A Great and Terrible King: Edward I and the Forging of Britain

by Marc Morris

  A few days later Edward’s fortunes were notably improved, albeit on a different front. By the end of June his ambassadors were back from France with the news of a diplomatic breakthrough. A treaty had been agreed with Philip IV that would lead to a permanent peace and the restoration of Gascony, and it was to be cemented in the conventional manner. Edward’s son, the fifteen-year-old Edward of Caernarfon, was to be married to Philip’s daughter, Isabella. Since, however, the princess was only three years old, their wedding would have to wait for some years. In the meantime, there was to be a more immediate match. Edward himself would marry Philip’s sister, Margaret – sufficiently mature at seventeen, though perhaps not thrilled at the thought of being led to the altar to a man more than three times her age.49

  But with the possible exception of Margaret, everyone was much happier at the end of the summer than they had been at the start. The king’s climbdown on the perambulation, the joyous event of his marriage, the prospect of a lasting French peace: all this combined to cool the political temperature at the English court. When the bride-to-be arrived at Dover on 8 September, the welcome party that met her off the boat was led not only by Edward of Caernarfon, but also by Roger Bigod, recently returned from his two-month sojourn in the March. Similarly, when the wedding ceremony took place two days later, it was performed at the door of the Canterbury Cathedral by the king’s other long-standing critic, Archbishop Winchelsea. The nuptials were followed by several days of feasting and chivalric celebration, and a glance at the guest list reveals the extent to which good relations between Edward and his earls had been restored.50

  In part this was due to the rapid rate of renewal among the higher aristocracy in recent years. Besides Bigod, the only other veterans at Canterbury were Surrey and Lincoln, who in any case were archloyalists. As for the rest, they had all succeeded to their father’s titles in the past three years. The new earls of Hereford, Warwick and Lancaster were all young men in their twenties, as was Aymer de Valence, son and heir of the king’s late half-uncle, and de facto earl of Pembroke. As such, they must have had a different relationship with Edward – one that, given the king’s already legendary reputation, was likely to have been more unquestioningly devoted than that of their predecessors. Such men were in addition keen to prove their prowess, not only in the tournament that took place at Canterbury, but also in war.51

  And war was now back at the top of the agenda. Throughout the summer, domestic politics and diplomacy had repeatedly delayed Edward’s intention to lead a new army against the Scots. With these problems now seemingly behind him, the king was once again ready to march north. A week after his wedding the order went out to muster at York on 12 November. Edward had conquered Wales in the depths of winter; he would do the same with Scotland.52

  Scotland itself had become a land of confusion. Defeat at Falkirk had severely dented the credibility of William Wallace and obliged him to stand down as his country’s sole Guardian. Leadership of the Scottish political community had now passed to two other young men, both in their twenties. One of them, as might be expected, was Robert Bruce, whose importance to the patriotic cause had received indirect acknowledgement from English efforts to apprehend him the previous year. The other was John Comyn, the son and heir of the man of the same name who had backed John Balliol during the Great Cause (which, for the record, made him Balliol’s nephew). Authority among the Scots, in other words, had passed to a new generation, but was split between the representatives of two traditionally hostile factions.53

  For those charged with the task of defending Scottish independence, Edward’s recent marriage had come as a bitter blow. ‘The people of Scotland are aware of the alliance between our king and the king of France,’ wrote the English constable of Lochmaben in October, ‘and they are greatly depressed about it.’ Since the Scots had been allied with France since 1295, they had hoped, not unreasonably, to be a party to the peace. But, in spite of French and papal pressure, Edward had adamantly refused to countenance their inclusion. To him Scotland was not a rival sovereign power, as France was, but a subordinate adjunct of his own kingdom. Those Scots who challenged him he regarded as nothing more than rebels, whom in due course he would chastise into submission.54

  Nevertheless, in order to get the peace he desired, Edward had been obliged to make one substantial concession. At the insistence of papal and French negotiators, John Balliol had been freed from English captivity. In July the deposed king of Scots had been escorted across the Channel and handed over to the pope’s representatives. To some Scots – John Comyn and his allies – this gave heart, for Balliol’s release was an essential first step on the road to his restoration. But for those who had always been opposed to Balliol’s kingship – that is, for Robert Bruce and his supporters – it was most unwelcome news. Within weeks of the prisoner’s transfer, the tension between the two sides boiled over. When they met at Peebles on 19 August, an argument broke out, then a fight. ‘John Comyn leaped at the earl of Carrick [i.e. Bruce]’, reported an English spy, ‘and seized him by the throat.’55

  And yet, despite the fact that their spies were able to report such dissension among the Scottish leaders, English commanders in Scotland generally had very little to smile about. Supplies were constantly running low, wages were in arrears, and garrisons were threatening to desert or mutiny. Everything was exacerbated by the attitude of the natives, who continually seized crops and horses. For all their political differences, one thing still united the Scots: the desire to resist their English occupiers.56

  Edward intended to pick up in Scotland precisely where he had left off the previous year. According to Walter of Guisborough, the king set out in November 1299 ‘wishing to break the Scottish siege of Stirling Castle’. Remarkably, the great fortress, so crucial for controlling the northern kingdom, was still in English hands despite a whole year of enemy assaults.57

  The prospect of success seemed very good. Although the long delay had been frustrating, it meant that the main supply depots at Carlisle and Berwick were now well stocked. Moreover, Edward now had the support of his leading subjects. When he rode north to York, all the earls who had attended his wedding rode with him. Even Roger Bigod, whose poor health prevented him from riding in person, sent his army of followers under the captaincy of his most senior household knight, John de Seagrave.58

  But by the time he arrived in York, the king was aware of a serious problem with infantry recruitment. Because of the winter weather, and because of a perceived diminution in the quality of the coinage (forged foreign pennies of low silver content had recently flooded the market), men were unwilling to serve. In response, Edward told his recruiting officers to be more persuasive, and permitted them to offer higher rates of pay. He also postponed the infantry muster, which had been due in a week, and moved it from Newcastle to Berwick.59

  When the king reached Berwick in mid-December, however, it was obvious that these extra inducements had not been nearly enough. Of the 16,000 foot soldiers he had ordered, only 2,500 had materialised. Worse still, it was now equally clear that there was virtually no support for the campaign among England’s knightly class. The earls may have accompanied the king with their retinues, but few other magnates had bothered to turn out (royal pay rolls reveal fewer than forty additional names). The cavalry’s absence, moreover, had nothing to do with bad weather or bad money. This was a deliberate, political boycott.60

  The king’s mistake, once again, had been his signal failure to deliver on the Charters. Unbelievably, despite his elaborate and heavily publicised promise of the summer, no perambulation of the Forest had taken place. Edward might have realised the danger this posed to his Scottish plans had he taken proper consultation during the autumn, but it seems that the artificial gaiety and harmony occasioned by his wedding had convinced him that this would not be necessary. The ‘parliament’ he had held the following month had actually been nothing more than a council of senior magnates, and as such had completely failed to gauge the
mood of the country. The north-country chronicler Peter Langtoft was in no doubt that the king had gone to Scotland ‘ill-advised’, and blamed the low turnout on one reason above all. ‘Know for certain,’ he wrote, ‘that it was caused by the perambulation, which was not performed as was granted.’61

  The only solution, as Edward himself now belatedly realised, was to have a full and frank discussion with his subjects of the kind he had consistently avoided since his return from the Continent. On 29 December writs went out summoning the biggest parliament England had seen since 1296. Earls, barons, knights and burgesses; bishops, priests, abbots and friars: all were instructed to assemble in London at the start of Lent ‘for the safety of the Crown and the welfare of the people’. Three days later, having seen in the new century at Berwick in what we may reasonably assume was an impotent rage, the king started out on his return. His mood during the journey south can hardly have been improved by the news that reached him en route. Stirling had finally surrendered to the Scots.62

  With patience wearing thin on both sides, the parliament that met in March was predictably lively. ‘Do you think I am a child, or a deceiver?’ asked Edward angrily when, according to one chronicler, his critics not only asked him to confirm the Charters but also required that their own seals be applied to the documents for greater security. In spite of Roger Bigod’s reassurances to the contrary (‘we know you to be a good and prudent prince,’ the earl reportedly told the king), most of Edward’s subjects must by now have felt that ‘deceiver’ was a fairly accurate description. Certainly, after three years of evasion and broken promises, they considered that the Charters, even with the extra concessions of 1297, were insufficient. In 1300 both the laity and the clergy (still lined up between Bigod and Winchelsea respectively) came to parliament armed with long lists of additional demands. In the clergy’s case the king simply turned a deaf ear. The Church had made it plain from the outset that it would offer the Crown no financial assistance, so why should the Crown offer the Church any redress?63

  Financial assistance, however, was something that Edward desperately needed, so some form of settlement with the laity had to be found. In the end, after three weeks of ‘long and exhausting’ argument, the king agreed to a new set of articles (‘The Articles upon the Charters’ is their modern label). For the most part they were concerned with the regulation of prise – still a very contentious issue because of the ongoing wartime demands – but they also created a new enforcement system for the Charters, whereby local worthies would be appointed in every county to ensure their upkeep. Taken in conjunction with the Charters themselves – now finally reissued on 28 March – this amounted to a substantial package of concessions. As Edward made clear in the preamble, he had granted it in expectation that henceforth his subjects would ‘be readier in his service, and more willingly helpful’.64

  But for most people the king had still not gone far enough. For all their length, the new articles had nothing to say about the most contentious issue of all, namely the Royal Forest. As parliament drew to a close, Edward appointed men to carry out the perambulation, but only on conditional terms. He continued to insist that, whatever the investigation’s findings, the ‘rights of the Crown’ must be protected – a proviso that would effectively render the whole exercise pointless. His critics therefore responded by upping their demands, and making their consent to the much-needed tax similarly conditional. A perambulation, promised or even performed, was now no longer enough: the Forest must actually be reduced in extent before any funds were collected. ‘When we have secure possession of our woods,’ they told the king, ‘we will willingly grant a twentieth, so that the folly of the Scots may be dealt with.’65

  It is extremely doubtful whether, in any circumstances, Edward would have agreed to such large demands in exchange for so small a subsidy. As it was, he could not afford to wait for months while the Forest was surveyed. His garrisons in Scotland were under attack and awaiting deliverance; a campaign was scheduled for the summer and must proceed as planned. If the knights of the shires would not grant him taxation, so be it: he would find another way to finance the coming expedition. But they could not deny that they owed him military service.66

  Or could they? As Edward left Westminster in April to spend the spring making his usual round of spiritual preparations in East Anglia, military service was once again being vigorously debated. The argument between the king and the knightly class had died down after his departure for Flanders, but in 1300 it had flared back into life. At the start of the year, no doubt greatly piqued by the boycott of his winter campaign, Edward had revived his earlier attempts to link military obligation to landed wealth: all men worth £40 a year had been instructed to turn out in the summer. This had provoked an immediate protest in the recent parliament and, although nothing had been conceded in writing, the king evidently decided to let the idea drop. On Easter Monday, when he was at St Albans, his earlier orders were revised. Sheriffs were now told merely to invite the £40 landowners to come to the muster (although, ominously, they were to note the names of those who refused).67

  But the debate did not end there. Such was the mood in the country, and so unpopular had the Scottish war become, that even traditional service obligations based on tenure were beginning to be contested. At some point in the spring of 1300, for example, the local gentry in County Durham turned out in support of foot soldiers who had been imprisoned by their bishop for deserting the winter campaign. The people of Durham, they declared, were ‘St Cutherbert’s Folk’, and as such not bound to provide any military service at all beyond the Rivers Tyne and Tees. Later, in early June, there were similarly extraordinary scenes in Yorkshire, when knights from all counties assembled to tell Edward that they owed him no service in Scotland. In this case the knights lost the argument: the king, as was his wont, resorted to the written record, and proved from a number of twelfth-century chronicles that there was a long tradition of service north of the Border. Nevertheless, the fact that Edward was having to go to such lengths to persuade his knightly subjects to fight flies in the face of Peter Langtoft’s assertion that men marched to Scotland in 1300 ‘well-willing’. Only for those who had been granted or promised lands in Scotland can that comment have held true. Many others clearly had to be argued into fighting, and this could produce distinctly limited results. The muster roll for the 1300 campaign noted that Hugh fitz Heyr, a Shropshire landowner of little consequence, was obliged by the terms of his tenure to serve in the king’s war ‘with bow and arrow’. It also noted that ‘as soon as he saw the enemy he shot his arrow, then went home’.68

  When the army eventually mustered in Carlisle at midsummer, the cavalry numbered around 1,700 mounted men – much better, that is, than the previous year, but not nearly as impressive as the 3,000 horse that had ridden into battle in 1298. The infantry situation was one of similar half-measures, in part due to the parlous state of royal finances. Having failed to obtain a grant of taxation, Edward knew he could not afford to field 26,000 foot soldiers as he had done at Falkirk. The Welsh, who had contributed 40 per cent of that impressive figure, were told on this occasion to stay at home. Officially this was their reward for ‘all the great work they have done in our service in the past’; in reality it was an ambitious experiment to balance the books. Wales, unlike England, was not subject to the niceties of parliamentary taxation, and in place of men from the valleys the king now wanted money. As Edward rode north, his commissioners were instructed to extract a subsidy from various Welsh districts, which would pay for an army of English foot soldiers – 16,000 had been ordered, though in the end only 9,000 turned up.69

  Nevertheless, the king’s 10,000-strong host looked impressive enough when it set out from Carlisle in early July. A poet in their midst captured something of the splendour of the scene: the colourful banners, the beautiful pennons hanging from the knights’ lances, the horses richly caparisoned with embroidered silks and satins. Looking behind him, he saw that ‘mountains and va
lleys were everywhere covered with sumpter horses, and wagons with provisions, and the train of tents and pavilions. The days’, he added, ‘were fine and long’.70

  As the army’s assembly in Carlisle implies, Edward’s strategy in 1300 was new. Eschewing the eastern route of his earlier campaigns, the king had chosen to concentrate on south-western Scotland, where the garrisons he had established in 1298 had latterly been subjected to repeated attack. Once his hold on this area – modern Dumfries and Galloway – had been consolidated, he would then be able to strike north into Ayrshire, and lay waste the lands of Robert Bruce.

  His first target was the castle of Caerlaverock, which lay just a few miles across the Border on the opposite shore of the Solway Firth. Probably captured in the course of the Falkirk campaign, but subsequently retaken by the Scots, this castle and its small Scottish garrison had been making life miserable for their English neighbours at Dumfries and Lochmaben ever since. Their ability to resist a large army, however, was limited: Caerlaverock (which still stands today) is no Stirling. The newly built home of a prosperous local knight, it had been designed with the intention of keeping out local raiders, not repelling a wrathful English king. For a few days in July 1300 its defenders manfully withstood some showy assaults by the English chivalry, but once Edward’s fleet arrived with his heavy siege equipment, they recognised that the game was up. By the middle of the month, in exchange for life and limb, the garrison had surrendered.71