Composition was made by both Parties in an Island in the Thames near the Town of Stains Septemb. 11. A. D. 1217. So that within two years and three months time M. Charta was granted and destroyed and damnd by the Pope and revived and renewed again by fresh Oaths and even of the Pope's Legate I shall very briefly shew what fate it had in H. 3. time for I do not remember any fighting about the Confirmation of it in any succeeding Reign wherein I shall only recite the matter of Fact reserving the matter of Right till anon In the fifth year of his Reign he was crowned again at Westminster and three years after which was the eighteenth of his age at a Parliament at London he was desired by the Archbishop and the other Lords to confirm the Liberties and free Customs for which the War was first moved against his Father And as the Archbishop evidently shew'd the King could not decline the doing of it because upon the departure of Lewis out of England he himself had sworn and all the Nobility of the Realm with him that they would observe all the said Liberties and have all others observe them Upon which William Brewer who was one of the P. Council made answer in behalf of the King saying The Liberties you desire ought not in justice to be observed because they were extorted by violence Which Speech the Archbishop taking very ill rebuked him saying William quoth he if you loved the King you would not be a hindrance to the Peace of the Kingdom But the King seeing the Archbishop going to be very angry said We have all of us sworn to these Liberties and we are all bound to observe what we have sworn And forthwith taking advice upon it sent his Letters to the Sheriffs of every County to cause twelve Knights or Legal Men to make an Inquisition upon Oath what were the Liberties of England in the time of K. Henry his Grandfather and to make him a return of it by a certain day This vowing and afterwards making inquiry was ill resented and was one of the false Shifts which were so peculiar to that Prince The motion of the Archbishop was so manifestly necessary for the settling the young King in his Throne that our Historian Daniel says it was impiously oppugned by William Brewer Dan. p. 151. and indeed the reflections he makes on the whole passage are very remarkable from the Pen of a Courtier I only observe that William Brewer was the fittest Interpreter of an Arbitrary Prince's mind for he was an old arbitrary Instrument and one of K. Iohn's Generals in his barbarous Invasion and tho he himself had since sworn to M. Charta that made no matter for such false Changes and Conversions always turn Cat again as soon as they find Game and spy a Mouse The next year the King being declared by the Pope's Bull of full age and Lewis being now King of France and keeping possession of all the King's Dominions beyond the Seas at a Parliament at Westminster he desired a Fifteenth for the recovery of them And tho many of the Earls and Barons had thereby lost their Inheritances as well as the King yet the whole Assembly agreed in this Answer That they would freely grant the King what he desired but upon condition if he would grant them their long desired Liberties The King out of covetousness of this Aid has Charters presently written and sealed and sent to all the Counties and an Oath in writing for all Men to swear to them while Richard the King's Brother because they had hitherto been ill kept cried out they were cozening Charters Matt. Paris says he therefore forbears to recite the Tenor of these Charters because he had done it before in K. Iohn's Reign for the Charters of both Kings were alike In nullo inveniuntur dissimiles Two years the Land rested injoying their Liberties which were punctually kept till the King at a Parliament at Oxford declared himself to be of full age and took that occasion to have a new Seal and to cancel the Charter of the Forests as granted in his Minority and to cause all that would enjoy the benefit of that Charter to take out particular Charters under his new Seal for which they paid exorbitant Fines such as his Chief Justiciar pleased Upon this and a great Oppression of his Brother Richard soon after the Earls and Barons were up in Arms and had drawn together a great Body of Men at Stanford from whence they send him a Message in very big words Nimis ampullosis That he forthwith make amends to his Brother for the Injury done him the fault of which they lay upon the Justiciar and that he should immediately restore the Charters of the Forest which he had cancel'd at Oxford and send them to them sealed grievously denouncing That otherwise they would compel him with their Swords Whereupon he called a Parliament to Northampton and gave them full satisfaction to their Demands Six years after the Barons had an outragious Violation of M. Charta to complain of and an intolerable Grievance to the Nation For the King had not only filled the Offices of his Court with Poitovins to the great Oppression of his natural Subjects but also had invited in two thousand Poitovins and Brittons with which he garisoned his Castles Upon this Earl Richard the Marshal of the Kingdom taking several of the Lords along with him went boldly to the King and openly reproved him that because by evil Counsel he had called in Poitovin Foreigners to the Oppression of his Realm and natural born Subjects of the Realm of their Laws likewise and Liberties wherefore he humbly besought the King that he would speedily reform such Abuses as these which were the imminent destruction of his Crown and Realm Moreover he affirmed that if the King refused to amend this Proceeding both he and the rest of the Noblemen of the Kingdom would so long continue to withdraw themselves from his Councils as he consorted with Foreigners To this Peter Bishop of Winchester who was prime Minister made answer That it was very lawful for our Lord the King to call in what Foreigners he pleased for the defence of his Kingdom and Crown and even such and so many as might be able to compel his proud and rebellious Subjects to their Duty The Earl Marshal and the Lords went away very much dissatisfied with this Answer and promised to one another that in this Cause which concerned the whole Nation they would manfully fight it out to the separation of their Souls from their Bodies In the mean while the Bishop of Winchester and his Accomplices had so far perverted the King's heart to hate and despise the English Nation that he studied the extirpation of them all manner of ways and by a few at a time invited over so many Legions of Poitovins that they almost filled all England with Troops of which wherever the King went he still
was walled in and invironed Nor was any thing done in the Kingdom but as the Bishop of Winchester and this Rout of Poitovins ordered it The King then calls a Parliament to meet on Midsummer day at Oxford but the aforesaid associated Lords would not come at his Summons partly for fear of the lying in wait of these Foreigners and partly out of the Indignation which they conceived against the King for calling in Aliens in contempt of them Upon this it was judicially decreed that they should be summoned twice and thrice to try whether they would come or no. Here at this Assembly at Oxford Roger Bacon while he was preaching the Word of God before the King and the Bishops told him roundly That he would never enjoy any settled peace unless he removed the Bishop of Winchester and Peter Rivallis from his Councils And when others who were present protested the same thing the King began a little to recollect himself and encline to Reason and signified to the associated Barons that they should come to a Parliament Iuly 11. at Westminster and there by their advice he would rectify what was fit to be amended But when the Barons had heard that many Freebooters were called in by the King with Horses and Arms and that they had arrived by degrees and but a few at a time and could see no footsteps of Peace but likewise suspected the innate Treachery of the Poitovins they let alone going to the Parliament but they sent him word by solemn Messengers That setting aside all delay he should remove the Bishop of Winchester and all the Poitovins from his Court But in case he would not they all by the Common Council of the Kingdom would expel him and his evil Counsellors out of the Realm and proceed to the Creation of a new King The King was struck with this Message and the Court were very much concerned at it fearing lest the Error of the Son should be worse than his Father's who was very near being driven out of his Kingdom and making good the name which was given him by a kind of Presage of Iohn the Exile But Bishop Peter gave the King advice to make war upon these rebellious Subjects and to bestow their Castles and Lands upon the Poitovins who might defend the Realm of England from his Traitors bragging that he both could and would give deep and not scoundrel Counsel for time was when he had governed the Emperor's Council in the East and that his Wisdom was formidable both to the Saracens and to other Nations So the King returning again to the wrong first wreakt his Anger upon Gilbert Basset whom having seized a Mannor of his and he coming to claim his right he called Traitor and threatned if he did not get out of his Court to have him hang'd And he likewise commanded Richard Seward a warlike Knight that had married this Gilbert's Sister or Neice without his Licence as he said to be taken up And indeed being jealous of all the other noble and powerful Men of the Kingdom he required Hostages of them such and so many as might satisfy him that they would not rebel To the Parliament at Westminster Aug. 1. the Earls and Barons came armed and the Earl Marshal was on his way coming to it but going to lodg at his Sister's House who was Wife to Richard the King's Brother she advertised him of his danger and that he would be seized He being a Man of a noble Breast could not readily believe Woman's talk till she made it out and then night coming on he rid another way and never drew bit till he came well wearied into Wales There were many Earls and Barons at this Parliament but there was nothing done in it because of the absence of the Earl Marshal Gilbert Basset and some other Lords After this the King by the advice of the Bishop of Winchester gave summons to all that held of him by Knights service to be ready with their Horses and Arms at Glocester a week before Assumption day And when the Earl Marshal and many others that were associated with him would not come at that appointed time the King as if they had been Traitors caused their Houses to be set on fire their Parks and Ponds to be destroyed and their Castles to be besieged These that were said to be associated were very noble Persons and there were many others no mean Men that adhered to them All these did King Henry cause to be proclaimed Outlaws and banished Men without the Judgment of his Court and of their Peers and gave their Lands to the Poitovins thereby adding sorrow to sorrow and redoubling their Wounds He gave commandment likewise that their Bodies should be seized wherever they could be found within the Realm In the mean time Bishop Peter does what he can to weaken the Marshal's Party and corrupted the Earls of Chester and Lincoln with a thousand Marks cheap Lords to leave the Marshal and the cause of Justice and to be reconciled to the King and be of his side For as for Richard the King's Brother he was gone off from the Marshal some time before When the Marshal had heard all this he entred into a Confederacy with Lewellin Prince of Wales and other Peers of that Country who swore none of them would make Peace without the other Within a weeks time after the appointed Rendezvouz at Glocester there arrived at Dover many armed men from the parts beyond the Sea and Baldwin de Gysnes with a Force out of Flanders who came to the King at Glocester This Force with what he had before made a numerous Army with which he advanced to Hereford After this the King by the advice of Bishop Peter sends a Defiance to the Marshal by the Bishop of St. Davids and thereupon marches to make war upon him and lays siege to one of his Castles But when he had furiously assaulted it many days in vain and his Army wanted Provisions so that there was a necessity of raising the Siege the King grew ashamed of his Enterprize Whereupon he sent several Bishops to the Earl Marshal to desire him to save the King's Honour and that he might not be thought to have made a Siege to no purpose to surrender him the Castle upon these Conditions First That he would after fifteen days restore to the Earl Marshal the Castle again intire and in the same state it was And Secondly That in the mean time he would reform and amend all things that were amiss in the Kingdom by the advice of the Bishops who were his Sureties for the performance of these things And to perfect and compleat all this the King appointed the Marshal and the banished Lords to come to a Parliament which he meant to hold at Westminster the first Week after Michaelmas When the fifteen days were out from the time of the Marshals surrender of his Castle into the King's hands upon condition that after that Term he should
which were not supported by Reason nay therein I should do injury both to himself and to that Iustice which he ought to maintain and exercise towards his Subjects And I should give a bad Example to all Men of deserting Iustice and the prosecution of Right for the sake of an erroneous Will against all Iustice and to the injury of the Subject for hereby it would appear that we had more love for our worldly Possessions than for Righteousness it self But I wrong the Discourse by singling any particulars out of it The King kept his Christmas at Glocester with a very thin Court the late Rout at Grosmund Castle having scattered them And the morrow after Iohn of Monmouth a Nobleman one of the King's Warriours in Wales attempting to surprize the Marshal was entirely defeated with the loss of a great number of Poitovins and others himself narrowly escaping which his Estate did not for the Marshal immediately burnt and destroyed it The same did the other exiled Lords by all the King's Counsellors in those parts for they had laid down amongst themselves this laudable general Rule That they would hurt no body nor do them any damage but only the evil Counsellors of the King by whom they had been driven into Banishment and used in the same kind And a week after Twelftide the Marshal and Leoline entered the King's Lands and laid them waste as far as Shrewsbury the King and Bishop Peter being still at Glocester but not having strength to oppose them they retired to Winchester Bnt the King's Heart was so hardned against the Marshal by the evil Counsel that he made use of that when the Bishops admonished him to make peace with the Marshal who fought for the Cause of Iustice he made answer Qui pro Justiciâ decertabat That he never would make peace with him unless he would acknowledg himself a Traitor with a Halter about his neck When the Bishop of Winchester and the other evil Counsellors of the King saw all their measures broken and the Poitovins thus cut off by the Marshal despairing ever to overcome him by force of Arms they fell to plotting and laying a train for his life which was by a Letter sent into Ireland to this effect Whereas Richard late Marshal of the King of England for his manifest Treason was by Judgment of the said King's Court banished the Realm and for ever outed of all the Patrimony and Possessions he had and yet remains in rebellion These are therefore to require you that if he should chance to come into Ireland you take care to seize him and bring him to the King dead or alive and for your care herein the King grants all the Inheritance of all the late Marshal's Lands and Possessions in Ireland which are now fallen to his disposal to be shared amongst you And for this Promise of the King to be made good to you We all by whose Counsel the King and Kingdom are governed do make our selves Sureties provided you fail not in the Premises This Writing was directed to Maurice Fitz Gerald the King's Justiciar in Ireland and several other great Men and some that were Leigemen to the Marshal but faithless And after this Writing of unheard of Treason was framed though the King knew nothing of the Contents of it yet they compelled him to put his Seal and they to the number of eleven put to their Seals and so sent it over This wrought with the Irish great Men according to the wish of the evil Counsellors for out of covetousness they immediately entred into the Conspiracy and privately sent word back That if the King's Promise were confirmed to them under the Great Seal they would do their utmost to effect the business Whereupon the said Counsellors with a treasonable Violence surreptitiously get the Great Seal from the Bishop of Chichester who did not consent to this fraud and so sent a Charter wherein every particular Man's share is exprest under the Great Seal As soon as this damnable Writing arriv'd in Ireland the Conspirators took an Oath to accomplish the thing and in order to it raised an Army wherewith they invaded his Lands and took some of his Castles that by these Injuries they might provoke him and draw him into Ireland While this Irish Plot went on at Candlemas the King held a Parliament at Westminster where he grievously accused several of the Bishops and chiefly Alexander of Chester for holding Correspondence with the Marshal and for endeavouring to depose him from the Throne of the Kingdom The said Bishop to clear himself and the rest of the Bishops immediately excommunicated all those who had any such wicked Thoughts against the King and all those who slandered the Bishops in that sort who were wholly sollicitous for the King's Honour and Safety Afterward in this Parliament Edmund Elect of Canterbury and the rest of the Bishops came to the King condoling the Desolation both of him and the Kingdom and as it were with one Heart and Mind and Mouth said Our Lord the King we tell you in the name of God as your Leigemen that the Counsel which you now have and use is neither sound nor secure but cruel and perilous both to you and the Realm of England We mean the Counsel of Peter Bishop of Winchester Peter Rivallis and their Accomplices First because they hate and despise the English Nation calling them Traitors and causing them all to be so termed thereby turning away your Heart from the love of your Nation and our Hearts and the Hearts of the Nation from you as appears by the Marshal than whom there is not a better Man in your Land whom by dispersing their lies on both sides they have perverted and alienated from you And by the same Counsel as theirs is your Father Iohn first lost the hearts of his Country and afterwards Normandy and other Lands exhausted his Treasure and almost lost England and never afterwards had Peace By the same Counsel several Disasters have happened to your Self which they there enumerate P. 369. They likewise tell him by the Faith in which they were bound to him that his Counsel was not for Peace but for breach of Peace and disturbance of the Land that his Counsellors might grow rich by the Troubles of the Nation and the Disherison of others which in peace they could not compass Amongst the Items of their present Grievances which it would be too long here to recite this is one i.e. M. C. That these Counsellors confound and pervert the Law of the Land which has bin sworn and corroborated by Excommunication so that it is very much to be feared that they stand excommunicated and you for intercommuning with them And they conclude These things we faithfully tell you and before God we desire advise and admonish you that you remove this Counsel from you and as the Custom is in other Realms that you manage your Kingdom by your own faithful sworn
When therefore the Parliament had heard this they understood clearer than the Light that all this came from his present Counsellors whose Reign would be at an end and be blown away with a puff if the Baronage of all Eugland might be heard But seeing themselves craftily answered and opposed they all made answer as if it had been precisely with one breath That they would by no means uselesly impoverish themselves that Aliens might be proud at their cost and to strengthen the Enemies of the King and Kingdom Of which they give instances in what lately happened in Poitou and Gascony where the King upon an Expedition of his own head and against their advice lost Honour Treasure Lands and wholly miscarried And so the Parliament broke up in the utmost indignation every one being disappointed in the great hopes which they long had from this Parliament and they carried home nothing but as they used to do contemptuous Usage with lost Labour and Expences The Grievances still encrease till we come to a new Confirmation of M. Charta A. D. 1253. which was upon this occasion The Pope for ends of his own sollicited the King to undertake an Expedition to the Holy Land and for his encouragement granted him the Tenths of the Revenues of England for three years P. 834. Upon this in a very publick and solemn manner he took upon him the Cross but some said that he only wore that Badg upon his Shoulders as a good Argument to get Mony And he swore That after Midsummer he would begin his journy for the following 3 years unless he were hindred by Death Sickness or some other reasonable Impediment This Oath he took both after the fashion of a Priest with his hand upon his Breast and after the manner of a Layman laying his right hand upon the Book and kissing it and yet says the Historian the standers-by were never the surer But tho the King afterwards produced the Pope's Mandate wherein by the Power given him of God he granted the King this Tenth yet the Bishops opposed it as an unsufferable Usurpation which put the King into the most frantick and impotent Rage that ever was described P. 849. and tho afterwards he closeted them yet he could not prevail At last about Easter a Parliament was called After fifteen days debate the consent of the whole Parliament settled in these Resolves That they would not hinder the King 's pious Intention of going to the Holy Land nor at the same time should the Church and Kingdom suffer damage They therefore grant the King the Tenths of all Church-Revenues for three years and three Marks escuage upon every Knight's Fee for that year And the King on his part promised that in good Faith and without any Quirks or cavilling Pretences he would faithfully observe M. Charta and every Article of it Tho it was no more than his Father King Iohn had sworn to keep many years ago and in like manner the present King at his Coronation and many a time after whereby he chous'd the Nation of an infinite deal of Mony Accordingly May the 3 d in the great Hall at Westminster in the presence and with the consent of the King and the whole Parliament the Archbishop and the Bishops in their Pontificals with lighted Candles past the Sentence of Excommunication against all that should violate the Liberties of the Church and the Liberties or free Customs of the Realm of England and those especially which are contained in the Charter of the common Liberties of the Realm of England and of the Forest. And the Charter of K. Iohn was accordingly rehearsed and confirmed The form of the Excommunication is somewhat large as being strongly drawn up and the Anathema's well laid on it is in Bacon pag. 131. And all the while the Sentence was reading the King laid his hand spread upon his Breast choosing to assist with that Ceremony and not with holding a wax Candle to shew as he said That his Heart went along with it and when it was ended he said these words So help me God I will faithfully keep all these things inviolate as I am a Man as I am a Christian as I am a Knight and as I am a King crowned and anointed Daniel and Bacon are wonderfully taken with the manner of this Confirmation of the Charters and say that there was never such a solemn Sanction of Laws since the Law was delivered at Mount Sinai But the Renowned Robert Grosthead Bishop of Lincoln divining and foreboding in his Heart that the King would fly off from his Covenants immediately as soon as he got down into his Bishoprick caused all the Breakers of the Charters and especially all the Priests that were so to be solemnly excommunicated in every Parish Church throughout his Diocess P. 867. which are so many as can hardly be numbered and the Sentence was such as was enough to make the Ears of those that heard it to tingle and to quail their Hearts not a little The Parliament being thus ended the King presently uses the worst Counsel that could be and resolves to overthrow all that had been thus established for it was told him that he should not be King at least Lord in England if the said Charters were kept and his Father Iohn had experience of it and chose rather to die than thus to be trampled under foot by his Subjects And these Whisperers of Satan added moreover Ibid. Take no care tho you incur this Sentence of Excommunication for a hundred or for a brace of hundred pounds the Pope will absolve you who out of the plenitude of his Power what he pleases can either loose or bind For the greater cannot command a greater than he You will have your Tenth to a Farthing which will amount to very many thousand Marks and what lessening will it be of that inestimable Sum to give the Pope a small Driblet who can absolve you tho he himself had confirmed the Sentence seeing it belongs to him to annul who can enact nay for a small Gratuity will enlarge the Term of years for the Grant of the Tenth and will throw you in a year or two Which accordingly afterwards came to pass as the following Narration shall declare Here is a lost King and a lost Nation Why should we read any further Two years after having spent most of that time in the Wars in Gascony for to the Holy Land he never went he calls a Parliament at London upon Hoke day which was the fullest Assembly that ever was there seen In short the King wants Mony was in Debt and would have the Aid from the Baronies to be continued in proportion to the Tenths that so compleating their Tax he might be bound to give them his Thanks in full This would have amounted to such a Sum as would have empoverished the Realm and made it defenceless and exposed it to Foreigners Upon Consultation therefore because that Proposal was impossible
Writer's Pen So that it is not to be expected we shall hear any more of the Welsh And yet the same Summer when they baffled the King's Expedition against them he rejoices that their Martial Business prospered in their hands For he says that their Cause seemed to be a just Cause even to their Enemies And that which heartned them most was this that they were resolutely fighting for their antient Laws and Liberties like the Trojans from whom they were descended and with an original Constancy P. 952. Wo to the wretched English that are trampled upon by every Foreigner and suffer their antient Liberties of the Realm to be pufft out and extinguished and are not ashamed of this when they are taught better by the Example of the Welsh O England thou art justly reputed the Bondwoman of other Countries and beneath them all What thy Natives earn hardly Aliens snatch away and carry off It is impossible for an honest Man ever to hate his Country but if it will suffer it self to be oppressed it justly becomes at once both the pity and scorn of every understanding Man and of them chiefly that love it best But as we cannot hate our Country so for the same reason we cannot but hate such a Generation of Men as for their own little ends are willing to enslave it to all posterity wherein they are worse than Esau for he only sold his own Birthright for a mess of Pottage but not other Folk's too In the year 1258 a Parliament was called to London the day after Hoke Tuesday for great and weighty Affairs for the King had engaged and entangled himself in great and amazing Debts to the Pope about the Kingdom of Apulia and he was likewise sick of his Welsh War But when the King was very urgent for an Aid of Mony the Parliament resolutely and unanimously answered him That they neither would nor could bear such Extortions any longer Hereupon he betakes himself to his shifts to draw in the rich Abbys to be bound for him for Sums of Mony but though it was well managed he failed in it And that Parliament was prolonged and spent in Altercations between the King and the great Men till the week after Ascension day For the Complaints against the King were so multiplied daily and the Grievances were so many by the breach of M. Charta and the Insolence of the Foreigners P. 968. that M. Paris says it would require special Treatises to reckon up the King's Miscarriages And the King being reproved for them and being convinced of the justness of the Reproof bethought and humbled himself tho it were late first and said That he had been too often bewitcht by wicked Counsel but he promised which he likewise confirmed by an Oath taken upon the Altar and Shrine of St. Edward That he would plainly and punctually correct his former Errors and graciously comply with his natural born Subjects But his former frequent breach of Oath rendered him incredible and neither fit to be believed nor trusted And because the great Men knew not as yet how to hold fast their Proteus which was a hard and difficult business to do the Parliament was put off to Barnaby day to be held without fail at Oxford In the mean time the chief Men of England namely the Earls of Glocester Leicester and Hereford the Earl Marshal and other eminent Men out of a provident Precaution for themselves associated and because they were vehemently afraid of the Treachery of the Foreigners and much suspected the little Plots of the King they came armed and with a good Retinue to Oxford There the great Men in the very beginning of the Parliament confirmed their former Purpose and immutable Resolution to have the Charter of the Liberties of England faithfully kept and observed P 970. which the King had often granted and sworn and had caused all the Bishops of England to excommunicate in a horrible manner all the Breakers of it and he himself was one of the Excommunicators They demanded likewise to have a Justiciar that should do equal Justice and some other publick things which were for the common Profit of the King and Realm and tended to the Peace and Honour of them both And they frequently and urgently asked and advised the King to follow their Counsels and the necessary Provisions they had drawn up swearing with pledging their Faiths and giving one another their hands That they would not cease to pursue what they had propounded for the loss either of Mony or Lands or for the Life or Death of Themselves or Theirs Which when the King understood he solemnly swore That he would comply with their Counsels and agree to them And Prince Edward took the same Oath But Iohn Earl of Warren was refractory and refused it and the King 's half Brothers William of Valence and others Then the Sea-ports were order'd to be strictly guarded and the Gates of London to be close kept anights for fear the Foreigners should surprize it And when they had spent some days in deliberating what was to be done in so weighty an Affair as repairing the State of a broken shattered Kingdom was they confirmed their purpose with renewing their Covenants and Oaths That neither for Death nor Life nor Free-hold for Hatred or Affection or any other way they would be biass'd or slackned from purging the Realm of which they and their Progenitors before them were the native Offspring and clearing it of an Alien-born Brood nor from the procuring and obtaining good and commendable Laws And if any man whoever he be should be refractory and oppose this they would compel him to join with them whether he would or no. And tho the King and Prince Edward had both sworn before yet Prince Edward as he could refused this Oath and so did Iohn Earl of Warren But Henry Son to Richard King of the Romans was doubtful and unresolved saying That he could not take such an Oath unless it were with his Father's Leave and Advice To whom the Barons publickly made answer That if his Father himself would not agree to it he should not hold one Furrow of Land in England The Kings half Brothers were very positive and swore bloodily that they would never part with any of the Castles Revenues and Wards which their Brother had freely given them as long as they breathed But while they were asserting this and multiplying Oaths not fit to be rehearsed the Earl of Leicester made answer to William de Valence who was more swoln and haughty than the rest Know for certain that either you shall give up the Castles which you have from the King or you shall lose your Head And the other Earls and Barons firmly attested the same The Poitovins therefore were in a great Fright not knowing what to do For if they should retire to some Castle wanting Provisions they would soon be starved out Universitas enim Regni popularis etsi non
Counsellors and their Abettors and to the utmost of their Power remove them from the King Which when the King understood he betook himself with his Counsellors into the Tower his Son and the great Men abiding still without The next Christmas we find him still in the Tower with the Queen and his Counsellors that were neither profitable to him nor faithful Which Counsellors fearing to be assaulted got a Guard and kept close in the Tower At length by the Queen's means with much ado P. 991. some of the great Men were reconciled and made Friends with them When this was done the King ventured himself out of the Tower leaving the Command of it to Iohn Mansell his principal Counsellor and the richest Clergy-man in the World and went down to Dover where he entered the Castle which was neither offered him nor denied him And there the King found how he had been imposed upon when he saw a Castle so carefully guarded by a Guard of the Barons ly open to him When he went away he committed the Charge of that Castle to E. de Waleram He went likewise to Rochester Castle and several others and found Ingress and Regress at his Pleasure It is plain they only kept them for the King At that time the King thinking himself secure resolved openly to depart from his Oath of which the Pope had given him a Release He went therefore round about to several Cities and Castles resolving to take them and the whole Kingdom into his hands being encouraged and animated thereto because the King of France together with his Great Men had lately promised to assist him with a great Force Coming therefore to Winchester he turned his Justiciar and Chancellor that were lately instituted by the Parliament out of their Offices and created beneplacito new ones Which when the Barons heard they hastened with a great Power towards Winchester of which Iohn Mansell having timely notice went privately down to the King and sufficiently inform'd him of his Danger and fetcht him hastily back again to the Tower of London There the King kept his next Christmas with the Queen and his Counsellors A. D. 1263. R. 47. At which time it was greatly laboured both by the Bishops of England and the Prelates of France to make peace betwixt the King and his Barons and it came to this issue That the King and the Peers should submit themselves to the determination of the King of France both as to the Provisions of Oxford and the Spoils and Damages which had been done on both sides Accordingly the King of France calls a Parliament at Amiens and there solemnly gives sentence for the King of England against the Barons P. 992. Whereby the Statutes of Oxford Provisions Ordinances and Obligations were wholly annull'd with this Exception That by that Sentence he did in no wise intend to derogate at all from the antient Charter of John King of England which he granted to his Parliament or whole Realm Universitati concessae Which very Exception compelled the Earl of Leicester and all that had their Senses exercised to continue in their Resolution of holding firmly the Statutes of Oxford for they were founded upon that Charter Presently after this they all came home that had been present at the French Parliament the King of England the Queen Boniface Arch-bishop of Canterbury Peter of Hereford and Iohn Mansell who ceased not plotting and devising all the mischief they could against the Barons From that time things grew worse and worse for many great Men left the Earl of Leicester and his righteous Cause and went off perjur'd Henry Son to the King of the Romans having received the Honour of Tickhel which was given him by the Prince came to the Earl and said My Lord Earl I cannot any longer be engaged against my Father King of Germany my Uncle King of England and my other Relations and therefore with your good leave and licence I mean to depart but I will never bear Arms against you To whom the Earl chearfully replied Lord Henry I am not at all troubled about your Arms but for the Inconstancy which I see in you Therefore pray go with your Arms and if you please come back with your Arms for I fear them not At that time Roger de Clyfford Roger de Leibern Iohn de Vallibus Hamon le Estrange and many others being blinded with Gifts went off from their Fidelity which they had sworn to the Barons for the common good In commune If M. Paris had been alive he would have told us a piece of his mind concerning this false step of the Barons in putting their Coat to arbitration and submitting the English Laws to the determination of an incompetent Foreigner But we lost his noble Pen A. D. 1259. that is about 4 Years ago presently after the establishment of the Provisions at Oxford So that what has since follow'd is taken out of the Continuator of his History who out of Modesty has forborn to set his name as being unworthy as he says to unloose the Latchet of that venerable Man's Shoo. But we are told that it was William Rishanger who succeeded Mat. Paris in the same Imployment and prosecuted the History to the end of H. 3. I know not by what misfortune we have lost his Provisions of Oxford which p. 975. he says are written in his Additamenta for certain it was by no neglect or omission of his because he died with them upon his Heart For the last Passage but one that he wrote was the Death of Fulk Basset Bishop of London whom we saw above he taxed formerly upon the same account who says he was a noble Person and of great Generosity and if he had not a little before stagger'd in their common Provision he had been the Anchor and Shield of the whole Realm and both their Stay and Defence It seems his faultring in that main Affair was what Matthew could never forgive him alive nor dead And indeed this could not but come unexpectedly from such a Man who had been always firm and honest to that degree as to tell the King when he arbitrarily threatned him for some incompliance of his to turn him out of his Bishoprick Sir says he when you take away my Mitre I shall put on a Headpiece And therefore the Annals of Burton are a very valuable piece of Antiquity because they have supplied that defect and have given us both a Latin and French Copy of those Provisions It would be too large as well as beside my purpose to set them down In short whereas by M. Charta in K. Iohn's time there were 25 Barons whereof the Lord Mayor of London was one appointed to be Conservators of the Contents of that Charter with full power to distress the King in case Grievances upon notice given were not redressed within 40 days On the other hand in this Provision of Oxford which seems to be the easier as much as
have it restored to him again the Marshal sent to the King to desire him to deliver him back his Castle according to the Covenant of which he had made the Bishop of Winchester and Stephen Segrave the Justiciar his Sureties which likewise they had confirmed by taking an Oath But the King answered with Indignation That he was so far from restoring him that Castle that he would sooner subdue all the rest he had When therefore the Marshal saw that there was no Faith nor Oath nor Peace kept by the Counsellors of the King he gathered an Army and besieged his own Castle and with a little ado won it The King was at this time holding his Parliament as he had promised his great Men that by their advice he might redress those things which were amiss but the evil Counsel he then followed did not suffer it to be done Though many that were there present humbly besought him for God's sake that he would make peace with his Barons and Nobles And other Persons in favour with the King namely the Friars Predicants and Minorites whom he used to reverence and hearken to these earnestly exhorted him that he would study to carry himself lovingly as he ought to do towards his natural Subjects whom without judgment of their Peers he had driven into banishment burnt their Mannor-Houses cut down their Woods destroyed their Ponds and being led and misled by the bad Counsel of bad Men sets aside his Leiges whose native blood would never suffer them to warp and prefers other whiffling People before them and which is worse calls those Traitors by whom he ought to order the Peace and Counsels of the Realm and settle all Affairs To this the Bishop of Winchester made answer That the Peers of England are not as they are in France and therefore the King may judg and condemn and banish any of them by his own Justices of his own appointing The Bishops hearing this as it were with one voice fell a threatning that they would excommunicate the principal of the King 's evil Counsellors by name and they named the Bishop himself as the Ring-leader of them and his Kinsman Rivallis the Justiciar and the Treasurer To whom the Bishop answering alledged That he was consecrated Bishop at Rome by the Pope and so was exempted from their Power and appealed to the Apostolick See And so the Bishops only excommunicate in general all those that had or should alienate the King's heart from his natural Subjects of the Realm and all that should disturb the Peace of the Realm In this Parliament the King had Tidings that the Earl Marshal had taken his Castle in Wales and killed several of his Knights and Servants At which the King was much incensed and commanded the Bishops to excommunicate him but it was the answer of them all that it would be an unworthy thing to excommunicate a Man for seizing a Castle that was all his own and for taking possession of his own Right But the King still enraged summoned again all his Knights with Horses and Arms to Glocester the morrow after All Saints and there he gathered a numerous Army and entred Wales breathing and panting after the destruction of the Marshal But he like a provident Warriour had beforehand driven away all the Cattle and withdrawn all Provisions so that the King had no subsistence for his Army in those parts but was forced to march another way and came to the Castle of Grosmund Where while he spent some days the Marshal and his Associates sent Scouts to discover the Posture of his Army and on Martinmas night all of them but the Marshal who would not invade the King with a good Army surprized the King's Camp where they fled away almost naked and the Conquerors on the other side would not hurt any of them nor take one Prisoner Indiscretè rebellantes excepting two Knights who indiscreetly making Resistance were killed rather by themselves than by the others But they took away all their Carriages and Provisions Mony and Arms and so retired again into their strong holds I believe such a modest Victory was never read of and Mat. Paris presently calls them for Witnesses of the Truth of this Rout who run away and lost all they had in it The Bishops of Winchester and Chichester Segrave the Justiciar Rivallis the Treasurer the Earls of Norfolk and Salisbury and many more The King who had been left even as good as alone amidst the Enemies when all was over put some of his Poitovin Dragoons into his Welch Garisons to prevent Incursions and so returned to Glocester where he kept his Christmas But in the mean time on St. Katherines day the Marshal made a great Slaughter of the Poitovins at Monmouth and he and the banished Lords watched the King's Castles so narrowly that when any went out of them abroad to prey they took nothing else of them for their Ransom but their Heads insomuch that in a short time there lay dead such a multitude of these Foreigners in the high ways and other places as infected the Air. As for the Discourse which passed betwixt the Marshal and Friar Agnellus who was Familiar to the King and his Counsellors and came into Wales to tell the Marshal what the King and his Counsellors said of him and to make Overtures to him it is too long to be here inserted but is exceeding well worth the reading as it stands in Matt. Paris p. 391 392 393. wherein the Marshal makes such a solid Defence of his whole proceeding and discovers so well grounded a Zeal for the Rights of his Country as is sufficient to inspire every English Breast with the love of a righteous Cause Friar Agnellus tells him that the King's Counsellors would have him submit to the King's mercy and that besides other Reasons it was his Interest so to do because the King was richer and more powerful than he and as for foreign Aid where the Marshal could bring one Stranger the King could bring seven The Marshal replies It is true the King is richer and more powerful than I but he is not more powerful than God who is Justice it self in whom I trust in the maintenance and prosecution of mine and the Kingdom 's Right nor do I trust in Foreigners nor will ever seek their Aid unless which God forbid I shall be compelled to it by some unexpected and immutable necessity And I know full well that the King can bring seven for my one and truly I believe in the way that he is in he will soon bring more into the Realm than he will be able to get out again And after he had answered many other Arguments as that he might confide in the King and his Counsellors and had reckoned up many Instances of the Court's Treachery and breach of their Oaths about M. Charta and in several other Cases he says Neither would it be for the King's Honour that I should consent to his will