Lack of funds did not present an acute problem to the Wardrobe in the Welsh wars: in 1277, 1282 and 1287 the Riccardi were able to supply the money needed to supplement the ordinary resources of the crown. However, the constant succession of campaigns from 1294 onwards made matters much more difficult; a substantial reserve of cash was built up in 1294, but was soon exhausted, and thereafter the government led a hand-to-mouth existence. A shortage of ready funds could have drastic consequences. At the end of August 1301 a sum of £200 was sent to Berwick for the payment of wages. This arrived late and was less than had been expected. Although the garrison was already a month in arrears, the £200 was not paid all to them, but was also split between the forces in Jedburgh and Roxburgh. The result was mutiny, mostly among the crossbowmen and archers supported by a few men-at-arms and even by a household knight, Walter de Teye. He claimed that the letters accompanying the money did not state that it was to be divided in this way, and seized £36 to pay to the discontented soldiers.[581] The outbreak of violence makes this incident exceptional, though delays in payment were common. In 1303 Alexander de Bikenore and Ralph Benton wrote that the Irish troops had received no pay for nine weeks, and were extremely discontented at hearing that funds had reached Berwick while they received none. There was a danger that they would start robbing those Scots who were loyal to Edward, or that they would simply desert.[582] In 1297 two troops of infantry who had been serving in Gascony came to Edward in person and protested that they had not been paid. They were only able to obtain enough money to pay for their journey home.[583] It was not simply the infantry who suffered from non-payment of wages: several leaders of cavalry troops thought it worth their while to petition in parliament for the arrears they were owed.[584]
The evidence suggests that the paymasters did their work efficiently and conscientiously. All the surviving pay rolls show the numbers of troops fluctuating from week to week, which suggests that proper checks were made to ensure that pay was only issued in respect of men who were actually present on the campaign. In contrast, the accounts for Edward III’s army in Scotland in 1334 show no drop in the size of the contingents over three months’ winter campaigning — a strong hint of considerable peculation.[585] In the sixteenth century when responsibility for paying wages was largely in the hands of the captains of contingents, corruption was virtually unchecked.[586] In 1294 one constable of infantry from Shropshire absconded with £4 13s. which he had received from the Wardrobe to pay to his men, but the money was recovered.[587] In 1296 a case arose in the Marshal’s court concerning the misappropriation of wages, but the sum concerned was only £2 10s., and the matter was easily cleared up.[588] Such incidents were rare in Edward I’s reign, however. It is striking that none of the complaints about non-payment of wages allege the corruption of officials as a cause.
How were Edward’s officials rewarded for their service? Royal clerks received robes in the same way as the household knights: in 1300 Droxford had his at the same rate as the bannerets, and Benstead at that of the ordinary knights. They were also paid wages, although these were intended to cover expenses rather than as a reward. Manton was paid 10s. a day when he was sent to supervise the victualling and accounting in Berwick, Roxburgh and Edinburgh. Ralph Dalton was employed by the Wardrobe throughout most of 1300 in Yorkshire collecting victuals, investigating debts that were owed to the crown, and levying fines on infantrymen who had absconded from the army with their wages. He was paid at the rate of 2s. a day.[589] But the main form of reward for the royal clerks was of course presentation to benefices. St. Martin’s le Grand in London had a long-standing connection with the royal administration, going back to the time when Roger of Salisbury was dean. That office was held by William of Louth and subsequently by William March,[590] while John Droxford was one of the canons. Droxford held in addition some seventeen prebends and canonries, and five churches, although he was only in deacon’s orders.[591] John Sandale likewise was not ordained a priest, but he held by papal dispensation the office of chancellor of St. Patrick’s, Dublin, and three churches in England.[592] As befitted such secular men, the royal clerks might receive the same type of reward as did the laymen who served the crown: Droxford was granted the wardship of the heir of Hugh of St. Philibert, and the custody of the lands of John Bisset together with the marriage of his heirs.[593] Also, the crown might exert its influence to obtain their election to bishoprics, though this honour never coincided with service in the Wardrobe. Louth, Langton and March all received sees.
The income of royal clerks naturally was not confined to sources bestowed by the crown. The bishop of Carlisle paid Droxford a pension of £40 a year.[594] Walter Langton attempted to force the abbey of St. Albans to pay Lao annually to one of his knights, but the monks resisted, supported by the prince of Wales. The demand ceased with the death of Edward I and the disgrace of Langton at the hands of Edward II. However, although he failed in this case, the Treasurer was successful in others. Langton’s methods of building up an estate by purchase, exchange, maintenance and champerty have already been mentioned. When he was arrested an impressive number of people were found to owe him money as a result of letters of recognizance made out in his favour. It is often not clear why the sums mentioned in these documents were owed. In a few cases they were for payment of pensions, while many were given as security for the transfer of land. The total of the sums owed to him came to about £19,000.[595] Langton was almost certainly the most successful profiteer in the royal administration: earlier, Adam Stratton’s wealth had been built up more in his capacity as steward of Isabella de Forz than as an exchequer official.[596] But the records reveal many recognizances made out in favour of other royal servants. A large number of those due to John Droxford were made out by men from his home county of Hampshire, where he possessed property.[597] Interestingly, Droxford himself owed £120 to Langton in two recognizances, although there are no details of the nature of the transactions involved.[598]
Edward’s clerks had extensive opportunities for private gain — though Langton’s abuse of power was exceptional. But they worked hard for their opportunities, and showed remarkable efficiency in the conduct of the administration, even when in the later years of the reign they were struggling in the face of intolerable burdens of expenditure and lack of funds.
It is not possible to give a wholly accurate assessment of the extent of the war expenditure for which the clerks were responsible. Often it is not clear whether expenditure should be classified as military or not. For the Welsh war of 1282 a separate wardrobe account of war expenses was drawn up, but the ordinary account still contained some items obviously connected with the campaign. The state of the wardrobe accounts for the last years of the reign makes any calculation open to doubt. But with such qualifications, some estimates of expenditure can be made.
At the time of his father’s death in 1272 Edward was on crusade. This was a very expensive enterprise, though unfortunately the precise costs cannot be calculated. To finance it Edward negotiated a loan from Louis IX of 70,000 livres tournois, or about £17,500, to be repaid out of the revenues of Gascony over seven years. A tax on moveables was negotiated in England, at the rate of a twentieth, and the receipts, which came to about £30,000, were allocated to pay for the crusade. A tenth on clerical incomes for two years was imposed by the papacy for the same purpose. This brought in some £22,000. In addition, Edward received at least 4,000 marks from the Jews, and in 1271 it was agreed that all revenues from wardships and escheats should go to meet the expenses of the crusade. Nevertheless, Edward still had to raise massive loans from Italian and Cahorsin merchants, and one reason for the grant of a tax of a fifteenth in 1275 was that it was needed to pay off his crusading debts.[599]
The first military enterprise that Edward embarked upon as king was the first Welsh war. This was not expensive, largely because it was short; little was done before January 1277, and by September the war was over. The wardrobe account separated normal expenditure in the year,
amounting to only £15,534, from the military expenditure which came to £20,241. Costs not entered on these accounts brought the total spent on the war to just over £23,000.[600] The second Welsh war was much longer, lasting from the early summer of 1282 until the same time in the following year. The special wardrobe war account showed costs of over £90,000, but in addition the ordinary account, which in the early years of the reign showed expenditure averaging perhaps £23,000 a year, rose in 1283-4 to almost £80,000. This suggests that the total military expenditure was roughly £150,000.[601] In contrast, Rhys’s rising of 1287 was cheaply put down: probably little more than £10,000 was spent.[602]
The conquest of Wales was achieved by the massive mobilization of men and resources, not by any brilliant strokes of generalship. The English success was consolidated by the construction of that splendid chain of castles in north Wales. Nothing very ambitious was attempted after the first war, but a huge building programme characterized the second war, the most notable castles being Conway, Caernarvon, Criccieth and Harlech. Following the revolt of 1294, one more castle was added, that of Beaumaris in Anglesey. Edward’s castles in Wales have been the subject of extensive study. Many accounts survive of these works undertaken under the general supervision of Edward’s Savoyard expert, James of St. George, and although the series is not quite complete, it is clear that in the period up to the appointment of the king’s eldest son as prince of Wales roughly £80,000 was spent. Not all the work was completed by then, of course: Beaumaris stands all too obviously unfinished today. By 1330, some £14,400 had been spent on that castle, while the cost of Caernarvon was in the region of £20,000.[603]
Expensive as the conquest of Wales was, far more was spent on the wars with France and Scotland in the second half of the reign. It was the needs of the French war that dominated the policies of the government between 1294 and 1297. Perhaps surprisingly, much the most expensive aspect of the war was the defensive struggle of the English troops in Gascony. In cash 40,000 marks was paid out to the first English paymaster there, Peter of Aylesford. As he died soon, he never made account with the Exchequer for this sum, but his successor, John Sandale, produced accounts in 1314. Expenditure in the period of wartime, reckoned as from 11 November 1294 when he took over, until 24 March 1298, and in the period of truce up to 14 August 1299, totalled £359,288 0s. 5d. Of this sum, wages paid to Gascon forces, horse and foot, amounted to £137,595 2s. 9d.[604] Of course, the sums mentioned in this account do not represent the total expended on the struggle in Gascony. In addition to Aylesford’s costs which are not included, there was also considerable expenditure in England in support of the war. Soldiers had to be paid while awaiting embarkation, victuals purveyed had to be paid for, and sailors had to be paid their wages. Unfortunately the wardrobe accounts are not sufficiently detailed to allow any accurate calculations of the total spent in this way. For 1295, for example, it is stated that £12,852 6s. 1d. was spent on paying sailors both in going to Gascony and in transporting men and supplies to Anglesey. A rough estimate would be that in England the Wardrobe spent about £80,000 between 1294 and 1298 on the war in Gascony.[605] In addition, in October 1295 Edmund of Lancaster and several other magnates were advanced almost £2,000 directly by the Exchequer to assist them in their preparations for the expedition to Gascony.[606]
As was so often the case in Edward I’s finances, income did not match expenditure in Gascony. Sandale’s account showed expenses exceeding receipts by £59,139 1s. 3½d., but the Exchequer was not satisfied with the evidence produced, and after complex argument the deficit was calculated to be £97,989 13s. 8d. However, the real balance was probably closer to Sandale’s statement than to the revision necessitated by the doubts and quibbles of the exchequer officials.[607] In all, the cost of saving Gascony, excluding the £30,690 12s. 6d. spent during the period of truce after the end of hostilities, was roughly £400,000.
Possibly taking inspiration from the plans which had failed King John at Bouvines, Edward I’s strategy was to launch his main attack on Philip IV in northern France, with the aid of a coalition of continental rulers. According to one chronicler, it was Antony Bek, bishop of Durham, who put the plan for a grand alliance before the council, and this seems plausible, for it was he who was put in charge of the embassy sent abroad in June 1294.[608] Lavish promises of payment were made to the allies. The agreement with the German king, Adolph of Nassau, appears to have been that he should receive £40,000 by Christmas 1294, and a further £20,000 when Edward actually began his campaign in Flanders.[609] The archbishop of Cologne was initially promised 10,000 marks, with a further £2,000 as a gift.[610] Smaller sums were promised to other Germans. In the Low Countries, John, duke of Brabant, was due to receive 200,000 livres tournois, worth £50,000 at the rate of exchange current when the agreement was made in Anglesey in 1295. In addition he was promised £4,000 out of the new forty shilling customs duty, a grant intended to compensate the Brabantines for the damage that this tax would do to their economy.[611] Floris V, count of Holland, was owed 80,000 livres tournois in return for his support.[612] Early in 1297 the English achieved a very considerable diplomatic triumph in winning over the count of Flanders, but for the first year of the alliance 100,000 livres tournois was owed, with an additional 70,000 livres as a gift to the count.[613] There was another group of allies in eastern France. The count of Bar was owed 30,000 marks in return for service with 1,000 horse for six months.[614] A league of Burgundian nobles from the Franche-Comté was promised 60,000 livres tournois for the first year of the alliance, 1297, with 30,000 in each subsequent year.[615] These were merely the principal obligations incurred by Edward. In all, the English diplomatic offensive between 1294 and 1297 involved promises of subsidies totalling some £250,000. Of this impressive total, it can be shown that £165,784 was definitely paid. Evidence of some minor payments may not have survived, so the total may have been slightly higher.[616] It was often an expensive business to make the payments: it took seventeen ships, manned by 756 sailors, to take roughly £25,000 across the North Sea to Robert de Segre, the clerk entrusted in 1294 with the task of delivering the subsidies.[617]
The eventual return on the money spent on the alliance was inconsiderable. A combined Flemish and German force did assemble in 1297, but was defeated at Veurne before Edward landed in Flanders, and although the Burgundians had some initial successes in eastern France, they were not strong enough to sustain a lengthy offensive. The most striking absentee of all those who had been paid subsidies was the king of Germany, Adolf of Nassau. There has been much controversy over the reason for this: was he unable to go on campaign because of the problems he faced in Germany, particularly the activities of Albrecht of Habsburg, or was he bribed to leave the alliance by the French? A French document which is so full of inaccuracies as to suggest that it must have been written many years later,[618] suggests the latter, but there is good reason to suppose that the author was confused between Adolf and Albrecht, who succeeded him as king. Albrecht certainly was subsidized by Philip IV, so whatever the truth of the matter, it is evident that French diplomatic activity had a part in preventing Adolf from assisting Edward.[619] But the English king too must share the blame for the failure of the grand alliance; had he not been forced to delay plans for a campaign until 1297, far more might have been achieved.
The final item of expenditure on the war with France was the campaign in Flanders. This was not very costly, as the army was small and transport costs far lower than for Gascony. The wardrobe book for 1297 shows that up to 19 November costs of just over £25,000 were incurred under the strictly military headings of wages and victualling, but there are items relevant to the campaign in other sections of the account.[620] Regrettably, there is no similar account for the next year, merely the enrolled version which does not distinguish between the costs of the Flanders expedition and those of the Falkirk campaign. So although no accurate calculation of the expense of the expedition is possible, it seems unlikely that it was muc
h in excess of £50,000. Such figures can only be very approximate, but the overall cost of the war with France in alliances and in direct military intervention probably amounted to the impressive figure of £615,000. In addition, in these years the crown had to meet the cost of putting down the Welsh revolt of 1294, and of financing the campaign of 1296 in Scotland and the subsequent military operations in the north, which culminated in the English triumph at Falkirk in 1298. The total military expenditure from 1294 until the king’s return from Flanders early in 1298 was probably in the order of £750,000.
The format of the accounts for the years from 1298 until the end of the reign of Edward I makes it impossible to work out the precise costs of the wars in Scotland. Military accounts were not kept separately as they had been for the second Welsh war. The wardrobe account for 1300, the year of the Caerlaverock campaign, shows that the most expensive single item was the castle garrisons, on which £13,574 was spent. Victuals came to £5,063. The wages of the bannerets and knights amounted to £3,077, those of the crossbowmen and sergeants-at-arms to £1,038, while only £4,446 went to the infantry. Nearly £2,000 was spent in compensation for horses lost on the campaign. The total wardrobe expenditure for the year was £64,105, of which some two-thirds can be attributed to the needs of the war.[621] In 1301, with the ambitious double campaign, costs were naturally rather higher. The greatest increase was in infantry wages, totalling £15,746, but less was spent on castle garrisons and on victualling, these items totalling £8,915. The overall total of wardrobe expenditure was £77,291.[622] For the following year the only surviving account is a summary apparently made out for enrolment, although since it was never entered on the Pipe Roll, it seems likely that it failed to meet the exacting standards of the Exchequer. The total expenditure shown amounts to £61,949, even though there was no full-scale campaign in Scotland, as the king departed south after wintering at Linlithgow.[623] A similar document exists for the next year, the total expenditure being £64,026, and there is a complete wardrobe book for 1304. From these accounts it is possible to make a rough estimate of the cost of the campaigns of 1303 and 1304, which culminated with the capture of Stirling castle. Expenditure was probably in the order of £75,000 or £80,000.[624] Unfortunately the accounts for the last two years of the reign, which saw the struggle against Robert Bruce, are in such a confused state, and are so incomplete, that even such crude calculations are not possible.
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