CHAPTER XV--ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE THIRD, CALLED, OF WINCHESTER
If any of the English Barons remembered the murdered Arthur's sister,Eleanor the fair maid of Brittany, shut up in her convent at Bristol,none among them spoke of her now, or maintained her right to the Crown.The dead Usurper's eldest boy, HENRY by name, was taken by the Earl ofPembroke, the Marshal of England, to the city of Gloucester, and therecrowned in great haste when he was only ten years old. As the Crownitself had been lost with the King's treasure in the raging water, and asthere was no time to make another, they put a circle of plain gold uponhis head instead. 'We have been the enemies of this child's father,'said Lord Pembroke, a good and true gentleman, to the few Lords who werepresent, 'and he merited our ill-will; but the child himself is innocent,and his youth demands our friendship and protection.' Those Lords felttenderly towards the little boy, remembering their own young children;and they bowed their heads, and said, 'Long live King Henry the Third!'
Next, a great council met at Bristol, revised Magna Charta, and made LordPembroke Regent or Protector of England, as the King was too young toreign alone. The next thing to be done, was to get rid of Prince Louisof France, and to win over those English Barons who were still rangedunder his banner. He was strong in many parts of England, and in Londonitself; and he held, among other places, a certain Castle called theCastle of Mount Sorel, in Leicestershire. To this fortress, after someskirmishing and truce-making, Lord Pembroke laid siege. Louis despatchedan army of six hundred knights and twenty thousand soldiers to relieveit. Lord Pembroke, who was not strong enough for such a force, retiredwith all his men. The army of the French Prince, which had marched therewith fire and plunder, marched away with fire and plunder, and came, in aboastful swaggering manner, to Lincoln. The town submitted; but theCastle in the town, held by a brave widow lady, named NICHOLA DE CAMVILLE(whose property it was), made such a sturdy resistance, that the FrenchCount in command of the army of the French Prince found it necessary tobesiege this Castle. While he was thus engaged, word was brought to himthat Lord Pembroke, with four hundred knights, two hundred and fifty menwith cross-bows, and a stout force both of horse and foot, was marchingtowards him. 'What care I?' said the French Count. 'The Englishman isnot so mad as to attack me and my great army in a walled town!' But theEnglishman did it for all that, and did it--not so madly but so wisely,that he decoyed the great army into the narrow, ill-paved lanes andbyways of Lincoln, where its horse-soldiers could not ride in any strongbody; and there he made such havoc with them, that the whole forcesurrendered themselves prisoners, except the Count; who said that hewould never yield to any English traitor alive, and accordingly gotkilled. The end of this victory, which the English called, for a joke,the Fair of Lincoln, was the usual one in those times--the common menwere slain without any mercy, and the knights and gentlemen paid ransomand went home.
The wife of Louis, the fair BLANCHE OF CASTILE, dutifully equipped afleet of eighty good ships, and sent it over from France to her husband'said. An English fleet of forty ships, some good and some bad, gallantlymet them near the mouth of the Thames, and took or sunk sixty-five in onefight. This great loss put an end to the French Prince's hopes. Atreaty was made at Lambeth, in virtue of which the English Barons who hadremained attached to his cause returned to their allegiance, and it wasengaged on both sides that the Prince and all his troops should retirepeacefully to France. It was time to go; for war had made him so poorthat he was obliged to borrow money from the citizens of London to payhis expenses home.
Lord Pembroke afterwards applied himself to governing the country justly,and to healing the quarrels and disturbances that had arisen among men inthe days of the bad King John. He caused Magna Charta to be still moreimproved, and so amended the Forest Laws that a Peasant was no longer putto death for killing a stag in a Royal Forest, but was only imprisoned.It would have been well for England if it could have had so good aProtector many years longer, but that was not to be. Within three yearsafter the young King's Coronation, Lord Pembroke died; and you may seehis tomb, at this day, in the old Temple Church in London.
The Protectorship was now divided. PETER DE ROCHES, whom King John hadmade Bishop of Winchester, was entrusted with the care of the person ofthe young sovereign; and the exercise of the Royal authority was confidedto EARL HUBERT DE BURGH. These two personages had from the first noliking for each other, and soon became enemies. When the young King wasdeclared of age, Peter de Roches, finding that Hubert increased in powerand favour, retired discontentedly, and went abroad. For nearly tenyears afterwards Hubert had full sway alone.
But ten years is a long time to hold the favour of a King. This King,too, as he grew up, showed a strong resemblance to his father, infeebleness, inconsistency, and irresolution. The best that can be saidof him is that he was not cruel. De Roches coming home again, after tenyears, and being a novelty, the King began to favour him and to lookcoldly on Hubert. Wanting money besides, and having made Hubert rich, hebegan to dislike Hubert. At last he was made to believe, or pretended tobelieve, that Hubert had misappropriated some of the Royal treasure; andordered him to furnish an account of all he had done in hisadministration. Besides which, the foolish charge was brought againstHubert that he had made himself the King's favourite by magic. Hubertvery well knowing that he could never defend himself against suchnonsense, and that his old enemy must be determined on his ruin, insteadof answering the charges fled to Merton Abbey. Then the King, in aviolent passion, sent for the Mayor of London, and said to the Mayor,'Take twenty thousand citizens, and drag me Hubert de Burgh out of thatabbey, and bring him here.' The Mayor posted off to do it, but theArchbishop of Dublin (who was a friend of Hubert's) warning the King thatan abbey was a sacred place, and that if he committed any violence there,he must answer for it to the Church, the King changed his mind and calledthe Mayor back, and declared that Hubert should have four months toprepare his defence, and should be safe and free during that time.
Hubert, who relied upon the King's word, though I think he was old enoughto have known better, came out of Merton Abbey upon these conditions, andjourneyed away to see his wife: a Scottish Princess who was then at St.Edmund's-Bury.
Almost as soon as he had departed from the Sanctuary, his enemiespersuaded the weak King to send out one SIR GODFREY DE CRANCUMB, whocommanded three hundred vagabonds called the Black Band, with orders toseize him. They came up with him at a little town in Essex, calledBrentwood, when he was in bed. He leaped out of bed, got out of thehouse, fled to the church, ran up to the altar, and laid his hand uponthe cross. Sir Godfrey and the Black Band, caring neither for church,altar, nor cross, dragged him forth to the church door, with their drawnswords flashing round his head, and sent for a Smith to rivet a set ofchains upon him. When the Smith (I wish I knew his name!) was brought,all dark and swarthy with the smoke of his forge, and panting with thespeed he had made; and the Black Band, falling aside to show him thePrisoner, cried with a loud uproar, 'Make the fetters heavy! make themstrong!' the Smith dropped upon his knee--but not to the Black Band--andsaid, 'This is the brave Earl Hubert de Burgh, who fought at DoverCastle, and destroyed the French fleet, and has done his country muchgood service. You may kill me, if you like, but I will never make achain for Earl Hubert de Burgh!'
The Black Band never blushed, or they might have blushed at this. Theyknocked the Smith about from one to another, and swore at him, and tiedthe Earl on horseback, undressed as he was, and carried him off to theTower of London. The Bishops, however, were so indignant at theviolation of the Sanctuary of the Church, that the frightened King soonordered the Black Band to take him back again; at the same timecommanding the Sheriff of Essex to prevent his escaping out of BrentwoodChurch. Well! the Sheriff dug a deep trench all round the church, anderected a high fence, and watched the church night and day; the BlackBand and their Captain watched it too, like three hundred and one blackwolves. For thirty-nine days, Hubert de Burgh remained within. Atlength, upon the fortieth day, cold and hunger were too much for him, andhe gave himself up to the Black Band, who carried him off, for the secondtime, to the Tower. When his trial came on, he refused to plead; but atlast it was arranged that he should give up all the royal lands which hadbeen bestowed upon him, and should be kept at the Castle of Devizes, inwhat was called 'free prison,' in charge of four knights appointed byfour lords. There, he remained almost a year, until, learning that afollower of his old enemy the Bishop was made Keeper of the Castle, andfearing that he might be killed by treachery, he climbed the ramparts onedark night, dropped from the top of the high Castle wall into the moat,and coming safely to the ground, took refuge in another church. Fromthis place he was delivered by a party of horse despatched to his help bysome nobles, who were by this time in revolt against the King, andassembled in Wales. He was finally pardoned and restored to his estates,but he lived privately, and never more aspired to a high post in therealm, or to a high place in the King's favour. And thus end--morehappily than the stories of many favourites of Kings--the adventures ofEarl Hubert de Burgh.
The nobles, who had risen in revolt, were stirred up to rebellion by theoverbearing conduct of the Bishop of Winchester, who, finding that theKing secretly hated the Great Charter which had been forced from hisfather, did his utmost to confirm him in that dislike, and in thepreference he showed to foreigners over the English. Of this, and of hiseven publicly declaring that the Barons of England were inferior to thoseof France, the English Lords complained with such bitterness, that theKing, finding them well supported by the clergy, became frightened forhis throne, and sent away the Bishop and all his foreign associates. Onhis marriage, however, with ELEANOR, a French lady, the daughter of theCount of Provence, he openly favoured the foreigners again; and so manyof his wife's relations came over, and made such an immense family-partyat court, and got so many good things, and pocketed so much money, andwere so high with the English whose money they pocketed, that the bolderEnglish Barons murmured openly about a clause there was in the GreatCharter, which provided for the banishment of unreasonable favourites.But, the foreigners only laughed disdainfully, and said, 'What are yourEnglish laws to us?'
King Philip of France had died, and had been succeeded by Prince Louis,who had also died after a short reign of three years, and had beensucceeded by his son of the same name--so moderate and just a man that hewas not the least in the world like a King, as Kings went. ISABELLA,King Henry's mother, wished very much (for a certain spite she had) thatEngland should make war against this King; and, as King Henry was a merepuppet in anybody's hands who knew how to manage his feebleness, sheeasily carried her point with him. But, the Parliament were determinedto give him no money for such a war. So, to defy the Parliament, hepacked up thirty large casks of silver--I don't know how he got so much;I dare say he screwed it out of the miserable Jews--and put them aboardship, and went away himself to carry war into France: accompanied by hismother and his brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall, who was rich andclever. But he only got well beaten, and came home.
The good-humour of the Parliament was not restored by this. Theyreproached the King with wasting the public money to make greedyforeigners rich, and were so stern with him, and so determined not to lethim have more of it to waste if they could help it, that he was at hiswit's end for some, and tried so shamelessly to get all he could from hissubjects, by excuses or by force, that the people used to say the Kingwas the sturdiest beggar in England. He took the Cross, thinking to getsome money by that means; but, as it was very well known that he nevermeant to go on a crusade, he got none. In all this contention, theLondoners were particularly keen against the King, and the King hatedthem warmly in return. Hating or loving, however, made no difference; hecontinued in the same condition for nine or ten years, when at last theBarons said that if he would solemnly confirm their liberties afresh, theParliament would vote him a large sum.
As he readily consented, there was a great meeting held in WestminsterHall, one pleasant day in May, when all the clergy, dressed in theirrobes and holding every one of them a burning candle in his hand, stoodup (the Barons being also there) while the Archbishop of Canterbury readthe sentence of excommunication against any man, and all men, who shouldhenceforth, in any way, infringe the Great Charter of the Kingdom. Whenhe had done, they all put out their burning candles with a curse upon thesoul of any one, and every one, who should merit that sentence. The Kingconcluded with an oath to keep the Charter, 'As I am a man, as I am aChristian, as I am a Knight, as I am a King!'
It was easy to make oaths, and easy to break them; and the King did both,as his father had done before him. He took to his old courses again whenhe was supplied with money, and soon cured of their weakness the few whohad ever really trusted him. When his money was gone, and he was oncemore borrowing and begging everywhere with a meanness worthy of hisnature, he got into a difficulty with the Pope respecting the Crown ofSicily, which the Pope said he had a right to give away, and which heoffered to King Henry for his second son, PRINCE EDMUND. But, if you orI give away what we have not got, and what belongs to somebody else, itis likely that the person to whom we give it, will have some trouble intaking it. It was exactly so in this case. It was necessary to conquerthe Sicilian Crown before it could be put upon young Edmund's head. Itcould not be conquered without money. The Pope ordered the clergy toraise money. The clergy, however, were not so obedient to him as usual;they had been disputing with him for some time about his unjustpreference of Italian Priests in England; and they had begun to doubtwhether the King's chaplain, whom he allowed to be paid for preaching inseven hundred churches, could possibly be, even by the Pope's favour, inseven hundred places at once. 'The Pope and the King together,' said theBishop of London, 'may take the mitre off my head; but, if they do, theywill find that I shall put on a soldier's helmet. I pay nothing.' TheBishop of Worcester was as bold as the Bishop of London, and would paynothing either. Such sums as the more timid or more helpless of theclergy did raise were squandered away, without doing any good to theKing, or bringing the Sicilian Crown an inch nearer to Prince Edmund'shead. The end of the business was, that the Pope gave the Crown to thebrother of the King of France (who conquered it for himself), and sentthe King of England in, a bill of one hundred thousand pounds for theexpenses of not having won it.
The King was now so much distressed that we might almost pity him, if itwere possible to pity a King so shabby and ridiculous. His cleverbrother, Richard, had bought the title of King of the Romans from theGerman people, and was no longer near him, to help him with advice. Theclergy, resisting the very Pope, were in alliance with the Barons. TheBarons were headed by SIMON DE MONTFORT, Earl of Leicester, married toKing Henry's sister, and, though a foreigner himself, the most popularman in England against the foreign favourites. When the King next methis Parliament, the Barons, led by this Earl, came before him, armed fromhead to foot, and cased in armour. When the Parliament again assembled,in a month's time, at Oxford, this Earl was at their head, and the Kingwas obliged to consent, on oath, to what was called a Committee ofGovernment: consisting of twenty-four members: twelve chosen by theBarons, and twelve chosen by himself.
But, at a good time for him, his brother Richard came back. Richard'sfirst act (the Barons would not admit him into England on other terms)was to swear to be faithful to the Committee of Government--which heimmediately began to oppose with all his might. Then, the Barons beganto quarrel among themselves; especially the proud Earl of Gloucester withthe Earl of Leicester, who went abroad in disgust. Then, the peoplebegan to be dissatisfied with the Barons, because they did not do enoughfor them. The King's chances seemed so good again at length, that hetook heart enough--or caught it from his brother--to tell the Committeeof Government that he abolished them--as to his oath, never mind that,the Pope said!--and to seize all the money in the Mint, and to shuthimself up in the Tower of London. Here he was joined by his eldest son,Prince Edward; and, from the Tower, he made public a letter of the Pope'sto the world in general, informing all men that he had been an excellentand just King for five-and-forty years.
As everybody knew he had been nothing of the sort, nobody cared much forthis document. It so chanced that the proud Earl of Gloucester dying,was succeeded by his son; and that his son, instead of being the enemy ofthe Earl of Leicester, was (for the time) his friend. It fell out,therefore, that these two Earls joined their forces, took several of theRoyal Castles in the country, and advanced as hard as they could onLondon. The London people, always opposed to the King, declared for themwith great joy. The King himself remained shut up, not at allgloriously, in the Tower. Prince Edward made the best of his way toWindsor Castle. His mother, the Queen, attempted to follow him by water;but, the people seeing her barge rowing up the river, and hating her withall their hearts, ran to London Bridge, got together a quantity of stonesand mud, and pelted the barge as it came through, crying furiously,'Drown the Witch! Drown her!' They were so near doing it, that theMayor took the old lady under his protection, and shut her up in St.Paul's until the danger was past.
It would require a great deal of writing on my part, and a great deal ofreading on yours, to follow the King through his disputes with theBarons, and to follow the Barons through their disputes with oneanother--so I will make short work of it for both of us, and only relatethe chief events that arose out of these quarrels. The good King ofFrance was asked to decide between them. He gave it as his opinion thatthe King must maintain the Great Charter, and that the Barons must giveup the Committee of Government, and all the rest that had been done bythe Parliament at Oxford: which the Royalists, or King's party,scornfully called the Mad Parliament. The Barons declared that thesewere not fair terms, and they would not accept them. Then they causedthe great bell of St. Paul's to be tolled, for the purpose of rousing upthe London people, who armed themselves at the dismal sound and formedquite an army in the streets. I am sorry to say, however, that insteadof falling upon the King's party with whom their quarrel was, they fellupon the miserable Jews, and killed at least five hundred of them. Theypretended that some of these Jews were on the King's side, and that theykept hidden in their houses, for the destruction of the people, a certainterrible composition called Greek Fire, which could not be put out withwater, but only burnt the fiercer for it. What they really did keep intheir houses was money; and this their cruel enemies wanted, and thistheir cruel enemies took, like robbers and murderers.
The Earl of Leicester put himself at the head of these Londoners andother forces, and followed the King to Lewes in Sussex, where he layencamped with his army. Before giving the King's forces battle here, theEarl addressed his soldiers, and said that King Henry the Third hadbroken so many oaths, that he had become the enemy of God, and thereforethey would wear white crosses on their breasts, as if they were arrayed,not against a fellow-Christian, but against a Turk. White-crossedaccordingly, they rushed into the fight. They would have lost theday--the King having on his side all the foreigners in England: and, fromScotland, JOHN COMYN, JOHN BALIOL, and ROBERT BRUCE, with all theirmen--but for the impatience of PRINCE EDWARD, who, in his hot desire tohave vengeance on the people of London, threw the whole of his father'sarmy into confusion. He was taken Prisoner; so was the King; so was theKing's brother the King of the Romans; and five thousand Englishmen wereleft dead upon the bloody grass.
For this success, the Pope excommunicated the Earl of Leicester: whichneither the Earl nor the people cared at all about. The people loved himand supported him, and he became the real King; having all the power ofthe government in his own hands, though he was outwardly respectful toKing Henry the Third, whom he took with him wherever he went, like a poorold limp court-card. He summoned a Parliament (in the year one thousandtwo hundred and sixty-five) which was the first Parliament in Englandthat the people had any real share in electing; and he grew more and morein favour with the people every day, and they stood by him in whatever hedid.
Many of the other Barons, and particularly the Earl of Gloucester, whohad become by this time as proud as his father, grew jealous of thispowerful and popular Earl, who was proud too, and began to conspireagainst him. Since the battle of Lewes, Prince Edward had been kept as ahostage, and, though he was otherwise treated like a Prince, had neverbeen allowed to go out without attendants appointed by the Earl ofLeicester, who watched him. The conspiring Lords found means to proposeto him, in secret, that they should assist him to escape, and should makehim their leader; to which he very heartily consented.
So, on a day that was agreed upon, he said to his attendants after dinner(being then at Hereford), 'I should like to ride on horseback, this fineafternoon, a little way into the country.' As they, too, thought itwould be very pleasant to have a canter in the sunshine, they all rodeout of the town together in a gay little troop. When they came to a finelevel piece of turf, the Prince fell to comparing their horses one withanother, and offering bets that one was faster than another; and theattendants, suspecting no harm, rode galloping matches until their horseswere quite tired. The Prince rode no matches himself, but looked on fromhis saddle, and staked his money. Thus they passed the whole merryafternoon. Now, the sun was setting, and they were all going slowly up ahill, the Prince's horse very fresh and all the other horses very weary,when a strange rider mounted on a grey steed appeared at the top of thehill, and waved his hat. 'What does the fellow mean?' said theattendants one to another. The Prince answered on the instant by settingspurs to his horse, dashing away at his utmost speed, joining the man,riding into the midst of a little crowd of horsemen who were then seenwaiting under some trees, and who closed around him; and so he departedin a cloud of dust, leaving the road empty of all but the baffledattendants, who sat looking at one another, while their horses droopedtheir ears and panted.
The Prince joined the Earl of Gloucester at Ludlow. The Earl ofLeicester, with a part of the army and the stupid old King, was atHereford. One of the Earl of Leicester's sons, Simon de Montfort, withanother part of the army, was in Sussex. To prevent these two parts fromuniting was the Prince's first object. He attacked Simon de Montfort bynight, defeated him, seized his banners and treasure, and forced him intoKenilworth Castle in Warwickshire, which belonged to his family.
His father, the Earl of Leicester, in the meanwhile, not knowing what hadhappened, marched out of Hereford, with his part of the army and theKing, to meet him. He came, on a bright morning in August, to Evesham,which is watered by the pleasant river Avon. Looking rather anxiouslyacross the prospect towards Kenilworth, he saw his own banners advancing;and his face brightened with joy. But, it clouded darkly when hepresently perceived that the banners were captured, and in the enemy'shands; and he said, 'It is over. The Lord have mercy on our souls, forour bodies are Prince Edward's!'
He fought like a true Knight, nevertheless. When his horse was killedunder him, he fought on foot. It was a fierce battle, and the dead layin heaps everywhere. The old King, stuck up in a suit of armour on a bigwar-horse, which didn't mind him at all, and which carried him into allsorts of places where he didn't want to go, got into everybody's way, andvery nearly got knocked on the head by one of his son's men. But hemanaged to pipe out, 'I am Harry of Winchester!' and the Prince, whoheard him, seized his bridle, and took him out of peril. The Earl ofLeicester still fought bravely, until his best son Henry was killed, andthe bodies of his best friends choked his path; and then he fell, stillfighting, sword in hand. They mangled his body, and sent it as a presentto a noble lady--but a very unpleasant lady, I should think--who was thewife of his worst enemy. They could not mangle his memory in the mindsof the faithful people, though. Many years afterwards, they loved himmore than ever, and regarded him as a Saint, and always spoke of him as'Sir Simon the Righteous.'
And even though he was dead, the cause for which he had fought stilllived, and was strong, and forced itself upon the King in the very hourof victory. Henry found himself obliged to respect the Great Charter,however much he hated it, and to make laws similar to the laws of theGreat Earl of Leicester, and to be moderate and forgiving towards thepeople at last--even towards the people of London, who had so longopposed him. There were more risings before all this was done, but theywere set at rest by these means, and Prince Edward did his best in allthings to restore peace. One Sir Adam de Gourdon was the lastdissatisfied knight in arms; but, the Prince vanquished him in singlecombat, in a wood, and nobly gave him his life, and became his friend,instead of slaying him. Sir Adam was not ungrateful. He ever afterwardsremained devoted to his generous conqueror.
When the troubles of the Kingdom were thus calmed, Prince Edward and hiscousin Henry took the Cross, and went away to the Holy Land, with manyEnglish Lords and Knights. Four years afterwards the King of the Romansdied, and, next year (one thousand two hundred and seventy-two), hisbrother the weak King of England died. He was sixty-eight years oldthen, and had reigned fifty-six years. He was as much of a King indeath, as he had ever been in life. He was the mere pale shadow of aKing at all times.