CHAP. 10. evening, riding out at the head of a small party belonging to the garrison De Segrave. of Berwick, he fell into an ambuscade of the Scots, and after a severe conflict he was wounded and made prisoner. We find him, however, in the next year, accompanying the king at the celebrated siege of Caerlaverock, and on the triumphant return of Edward to England, he remained in Scotland as the king's lieutenant.

De Bardolph.

Grey de Wilton.

Grey de
Codnor.

De Frescheville.

Ralph de
Cromwell.

Segrave.

Hugh de Bardolph had succeeded to the estates of his father, William de Bardolph, whom we have already noticed among those who were summoned to the expedition against Wales. This Hugh was taken prisoner by the French at the siege of Cusance, and was afterwards employed by Edward in his Scottish wars, during which he was slain.

Lord Reginald Grey de Wilton held Shirland and Stretton in Derbyshire: he was a man in whose wisdom Edward placed great confidence, and, when the king, on his expedition to Flanders, left the realm under the regency of the young prince, he especially nominated lord Reginald Grey as one of the prince's assistant counsellors. He was aged at the period of the Scottish wars, but he was nevertheless present with the army, while his son John, who was then forty years old, displayed such activity and courage, that he was honoured with several marks of royal favour.— Lord Grey of Codnor was also personally engaged in the Scottish wars, in the retinue of prince Edward, and afterwards in that of Andomar de Valence, earl of Pembroke.

Ralph de Frescheville attended Edward I. in the Scottish wars. Many of the manors in Derbyshire, bestowed by William the Conqueror on Hubert Fitz-Ralph and on Ascoit de Musard, had descended to the Frescheville family. Among the possessions of this Ralph were Crich and Scarcliff, together with Staveley, Woodthorpe and Whitwell. His father, Ancar, was of the party of the confederated barons, and was taken prisoner by the king's troops at Northampton. His lands were accordingly seized, and his manor of Crich was, for a time, bestowed upon Bryan of Brompton ; but the whole of these possessions were afterwards redeemed by compo

sition.

Ralph de Cromwell had succeeded John de Cromwell in his manors within Derbyshire and other counties. He was summoned to attend the king in his Scottish wars. While in Scotland, he brought a charge of treason against Nicholas de Segrave, the brother of John de Segrave, whom we have made mention of above. A strong animosity seems to have arisen between the two families, both of whom had estates in this county. NichoNicholas de las de Segrave is styled by the historian Matthew of Westminster, "Unus de prætantioribus militibus de Regno." "One of the most excellent soldiers of the realm." On this charge, Nicholas was desirous of vindicating his innocence, by single combat. As this mode of trial was refused by the king, the irritated soldier threatened the accuser that he would take an opportunity of compelling him to a private duel, or seize some opportunity of avenging himself. Cromwell, alarmed for his personal safety, fled to France, where Nicholas de Segrave, in despite of the royal interdict, pursued him. Edward was so offended at his conduct, that he caused him to be seized and tried by a military court. His brother John made in

terest for him with the barons, appointed not so much to try as to sentence CHAP. 10. him; and after three days' deliberation, the court declared, that he being, Nicholas at the time of his offence, specially employed in the king's wars, had by de Segrave. desertion of his duty merited death, and that all his property should be confiscated. They added, however, that, in regard of his noble descent, and in the consideration that he had left his post to assert his loyalty by vindicating himself from a charge against his honour, they could not but conceive that his crime was within the compass of his sovereign's pardon. Edward, with severity of aspect, replied-" It is always in my power to extend mercy as I please. Who, I demand of you, hath ever submitted to my clemency and suffered for it? But, if the honour of one of you is to outweigh his duty, I can never be secure of the service of any. Let your sentence, without any mention of mercy (which is mine to exercise as I will, not yours even to understand) be recorded in writing, and it shall stand for law." Nicholas was instantly committed to close confinement. His brother and the other barons were struck with terror, as well at the manner as the determination of the king, but Edward seemed to be aware that this opportunity of enforcing discipline was not to be lost, and he for some time remained obdurate to the entreaties of some of the most powerful leaders in his army. At length thirty of the principal barons, including John de Segrave and his son Stephen, the brother and the nephew of the offender, presented themselves before the king, girt with their swords and attended by the bearers of their banners. As soon as the king approached them they knelt down and drew their swords, while their banners were bowed down towards the ground; and thus, in the attitude of supplication, they offered to be bound, body and goods, for the future strict military obedience of Nicholas de Segrave. The king listened to their request, and addressing to them a few words on the dangers resulting to his great enterprise from a want of confidence in those entrusted with the performance of particular duties, he, with great dignity, raised them severally according to the rank of each, with extended arms, and then pronounced, that Nicholas de Segrave was pardoned and restored to his honours and possessions. -This Nicholas de Segrave rose greatly in the king's favour: he had a high command in the army against Robert Bruce, was made governor of Northampton castle, and marshal of England.

Barons of Derbyshire.

Falkirk.

In the Scottish wars of Edward I. other names are mentioned, connected Other with the county of Derby, among which we find Ralph de Pipard; Almaric de St. Amand, who held Catton upon Trent; William de Tuchet; Robert de Willoughby, the nephew of Anthony Bec, bishop of Durham : with three persons of baronial rank, all of the name of Nicholas de Meinell. The battle of Falkirk was fought on the 22nd of July, 1298. The Battle of Scottish troops were led on by Wallace, and Edward commanded the English in person. The conflict was obstinate and sanguinary. Wallace was compelled to relinquish the field and to seek refuge among mountains and morasses. Scotland was reduced to temporary obedience, and the English victor returned to his own capital, and entered upon a negociation with the king of France for the restoration of Guienne. Before this negociation was concluded, the Scots had again revolted: the inhabitants of

Revolt of the Scots.

John de

Segrave.

CHAP. 10. the towns, and the population in every district, attacked the English garrisons on the same day, and Scotland appeared to have suddenly recovered her freedom. Edward a third time entered the borders of that unfortunate kingdom, and the brave, but rude assertors of her independence, were driven to the bogs and fastnesses of her mountainous districts. From those unassailable positions they frequently descended, and uniting themselves under the command of Wallace, they made the English sensible of the instability of their dominion. John de Segrave, who then commanded in Scotland, formed the design of reducing the country for miles around the retreats of these bands of hardy warriors into one vast desolate waste, for the purpose of compelling them to submission. He divided his army into three bodies, which severally were encountered by the Scots and defeated. Enraged at this circumstance Edward again entered Scotland, and again, by his presence and the immense forces that attended him through every district, he awed the country into submission; Wallace alone ventured to appear upon the flank and rear of the English army, frequently intercepting the foraging parties and sometimes attacking the soldiers in their march through the narrow defiles of the mountains. Annoyed in his triumphant progress by the continual assaults of the Scottish hero and his brave followers, Edward offered a reward for his apprehension, and he was betrayed by one of his friends. He was almost immediately executed, and his quarters hung up in four of the principal towns of Scotland, where those who gazed upon them were not less excited to avenge the heroic patriot than they were awed into submission by these mangled testimonies of his fate.

Edward I.

again enters Scotland.

Robert de
Bruce

Robert de Bruce, son of the rival of Baliol, had, during the pursuit of the Scots, after the battle of Falkirk, overtaken a band of desperate soldiers, who, as they retreated, fought around the person of Sir William Wallace. The brave patriot having drawn his pursuer into a secluded glen, which was intersected by a small river, demanded a parley, to which Bruce readily agreed, supposing that Wallace was about to yield; but when he called upon the hero to submit, he was startled at the solemn reproach with which Wallace firmly but respectfully remonstrated, that he, the legitimate heir to the Scottish throne, should be engaged in aiding the king of England to overturn the independence of Scotland. Bruce, it is said, burst into tears, and continued long to meditate on the words of Wallace. On the barbarous execution of that leader, Bruce appeared among the independent proclaimed spirited barons of Scotland and was proclaimed king. He was speedily king of Scot- surrounded by troops devoted to his cause, and Edward once more saw his conquest snatched out of his grasp. The earl of Pembroke was sent against the new king of Scotland, whilst an immense army under Edward himself was assembled at Carlisle. Bruce was repeatedly defeated: many of his adherents were seized, three of his brothers were put to death on the scaffold, and his queen imprisoned.

land;

defeated.

Edward
again invades
Scotland.

Edward being again master of Scotland, resolved to take measures that might securely unite the crowns of the two kingdoms. He was, however, again deceived in his expectations, for Bruce, during the ensuing winter, which was particularly rigid, assembled his dispersed forces, defeated the earl of Pembroke, and compelled the earl of Gloucester to retire to the

for the complete reduc

land.

Edward I.

Edward I.

castle of Ayr, while he made himself master of many strong places in the CHAP. 10. west of Scotland. The king of England summoned all the vassals of the Edward's crown, without distinction, to meet him at Carlisle with their military preparations tenants: the spring and part of the summer of 1307 were occupied in these preparations, by which he determined to reduce the whole of Scotland to tion of Scota state of vassallage, and to bestow the lands on his followers as William the Conqueror had divided England among his Normans. He left Carlisle in the first week of July, his army having preceded him across the Scottish borders. On arriving at the small town of Burgh on the Sands, he was obliged to stop there on account of a dysentery, with which he had been seized; and the violence of that calamity increasing rapidly, he expired on the 7th of that month. On his death-bed he pressed the hand Death of of Andomar de Valence, earl of Pembroke, and besought him to preserve his son from his dissolute companions, and ever to oppose the return of his son's favourite, Piers Gaveston, to England: particularly to urge him to the subjugation of Scotland, and firmly to adhere to him in all his fortunes. Thus terminated the life of Edward I. a prince of an active and prudent Character of mind, who would probably have united the whole of this island into one realm, had not his attention been so repeatedly drawn from his great object to his possessions in France, that he had no time to regulate the government of Scotland and conciliate the Scots to his dominion, before he was obliged to leave his new conquest in the hands of his lieutenants, who irritated the inhabitants by their severity. But our business is not to draw the characters of kings or to point out the leading points of their policy. Edward died shortly after the close of the thirteenth century, during which Derbyshire during the period this county had suffered severely by the wars of John and his son thirteenth Henry III. with the confederated barons. The castles of the Peak, Bolsover and Hareston, were entrusted to such barons as adhered to the king, and were the scenes of severe conflicts. The Ferrers' family had their castles at Duffield and Tutbury nearly destroyed by the king's troops, and towards the latter end of the civil war between Henry III. and the barons, Derbyshire was for some time the theatre of dreadful devastation; for so greatly had Robert de Ferrers provoked the vengeance of the court by his intemperate insurrection, which was terminated by the battle of Chesterfield, that his extensive manors were given up to the ravages of a merciless foreign soldiery. Whatever trade there was at such a period, it was subjected to serious interruptions; but from the anxiety expressed in an old writing relative to the tolls on merchandise at Swarkstone bridge, and at the fords at Bredon and Ashbourn, we may conclude that traffic of some importance was carried on with the neighbouring counties.-The town of Derby had been, during the preceding century, governed by an officer appointed by the earls of Chester and the earls Ferrers, called Provost, or Prepositus, who received the duties: one-third of which was enjoyed by the earl and the other two-thirds by the crown. Early in the thirteenth century a Charter was granted to Derby, empowering the burgesses to elect the Provost.-About the close of the same century, the rent of land in the neighbourhood of Derby was from 6d. to 2s. per annum, per acre; and the rent of a mill was from £2. to £3. 10s. per annum. We may conclude,

century.

CHAP. 10. that the town was improving in the condition of its inhabitants, as we find Derbyshire assessments made for paving its streets."

during the thirteenth century.

* The following circumstances, noted in the Annals of Burton, are curious enough to merit a place in a note.

"In the same year (1253) on the 14th Kal. Oct. (18th Sept.) the sky being clear about the close of the evening, at the manor of Ailwaldeston (Alvaston) near Derby, Sir Thomas Hanselin, very aged, lord of that manor, and Galfred his son, and many others, as well of the village as of their own family, standing by and beholding this matter, as also a certain freeman, by name Nicholas, of Findern, who also saw the occurrence and related it to us. Suddenly in a wide dark cloud there appeared a large, bright star, like the radiant sun, and near it two small red stars, like sparkling candles, which instantly leaped fiercely towards the great star, and (as we may say) were attacking it, rushing upon it, and waging a desperate war with it; so that it seemed to those who were witnesses of this sight, that fiery particles descended from them. This combat lasted until the close of the evening, so that those who beheld it, ignorant of what it might portend, retired to their homes, struck with terror and astonishment."

"1255. In this same year, about the time of the Ascension of the Lord, there was taken in the waters of the Trent, near Donington castle, a fish, eight feet in length, called a sturgeon. The old people of those parts affirmed, that a similar fish was taken in the same place, the very year before king John was crowned."

"On the 3rd ides (13th) July, a hail-storm happened in the valley of the Trent, between the bridge of Wychenofre (Wichnor) and Rependonam (Repton) astonishing beyond measure, so that those who witnessed it, affirmed that nothing like it had taken place in their time. An astonishing whirlwind followed the hail, overwhelming and carrying away the land, with buildings and the corn in the fields. The destruction of the hay was universal throughout the vale of the Trent by inundations of the waters, such as had not been known during a long series of years." In the same Anuals, under the same year (vide Annales Mon. Burt. 363) it is stated that a certain prior of this monastery of Burton, by name of John de Stretton, on account of his having been born at Stretton; a man of great authority and eminent for his learning, by the express license of the abbots, who at that period governed the monastery, had during many years, made additions to the bridge at Egginton over the Dove, and kindly kept it in repair. After his decease, the inhabitants of Egginton, unwilling to acknowledge this favour, and pretending total ignorance, asserted and obstinately insisted that it was the duty of the abbey of Burton to keep that bridge in repair; thus aiming at converting a favour and benevolence into a custom. this account the abbot Laurentius, who at that time was at the head of the monastery, obtained, through the intervention of his friend, Henry de Mertenton, an ecclesiastic of the court, royal letters to the earls of Stafford and Derby, commanding them to institute an enquiry into this matter. An inquisition was accordingly instituted, and the committee of enquiry appointed by the earl of Derby consisted of "Stephen, the son of Burgh, of Alvaston; Henry de Chambreis, of Barwardcote; William de Scarsdale; Peter, of Thurleston; Richard, of Aston; Henry, son of Peter, of Bolton; Richard, son of Ormond, of Burnaston; Henry de la Chambre, of Twyford; Robert de Henovre; William de Lehges; Henry, his brother, and Walter de Wilne.”— It was determined by the committees of enquiry in the two counties of Stafford and Derby, that there existed no duty either by custom or tenure for the repair of the bridge over the Dove, which is on the confines of the aforesaid counties.

On