Page images
PDF
EPUB

CHAP.
III.

1234-36

Import

dismissal

of aliens.

The kings marriage.

the reign was won; thus was a great maxim of State, England for the English, successfully upheld. The dismissal of foreigners from office formed an imance of the portant stipulation in Magna Carta; there was no point perhaps which attracted so much attention all through this period. But it was not yet understood that such relief was only temporary; that the evils abolished were noisome weeds, whose strength lay far beneath the surface, only to be uprooted by the ploughshare of a radical reform. Two events soon made this fact visible to all. The king, urged by his dynastic ambition, succeeded in 1235 in bringing about the marriage of his sister Isabella to Frederick II; but, as if to neutralise any good effects which that alliance might have had, he next year united himself to Eleanor of Provence, whose sister had shortly before become Queen of France. For both these affairs much money was wanted. Henry bound himself to pay 30,000 marks as Isabellas marriage-portion. His marriage with Eleanor was celebrated with a magnificence which, for the moment, all that was high and rich and splendid in England united in contributing to produce. But a Nemesis was at hand. Pecuniary The king could not claim the regular feudal aids in either of these cases; he had therefore to collect the money under other names. His difficulties are shown by the fact that he had to ask the Emperor for a respite, and did not pay the full amount of the dowry till 1237.3 The demand, repeated in that year on

difficulties.

I See a detailed account in Matt. Par. 420.

The Annals of Tewkesbury say that tallage was exacted; in Ann., Dunst. 142 it is said scutage was taken.

Fad. i. 228, 232.

account of the expenses of his own marriage, was probably the main reason of the opposition which produced another confirmation of the charters, a remedy not yet seen to be hopeless with such a king as Henry III.

CHAP.

III.

1236

aliens

statutes of

Merton.

Meanwhile the old cause of discontent had ap- Influx of peared again. With the queen had come over her continued. uncles, William, bishop-elect of Valence,' Peter, Boniface, and Thomas of Savoy. It will be remembered that it was at the kings marriage that Simon de Montfort, himself a foreigner, made his first public appearance. Nothing in the history of that great man is more striking than the complete unlikeness between him and all those with whom he was at one time classed, under the hated name of alien. The popular feeling against foreign interference was not slow in manifesting itself. At the Great Council which met The at Merton in 1236, shortly after the marriage, it was a significant fact that the lay magnates, in resisting the wish of the clergy to introduce the papal decision as to the legitimacy of children born before marriage, appealed to the law of England, and protested against any alteration therein. The laws passed at this council, which are regarded as the first statutes passed by king and Parliament together, were little more than a kind of appendix to the feudal regulations of Magna Carta; but, as such, their tendency was to protect the unprotected, to introduce law instead of caprice, to prevent unjust action on the part of the kings officers. Moreover, the union.of interests, so remarkable in Magna Carta, was strengthened, To be distinguished from William of Valence, the kings stepbrother.

CHAP.
III.

1236-37 Constitutional

advances.

as in 1215, by the extension to subtenants of the same privileges which the greater nobles extorted from the king. The statutes were indeed not altogether satisfactory to the barons; they had in vain. attempted to diminish the centralisation of power in the kings hands.' They had more success shortly afterwards, when they insisted on the privilege of meeting only at Westminster. This principle had been hinted at, though not exactly laid down, in that clause of Magna Carta which provided that the council should be summoned to meet at a certain place. It will be seen later to what use it was put by the constitutional party. In this same eventful year ministers. (1236) another great advance in constitutional principles was made. The king tried to force Ralph, Bishop of Chichester, to give up the great seal. The bishop boldly refused, saying that it had been given him by common counsel of the realm, and without assent of the same he would not resign it.' This was a distinct improvement on the principle enunciated in Magna Carta, when it was only demanded that the great officers should be men acquainted with the law of the land, not that their appointment should depend on the authority of the National Council.

Appoint

ment of

Parlia

mentary influence in taxation;

The principle, that national assent was necessary for taxation, received a confirmation next year (1237), when the council, according to the precedent of twelve years before, made the grant of a thirtieth dependent on a renewal of the charters. At the same time it was proposed that the council should have a share in the

In the question of jurisdiction in cases of trespass.—Ann. Burt. 249.

* Matt. Par. 430. He had been appointed in 1233 for life.

CHAP.

III.

disposal of the tax. The money was to be put into the custody of certain of the magnates, to be spent by their counsel for the good of king and country. 1237-38 The barons also strengthened their hold upon the lower classes, by special provisions ensuring a just assessment by four men elected for the purpose, and protecting the poorest class from suffering from the tax.' The confirmation of the charters which was the price of this concession is the first public document to which we find the signature of Simon de Montfort attached. But he was not ready yet; had Richard Richard of of Cornwall taken up with a good heart the position to which the popular voice called him, he might have rendered the labours of de Montfort to a great extent unnecessary. But he had much of his brothers fickleness and want of purpose. He was not without insight and sympathy with the people, but allowed himself to be led away by dynastic ambition and the enjoyment of wealth from the performance of sterner duties, and his temporising character led him constantly to appear as arbitrator and mediator when the possibility of half-measures was long past.

Cornwall

as a leader,

of aliens :

After this second great success the constitutional Influence struggle seems to have experienced a slight lull. The king took advantage of it merely to heap up materials for a fresh disturbance. William of Valence, the queen's uncle, remained supreme; his brothers and other foreigners were richly endowed with lands and offices. To such an extent did this reach that extravagance of in 1238 even the Pope found himself constrained to the king.

1 Fœd. i. 232; Matt. Par. 436; Stubbs, Const. Hist. ii. 53. Ann. Tewk. 103; confirmation dated Jan. 28, 1237. The same authority states that cives et burgenses et alii multi' were present at the 'colloquium' in which the money was voted.

CHAP.
III.

1238-42 Papal

extortions.

of the Church.

remonstrate with Henry on his ill-judged liberality to prelates and nobles, on the ground that such conduct. was damaging to the Church, of which England was a fief.1 To protect the papal interests the legate Otho had been sent to England the year before. The feeling against him may be guessed from the riot at Osney, the protection of the actors in which was one of the first steps by which Bishop Grosseteste won his universal popularity. The general state of the country was not likely to be happy under such a rule. Robbers were unusually numerous in different parts of Grievances England. The grievances of the Church produced a strong remonstrance from the clergy, headed by the Bishop of Lincoln, in 1240.3 But it was all in vain; the legate, though appealed to, would not or could not protect them. The clergy, it is said, as a body, refused to pay; but it is evident that many persons, principally the higher clergy, were forced separately to contribute. On this Church, already losing all confidence in him as a protector, Henry had tried to force William of Valence in the place of Peter des Roches; but before the struggle ended that prelate died. He was more successful in obtaining the election of Boniface of Savoy to the vacant see of Canterbury, in the place of the sainted Edmund.

The council of 1242.

During the absence of Richard of Cornwall and other magnates on crusade there was not much chance of parliamentary opposition; but when, soon after their return, the king resolved on the expedition to France, financial difficulties revived it again. In the famous council of 1242, of which some mention has been already made, followed the first instance of an 2 Ann. Tewk. 115. See below, ch. vi. 'Ann. Tewk. 115, compared with Ann. Dunst. 154. $ See p. 55.

1 Fœd. i. 234.

5

« PreviousContinue »