A.D 1253.] DENUNCIATION BY THE BISHOPS. 283 Interior of Westminster Hall. The Bishops denouncing Sentence of Excommunication against all who should oppose the Charter. rapacity and that of his foreign favourites, till, finding they could not dispose of the fruit of their labours at home, they carried them to foreign ports. The king, says Matthew Paris, gave the parliament only good words and fair promises in answer to these remonstrances, accompanied with the most humble submissions, which they had too often found deceitful to be gulled by; the consequence was, that they unanimously refused the supply he asked, to the great disappointment of his rapacious favourites. In 1253, he again found himself obliged to apply to parliament, which he did under pretence of having made a vow to undertake a crusade. the most execrable cruelty; for the history of religious persecution does not present a darker page than the one in which the sufferings of the Albigenses is recorded. It was a short-sighted policy which induced the Church of Rome to draw the sword against these seceders from her pale. The blood of the martyrs for conscience' sake never sinks into the soil like barren seed; it is sure to germinate and bring forth fruit in time, and he who sheds it is doomed to the contempt and execration of mankind. A large inheritance in Britain had fallen to the victorious crusader, whose eldest son, unable to perform fealty to the Kings of France and England, had transferred it to his younger brother Simon, who came over and did homage for his lands, and the title of Earl of Leicester. In 1238 he married Eleanor, the king's sister, the widow of William, Earl of Pembroke; but the union of the princess with a subject and a foreigner, though contracted with Henry's consent, was loudly complained of, not only by the Earl of Cornwall, but most of the English barons. The bridegroom, however, was protected against their violence by his brother-in-law, who little imagined the ungrateful return he would meet with. No sooner had Leicester succeeded in establishing himself in his new possessions and dignities, than he acquired, by insinuation and address, great popularity and influence with the nation, gaining the affections of all orders of mena circumstance which lost him the friendship of the feeble monarch, who first banished him from court, then weakly recalled him, and finally, to rid himself of his presence, entrusted him with the government of Guienne, where, to do the earl justice, he did good service, and acquired grea: honour. Instead of being rewarded, as he had every reason to expect, he was once more exiled. Henry called him a traitor to his face; on which the haughty noble gave him the lie, and told him that, if he were not his sovereign, he would soon make him repent the insult. The parliament hesitated to comply, and the ecclesiastical order sent a deputation to Henry, consisting of four prelates -the primate, and the Bishops of Winchester, Salisbury, and Carlisle to remonstrate with him on his frequent violation of their privileges, the oppressions with which he had loaded them as well as the rest of his subjects, and the uncanonical and forced elections made to the vacant dignities in the Church. "It is true," replied the king, "I have been somewhat faulty in this particular: I obtruded you, my lord of Canterbury, on your see; I was obliged to employ both entreaties and menaces, my lord of Winchester, to have you elected; my proceedings, I confess, were very irregular, my lords of Salisbury and Carlisle, when I raised you from the lowest stations to your present dignities. I am determined henceforth to correct these abuses; and it will also become you, in order to make a thorough reformation, to resign your present benefices, and try to enter again in a more regular and canonical manner." The bishops, surprised at these unexpected sarcasms, replied that the question was not at present how to correct past errors, but to avoid them for the future. The king promised redress, both of ecclesiastical and civil grievances; and the parliament in return agreed to grant him a supply, a tenth of the ecclesiastical benefices, and a scutage of three marks on each knight's fee; but as they had experienced his frequent breach of promise, they required that he should ratify the great charter in a manner still more authentic and more solemn than any which he had hitherto employed. All the prelates and abbots were assembled; they held burning tapers in their hands; the great charter was read before them; they denounced the sentence of excommunication against every one who should thenceforth violate the fundamental law; they threw their tapers on the ground, and exclaimed, “May the soul of every one who incurs this sentence so stink and corrupt in hell!" The king bore a part in this ceremony, and subjoined, "So help me God, I will keep all these articles inviolate, as I am a man, as I am a Christian, as I am a knight, and as I am a king crowned and anointed." Yet was the tremendous ceremony no sooner finished, than his favourites, abusing his weakness, made him return to the same arbitrary and irregular administration, and the expectations and hopes of the nation were again eluded and disap-representing the indignity of submitting to be governed pointed. The universal discontent which ensued afforded a pretext to Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, to attempt, by means of a revolution, to wrest the sceptre from the feeble and irresolute hands which held it. This powerful noble was the younger son of that Simon de Montfort who displayed so much skill and courage in the crusade against the unfortunate Albigenses, but who tarnished his fame by This second quarrel was, however, accommodated, either through the good nature or fear of Henry, and the offender admitted once more to some share of favour and authority. With all his defects, Leicester appears to have been of too noble and independent a nature to observe a compliance with his brother-in-law's capricious humours, or to act in subserviency to his minions. Perhaps he found it more to his advantage to cultivate the good opinion of the people, and to inflame the general discontent against the wretched administration of the kingdom. He filled every place with his complaints against the violations of the great charter, the acts of violence committed on the people, the iniquitous combination between the Pope and the king in their mutual acts of tyranny and extortion, and the neglect shown to his native subjects and barons by Henry. In this last complaint, although a foreigner himself, he was more zealous than any other noble in the realm, in by strangers. By hypocritical and politic pretensious to devotion, he succeeded in obtaining the favour of the clergy, whilst, at the same time, he secured the affections of the people. He carefully cultivated the friendship of the barons by pretending an animosity against the favourites, which animosity served as the basis of union between himself and that powerful order. A violent quarrel which broke out between Leicester and William de Valence, Henry's half-brother and chief favourite, brought matters to extremity, and determined the former to give full scope to his long-cherished schemes of ambition, which the laws and the royal authority had hitherto with no little difficulty restrained. He secretly called an assembly of the most powerful nobles, particularly Humphrey of Hereford, high constable; Roger of Norfolk, earl marshal; and the Earls of Warwick and Gloucester-men who, by their exalted rank and immense possessions, stood first in the rank of English nobility. To this assembly he exposed the necessity of reforming the state, and entrusting the execution of the laws to other hands than those which had proved themselves, by bitter experience, so totally unfitted for the charge confided to them. In his harangue he did not forget to inveigh against the oppression exercised against the lower orders, or exaggerate on the violations of the privileges of the barons, and the depredations committed on the clergy; and, in order to aggravate the enormity of his brother-in-law's conduct, he appealed to the great charter, which Henry had so often sworn to maintain and so frequently violated. This violation, he urged, with great show of justice, of privileges which their ancestors had wrung from the crown by an enormous sacrifice of blood and treasure, ought not to be endured, unless they were prepared to set the seal upon their own degeneracy by permitting such important advantages to be torn from them by a weak prince and his insolent foreign favourites. To all suggestions of a remonstrance the speaker replied by observing that the king's word had been too frequently broken, although confirmed by oaths, ever again to be relied upon, and that nothing short of his being placed in a position of utter inability to violate the national privileges could henceforth ensure the regular observance of them. These complaints, which were founded in truth, accorded so entirely with the sentiments of the assembly, that they produced the desired effect, and the barons pledged themselves to a resolution of reducing the public grievances, by taking into their own hands the administration of the kingdom. Henry having summoned a parliament, in expectation of receiving supplies for his Sicilian project, the barons appeared in the hall, clad in complete armour, and with their swords by their side. The king, on his entry, struck with the unusual appearance, asked them what was their purpose, and whether they intended to make him their prisoner. Roger Bigod replied, in the name of the rest, that he was not their prisoner, but their sovereign; that they even intended to grant him large supplies, in order to fix his son on the throne of Sicily; that they only expected some return for this expense and service; and that, as he had frequently mnade submissions to the parliament, had acknowledged his past errors, and still allowed himself to be carried into the same path, which gave them such just reason of complaint, be must now yield to more strict regulations, and confer authority on those who were able and willing to redress the national grievances. Henry, partly allured by the hopes of supply, partly intimidated by the union and martial appearance of the barons, agreed to their demand; and promised to summon another parliament at Oxford, in order to digest the new plan of government, and to elect the persons who were to be entrusted with the chief authority. This parliament, which the royalists, and even the nation, 285 from experience of the confusions that attended its measures, afterwards denominated the mad parliament, met on the day appointed; and as all the barons brought along with them their military vassals, and appeared with an armed force, the king, who had taken no precautions against them, was in reality a prisoner in their hands, and was obliged to submit to all the terms which they were pleased to impose upon him. Twelve barons were selected from among the king's ministers, twelve more were chosen by parliament: to these twenty-four, unlimited authority was granted to reform the state; and the king himself took an oath that he would maintain whatever ordinances they should think proper to enact for that purpose. Leicester was at the head of this supreme council, to which the legislative power was thus in reality transferred; and all their measures were taken by his secret influence and direction. The first step bore a specious appearance, and seemed well calculated for the end which they professed to be the object of all these innovations: they ordered that four knights should be chosen by each county; that they should make inquiry into the grievances of which their neighbourhood had reason to complain, and should attend the ensuing parliament, in order to give information to that assembly of the state of their particular counties-a nearer approach to our present constitution than had been made by the barons in the reign of King John, when the knights were only appointed to meet in their several counties, and there to draw up a detail of their grievances. Meanwhile the twenty-four barons proceeded to enact some regulations as a redress of such grievances as were supposed to be sufficiently notorious: they ordered that three sessions of parliament should be regularly held every year, in the months of February, June, and October; that a new sheriff should be annually elected by the votes of the freeholders in each county; that the sheriffs should have no power of fining the barons who did not attend their courts or the circuits of the justiciaries; that no heirs should be committed to the wardship of foreigners, and no castles entrusted to their custody; and that no new warrens or forests should be created, nor the revenues of any counties or hundreds be let to farm. Such were the regulations which the twentyfour barons established at Oxford, for the redress of public grievances. But the Earl of Leicester and his associates, having advanced so far to satisfy the nation, instead of continuing in this popular course, or granting the king that supply which they had promised him, immediately provided for the extension and continuance of their own authority. They roused anew the popular clamour which had long prevailed against foreigners; and they fell with the utmost violence on the king's half-brothers, who were supposed to be the authors of all national grievances, and whom Henry had no longer any power to protect. The four brothers, sensible of their danger, took to flight, with an intention of making their escape out of the kingdom; they were eagerly pursued by the barons. Aymer, one of the brothers, who had been elected to the see of Winchester, took shelter in his episcopal palace, and carried the others along with him; they were surrounded in that place, and threatened to be dragged out by force, and to be punished for their crimes and misdemeanours; and the king, pleading the sacredness of an ecclesiastical sanctuary, was glad to extricate them from this danger by banishing them the kingdom. In this act of violence, as well as in the former usurpa- confederates, that even this regulation was submitted to, tions of the barons, the queen and her uncles are supposed and thus the entire government was overthrown, or fixed to have secretly concurred, being jealous of the credit ac- upon a new foundation; the monarchy subsisted without quired by the brothers, which had entirely eclipsed their its being possible for the king to strike a single stroke in defence of the constitution against the newly-elected oligarchy. own. The subsequent proceedings of the confederate barons were inefficient to open the eyes of the nation to their real design, which was neither more nor less than reducing both the king and the people under the arbitrary power of a very limited aristocracy, which, had it been carried out, must have terminated at last in anarchy or tyranny. They artfully pretended that they had not yet digested all the regulations necessary for the reformation of the state, and the redress of grievances; that they must still retain their power till the great purpose was effected; or, in other words, that they intended to remain perpetual governors till it pleased them to abdicate their authority; and, in order to cement their power, they formed an association amongst themselves, and swore that they would stand by each other with their lives and fortunes. The justiciary, the chancellor, and treasurer of the kingdom were removed from their offices, and creatures of the barons thrust into their places; even the offices of the king's household were disposed of at their pleasure, and the government of all castles put into hands in which they could confide; and the whole power of the state being thus transferred into their hands, they put the crowning act to their usurpations by imposing an oath, which all subjects were obliged to swear under penalty of being proclaimed public enemies, that they would obey and execute all regulations, both known and unknown, of the twenty-four barons. Never had men a more glorious opportunity of covering themselves with honour, and securing the gratitude of their country, than the confederates now possessed; but, instead of devoting themselves to establishing the liberties of their country, reforming the abuses, and correcting the laws, they selfishly preferred their personal aggrandisement. The history of the twenty-four barons is the history of the English aristocracy as a party for centuries. We seldom or ever find them in opposition to the crown, wringing from it the surrender of its prerogatives, unless to arrogate those very prerogatives to themselves. In their shortsighted policy, little did they foresee that a power was gradually springing into existence which would one day call them to as severe an account as they had called their monarchs-the power of the people. Edward, the king's eldest son, then a youth of eighteen, who, even at that early age, gave indications of the noble, manly spirit which distinguished him in after life, was, after some opposition, forced to take the oath, which virtually deposed his father and his family from sovereign authority. The last person in the kingdom who held out was Earl de Warenne, but even he was eventually compelled to submit. Not content with this usurpation of the royal power, the barons introduced an innovation in the constitution which was utterly at variance with its letter and spirit. They ordained that parliament should choose a committee of twelve persons, who should, in the intervals between the sessions, possess all the authority of the whole parliament, and attend, on a summons to that effect, the person of the king wherever he might reside. So powerful were the The lesson to Henry must have been a bitter one, for he was the last person in the kingdom who had a right to complain. He could invoke no law which he had not been the first to violate. The degradation and restraint he endured was the just punishment of his perfidy and countless perjuries. The report that the King of the Romans intended visit ing England alarmed the confederated nobles, who dreaded lest his extensive influence should be employed to restore his family, and overturn their new system of government. Under this impression they sent the Bishop of Worcester to meet him at St. Omers, to demand, in their name, the reason of his journey; how long he intended to remain in the kingdom; and to insist that, before he set foot in it, he should swear to observe the regulations established at Oxford. On Richard's refusal to take this oath, they prepared to resist him as a public enemy. They fitted out a fleet, assembled an army, and, exciting the inveterate prejudices of the people against foreigners, from whom they had suffered so many oppressions, spread the report that Richard, attended by a number of strangers, meant to restore by force the authority of his exiled brothers, and to violate all the securities provided for public liberty. The King of the Romans was at last obliged to submit to the terms required of him. But the barons, in proportion to their continuance in power, began gradually to lose that popularity which had assisted them in obtaining it; and men repined that regulations, which were occasionally established for the reformation of the state, were likely to become perpetual, and to subvert entirely the ancient constitution. They were apprehensive lest the power of the nobles, always oppressive, should now exert itself without control, by removing the counterpoise of the crown; and their fears were increased by some new edicts of the barons, which were plainly calculated to procure to themselves an immunity in all their violences. They appointed that the circuits of the itinerant justices, the sole check on their arbitrary conduct, should be held only once in seven years; and men easily saw that a remedy which returned, after such long intervals, against an oppressive power which was perpetual, would prove totally insignificant and useless. The cry became loud in the nation that the barons should finish their intended regulations. The knights of the shires, who seem now to have been pretty regularly assembled, and sometimes in a separate house, made remonstrances against the slowness of their proceedings. They represented that, though the king had performed all the conditions required of him, the barons had hitherto done nothing for the public good, and had only been careful to promote their own private advantage, and to make inroads on royal authority; and they even appealed Prince Edward, and claimed his interposition for the interests of the nation and the reformation of the government. The prince replied that, though it was from constraint, and contrary to his private sentiments, he had sworn to maintain the provisions of Oxford, he was determined to observe his oath; but he sent a message to the barons, requiring them to bring their undertaking to a speedy conclusion, and fulfil their engagements to the public: otherwise, he menaced them that, at the expense of his life, he would oblige them to do their duty, and would shed the last drop of his blood in promoting the interests and satisfying the just wishes of the nation. The remonstrances of the knights of the shire, and the spirited conduct of the heir to the crown, obliged the barons at last to publish a new code of ordinances for the reformation of the state; but the expectations of the nation were bitterly disappointed when they found that they consisted only in some trivial alterations in the municipal laws, and that their rulers intended to prolong their authority still further, under pretence that the task they had assumed was not yet accomplished. The current of popular opinion now turned in favour of the crown-indeed, so much so, that the barons had little left to rely on for support beyond personal influence and the power of their families, which, although exceedingly great, could not match itself against the combination of the king and people. France was at this time governed by Louis IX., a monarch of the most singular character that is to be met with in all the records of history. He united to the abject superstition of the monk all the courage and great qualities of a hero, and what may appear still more extraordinary, the justice and integrity of a patriot, the mildness and humanity of a philosopher. So far from taking advantage of the divisions amongst the English in attempting to expel them from the provinces which they still held in France, he entertained many doubts as to the justice of the sentence of attainder pronounced against Henry's father, the licentious and worthless John, and had even expressed some intention of restoring his forfeited possessions. Whenever this prince interposed in English affairs, it was always with an intention of composing the differences between the king and his nobility. He recommended to both parties every peaceable and reconciling measure, and be used all his authority with the Earl of Leicester, his native subject, to bend him to compliance with Henry. He made a treaty with England (May 20) at a time when the distractions of that kingdom were at the greatest height, and when the king's authority was totally annihilated, and the terms which he granted might, even in a more prosperous state of their affairs, be deemed reasonable and advantageous to the English. He yielded up some territories which had been conquered from Poitou and Guienne; he ensured the peaceable possession of the latter province to Henry; he agreed to pay that prince a large sum of money; and he only required that the king should, in return, make a final Cession of Normandy and the other provinces, which he could never entertain any hopes of recovering by force of arms. This cession was ratified by Henry, by his two sons and two daughters, and by the King of the Romans and his three sons. But the situation of Henry soon after wore a still more favourable aspect. The twenty-four barons had now enjoyed the sovereign power nearly three years, and had visibly employed it, not for the reformation of the state, which was their first pretence, but for the aggrandisement of them 287 selves and their favourites. The dissension amongst the barons themselves, whilst it added to the evil, made the remedy more obvious and easy. The desertion of the Earl of Gloucester to the crown seemed to promise Henry certain success in the event of his attempting to resume his authority, but he dared not take that step without first applying to Rome for absolution from the oaths and engagements he had contracted. The king could not have made his application at a more fortunate period, for the Pope felt much dissatisfied with the conduct of the barons, who, in order to conciliate the nation, had expelled all the Italian ecclesiastics from the kingdom and confiscated their benefices. He proved himself willing, therefore, on Henry's application, to absolve him and all his subjects from the oath they had taken to observe the provisions of Oxford. Prince Edward, whose liberal mind, though in such early youth, had taught him the great prejudice which his father had incurred by his levity, inconstancy, and frequent breach of promise, refused for a long time to take advantage of this absolution; and declared that the provisions of Oxford, how unreasonable soever in themselves, and how much soever abused by the barons, ought still to be adhered to by those who had sworn to observe them. He himself had been constrained by violence to take that oath; yet was he determined to keep it. By this scrupulous fidelity the prince acquired the confidence of all parties, and was afterwards enabled to recover fully the royal authority. As soon as the king received the Pope's absolution from his oath, accompanied with menaces of excommunication against all opponents, trusting to the countenance of the Church, to the support promised him by many considerable barons, and to the returning favour of the people, he immediately took off the mask. After justifying his conduct by a proclamation, in which he set forth the private ambition and the breach of trust conspicuous in Leicester and his associates, he declared that he had resumed the government, and was determined thenceforth to exert the royal authority for the protection of his subjects. He removed Hugh le Despenser and Nicholas of Ely, the justiciary and chancellor appointed by the barons, and put Philip Basset and Walter de Merton in their place. He substituted new sheriffs in all the counties, men of character and honour; he placed new governors in most of the castles, he changed all the officers of his household; he summoned a parliament, in which the resumption of his authority was ratified, with only five dissenting voices; and the barons, after making one fruitless effort to take the king by surprise at Winchester, were obliged to acquiesce in these new regulations. The king, in order to cut off every objection to his conduct, offered to refer all the differences between him and the Earl of Leicester to Margaret, Queen of France. The celebrated integrity of Louis gave a mighty influence to any decision which issued from his court; and Henry probably hoped that the gallantry on which all barons, as true knights, valued themselves, would make them ashamed not to submit to the award of that princess. The Earl of Leicester was nowise discouraged by the bad success of his former enterprises: the death of Richard, Earl of Gloucester, who was his chief rival in power, seemed to open a fresh field to his ambition, and expose the throne to renewed violence. It was in vain that Henry declared his intention of strictly observing the Great Charter, and even of |