Page 12 of 163

     * Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 348.

     ** M. Paris, p. 604.

He made a treaty with England at a time when the distractions of that kingdom were at the greatest height, and when the king’s authority was totally annihilated; and the terms which he granted might, even in a more prosperous state of their affairs, be deemed reasonable and advantageous to the English. He yielded up some territories which had been conquered from Poictou and Guienne; he insured the peaceable possession of the latter province to Henry; he agreed to pay that prince a large sum of money; and he only required that the king should, in return, make a final cession of Normandy and the other provinces, which he could never entertain any hopes of recovering by force of arms.[*] This cession was ratified by Henry, by his two sons and two daughters, and by the king of the Romans and his three sons: Leicester alone, either moved by a vain arrogance, or desirous to ingratiate himself with the English populace, protested against the deed, and insisted on the right, however distant, which might accrue to his consort.[**] Lewis saw in his obstinacy the unbounded ambition of the man; and as the barons insisted that the money due by treaty should be at their disposal, not at Henry’s, he also saw, and probably with regret, the low condition to which this monarch, who had more erred from weakness than from any bad intentions, was reduced by the turbulence of his own subjects.

1261.

But the situation of Henry soon after wore a more favorable aspect. The twenty-four barons had now enjoyed the sovereign power near three years; and had visibly employed it, not for the reformation of the state, which was their first pretence, but for the aggrandizement of themselves and of their families. The breach of trust was apparent to all the world: every order of men felt it, and murmured against it: the dissensions among the barons themselves, which increased the evil, made also the remedy more obvious and easy: and the secret desertion in particular of the earl of Glocester to the crown, seemed to promise Henry certain success in any attempt to resume his authority. Yet durst he not take that step, so reconcilable both to justice and policy, without making a previous application to Rome, and desiring an absolution from his oaths and engagements.[***]

     * Rymer, vol. i. p 675. M. Paris, p. 566. Chron. T. Wykes,
     p, 53. Trivet, p. 208 M. West. p. 371.

     ** Chron. T. Wykes, p. 53.

     *** Ann. Burt. p. 389.

The pope was at this time much dissatisfied with the conduct of the barons; who, in order to gain the favor of the people and clergy of England, had expelled all the Italian ecclesiastics, had confiscated their benefices, and seemed determined to maintain the liberties and privileges of the English church, in which the rights of patronage belonging to their own families were included. The extreme animosity of the English clergy against the Italians was also a source of his disgust to the order; and an attempt which had been made by them for further liberty and greater independence on the civil power, was therefore less acceptable to the court of Rome.[*] About the same time that the barons at Oxford had annihilated the prerogatives of the monarchy, the clergy met in a synod at Merton, and passed several ordinances, which were no less calculated to promote their own grandeur at the expense of the crown. They decreed, that it was unlawful to try ecclesiastics by secular judges; that the clergy were not to regard any prohibitions from civil courts; that lay patrons had no right to confer spiritual benefices; that the magistrate was obliged, without further inquiry, to imprison all excommunicated persons; and that ancient usage, without any particular grant or charter, was a sufficient authority for any clerical possessions or privileges.[**] About a century before, these claims would have been supported by the court of Rome beyond the most fundamental articles of faith: they were the chief points maintained by the great martyr Becket; and his resolution in defending them had exalted him to the high station which he held in the catalogue of Romish saints. But principles were changed with the times: the pope was become somewhat jealous of the great independence of the English clergy, which made them stand less in need of his protection, and even imboldened them to resist his authority, and to complain of the preference given to the Italian courtiers, whose interests, it is natural to imagine, were the chief object of his concern. He was ready, therefore, on the king’s application, to annul these new constitutions of the church of England.[***] And, at the same time, he absolved the king and all his subjects from the oath which they had taken to observe the provisions of Oxford.[****]

     * Rymer, vol. i. p. 755.

     ** Ann. Burt. p. 389.

     *** Rymer, vol. i. p. 755.

     **** Rymer, vol. i. p. 722. M. Paris, p. 666. W. Heming. p,
     580. Ypod. Neust. p; 468. Knyghton, p. 2446.

Prince Edward, whose liberal mind, though in such early youth, had taught him the great prejudice which his father had incurred by his levity, inconstancy, and frequent breach of promise, refused for a long time to take advantage of thus absolution; and declared that the provisions of Oxford, how unreasonable soever in themselves, and how much soever abused by the barons, ought still to be adhered to by those who had sworn to observe them:[*] he himself had been constrained by violence to take that oath; yet was he determined to keep it. By this scrupulous fidelity the prince acquired the confidence of all parties, and was afterwards enabled to recover fully the royal authority, and to perform such great actions both during his own reign and that of his father.

The situation of England, during this period, as well as that of most European kingdoms, was somewhat peculiar. There was no regular military force maintained in the nation: the sword, however, was not, properly speaking, in the hands of the people; the barons were alone intrusted with the defence of the community; and after any effort which they made, either against their own prince or against foreigners, as the military retainers departed home, the armies were disbanded, and could not speedily be reassembled at pleasure. It was easy, therefore, for a few barons, by a combination, to get the start of the other party, to collect suddenly their troops, and to appear unexpectedly in the field with an army, which their antagonists, though equal or even superior in power and interest, would not dare to encounter. Hence the sudden revolutions which often took place in those governments; hence the frequent victories obtained without a blow by one faction over the other; and hence it happened, that the seeming prevalence of a party was seldom a prognostic of its long continuance in power and authority.

1262.

The king, as soon as he received the pope’s absolution from his oath, accompanied with menaces of excommunication against all opponents, trusting to the countenance of the church, to the support promised him by many considerable barons, and to the returning favor of the people, immediately took off the mask. After justifying his conduct by a proclamation, in which he set forth the private ambition and the breach of trust conspicuous in Leicester and his associates, be declared that he had resumed the government, and was determined thenceforth to exert the royal authority for the protection of his subjects.