When we yearly hear of Parliament granting the supplies ere the close of the session, they are exercising the right first claimed at Runnymede, striven for by Simon de Montfort, and won by Humphrey Bohun, who succeeded through the careful self-command and forbearance which hindered him from ever putting his party in the wrong by violence or transgression of the laws. He should be honored as a steadfast bulwark to the freedom of his country, teaching the might of steady resolution, even against the boldest and ablest of all our kings. In spite of rough words, Edward and Bohun respected each other, and the heir of Hereford, likewise named Humphrey, married Elizabeth, the youngest surviving daughter left by good Queen Eleanor. Another of Edward's daughters had been married to an English earl. Joan of Acre, the high-spirited, wilful girl, who was born in the last Crusade, had been given as a wife to her father's stout old comrade, Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester. He died when she was only twenty-three, and before the end of a year she secretly married her squire, Ralph de Monthermer, and her father only discovered the union when he had promised her to the Count of Savoy. Monthermer was imprisoned; but Edward, always a fond father, listened to Joan's pleading, that, as an Earl could ennoble a woman of mean birth, it was hard that she might not raise a gallant youth to rank. Ralph was released, and bore for the rest of his life the title of Earl of Gloucester, which properly belonged only to Joan's young son, Gilbert. Joan was a pleasure-loving lady, expensive in her habits, and neglectful of her children; but her father's indulgence for her never failed: he lent her money, pardoned her faults, and took on himself the education of her son Gilbert, who was the companion of his own two young sons by his second marriage, Thomas of Brotherton and Edmund of Woodstock.
Their mother, Margaret of France, was a fair and gentle lady, who lived on the best terms with her stepdaughters, many of whom were her elders; and she followed the King on his campaigns, as her predecessor Eleanor had done. Mary, the princess who had taken the veil, was almost always with her, and contrived to spend a far larger income than any of her sisters, though without the same excuse of royal apparel; but she was luxurious in diet, fond of pomp and display; never moving without twenty-four horses, and so devoted to amusement that she lost large sums at dice. She must have been an unedifying abbess at Ambresbury, though not devoid of kindness of heart.
Archbishop Winchelsea held a synod at Mertoun in 1305, where various decrees were made respecting the books and furniture which each parish was bound to provide for the Divine service. The books were to be "a legend" containing the lessons for reading, with others containing the Psalms and Services. The vestments were "two copes, a chasuble, a dalmatic, three surplices, and a frontal for the altar." And, besides these, a chalice of silver, a pyx of ivory or silver, a censer, two crosses, a font with lock and key, a vessel for holy water, a great candlestick, and a lantern and bell, which were carried before the Host when taken to the dying, a board with a picture to receive the kiss of peace, and all the images of the Church. The nave, then as now, was the charge of the parish; the chancel, of the rector.
This synod was Archbishop Winchelsea's last act before the King took vengeance on him for his past resistance. His friend and supporter, Boniface VIII., was dead, harassed to death by the persecutions of Philippe IV.; and Clement V., the new Pope, was a miserable time-server, raised to the papal chair by the machinations of the French King, and ready to serve as the tool of any injustice.
Edward disliked the Archbishop for having withstood him in the matter of the tithe, as well as for having cited him in the name of the Pope to leave Scotland in peace. The King now induced Clement to summon him to answer for insubordination. Winchelsea was very unwilling to go to Rome; but Edward seized his temporalities, banished eighty monks for giving him support, and finally exiled him. He died in indigence at Rome.
He was a prelate of the same busy class as Langton, not fulfilling the highest standard of his sacred office, but spirited, uncompromising, and an ardent though unsuccessful champion of the rights of the nation.
If Langton be honored for his part in Magna Charta, Winchelsea merits a place by his side, for it was the resistance of his party to the "Evil Toll" that placed taxation in the power of the English nation, and in the wondrous ways of Providence caused the Scottish and French wars to work for the good of our constitution.
CAMEO XXXVI. ROBERT THE BRUCE (1305-1308.)
_King of England_.
1272. Edward I.
_King of Scotland_.
1306. Robert I.
_King of France_.
1285 Philippe IV.
_Emperor of Germany_.
1298. Albert I.
_Pope_.
1305. Clement V.
The state of Scotland had, ever since the death of the good King Alexander, been such that even honest men could scarcely retain their integrity, nor see with whom to hold. The realm had been seized by a foreign power, with a perplexing show of justice, the rightful King had been first set up and then put down by external force, and the only authority predominant in the land was unacknowledged by the heart of any, though terror had obtained submission from the lips.
The strict justice which was loved and honored in orderly England, was loathed in barbarous Scotland. It would have been hated from a native sovereign; how much more so from a conqueror, and, above all, from a hostile race, exasperated by resistance! Whether Edward I. were an intentional tyrant or not, his deputies in Scotland were harsh rulers, and the troops scattered throughout the castles in the kingdom used such cruel license and exaction as could not but make the yoke intolerable, and the enmity irreconcilable, especially in a race who never forgot nor forgave.
The higher nobility were in a most difficult situation, since to them it fell to judge between the contending parties, and to act for themselves. Few preserved either consistency or good faith; they wavered between fear of Edward and love of independence; and among the lowland baronage there seems to have been only William Douglas, of Douglasdale, who never committed himself by taking oaths of fealty to the English king. Some families, who were vassals at once of the English and Scottish crowns, were in still greater straits; and among these there was the line of Bruce. Robert de Brus had come from Normandy with William the Conqueror, and obtained from him large grants in Yorkshire, as well as the lordship of Annandale from one of the Scottish kings; and thus a Bruce stood between both parties, and strove to mediate at the battle of the Standard. His grandson married Isabel of Huntingdon, the daughter of the crusader, David of Scotland, and thus acquired still larger estates and influence in both countries. His son Robert made another English marriage with Isabel de Clare, daughter of the Earl of Gloucester. The eldest son, Robert Bruce, had gone as a crusader to Palestine, in company with his friend Adam de Kilcontack, who was Earl of Carrick in right of his wife Martha. Kilcontack died at the siege of Acre, and Bruce, returning, married the young countess, and had a large family.
There were three Robert Bruces living at the time of the judgment at Norham-the father, Lord of Annandale; the son, Earl of Carrick; and the grandson, still a child. As he grew up, he was sent to serve in the English army, and for some time did so without apparent misgivings; and the connection was drawn closer by his marriage with Joan de Valence, one of the cousins of Edward I. In order to secure a part of the property at all events, the father gave up his Scottish fiefs to his son, and returned to England, there to live in unbroken allegiance to Edward.