Read The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 Online
Authors: David Hume
Edward, fallen into a like snare with that which he himself had spread for the Scots, was enraged; and the more so, as he was justly ashamed of his own conduct, in being so egregiously over-reached by the court of France. Sensible of the extreme difficulties, which he should encounter in the recovery of Gascony, where he had not retained a single place in his hands; he endeavoured to compensate that loss, by forming alliances with several princes, who, he projected, should attack France on all quarters, and make a diversion of her forces. Adolphus de Nassau, king of the Romans, entered into a treaty with him for that purpose;
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as did also Amadaeus, count of Savoy, the archbishop of Cologne, the counts of Gueldre and Luxembourg; the duke of Brabant and count of Barre, who had married his two daughters, Margaret and Eleanor: But these alliances were extremely burdensome to his narrow revenues, and proved in the issue entirely ineffectual. More impression was made on Guienne by an English army, which he completed by emptying the jails of many thousand thieves and robbers, who had been confined there for their crimes. So low had the profession of arms fallen, and so much had it degenerated from the estimation in which it stood during the vigour of the feudal system!
The king himself was detained in England, first by contrary 1295.
winds;
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then by his apprehensions of a Scottish invasion, and by a rebellion of the Welsh, whom he repressed and brought again under subjection.
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The army, which he sent to Guienne, was commanded by his nephew, John de Bretagne, earl of Richmond, and under him by St. John, Tibetot, de Vere, and other officers of reputation;
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who made themselves masters of the town of Bayonne, as well as of Bourg, Blaye, Reole, St. Severe, and other places, which straitened Bourdeaux, and cut off its communication both by sea and land. The favour, which the Gascon nobility bore to the English government, facilitated these conquests, and seemed to promise still greater successes; but this advantage was soon lost by the misconduct of some of the officers. Philip’s brother, Charles de Valois, who commanded the French armies, having laid siege to Podensac, a small fortress near Reole, obliged Giffard, the governor, to capitulate; and the articles, though favourable to the English, left all the Gascons prisoners at discretion, of whom about fifty were hanged by Charles as rebels: A policy, by which he both intimidated that people, and produced an PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)
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irreparable breach between them and the English.p
That prince immediately attacked Reole, where the earl of Richmond himself commanded; and as the place seemed not tenable, the English general drew his troops to the water-side, with an intention of embarking with the greater part of the army. The enraged Gascons fell upon his rear, and at the same time opened their gates to the French, who, besides making themselves masters of the place, took many prisoners of distinction. St. Severe was more vigorously defended by Hugh de Vere, son of the earl of Oxford; but was at last obliged to capitulate. The French king, not content with these successes in Gascony, threatened England with an invasion; and by a sudden attempt, his troops took and burnt Dover,
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but were obliged soon after to retire. And in order to make a greater diversion of the English force, and engage Edward in dangerous and important wars, he formed a secret alliance with John Baliol, king of Scotland; the commencement of that strict union, which, during so many centuries, was maintained, by mutual interests and necessities, between the French and Scottish nations. John confirmed this alliance by stipulating a marriage between his eldest son and the daughter of
The expences attending these multiplied wars of Edward, and his Digression preparations for war, joined to alterations which had insensibly concerning the
taken place in the general state of affairs, obliged him to have constitution of
parliament.
frequent recourse to parliamentary supplies, introduced the lower orders of the state into the public councils, and laid the
foundations of great and important changes in the government.
Though nothing could be worse calculated for cultivating the arts of peace or maintaining peace itself, than the long subordination of vassalage from the king to the meanest gentleman, and the consequent slavery of the lower people, evils inseparable from the feudal system; that system was never able to fix the state in a proper warlike posture, or give it the full exertion of its power for defence, and still less for offence, against a public enemy. The military tenants, unacquainted with obedience, unexperienced in war, held a rank in the troops by their birth, not by their merits or services; composed a disorderly and consequently a feeble army; and during the few days, which they were obliged by their tenures to remain in the field, were often more formidable to their own prince than to foreign powers, against whom they were assembled. The sovereigns came gradually to disuse this cumbersome and dangerous machine, so apt to recoil upon the hand which held it; and exchanging the military service for pecuniary supplies, inlisted forces by means of a contract with particular officers, (such as those the Italians denominate
Condottieri)
whom they dismissed at
the end of the war.s
The barons and knights themselves often entered into these engagements with the prince; and were enabled to fill their bands, both by the authority which they possessed over their vassals and tenants, and from the great numbers of loose, disorderly people, whom they found on their estates, and who willingly embraced an opportunity of gratifying their appetite for war and rapine.
Mean-while, the old Gothic fabric, being neglected, went gradually to decay. Though the Conqueror had divided all the lands of England into sixty thousand knights’ fees, the number of these was insensibly diminished by various artifices; and the king at last found, that, by putting the law in execution, he could assemble a small part only PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)
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of the ancient force of the kingdom. It was a usual expedient for men, who held of the king or great barons by military tenure, to transfer their land to the church, and receive it back by another tenure called frankalmoigne, by which they were not bound to perform any service.
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A law was made against this practice; but the abuse had probably gone far before it was attended to, and probably was not entirely corrected by the new statute, which, like most laws of that age, we may conjecture to have been but feebly executed by the magistrate against the perpetual interest of so many individuals. The constable and mareschal, when they mustered the armies, often, in a hurry, and for want of better information, received the service of a baron for fewer knights’ fees, than were due by him; and one precedent of this kind was held good against the king, and became ever after a reason for diminishing the service.
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The rolls of knights’ fees were inaccurately kept; no care was taken to correct them before the armies were summoned into the field;
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it was then too late to think of examining records and charters; and the service was accepted on the footing which the vassal himself was pleased to acknowledge, after all the various subdivisions and conjunctions of property had thrown an obscurity on the nature and extent of his
tenure.x
It is easy to judge of the intricacies which would attend disputes of this kind with individuals; when even the number of military fees, belonging to the church, whose property was fixed and unalienable, became the subject of controversy; and we find in particular, that, when the bishop of Durham was charged with seventy knights’
fees for the aid levied on occasion of the marriage of Henry II.’s daughter to the duke of Saxony, the prelate acknowledged ten, and disowned the other sixty.
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It is not known in what manner this difference was terminated; but had the question been concerning an armament to defend the kingdom, the bishop’s service would probably have been received without opposition for ten fees; and this rate must also have fixed all his future payments. Pecuniary scutages, therefore, diminished as much as military services:
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Other methods of filling the exchequer as well as the armies must be devised: New situations produced new laws and institutions: And the great alterations in the finances and military power of the crown, as well as in private property, were the source of equal innovations in every part of the legislature or civil government.
The exorbitant estates, conferred by the Norman on his barons and chieftains, remained not long entire and unimpaired. The landed property was gradually shared out into more hands; and those immense baronies were divided, either by provisions to younger children, by partitions among co-heirs, by sale, or by escheating to the king, who gratified a great number of his courtiers, by dealing them out among them in smaller portions. Such moderate estates, as they required economy, and confined the proprietors to live at home, were better calculated for duration; and the order of knights and small barons grew daily more numerous, and began to form a very respectable rank or order in the state. As they were all immediate vassals of the crown by military tenure, they were, by the principles of the feudal law, equally intitled with the greatest barons to a seat in the national or general councils; and this right, though regarded as a privilege, which the owners would not entirely relinquish, was also considered as a burthen, which they desired to be subjected to on extraordinary occasions only. Hence it was provided in the charter of king John, that, while the great barons were summoned to the national council by a particular writ, the small barons, under which appellation the knights were also comprehended, should only be called by a general summons of the sheriff. The distinction between great and small barons, PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)
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like that between rich and poor, was not exactly defined; but, agreeably to the inaccurate genius of that age and to the simplicity of ancient government, was left very much to be determined by the discretion of the king and his ministers. It was usual for the prince to require, by a particular summons, the attendance of a baron in one parliament, and to neglect him in future parliaments;
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nor was this uncertainty ever complained of as an injury. He attended when required: He was better pleased on other occasions to be exempted from the burthen: And as he was acknowledged to be of the same order with the greatest barons, it gave them no surprize to see him take his seat in the great council, whether he appeared of his own accord, or by a particular summons from the king. The barons by
Writ,
therefore, began gradually to intermix themselves with the barons by
Tenure;
and, as Camden tells us,
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from an ancient manuscript, now lost, that, after the battle of Evesham, a positive law was enacted, prohibiting every baron from appearing in parliament, who was not invited thither by a particular summons, the whole baronage of England held thenceforward their seat by writ, and this important privilege of their tenures was in effect abolished. Only, where writs had been regularly continued for some time in one great family, the omission of them would have been regarded as an affront, and even as an injury.
A like alteration gradually took place in the order of earls, who were the highest rank of barons. The dignity of an earl, like that of a baron, was anciently territorial and official:
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He exercised jurisdiction within his county: He levied the third of the fines to his own profit: He was at once a civil and a military magistrate: And though his authority, from the time of the Norman conquest, was hereditary in England, the title was so much connected with the office, that, where the king intended to create a new earl, he had no other expedient than to erect a certain territory into a county or earldom, and to bestow it upon the person and his family.
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But as the sheriffs, who were the vice-gerents of the earls, were named by the king, and removeable at pleasure, he found them more dependant upon him; and endeavoured to throw the whole authority and jurisdiction of the office into their hands. This magistrate was at the head of the finances, and levied all the king’s rents within the county. He assessed at pleasure the talliages of the inhabitants in royal demesne: He had usually committed to him the management of wards and often of escheats: He presided in the lower courts of judicature: And thus, though inferior to the earl in dignity, he was soon considered, by this union of the judicial and fiscal powers, and by the confidence reposed in him by the king, as much superior to him in authority, and undermined his
influence within his own jurisdiction.e
It became usual, in creating an earl, to give him a fixed salary, commonly about twenty pounds a year, in lieu of his third of the fines: The diminution of his power kept pace with the retrenchment of his profit: And the dignity of earl, instead of being territorial and official, dwindled into personal and titular. Such were the mighty alterations, which already had fully taken place, or were gradually advancing, in the house of peers; that is, in the parliament: For there seems anciently to have been no other house.
But though the introduction of barons by writ, and of titular earls, had given some encrease to royal authority; there were other causes, which counterbalanced those innovations, and tended in a higher degree to diminish the power of the sovereign.
The disuse, into which the feudal militia had in a great measure fallen, made the barons almost entirely forget their dependence on the crown: By the diminution of the PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)
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