This Sceptred Isle
Page 14
Here, then, one more tablet in the mosaic of the image and heritage of the British. The king would have executive power but would share a considerable part of it with the Council of Fifteen and the Justiciar – the word came from the medieval Latin, justiciarius, from which comes justice. It was also, certainly by Norman times, the title held by the king’s chief minister. By Henry II, the title justiciarius totius Angliae was exclusive given to his chief minister. The role is not easy to define but, for example, Elizabethan secretaries of state such as William and Robert Cecil, had a similar function. There was also a further tablet in that mosaic of the British. The Provisions of Oxford were written in French, Latin and in English. There may seem little remarkable in that, but, for a hundred years, English had not been used as an official language. So perhaps this tells us how important the Provisions of Oxford were: they were intended to have the widest possible readership. Moreover, this was just another step in constitutional reform. In 1259 the Provisions of Oxford were reinforced by the Provisions of Westminster.
One of the names that appears in these Provisions, clearly and unswervingly is on the side of the earls and barons. He was the Norman Lord Simon, Earl of Leicester, remembered as Simon de Montfort (c.1208–65). He was undoubtedly the leader of the baronial opposition to the King. In 1230 Simon had arrived in England to claim the Earldom of Leicester by way of his grandmother. The Plantagenet kings had refused Frenchmen the right of hereditary title in English lands for obvious reasons – such refusal reduced the chances of a ‘Frenchman’ raising a rebellion against the throne. Given the times, this was not an unlikely event. Simon was not, at first appearances, a likely usurper of the King’s authority. He was said to be pious and this slightly softened Henry’s suspicions – but only slightly. De Montfort was busy at court and married Eleanor, the sister of Henry III, in 1238 and received his earldom in 1239. The marriage was not a matter of course, for Eleanor was supposed to be in chastity as part of her mourning for her late husband, William the Marshal, the Earl of Pembroke, who had died seven years earlier. Many of the barons expressed deep anger at the wedding and Henry, although not necessarily under any obligation to do so, defended his sister and his new brother-in-law.
Mainly because of his dubious ways of raising money, the ever poor de Montfort was forced into exile and, with his reputation still that of a man of some piety, joined the 1240 Crusade. He governed Gascony from 1248, when the intrigue of the King’s courtiers led to him being accused of being a brutal lieutenant governor of Gascony and its peoples. He was dragged to Westminster in the spring of 1252 to stand trial against these accusations. The commission could find no evidence strong enough to convict him. So firm was the judgment that the court had to promise de Montfort financial compensation as a wrong defendant against such serious charges. The money was important but de Montfort’s deeper anger was directed at Henry’s court, the royal party as we could now call these cohorts. It did not help the King’s case that the compensation was not paid.
It is now that we come back to the Provisions of Oxford. In 1258, we find de Montfort’s name among a list of seven barons who demanded that the King should send abroad his generally detested Poitevin half-brothers and at the same time observe strictly the terms of the Provisions of Oxford, reforming his household to enable this.
Simon de Montfort became increasingly powerful. He struck up an understanding with the King’s son, Edward, who was emerging as one of the first political princes in English history and one who believed he was being excluded by the royal party from his rightful role of being part of the governing of his country. Young men rallied to Edward. They knew that he would be King one day and they believed him to be more trustworthy than his father. But the difference between Simon de Montfort and the young Prince Edward was this: Simon believed that through the Council – the Parliament – the King could be controlled. Edward saw the Council as a group of advisers, nothing more.
King Henry became suspicious of the alliance between his son and de Montfort, even though their differences were obvious. Henry sent Edward into exile, but he was not a good enough leader to keep control of his kingdom as it headed for civil war. His dilemma deepened when Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, his finest and probably most loyal general, died in July 1262. De Montfort was once more in exile in France but was ensconced in the protection of the French court of Louis IX who was hardly Henry III’s ally but was equally unwilling to support a movement that threatened monarchy, as de Montfort would shortly find out.
De Montfort was by now on firmer legal and constitutional grounds as well as leading an increasingly uncompromising baronial group against the King. Henry had followed neither the spirit nor the letter of the Provisions. De Montfort now returned to England and demanded the Parliament use its authority to observe the Provisions with considerable force of arms. Henry persuaded de Montfort to allow the French King to decide who was right and who was wrong. De Montfort thought he had an ally in Louis IX, but Louis would agree with nothing that questioned absolute, even divine, royal power. He sat with the evidence at the Mise (judgment and writ) of Amiens in 1264. Louis not only rejected the terms of the Provisions but ruled that Henry III’s full and earlier powers should be restored. This was not at all what the barons had expected. The barons draw their swords and on 14 May 1264 defeated King Henry at the Battle of Lewes.
Lewes was the start of the Second Barons’ War. With the King and Edward captured, De Montfort was, in effect, ruler of England. But he had no ambitions to replace Henry, nor Edward. With the Bishop of Chichester and Gilbert de Clare, the new Earl of Gloucester, Simon de Montfort governed England in the name of the King. But the alliance was short-lived because the new Earl of Gloucester had the same instincts as his father: he was a royalist. Throughout 1265 Simon de Montfort’s position weakened. Gloucester’s doubts were made more public and, when Prince Edward escaped from de Montfort in May, Gloucester went with him. Edward, singing the praises of Magna Carta, not the Provisions of Oxford, raised an army in the Welsh Marches. Effectively, Edward was uniting the barons under his and not de Montfort’s slogan of reform. Anything de Montfort said or did now appeared to be nothing more than personal rather than constitutional ambition.
Militarily de Montfort was weakened and forced to retreat into Wales. His son, the younger Simon, had raised troops from the south-east, but they never reached the elder de Montfort. Instead, Edward’s army demolished them near Kenilworth. De Montfort could not know this and pressed on in the belief that he would be reinforced at any moment. When his army arrived at Evesham in August 1265, it was clear that he stood quite alone. The Welsh were beaten back and de Montfort killed. Yet his rebellion had not died with him. True, his followers were stripped of their properties; but a guerrilla campaign began in England. Supporters of the dead de Montfort became known as the Disinherited. They became outlaws. They hid in hills and in forests including the great forest of Sherwood. It was clear that the king had to make provisions for the grievance otherwise he would ever be at civil war and always in danger of being deposed and the authority of his crown with him.
When the next legal reform provision, the Statute of Marlborough of 1267, was drawn up it may have been so that the King could once again choose his own advisers, councillors and servants, but the causes of the original de Montfort supporters were evident in that document. Magna Carta was invoked. (Note how often this happened in English history: Magna Carta was the only authority for reform.) Regular Parliaments were to be held:
Provisions made at Marlborough in the Presence of our Lord King Henry, and Richard King of the Romans, and the Lord Edward eldest Son of the said King Henry, and the Lord Ottobon, Legate in England
In the Year of Grace, One thousand two hundred sixty-seven, the two-and-fiftieth Year of the Reign of King Henry, Son of King John, in the Utas of Saint Martin, the said King our Lord providing for the better Estate of his Realm of England, and for the more speedy Ministration of Justice, as belongeth to th
e Office of a King, the more discreet Men of the Realm being called together, as well of the higher as of the lower Estate: Provided, agreed, and ordained, that whereas the Realm of England of late had been disquieted with manifold Troubles and Dissensions; for Reformation whereof Statutes and Laws be right necessary, whereby the Peace and Tranquillity of the People must be observed; wherein the King, intending to devise convenient Remedy, hath made these Acts, Ordinances, and Statutes underwritten, which he willeth to be observed for ever firmly and inviolably of all his Subjects, as well high as low.
. . . It was Provided and established and with full consent ordained, That (whereas the Realm of England having been of late depressed by manifold Troubles and the evils of Dissensions, standeth in need of a Reformation of the Laws and Usages, whereby the Peace and Tranquillity of the People may be preserved, whereto it behoved the King and his liege Men to apply an wholesome Remedy,) the Provisions, Ordinances, and Statutes underwritten, should be firmly and inviolably observed by all the People of the same Realm, as well high as low, for ever.
And here we have the case of Distress. It means no one could settle grievances – personal, financial or whatever – other than through the Crown: in other words, only through the courts. This protection and definition of distress was so important and it would remain vital in British law into the twenty-first century:
Of wrongful Distresses, or Defiances of the King’s Courts. Punishment for unlawful Distresses:
Whereas at the time of a Commotion late stirred up within this Realm, and also sithence, many great Men, and divers other, refusing to be justified by the King and his Court, like as they ought and were wont in Time of the King’s noble Progenitors, and also in his Time; but took great Revenges and Distresses of their Neighbours, and of other, until they had Amends and Fines at their own Pleasure; and further, some of them by the King’s Officers, nor suffer them to make Delivery of such Distresses as they had taken of their own Authority; It is Provided, agreed, and granted, that all Persons, as well of high as of low Estate, shall receive Justice in the King’s Court; and none from henceforth shall take any such Revenge or Distress of his own Authority, without Award of our Court, though he have Damage or Injury, whereby he would have amends of his Neighbour either higher or lower.
And upon the foresaid Article It is Provided and granted, that if any from henceforth take such Revenges of his own Authority, without Award of the King’s Court as before is said, and be convict thereof, he shall be punished by Fine, and that according to the Trespass; and likewise if one Neighbour take a Distress of another without Award of the King’s Court, whereby he hath Damage, he shall be punished in the same wise, and that after the Quantity of the Trespass; and nevertheless sufficient and full Amends shall be made to them that have sustained Loss by such Distresses.
Distresses shall not be driven out of the County. Distresses shall be reasonable.
None from henceforth shall cause any Distress that he hath taken, to be driven out of the County where it was [taken]; and if one Neighbour do so to another of his own Authority, and without Judgment, he shall make Fine, as above is said, as for a Thing done against the Peace; nevertheless, if the Lord Presume so to do against his Tenant, he shall be grievously punished by Amerciament.
Moreover, Distresses shall be reasonable, and not too great; and he that taketh great and unreasonable Distresses, shall be grievously amerced for the Excess of such Distresses . . . It shall be lawful for no Man from henceforth, for any manner of cause, to take Distresses out of his Fee, nor in the King’s Highway, nor in the common Street, but only to the King or his Officers, having special authority to do the same.
We should not ignore the Statute of Marlborough of 1267. Here, medieval England, was once more making provision for a common ideal of its people that would survive to our own times.
In 1272, Henry died. He had played little part in government during his latter years. That governance he had left to his son, Edward. But when his father died, Edward was abroad on the Crusade. It took him nearly two years to return to England. This could have been a time of further rebellion and crown seeking; instead, the smooth governing of England continued because, although the reforms had led to civil war, they were nevertheless well-founded and well-respected. And here is an irony: Simon de Montfort’s reforms, or his ideas for them, would not die with him. And the person responsible for his death, the new King, Edward I, continued to implement them.
CHAPTER TEN
1272–1307
Henry III was buried in the dearest object of his life, his new abbey at Westminster. He was sixty-five in November 1272, when he died, which was not a bad age for the Middle Ages. A man who reached sixty-five might well have mourned most of his childhood friends not because people naturally had short lives, but because many of the causes of death were not yet understood. Men knew how to wield swords but few scalpels. Science moved slowly but social change stepped up its pace. With change came some sinister events.
For example, for the first time there were signs that land would become a commodity. Until this period, the buying and selling of vast tracts of land was not a commercial proposition as today we would understand it. The feudal system – through both baron and monarch – had kept land in tight ownership. Yet there was now in England a small group who understood that to own land meant financial as well as social power. Here we have the usurers, the moneylenders and therefore the opportunity seized to persecute the Jews of England. The Jews were blamed for turning the richer into debtors (even though they had always been in debt) and, at this period, for buying up great tracts of the islands’ heritage, that is, the land. Behind all this debate was the place of the moneylender. The Church and the state had for centuries been caught in terribly unanswered questions about moneylending. Therefore it was easy to blame the Jews who themselves were not always in agreement what they should be doing under their own laws:
If thou lend money to any of my people, even to the poor with thee, thou shalt not be to him as creditor, neither shall you lay upon him interest. (Exodus 22: 24)
Thou shalt not lend upon interest to thy brother; interest of money, interest of victuals, interest of anything that is lent upon interest. Unto a foreigner thou mayest lend upon interest; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon interest; that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all that thou puttest thy hand unto, in the land thou goest in to possess it. (Deuteronomy 23: 20)
Here was the Jewish code which apparently sat easily with the Christian Church making it clear that it was wrong (if not illegal) to lend money and demand interest on that loan from the needy and the poor. The Church went as far as to declare that since no one should be harmed, then usury should be banned.
At the same time, the Church was a lender to its own clergy because the clergy had to pay taxes to Rome and had to borrow money to do so – from Rome itself. Rome did very well out of lending through bankers (it never leant its own money because it did not until the fourteenth century have the structure to do so) and depositing its own money. The monasteries did as well because the monks acted as middlemen between the borrower, the lender and the papal bankers, for example, the Medicis in Florence. Further complications were partly to do with banking and even a question of development. For example, the Church was not allowed to charge interest unless the loan repayment was overdue and this made greater strains on the lack of financial structures and greater reliance on the banking families. A second example was expressed by Pope Innocent IV (1243–54). He was totally convinced that the future of agriculture was the future of the nations. Because not much investment went into agriculture because lending was so expensive, he then regarded usury as an evil. So the Church in Britain continued its ‘ban’ on lending and interest payments. This, of course, is oversimplified and further study will tell a great deal of the depth of loans and borrowing in this period of British life.17
The consequence of theological and social practice in Britain in the late thirteenth century,
and indeed beyond, had something to do with the Church’s anti-Semitism. The Church and the State saw most moneylending as a Jewish activity. The Jews argued that they satisfied a need and reminded Church and State that it was a form or survival because Jews were not allowed to have a profession (banking was not considered a profession until well into the nineteenth century) and they were not allowed to be landowners, only leaseholders. They did, however, know how to deal in money. The people did not. The Jews were growing richer and the people owed them money. Here then was the basis, as ever, for mistrust. So distinct was this general suspicion that when Pope Honorius (1216–27) honoured a Jew, he answered criticism by saying he had been able to do so because this particular Jew was not a moneylender. This attitude of distinguishing good Jews from bad Jews was really a means for the English Church to separate Christians from non-Christians. The Jews, first brought to England by William the Conqueror to finance his invasion, became objects of hate.
There were even hysteria-based stories that the Jews sacrificed children. The animosities and the British anti-Semitism spread. In 1189 there were widespread massacres of Jews including 150 in York. Jews, accused of coin clipping (to steal the silver) were hanged. By the second half of the thirteenth century feeling was so high against the Jews that, in 1275, the Statute of Jewry was issued during the Michaelmas Parliament at Westminster.
Statute of Jewry
1275
Forasmuch as the King hath seen that divers evils and the disinheriting of good men of his land have happened by the usuries which the Jews have made in time past, and that divers sins have followed thereupon albeit that he and his ancestors have received much benefit from the Jewish people in all times past, nevertheless, for the honour of God and the common benefit of the people the King hath ordained and established, that from henceforth no Jew shall lend anything at usury either upon land, or upon rent or upon other thing.