The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (181 page)

pro Laudiano et aliis terris. See page 555. This word seems naturally to be interpreted Lothian. But, in the first place, Matthew Paris’s testimony, though considerable, will not outweigh that of all the other historians, who say that the Scotch homage was always done for lands in England. Secondly, if the Scotch homage was done in general terms (as has been already proved), it is no wonder that historians should differ in their account of the object of it, since, it is probable, the parties themselves were not fully agreed. Thirdly, there is reason to think that Laudianum in Matthew PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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Paris does not mean the Lothians, now in Scotland. There appears to have been a territory, which anciently bore that or a similar name, in the north of England. For (1) The Saxon Chronicle, p. 197. says, that Malcolm Kenmure met William Rufus in Lodene in England. (2) It is agreed by all historians, that Henry II. only reconquered from Scotland the northern counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmorland. See Newbriggs, p. 383. Wykes, p. 30. Hemingford, p. 492. Yet the same country is called by other historians Loidis, comitatus Lodonensis, or some such name. See M. Paris, p. 68. M. West. p. 247. Annal. Waverl. p. 159. and Diceto, p.

531. (3) This last mentioned author, when he speaks of Lothian in Scotland, calls it Loheneis, p. 574, though he had called the English territory Loidis.I thought this long note necessary in order to correct Mr. Carte’s mistake, an author whose diligence and industry has given light to many passages of the more ancient English history.

[[B]]Rymer, vol. ii. p. 543. It is remarkable that the English chancellor spoke to the Scotch parliament in the French tongue. This was also the language commonly made use of by all parties on that occasion. Ibid. passim. Some of the most considerable among the Scotch, as well as almost all the English barons, were of French origin; they valued themselves upon it; and pretended to despise the language and manners of the island. It is difficult to account for the settlement of so many French families in Scotland, the Bruces, Baliols, St. Clairs, Montgomeries, Somervilles, Gordons, Frasers, Cummins, Colvilles, Umfrevilles, Mowbrays, Hays, Maules, who were not supported there, as in England, by the power of the sword. But the superiority of the smallest civility and knowledge over total ignorance and barbarism, is prodigious.

[[C]]See Rymer, vol. ii. p. 533. where Edward writes to the King’s Bench to receive

appeals from Scotland. He knew the practice to be new and unusual; yet he establishes it as an infallible consequence of his superiority. We learn also from the same collection, p. 603, that immediately upon receiving the homage, he changed the style of his address to the Scotch king, whom he now calls dilecto & fideli, instead of fratri dilecto & fideli, the appellation which he had always before used to him; see p.

109. 124. 168. 280. 1064. This is a certain proof, that he himself was not deceived, as was scarcely indeed possible, but that he was conscious of his usurpation. Yet he solemnly swore afterwards to the justice of his pretensions, when he defended them before pope Boniface.

[[D]]Throughout the reign of Edw. I. the assent of the commons is not once expressed in any of the enacting clauses; nor in the reigns ensuing, till the 9 Edw. III. nor in any of the enacting clauses of 16 Rich. II. Nay even so low as Hen. VI. from the beginning till the 8th of his reign, the assent of the commons is not once expressed in any enacting clause. See preface to Ruffhead’s edit. of the Statutes, p. 7. If it should be asserted, that the commons had really given their assent to these statutes, though they are not expressly mentioned; this very omission, proceeding, if you will, from carelessness, is a proof how little they were respected. The commons were so little accustomed to transact public business, that they had no speaker, till after the parliament 6th Edw. III. See Prynne’s preface to Cotton’s abridg. Not till the first of Richard II. in the opinion of most antiquaries. The commons were very unwilling to meddle in any state affairs, and commonly either referred themselves to the lords, or desired a select committee of that house to assist them, as appears from Cotton. 5 E.

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III. n. 5; 15 E. III. n. 17; 21 E. III. n. 5; 47 E. III. n. 5; 50 E. III. n. 10; 51 E. III. n. 18; 1 R. II. n. 12; 2 R. II. n. 12; 5 R. II. n. 14, 2 parl. 6 R. II. n. 14; parl. 2. 6 R. II. n. 8.

&c.

[[E]]It was very agreeable to the maxims of all the feudal governments, that every order of the state should give their consent to the acts which more immediately concerned them; and as the notion of a political system was not then so well understood, the other orders of the state were often not consulted on these occasions.

In this reign, even the merchants, though no public body, granted the king impositions on merchandize, because the first payments came out of their pockets. They did the same in the reign of Edward III. but the commons had then observed that the people paid these duties, though the merchants advanced them; and they therefore remonstrated against this practice. Cotton’s abridg. p. 39. The taxes imposed by the knights on the counties were always lighter than those which the burgesses laid on the boroughs; a presumption, that in voting those taxes, the knights and burgesses did not form the same house. See Chancellor West’s enquiry into the manner of creating peers, p. 8. But there are so many proofs, that those two orders of representatives were long separate, that it is needless to insist on them. Mr. Carte, who had carefully consulted the rolls of parliament, affirms, that they never appear to have been united till the 16th of Edward III. See Hist. vol. ii. p. 451. But it is certain that this union was not even then final: In 1372, the burgesses acted by themselves, and voted a tax after the knights were dismissed. See Tyrrel, Hist. vol. iii. p. 734. from Rot. Claus. 46 Edw.

III. n. 9. In 1376, they were the knights alone, who passed a vote for the removal of Alice Pierce from the king’s person, if we may credit Walsingham, p. 189. There is an instance of a like kind in the reign of Richard II. Cotton, p. 193. The different taxes voted by those two branches of the lower house, naturally kept them separate: But as their petitions had mostly the same object, namely, the redress of grievances, and the support of law and justice both against the crown and the barons, this cause as naturally united them, and was the reason why they at last joined in one house for the dispatch of business. The barons had few petitions. Their privileges were of more ancient date: Grievances seldom affected them: They were themselves the chief oppressors. In 1333, the knights by themselves concurred with the bishops and barons in advising the king to stay his journey into Ireland. Here was a petition which regarded a matter of state, and was supposed to be above the capacity of the burgesses. The knights, therefore, acted apart in this petition. See Cotton, abridg. p.

13. Chief baron Gilbert thinks, that the reason why taxes always began with the commons or burgesses was, that they were limited by the instructions of their boroughs. See Hist. of the Exchequer, p. 37.

[[F]]The chief argument from ancient authority, for the opinion that the representatives of boroughs preceded the forty-ninth of Henry III. is the famous petition of the borough of St. Albans, first taken notice of by Selden, and then by Peyt, Brady, Tyrrel, and others. In this petition, presented to the parliament in the reign of Edward II. the town of St. Albans asserts, that though they held in capite of the crown, and owed only, for all other service, their attendance in parliament, yet the sheriff had omitted them in his writs; whereas both in the reign of the king’s father, and all his predecessors, they had always sent members. Now, say the defenders of this opinion, if the commencement of the house of commons were in Henry III.’s PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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reign, this expression could not have been used. But Madox, in his History of the Exchequer, p. 522, 523, 524, has endeavoured, and with great reason, to destroy the authority of this petition for the purpose alleged. He asserts, first, that there was no such tenure in England as that of holding by attendance in parliament, instead of all other service. Secondly, That the borough of St. Albans never held of the crown at all, but was always demesne land of the abbot. It is no wonder, therefore, that a petition which advances two falsehoods, should contain one historical mistake, which indeed amounts only to an inaccurate and exaggerated expression; no strange matter in ignorant Burgesses of that age. Accordingly St. Albans continued still to belong to the abbot. It never held of the crown, till after the dissolution of the monasteries. But the assurance of these petitioners is remarkable. They wanted to shake off the authority of their abbot, and to hold of the king; but were unwilling to pay any services even to the crown: Upon which they framed this idle petition, which later writers have made the foundation of so many inferences and conclusions. From the tenor of the petition it appears, that there was a close connection between holding of the crown, and being represented in parliament: The latter had scarcely ever place without the former: Yet we learn from Tyrrel’s Append. vol. iv. that there were some instances to the contrary.

It is not improbable, that Edward followed the roll of the earl of Leicester, who had summoned, without distinction, all the considerable boroughs of the kingdom; among which there might be some few that did not hold of the crown. Edward also found it necessary to impose taxes on all the boroughs in the kingdom without distinction.

This was a good expedient for augmenting his revenue. We are not to imagine, because the house of commons have since become of great importance, that the first summoning of them would form any remarkable and striking epoch, and be generally known to the people even seventy or eighty years after. So ignorant were the generality of men in that age, that country burgesses would readily imagine an innovation, seemingly so little material, to have existed from time immemorial, because it was beyond their own memory, and perhaps that of their fathers. Even the parliament in the reign of Henry V. say, that Ireland had, from the beginning of time, been subject to the crown of England. (See Brady.) And surely, if any thing interests the people above all others, it is war and conquests, with their dates and circumstances.

[[G]]This story of the six burgesses of Calais, like all other extraordinary stories, is somewhat to be suspected; and so much the more as Avesbury, p. 167, who is particular in his narration of the surrender of Calais, says nothing of it: and on the contrary extols in general the king’s generosity and lenity to the inhabitants. The numberless mistakes of Froissard, proceeding either from negligence, credulity, or love of the marvellous, invalidate very much his testimony, even though he was a contemporary, and though his history was dedicated to queen Philippa herself. It is a mistake to imagine, that the patrons of dedications read the books, much less vouch for all the contents of them. It is not a slight testimony, that should make us give credit to a story so dishonourable to Edward, especially after that proof of his humanity, in allowing a free passage to all the women, children, and infirm people, at the beginning of the siege; at least, it is scarcely to be believed, that, if the story has any foundation, he seriously meant to execute his menaces against the six townsmen of Calais.

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[[H]]There was a singular instance about this time of the prevalence of chivalry and gallantry in the nations of Europe. A solemn duel of thirty knights against thirty was fought between Bembrough, an Englishman, and Beaumanoir, a Breton, of the party of Charles of Blois. The knights of the two nations came into the field; and before the combat began, Beaumanoir called out, that it would be seen that day who had the fairest mistresses. After a bloody combat the Bretons prevailed; and gained for their prize, full liberty to boast of their mistresses’ beauty. It is remarkable, that two such famous generals as Sir Robert Knolles, and Sir Hugh Calverley, drew their swords in this ridiculous contest. See Pere Daniel, vol. ii. p. 536, 537, &c. The women not only instigated the champions to those rough, if not bloody frays of tournament; but also frequented the tournaments during all the reign of Edward, whose spirit of gallantry encouraged this practice. See Knyghton, p. 2597.

[[I]]This is a prodigious sum, and probably near the half of what the king received from the parliament during the whole course of his reign. It must be remarked, that a tenth and fifteenth (which was always thought a high grant) were, in the eighth year of his reign, fixed at about 29,000 pounds: There were said to be near 30,000 sacks of wool exported every year: A sack of wool was at a medium sold for five pounds.

Upon these suppositions it would be easy to compute all the parliamentary grants, taking the list as they stand in Tyrrel, vol. iii. p. 780: Though somewhat must still be left to conjecture. This king levied more money on his subjects than any of his predecessors; and the parliament frequently complained of the poverty of the people, and the oppressions under which they laboured. But it is to be remarked, that a third of the French king’s ransom was yet unpayed when war broke out anew between the two crowns: His son chose rather to employ his money in combating the English, than in enriching them. See Rymer, vol. viii. p. 315.

[[J]]In the fifth year of the king, the commons complained of the government about the king’s person, his court, the excessive number of his servants, of the abuses in the Chancery, King’s Bench, Common Pleas, Exchequer, and of grievous oppressions in the country, by the great multitudes of maintainers of quarrels, (men linked in confederacies together) who behaved themselves like kings in the country, so as there was very little law or right, and of other things which they said were the cause of the late commotions under Wat Tyler. Parl. Hist. vol. i. p. 365. This irregular government, which no king and no house of commons had been able to remedy, was the source of the licentiousness of the great, and turbulency of the people, as well as tyranny of the princes. If subjects would enjoy liberty, and kings security, the laws must be executed.In the ninth of this reign, the commons also discovered an accuracy and a jealousy of liberty, which we should little expect in those rude times. "It was agreed by parliament," says Cotton, p. 309, "that the subsidy of wools, wool fells, and skins, granted to the king until the time of Midsummer then ensuing, should cease from the same time unto the feast of St. Peter ad vincula; for that thereby the king should be interrupted for claiming such grant as due." See also Cotton, p. 198.