Despite such difficulties, and although the situation in the latter years of the reign with constant campaigns was not as favourable as that of the period of the Welsh wars, it is clear that the advantages of using the Italian bankers outweighed the disadvantages. As full payment was not made during Edward’s reign to those who advanced money, with only a few exceptions, the crown did not lose in the strict financial sense. At times, notably in 1301, the crown was hampered because important sources of revenue had been pledged to repay loans. Edward I never, however, regarded such grants as those of the customs revenues as inviolable. Several mandates were issued to the Frescobaldi ordering them to make payments out of the customs that they alone were intended to receive, and when, in 1306, there was urgent need of money for Scotland, the Irish customs were simply removed from the hands of the merchants in order to pay for purveyance.[798]
The Italian bankers were more than mere suppliers of funds to the crown. These companies were the exponents of the most advanced commercial techniques of the age, possessing facilities that the government could take advantage of, and methods from which it might learn. A comparison of the accounting practices of the Wardrobe with those of the merchants shows considerable similarities. Both wrote their accounts in books, not rolls, and the same organization of receipts in the first section and payments in the second is found.[799] It is very possible that Edward I’s officials derived some of their ideas on this subject from the Riccardi and the Frescobaldi. Orlandino de Podio was particularly well placed to impart Italian ideas to the Wardrobe clerks.[800]
With their widespread international connections the Italian bankers could make payment in any country or currency by the use of bills of exchange, and these financial skills were taken advantage of by the government. So it was possible for Edward I to use the Frescobaldi to pay 1,500 marks in florins to the Burgundian nobles in Florence in 1298.[801] In 1301 when Otto de Grandson was in Rome as a royal envoy he was paid £100 by the Frescobaldi agents there on the strength of a letter of credit.[802] The Spini were used a little later to pay the expenses of Cardinal Walter Winterbourne, Edward’s former confessor, at Rome.[803] Even at home it was extremely convenient for Edward I to have the services of the Italian firms. The highly significant part played by the Riccardi in the Welsh wars has already been pointed out, but the firm was also used for much smaller transactions, such as making payments to the papal nuncio Geoffrey de Vezzano,[804] or even paying four miners to go to Guernsey to look for silver mines.[805] The Ballardi were one of the main suppliers of goods to the Great Wardrobe, and in 1303 the same firm was used to carry money from London to Scotland.[806] The Frescobaldi paid out funds to and on behalf of the government all over the country. In 1300 Ralph Manton borrowed 500 marks from them at Newcastle, and in 1303 they were advancing money at York.[807] The firm was used to pay off royal debtors, thus relieving royal officials who could devote themselves to more important matters. On occasion the Frescobaldi were even to be found supplying royal victualling officers in Scotland with grain.[808] Such examples could be multiplied almost indefinitely, but these few should make it clear that the agents of these Italian companies provided valuable assistance to the overworked royal administration.
Perhaps the main danger of relying to such an extent on the Italians was political. Aliens were never popular in England, and a group who were fulfilling some of the functions that had traditionally been performed by the Jews was likely to provoke considerable hostility. As the crisis of the Ordinances was to show, the Italians were an obvious target for attack. But at the time of the major crisis of Edward I’s reign, in 1297, no clear replacement for the Riccardi had emerged. Most of the money that had been borrowed from the Italians since 1294 had been taken in forced loans, and there was obviously no sense accusing the merchants of exercising any sinister influence on the king. Later in the reign there were no protests against the Frescobaldi, but it seems probable that bitterness against them was building up, to come to a head in 1311. Although Edward I himself did not suffer the repercussions of his financial policy in this respect, the obligations to the Italians that he incurred were to prove a troublesome legacy to his son.
The absence of a proper budgeting system and the unwillingness of the king to limit his objectives to accord with the scale of his financial resources meant that the rôle of the merchant bankers was of the greatest importance. In the years up to 1294 it appears that the Riccardi were able to advance sufficient cash to enable the deficits to be met, but in the succeeding years the increase in expenditure, combined with the reluctance of the merchants to lend, meant that the financial situation was far more critical. One indication of the problem facing the government is the lack of cash supplies in the later years of the reign revealed in the accounts. In the Welsh war of 1294-5 it had been possible to despatch sums of as much as £5,000 in single consignments to the paymasters.[809] In comparison, the largest sum sent to the army by the Exchequer between July and November 1301 was £1,000, and this was in response to a desperate plea for cash.[810] The wardrobe journal for the last year of Edward I’s reign shows that the balance of cash in hand only once exceeded £1,000, at Christmas 1306, following the receipt of 2,000 marks. The amount was usually far lower.[811] Obviously the main reason for the lack of money was simply that resources were inadequate, and that lenders were unable or unwilling to make up the deficits fully. But there were in addition administrative reasons for the situation.
The practice of the Wardrobe of granting bills and debentures to its creditors, which could then be exchanged at a local level with sheriffs, tax collectors, or other receivers of royal revenue, meant that very little cash was collected by the Exchequer. The reforms of the early 1290s, which had been intended to reduce the independence of the Wardrobe and make it directly dependent on the Exchequer for funds, had been effectively circumvented by the device of these bills. Wardrobe officials and wardrobe creditors took charge of receipts before they ever reached the Exchequer, and all that department could do was to enter the payments on its records. It had no means of controlling the disbursement of revenue, and most serious of all, had no powers to limit the Wardrobe’s issue of bills and debentures.[812] It was this situation that made any effective budgeting impossible.
Attempts were made to deal with the problem. In 1301 orders were issued to the sheriffs asking them to pay in their farms to the Exchequer at the end of June rather than at Michaelmas, and it was clearly government policy to have them make their payments in cash at York, where the Exchequer was then situated. But in fact only slightly over £3,000 was collected, and the expedient was not repeated.[813] Then, in 1304, all the sheriffs, bailiffs and others assembled for the Michaelmas profer in the Exchequer were told that in future no money was to be paid over to the Wardrobe unless specifically ordered in a royal writ.[814] When Walter Langton went abroad in 1305 and John Droxford took over his office of Treasurer on a temporary basis, rules were laid down for systematic regular payments to be made by the Exchequer to the royal household.[815] These reforms were all ineffective: the pressure of wartime needs was such that expenditure could not be kept in step with income. If there was no cash to pay creditors, then the only solution was to issue them with wardrobe bills or debentures. No administrative solutions could solve the basic problem that the crown’s revenues were simply inadequate to meet its needs.
The inevitable consequence of this situation was that many of the Wardrobe’s creditors went unpaid. A comparison of wardrobe receipts with the expenditure incurred by the department makes the position plain.
The accounts from which these figures are drawn are not totally reliable: some are drafts, and the infantry wages for 1303 are not found in the account for that year, but in the subsequent one. Accounts for the royal hunting establishment of the whole period from 1300 were all put together in the 1306 account. But the overall position is quite clear. The accounts showed a surplus of income over expenditure in only two years, 1296 and 1302. Over the whole perio
d there was a substantial deficit. For the first three years of Droxford’s keepership, from November 1295 until 1298, two sources show that the debt was in the region of £30,000.[816] The usual figure cited for the end of the reign is £60,000,[817] but this is taken from an account book made up in the late 1320s, and represents the sum still owing at that date. Early in Edward II’s reign liberate writs were made out to John Droxford in his capacity as Keeper of Edward I’s Wardrobe to a total of £118,000, of which £56,000 went to the Frescobaldi for the loans they had advanced. In addition, liberate writs were issued for £28,000 to pay the debts of the prince of Wales and £8,500 for money still owing to some Gascons for their service in the war. These debts were largely paid off in the course of Edward II’s reign, so together with the £60,000 still owing in the late 1320s, it would seem that the total debt in 1307 must have been approximately £200,000.[818]
No particular group seems to have been treated worse than any other: all those who had dealings with the crown had reason to regret its insolvency. The judges petitioned in parliament in 1305 for payment of their wages. A general demand was made for the repayment of all those owed money for military service, for the seizure of private treasure from the churches in 1294, and the prises of grain and wool. Even men of such lowly standing as the inhabitants of Roxburgh who had supplied Edward’s soldiers with victuals presented petitions at this parliament.[819] The accounts of debts kept by the Wardrobe give a similar impression of payments owed to all and sundry. Such an important man as Aymer de Valence had to wait until 1322 to obtain part payment of wages due to him for the 1307 campaign.[820] The two Spanish household knights, Jaime, señor de Gerica, and Pascual of Valencia, petitioned vigorously for payment of what they were owed, but had to be content with grants of £200 and £100 respectively in 1305, made on condition that they ceased making any further demands.[821]
By the end of Edward I’s reign the crown finances were in a chaotic state. No wardrobe accounts for the years since 1298 had been enrolled on the Pipe Rolls by the Exchequer; either they had not been presented or were found unsatisfactory. Attempts were still being made in the early years of Edward III’s reign to put them in order.[822] No effective control was exercised over the level of expenditure, and debts were spiralling. The situation was not improved by the unfortunate incident of the robbery of plate and jewels from the treasury in Westminster in 1303.[823] But despite this gloomy picture much had been achieved in the course of the reign by Edward’s financial advisers. The pattern of customs duties had been established with the Ancient Custom of 1275, the maltolt of 1294 and the New Custom of 1303, and was not to be changed fundamentally for the rest of the medieval period. Taxes on moveables had been developed into an essential fiscal expedient. The attempts to make use of tallage and a feudal aid in the last years of the reign had shown that there was little future in prerogative forms of taxation. It was clear that the consent and goodwill of the community of the realm was essential if adequate supplies of funds were to be forthcoming, and the importance of Edward’s financial expedients in promoting a system of parliamentary representation is self-evident. Considerable administrative reforms at the Exchequer had been carried out with the Statute of Rhuddlan of 1284 and with March’s work in the early 1293s. The level of debt by the end of the reign bears witness to the failure of the government to match its aims to its resources, yet Edward’s ministers were not irresponsible men. They did not resort to debasement of the coinage, and they did not aggravate the political situation by unpopular fiscal measures once the lesson of 1297 had been learnt. Although the administrative and financial achievement was in many ways remarkable, given the immense burden that Edward’s wars placed on the machinery of government, it was inevitable that the king would find himself facing a considerable body of criticism and opposition.
X. The Crown and the Magnates
The reign of Edward I has been interpreted in terms of the transformation of England from a feudal into a national state. According to Powicke, ‘Much can be said for the view that, as the common law had welded what is called the feudal system into the community, so under the stress of war and taxation, the community was enlarged to comprehend the people as a whole’.[824] But the pressure of demands for men, money and materials can divide nations as well as unite them. Edward had at his disposal a complex administrative machine, through which he could mobilize very considerable resources in support of his ambitious military policies. But in doing this he faced political as well as administrative problems. There was a major constitutional crisis in 1297, and the king bequeathed a troubled legacy of political discontent and financial insolvency to his son.
The group whose support was most essential to Edward in his military ventures was the magnates. The view that his reign saw the conversion of the incoherent feudal host into a national paid army has been shown to be based on a misreading of the evidence. An important element in his armies was that of the unpaid, non-feudal service of the magnates. What means did Edward have of cajoling, persuading and forcing them to join him in the great military enterprises of the reign?
It has been said, with considerable justification, that Edward I ‘preferred masterfulness to the arts of political management’.[825] Some of his policies were certainly designed more with the intention of asserting his authority over the magnates than of winning their co-operation. Most notable was the series of Quo Warranto enquiries conducted in the years up to 1294. There was nothing novel in using this writ to call magnates to provide evidence in the courts of the rights by which they held their franchises. Henry III’s government had investigated such liberties in a very similar way.[826] What was new was the systematic approach of Edward I and his advisers. On the king’s return from his crusade in 1274 a remarkably comprehensive enquiry into the local administration of England was carried out. The object was to provide the government with the full possession of facts that was required if effective reforms were to be carried out. The enquiry covered a wide range of matters, and one result of the study of the returns, which were known as the Hundred Rolls, was the Statute of Westminster I, issued early in 1275. The Hundred Rolls suggested that further investigation of the franchises was needed, for in many cases the jurors had stated that they did not know by what right magnates were exercising rights of local jurisdiction.[827] The detailed story of the proceedings has been well and fully told by Professor Sutherland, and needs no repeating. The initial plan was overambitious. The scheme of having the cases heard in parliament was found quite impracticable, so massive was the amount of business, and at the Gloucester parliament of August 1278 the whole matter of enquiring into the franchises was transferred to the general eyres.
In the early stages of the Quo Warranto proceedings one man was singled out for special treatment. Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester, was considered to have profited greatly by the usurpation of royal franchises in the confused situation of the Barons’ Wars. Possibly Edward was attempting to revenge himself on the earl for the rôle that he had played in the late 1260s. The Exchequer drew up a special list from the evidence of the Hundred Rolls, detailing the earl’s alleged usurpations, a measure not taken in any other case.[828] Gloucester was driven to protest in 1278, and petitioned in parliament that year to be allowed peaceful possession of his franchises,[829] but the king was not sympathetic. A vigorous attack continued, and a surprising amount was recovered from the earl. Five of the eight Quo Warranto actions brought in Kent in 1279 were against him. The famous story of resistance to the enquiry is generally told of Earl Warenne. It is said that when asked by the justices to state by what warrant he held his lands, he produced an old rusty sword and said ‘Here, my lords, is my warrant’, claiming that he held his lands by conquest as his ancestor had been a companion of William I. The story is a surprising one to be attributed to Warenne, who seems to have co-operated with the proceedings, and was not the type of man to threaten to defend his lands with the sword against anyone who tried to take them from him. But two
versions attribute the incident to Gloucester, and although it bears the marks of being a popular legend, it seems very plausible in his case.[830]
The problem raised by the earl, whether Gloucester or Warenne, in claiming his franchises by right of conquest was a considerable one. For no hard and fast rules had been laid down by Edward or his council to determine which claims were to be accepted and which denied. Difficult cases were constantly postponed and referred to parliament, so a vast backlog of business built up. In 1279 the justices had stated that franchises could be claimed by tenure from time out of mind, but in 1280 William of Gislingham, representing the crown, contended that long tenure could not be claimed as a warrant for franchises. Judgement was reserved in such cases. Eventually, in 1290, Gilbert of Thornton and the other justices of the King’s Bench ruled in favour of the arguments that had been set out earlier by Gislingham.[831] This naturally disturbed the magnates, and at the Easter parliament the issue was settled, largely in their favour. In the Statute of Quo Warranto it was stated that the king was prepared to confirm in their tenure by letters patent all those who had held their franchises continuously from at least 1189. This preserved intact the Bractonian theory that all franchises were held of the king, and that their holders were merely exercising delegated authority. But, in a summary of the statute that was regarded as authoritative by the courts, prescriptive claims dating from before the accession of Richard I were accepted as valid without the need for any confirmation by Edward I. Plainly this was in practice more sensible than the procedure set out in the statute, even if it did mean a theoretical diminution of the crown’s authority.[832] Cases of Quo Warranto continued to be heard in the eyres up to 1294, when on account of the war in Gascony all proceedings were halted, not to be resumed in the rest of the reign.[833]
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