The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (105 page)

It is evident from the genealogy of the royal family of Scotland, that there could only be two questions about the succession, that between Baliol and Bruce on the one hand, and lord Hastings on the other, concerning the partition of the crown; and that between Baliol and Bruce themselves, concerning the preference of their respective titles, supposing the kingdom indivisible: Yet there appeared on this occasion no less than nine claimants besides; John Comyn or Cummin lord of Badenoch, Florence earl of Holland, Patric Dunbar earl of March, William de Vescey, Robert de Pynkeni, Nicholas de Soules, Patric Galythly, Roger de Mandeville, Robert de Ross; not to mention the king of Norway, who claimed as heir to his daughter Margaret.
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Some of these competitors were descended from more remote branches of the royal family; others were even sprung from illegitimate children; and as none of them had the least pretence of right, it is natural to conjecture, that Edward had secretly encouraged them to appear in the list of claimants, that he might sow the more division among the Scottish nobility, make the cause appear the more intricate, and be able to chuse, among a great number, the most obsequious candidate.

But he found them all equally obsequious on this occasion.
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Robert Bruce was the first that acknowledged Edward’s right of superiority over Scotland; and he had so far foreseen the king’s pretensions, that even in his petition, where he set forth his claim to the crown, he had previously applied to him as liege lord of the kingdom; a step PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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which was not taken by any of the other competitors.
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They all, however, with seeming willingness, made a like acknowledgment when required; though Baliol, lest he should give offence to the Scottish nation, had taken care to be absent during the first days; and he was the last that recognized the king’s title.
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Edward next deliberated concerning the method of proceeding in the discussion of this great controversy. He gave orders, that Baliol, and such of the competitors as adhered to him, should chuse forty commissioners; Bruce and his adherents forty more: To these the king added twenty-four Englishmen: He ordered these hundred and four commissioners to examine the cause deliberately among themselves, and make their report to him:
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And he promised in the ensuing year to give his determination. Mean while, he pretended, that it was requisite to have all the fortresses of Scotland delivered into his hands, in order to enable him, without opposition, to put the true heir in possession of the crown; and this exorbitant demand was complied with, both

by the states and by the claimants.s
The governors also of all the castles immediately resigned their command; except Umfreville earl of Angus, who refused, without a formal and particular acquittal from the parliament and the several claimants, to surrender his fortresses to so domineering an arbiter, who had given to Scotland so

many just reasons of suspicion.t
Before this assembly broke up, which had fixed such a mark of dishonour on the nation, all the prelates and barons there present swore fealty to Edward; and that prince appointed commissioners to receive a like oath from all the other barons and persons of distinction in Scotland.
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The king, having finally made, as he imagined, this important acquisition, left the commissioners to sit at Berwic, and examine the titles of the several competitors, who claimed the precarious crown, which Edward was willing for some time to allow the lawful heir to enjoy. He went southwards, both in order to assist at the funeral of his mother, queen Eleanor, who died about this time, and to compose some differences which had arisen among his principal nobility. Gilbert earl of Glocester, the greatest baron of the kingdom, had espoused the king’s daughter; and being elated by that alliance, and still more by his own power, which, he thought, set him above the laws, he permitted his bailiffs and vassals to commit violence on the lands of Humphrey Bohun earl of Hereford, who retaliated the injury by like violence. But this was not a reign in which such illegal proceedings could pass with impunity. Edward procured a sentence against the two earls, committed them both to prison, and would not restore them to their liberty, till he exacted a fine of 1000 marks from Hereford, and one of 10,000 from his son-in-law.

During this interval, the titles of John Baliol and of Robert 1292.

Bruce, whose claims appeared to be the best founded among the competitors for the crown of Scotland, were the subject of general disquisition, as well as of debate among the commissioners. Edward, in order to give greater authority to his intended decision, proposed this general question both to the commissioners, and to all the celebrated lawyers in Europe; Whether a person descended from the elder sister, but farther removed by one degree, were preferable, in the succession of kingdoms, fiefs, and other indivisible inheritances, to one descended from the younger sister, but one degree nearer to the common stock? This was the true state of the case; and the principle of representation had now gained such ground every where, that a uniform answer was returned to the king in the affirmative. He therefore pronounced PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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sentence in favour of Baliol; and when Bruce, upon this disappointment, joined afterwards lord Hastings, and claimed a third of the kingdom, which he now pretended to be divisible, Edward, though his interests seemed more to require the partition of Scotland, again pronounced sentence in favour of Baliol.

That competitor, upon renewing his oath of fealty to England, Award of Edward in

was put in possession of the kingdom;
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all his fortresses were favour of Baliol.

restored to him,x
and the conduct of Edward, both in the deliberate solemnity of the proceedings, and in the justice of the award, was so far unexceptionable.

Had the king entertained no other view than that of establishing 1293.

his superiority over Scotland, though the iniquity of that claim was apparent, and was aggravated by the most egregious breach of trust, he might have fixed his pretensions, and have left that important acquisition to his posterity: But he immediately proceeded in such a manner, as made it evident, that, not content with this usurpation, he aimed also at the absolute sovereignty and dominion of the kingdom. Instead of gradually enuring the Scots to the yoke, and exerting his rights of superiority with moderation, he encouraged all appeals to England; required king John himself, by six different summons on trivial occasions, to come to London;
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refused him the privilege of defending his cause by a procurator; and obliged him to appear at

the bar of his parliament as a private person.z
These humiliating demands were hitherto quite unknown to a king of Scotland: They are however the necessary consequence of vassalage by the feudal law; and as there was no preceding instance of such treatment submitted to by a prince of that country, Edward must, from that circumstance alone, had there remained any doubt, have been himself convinced, that his claim was altogether an usurpation.
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But his intention plainly was, to enrage Baliol by these indignities, to engage him in rebellion, and to assume the dominion of the state as the punishment of his treason and felony. Accordingly Baliol, though a prince of a soft and gentle spirit, returned into Scotland highly provoked at this usage, and determined at all hazards to vindicate his liberty; and the war, which soon after broke out between France and England, gave him a favourable opportunity of executing his purpose.

The violence, robberies, and disorders, to which that age was so subject, were not confined to the licentious barons and their retainers at land: The sea was equally infested with piracy: The feeble execution of the laws had given licence to all orders of men: And a general appetite for rapine and revenge, supported by a false point of honour, had also infected the merchants and mariners; and it pushed them, on any provocation, to seek redress, by immediate retaliation upon the aggressors.

A Norman and an English vessel met off the coast near Bayonne; War with France.

and both of them having occasion for water, they sent their boats to land, and the several crews came at the same time to the same spring: There ensued a quarrel for the preference: A Norman, drawing his dagger, attempted to stab an Englishman; who, grappling with him, threw his adversary on the ground; and the Norman, as was pretended, falling on his own dagger, was slain.
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This scuffle between two seamen about water, soon kindled a bloody war between the two nations, and involved a great part of Europe in the quarrel. The mariners of the Norman ship carried their complaints to the French king: Philip, without enquiring into the fact, PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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without demanding redress, bade them take revenge, and trouble him no more about the matter.
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The Normans, who had been more regular than usual in applying to the crown, needed but this hint to proceed to immediate violence. They seized an English ship in the channel; and hanging, along with some dogs, several of the crew on the yard-arm, in presence of their companions, dismissed the vessel;
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and bade the mariners inform their countrymen, that vengeance was now taken for the blood of the Norman killed at Bayonne. This injury, accompanied with so general and deliberate an insult, was resented by the mariners of the cinque ports, who, without carrying any complaint to the king, or waiting for redress, retaliated by committing like barbarities on all French vessels without distinction. The French, provoked by their losses, preyed on the ships of all Edward’s subjects, whether English or Gascon: The sea became a scene of piracy between the nations: The sovereigns, without either seconding or repressing the violence of their subjects, seemed to remain indifferent spectators: The English made private associations with the Irish and Dutch seamen; the French with the Flemish and Genoese:
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And the animosities of the people on both sides became every day more violent and barbarous. A fleet of two hundred Norman vessels set sail to the south for wine and other commodities; and in their passage, seized all the English ships which they met with; hanged the seamen, and seized the goods. The inhabitants of the English sea-ports, informed of this incident, fitted out a fleet of sixty sail, stronger and better manned than the others, and awaited the enemy on their return. After an obstinate battle, they put them to rout, and sunk, destroyed, or took the greater part of them.
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No quarter was given; and it is pretended, that the loss of the French amounted to 15,000 men: Which is accounted for by this circumstance, that the Norman fleet was employed in transporting a considerable body of soldiers from the south.

The affair was now become too important to be any longer overlooked by the sovereigns. On Philip’s sending an envoy to demand reparation and restitution, the king dispatched the bishop of London to the French court, in order to accommodate the quarrel. He first said, that the English courts of justice were open to all men; and if any Frenchman were injured, he might seek reparation by course of law.
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He next offered to adjust the matter by private arbiters, or by a personal interview with the king of France, or by a reference either to the pope or the college of cardinals, or any particular cardinals, agreed on by both parties.
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The French, probably the more disgusted, as they were hitherto losers in the quarrel, refused all these expedients: The vessels and the goods of merchants were confiscated on both sides: Depredations were continued by the Gascons on the western coast of France, as well as by the English in the channel: Philip cited the king, as duke of Guienne, to appear in his court at Paris, and answer for these offences: And Edward, apprehensive of danger to that province, sent John St. John, an experienced soldier, to Bourdeaux, and gave him

directions to put Guienne in a posture of defence.h

That he might however prevent a final rupture between the

1294.

nations, the king dispatched his brother, Edmond, earl of

Lancaster, to Paris; and as this prince had espoused the queen of Navarre, mother to Jane, queen of France, he seemed, on account of that alliance, the most proper person for finding expedients to accommodate the difference. Jane pretended to interpose with her good offices: Mary, the queen-dowager, feigned the same amicable PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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disposition: And these two princesses told Edmond, that the circumstance, the most difficult to adjust, was the point of honour with Philip, who thought himself affronted by the injuries committed against him by his sub-vassals in Guienne: But if Edward would once consent to give him seizin and possession of that province, he would think his honour fully repaired, would engage to restore Guienne immediately, and would accept of a very easy satisfaction for all the other injuries. The king was consulted on the occasion; and as he then found himself in immediate danger of war with the Scots, which he regarded as the more important concern, this politic prince, blinded by his favourite passion for subduing that nation, allowed himself to be deceived by so gross an artifice.
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He sent his brother orders to sign and execute the treaty with the two queens; Philip solemnly promised to execute his part of it; and the king’s citation to appear in the court of France, was accordingly recalled: But the French monarch was no sooner put in possession of Guienne, than the citation was renewed; Edward was condemned for non-appearance; and Guienne, by a formal sentence, was declared to be forfeited and annexed to the crown.
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