T.F. Tout - The History of England

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Philip's treachery was thus manifest? and in great disgust Edmund
withdrew from France. Edward was deeply indignant. In a parliament, held
in June, 1294, which was attended by the King of Scots, war was resolved
upon. The feudal tenants were summoned to assemble at Portsmouth on
September 1; and Edward appealed for help to his Gascon subjects,
beseeching their pardon for having negotiated the fatal treaty, and
promising a speedy effort to restore them to his obedience. He sent them
his nephew, John of Brittany, as his lieutenant and captain-general,
under whom John of St. John was to act as seneschal of Gascony.
Ambassadors were despatched to all neighbouring courts to build up a
coalition against the French. Strenuous efforts were made to get
together men and money, and the clergy were forced to make a grant of a
half of their spiritual income. Edward overbore their opposition amidst
a scene of excitement in which the Dean of St. Paul's fell dead at the
king's feet. The shires were mulcted of a tenth and the boroughs of a
sixth. And besides these constitutional exactions, the king laid violent
hands on all the coined money deposited in the treasuries of the
churches, and appropriated the wool of the merchants, which he only
restored on the payment of a heavy pecuniary redemption. Meanwhile,
about Michaelmas the lieutenant and the seneschal sailed with a fairly
strong force. Further levies were summoned to assemble at Portsmouth at
later dates. Besides the ordinary tenants of the crown, writs were sent
to the chief magnates of Ireland and Scotland; and Wales and its march
were called upon to furnish all the men that could be mustered. The
Earls of Cornwall and Lincoln were appointed to the command, and Edward
himself proposed to follow them to Gascony as soon as he could.

At the moment of the departure of John of Brittany a sudden insurrection
in Wales frustrated Edward's plans. All Wales was ripe for revolt. In
the principality the Cymry resented English rule, and the sulky marchers
stood aloof in sullen discontent, while their native tenants, seeing in
the recent humiliation of Gloucester and Hereford the degradation of all
their lords, lost respect for such powerless masters. Both in the
principality and in the marches, Edward's demand for compulsory service
in Gascony was universally regarded as a new aggression. The intensity
of the resistance to his demand can be measured by the general nature of
the insurrection, and by the admirable way in which it was organised. As
by a common signal all Wales rose at Michaelmas, 1294. One Madog,
probably a bastard son of Llewelyn, son of Griffith, raised all Gwynedd,
took possession of Carnarvon castle, and closely besieged the other
royal strongholds. In west Wales a chieftain named Maelgwn was equally
successful in Carmarthen and Cardigan. The marches were in arms equally
with the principality. In the north, Lincoln's tenants in Rhos and
Rhuvoniog besieged Denbigh, and threatened the king's fortresses in
Flint. Maelgwn's sphere of operations included the earldom of Pembroke,
while Brecon rose against Hereford, and Glamorgan against Gilbert of
Gloucester. Morgan, the leader of the Glamorganshire rebels, loudly
declared that he did not rebel against the king but against the Earl of
Gloucester. With the beginning of winter the state of Wales was more
critical than in the worst times of the winter of 1282.

Edward postponed his attack on Philip in order to throw all his energies
into the reduction of Wales. The levies assembled at Portsmouth for the
Gascon expedition were hurried beyond the Severn. The king held another
parliament and exacted a fresh supply. Criminals were offered pardon and
good wages, if they would serve, first in Wales and then in Gascony.
Before Christmas about a thousand men-at-arms were mustered at various
border centres under the royal standards, while every marcher lord was
busily engaged in putting down his own rebels. Before so great a force
the Welsh could do but little, and the spring saw the extinction of the
rebellion. But there was hard fighting both in the south and in the
north. Edward himself undertook the reconquest of Gwynedd. He was at
Conway before the end of the year, and in his haste he threw himself
into the town while the mass of his army remained on the right bank of
the river. High tides and winter floods made the crossing of the stream
impossible, and for a short time the king was actually besieged by the
rebels. Conway was unprepared for resistance and almost destitute of
supplies. The garrison thought it a terrible hardship that they had to
live on salt meat and bread, and to drink water mixed with honey. They
were encouraged by Edward refusing to taste better fare than his
troopers, and declining to partake of the one small measure of wine
reserved for his use. William Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, conveyed his
troops across the estuary and raised the siege. Yet the insurgents were
still able to fight a pitched battle. About January 22, 1295, Warwick
found the Welsh established in a strong position in a plain between two
woods. They had fixed the butts of their lances into the ground, hoping
thus to resist the shock of a cavalry charge. Improving on the tactics
of Orewyn bridge, the earl stationed between his squadrons of knights,
archers and crossbowmen, whose missiles inflicted such loss on the Welsh
lines that the cavalry soon found it safe to charge. The Welsh were
utterly broken, and never in a single day did they suffer such enormous
losses. Even more important than its results in breaking the back of
Madog's insurrection, this battle of Maes Madog--or Madog's field, as
the Welsh called the place of their defeat--is of the highest importance
in the development of infantry tactics. The order of the victorious
force strikingly anticipates the great battles in Scotland and France of
a later generation. In obscure fights, like Orewyn bridge and Maes
Madog, the English learnt the famous battle array which was to overwhelm
the Scots in the later years of Edward's reign and prepare the way for
the triumphs of Crecy and Poitiers.

Madog still held out, and with the advent of spring, 1295, Edward began
to hunt him from his lairs. Gwynedd was cleared of the enemy and
Anglesey was reconquered. Carnarvon castle arose from its ruins in the
stately form that we still know, while on the Anglesey side of the Menai
the new stronghold of Beaumaris arose, to ensure the subjection of the
granary of Gwynedd. In May Edward felt strong enough to undertake a
progress in South Wales. After receiving the submissions of the rebels
of Cardigan and Carmarthen, he won back for the lords of Brecon and
Glamorgan the lands which, without his help, they had been unable to
conquer. The Welsh chieftains were leniently treated. While Madog was
imprisoned in the Tower, Morgan was at once set at liberty. By July
Edward was able to leave Wales. Yet his triumph had taxed all his
resources, and left him, overwhelmed with debt, to face the irritation
of subjects unaccustomed to such demands upon their loyalty and
patriotism. But nothing broke his dauntless spirit, and once more he
busied himself in obtaining revenge on the false King of France.

It was inevitable that the Welsh war should have reduced to slender
proportions the expedition of John of Brittany and John of St. John for
the recovery of Gascony. After a tedious voyage the English expedition
sailed up the Gironde late in October, 1294. Their forces, strong enough
to capture Bourg and Blaye, were not sufficient to attack Bordeaux.
Leaving the capital in the hands of its conquerors, the English sailed
past Bordeaux to Rioms, where they disembarked. The small towns of the
neighbourhood were taken and garrisoned, and the Gascon lords began to
flock to the camp of their duke. Before long the army was large enough
to be divided. John of Brittany remained at Rioms, while John of St.
John marched overland to Bayonne. The French garrison was unable to
overpower the enthusiasm of the Bayonnais for Edward, and the capture of
the second town of Gascony was the greatest success attained by the
invaders. With the spring of 1295, however, Charles of Valois, brother
of the King of France, was sent to operate against John of Brittany. The
English and Gascons found themselves unable to make head against him.
There was ill-feeling between the two nations that made up the army, and
also between the nobly-born knights and men-at-arms and the foot
soldiers. The infantry mutinied, and John of Brittany fled by night down
the river from Rioms, leaving many of his knights and all his horses and
armour in the town. Next day Rioms opened its gates to Charles of
Valois, who gained immense spoils and many distinguished prisoners. Save
for the capture of Bayonne, the expedition had been a disastrous
failure.

Edward failed even more signally in his efforts to defeat Philip by
diplomacy. He had left no effort unspared to build up a great coalition
against the French king. He "sent a great quantity of sterling money
beyond the sea," and made alliances with all the princes and barons that
he could find.[1] At first it seemed that he had succeeded. Adolf of
Nassau, the poor and dull, but strenuous and hard-fighting King of the
Romans, concluded a treaty with England, and did not think it beneath
the dignity of the lord of the world to take the pay of the English
monarch. Many vassals of the empire, especially in the Netherlands, the
Rhineland, and Burgundy followed Adolf's example. Edward strengthened
his party further by marrying three of his daughters to the Duke of
Brabant, the son of the Count of Holland, and the Count of Bar as the
price of their adherence to the coalition. He made closer his ancient
friendship with Guy of Dampierre, the old Count of Flanders, by
betrothing Edward of Carnarvon to his daughter Philippine. At the same
time he sought the friendship of the lords of the Pyrenees, such as the
Count of Foix, and of the kings of the Spanish peninsula. But nothing
came of the hopes thus excited, save fair promises and useless
expenditure. Before long Philip of France was able to build up a French
party in appearance as formidable-in reality as useless as Edward's
attempted confederation. Edward's most important ally, Guy of Flanders,
was forced to renounce his daughter's marriage to the heir of England
and hand her over to Philip's custody. The time was not yet come for
effective European coalitions; the real fighting had to be done by the
parties directly interested in the quarrel.

[1] See a contemporary notice printed by F. Funck-Brentano in
_Revue Historique_, xxxix. (1889), pp. 329-30.

The command of the sea continued to be a vital question. The Norman
sailors were eager to avenge their former defeats, and Philip saw that
the best way to preserve his hold over Gascony was to be master of the
Channel and the Bay of Biscay. Edward prepared to meet attack by
establishing an organisation of the English navy which marks an epoch in
the history of our admiralty. He divided the vessels told off to guard
the sea into three classes, and set over each a separate admiral. John
of Botecourt was made admiral of the Yarmouth and eastern fleet; William
of Leyburn was set over the navy at Portsmouth; and the western and
Irish squadron was put under a valiant knight of Irish origin. Meanwhile
the French planned an invasion of England, and promised James of Aragon
that, when England was conquered, its king should be considered his
personal prize. Galleys were hired at Marseilles and Genoa for service
in the Channel, and Sir Thomas Turberville, a Glamorganshire knight
captured at Rioms, turned traitor and was restored to England in the
hope that he might obtain the custody of some seaport and betray it to
the enemy. Turberville strove in vain to induce Morgan to head another
revolt in Glamorgan, and urged upon Philip the need of an alliance with
the Scots. At last the invasion was attempted, and the French admiral,
Matthew of Montmorenci, sacked and burnt the town of Dover. Luckily,
however, Turberville's treason was discovered, and the Yarmouth fleet
soon avenged the attack on Dover by burning Cherbourg. In the face of
such resistance, Philip IV. abandoned his plan of invasion and tried to
establish a sort of "continental blockade" of English ports in which a
modern writer has seen an anticipation of the famous dream of
Napoleon.[1] Though nothing came of these grandiose schemes, yet the
efforts made to organise invasion had their permanent importance as
resulting in the beginnings of the French royal navy. As late as 1297 a
Genoese was appointed admiral of France in the Channel, and strongly
urged the invasion of England and its devastation by fire and flame. But
the immediate result of Philip's efforts to cut off England from the
continent was that his Flemish allies found in his policy a new reason
for abandoning his service. On January 7, 1297, a fresh treaty of
alliance between Edward and Guy, Count of Flanders, was concluded.

[1] See for this Jourdain, _Memoire sur les Commencements de la
Marine francaise sous Philippe le Bel_ (1880), and C. de la
Ronciere, _Le Blocus continental de l'Angleterre sous Philippe
le Bel_ in _Revue des Questions historiques_, lx. (1896),
401-41.

More effective than Philip's efforts to combine the Continent against
the English were his endeavours to stir up opposition to Edward in
Britain. The Welsh rising of 1294 had taken place independently of him,
but it was not Philip's fault that Morgan did not once more excite
Glamorgan to rebellion. A better opening for intrigue was found in
Scotland. Ever since the accession of John Balliol, there had been
appeals from the Scottish courts to those of Edward. Certain suits begun
under the regency, which had acted in Edward's name from 1290 to 1292,
gave the overlord an opportunity of inserting the thin end of the wedge;
and it looked as if, after a few years, appeals from Edinburgh to London
would be as common as appeals from Bordeaux to Paris. But whatever were
the ancient relations of England and Scotland, it is clear that the
custom of appeals to the English king had never previously been
established. It was no wonder then that what seemed to Edward an
inevitable result of King John's submission, appeared to the Scots an
unwarrantable restriction of their independence.

The weakness and simplicity of King John left matters to take their
course for a time, but the king, who was not strong enough to stand up
against Edward, was not the man to resist the pressure of his own
subjects. On his return from the London parliament of June, 1294, the
Scots barons virtually deposed him. A committee was set up by parliament
consisting of four bishops, four earls, and four barons which, though
established professedly on the model of the twelve peers of France, had
a nearer prototype in the fifteen appointed under the Provisions of
Oxford. To this body the whole power of the Scottish monarchy was
transferred, so that John became a mere puppet, unable to act without
the consent of his twelve masters. Under this new government the
relations of England and Scotland soon became critical. The Scots denied
all right of appeal to the English courts, and expelled from their
country the nobles whose possessions in England gave them a greater
interest in the southern than in the northern kingdom. Among the
dispossessed barons was Robert Bruce, son of the claimant, by marriage
already Earl of Carrick, and now by his father's recent death lord of
Annandale. In defiance of Edward's prohibition the Scots received French
ships, and subjected English traders at Berwick to many outrages. At
last, on July 5, 1295, an alliance was signed between Scotland and
France, by which Edward Balliol, the eldest son of King John, was
betrothed to Joan, the eldest daughter of Charles of Valois, the brother
of the French king. On this, Edward demanded the surrender of three
border castles, and on the refusal of the Scots, cited John to appear at
Berwick on March 1, 1296. Thus, by a process similar to that which had
embroiled Edward with his French overlord, the King of Scots also was
forced to face the alternative of certain war or humiliating surrender.

To Edward a breach with Scotland was unwelcome. In 1294 the Welsh had
prevented him using all his power against France, and in 1295 the Scots
troubles further postponed his prospects of revenge. But no suggestion
of compromise or delay came from him. On his return to London early in
August, 1295, he busied himself with preparing to resist the enemies
that were gathering around him on every side. It was the moment of the
raid on Dover, and the French question was still the more pressing. In a
parliament of magnates at London, Edmund of Lancaster told the story of
his Paris embassy with such effect that two cardinal-legates, whom the
new pope, Boniface VIII., had sent in the hope of making peace, were put
off politely, on the ground that Edward could make no treaty without the
consent of his ally, the King of the Romans. Edmund was appointed
commander of a new expedition to Gascony, though his weak health delayed
his departure. Meanwhile Edward called upon every class of his subjects
to co-operate with him in his defence of the national honour. He was
statesman enough to see that he could only cope with the situation, if
England as a whole rallied round him. His best answer to the Scots and
the French was the convention of the "model parliament" of November,
1295.

The deep political purpose with which this parliament was assembled is
reflected even in the formal language of the writs. "Inasmuch as a most
righteous law of the emperors," wrote Edward, "ordains that what touches
all should be approved by all, so it evidently appears that common
dangers should be met by remedies agreed upon in common. You know well
how the King of France has cheated me out of Gascony, and how he still
wickedly retains it. But now he has beset my realm with a great fleet
and a great multitude of warriors, and proposes, if his power equal his
unrighteous design, to blot out the English tongue from the face of the
earth." To avert this peril, Edward summoned not only a full and
representative gathering of magnates, but also two knights from every
shire and two burgesses from every borough. Moreover, the lower clergy
were also required to take part in the assembly, the archdeacons and
deans in person, the clergy of every cathedral church by one proctor,
the beneficed clerks of each diocese by two proctors. Thus the assembly
became so systematic a representation of the three estates' that after
ages have regarded it as the type upon which subsequent popular
parliaments were to be modelled. This gathering marks the end of the
parliamentary experiments of the earlier part of the reign. It met on
November 27, and each estate, deliberating separately, contributed its
quota to the national defence. The barons and knights offered an
eleventh, and the boroughs a seventh. It was a bitter disappointment to
Edward that the clergy could not be induced to make a larger grant than
a tenth. Enough, however, was obtained to equip the two armies which, in
the spring of 1296, were to operate against the French and the Scots.

The Gascon expedition was the first to start. Early in March, 1296,
Edmund of Lancaster, accompanied by the Earl of Lincoln, landed at Bourg
and Blaye. John of St. John was still maintaining himself in that
district as well as at Bayonne. On the appearance of the reinforcements
the Gascon lords began to flock to the English camp, and a large force
was at once able to take the field. On March 28 an attempt was made to
capture Bordeaux by a sudden assault. On its failure Edmund, who did not
possess the equipment necessary for a formal siege, sailed up the river
to Saint-Macaire and occupied the town. But the castle held out
gallantly, and after a three weeks' siege Edmund retired to his original
position on the lower Gironde. Even there he found difficulty in holding
his own, and before long shifted his quarters to Bayonne. He had
exhausted his resources, and found that his army could not be kept
together without pay. "Thereupon," writes Hemingburgh, "his face fell
and he sickened about Whitsuntide. So with want of money came want of
breath too, and after a few days he went the way of all flesh." Lincoln,
his successor, managed still to stand his ground against Robert of
Artois. At last Artois made a successful night attack upon the English,
captured St. John, and destroyed all his war-train and baggage. The
darkness of the night and the shelter of the neighbouring woods alone
saved the English army from total destruction. "After this," boasted
William of Nangis, "no Englishman or Gascon dared to go out to battle
against the Count of Artois and the French." At Easter, 1297, a truce
was concluded which left nearly all Gascony in French hands.

Soon after the departure of his brother for Gascony, Edward went to war
against the Scots, regarding the non-appearance of King John on March 1
at Berwick as a declaration of hostility. The lord of Wark offered to
betray his castle to the Scots, and Edward's successful effort to save
it first brought him to the Tweed. Meanwhile the men of Annandale under
their new lord, the Earl of Buchan, engaged in a raid on Carlisle, but
failed to capture the city, and speedily returned home. On March 28, the
day on which his brother attacked Bordeaux, Edward crossed the Tweed at
Coldstream, and marched down its left bank towards Berwick. On March 30
Berwick was captured. The townsmen fought badly, and the heroes of the
resistance were thirty Flemish merchants, who held their factory, called
the Red Hall, until the building was fired, and the defenders perished
in the flames. The garrison of the castle, commanded by Sir William
Douglas, laid down their arms at once.

Edward spent a month in Berwick, strengthening the fortifications of the
town, and preparing for an invasion of Scotland. Early in April, King
John renounced his homage and, immediately afterwards, the Scots lords
who had attacked Carlisle devastated Tynedale and Redesdale, penetrating
as far as Hexham. Edward's command of the sea made it impossible for the
raiders to cut off his communications with his base, and they quickly
returned to their own land, where they threw themselves into Dunbar.
Though the lord of Dunbar, Patrick, Earl of March, was serving with the
English king, his countess, who was at Dunbar, invited them into the
fortress. Dunbar blocked the road into Scotland, and Edward sent forward
Earl Warenne with a portion of the army in the hope of recapturing the
position. Warenne laid siege to Dunbar, but on the third day, April 27,
the main Scots army came to its relief. Leaving some of the young nobles
to continue the siege, Warenne drew up his army in battle array. The
Scots thought that the English were preparing for flight, and rushed
upon them with loud cries and blowing of horns. Discovering too late
that the enemy was ready for battle, they fell back in confusion as far
as Selkirk Forest. Next day Edward came up from Berwick and received the
surrender of Dunbar. Henceforth his advance was but a military
promenade.

Edward turned back from Dunbar to receive the submission of the Steward
of Scotland at Roxburgh, and to welcome a large force of Welsh infantry,
whose arrival enabled him to dismiss the English foot, fatigued with the
slight effort of a month's easy campaigning. Thence he made his way to
Edinburgh, which yielded after an eight days' siege. Stirling castle,
the next barrier to his progress, was abandoned by its garrison, and
there Edward was reinforced by some Irish contingents. He then advanced
to Perth, keeping St. John's feast on June 24 in St. John's own town. On
July 10 Balliol surrendered to the Bishop of Durham at Brechin,
acknowledging that he had forfeited his throne by his rebellion. Edward
continued his triumphal progress, preceded at every stage by Bishop Bek
at the head of the warriors of the palatinate of St. Cuthbert. He made
his way through Montrose up the east coast to Aberdeen, and thence up
the Don and over the hills to Banff and Elgin, the farthest limit of his
advance. He returned by a different route, bringing back with him from
Scone the stone on which the Scots kings had been wont to sit at their
coronation. This he presented as a trophy of victory to the monks of
Westminster, where it was set up as a chair for the priest celebrating
mass at the altar over against the shrine of St. Edward, though soon
used as the coronation seat of English kings.

In less than five months Edward had conquered a kingdom. On August 22 he
was back at Berwick, whither he had summoned a parliament of the nobles
and prelates of both kingdoms, in order that the work of organising the
future government of Scotland might be completed. Meanwhile a crowd of
Scots of every class flocked to the victor's court and took oaths of
fealty to him. Their names, along with those of the persons who made
similar recognitions of his sovereignly during his Scottish progress,
were recorded with notarial precision in one of those formal documents
with which Edward delighted to mark the stages in the accomplishment of
his task. This record, popularly styled the Ragman Roll, containing the
names of about two thousand freeholders and men of substance in
Scotland, is of extreme value to the Scottish genealogist and
antiquary.[1] The last entries are dated August 28, the day on which
Edward met his parliament at Berwick. The administration of Scotland was
provided for. John, Earl Warenne, became the king's lieutenant, Hugh
Cressingham, treasurer, and William Ormesby, justiciar. When the land
was subdued Edward showed a strong desire to treat the people well. The
only precaution taken by him against the renewal of disturbances was an
order that the former King of Scots, John Comyn of Buchan, John Comyn of
Badenoch, and other magnates of the patriotic party were to dwell in
England, south of the Trent, until the conclusion of the war with
France. As soon as his business was accomplished at Berwick, Edward
turned his steps southwards. At last he seemed free to lead a great army
against Philip the Fair; and, in order to prepare for the French
expedition, he summoned another parliament to meet at Bury St. Edmunds
on the morrow of All Souls' day, November 3. At Bury the barons,
knights, and burgesses made liberal offerings for the war. But a new
difficulty arose in the absolute refusal of the clergy to vote any
supplies. Once more the cup of hope was dashed from Edward's lips, and
he found himself forced to enter into another weary conflict, this time
with his English liegemen.