving somewhat more generous treatment than Scotland in 1707. But unfortunately the great mass of the popu- tionofPitt, lation in Ireland were disfranchised by their religious faith. It was a part of Pitt's general plan of concilia- tion, however, to follow the union by emancipating the Irish Catholics. But George was persuaded to believe that the conces- sions proposed by Pitt would force him to violate his coronation oath, and Pitt saw himself checked with his plan of union only half realized. He knew the king ; he knew that it was useless either to argue or plead, and like the man of spirit that he was, resigned. The successor of Pitt, Henry Addington, his old time friend, not being specially committed to the French war, was free to take steps towards securing the much needed peace. Recent The peace of ,iii -ij^i i- Amiens, events had alreadv paved the way by impressmg upon March, 1802. _, j.iiiv J, . "^ ^ . Bonaparte the hopelessness of carrymg on a war m which he could not strike his antagonist. In 1800 the English had got possession of Malta; in March of the next year Abercrom- bie had defeated the French at Alexandria, and by midsummer the French had surrendered their last stronghold in Egypt. Eng- land, moreover, had taken the armed neutrality of the northern powers as a threat of war and had promptly sent Admiral Parker, with Nelson as second in comman d, to seize the Danish fleet in 1 Lee, Source Book, pp. 483497. 1802] AMIENS 959 the harbor of Copenhagen. In March Napoleon's friend Czar Paul was assassinated; this, with the loss of the Danish fleet, put an end to Napoleon's dream of a northern coalition against England. In June the British government recognized the justice of the claims of the northern states by conceding the disputed points, chief of which was her claim of the right to seize neutral ships if bound for an enemy's port that was under a nominal blockade. With these concessions the armed neutrality dissolved. England was thus once more lord of the seas, but she could not strike France without continental allies, and Napoleon could not strike England without the support of the naval powers. Both sides, moreover, needed a breathing spell. In March 1802 the much needed truce was concluded at Amiens. The recent acquisitions of France and the extension of her power in Europe were conceded. England restored to France and her allies, Spain and Holland, all her conquests except Trinidad and Ceylon. She prom- ised, also, to restore Malta to the Knights of St. John. The king of England renounced the title of King of France, which he had held since the time of Edward III., and the Bourbon lilies hence- forth disappeared from the royal arms of England. England, also, recognized the French Republic. France, in turn, renounced all claims founded upon her unsuccessful Egyptian expedition. The peace with its one-sided concessions was severely criticised by Pitt's friends, but it was welcome in England, for taxation was heavy and the amount of the debt had become appalling. Sheri- dan called it **a peace which everyone would be glad of, but which nobody would be proud of." Yet men hoped it might be sincere and permanent. Thus far France had been fighting ostensibly to extend the principles of the Revolution. Whatever may be thought of the leaders or their methods, the motive of the men who French fought in the ranks was high and holy, — to liberate the people of Europe from the slavery of the old order. Before that sublime impulse the abuses of a thousand years had been swept away. States had been overthrown, but peoples had been redeemed. Old feudal lines of partition had been obliterated, nations had been unified, and the whole political system of Europe 960 SECOND PERIOD OF TORY RULE [GBOBGEin. made more compact. England had looked on approvingly during the early stages of the Revolution ; but the frenzied earnestness of the heralds of "the rights of man" had first offended her and then filled her with alarm. She saw in the triumph of the Revolution not only the overthrow of religious and social order, but the destruction of the European balance which Englishmen had been toiling to establish since the days of William III., and which they regarded as so essential to their commercial and industrial pros- perity. In Napoleon, moreover, the propaganda of revolution rapidly assumed a new phase; he entertained no benevolent schemes for the liberation of the oppressed ; but thought only of gathering all the tremendous energy which the Revolution had generated, and directing it to the crushing of England and the reducing of Europe to timid submission to the dictates of France. Unconsciously the Revolution had drifted back again to the Louis XIV. policy, but in an intensified and exaggerated form. Thus, whatever disquieting compunctions the conscience of England may have felt early in the struggle, had speedily passed away when the people began to comprehend the real nature of the conflict, — the struggle of a free people with an uncompromising despot. It was this struggle which England now faced. To Bonaparte the peace of Amiens was merely a truce to give him time to prepare for his next move. The Addington ministry was timid and committed to peace; yet even Adding- Renewaiof ^q^ ^^s stunff bv the iusolencc of the First Consul, and war, 1803. ® "^ ^ ' believing that the renewal of the war was inevitable, refused to surrender Malta. Bonaparte naturally made much of the breach of the recent peace, and in May 1803 again declared war. Bonaparte, for France was now Bonaparte, was apparently stronger than ever. In August 1802 he had been made Consul for life, and on May 18, 1804, he was proclaimed fJrinvSii^ Napoleon I., Hereditary Emperor of the French. ofEnifiand, Toward the end of 1804 he persuaded Spain again to join France against England. He had already made extensive plans for a direct invasion of England and had man- aged to stir up revolts in Ireland and India. The rising in Ire- land, however, spent itself in a city riot in Dublin, and the leader, 1805] TRAFALGAR 961 Robert Emmett, was hanged. France was equally powerless to help the native princes in India, where Richard Wellesley, Lord Mornington, the English Governor -General, put down each rising with a vigorous hand. He was aided by a noble corps of officers, among whom was the governor's famous brother Arthur. By the end of 1804 all India outside of the Indus valley and Rajputana, had passed under the English yoke. But the serious threat to England came not from Ireland, much less from India, but from Boulogne, where Napoleon was massing a splendid army of one hundred and fifty thousand men with evident intent of a direct descent upon the English coast. Could he but control the Channel for a few hours, and bring his matchless military strength to bear directly upon England, he might dictate what terms he pleased to his rival. The English were fully awake to their danger. An army of three hundred thousand volunteers was mustered into service, and held at convenient posts where they could be readily massed upon a threatened point. In May Pitt was again called upon to assume the duties of Prime Minister. Through the spring Napoleon pushed forward his preparations, only to postpone the final attempt to the next season. When the year 1805 opened. Napoleon seemed at last ready for action. His plan was well laid; the scattered ships, shut up in the various harbors of France, were to break the blockade and with the Spanish fleet rendezvous at some port in the West Indies in hope that Nelson would follow them. They would then make a dash for the English Channel, and with their combined strength might possibly hold it long enough to enable Napoleon's transports to empty their troops into the island. The first part of the plan was successfully carried out. Nelson not only gave chase, but the French Admiral Villeneuve managed to elude him and get back to the Spanish coast again early in July. Nelson, however, had divined the real nature of the manoeuver and sent October 21, timely warning to the government, so that Sir Robert Calder with fifteen ships was able to meet the allies off Cape Finisterre. Calder was unable to prevent the return of the French fleet, but Villeneuve thought best to retire to Cadiz where he remained inactive for two months ; and when he left 962 SECOND PERIOD OF TORY RULE [geouge ill. Cadiz in October, it was only to fall in with Nelson '4n Trafalgar Bay" and lose his entire fleet. The victory of Trafalgar was decisive; its results permanent; but it cost the life of England's brave admiral. His historic battle message, "England expects every man to do his duty," was characteristic of his sturdy patri- otism. The English, in the meanwhile, were busily plying negotiations preliminary to the formation of a new coalition. The reckless disregard which Napoleon had displayed for the feel- Coaiition. ings of the powers made the task easy. Prussia, though and Press- deeply vcxed by the establishment of a French force at the mouth of the Elbe, remained neutral; but Alex- ander of Eussia was ready to accede to the proposal of England, and in 1805 entered into the Anglo-Russian Treaty which pur- posed to form a European league capable of placing five hundred thousand men in the field. No peace was to be made with France except by common consent. England, on her part, agreed to furnish subsidies to each of the allies. The immediate object of the coalition, as in the league of William III. in 1701, was the recovery of French conquests and the establishment of barriers against French ambition. Austria desired peace, but when she saw that war was inevitable, Joined the allies, and sent General Mack to occupy Bavaria, whose elector was friendly to Napoleon, But Napoleon was already moving swiftly forward to support his ally, and before October closed had surrounded Mack at Ulm and forced him to surrender with twenty-five thousand men. He then pressed on to Vienna, driving the Austrians northward to a Junc- tion with their Russian allies; and on December 2, defeated the combined armies at Austerlitz in the historic *' Battle December 2, of the Three Emperors." The Russians retired; and Francis to save himself, on December 26, signed the Peace of Pressburg, by which he ceded his Italian possessions to the French, and the Tyrol to Bavaria. In less than three months after Trafalgar, death robbed Eng- land of her greatest leader. Pitt had been steadily sinking under the cares of his position, prematurely aged at forty-six; and when the news of the awful disaster at Austerlitz, following so closely 1806] DEATH OF PITT 963 that of Ulm, reached him, he never recovered from the shock. He died on the 23d of January. His position had been "one of almost tragic irony. An economist heaping up millions of Death of debt I a peace minister draffgred into the costliest of ary23,i806. wars; he is the very type of the baffled statesman." He loved peace, yet he saw that with Napoleon there could be no compromise; the fight must be to a finish. He had built up coalition after coalition, only to see them shattered before the marvelous skill of this master of war craft. Pressburg he thought was the end. "Koll np the map of Europe," he said. **it will not be wanted for ten years." Yet the struggle was by no means over. Trafalgar was after all to be more enduring than Austerlitz. The moment, however, was critical. By ceding his cgnquest of Hanover to Prussia, Napoleon liad bribed the Prussian king to join him against the coalition. Before the end of 1805 supreme in he had placed his brother Joseph upon the ancient throne of Naples. In the summer following, he organ- ized the German States into the "Confederation of the Rhine" under a French protectorate, for which he had prepared the way two years earlier by abolishing the host of petty independent feudatories that had heretofore made any larger union impossible. The same year witnessed the formal abandonment by the emperor of the now meaningless titles of the Holy Roman Empire. Thus Napoleon had all western, central, and southern Europe at his feet. Spain and even Turkey were friendly. Only Britain and Russia remained formidable. In England party strife was hushed by the death of Pitt. Whigs and Tories united in the "Ministry of All the Talents;" Grenville became Prime Minister and Fox and Adding- ''Ministryof ton, uow Lord Sidmouth, Secretaries of State. Fox AlltheTal- , ' _ ^, . . , -, entsr 1806. had opposed the war on principle, and saw no reason why the two countries could not come to some fair and rational understanding. But Napoleon soon disabused his mindr of its peace theories, and before Fox's death in September, he saw what Pitt had long since seen, that nothing would satisfy Napoleon but the destruction of the British Empire. 964 SECOND PERIOD OF TORY RULE [georgeIU. The treatment which Napoleon meted out to his new ally, Prussia, was fully calculated to drive to desperation a brave people who had not yet forgotten the day of the Great Fred- of Prussia ericK. In March 1806 he closed the ports of Prussia and the Trea- _^^ ,^_., _ _,_ ty of Tilsit, and Hanover to English vessels. England retorted by seizing some four hundred Prussian vessels that lay in her harbors, and by sweeping Prussian commerce from the seas. Notwithstanding these sacrifices Napoleon coolly proposed to concede Fox's demand that the restitution of Hanover to the king of England should be the first condition of peace. Prussia was thus unwillingly put at odds with England, at the very moment when national honor compelled her to meet Napoleon's insolence and tyranny with a declaration of war. She was poorly prepared for war ; she was without allies, and her military organi- zation was an antiquated shell. At Jena and Auerstadt Napoleon rudely dispelled the inflated conceit of the Prussian marshals, and in October entered Berlin in triumph. The fortresses of Prussia were surrendered with shameful haste. Yet Frederick William refused to yield to Napoleon's exorbitant demands, and assured of Kussian support continued the war. Help, however, came too late. The murderous though indecisive battle of Eylau, followed by the victory of the French at Friedland, brought both Alexander and Frederick William to consent to the Peace of Tilsit, July 1807. British ships and British trade were excluded from Prus- sian harbors, and Prussia was spoiled of half her territory, part of which, with Hanover, was erected into the kingdom of Westphalia. In a secret treaty the Eussian emperor agreed to an alliance with France against England, should she refuse to accept the terms dictated by himself; as a reward, he was to be allowed to extend Kussian influence in Sweden and the Ottoman Empire. England was now oace more left to oppose Napoleon single- handed. She had proved herself invincible in every direct attack The^ccmti' ^P^^ ^^® seas ; but with the new Eussian alliance tem^\m^' Napoleon virtually controlled the entire seaboard of 1807. Europe, and at last it was possible to reach a vulner- able point in his enemy's harness. If he could only exclude the English from the ports of Europe, he might strike a telling blow 1806, 1807] THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM 965 at English commerce and industry, and bring the nation to its knees. In November 1806 he took the first step in putting into effect his so called "Continental System," by publishing a series of decrees from Berlin which declared the British Isles in a state of blockade, forbade all commerce between Great Britain or her colonies and the territories occupied by France or her allies, and ordered the confiscation of all British merchandise wherever found. In January 1807, England retaliated with her "First Orders in Council," declaring the ports* of France and her allies in a state of blockade and neutral vessels trading between them lawful prize. The struggle had now passed from a war of navies and armies to a duel by starvation, to see which people could endure hunger the longer. In this grim conflict, however, the ctAmtai^ advantages still rested with the English. They still Sysum. ^^^ their colonial trade, which, while nothing com- pared with what it is to-day and much diminished by the recent American war from what it had been in the eighteenth century, was still of considerable importance. The prohibition of trade, more- over, so raised the price of English goods, that the rewards of smuggling were increased enormously and it was impossible for Napoleon to draw the meshes so tight that the smuggler could not get through, or the English manufacturer find an outlet for his goods. The English people, also, were deeply interested in the war, and were far more willing to suffer in what they regarded as the cause of religion and humanity against the French military tyrant, than the people of the continent, who had taken little interest in the struggle apart from their governments and now began to execrate the name of Napoleon for the losses and sufferings occasioned by the commercial ruin of Europe. In one respect Napoleon succeeded; the English carrying trade was ruined for the time, and neutral commerce left English ships. The Americans, whose position had thus far exempted them from taking any part in the struggle, were the chief gainers. Not long after the Orders in Council the Grenville ministry came to an end. The ministers had proposed to abolish the military disqualifications of Catholics; but the king compelled them to 966 SECOND PERIOD OF TORY mjLE [georgk ill. withdraw the measure, and when they refused to pledge themselves not to reopen the question of disability, he dismissed both min- istry and parliament, and appealed to the country. The result was to entrench the Tories more strongly than ever in Fallot the i , « ,i ^ -, Orenviiie control of the government. One memorable act of reform dates from the Ministry of All the Talents; in March 1807, Great Britain formally abolished the slave trade. The new administration was headed by the inefficient duke of Portland, but included Canning and Castlereagh as Secretaries, neither of whom was lacking in the fire and energy TTie Portland that were needed in the government if England were ministry and -, ^ - -x^-i^n-,-, the vif)Jation to succced. Kussia was now Napoleon s avowed ally: of the riofits of neutrals. Sweden was forced to renounce her neutrality, and Denmark also was apparently to be dragged into the coalition against England. Canning acted promptly. He sent a fleet to Copenhagen to demand the surrender of the Danish fleet under pledge of returning it at the end of the war. When the demand was refused, the bombardment of Copenhagen followed ; the Danish fleet was taken and with it large supplies of naval stores. Canning followed this bold move of September by a still more daring step in November when he issued a second series of Orders in Council, closing to the ships of all nations every port in Europe from which English ships were excluded, and rendering all vessels bound thither liable to seizure, unless they had first touched at a British port. In December Napoleon replied in the *'Milan Decree," which made neutral vessels liable to seizure if they touched at a British port, or submitted to be searched by British cruisers. These orders, which not only threatened the economic ruin of every state in western Europe, but brought the infant American Eepublic at last within the sphere of the war, completed the Continental System. Britain in her desperate effort to retaliate upon her powerful antagonist, had fully matched his tyranny in disregarding the rights of neutral powers. Napoleon's plot to secure naval assistance in the north having been frustrated by the prompt action of Canning, his next move was to force Portugal to turn upon her long time friends and THE PENINSULAK WAR 967 join the Continental System. Portugal refused and the war which followed involved the entire peninsula. The royal family of Portugal fled to Brazil, and Lisbon passed into French thePenin- hands. But Portugal had no sooner been overrun than Napoleon turned upon his allies, the witless Bour- bons of Spain, deposed Charles IV., and made his own brother Joseph king. Heretofore Napoleon had handled the principalities and powers of Europe with the indifference with which a chess player uses Uprising of his picces. Sweeping ancient families from the board or the Spaniards. n. j. i • j iv • • j xt- Beginning parcelling out Kingdoms as the exigencies of the game miar War. demanded. He had, however, utterly ignored one ele- ment in the problem, the nation, and this omission was now to prove his ruin. The Spanish people rose as one man to fight for independence and national honor, and to avenge the wrong which had been done to their national sovereign. England was nominally at war with Spain, but when the news of the uprising against Napoleon reached England, Canning declared, '*Any nation oppos- ing France becomes instantly our ally." Help was sent at once, and on August 1, 1808, Sir Arthur Wellesley with eighteen thou- sand British troops landed at Mondego Bay in Portugal, and within three weeks had won the important battles of Rorica and Vimiero. While Vimiero was in progress Sir Henry Burrard, an old officer of no distinction but Wellesley 's superior in command, landed and assumed direction of the English invasion of Portugal. Against the advice of Wellesley he entered into the Convention of Cintra, by which he allowed Junot, the French general, to retire peaceably into France. The English public were justly indignant when they learned of the escape of the French ; the officers were brought to trial and the command of the peninsular army was turned over to Sir John Moore. Moore was a gallant officer, but in his attempt to cooperate with the Spanish peasants, he got little support, and found himself at last confronted by Napoleon himself with an army of two hundred thousand men. He made a skillful retreat of two hundred and fifty miles to Corunna on the coast, and at last got his little army safely out of the country, though at the cost of his own life. He was buried on the ramparts of Corunna. 968 SECOND PERIOD OF TORY RULE [gborgk ill. Napoleon had left Soult to pursue Moore and end what he con- temptuously called "the war of monks and peasants," while he himself turned to meet a new rising of the Austrians. of^wagram "^^^ Austrians lookcd to England to make a diversion in cherm,^i809. ^^^^^ favor by attacking Antwerp. But before the expe- dition had left England, Napoleon had overwhelmed the Austrians at Wagram, and when at last the English army, forty thousand strong, landed in Holland, they were sacrificed to the stupid incompetency of their commander, the earl of Chatham, Pitt's elder brother, who left fifteen thousand men to die in the fever haunted marshes of the island of Walcheren. Wellesley, in the meanwhile, had returned to command in the Peninsula. In July 1809 after two days' fighting, he won a com- Thevnth- V^^^^ victory over the French at Talavera, for which he RStafrom ^^^ Created Viscount Wellington. His losses, how- nerSaisys- ^^^^j ^^^^ ^0 serious that he was compelled to retire to tern. Portugal before the advance of fresh troops under Soult. The failure of England to make the promised diversion left Austria at the mercy of Napoleon, and in October, 1809, she was compelled to accept the humiliating Treaty of Vienna, and see her territories still further partitioned among France and her allies. Yet, although the half-hearted support of Britain had done little for Austria, her example had stimulated the rising spirit of patriotism among the Germans ; while the very treaty which marks the depths of Austria's humiliation, was the means ulti- mately of alienating Russia and throwing her influence against Napoleon. In December 1810, Alexander withdrew from Napoleon's commercial system, which had proved ruinous to Russian trade, opened his harbors to neutral vessels, and imposed duties on many French products. Neither Russia nor France was in haste for war, but both countries saw that war was unavoidable and continued making vast preparations during the year 1811. In Portugal Wellington was still living up to his reputation as the * 'hooked nose beggar that licks the French," a title which had been given him after Talavera by his admiring soldiers. In Sep- tember 1810, Massena, who stood highest in military reputation 1810-1812] THE LINES OF TOKRES VEDRAS 969 among all Napoleon's marshals, entered Portugal with seventy thousand men, only to be driven out again with a loss of thirty thousand men. This triumph Wellington owed largely to his fore- thought in shutting off Lisbon from the rest of Por- tugal by a double line of impregnable barriers which extended from the Tagus to the sea, known as the Lines of Torres Vedras. He had also systematically wasted the outlying country from which the enemy must draw their support. As the French retired Wellington advanced, only to be confronted by the The ''Lines f Torn ''edras. of Torres •J^ Peninsular Campaigns of WELLESLEY ^ _^ approach of another French army from Spain under Sonlt, and compelled once more to retire within his lines. Thus Wellington and Napoleon's marshals wrestled back and forth over the desolate peninsula during the year 1811. Fortresses were taken and retaken; the assault of the British on Badajoz in April 1812, stands out almost alone in the annals of war for the fury of the attack and the desperation of the resistance. 970 SECOND PEEIOD OF TORY RULE [gkoegeIIL While Wellington was thus sustaining the honor of Britain in the Peninsula, the cabinet became the scene of disgraceful quarrel- ing between Canning and Castlereagh , which in 1809 England^ ended in a duel and the resignation of both ministers. The same month Portland, also, retired on account of failing health, and Spencer Perceval, '*an industrious mediocrity of the narrowest type," became Prime Minister. In 1810 George III. celebrated his ''Jubilee." Immediately after he succumbed to the malady which had haunted him since 1788, and which now virtually became permanent for the rest of his life. In February 1811 parliament coiif erred on the Prince of Wales the regency with powers restricted as in 1788, but the next year in the prolonged illness of the king, the restrictions were removed. In May 1812 Perceval was assassinated in the lobby of the Commons by a mer- chant named Bellingham, a poor madman, who had lost his wits in consequence of misfortunes which had come upon him as a result of the war. It was hoped in some quarters that the Whigs might return to power now that George III. 's reign had virtually ended, but the Whigs were pledged to Catholic Emancipation, and for this the country was not yet ready. The Tory ministry, therefore, was reorganized under Robert Jenkinson, Lord Liver- pool; Castlereagh was placed in charge of the Foreign Office, and Sidmouth, of the Home Office. One of Castlereagh 's first acts was to procure the repeal of Canning's Orders in Council which had added the United States to the enemies of England. The close of the American The second Eevolution had by no means ended the bitter feeling war imth the J o ^Sies which existed between England and America. The mother country had grudgingly recognized the new Kepublic in the Treaty of Amity and Commerce of 1794. The continental struggle, moreover, had raised many new points of dispute, and the old bitterness revived. The orders and decrees of Great Britain and France were met by Jefferson's embargo pol- icy, which accomplished little save the ruin of American merchants. Under Madison's administration a more vigorous policy was urged by Calhoun, Clay, and Crawford, the young and enthusiastic lead- ers of a war party. The act known as .''Macon's Bill No. 2" pro- a, Y N , -^s- While Wer- 1812-1815] THE AMERICAN WAR OF 1812 971 vided that if either Great Britain or France should revoke its orders or decrees the United States would prohibit trade with the other. Napoleon was quick to see his opportunity and by an apparent fulfillment of the conditions of the act induced the United States to revive the nonimportation act against Great Britain. It was this new danger, the possibility of a junction between Napoleon and the United States and the consequent ruin of English industry, that hastened Castlereagh's action. But it was already too late. On the 18th of June, five days after the repeal of the Orders in Council, the United States declared war against Great Britain. In the campaigns of the two years which followed there was little to be proud of either in the American invasions of Canada or in the British raid on Washington. But on the Great Lakes and at sea the young American navy won some brilliant victories over lier mature rival, while at New Orleans on January 8, 1815, Jackson retrieved the faults of incapable military leaders by defeating the veterans of the Peninsular War. Peace, which had- already been made at Ghent, December 24, 1814, settled none of the questions which had occasioned the war, but in the changed conditions which followed Waterloo, they faded rapidly into insignificance. While America was thus fighting Napoleon's battles in the western hemisphere, he had already entered upon the fatal con- test with Russia. In the late spring of 1812 he massed Campaign, four hundred and fiftv thousand men on the Russian 1812 " frontier, and in Jiine crossed the Niemen. Austria and Prussia had sent their contingents, and the neighboring countries were swept bare in order to furnish supplies. Alexan- der fully understood the defensive strength of Russia, and quietly retired as the French advanced, knowing that every day's march into his territories must increase the difficulties of feeding the vast host which followed Napoleon. In early September Alexan- der yielded to the clamors of the Russians sufficiently to risk a battle at Borodino, in which he lost thirty thousand men; yet although the French losses were still greater, he failed to arrest the tide of invasion and continued his withdrawal towards Mos- cow. On the 14th of September Napoleon entered the Holy City, 972 SECOND PERIOD OF TORY RULE [gkorge ill. only to find it silent and deserted. Five days later it was swept by fire, probably the work of the Eussians. Napoleon could ad- vance no farther; the Czar showed no intention of proposing peace, and on October 19, the French began the fatal retreat. On November 6, the Russian winter set in with intense cold, blind- ing storms, and heavy snows. When Napoleon reached the Niemen on December 13, only a sad and shattered remnant of the magnificent army that had crossed in June remained. Napoleon, the invincible, ' had been beaten at last, not by the Eussians, but by Eussia. At the border Napoleon was met by reinforcements and turned again to strike his foes, but the spell of Napoleon's name had been broken and everywhere the friends of liberty took The Fourth coaiitum, fresh heart. In February the Treaty of Kalisch, which placed Prussia by the side of Eussia and Sweden, inaugurated a fourth coalition. In June Britain and Austria joined, and before the end of the year most of the German states had risen to take their share in the glorious ''War of Liberation." In August, in a series of battles fought around Dresden, Napoleon won his last victory on German soil. Yet, though he managed to hold his foes at bay for a little longer, he failed utterly to break the iron ring which was closing about him. At Leipsic, in a three days' battle, October 16-18, he was fairly overwhelmed by the numbers which his enemies poured upon him, and compelled to resume his retreat toward the Ehine. At Frankfort he refused an offer of peace, and early in January 1814 the allies crossed the Ehine. At the same time Wellington was slowly fighting his way through the Pyrenees, and early in the year entered France from the south. In March the allies approached Paris; a few days later Napoleon abdicated and retired to the island of Elba, while the Bourbons were once more restored to the French throne. Napoleon was now beaten. The great shadow which had so long hung over Europe was dispelled. It remained for the allies The Fifth ^^ meet and undo his work. Accordingly in Septem- ^1814 15^^^' ber, a congress of the powers met at Vienna. But the vaiaTaf' commissioners had hardly begun their work, when Waterloo. Europe was startled from its dream of peace by the news that Napoleon had landed in France, that the Second 1815] WATERLOO 973 Bourbon Monarchy had been swept away, and that Napoleon was again Emperor of the French. The ambassadors of the four great powers at Vienna, Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, at once abandoned their diplomatic quarreling to form a fifth coalition in order to destroy the common enemy before he could gather the strength of France. Napoleon's veterans rallied to his support and in a few weeks he had gathered a powerful army and was marching toward the Belgian border. He hoped by the rapidity of his movements to crush his many foes in detail before they could concentrate their strength. On June 16 he beat the Prussian Bliicher at Ligny before he had time to unite with the mixed Anglo-Belgian army with which Wellington held the road to Brussels. On the 18th Napoleon advanced to meet Wellington who had taken up a strong position on the slope of Mont St. Jean near Waterloo. For seven hours the **Iron Duke" dog- gedly held his position, while Napoleon hurled his cavalry and infantry upon the British squares. After the battle of the 16th 974 SECOND PERIOD OF TORY RULE [geobge III. Napoleon had sent Grouchy after Bliicher to keep the Prussians from reforming, but Grouchy had failed to execute his mission, and towards evening of the 18th Wellington from his beset position on Mont St. Jean saw the long dark line of the Prussians breaking from the woods on his left. With a shout the English squares, which had stood on the defensive during that long terrible day, advanced upon their foes. Napoleon's weary troops could not withstand the fresh masses tliat were now hurled upon them. The Old Guard was ordered into action; for a moment the tide of battle was stayed; but their splendid discipline, their matchless courage, availed nothing before the odds which now confronted them. In a few moments the last army of Napoleon was a wild mob of panic- smitten fugitives, choking the roads and thronging the ravines which led from the battlefield. Napoleon fled to Paris, abdicated a second time, and then surrendered himself to the commander of the British warship Bellerophon. He was finally sent to the lonely rock off the coast of Africa, where he died in 1821. Louis XVIII. was again brought back, and France, beside paying a war indemnity of £28,000,000, was compelled to support an army of occupation for five years. Her territories were reduced to the old lines which had prevailed before the begin- ning of the war of 1792. Naples, also, was restored to its Bourbon kings. Holland and the old Austrian Netherlands were raised into a kingdom under the House of Orange. The princes of Germany were united into a German Confederation. The king of Sardinia received Genoa and Upper Savoy. Great Britain restored Java to the Dutch but retained Heligoland, Tobago, St. Lucia, Ceylon, and Cape Colony, the beginning of her power in South Africa. Her hold in the Mediterranean was secured by the retention of Malta and by the inauguration of a protectorate over the Ionian Islands. Thus ended at last the Second Hundred Years' War between England and France. Napoleon had been compelled to take up the old struggle with the rising power of Great Britain which Louis XIV. had begun in 1689, and had failed for the same reason that Louis had failed. Pitt had been forced to resume the work of William and Marlborough and had succeeded as they had succeeded, and for the same reason. The national policy of 1689-1815] THE SECOND HUNDRED .YEARS' WAR 975 France had always been one of concentration and suppression. She had developed a vast centralized state, all powerful on the Thereiatimi ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^ eighteenth century, apparently with- unni wars' ^^^ a peer in Europe. But her people had not developed «Je of tS^ their resources correspondingly ; they had not learned l^nturv^^ to help themselves. Their poverty presented a pitiful contrast with the luxury, the pomp, the magnificence, of the court of their Bourbon kings. England on the other hand had followed a very different policy. She was shut off from expansion at home, but the sea lay open to her. She had built up her navy and steadily extended her commercial activities into new lands; and while she had distributed political power among her people, she had sent forth her excess population to establish new Eng- lands beyond the seas. Her people, therefore, unlike the great mass of the French, were growing ever more resourceful, energetic, and capable of self-help. Hence, in all the early stages of the long struggle England had been successful, driving France out of India and North America, and setting barriers to French ambition at home. But at the end of the century, after a hundred years of bitter conflict, two events threatened to undo all that had been done and restore again the supremacy of France in Europe; the one was the American Revolution, which cutoff half the territory of the British Empire and for the moment obscured the prestige which had been won by a hundred years of successful war; the other was the French Eevolntion, which aroused the French from the sleep of centuries, and threatened to bring them at a single bound alongside of the English. But France unfortunately for herself could not reorganize her navy as readily as she could reorganize her army, and on the seas England easily maintained her position. Moreover, even on the land, it was impossible for the "French people to sustain for a long period the tremendous exertion which had won their first battles, and when the hectic energy of the great uprising had at last spent itself, France, doubly exhausted, sank into nerveless apathy. The end came ; France was again remanded to her old boundaries, and the supremacy of England as the great maritime and commercial power of the world was definitely secured. CHAPTER YII THE EASTERN QUESTION AND THE FIRST ERA OF REFORM GEORGE III., 1815-1820 GEORGE IV., 1820-1830 WILLIAM IV., 1830-1837 VICTORIA, 1837-1841 During the generation which preceded Waterloo English history had centered more and more in the great continental straggle. All questions of domestic reform, moral or political, Waterloo (m ^^^ heen tabled by common consent and the energies Uc&nioru' ^^ ^^^^ nation been concentrated upon the one all engrossing topic, — the defeat of France and the over- throw of Napoleon. But at Waterloo the spell was broken ; liber- alism, which had come to be regarded as unpatriotic, almost treason,' began again to raise its head, and the people of Great Britain turned once more to consider the reforms which the French Revolution had arrested. The first signs of reaction appeared soon after Waterloo, as soon as the nation began to adjust itself to the new conditions created by the peace. If the war had arrested English dStrS^ economic life in some directions, it had abnormally ^netwT^ stimulated it in others. The productive activities of a great part of Europe had been paralyzed by the long struggle, and in spite of the Napoleonic decrees the demand for English goods and especially for English food-stuffs had continued to increase. The rising prices of grain had led many an English landlord to plough up pastures and turn into cultivation areas from which under ordinary conditions the yield would not be sufficient to pay the cost. With the dawn of peace, this unusual stimulus was lost; the continental armies were broken up and absorbed once more in the manifold callings of peace; Europe began again to provide for her wants herself, and England was left with millions of capital invested in enterprises that were no longer remunerative. Stocks fell; values began to shrink ; concerns shut 976 1815-1817] THE CORK LAW 911 down, and stagnation followed. Thousands were thrown out of work; other thousands who had been employed in the numerous activities more directly connected with the war, were thrown back upon England without means and without employment. The decline in the demand for grain and the inevitable shrink- age in land values had not been unforeseen, and in 1815 parliament, where the influence of the landlords was always strong, Law'U)f78i5 ^^^^ promptly passed a '*Corn Law," by which the importation of foreign-grown grain was prohibited whenever the price of British wheat should fall below eighty shill- ings a quarter. When the price of British-grown wheat should fall below sixty-seven shillings a quarter, the importation of colonial wheat also was prohibited. This of course was class legislation of a most reprehensible kind; instead of forestalling the approaching distress parliament had merely shifted the burden of the "hard times" from the shoulders of those who were most able to bear it, the landlords, to the shoulders of those who were least able, the day laborers and the factory hands. A general failure of the crops in 181 G added greatly to the accumulating distress of the people. At eighty shillings, foreign- grown grain was admitted, but the price of wheat troubles Continued to rise until in 1817 it reached the almost pro- hibitive figure of ninety-six shillings a quarter. After two years of uncertain employment and low wages, in thousands of cases of no employment at all, the English laborer at last saw himself confronted with a bread famine. He could not, like the French peasant in the days of the great Louis, lie down and die ; and so he roused himself to mend matters, but in a blind, aimless way. Mobs of wretched farm hands burned the hoarded grain of the farmer ; other mobs of factory workers turned upon the better favored establishments, smashing the newly devised labor-saving machines which were regarded as responsible for the troubles of the laborer, and burning the plants. Monster meetings, also, were held at various places; fiery agitators incited the people against the government and the proprietary classes, and wild schemes were proposed of marching upon London and compelling parliament to redress the wrongs of the people. 978 THE FIRST ERA OF REFORM [georokUI. The old conservative ministry, which since 1812 had been directed by Robert Jenkinson, Lord Liverpool, was still in power. The ministers, who had not vet passed out from under Thereforms . ,, ^ . . . • . i -^i ^i of Tories the spell 01 the ffrim memories associated with the cmd Whins. French Eevolution, at first naturally thought only of repression. Meetings of "radicals" were branded as "seditious;" magistrates were instructed to arrest all persons accused of libel- ous publications, and in March 1817 the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended. Yet the party in power could not close their ears altogether to the cry of the people; the ministers soon saw that something more than simple repression was needed and in a char- acteristic Tory fashion set to work. In 1817 'they secured the removal of the disability which forbade Catholics and noncon- forming Protestants to hold commissions in the army; in 1818 they appropriated £1,000,000 to the building of new churches; in 1819 they secured a bill which provided for the resumption of specie payment in 1822. The Whigs with somewhat clearer insight into the causes of existing disorders directed their efforts to the reduction of the war burdens, which still rested heavily upon the necks of the middle and lower classes. In 1816 Brougham led a movement to compel the government to abandon the income tax which had been greatly increased as a war measure, but which the ministry wished to continue. The Whigs also attacked the repressive measures by which the ministry had sought to check the dissemination of political literature. The people quickly responded to these signs of sympathy among the Whig leaders, and in the general election of 1818 the Whigs could show consider- able gains in the counties and in boroughs such as London and Westminster, where the popular element had more direct control of the franchise. The more radical elements outside of parliament, however, were not satisfied with the slow pace of the regular Whig leaders. Pariiamen- ^^^ ^^ clear vision, like William Cobbett, the editor of ^itlrioo^' ^^^ WeeUy Political Register, saw that under the 1819. existing restricted franchise, it was useless to talk of relief,, and sought to direct the present agitation toward securing parliamentary reform. Monster meetings were called 1820] THE SIX ACTS 979 in the unrepresented towns and the people were encouraged to elect what were called "Legislatorial Attorneys and Representa- tives," who were to demand seats in parliament in the name of their constituents. The movement accomplished little more than to bring into prominence again the anomalies of the existing franchise. An unfortunate affair at Manchester, where some fifty- thousand people who had gathered in St. Peter's fields were stampeded by the military,^ created widespread indignation and greatly quickened the awakening sympathies of the nation with the laboring classes. The government, however, felt justified in adopting still more vigorous measures of repression, and in December Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary, secured the pas- sage of the *'Six Acts," the most important of which ^Lcte'^^ provided that public meetings could be held only after six days' notice had been given to the resident Justice of the Peace and that none but freeholders or residents might attend under penalty of fine or imprisonment. Any meeting at which the people should be incited to hatred, or contempt of the king's person, or of the government, or of the constitution, was declared unlawful ; justices were given special powers in dispersing such meetings or arresting the speakers, and were not to be held responsible for the results of any violence which they might see fit to use. It was also forbidden under penalty of two years' imprisonment to attend such a meeting with arms, flags, banners, or other emblems calculated to rouse the people. Organizations were forbidden to practice military drilling; magistrates were empowered to search for arms and seize them wherever found. In the midst of the turmoil poor old George III., now in his eighty-second year, passed away, and his son, the fourth of the Georges, who as regent had been virtually king since George III., 1812, Succeeded to the full honors of royalty. The Ge(rrgeiv., ncw king was already heartily detested by the greater part of his people. He had spent his youth in dis- gusting dissipation; in 1795 he had married Caroline of Brunswick * Many of the people were injured in the crush; some were killed. The affair was called the massacre of "Peterloo," in imitation of "Water- loo." 980 THE FIRST ERA OF REFORM [george IV. with the idea of turning his marriage to the payment of personal debts which he had accumulated to the amount of £800,000. No woman of spirit, however, could long endure such an utterly vic- ious character as the Prince of Wales, and soon after the birth of a daughter, the two had permanently separated. The public, for the most part, took the queen's side, and the unsuccessful efforts of the king to blacken her reputation sufficiently to induce parliament to grant him a divorce, added not a little to the increasing burden of his unpopularity. She died soon after the coronation in which her husband had denied her a part, wearied and broken by the struggle to secure a recognition that was rightfully hers. The king at the time was on a royal exhibition tour to Dublin. When he heard that death had been kinder to him than his parliament, in his delight he got roaring drunk on "goose pie and whiskey;" when he arrived at Dublin he had to be helped to his lodgings. George had other evidences of the unpopularity of himself and his Tory ministry, even more disquieting than the mourning multitude that followed his dishonored wife to her the govern- grave. He had hardly begun his reign when Sidmouth unearthed a plot to murder the whole Tory ministry, fire the barracks, and raid the Bank and the Tower. Some six of the leaders were tried and executed in February. In April another radical plot was also foiled at Glasgow, where the revo- lutionists were taken with arms in their hands, and blood was shed. These affairs proved to the men who were responsible for the government the seriousness of the rumblings which they heard beneath their feet, and satisfied them that they could Ized ^Toru^^ never allay the prevalent discontent by building churches SJiSS' ^^ enforcing the Six Acts. In 1821, therefore, some important changes were begun in the ministry. Sid- mouth, the Home Secretary, whose name had been identified with the Six Acts, gave way to Robert Peel, the only man among the old Tories with practical sense and clear intelligence sufficient to grasp the full meaning of present conditions. Canning, who also belonged to the liberal wing of the Tories but had left the ministry rather than mix himself up with the shameful attack of the king upon 1815-1822] THE HOLY ALLIANCE 981 Queen Caroline, was sought; but the most that the king would give him was the Governor-Generalship of India. But fortunately just as he was about to start for India, the suicide of Castlereagh, now Lord Londonderry, the old manager of the Commons, forced the king to turn to the only other Tory who could manage the House, and Canning once more entered the ministry as Secretary for Foreign Affairs and leader of the Commons. Huskisson became President of the Board of Trade; Frederick Robinson, known as *' Prosperity Robinson," because, of his policy of always talking up prosperity, became Chancellor of the Exchequer ; and Henry Temple, better known as Lord Palmerston, became Secre- tary at War. Liverpool remained nominally Prime Minister; but he was entirely overshadowed by the influence of Canning, whose liberal tendencies not only gave him the support of those Tories who still called Pitt their leader, but also of the moderate Whigs, with whom in all questions except the one of parliamentary reform, Canning virtually stood upon common ground. These changes in the ministry gave the Liverpool administration and the Tory party a new lease of life, and under the wise leadership of Canning, Peel, and Huskisson, entirely reversed the older reactionary policy of Liverpool, abroad withdrawing England from the support of the repressive policy which the powers had formally adopted, at home reopening the question of Catholic Emancipation, freeing trade from the foolish restrictions which class interests had thrown around it, and completely reforming the whole spirit of English criminal law. After the second fall of Napoleon the work of the Congress of Vienna was resumed at Paris, and Europe was finally adjusted to the new conditions. Italy was turned over to its petty and the Holy despots ; Milan and Venice were sriven to Austria whose A.llia/nce. help was necessary to keep the newly restored crowns upon the unsteady heads of the Italian monarchs. In GermLiny, also, some important changes were made, although it was not possible to restore the old empire or the medieval institutions which Napoleon had swept away. Hanover was given back to the English king; and Prussia in compensation, was allowed to extend in the region of the lower Rhine. The German States were united 982 THE FIRST ERA OF REFORM [GEOBaE IV. into a loose confederation which included both Prussia and Aus- tria with a capital at Frankfurt. The Grand Duchy of Warsaw was assigned to the Czar under the promise of a constitution. Holland and Belgium were united into the kingdom of the Nether- lands with the Prince of Orange for king. Subsequently the sover- eigns of Eussia, Austria, and Prussia, had invited the other princes of Europe to join them in the famous *'Holy Alliance" for the pur- pose of exercising a sort of protectorate over the domestic affairs of the weaker states and assuriag the recognition of "Christian principles" in the government of Europe. But unfortunately, with Metternich, the reactionary minister of Austria, for high priest, the new princely cult under the specious cant of enforcing Christian principles had become simply a league of the despotic governments of Europe against the liberal tendencies of the new nationalism which had been born of the Napoleonic Wars. Cas- tlereagh had refused to enter the Alliance, but assured Metternich and Nesselrode, the Kussian minister, that England would not interfere with them in carrying oat its purpose. When Canning became Foreign Secretary the Holy Alliance had been working its will in Europe, unchecked for seven years. Fortified by the specious maxim, that with those "whom Canning and God had rendered responsible for power" lay the sole Alliance. right of making changes in the legislation or adminis- tration of states, the leaguing powers had not only stamped out any reappearance of liberalism in their own domin- ions, but had dispatched armies to overthrow the newly established constitutions of Italy and Spain, and were seriously meditating an interference in Portugal, which had imitated the example of Spain in adopting a free constitution, and in the Spanish- Ameri- can colonies, where the people had taken advantage of the dis- tractions of the mother country to declare their independence. Canning at once set his face against the further recognition of the dangerous doctrine of the right of any prince or group of princes to interfere in the domestic concerns of an independent people. The mischief in Italy was already done -^ but he commissioned Wellington to protest at the Congress of Verona against any further interference of the powers in Spain, and when his protest 1821-1829] THE GREEK REVOLT 983 was ignored, he proceeded to recognize the Spanish-American Republics. The death of John VI., the constitutional king of Portugal, gave Canning the opportunity of interfering still more vigorously with the plans of the Holy Alliance. Don Pedro, the eldest UrfS^es^iiT' ^^^ ^^ John and heir to the vacant throne, had put pmugai, himself at the head of a successful movement for estab- laao. lishing the independence of Brazil, and having no vvish to give up his American empire, he assigned the Portuguese crown to his seven year old daughter under the regency of his sister Isabella. Don Miguel, however, a second son of the recent king, under the inspiration of the restored absolutist prince of Spain, began a struggle for the overthrow of the liberal govern- ment in his own interests. On Friday, the 18th of December, news reached Canning of the new turn of affairs in Portugal; and on Tuesday following, *'the troops of England were on their march for embarkation." As a result of this vigorous show of teeth the Spaniards withdrew, and the liberal government of Portugal for the time was saved. The almost contemporary uprising of Greece against Turkish despotism afforded Canning still another opportunity of putting his new foreign policy in force. In Italy and Spain the The Greek object of popular uprisings had been constitutional Revolt, 1821-29. reform ; but in Greece, as in South America, the object had been national independence. Greece, moreover, in a peculiar way appealed to the romantic sentiment of Europe ; her struggle recalled that other heroic struggle of the ancient days when Greece stood almost alone as the outer bulwark of Europe against Asiatic conquest. The Greeks, also, were a Christian people; the Turkish rule was notoriously corrupt and cruel. The contest, moreover, was pitifully unequal ; the Greeks were poor, without organization, without arms, and without a navy. The peculiar formation of their country, the deep indentations from the sea, the narrow isthmus and the many islands, afforded Turkey every possible opportunity to use her ships to the best advantage and concentrate her troops at will, while it prevented any concerted action on the part of the many fragments of the Greek 984 THE FIKST ERA OF REFORM [george IV. people. In their despair the Greeks appealed to Czar Alexander, whose support they might expect by reason of the religious sym- pathy of the Eussians as fellow members of the Greek Church. But Alexander was too deeply committed to the cause of reaction- ary despotism, to heed the cry of his suffering co-religionists, and in heartless words that were inspired by Metternich, replied, "The sovereigns are determined to discountenance rebellion, however and whenever it shows itself." It was impossible, how- ever, to stifle the generous sentiment of the people of Europe. Greek unions were formed; money was freely contributed to the support of the patriots, and individuals hastened to offer their lives and their fortunes to the cause of Greek freedom. Among these was the wayward poet, George Gordon Byron, who forsook a vicious and useless life in Italy to die a hero's death among the fever stricken swamps of Missolonghi. Thomas Cochrane, the soldier of fortune who had retired from defeat and disgrace at home to take part in the Spanish- American wars, also went to Greece to assist her in organizing her infant navy. The English government displayed its sympathy by recognizing the Greeks as belligerents. The death of Alexander in 1825 and the succession of his brother Nicholas T. put a new aspect on the relations of the powers to the affairs of Greece. Nicholas, who had little sym- ofthepow- pathy with his brother's idea of government by '*Chris- Treatyof tian principles," and who saw the possible advantage London, 1827. ^ , . „t^ . . n • .^ . of an extension of Kussian influence in southeastern Europe at the expense of Turkey, eagerly accepted Canning's offer to unite in a joint demand upon Turkey in order to force her to accept mediation. The Sultan, however, while willing to put off the powers by vague promises, had no thought of stopping the progress of his lieutenant, the Egyptian prince Ibrahim Pasha, who was engaged, not in conquering, but in exterminating the popu- lation of the Morea. The powers saw that if Greece were to be saved, something more serious than an offer of mediation must be attempted, and on July 6, 1827, England, Russia, and France entered into the Treaty of London by which they agreed to insist upon an armistice and intervene by force if necessary. A powerful 1828] cannikg's policy 985 allied fleet under the command of the English Admiral Codrington was sent to the coast of Messinia, with the curious instructions to enforce an armistice by cannon shot but "not in a hostile spirit." Codrington persuaded Ibrahim to agree to a truce for twenty days, but it was not so easy to control the wild spirits which the war of extermination had unchained. Cochrane and his band of Greek patriots paid little attention to the armistice, and when Ibrahim heard of the fall of Patras he once more let loose his savage Egyptians upon the Peloponnesus. Codrington acted promptly, and on the 20th of October sailed into the Bay of Navarino, where lay the combined Turkish-Egyptian fleet of ** sixty men of war," carrying twice the armament of the allied squadron. An accident brought on a general action and the Turkish fleet was annihilated. The overwhelming success of Codrington, however, the unexpected thoroughness of his work, was hardly regarded by the western powers with satisfaction. The English ministry, weakened by the recent death of Canning, seemed appalled at the results of its friendly intentions, and the king by the inspiration of Wellington, the new premier, spoke of Navarino as *'a most untoward event." England, in fact, had at last awakened to the possible results of the growth of Kussian influence in the eastern Mediterranean, and the ministers were inclined to forget the justice of the cause of the Greeks, in a rising suspicion of the ulterior motives of Nicholas. England and France, therefore, refused to interfere further, but Eussia had no thought of retiring from the conflict. In August 1829 she dispatched her first army across the Balkans, and in September, in the Treaty of Adrianople, compelled Turkey to grant the independence of Greece. The battle of Navarino was fought on October 20, 1828. Canning had died on August 8. His work, however, was done. He had protected and fostered the rising spirit of Results of ^. ^. ^ ^. ,. , _^,^ 1^ Canning's nationalism on the continent. He had saved Europe from the reactionary influence of the Holy Alliance, which at one time had included every Christian power in Europe except Great Britain and the pope. He had restored Great Britain to her old controlling position in European politics. His 986 THE FIRST ERA OF REFORM [george iv. motives were undoubtedly inspired by English interests, as when by coming to the support of the United States in upholding the Monroe Doctrine, he effectually checked the designs of the Holy Alliance, of Kussia in particular, upon the new world. Yet whatever his motive, the results were sound and lasting ; the open door was not to be again closed to Europe. While Canning had been upholding the cause of liberal ideas abroad, his liberal Tory colleagues were steadily pushing forward the cause of conservative reform at home, doing all Theiiherai that Tories could do to cure the industrial and social ^trnt^rT^^' ills of the era, and still remain Tories. Peel, the able Home Secretary, would not support Canning in his desire to secure Catholic Emancipation ; yet by moderate admin- istration and sensible economic reforms, he did much to allay the existing irritation and prepare the way for a better understand- ing, especially between the middle and lower classes. His influence was particularly felt in the reformation of the criminal laws of England, in which he abolished barbarous punishments and limited the death penalty to serious offenses. Eobinson, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Huskisson, the farsighted President of the Board of Trade, were moving forward in the direction of greater freedom of labor and trade. The incessant irritation which the progress of industrial revolution had caused between capital and labor, had led to the enactment of many unjust laws, by which combinations of workingmen had been forbidden and the migration of the laborer to seek work or better wages ham- pered. In 1824 many of these laws were repealed. In 1825 the right of labor to organize in self-defense was recognized in a law which attempted to distinguish between legal and illegal com- binations. Huskisson in particular was seeking to realize Pitt's dream of a free commercial policy for England. In 1823 he got through his **Eeciprocity of Duties Bill" by which equality of trade was offered to the ships of all nations who would grant the same to Great Britain. The act greatly lessened the restraining influence of the old Navigation Acts, which were still in force, and opened the way for a wider application of the doctrine of free trade. 1823-1827] END OF LIVERPOOL MINISTRY 987 The liberal sympathies of the later Liverpool ministry are also to be seen in its attitude toward the old question of slavery. Men began to see that economically slavery was a mistake. The Liver- In 1823 an attempt was made to prevent the floffginff pooi miniHtm do o and shivery, of women. The West Indian planters protested and talked wildly of independence. Riots followed in Barbadoes and other places. John Smith, a Congregational mis- sionary and a friend of the negroes, was imprisoned and left to die in jail; the planters sent home a petition that no new missionaries be sent out, and protested against any attempt to educate the negroes. The result of the agitation was greatly to increase aboli- tion sentiment in England; it gave a new life to the movement that lesulted ten years later in the abolition of slavery throughout the colonies of the British Empire. The years 1824 and 1825 saw a great revival of prosperity. But unfortunately the hopefulness of trade soon outran discretion. Overeager investors rushed into speculations which con- ^mercia (ji^iQjjg ^\^ j^q^ justify, and it was not long before the crash came. Many banks failed, and the renewed dis- tress of the poor brought on another series of riots and attempts at breaking up the machinery of which the laboring classes were ever jealous. The harvest of 1826, also, proved to be a failure, and added greatly to the distress of the poor, in so much that the gov- ernment seriously contemplated the suspension of the corn laws. In February 1827 ill health had compelled Liverpool to retire, and Canning had continued the administration ''on the lines of enlightened Toryism" until his own death in the fol- (jcififiino Ooderich, and lowing Auffust. The kiuff then first tried "Prosperity Wellington, ^ .. ^ ,? T^r^i-i. i. -i i_i Prime Kobinson,' now Lord Goderich, whose nicknames had apparently kept pace with his titles, and who was now known as "Goody Goderich." Goderich, however, was a weak man and proved utterly unable to manage the conflicting elements of his cabinet. In January the king turned to a very different man, and invited Wellington to form a ministry. Wellington and Peel had broken with Canning upon the question of Catholic Emancipation, but the new ministry could not do without the support of the Canning Tories. Canning's old friends, therefore, 988 THE FIRST ERA OF REFORM [georgk IV. Huskisson, Palmerston, Grant, and Lamb, remained in possession of their offices, and the question of Catholic Emancipation was left open for each minister to consider as he saw fit. The new ministry thus started out tacitly committed to the liberal policy of Canning. But Wellington had really little sym- pathy with Canning's position and had no idea of Spiiiinthe dropping into the place of nonentity that Liverpool 1828. ' had held so long. When, therefore, Huskisson made the statement at Liverpool that "he had positive pledges that His Grace would tread in all respects in the footsteps of Mr. Canning," the duke angrily resented the assumption of his subordinate to outline his policy for him. The opening breach in the Tory ranks was still further aided in February by the success- ful attempt of Lord John Eussell to push through the Commons a proposal to repeal the old Test and Corporation Acts. The Can- ningites voted against their colleagues, and Peel saved the minis- try only by bringing forward as a compromise, a modified form of the Test Act, which prescribed instead of the old test, a simple declaration in which the maker promised ''on the faith of a Chris- tian, never to injure or subvert the Established Church." The principle implied in the repeal was thus recognized; and Dissen- ters, after a struggle of one hundred and fifty years were at last accorded the legal right to hold civil office. The Tory ministry had been saved by the tact of Peel, but even his ingenuity could not devise compromises enough to hold such ill-assorted elements together when they met the grand tSry^B^m ^^^^ ^^ Parliamentary Keform. The general election of 1826 had been marked by shamefully corrupt methods, the most flagrant offenders being the boroughs of Penryn and East Retford. In the latter each elector was accus- tomed to receive forty guineas, besides having free access ''for refreshment" to public houses kept open by the candidates. At Penryn the candidates had attempted to abate the nuisance by directing "the town crier to declare that the practice previously resorted to of making the electors 'comfortable' would be discon- tinued." But the electors became sulky and refused to vote at all, unless they could have their accustomed "comforts." The 1827-1829] CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 989 liberals in parliament took the matter up, and in 1827 and 1828 bills were presented which proposed to disfranchise East Retford and Penryn altogether and give their seats to Manchester and Birmingham. The Penryn Bill passed the Commons but was thrown out by the Lords. On the East Retford Bill the Can- ningites took a determined stand against Wellington and Peel, and Huskisson at once put his resignation in the hands of his chief. His friends, Palmerston, Lamb, Grant, and Dudley, fol- lowed him. Wellington was thus left alone with Peel to organize his ministry upon purely high Tory lines. Wellington was now supreme in his ministry and he ruled it as he had ruled his aides on the battlefield. "The duke is king of England," declared George IV. But supreme as the Catholic duke might be at his Council Board, he could not control tionS?' the elements of reform that were gathering without. The Act of Lord Russell, which had relieved Dissenters from the annoyance of the Test Act, naturally suggested the relief of the other wing of the Christian community, who since the days of the early Stuarts had suffered under still more grievous laws ; and in May, Francis Burdett offered a measure for the relief of Catholics. The bill succeeded in the Commons, but failed in the Lords. It was impossible, however, to let the matter rest here. In 1823 Daniel 0' Council had organized the "Catholic Association" for the purpose of securing the Emancipation of Catholic Ireland. In 1825 the association had been suppressed. O'Connell, however, had managed to hold the members together, and when, three years later, the prohibition was removed, the influence of the association became stronger than ever, and O'Connell seized the first opportunity of showing the government its strength. In 1828 Fitzgerald, a member from County Clare, was appointed President of the Board of Trade and in accordance with the law, had to vacate his seat and stand again for reelection. O'Connell, however, chose to stand for the vacant seat and was returned by a triumphant majority. But O'Connell was a Catholic and could not legally sit in parliament. Here then was a serious issue presented, and the government had to choose between putting Ireland under martial law or removing the cause 990 THE FIRST ERA OF REFORM [v/illiam IV. of discontent. With the growing popularity of the idea of Catho- lic Emancipation in England, with Whigs and Canningites united to support it, Wellington and Peel determined to make a virtue of necessity and lead their party in undertaking the necessary reform. As the measure came from the hands of Peel it substi- tuted for the old oaths of supremacy, allegiance, and abjuration, a new form, which a Catholic might take without doing violence to his conscience, admitting him to membership in corporations, and to all political offices except those of Regent, Lord Chancellor in England or Ireland, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. As a conservative safe guard the' qualification of an elector in Ireland was raised from forty shillings to ten pounds. The bill readily passed the Commons, but was carried through the Lords only by the influence of Wellington.^ Wellington was now to suffer the fate of a leader who in drift- ing from old party moorings severs himself from old friends but does not go far enough to win new friends. The high Fall of the Tories could not forgive him for his support of Catho- ministnj- ^ ^^^ Emancipation ; the Canningites were offended by his treatment of Huskisson, and the Whigs disliked his reversal of Canning's foreign policy in allowing Don Miguel to a(5complish his scheme of usurpation in Portugal. The death of George IV. in June 1830 and the succession of his popular brother, as William IV., whose democratic sympathies were well known, also encouraged the gathering forces of reform. In July Charles X., the last of the Bourbons, was driven from France, and a liberal government instituted in the name of the constitutional king, Louis Philippe. The orderliness and moderation of the new French revolution, in snch marked contrast with the wild excesses of the first revolution, did much to disarm the suspicions of the conservative classes of reformatory measures, while the distress of the poorer classes of the great manufacturing districts called renewed attention to the inconsistencies of the English representa- tive system. When, therefore, in the autumn of 1830, at the opening of the first parliament of William IV., in response to a motion of Lord Grey, Wellington reasserted his opposition to * Lee Source Book, pp. 497-513. 1830] PARLIAMENTARY REFORM 991 reform, and his confidence in the existing legislative system, it was understood that the fall of the Wellington ministry was at hand. Before the end of the following month the resignations were received. Lord Charles Grey, the veteran Whig champion of parliamen- tary reform, who had presented his first reform measure thirty- seven years before, was summoned to form a ministry. uirurS^m Huskisson had been recently killed in an accident at the Hom^f^im ^V^^^^S ^^ t^^^ Manchester and Liverpool railway, but the other Canning! tes, Goderich, Palmerston, and Lamb, now Viscount Melbourne, were invited to places as a mat- ter of course, while the Whigs were represented by Althorp, Rus- sell, and Brougham. The ministry, therefore, to all intents was not only a W^hig ministry, but was pledged to the cause of parlia- mentary reform, and Russell was instructed at once to prepare a sketch for a proper bill. On March 1, 1831 the bill was presented to parliament; it was supported, as Grey declared, by '*the unani- mous consent of the whole government." It proposed to disfran- chise sixty English boroughs, deprive forty-seven others of one member each, and distribute among the larger towns and counties the seats that should be gained . It proposed, also, to allow hold- ers of houses of £10 a year rental value to elect to parliament in place of the corporations which had heretofore enjoyed the exclusive franchise in most English towns. Comprehensive^as the bill was, however, it did not satisfy the extreme radicals who were already raising a cry for manhood suffrage; the Tories received it with shouts of derision. On the 21st of March, in a House in which 603 members voted, the bill was saved on the second read- ing by one vote, only to be lost in the committee. The ministry, however, was strong in the support of the good natured, simple- hearted, and affable king, who was deeply touched by the suffer- ings of his people and really wanted to have something done. It was strong, also, in the support of the counties and of those boroughs where the more democratic franchise prevailed. The opposition was naturally entrenched in the rotten boroughs which were fighting for life; some of which, as Old Sarum or Gatton, had lost their ancient population altogether, yet continued to 992 THE FIRST ERA OF REFORM [william iv. send representatives to parliament. The ministry determined to appeal to the country, and on April 22 the king prorogued parlia- ment as the first step towards dissolution. As the ministry had foreseen it swept the counties and larger boroughs ; a second bill was speedily brought forward, and in spite of long and tedious tactics of delay on the part of the ^^rSorm t)pposition, passcd the Commons by a vote of three Lords^Vsi ^^^nd^^d and forty- five to two hundred and thirty-six. The attitude of the Lords was still doubtful ; their con- servative sympathies, however, were known, and to fortify the popular cause sixteen new peers had been created in hope of diminishing the hostile majority. The bishops, however, almost to a man were opposed to any change in the existing order, and when the vote was taken, of the forty-one votes of the hostile majority, twenty-one were from the church. In the meanwhile the agitation of the public had continued to increase in extent and violence. The fashion of forming ''Political Unions," or societies, in which the middle and lower Sin ^ a!r^^' c^^sses leagued for the agitation of reform, had extended liamentaiu ^0 all the greater towns ; fervid orators began to talk of using physical force, and vague hints were thrown out of the possibility of raising armies. At Birmingham on October 3 the people declared that they would refuse to pay taxes if the bill were thrown out by the Lords. In Bristol an infuriated mob attacked the carriage of the Tory Justice Wetheral, who had come to the city to hold the assizes, and gave further evidence of the popular displeasure by destroying the bishop's palace, the Custom House, and the Excise Office. The military tried to dis- perse the mob, and in the struggle twelve people were killed and nearly a hundred wounded; the commandant, Colonel Brereton, committed suicide. In November an attempt was made to unite the many political unions by organizing at London a "National Union" and inviting all the individual unions to send up deputies. But even the Whig government now became alarmed and warned the leaders to desist. In December parliament resumed its sitting; the Commons at once began upon a third bill, and pushed it through the 1822] THE REFORM BILL CARRIED 993 preliminary stages before the Christmas holidays. It reached the third reading on March 23 and in April appeared in the Lords. Here the fifi;ht was carried on with renewed bill in me Ditterncss. Lord Grey fought for the measure to which he had given his life, devoting to the struggle all the powers of that "lofty and animated eloquence" of which he was such a master. Wellington on the other hand rallied against it all the conservative sympathies of the aristocracy ; even the king seemed to waver. Yet in the face of the continued oppo- sition the courage of the Lords was not equal to the strain, and on April 14 allowed the bill to pass the second reading by a majority of nine votes. The victory, however, was not yet won. On May 7 Lord Lyndhurst proposed to postpone the disfranchising of the small boroughs, and carried his point by a majority large enough to threaten the final success of the bill. Beyond the walls of parliament the agitation increased with each lengthening moment of suspense. A gathering of Unions was held at Birmingham in which it was estimated that miipSseT' ^^® hundred and fifty thousand people were present. June4%h "^^^^ ^^^^ concourse was wrought up to the point of violence ; men talked freely of the ultimate extinction of the privileged orders if the bill should be rejected; and a proposition to march upon London was formally approved by resolution. The ministry, in the meanwhile, as a last resort was bringing pressure to bear upon the king to induce him to create enough new peers, about fifty, to swamp the opposition in the Lords. Before such a step, which Wellington declared would be tl^ end of the constitution, the king hesitated; Grey promptly resigned. The king then turned to Wellington and offered him the premiership, on condition that he would undertake some kind of reform. Wellington gave his word, but after a week spent in a futile effort to form a ministry, gave up the task and the king was obliged once more to return to Lord Grey. Grey again assumed office, but he had first exacted from the king a written pledge to create a sufficient number of new peers to carry the bill. The threat, however, was all that was needed; Welling- ton accompanied by a large body of the peers withdrew, and the 994 THE FIRST ERA OF REFORM* [ William l v. bill received the nominal assent of the Lords by a vote of 106 to 22. As the Reform Bill finally passed, fifty-six boroughs that had a population of less than two thousand were totally disfranchised; thirty-two boroughs that had a population of less than four thousand were allowed one member each. One hundred and forty-three seats were thus released. They were redistributed among twenty-two newly created boroughs em- powered to return two members each, and twenty-one to return one each; sixty -five seats were divided among the counties, and thirteen were left to be assigned to Scotland and Ireland. The ancient irregular borough franchise was displaced by a new £10 household franchise, but resident freemen who had possessed the franchise before 1831 were allowed to retain their votes. In the counties the franchise was extended to copyholders and lease- holders, and to tenants at will who paid a rental of at least £50 a year. The time to be given to a county election was reduced from fifteen to two days ; borough elections were reduced to one day. Bills were also passed by which, of the seats reserved for Scotland and Ireland, Scotland received eight and Ireland received five. The franchise was remodelled in both countries upon lines some- what similar to those adopted in England. Thus another great stride had been taken in the progress of representative government. The Revolution of 1688 had settled Cmstitu- ^^® position of the king in the new constitution, but it nificanceof ^^^ ^^^^ parliament virtually in the hands of a limited bill oligarchy, independent of the nation and out of touch with the great middle class. The Reform of 1832 dethroned the oligarchy and transferred the control of parliament to the farmers and shopkeepers. The workingmen, however, the great laboring class, who had done so much to force the issue upon the government, were apparently farther from the goal than ever. Yet much had been gained; the absurd inconsistencies and inequalities of the old borough system had been swept away, and Englishmen of the same social grade everywhere enjoyed the same political privileges. It was much, also, that the right of the great middle class had been formally recognized. The Whigs protested that the act was 1833] THE IRISH TITHE WAR 995 final, that no further approach towards a political recognition of the democracy was to be thought of; and yet in the continued spread of democratic ideas, with the majority of the people of Great Britain still disfranchised, in the nature of things, the Reform of 1832 could not be a finality; it could not be more than a stage in the advance to full manhood suffrage. The results of the election of 1832 were anxiously awaited by all parties. The new limit of two days for the county election placed a decided check on rioting and drunkenness, fg^f^^ 0/ ajj(j proved a helpful feature of the Reform Act. Some "new men," notably Cobbett, the agitator, and Gully, an ex-prizefighter, were returned; but on the whole the election justified the extension of the franchise to the middle classes in spite of the sneer of Richard Grenville at what he was pleased to call ''the presumption, impertinence, and self sufficiency of the new members." The energy which the Reform Bill agitation had called out, was by no means spent, and the ministers soon found themselves confronted with a list of serious and far reaching issues ISfs'W issues The Irish which their position as reform leaders compelled them to consider. The state of Ireland naturally first claimed attention, where a *'Tithe War" had sprung up as a result of the refusal of the Irish peasantry to pay longer the rates which were prescribed by law for the support of the Anglican clergy. The extreme destitution increased the difficulty and the collection of tithes had become quite impossible. A ''Coercion Act" was proposed and passed in spite of O'Connell's opposition. The act gave special powers to the officers of the law in order to repress the lawlessness which in parts of Ireland had created almost a reign of terror. This was followed by a "Church Bill" which attempted to diminish the burdens of the people by cutting down the number of Irish bishops and reducing the incomes of the remaining; it also held out hope of the final extinction of the tithe system. The slavery question, demanded the attention of the reform parliament. Stanley, the chief secretary for Ireland, whose policy of "a quick succession of kicks and kindness," had made 996 THE FIKST ERA OF KEEOKM [william iv. him thoroughly detested by the Irish people, was transferred to the Colonial Office where he found ample opportunity to exer- cise his fiery spirit in handling the slave question. He ei^vei^^^ came before parliament with a proposition to redeem ^^^i the slaves by paying their owners £20,000,000. Tlie act was to take effect April 1, 1834. The reform parliament was strongly abolitionist ; and the passionate eloquence of Stanley in picturing the cruelties and injustice which charac terized slavery in the colonies, aided by Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, upon whose shoulders had fallen the mantle of Wilberforce, met a ready response, and in August 1833 the ** Emancipation Act" became a law. Wilberforce lived to hear of the second reading of the bill ; he died July 29. The relief of the black slave could not fail to call attention to the sufferings of the white slaves at home, the tens of thousands of British children who were toiling out their lives to legislation, enrich English investors. Some attempts at improving the condition of factory children had been made in 1802, and again in 1819. But the act of 1833, presented by Lord Ashley, known as the ** Third Factory Act," differed from the others in that it applied to all industries, forbidding the employ- ment of children under nine years of age altogether, and of women or of young people under eighteen, for more than twelve hours a day. Provisions, also, were to be made for the education of factory children. Another measure introduced by the Grey ministry proposed changes in the Poor Laws. A commission of inquiry had been appointed in 1832, and its report, received in 1834, Law'Imend- ^"^P^Y P^^oved the urgent need of reform. An act of mentAct," ^795 j^^d provided for giving individual relief to the poor. The laborer's wages were thus eked out by a pittance from the government. The greed of the manufacturers, however, soon found a way to take advantage of the charity of the government and by paying only pauper wages made it impossible for an independent worker to live at all. The effect of such legislation was to encourage pauperism and steadily increase the burden to the state, until in 1833 the total cost of poor relief 1834] FALL OF THE REFORM MIJiTISTRY 997 exceeded eight million pounds, a grievous burden for a population of fourteen million. The new law virtually returned to principles laid down in Elizabeth's reign; it drew a line between poverty and pauperism, and sought to relieve the former without creating the latter. Parishes were combined into unions with one work- house, instead of several and relief was given as a rule only to those who were destitute and willing to submit to the test of going to the workhouse for it. This measure reduced the poor rates by upwards of three million pounds in three years. Meanwhile the influence of the Grey ministry had already begun to wane. Few ministries have ever been more useful; none have ever introduced so many sensible reforms theOrey in SO short a time. It had not only successfully handled the question of parliamentary reform, the Irish question, the slavery question, the factory question, and the Poor Laws; it had also reconstructed the Bank of England, and renewed the East India Company's charter for twenty years, and had ended its commercial monopoly by throwing the China trade ^ open to all competitors. Abroad, also, the policy of Palmerston, the For- eign Secretary, had been quite as successful. The reforms, however, which the ministry had inaugurated at home had been too heroic; they had followed each other with such bewildering rapidity, that public opinion began to take alarm and the conservative elements gathered new strength. Grey, moreover, had a feeling that his work was done; he was weary of ofifice, and in July 1834 formally tendered his resignation. The king turned to Peel ; but Peel was sufficiently shrewd to see that the Tories were not yet strong enough to support him, and the Grey ministry was allowed to remain with AYilliam Lamb, Viscount Melbourne, as Premier. The arrangement, however, could only be temporary ; the Whigs were breaking up into as many factions as there were new ideas to be exploited in the heads of the various leaders. And when in November Althorp resigned to take the place opened to him in the House of Lords by the death of his father. Earl Spencer, the king determined to dismiss the Whig ministry altogether, and turned again to Robert Peel. ^ The Indian trade had been thrown open in 1813. ^8 THE FIEST EEA OF REFOKM [william IV. The first measure of the new minister was to secure the dis- missal of the reform parliament, in order to gain for his adminis- tration the advantage of the rising reactionary sympa- ministry, thies of the nation. In the "Tamworth Manifesto," he announced as his policy, conservative reform. The manifesto was greeted with general satisfaction, and there were some gains in the counties, bnt when the new parliament met in February 1835, it was evident that Peel was still confronted by a determined majority. The Liberals, moreover, whether Whigs, or Eadicals, were angry at the dismissal of the Melbourne min- istry; they regarded the act as arbitrary and without justifica- tion. The leaders entered into a formal compact at the house of Lord Lichfield to avenge themselves for the affront, and steadily defeated every reform measure which Peel introduced. With such an opposition, the speedy overthrow of Peel was a foregone conclusion. The day had gone by when a minister could hope to maintain himself in the face of a determined majority simply because he was the king's choice. After a brave fight of six weeks Peel gave up the struggle and resigned. The defeat of Peel and the refusal of Grey to form a ministry forced on William the bitter necessity of recalling Melbourne to office, with Palmerston as Foreign Secretary and Rus- Meibourne's gg^} ^s Home Secretary and leader of the Commons. second mm- *' Mry,i835- As SO Organized the ministry was not strong; and yet it worthily addressed itself to the work of completing the cycle of reforms which has made the reign of William IV. famous, but with which AYilliam himself had so little to do. The act of 1832 had left the corporations of the old boroughs in the hands of the self-elected ring, who, though deprived of their electoral monopoly, still administered local affairs to their own profit or pleas- ure. Another act, therefore, was necessary to complete the act of 1832, and in 1835 parliament transferred the control of borough government from the corporations to representatives elected by the resident ratepayers; they applied the measure to one hundred and seventy-eight boroughs. London, however, was not included. Measures for the reform of municipalities and the tithe system in Ireland were also proposed in the Commons but defeated in the 1837-1840] ACCESSION OF VICTORIA 999 Lords. A Tithe Commutation Act for England, which permitted the commutation of tithes in kind into a money payment, succeeded better. The same year the division lists of the House of Com- mons were published for the first time by the House itself. In June 1837 William IV. died and was succeeded by Victoria, the daughter of George III. 's fourth son, the duke of Kent. In Hanover, the law allowed the crown to pass to male Queen Vic- heirs Only, so that Ernest Duke of Cumberland, the fifth son of George III., succeeded to the continental possessions of the House of Hanover; and Hanover once more swung clear of its connection with the English crown. Victoria had just passed her eighteenth birthday ; her youth, her grace, her dignity, the essential goodness of her character, appealed powerfully to the patriotism and sympathy of all her subjects. Her accession was received with universal enthusiasm. She regarded Melbourne, moreover, with confidence and filial affection; so that the change of rulers added somewhat to the strength of the Whig ministry ; the ministers at least were no longer harassed by the hostility of William IV. In November the young queen met her first parliament. Her opening address called attention to the condition of Canada and Ireland, where affairs had for some time worn a serious aspect. The troubles in Canada were political and dated back to the eighteenth century. Pitt's Canada Bill of 1791 had divided the old French province into two separate provinces, TrouNein i, -^-u •. i i • i f • Canada, each With its own governor-general, a legislative coun- cil, and a representative legislative assembly. The council was appointed by the crown and was responsible only to the Colonial Office. The result was to concentrate political power in each province in the hands of a few wealthy families; the administration became corrupt and ruinously extravagant. In the spring and summer of 1837 matters came to a deadlock between the provincial representative assemblies and the respective councils. The Canadians demanded that the appropriation of the funds raised by taxation be put wholly in the hands of their representatives; that the council be changed to an elective body ; and that with the exception of the governor, the members of the 1000 THE i'lKST ERA OF REFORM [victoeia executive staff be responsible to the provincial parliament. The British Colonial governments have since been reconstituted sub- stantially upon these lines, but in 1837 public opinion had not yet reached the point where the complete autonomy of the colonies could be regarded with favor. Lord Russell, therefore, offered a series of resolutions which were intended to be conciliatory, in which he recognized the existence of abuses, but unfortunately asserted the impossibility of granting to the provinces a control of the executive ministers of government. The Canadians were not satisfied, and when the provincial governors attempted to use repressive measures, in order to bring to terms such leaders as Papineau, the Speaker of the in Canada, Assembly of the Lower Province, the provinces broke out in insurrection. Although the rebellion was easily suppressed, the British government was seriously alarmed. The revolt had found many sympathizers along the American frontier and there was grave danger of complications with the United States. The American vessel Caroline had been used to take pro- visions from the American shore to a body of insurgents who were operating from ISTavy island in the Niagara River. The British officials had seized the boat in American waters, set it on fire, and sent it over the falls. The ministry saw that a serious mistake had been made. The Russell resolutions were hastily withdrawn and Lord Durham, an able and energetic character, was dispatched to Canada The union of as a Special commissioner with unusual powers. Great 1840. ' as were his powers Durham managed to exceed them, and the opposition forced the ministry to recall him. Durham had remained in the country long enough, however, to discover that there were other causes of trouble that lay back of the constitutional question. The population of Upper Canada consisted largely of English; Lower Canada consisted of French. The two provinces were jealous of each other, and the two races were upon anything but friendly terms. Pitt's unfortunate divi- sion into an English Canada and a French Canada had only emphasized the race differences, and encouraged race jealousies. What the Canadas needed, fully as much as constitutional reform, 1838] THE IRISH POOR LAW 1001 was such a political union as in time would make of the two peo- ples one nation. Durham's report was accepted and was made the basis of the Canada Bill of 1840. By this bill the two Canadas were united under one governor-general, a legislative council, consisting of life members nominated by the crown, and a repre- sentative assembly. The responsibility of the ministry to the provincial parliament was not granted in the bill, but the principle has been since fully established by practice. The appropriation of public funds, also, with the exception of a fixed civil list, was entrusted to the popular branch of the provincial parliament. The affairs of Ireland, in the meanwhile, had proved fully as vexatious to the ministry, if not as urgent, as the affairs of Canada. A commission of inquiry had laid bare a condition of THb Ivish Poor Law, misery which exceeded the expectations even of the Irish members, and in 1838 parliament to mend mat- ters sought to extend the English workhouse system to Ireland. It was taken for granted that an able bodied Irishman who wanted work could find it and that the ordinary living of the Irish poor was to be preferred to life in the workhouse. The suffering of the Irish, however, was due to the fact, not that the people were unwilling to work, but that they had outgrown the ability of their little island to feed them. The law, therefore, added little to the credit of the ministry. Instead of allaying the sufferings of the Irish, it only added to the distress of the destitute, and put a new premium on pauperism. From the Poor Law the ministry proceeded to take up the questions of tithes and corporations. In both cases it succeeded in putting new laws on the statute books, but only mv^ ^irish ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ given unmistakable signs of its declining Municipal strength by accepting from the conservative opposition amendments which made the laws virtually conserva- tive measures. The nineteenth century had brought with it a further develop- ment of the inventive genius which marked the close of the eight- eenth. The canal system of Brindley and the improved roads of Telford and Macadam had done much to encourage industry by providing better facilities of exchange. Yet the question was 1002 THE FIRST ERA OF REFORM [victoeia very early asked whether steam could not be used as the motive power in locomotion. The question was answered in part by Fulton in America in 1811, and by Bell in Scotland in Newinven- x812, and long before Victoria had begun her reign, English shipyards were turning out their first essays at steam craft. The application of steam to land travel, however, had met with an apparently insuperable obstacle in the absence of a roadbed of the requisite smoothness and solidity. Some wild attempts had been made on country roads, to the consternation of the rural population and the inevitable destruction of engineer and crew. But although a suggestion lay at hand in the horse tramways which were in common use in the mining regions, all efforts to get at a practical solution of the problem had proved fruitless, until George Stephenson, the son of a poor collier of Northumberland, and a self-educated man, as the result of many experiments finally constructed an engine which would run on a prepared track. In 1825 he opened the Stockton and Darlington railway for the conveyance of both passengers and freight. Five years later he opened the Manchester and Liverpool line when his engines outstripped all competitors, attaining a speed of thirty-six miles an hour. It was on this occasion that Huskisson, who was present with Wellington and Peel, met with the unfortunate acci- dent which resulted in his death. Thus far, the industrial development of England and the reforms of parliament apparently had benefited only the upper classes. The poor laborer found himself as in the eighteenth tists,i838, century still swinging between moderate prosperity and abject poverty. The Poor Law, which cut him off from state help, seemed particularly harsh. Food was dear, work scarce, wages low, and his home, especially if in the city, filthy and over- crowded. Sometimes a whole family, parents and children, occu- pied a single cellar which was generally wet and foul. It is said that in Manchester one-tenth of the population lived in these dens below the street. The working people, although generally ignor- ant, yet had their own ideas as to the reforms needed, and in 1838, in a meeting near Birmingham, they drew up a national petition, or "People's Charter," which is remarkable both for its 1837-1839] THE CHARTISTS 1003 moderation and for its reasonableness. They demanded (1) annual parliaments, (2) universal suffrage, (3) vote by ballot, (4) abolition of the property qualification for members of parliament, and (5) payment for service in parliament. A demand for equal electoral districts had been originally included in the list but was later withdrawn. In June 1839 the charter supported, it was said, by a million signatures, was presented to the House of Commons, but only to be rejected. The people expressed their disappoint- ment in rioting and other lawless acts ; but they were easily put down and the great movement from which so much had been expected subsided. The era of the Chartist agitation was marked, also, by a revival of the old agitation against the Corn Laws, During ten years of prosperity, the Corn Laws had dropped out of sight, ^^iiauon ^^^ ^^^® series of unfavorable seasons which began in against Com 1837 had once more called attention to the fact that the Laws. price of bread was raised by artificial means, and that much of the ensuing distress was needless and was due directly to the selfishness of landholders and their tenants. Associations were formed in London and other places in order to begin a systematic agitation against the unjust laws. Prominent in the movement was Eichard Cobden, a calico printer of Manchester, who had traveled much, observed keenly, and gathered a vast amount of valuable information concerning the social conditions which pre- vailed in Europe and America. Another man of the era, no less noteworthy, was the Quaker manufacturer of Rochdale, John Bright, whose marvelous oratory and deep sympathy for the people made him for years a conspicuous political force. During the Melbourne ministry the direct influence of these men was exerted altogether outside of parliament. Within parliament the cause was represented by Charles Villiers who persisted in offering each year a bill for the abolition of the restrictions upon the bread of the poor. Since 1830, with the exception of a few months, the conduct of foreign affairs had remained in the hands of Lord Palmerston. In the main his relations with France had been friendly, although he had stoutly opposed the project of annexing Belgium. He had also stood with Louis Philippe in favoring the claims of Isabella, 1004 THE FIRST ERA OF REFORM [victokia the daughter of Ferdinand YII. of Spain, who as representing a constitutional party against the absolutist Don Carlos, her uncle, naturally carried the sympathies of the consti- The foreign tutional king of France. In handling the eastern ques- policy of . , „ Paimerston. tion, however, a far more delicate problem. Palmers - ton found it not so easy to keep on good terms with his neighbor. The barbarism of Turkey probably was no greater ; her ferocious cruelties no more flagrant than in earlier centuries, but the Christian states of Europe now knew more about them and their people were beginning to demand that the common nuisance be abated. It was, however, not such a simple matter as the Treaty of London and the battle of Navarino seemed to indicate, because while the western powers despised the Turk, they distrusted and feared Russia. The aim of Paimerston 's policy, therefore, was not to reduce Turkey but to free her from the shadow of Russia, which had steadily deepened as a result of the war of Greek liberation. Moreover, in the subsequent revolt of Mehemet Ali, Viceroy of Egypt, Russia, as the price of her support, had secured a pledge from Turkey to close the Dar- danelles to the warships of other nations whenever Russia should be at war. Turkey, Paimerston believed, if kept under western influence might be led to give a respectable government to her own people and support England against the encroachments of Russia in the east. Thiers, the wily minister of Louis Philippe, had at first supported England, but in order to secure French influence in Syria he had of late begun to encourage Mehemet Ali in his attempt to wrest that country from the Sultan. Palmers- ton took alarm at once, and declared that England could not allow France to control the road to India. In July 1840 he succeeded in forming an alliance with Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Turkey, nominally to end the revolt of Mehemet Ali, but really to put a stop to French intrigues in Egypt and Syria. Thiers desired war, but Louis Philippe had no idea of imperiling his throne, in order to support the schemes of his minister, and readily accepted the resignation of Thiers. Guizot, an advocate of peace and an ardent admirer of English institutions, took his place. An Anglo-Austrian squadron captured Acre and forced 1840-1842] THE OPIUM WAR 1005 Mehemet Ali to terms, compelling him to restore the Sultan's fleet which had deserted to the rebels, and to promise to content himself with Egypt, his hereditary possession. In the final settle- ment made by the powers, the ancient ruling of the Porte was restored; the Dardanelles was again closed to warships of all nations, unless the Sultan himself should be at war. In his conduct of affairs in the remoter east Palmerston was likewise successful, although the result can hardly be said to redound to the credit of England. In 1840 England be- w^aruHST ^^^ -^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^ China, which was fought virtually 18^1842 ^^ force Indian opium upon the Chinese. The minis- try had nobly laid down the principle that **her maj- esty's government could not interfere for the purpose of enabling British subjects to violate the laws of the country with which they trade;" but unfortunately the government did not have the courage to stand by this sound principle, and allowed itself to be dragged into the war on the plea that it had already begun. The Chinese of course could make no effective resistance, and in 1842 were compelled to cede the Island of Hong Kong, to open five ports to British trade, and pay a heavy bill of indemnity. Until 1839 the postal system had remained untouched by the reforming mania of the generation. Some improvements had been introduced since the beginning of George III. 's reign, wuand ^^^ ^^^ system was still far behind the needs of the refmin ^^^' "^^^ P^^^ ^®^® practically excluded from letter- writing, and the idea that the price must vary with the distance also precluded the use of the mails for business or politics. In 1837 Kowland Hill began investigating the postal system and soon was able to formulate the principles which lie at the basis of the modern system, that is, that the cost of carrying a letter does not vary with the distance, and that up to a certain point it costs the government no more to carry many letters than one. Hill, accordingly, proposed to charge one uniform rate; to reduce the price to one penny, and to secure prepayment by the use of a stamp. His plan was adopted by the government in 1839.^ The ^ The stamp was first printed on the envelope. In 1840 the familiar adhesive was devised. 1006 THE FIKST ERA OF REFORM [victobia increased facility in the use of the mails came in just in time to aid powerfully in the Corn Law agitation. In the same year the government made an important advance in the encouragement of public education. Since 1833 parliament had regularly appropriated £20,000 for this purpose. mUinVf^o- ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^ r2A^Qdi the annual grant to £30,000, and taking the administration of the fund from the treasury put it in the hands of a special committee of the Privy Council. Yet parliament was by no means awake to the needs of the three million English children, of whom fully one-half w^ere growing up in a state of utter ignorance. The very year in which it raised its appropriations for the education of the children of England to the magnificent sum of £30,000, it voted £70,000 for building stables for the queen's horses. An event of prime importance to the happiness of the young queen that is associated with the last days of the Melbourne min- istry, was her marriage on February 10, 1840 to the Hageoffhe young prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Prince Albert, as he is commonly known, was a singularly felicitous combination of the scholar, the poet, and the man of affairs ; the kind of man who could sit alone at the organ and play to himself by the hour, who delighted in the singing of birds, in the happy, placid, calm days of a quiet, unostentatious home life, who loved letters, knew history, grasped the great problems of political science, was interested in farming, in machinery, in the industrial arts, and in a word touched with a deep, true sympathy the many- sided life in which he moved. His was one of those calm, sweet natures, free from vice or foible, inspired by an all-pervading sense of duty, in whose presence weak men become strong and the wearied and careworn, confident. With rare good sense he accepted a position which a smaller man might have found humiliating, constituting himself a sort of ^'minister of art and education without portfolio," holding severely aloof from all party affiliations, and for the rest, conducting himself as a sort of private secretary and unofficial counsellor of the queen. **I study the politics of the day with great industry," he wrote. "I speak quite openly to the ministers on all subjects, and endeavor quietly 1840-1861] PRINCE ALBERT 1007 to be of as much use to Victoria as I can. In foreign affairs I think I have done some good." He grasped fully the spirit of the English constitution and comprehended as none of the Han- overian monarchs had, that henceforth the strength of the English monarchy lay in the character of the monarch, and that if the monarchy were to rise in the esteem of the nation, the monarch must be a good man. He grasped, also, as neither Wellington nor the easy-going Melbourne had, the significance of the new drift given to English politics by the reforms of the last decade, and exerted his influence to bring the monarchy into touch with the new era which had opened. It is needless to say that such a man was deeply loved and respected for his own sake by the young queen, who needed just such a sage and disinterested counsellor, one whom she could trust when her ministers failed her, and that when he died in 1861, his death was mourned by the people as a national calamity. The Melbourne ministry had long since exhausted the new stock of popularity that had come to it from the accession of the young queen, and had been for some time steadily M/eoTt^e*^ losing ground. Even the brightest spot in its late minSjr iii story, the able handling of the Turkish question by Palmerston, did not escape criticism. It was said that he had been unnecessarily meddlesome, and that he had lost the friendship of France for his pains. In May 1839 the ministry had brought forward a bill which proposed to suspend the constitu- tion of Jamaica for five years. The occasion of such a bill, so contrary to all the traditions of the Whig party, was the lamenta- ble condition in which Jamaica had fallen as a result of the obstinate determination of the planters to defeat the object of the recent abolition of slavery. The bill made such a poor showing upon the second reading that Melbourne at once sent in his resig- nation. Peel was called on to undertake the government, but refused, unless the queen should dismiss with the ministers the sisters and wives whom Melbourne had placed about the young sovereign as "Ladies of the Bedchamber." The queen naturally objected to have her family circle broken up. *'They would treat me like a girl" she indignantly exclaimed; "I will show them that 1008 THE FIRST ERA OF REFORM [victoma I am Queen of England." So she turned again to Melbourne, who had been her tutor in the first trying years of her reign and upon whose fatherly sympathy and counsel she had learned to rely, and for two years longer her favor alone kept him and his fellow ministers in power. In 1841, however, even the support of the queen could not sustain longer the failing strength of the Melbourne ministry. Melbourne, indolent and easy-going, had long since Melbourne ceased to lead even the members of his own partv. ministry. rr^i t a ^ The pendulum, moreover, which had been so long swinging towards reform, had already begun the backward sweep, and when Melbourne appealed to the country upon a proposition to substitute a moderate duty for the old Corn Law tax, the conserv- ative^ rallied the agrarian interests, and came back to Westminster with a majority of 81 members in the new parliament. Melbourne promptly resigned and Peel was again invited to undertake the government. CHAPTER VIII PEEL AND THE DISSOLUTION OF THE OLD PARTIES. THE CRIMEAN WAR. PALMERSTON AND BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY VICTORIA, lMl-1865 The remaining years of Victoria's reign fall into two strongly marked periods. The first period closes with the death of Pal- merston in 1865, and is marked by the dissolution of Victoria's the old Whig and Tory parties, and the reorganization of the political elements of the nation about the new issues which have since divided Liberals and Conservatives. The second period is marked by the struggle of the new parties to control and direct the policy of Great Britain, and by the results thus far attained. Peel began his administration in September 1841. Nominally the appointment was a Tory triumph. Peel, however, was a thorough-going business man, and inclined to approach ffi**^^ °"^ public questions from a practical rather than from a sentimental point of view. He had stood out against the Reform Bill of 1832 to the last; but, like Wellington, he had then accepted the results as final, and, abandoning the name of Tory which had become associated in the minds of many with the older reactionary elements which the nation had repudiated, under the new name of "Conservatives," he had rallied his 1834' shattered ranks, and taken his stand upon what was vir- tually conservative Whig ground. On many points, however, he was still far in advance of the great mass of his party which still represented the landlords rather than the millowners and man- ufacturers, and was haunted by the traditions of Castlereagh and Addington. 1009 1010 DlSSOLtJTIOX OF THE OLD PARTIES [victoria The first efforts of the new ministry were addressed to a reorganization of the national finances, which had been left in a lamentable condition by the outgoing Whigs. In many tariff and in- cascs the existing tariff was virtually prohibitive and the the Income treasury had been steadily depleted by the diminisliins: Tax 1842. ^ J. ^ o returns. Peel, therefore, selected 750 articles of com- mon consumption and by reducing the tariff hoped to encourage importation, and thus lay the foundation for a subsequent increase in the national revenues. He believed, also, that the great gain to the consumers, would more than atone for the direct loss to the protected interests. He saw, moreover, that the first effect upon the treasury would be to deplete still further the present income, and proposed to tide over the interval by an Income Tax, but under pledge that it should be dropped at the close of five years. The pledge, however, was never redeemed. Before the five years had expired. Peel was out of office, and, in the steady advance of Eng- land towards free trade since, his successors have never been able to dispense with the increasingly important revenue derived from this source. The Peel administration fell heir also to the annoyance caused by the troublesom^e agitations which had been gathering new strength during the later days of the Melbourne minis- ofirai^^S?^^ try. The Chartists were still holding monster meetings and sending up their monster petitions to parliament. The tones of these petitions, moreover, were growing more per- sistent. But Peel was not a minister to be coerced into action, and after a petition with a million signatures had been ignomin- iously turned out of parliament without so much as a hearing, the Chartists subsided again for a season. A far more serious agitation appeared in Ireland, where O'Connell had been for some time stirring up the country upon a proposition to repeal the Act of Union and reestablish Irish ques- the Irish parliament. His plan was, by holding monster o'c'fmneii in meetings at different historic places, to keep the matter before the English government until it should be forced to yield to moral pressure and comply with the demands, of a long-suffering people. He disclaimed all thought of vio- 1842-1847] DANIEL O'CONNELL 1011 lence, or of seeking his ends by unlawful measures. He held an unquestioned sway over the great mass of the Irish people and controlled the vote of the Irish representatives in parliament, Neither Whigs nor Tories, however, were ready to grant Home Rule to Ireland for the sake of securing the Irish vote, so that thus far the enthusiasm of the great leader had accomplished little more than to keep his cause before the public. But in. 1842 a body of younger enthusiasts, to whom the ponderous methods of O'Connell seemed slow as well as aimless, broke away in a separate party which they called the * 'Young Ireland Party." They adopted the maxims and watchword of the United Irishmen of '98, and proposed to secure by arms what they could not gain by peaceful measures. The chiefs were Charles Gavan Duffy, Smith O'Brien, Thomas Davis, John Dillon, and Thomas Meagher. The party was small, their cause hopeless, and by their rashness they soon brought the larger but more innocent movement of O'Con- nell into discredit with the government. O'Connell had secured a great meeting at Clontarf, but the government thought it time to interfere and forbade the meeting. O'Connell, true to his prin- ciple of securing his ends by moral suasion only, yielded, and issued a proclamation recalling the summons. He was arrested, however, tried and convicted on a charge of conspiracy. An appeal was made to the House of Lords, and the Lords had the wisdom to reverse the decision of the lower court. But the hold of O'Connell on the Irish people was broken. The Young Ireland Party left him in disgust. The people refused longer to support useless meetings that evaporated in fine speeches, and turned to the hotheads^ who only waited an opportunity to attempt to win by violence what O'Connell had failed to secure by milder meas- ures. O'Connell finally retired to Italy where he died in 1847. The agitation, however, had not been altogether fruitless. Peel saw that something must be radically wrong where there was so much disquiet, and appointed a commission to PeeVs meas- . . . « i t • i i t ures for mquire into the workmg of the Irish land system. He also made a public grant to the Catholic College of Maynooth to assist in the better education of the priesthood, and established three secular colleges at Belfast, Cork, and Galway, 1012 DISSOLUTION^ OF THE OLD PARTIES [victoeia known as Queen's Colleges where Catholic and Protestant youth might be trained side by side. These measures were not suffered to pass unchallenged. At the idea of using public money to help educate Catholic priests, "the Orangeman raised his war-whoop," while neither Catholics nor Protestants were satisfied with the Queen's Colleges, which they were pleased to denounce as "God- less and atheiistical." Of even more importance were the results of the commission in revealing to the public by an authoritative report the deep reproach of the Irish land system. Nothing could be done yet, however; Peel's party were against him. The dead inertia of old Tory bigotry could not be overcome in a day. In the early days of Peel's ministry, also, the Webster- Ashburton Treaty brought to a peaceful issue the long dispute with the United States over the boundary of Canada States' ^^^ Maine. The Maine boundary, however, was hardly ^^uSm settled before the good understanding between the two countries was again threatened by a similar dispute over the Oregon boundary in the northwest. But after a good deal of bluster and noisy talk on the part of American politicians, whose common sense had been wafted away on the rhythmic jingle of their "fifty-four forty or fight," the people came back to earth and accepted the present boundary, giving the English Vancouver Island and allowing them to share in the navigation of the Columbia Kiver. Peel was compelled auring his early years to give a good deal of his attention to colonial matters. The outward expansion of England had never ceased during all the early decades m^ress ^^ ^^^ century. The Napoleonic wars . had greatly broadened and extended the sphere of colonial enter- prise. South Australia had been colonized in 1836 and its capital named Adelaide in honor of the Queen of William IV. In 1837 the Dutch, who had not taken kindly to English rule in the old Cape settlement, had turned their backs upon the colony and passed over the northern boundary into Natal. Here they had remained independent until 1843, when the English once more took posses- sion. In 1839 the English had established themselves at Aden at the mouth of the Eed Sea. In 1840 they began a permanent settle- 1840-1849] COLONIAL PROGRESS 1013 ment in New Zealand. In India, also, the English had been steadily pushing forward. The general disorganization and mutual jealousies of the native States had created some such political con- ditions as the Romans found in Gaul in Caesar's time, and English officials found little difficulty, by appealing to the selfish interests of individual princes, in persuading them to submit to a protec- torate, or alliance, as the Romans would have called it, which swallowed them up as soon as their continued independence became an inconvenience to the English Indian government. Yet the loss of independence was not without some solid advantages. Under Lord William Bentinck the suttee was abolished and the thugs broken up. Bentinck, also, gave his support to Christian missions, which the company had discouraged from policy. He introduced the steamboat on the Ganges and proposed a scheme of carrying mails to Europe by way of the Red Sea. In the thirties a new menace to English influence in India appeared in the extension of Russian influence in the Afghan country and led directly to the unfortunate attempt of Afghcmistan ^^^^ Auckland, Bentinck 's successor, to set up in Afghanistan a vassal prince, who should be committed to English interests. For two years, 1839-1841, this vassal prince, Shah Shuja, was kept upon his precarious throne by the presence of English garrisons in the cities of Kandahar and Kabul, only to be murdered at last by his subjects, while his allies were driven out of the country. The retiring British army with some 12,000 camp followers was cut off in the mountain passes. Only one European, a Dr. Bryden, succeeded in making his way to Jelalabad with the awful story. The English returned of course to carry on a war of vengeance, but only to retire again and leave Afghan- istan to the rightful ruler. Dost Mohammed, whose supposed Rus- sian sympathies had made all the trouble. The Afghan War was hardly over before a destructive war with the Sikhs of the Punjab began. After some of the hardest fighting which the English have ever met in India, in 1849, under the rigorous administration of Dalhousie, the power of the Sikhs was finally broken; the impor- tant Punjab was annexed, and Lahore and the whole region of the **Five Rivers" passed under British rule. 1014 DISSOLUTION OP THE OLD PARTIES [victoma In 1843 the dissatisfaction of a powerful party in the Scottish Church with the system of lay patronage led to open revolt. Five hundred clergymen, headed by Thomas Chalmers, left Church of the State Church and organized the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Within eight years the attend- ants of the Free Church outnumbered those who attended the old Established Church. Almost simultaneously another protest against the lifelessness of a State Church was making itself felt in England. The English movement advanced in a very different direction from that of the Free Church in Scotland. Like the The Tractor Wesleyan movement, it began in Oxford where a few nSnUn^^ earnest men, among whose names those of Keble, New- Engiand. man, and Pusey, are prominent, sought to stimulate the spiritual life of the country and check the growing liberalism of English religious thought, by leading the church back to the forms and ideals of a primitive Christianity. They sought to bring the church public under the influence of their views by the publication of a series of Tracts for the Times. Pusey remained in the English Church, but Newman and many others finally left the English Church altogether and entered the Catholic com- munion. Peel's attempts to reduce tariffs thus far had not affected the Corn Laws. From 1841 to 1846 the agitation had been kept before the public by Cobden and Bright, and their meetings, Lawagitor especially those held in Covent Garden Theatre in 1843, had attracted considerable attention. Yet crops had been good, the price of grain moderate, and public interest had flagged. But in 1845 the attention of the public was again directed to the matter by a complete failure of the crops and a correspond- ing rise in the price of bread. In Ireland where the heavy rains had completely destroyed the potato crop, the case was even more serious than in England. With millions of people starving for cheap bread. Peel felt that it was no time to talk of '^interests," and proposed that the council declare the ports open for the free importation of bread stuffs. He was overruled, however, by the opposition of Stanley and Wellington, and abandoned his humane proposition. Then the Whig leaders, who had been as much 1845] REPEAL or CORN LAWS 1015 opposed to the repeal of the Corn Laws as the Tories, took the matter up. It was not a time, however, to allow party considera- tions to dictate a policy, and in spite of the stolid indifference of the great mass of the Tories, Peel himself determined to champion the cause of free bread. Many of his colleagues, including Wellington, agreed to stand by him. But the representatives of the great wheat-growing shires, who thought they beheld in the repeal of the Corn Laws the ruin of their constituents, and of the old Tory families, whose wealth lay still in agricultural lands, stoutly opposed him. They were led by Benjamin Disraeli, a man whom the House had not yet taken seriously. He was of Jewish descent; he had been known to the public as a writer of some ** curious, high-flown novels," and to his friends for his gorgeous taste in the matter of dress. About this man with the strange oriental mind the Tory protectionists rallied. They taunted Peel as a traitor to his pa» ativeprogres- ministry, it was always as a sort oi stop-gap ministry and had never been allowed to stay long enough to accomplish anything. The reform bill of 1867 had really been the work of the Liberal opposition, and the Conservative ministry had simply submitted. Now, however, it was evident that the great mass of the people were coming to look with suspicion upon further reforms and that the times were ripe for a successful min- istry based upon a policy of '*rest from violent changes," "good administration," practical improvements, and a more vigorous foreign policy in which the larger interests of the empire should be the first care. The outbreak of new troubles between the Turks and their European subjects soon afforded the ministry a chance to show what it could do in the way of protecting English Theoutbreah interests abroad. In 1875 the Christian population of tween Russia Herzegovina rose against the Turks ; the neighboring 1877. ' provinces also were soon thrown into wild ferment. The Turks began to put down these uprisings with their customary ferocity, and their cruelties, particularly those per- petrated in Bulgaria, once more stirred the resentment of Europe. The most natural thing under the circumstances would have been for the British ministry to give Russia a free hand in forcing the Turk to grant the reforms which the provinces in revolt demanded. But the ministers, still under the sway of the Conservative tradi- tions of the past, saw in such a course the inevitable overthrow of the Turkish empire and a vast accession of power *if not of actual territory for Russia in southeastern Europe. Yet in the present 1050 THE SECOND ERA OF REFOEM [victohu state of public opinion it would not do to repeat the Crimeau War and a second time protect Turkey against the demands of Russia. The only hope, therefore, of a happy solution of the puzzling question was to secure the cooperation of all the powers in enforc- ing reforms upon Turkey. The attempt was made, but failed, owing partly to the stolid determination of the Turkish govern- ment not to yield, and partly to the refusal of England to agree to some definite aggressive action on the part of the powers. This was a blunder diplomatically, since it left the Russian government to declare war upon Turkey on her own account, and precipitated the very issue which the Conservative ministry wished to avoid. In June 1877 the Russians crossed the Danube, and began the occupation of Bulgaria. The Turks made a brave stand at Plevna and from behind its vast earthworks held the Russian army at bay until December, when their works were finally carried by assault and the Russians poured through the passes of the Balkans. Con- stantinople was practically without defenses and its occupation by the Russians seemed imminent. If Turkey were saved, action must be taken at once, and accordingly Disraeli, who had been raised to the peerage in 1876 as Earl of Beaconsfield, dispatched a powerful English fleet into the eastern Mediterranean, called out the reserves in England, and ordered Sepoy regiments from India to Malta. The Foreign Secretary, Lord Derby, who was not in sympathy with a course that promised war between England and Russia, resigned, and Lord Salisbury was put in his place. In the meanwhile, on March 3, 1878, Russia and Turkey had already agreed upon a peace at San Stefano, the conspicuous fea- ture of which was the proposed formation of an inde- San Stefano, t t^ i • i i . , . March 5, pendent Bulgaria out of the regions lying between the Danube and the upper Aegean. To this Beaconsfield objected because, in the first place, such a state would cut European Turkey in two, and in the second place would virtually bring Russia to the Aegean, since from the first the new state must necessarily be devoted to Russian interests. He accordingly con- tinued his preparations for war; the opposition protested and Gladstone with his fiery appeals awoke the country. Yet Beacons- field for once had his way ; he forced Russia to consent to submit 1878] THE COIS^GRESS OF BERLIN 1051 the treaty of San Stefano to the approval or modification of a con- gress of the, powers to be called at Berlin. The now famous congress met in June 1878 ; Beaconsfield and Salisbury of Berlin. ' represented Great Britain. Before the meeting, how- ever, Russia and Great Britain had come to an under- standing by which the proposed Bulgaria was to be broken up as fol- lows: (1) Bulgaria between the Balkans and the Danube was to have autonomy but was to be tributary to Turkey ; (2) Bulgaria south of the Balkans, Eastern Roumelia, was to be allowed administrative autonomy, but under a Christian Pasha; (3) Montenegro, Servia, and Roumania were to be independent and to receive new acces- sions of territory; (4) Russia was to be allowed to extend her fron- tiers to the mouth of the Danube and be given Kars and Batoum in Asia, though Batoum was not to be fortified; (5) Turkey was to carry out reforms which for the future should secure her Christian subjects in Crete and Armenia. In return for this friendly inter- ference and for the further guarantee of the protection of the Asiatic dominions of the Turk against Russia, the Porte gave Eng- land control of the island of Cyprus, thus adding one more to the list of English milestones on the way to India up the Mediter- ranean. The Congress of Berlin did little more than ratify the terms of the amended Treaty of San Stefano ; Beaconsfield returned highly satisfied with his work, having, as he declared, "secured peace with honor." In the main object of his policy he had suc- ceeded; he had secured British interests in the east. But to this he had sacrificed the interests of the Christian population who still groaned under the tyranny of the Turk ; he had made pos- sible all the later atrocities in Armenia and Crete, and prepared the way for future war between Greece and Turkey. Yet it is fair to ask, if Russia were not to be allowed to take possession of Constantinople and herself expel the Turk from Europe, what more could have been accomplished? The Beaconsfield ministry had now reached high-water mark. The noisy bluster of the "Jingoes" who had supported the min- ister's high-handed dealing with Russia, their boastful talk of the power of English armies, or the prestige of the English navy, their vaunting confidence in the future of the British Empire and their 1052 THE SECOND ERA OF REPORM [victoria cold-blooded assumption of the paramount importance of its inter- ests to all considerations of justice or right in dealing with other nations, could not long prevent the conscience of the Decline qf ^ British people from getting a hearing, especially with inpience. such a mentor as Gladstone to rouse it to new activity. The studied ostentation with which Beaconsfield had conducted his administration, the fanfare of trumpets with which each new achievement had been announced to the public, had for a time influenced a certain class of minds. But the interest of the people was now flagging; a wave of commercial depression swept over the country; nor could the addition of the ostentatious ''Empress of India" to the simple but majestic titles which gener- ations of Englishmen, heretofore, had thought good enough for their sovereigns, or the effort to establish English influence in Afghanistan, where an English army was sent to force an envoy upon the reluctant Ameer, simply because he had seen fit to receive one from Russia, or an attempt to draw the South African States into a confederation after the Canadian pattern, or the annexation of the Transvaal, or a war with the Zulus, prevent the attention of the public from turning once more to the consideration of urgent needs at home. In the election of March 1880 Beaconsfield attempted to rally the Conservatives by appealing to their old time fear of radicalism, painting in lurid colors the mischief that would follow should the Radicals again come into power. But Gladstone in his magnificent Midlothian campaign, in which he exposed with telling effect the many vulnerable points of Beaconsfield's foreign policy, carried everything before him, and returned to office with a powerful Liberal majority. Beaconsfield died the next year, leaving the leadership of his party to the Marquis of Salisbury. Gladstone was now stronger than when he had taken oflfice twelve years before. He had a clear majority of fifty votes over the Conservatives and Irish Home Rulers combined. oiadstnne's He sccured the Radicals of his own party by giving posi- try,is8o-85. tions to Bright, Fawcett, and Dilke, while he made Joseph Chamberlain, *Hhe reforming mayor of Birm- ingham," President of the Board of Trade. Dilke and Chamber- lain were Radicals of the new school, who unlike the followers of 1880-1885] Gladstone's second ministry 1053 the Manchester school, believed in a vigorous interference on the part of the state, not only as a remedy in domestic evils, but also in colonial and foreign affairs. The * 'extinct volcanoes," which had so aroused Disraeli's mirth in 1873, were soon in full eruption again. The "Burials Act" tore away almost the only remaining shreT^ of the tissue of legislation by which ancient bigotry had once sought to bind the limbs of nonconform- ity, allowing the nonconformists the use of churchyards for funeral purposes. By the "Employers' Liability Act," the employer was made responsible for the results of carelessness or negligence in subjecting workmen to unnecessary danger. By the "Grand Game Act," the crops of tenants were preserved from the inroads of such pests as the hares and rabbits that had been here- tofore protected for the master's hunting. Ireland, also, where experience had revealed the weak points of the earlier Liberal legislation, early attracted the attention of the ministry, which in almost its first legislation attempted to secure a law that would allow a tenant who was evicted for nonpayment of rent to recover "compensation for disturbance." The Lords defeated this important provision, but the next year The^'Secnnd the "Sccoud Irish Land Act" was more successful. [rish Land _„, . , „ ,. .in • i i . * AcV This act formally recognized the co-proprietorship of the tenant in the land which he tilled, and allowed him to sell his interest to the highest bidder; it established aland court to fix rent by Judicial action, the action to be revised every fifteen years; it further gave the tenant a right to apply to this court at any time. These regulations, which in many respects were a distinct return to older feudal ideas, show the despair of the ministers of ever dealing with the Irish trouble justly or satis- factorily by applying principles which ordinarily regulate the rela- tions of landlord and tenant. These measures, acceptable as they would have been in 1870, did not satisfy the Irish leaders who wanted to abolish "landlordism" The ''Land altogether. They had Organized a "Land League," by League.'' which they proposed to gain their end through a system of terrorism, waylaying landlord or agent or constable, and leav- ing the dead body as a mute testimony of the danger of offend- 1054 THE SECOND ERA OF REFORM [victoria ing the League. A far more efficient as well as less dangerous method of intimidation was devised in the "boycott," so called from the name of the first victim, Captain Boycott, the agent of Lord Earne. Side by side with the war against landlords, the old agitation for Home Eule was also revived, finding its champion in Charles Stewart Parnell, a man of ability and resolution, and without scruples in selecting methods. Home Rule, however, for the time was hopelessly confused in the public mind with Land Leaguism, and leaders like Parnell naturally fell under the dis- approval which was aroused by the murders and outrages ascribed to the League. Forster, the Irish secretary, was goaded to des- peration by the inability of the government to bring the perpe- trators of the secret murders to justice, and in 1881 in spite of bitter opposition pushed through parliament his "Protection for Life and Property Act," which empowered the government to arrest and imprison without trial persons "reasonably suspected." Parnell, Dillon, and some fifty more of the Irish leaders were arrested and thrown into Kilmainham jail. The Land League responded by issuing a manifesto which forbade tenants to pay rent altogether. The government replied by a direct attack upon the League itself as "an illegal and criminal association." Gladstone, apparently, now thought that his subordinate had gone too far, and in 1882 released Parnell and his fellow prisoners from Kilmainham jail ; he had first, however, come to an The Phoenix understanding with them that they would support the ders, 1882. government m its effort to introduce liberal measures and bring order out of the chaos. Forster resigned in disgust, and Lord Frederick Cavendish was appointed to succeed him. The new secretary had hardly arrived in Ireland before he, with the permanent Under-secretary, Thomas Henry Burke, was set upon in Phoenix Park by representatives of a secret society called the "Invincibles," and stabbed to death. All thought of conciliation was abandoned. A "Prevention of Crimes Act," authorized the government to examine witnesses secretly and to try suspected pei*sons before a special jury. A "gag law" was also passed by the Commons for its own government, designed to check the obstructive tactics which Parnell had adopted in the 1881] THE BOER WAR 1055 House and which, supported by the Irish vote, he had used to con- siderable purpose. While the ministers were thus heroically grappling with the Irish problem, they were compelled to face another series of no less perplexing problems connected with the wars wIt^'mu- ^^^^ ^^^ fallen to them as a result of the high- 2?m8t^^^^' l^^^^^d foreign policy of Beaconsfield. The heart of the great Liberal premier was not in these wars; yet to withdraw from them required great moral courage as well as wisdom. The Afghans had overwhelmed a British army at INDIAN OCEAN SOUTH AFRICA oj^-Elizabeth SCALE OF MILES 60 100 150 200 260 300 360 400 Mai wan, but in 1880 the famous march of General Roberts, "Bobs," from Kabul to Kandahar and the defeat of the Afghans at Pir Paimal, afforded an opportunity to retire from the country with dignity, and the Afghans were left to them- 1056 THE SEC0:N^D era of reform [victoria selves. The annexation of the Transvaal, also, had been followed by a revolt of the Boers, who had no desire to lose their independ- ence for the sake of consolidating English power in South Africa. The British soldier made but a poor showing in conflict with the Boer, who was far better skilled in the art of frontier warfare, and after a series of disasters, asi English army was cut to pieces at Majuba Hill and their commander Sir George Colley killed. A large English force under General Wood was at hand, but Glad- stone was unwilling to continue the further waste of human life in a struggle in which he from the first felt that right was on the side of the Boers, and accordingly ended the war by granting them substantial independence. Unfortunately, for the sake of salving British pride he retained a vague suzerainty over the Transvaal. As the sequel has shown this was a mistake. It would have been better either to have renounced all authority or to have pressed the war to the last issue. A still more formidable trouble confronted the government in Egypt. In 1863, Ismail, the grandson of the old Mehemet AH of the Palmerston days, had become Viceroy, or Khedive^ Egypt, Eng- of Effvpt. He was a progressive man and anxious to Suez Canal introduce western enterprise and civilization into Egypt. He encouraged Ferdinand de Lesseps in his scheme of cutting a ship canal across the Isthmus of Suez and saw the great work finally opened in 1869. Ismail's daring schemes, however, had run far ahead of his ability as a financier. The wretched peasantry of Egypt, the fellahin, upon whom rested the crushing burden of his telegraphs and railroads, his harbors and his canals, his army and his fleets, were entirely unable to meet the ever increasing demands of the government, and in 1875 the Khedive was compelled to sell to England his share in the canal. The money, however, only brought a temporary relief; and in 1879 Ismail tried to shake himself loose from foreign control, but failed, and was deposed in favor of his son, Tevvfik; England and France entered into a dual protectorate, or control of the country. This was the condition of things when Gladstone assumed power in 1880. The native Egyptians resented the subjection of their country to foreigners; they were jealous of the French and Eng- 1882-1884] ENGLAND IN EGYPT 1057 lish army officers and engineers, who as usual had begun to displace the natives in the employ of their own government, and in 1882 the discontented elements rallied about an Egyptian soldier, known to the world as Arabi Pasha, organized an insurrection, and seized the forts which commanded the harbor and city of Alexandria. The Khedive was powerless to protect his people ; rioting, pillage, and violence followed in the city. France, who was iy at ease over the growing influence of England in Egypt, refused to» assist in maintaining order and left England to settle affairs as best she could. An English fleet was sent to Alexandria, and in July Admiral Seymour bombarded the city ; ti'oops were landed, and finally in September General Wolseley wound up the ^mfofAUx- affair's of Arabi at Tel-el-Kebir. The Khedive's nom- Jiau^%82 ^"^^ authority was restored, but Egypt has remained since virtually under English control, and when the day comes for the dismemberment of the Sultan's dominions, Egypt with enough of Syria to secure the canal, will probably be England's share of the partition, thus adding the last stepping stone through the Mediterranean to India. The end, however, was not yet; the weakening of the Khe- dive's power had encouraged a great religious uprising among the Mohammedan population of the upper Nile. The The Soudan, ^ .■,-,, , , • i. . • i Gordfrn's movement gathered about a mysterious lanatic known as the Mahdi, or "the expected prophet," who accord- ing to certain Mohammedan sects is to appear on the earth in the last days and reduce the whole world to the reign of righteousness after the Mohammedan idea. In November, 1883, an Egyptian army under an English officer known as Hicks Pasha, vemberi was defeated by the Mahdi and Hicks slain, and the 18S3 whole Soudan virtually passed into the hands of the fanatics. Gladstone had no wish to assume responsibility for the government of the wild and lawless Soudan, yet he could not leave the few Egyptian garrisons that still remained faithful to be exterminated by the fanatical followers of the Mahdi, and in Jan- uary 1884 dispatched Charles George Gordon on his fatal errand to arrange for the withdrawal of the Egyptian garrisons from the Soudan. Gordon, who had begun his career as an engineer 1058 THE SECOXD ERA OP REEORM [victoru officer, had had a wide experience with the barbaric races of the Orient. In 1864 he had performed a great service for the Chinese government in putting an end to the Taiping revolt; a service which had fastened upon him the name of "Chinese Gordon." He was well known in the Soudan, where, from 1874 to 1879, as representative of the Egyptian government, he had made strenuous efforts to pi^t a stop to the slave trade. He reached Khartoum unarmed* and almost unattended. He saw at once that it was use- less to attempt to treat with the Mahdi and sent for military assistance. Gladstone, however, still shrank from the enterprise, and hesitated to send an army to the Soudan, until the Mahdi 's hordes began to close upon the city and the popular outcry against leaving Gordon to his fate compelled him to act. In August 1884 General Wolseley was sent up the Nile Woiseiey with a relieving force. After five months of super- Khartoum, human toil, on the 28th of January 1885, a flying 1885. ' column which Wolseley had sent ahead, reached Khar- toum, only to find that the city had been betrayed two days before and Gordon slain. After some pretense of a more energetic handling of the Soudan question, the English troops were withdrawn to the Egyptian frontier, and the remain- ing garrisons left to make the best terms they could with the Mahdi. The natural reaction which attended the unfortunate outcome of the Soudan affair, greatly weakened the hold of the Gladstone administration upon the country. But the appearance The^^Third of *'The Third Keform Act" in 1884 and the agitation 1884. which loUowed, regained something of the confidence of tlie Liberal element in the nation. By this act, which completed the work begun in 1832, the counties were given the same franchise as the boroughs, thus virtually making household suffrage the law of England. Boroughs with less than 15,000 inhabitants were deprived of separate representation in parliament; boroughs with less than 50,000 were cut down to one representative ; each boroughs with a population between 50,000 and 165,000, received two members each. The representation of Scot- land in the Commons was raised to 72, but Ireland was left as in 1885] SALISBURY'S FIRST MINISTRY 1059 1868.* The act marks a great advance toward uniform electoral districts with uniform representation on the basis of population. The government, thus far, had carried out its reform program with triumphant success. Gladstone, however, by his continued hostility to Home Rule had roused the enmity of the Second Irish Nationals, and in the very session which adopted Ministry. the Redistribution Bill, they seized the opportunity, offered by some unimportant details of the budget, to transfer their voting strength to the opposition. The defeated measure was a proposal to put a new tax on beer and spirits, and was without political significance ; but the vote revealed the fact that the Nationals held the balance of power and were prepared to force the government either to compromise or to resign. Glad- stone chose the latter course. The Conservatives were thus returned to power; but their position was precarious. They were dependent upon the good-will of the Irish Nationals for their majority, and this Salisbury's support must necessarilv be uncertain. Lord Salisbury, first ministry, ^^ . ; ^ . tj 1885. the new premier, was lully as much opposed to Home Rule as Gladstone; yet he had not been identified with the recent repressive measures of the Liberal ministry and was able to make conciliatory advances to his new allies by drop- ping the Crimes Act and by appropriating a largo sum under the "Ashbourne Act" to assist Irish peasants in buying their farms. The general election of November, however, made little change in the relation of parties. In Ireland the recently extended franchise told for Home Rule and increased the Nationals in parliament to eighty-six; but in England and Scotland, where the Liberals 1 Parliament as thus constituted still remains. Of the Commons there are, in all, 670 members, assigned as follows : To England and Wales 495, to Scotland 72, and to Ireland 103. Of these members, further, 377 repre- sent counties, 284 represent boroughs, and 9 represent universities. The membership of the House of Lords is constantly varying. At present it consists of about 580 members. Of these, 26 are Lords Spiritual, 16 are Scottish representative peers elected for the present parliament, 28 are Irish representative peers elected for life; the remaining are peers of the United Kingdom. 1060 THE SECOXD ERA OF REFORM [victoeia received the support of the newly-enfranchised laborers, the National gains were fully met by corresponding Liberal gains. In the meanwhile, the announcement had been made from various sources that Gladstone himself had embraced the cause Gladstone ^^ Home Rule. The rumor was vigorously denied RtSe^^Third ^^ ^^^ Liberal press, and when parliament assembled Februm-y- ^^ Consider the queen's address, much doubt still July, 1886. existed as to Gladstone's position. The Nationals, however, were already suspicious of their new friends, and the announcement by Lord Salisbury that he proposed to suppress the National League, which had taken the place of the old Land League, was enough to send them all packing again to the Liberal benches. They soon found that their confidence this time was not misplaced. Gladstone returned to power and Home Rule was formally added to the platform of the Liberal party. It was certain that all the Liberal members would not follow their chief in the espousal of Home Rule ; but how serious the defection would be, and whether the accession of the of Liberal Irish vote would sufficiently recruit the depleted ranks to enable them to hold their own, remained to be seen. Hartington and Goschen and sixteen other Liberals had already refused to assist in the overthrow of the Salisbury government. Others waited in the hope that Gladstone might yet be able to hold the party together and at the same time satisfy the demands of the Irish members. But when the expected Home Rule Bill at last appeared. Chamberlain, Bright, Trevelyan, and some ninety others also withdrew. They refused, however, to be merged in the ranks of the Conservatives, and standing by the old Whig policy of the legislative union of the two kingdoms, adopted the name of the "Liberal Unionists." The Bill proposed to give the Irish a local parliament, pro- hibited from endowing or disabling any religious body. It cut off the Irish from all representation in the imperial parliament, but required Ireland to pay her share toward the expenses of the imperial government. A '*Land Purchase Bill" was added that proposed to advance from the imperial treasury £50,000,000 to be used by the Irish government to assist the tenants in buying 1886, 1887] FIRST HOME RULE BILL 1061 their farms under the Ashbourne Act. At the second reading the bill was thrown out largely by the vote of the Union Liberals, although many of the Irish Nationalists also voted FMmml ^^^^^ ^^® opposition because of the proposed exclusion ml^ ^*'^' ^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^'^"^ ^^^® imperial parliament. Gladstone then appealed to the country. The excitement was intense; rival candidates attacked each other with the utmost bitterness, and after one of the most heated campaigns of modern times the Conservatives and Liberal Unionists were sent back with a combined majority of 118 votes over the Irish and Liberal Home Rulers. Salisbury had now returned in triumph and Home Eule appar- ently was dead. Something, however, must be done for Ireland, where the peasantry were growing desperate under their fecond^S- sufferings. The plan of fixing rent by judicial action new'irwi^ had Only increased the burdens of the tenants, since the Load Act, rates were fixed at a money valuation and the prices of farm products had steadily declined. Thus, where it took one pig to pay the rent in 1881, it took two pigs in 1886. Salisbury who had promised to the electors '*a government that would not flinch," although he had dropped the Crimes Act when he needed the Irish votes, now proposed to make the Act perpet- ual, and carried the measure in spite of the opposition of Glad- stone and the Home Rulers. Hand in hand with this measure, however, the government passed a new Land Act, by which judicial rents that had been fixed before 1886, were to be revised; lease- holders, also, that is those who held land under contracts, who had been excluded from the benefit of the act of 1881, were included. The act was passed, although a similar act proposed by Parnell the year before had been defeated. In 1888, £10,000^)00 were added to the sum appropriated for the purchase of Irish farms under the Ashbourne Act, and the next year parliament formally took in hand some much needed public works in Ireland, such as the construction of a system of drainage and the intro- duction of railroads. In the meanwhile, Home Rule was seriously suffering in the public estimation as the result of a personal attack upon Par- 1062 THE SECOND ERA OP REFORM [victoeia nell. A series of articles were published in the Times under the head Parnellism and Crime^ in which an attempt was made to show by means of fac-simile letters, that Parnell had Pameii^^^^ been connected with the Phoenix Park murders. The letters were proved afterward to be forgeries and Parnell secured damages to the amount of £5,000. But in 1890 he became further involved in a divorce suit, which had the effect of completely destroying the confidence of the public and led to a defection in the ranks of his party in favor of Justin McCarthy. Parnell, however, refused to yield his position as leader, and the disruption of the party was probably saved only by his timely death in 1891. The government was by no means so engrossed with the Irish question that it did not find time for many other useful acts. In 1887 the empire celebrated the queen's Jubilee in Ug^mum ^^® midst of great rejoicing. In 1888 Goschen, minStry^^^^ the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, carried out a plan by which the interest on the public debt was reduced from 3, to 2^ per cent. In 1889 the government author- ized the building of seventy new warships at an expense of £21,500,000. In 1890 and 1891, important educational measures were adopted, which proportioned grants to the needs of districts and made elementary education free in England aud Wales. In 1888 elective county governments were introduced patterned after the elective Corporation Councils of 1835,^ and in 1890 a sum of money was applied to such councils of counties as were willing to undertake the establishment of technical and intermediate schools. In the general election of 1892 Gladstone again came be- fore the country, but upon a somewhat broader platform than * in 1886, known as the Newcastle Platform, and the Snistramn liberals were returned to parliament with a majority of sione^ish fo^^y votes. Salisbury resigned and Gladstone resumed office for the fourth and last time. Gladstone at once presented his second Home Kule Bill which differed from the first largely in giving the Irish a representation in the imperial parlia- ment. At first he proposed to allow the Irish members to vote 1 See page 998. 1892-1894] KETIREMEKT OF GLADSTONE 1063 upon imperial questions only; but the injustice of this restriction was so apparent that it was speedily abandoned, and the bill was so amended that the votes of the Irish members should be fully equal to those of other members of parliament. After three months of vigorous discussion the bill finally passed the House. The Lords, however, rejected it by a vote of 419 to 41. Before such a majority even Gladstone flinched, and although in the Newcastle Program he had pledged himself 'Ho mend or end" the House of Lords, he refused to raise the gauntlet ; only by a revo- lution could he have met such an overwhelming opposition. Home Rule, accordingly, was abandoned, and the ministry turned to meet other pledges which it had made to the people. Chief of them in importance was the creation of Parish Cfnmciis and District Councils, completing the system of local Bill " 1892. 7 X o J • ^ self-government begun by the Act of 1835. By this act ** Parish Councils" were established in all the larger parishes, and ^'Parish Meetings" in the smaller parishes; the parishes, also, were grouped into districts and over each district was placed a "District Council." Thus a regular chain of local elective gov- erning bodies was instituted, rising from the parish councils through the district and the county councils to the imperial parliament ; a system which to an American may be illustrated by the somewhat similar chain of town, county, state, and nation.^ Gladstone was now approaching his eighty-fifth year. His service had been almost continuous since 1832, and if ever a serv- ant had earned the right to rest from his labors, he of Glad- had. He still carried his burden of years with rare stune, 1894. T T . - ^ grace and dignity; the marvelous intellect was undimmed ; the lofty courage, which had never faltered in the paths of righteousness and justice, still faced the future, with the upward look, the clear-eyed faith of old; and yet in the course of nature the end could not be far off. Gladstone determined, therefore, to resign, and on March 3, 1894, took leave of his col- leagues and retired to the peace of his beautiful home at Hawarden ^ Of course when we pass the county the comparison will not bear pressing, for the relations of state and nation in America are very dif- ferent from those of the English county and the imperial parliament. 1064 THE SECOND ERA OF REFORM [victoria Castle. Here he died four years later, May 19, 1898;— the '* Grand Old Man" to the last. Upon the retirement of Gladstone his duties were turned over to his foreign secretary, Archibald Philip Primrose, better known as Lord Eosebery, who made few changes in the cabinet hery minis- and thus virtually continued the Gladstone ministry. tnj, March i • i x, • -, 1894-June Ihe program which the new premier announced was formidable but practical, following lines already laid down by his chief, even to the continued shelving of Home Rule. It soon became evident, however, that with the retirement of Gladstone the spirit had departed which had so long held the Liberal party together. Other views, also, were beginning to be heard outside the walls of the Parliament House; the ghost of the old Chartist movement was abroad again; Socialism was daily gaining its adherents; new claims were pressing for a hearing, as strange to the Liberals of the sixties and the eighties, as parlia- mentary reform had been to the followers of Peel and Wellington. Hardly ten days after the retirement of Gladstone, Henry Labou- chere formally presented to the Commons a resolution that pro- posed, in plain words, to abolish the legislative functions of the House of Lords. The resolution was carried by two votes. The attendance was small, the resolution was unexpected, and the vote could not be taken in any sense as an expression of the opinion of the Lower House ; yet the fact that such a resolution could pre- vail in any assembly of the House, carried with it an ominous threat for the future, and served to quicken fears which had been allayed somewhat by Gladstone's moderation. The Irish National party, moreover, had been shattered by the fall of Par- nell, and their divided forces could no longer be counted as an element of Liberal strength. The strength of the ministry, there- fore, was rapidly waning; and in June 1895, an adverse vote upon a question of comparative unimportance forced Rosebery to resign. Upon the resignation of Rosebery, Salisbury was for the third time invited to form a ministry. He had little reason to expect support from a parliament whose liberal majority had forced him to resign three years before, and at once appealed to the nation. The results fully revealed the strength of the Conservative reac- 1895-1901] THE THIRD SALISBUKY MINISTRY 1065 tion. In the new House, out of 588 members, the Conservative ministry commanded 411 votes. The campaign, however, had been fought out chiefly on the issue of Home Rule, and servative re- i^^^smuch as the Liberal Unionists had returned sev- <^^wnof enty-one members, in making up his Cabinet Lord Salis- bury saw fit to strengthen his position still further by recognizing this element in the appointment of Joseph Chamberlain as Colonial Secretary, Goschen as First Lord of the Admiralty and Spencer Compton Cavendish, the duke of Devonshire,^ as President of the Council. Lord Salisbury himself assumed the duties of foreign secretary, and James Arthur Balfour, his nephew, became First Lord of the Treasury and leader of the Com- mons. The third Salisbury ministry is thus strictly a coalition minis- try ; and, as with most of the coalition ministries of the past, it has not only proved unusually stronsr, but has also tendency of advanced to the very ground now held by the party third min- which it lias nominally supplanted. Its Liberal tend- istry. . encies have been singularly illustrated by its attitude toward Irish Home Rule. While its opposition to the establish- ment of a separate Irish parliament has remained as uncompromis- ing as ever, it has fully acknowledged the justice of Oovernment Irish discontent, and by the "Local Government Act" for Ireland pi Act,''Au- of 1898, has extended to Ireland the system of ffovern- giist, 1898. . J G ment by means of local councils, recently established in Great Britain, thus really adopting the principles of the Union Liberals rather than the Conservatives, and granting to Ireland a position within the empire which approximates nearly to that of Scotland and Wales. The attitude of the Salisbury ministry towards the colonies, also, is far different from the position of the earlier Conservatives; Australian ^^ ^^ ^^^^ liberal even than that of the Gladstone min- f£Sryl is^^y of IS^*^- "I-'hus the six Australian states have 1^^- been allowed an absolutely free hand in forming the federal constitution that went into effect on the first day of the new century, although the new constitution is not only more * Before 1891, Marquis of Hartington. 1066 THE SECOND ERA OF REFORM [victoeia democratic than the Canada Federation Act, but in some impor- tant features it is more democratic even than the Constitution of the United States. The foreign administration of Lord Salisbury, in its patience and moderation, has also resembled the conduct of that office by the Liberals rather than the Conservatives, and for the policy of same reason has been severely criticised. Even Con- servatives have not failed to rail at their chief, for what they have been pleased to call a vacillating, truckling policy. They have remembered the glorious days of the Berlin Congress, and have not failed to contrast the forbearance of Salisbury with the somewhat ostentatious bluster of the old-time chief of the Jingoes. Yet in spite of the criticism, as far as the issue has yet been revealed, as in the Venezuela affair, the wisdom of Lord Salisbury's position has certainly been vindicated. Li general, while paying little heed to the bogies which in the days of Palm- ers ton or Beaconsfield used to send English politicians into such paroxysms of alarm, and persistently refusing to go to war simply to avert some hypothetical danger to the empire in the future, he has yet steadily insisted upon the integrity of the empire, the respect of existing treaties by foreign nations, and the duty of the government to protect its subjects, and has been content to advance the interests of the empire upon the more substantial basis of commercial treaties and international friendships. It is too early to write the history of the present Boer war, or to attempt to pass judgment upon its causes or to tabulate its results. It is interesting, however, to note that in the The Second ^^® ^^^^ where Lord Salisbury has allowed himself to Boer war. j^q forced from his policy of moderation and forbear- ance, he has been more severely^ criticised than for all the other measures of his administration put together. But whatever the rest of the world may think, or whatever may be the ultimate verdict of history, the people of Great Britain have cer- tainly given their judgment in the recent elections of 1900, and the Salisbury ministry crosses the threshold of the new century, apparently stronger than ever in the confidence of the nation. From present indications he is destined to remain in power as long 190l] DEATH OF QUEEN VICTORIA 1067 as his advancing years will permit him to perform the duties of his high office. On the 22d of January 1901, the long reign of Queen Victoria came to an end. She had entered the sixty-fourth year of her reign and was completing the eighty-second year of her Death of ^ge. In the length of her reign, few monarchs have toria,Jan- surpassed her; in the solid achievement of her reign, no uary 22, 1901. r ^ ^ o 7 monarch can rival her. It is true that the greatness of England during this long period has been due to ten thousand forces, working many of them in unseen and even humble chan- nels, and that with much of this achievement, directly and person- ally, Victoria has had little to do. This fact, however, is not by any means to be ascribed to the personal nonentity of the sover- eign, but to the complexity of modern national life and to the very multiplicity of the sources from which it springs. But if a list of these sources were to be drawn out, of the elements that have moulded and directed British character, that have contributed most to British greatness daring the past sixty years, there must be mentioned among the first the goodness, the personal nobility, the sweet womanhood of her who has so long borne the title of Queen, who has imparted a new dignity to monarchy, and made the sovereign once more an object of patriotic affection. With the new king, Edward VII. , who enters into the posses- sion of this priceless inheritance of affection and loyalty, to all appearances there begins a new era in the development hegimwith of British Mstorv. Since Gladstone's retirement, the Edward VII. . "^ ... party in power has shown no disposition to undo his work. But just as the Conservatives of 1841 accepted the work of the first era of reform as a finality, and joining with the Con- servative Whigs advanced to Whig ground under the leadership of Peel, so the Conservatives of to-day, uniting with the less radical wing of the Liberals, have accepted the reforms of the Gladstone period, and under the leadership of Salisbury and Chamberlain have boldly faced the future. The goal, moreover, is not so remote that it may not be already discerned; — the release of the dependent populations of the British Empire from their political nonage and the union of 1068 THE SECOND ERA OF REFORM [edwabdVU. all in a vast system of self-governing federations, all the members of which shall have equal political rights and equal standing before the laws. This is democracy pure and simple ; the verv Democracy , , . _ _ ^ . ^ _ ,, i and the new democracy which Lord John Russell so vehemently disclaimed in 1832 and which Beaconsfield decried in 1SB7. And yet to-day only the blindest of Conservative prejudice can look upon the approach of Great Britain to a gov^nment by the people with other than confidence. For if democracy is making rapid strides, public education is likewise advancing, redeeming the people of Great Britain from the curse of illiteracy and preparing them for the trust of self-government. In the colonies the advance of the democracy was long feared as the presage of the ultimate dissolution of the empire. But the people of the widely -extended dependencies have proved them- selves quite as capable of a vigorous, healthy loyalty to the empire, quite as susceptible to pride in ttie British name as the old-fash- ioned land-oligarchy that once ruled within the narrow seas. If democracy has advanced, the principle of federation has also advanced. The empire is "no longer the empire of England, or the empire of Great Britain, but the empire of all the British possessions, " an empire resting not upon force but upon loyalty and mutual interest, an empire in which is to be recognized in the future as the fundamental law of its constitution, — absolute equal- ity of rights among all its members. PROMINENT BRITISH STATESMEN OF MODERN TIMES WHO HAVE ENTERED THE PEERAGE. When date of assuming title is important it is given in parentheses. Courtesy titles are given in quotation marks. Aberdeen, E. of * George Hamilton Gordon d. 1860. Albemarle, D. of, (1660) George Monk d. 1670. Al thorp, see Spencer Ashley, see Shaftesbury Beaconsfleld, E. of, (1876) Benjamin Disraeli d. 1881. Bolingbroke, V. , ( 1714) Henry St. John d. 1751. Bute, E. of John Stuart d. 1792 Carmarthen, see Leeds Castlereagh, see Londonderry Chatham, E. of William Pitt d. 1778. Chestertield, E. of Philip Dormer Stanhope d. 1773. Clarendon, E. of, (1660) Edward Hyde d. 1674. Clyde, B. , (1858) Colin Campbell d. 1863. Dalhousie, E. of, (1860) Fox Maule Ramsay (1882), Baron Panmure d. 1874. Danby, see Leeds Derby, E. of, (1851) Edward Geoffrey Smith Stanley, Baron Stanley.t^. 1869. Devonshire, D. of, (1891) Spencer Compton Cavendish, "Marquis of Hart- ington" Glenelg, B., (1885) Charles Grant d. 1866. Goderich, see Ripon Grey, E Charles Grey, Viscount Howick d. 1845. Granville, E., (1744) John Carteret, Baron Carteret d. 1763. Guilford, E. of, (1690) Frederick North, "Lord North" d. 1792. Hartington. see Devonshire Halifax, M. of George Savile jgo. .... ^ «rtjl"f m ^ 19*' ^^\^' C^o^V 4Sep5lU 3C*''Sj- !firHdmjt m prc'o LO DCC3n9S8 l;3RARY uss ,/m-.24953 , JAN 2 isad LD 21-100m-8,'34 LIBRARY USE RETUKN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. THIS BOOK IS DUE BEFORE CLOSING TIME ON LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW obkAry use 'r<.fa 7- oPC'D LD mu 3'6A-aPW JW -^ " '^ ! ^E.llir^T^-?ir vm^qV^SFor^.