Chapter III · THE LEGATION OF PANDULF 1219–1221 (continued 2)
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The 29th of the ensuing December would be the fiftieth anniversary of the martyrdom of S. Thomas of Canterbury. For nearly two years Archbishop Stephen had been preparing to celebrate this jubilee by a translation of the martyr’s relics from their lowly resting-place in the crypt of his cathedral church to a chapel behind the high altar, where a magnificent shrine had been made ready to contain them. The actual anniversary was anticipated by nearly six months, and the translation took place on 7th July, amid an immense concourse of clergy and laity not only from all parts of England, but from lands beyond the sea. A temporary guest-house, on such a scale that an annalist of the time calls it a “palace” and declares that he does “not believe its like had been seen since the days of Solomon,” was erected by the Archbishop for his guests, and therein rich and poor, home-born and strangers, were entertained with a sumptuous hospitality which the same writer likens to the banquets of Ahasuerus.[717] “The barons of England,” also, “did an act of great courtesy; for they caused proclamation to be made, a great while before the holy body was to be removed, that no Englishman should lodge in the town, because they wished that those who came from other countries should find lodging there”; they themselves took up their quarters—camping out in the fields, it seems—outside the walls, all except the Earl Marshal, who lodged in the city that he might take care of the strangers and see that they came to no harm.[718] Over twenty prelates attended, including, besides the Legate, an Archbishop from Hungary, and the Archbishop of Reims with three of his suffragans.[719] With graceful tact Pandulf and Stephen concurred in giving to the French Primate the foremost place in the religious services of the occasion; it was he who, at their joint request, on the eve of the translation dedicated the altar before the shrine and sang the first vespers of the festival, and who also sang the high Mass on the great day itself.[720] Among the lay visitors from over sea were the widow of Cœur-de-Lion, the Count of Dreux, and many French nobles.[721] King Henry was of course present;[722] and all England shared in the glory of the most famous of English saints.
Early in August a great council was held at Oxford, mainly, it seems, for purposes of finance. A carucage of two shillings for every plough “as it was yoked on the morrow of S. John the Baptist last year, the fourth of our reign,” was granted to the King by the lay magnates “for his great needs, and for the preservation of his land of Poitou.” The collection of this impost was entrusted in every shire to the sheriff and two lawful men who were to be chosen “by the will and counsel of the whole shire, in full shire-court”; and it was to be paid into the Temple in London by 30th September.[723] The prelates made a similar grant on behalf of themselves and all the clergy, secular and regular, and their tenants; these contributions were to be paid direct to the Crown without the intervention of the sheriffs or other lay agents. On this point some confusion arose, and amended instructions were sent to the sheriffs on 7th September.[724] Another difficulty thwarted the endeavours of the sheriff of Yorkshire—Geoffrey de Neville—to collect the “gift” in his shire; at the shire-court held for that purpose on 14th September none of the magnates appeared, and their bailiffs all alike declared that “their lords knew nothing about the matter, the magnates of those parts having never been asked for it by the King either by word of mouth or by his letters.” Some of them suggested that if the King himself spoke to the magnates when he came to York (to meet the King of Scots on 13th October), the payments would probably be made without further trouble. Geoffrey reported the matter to the King’s Council, and asked whether he should take forcible measures to compel payment.[725] There is some reason to think that he did so, or tried to do so, and that some of the Yorkshire barons retaliated at the beginning of the next year by capturing him and keeping him prisoner for a time.[726] Unluckily we have no record showing how the dispute was settled; but it is clear that from Yorkshire, at least, the carucage cannot have been paid in by the morrow of Michaelmas. The same day was fixed for the returns of an inquest which the sheriffs were, at the time when the first letters about the carucage were issued (9th August), ordered to make into the extent and value of the royal demesnes and escheats in the several shires.[727] No doubt these returns were required for fiscal purposes. The agreement between the King and Geoffrey de Marsh, made in the same council at Oxford,[728] was followed on 18th September by a demand for an aid from Ireland.[729] With all this the Crown was still deep in debt, to the Pope, to Louis, to Queen Berengaria, to the Legate;[730] it was in fact only by means of frequent loans from Pandulf that its current expenses could be met at all.[731]
Two other matters came up for settlement at the Michaelmas session of the barons of the Exchequer and the justices at Westminster. One of these was a complaint of the Earl Marshal against the Prince of Wales. Llywelyn’s promise, or alleged promise, that the wrongs done by him to the Earl and the other Marcher-lords should be righted by Lammas Day[732] was not fulfilled; indeed, the truce made in May on the strength of that promise seems to have been broken as soon as Llywelyn returned from Shrewsbury to his own country. He asserted that the men of Pembroke refused to confirm the truce, called in help from Ireland against him, and harassed the Welsh to such a degree that at last he was obliged to bid his nephews and his other followers withdraw from the borders of Pembrokeshire to a safer place.[733] The Marshal, on the other hand, declared that the Welsh Prince “in no wise kept the terms of the peace, but brought the King’s dignity into contempt, spurning his own promises and acting quite contrary to them.” The Marshal complained to the King at Oxford, and was promised satisfaction—so far as the King could give it—in London on the morrow of S. Michael.[734] On 21st August the sheriffs of Gloucester, Hereford, and Worcestershire were ordered to be in readiness to help, with all the forces of those three shires, whichever of the King’s liegemen they should find to be the object of an attack for which Llywelyn was reported to be collecting his forces.[735] It was, however, not against any place on the border, but against “the Flemings of Rhos and Pembroke” that Llywelyn, with “most of the princes of Wales” and “a vast army,” marched on 29th August. He took by assault and burned the castles of Arberth and Gwys, burned the town of Haverford “to the castle-gate”; “and thus he went round Rhos and Deugleddyv in five days, making vast slaughter of the people of the country. And after making a truce with the Flemings until the kalends of May, he returned back happy and joyful.”[736] The terms of this truce were humiliating in the extreme; the men of Pembroke promised that they would give Llywelyn a hundred pounds, that they would not restore the castles which he had destroyed, and that they would give him a portion of the Earl’s land “to keep as on behalf of the King.” All these conditions, however, were to be subject to confirmation by the King. They seem to have been in fact extorted by means of a false representation on Llywelyn’s part that his invasion of the Earl’s lands was sanctioned and supported by the authority of the English Crown.[737] For the honour of that authority itself, no less than for his own sake, the Marshal besought the King and his Council to quash the truce, disavow all complicity in Llywelyn’s raid, and give judgement in favour of himself, at the time previously appointed, on his former complaint against the Welsh prince.[738] The judgement was probably given accordingly; on 5th October the Welsh invasion of Pembroke was disavowed by the King, the truce quashed,[739] compensation claimed from Llywelyn for the Marshal and the other Marcher-barons whom he had injured,[740] and two commissioners despatched to receive from him a surrender of all lands occupied by the Welsh in England and the Marches.[741]
In all probability, it was as a kind of security for the settlement of this Welsh business that the Earl Marshal had persisted throughout the summer in retaining Fotheringay castle. An urgent order for its surrender was despatched three days {18 June} after the treaty of York was signed;[742] the restitution of this castle, and of Earl David’s other lands, being one of the conditions of the treaty. On 11th September the Marshal was by another royal letter reminded of this fact, and commanded, on his fealty and his oath to the King, to hand over the said castle and lands to Alexander without further excuse or delay, “knowing for certain that unless you give it up, all our business about the marriage will come to nought.”[743] Hereupon the Marshal wrote to the Justiciar that he would do his best to promote the advantage of the King and his sister, and would on the morrow of Michaelmas answer fully to the Council concerning Fotheringay, and be ready to obey them “in all things that he could and ought”; at the same time declaring his intention to abstain for the present from vengeance on Llywelyn, rather than disobey the King and the Legate, “unless indeed,” he added significantly, “it should—which I do not believe—afterwards appear that they will not grant me justice.”[744] The Welsh quarrel being decided in his favour, he seems to have consented to give up Fotheringay not indeed to King Alexander, but to King Henry; for it was to a representative of the latter that he was bidden to deliver it on 11th October.[745] This was two days before the Kings met again at York.[746] It was probably agreed there that Fotheringay should, to facilitate its recovery from the Marshal, be temporarily placed in Henry’s hand and entrusted to the English Justiciar.[747] Hubert’s marriage with Alexander’s sister Margaret may have been already arranged, and Alexander may have contemplated giving him the custody of the honour of Huntingdon during the minority of its heir.[748] It seems, however, that not till 23rd or 24th November did the Marshal actually deliver up the castle, to one Gregory de la Tour, who was appointed to have the charge of it,[749] probably as deputy for Hubert. The troubles of the English government in connexion with it were not ended even then.
The count of Aumale had surrendered his wardenships; but he still kept possession of one castle which by a legal decision of the King’s Court, given four years before, belonged to another man. This was Bytham, in Lincolnshire. Originally a part of the honour of Holderness, it had been alienated by the first husband of Aumale’s mother, and was thus at the time of the war the property of one William de Coleville. This man joined the rebels, and thereupon his lands were occupied by the count of Aumale, to whom they were no doubt granted by John. On Coleville’s return to allegiance in 12171217 orders were issued for their restoration; but two successive letters from the King to the count failed to procure this,[750] and in November Aumale was summoned to answer before the King’s Court at Westminster for his retention of Bytham.[751] The Court adjudged the castle to Coleville;[752] but somehow Aumale retained possession of it, seemingly without further question, possibly therefore by private agreement with the rival owner.[753] In the night of 26th December, 1220, Aumale slipped away without leave from the Christmas gathering of the court at Oxford, and rode to Bytham.[754] There he collected in a few days a force of armed men, and began to harry the neighbouring townships, carrying off the corn to store it in Bytham castle, and capturing men whom he imprisoned there and tortured till they purchased their release. While the terrified country-folk sought safety for their goods in the churchyards and their persons in the churches,[755] he attempted to surprise the castles of Newark, Sleaford, and Kimbolton, but at each of them met with an ignominious repulse.[756] It seems that the King’s Council on hearing of these outrages summoned Aumale to answer for them at Westminster, and that he made a pretence of intending to obey, and received a safe-conduct for that purpose.[757] Instead of doing so, however, he suddenly marched to Fotheringay. The responsible warden of Fotheringay at that moment appears to have been Hubert de Burgh.[758] But Hubert was in London with the King, and Fotheringay was garrisoned by a mere handful of knights and men-at-arms. Aumale and his followers set fire to the gate, scaled the walls, slew two of the garrison, and captured the rest.[759] The count then returned to Bytham and continued his depredations.[760] One writer of the time says that he even had the impudence to send letters to the mayors of the cities of England, telling them that he had granted to all merchants “his peace, and licence to go freely to and fro between his castles for the exercise of their business,” “as if he alone were master in the realm.”[761]
1221
The seizure of Fotheringay probably became known in London late on January 22nd, or very early next morning. It seems that a great meeting of the royal Council had been convened for the 25th, but was held immediately on receipt of the tidings, in S. Paul’s Cathedral.[762] William of Aumale and all his helpers and abettors were excommunicated by the Legate, the Archbishop of York, and seven (or ten) bishops of the southern province (its primate was at Rome), the Earls of Chester and Salisbury likewise holding lighted candles which they threw on the floor when the sentence was pronounced.[763] The grounds of the excommunication were fourfold: first, Aumale’s refusal either to fulfill or to redeem his vow of crusade; second, his contempt of the “judgement of the realm” which had adjudged Bytham to William de Coleville; third, his seizure of “a castle of his lord the King” (Fotheringay) by treachery and without previous “defiance”;[764] fourth, his neglect to make amends according to the Legate’s command for the plunderings which had brought upon him his former excommunication.[765] A summons was issued immediately to such of the barons as were not present, bidding them meet the King at Northampton with all the forces they could bring.[766] Some of the magnates made an attempt to persuade Aumale into submission, but without success.[767] When the King and the host reached Northampton, they found that the count had left Bytham secretly, and was making for his own castle of Skipton in Craven.[768] On this orders were issued that Skipton and two other of his strongholds, Cockermouth and Skipsey, should be “besieged and utterly destroyed” by the forces of the shires in which they respectively stood—Lancashire, Westmorland and Yorkshire.[769] Meanwhile the garrison left by Aumale at Fotheringay “hastened to consult their own safety” by going to join their friends at Bytham;[770] and when, on 3rd February, the royal forces, with a formidable siege train brought from Nottingham by Philip Marc,[771] marched upon Fotheringay, they found that castle deserted. Falkes was entrusted with its safe keeping,[772] and the rest of the host moved on to Bytham. There a summons to surrender was rejected by the garrison, who were forthwith excommunicated again.[773] Then the place was assaulted, with such effect that it was almost in ruin when on 8th February its defenders surrendered at discretion.[774] What remained of it was immediately burnt to the ground, with all its contents.[775] Aumale was presently found by the Archbishop of York and the northern barons, in sanctuary at Fountains Abbey, whence they brought him to the King under a promise that if he could not obtain mercy from his sovereign, they would take him back to Fountains in safety.[776] At the Legate’s desire, “peace was made between him and the King, forasmuch as he had served the King and his father faithfully and efficiently in the war”; and his knights and men-at-arms were all set free without punishment or ransom. Roger of Wendover grumbles at this clemency of the King, “who,” he says, “set a very bad precedent for others to rebel against him in like manner, trusting to be similarly treated.”[777] Pandulf was probably a better judge than Roger of the respective claims and advantages of mercy and severity in such a case. His mild policy certainly proved successful so far as Aumale himself was concerned. The count managed, indeed, to stave off the fulfilment of his crusading vow for more than twenty years longer; but in all those years he seems never, save for one brief moment in 1223, to have given any trouble to the government.[778]
The next step taken by the King’s guardians towards the recovery of control over the royal castles was a weighty one. They “urged” Earl William the Marshal to surrender Marlborough[779] and Luggershall; “a thing which”—as the king himself explained in a letter written some three years later—“was most expedient for us, that thereby the other magnates should be more easily induced to resign likewise the castles of ours which they held.”[780] To conciliate the Marshal himself was, however, at that moment especially, a matter of almost greater consequence than to get possession of the castles. No other man in England had as much power to strengthen or weaken the hands of the government as he; and that power was on the increase. In June, 1220, he had ceded to his brother Richard his rights to the Norman lands of their father. Richard, having no lands in England, could do what the Earl could not—enter into his Norman heritage, by doing homage for it to Philip Augustus; and he did so without delay.[781] Thus the family was brought into close connexion with the interests of France. The Marshal’s wife, a half-sister of the Count of Aumale, had now been dead some years, and he was contemplating a marriage with a sister of Earl Robert de Bruce. In view of the relative geographical positions of Bruce’s earldom on the Scottish border and the Marshal’s lands in Ireland, the prospect of this alliance filled the English King’s Council with alarm; the more so as they believed that “there were other magnates in England who by malicious confederations were striving to turn away his heart from” the King.[782] They therefore offered him a bride of higher rank—the youngest sister of the King.
The Justiciar and the Marshal pledged their faith to each other that this marriage should take place, if the King and the magnates of the realm would give their consent, which the Legate and Hubert promised to do their utmost to obtain. The Marshal then surrendered the two castles, delivering them into the hands of the Legate as their custodian, on a promise that they should be restored to him if the contract were not fulfilled within a certain time.[783]
It is difficult to guess who can have been the magnates suspected of “trying to turn the Marshal’s heart away” from his young sovereign. There were, however, rumours of a treasonable plot about this time. The Justiciar’s uneasiness was shown in an order, issued early in March, that no person, armed or unarmed, should be allowed to land at or sail from Bristol, Exeter, or any of the Cinque Ports unless he had a special warrant from the King.[784] While the court was assembled at Winchester for Whitsuntide, Peter de Maulay, the sheriff of Dorset and Somerset and warden of the royal castles of Corfe and Sherborne, was arrested on a charge of treason brought against him by one Richard Muscegros.[785] Engelard de Cigogné was arrested and imprisoned at the same time, also on suspicion of treason.[786] On the Friday in the same week (4th June) Peter de Maulay delivered to the King, by the hands of the Justiciar, the Earls of Salisbury and Pembroke, and William Brewer, the royal castle of Corfe, with the King’s cousin Eleanor, the Scot King’s sister Isabel, and the jewels, crossbows, and other property which King John had committed to Peter to keep in the castle.[787] Thereupon he seems to have been released,[788] on an undertaking to stand his trial before the King’s Court at a later time. The charge against him, whatever may have been its origin, was evidently already recognized as unfounded; he was left in possession of his sheriffdoms, and of another royal castle, Sherborne,[789] and no further proceedings were taken in his case till November. Then, at a great council in London, he was, according to one account, tried and acquitted;[790] according to another, “he put himself on the King’s mercy, and was reconciled with him, his accusers thinking better of the challenge which they had brought against him.”[791] His sheriffdoms were transferred to other hands,[792] but he was publicly acknowledged by the King as “trusty and well-beloved”;[793] and Sherborne castle was left in his keeping till the end of January, 1222.[794] The charge against Engelard de Cigogné was evidently found to be as baseless as that against Peter; Engelard was released on giving hostages for the surrender of Windsor castle whenever the King should require it,[795] but it was not required till more than two years later, and then only in consequence of a papal order for the surrender of all the royal castles of England; and meanwhile, four months after his arrest, he was employed by King and Council on important political and financial business in Poitou.[796] Peter de Maulay is said to have sworn to John that he would not give up the castles committed to his charge till Henry should be of age.[797] Possibly Engelard may have been in the same case, and the “treason” of both may have consisted in a refusal, grounded upon this previous oath, to obey some demand made by the Justiciar for the surrender of Corfe and Windsor on the strength of the oath taken at the coronation in 1220. There is indeed no evidence of such a demand having been made; but it appears somewhat significant that both Peter and Engelard were released, and the charges against them practically withdrawn, as soon as the one prisoner had surrendered Corfe and the other given security for the surrender of Windsor on demand.
The marriage of Alexander and Joan was now fixed to take place at York in the middle of June.[798] The court therefore moved northward, by way of Oxford, Northampton, and Nottingham; and in each of these castles, it is said, the garrison was reinforced, or a part of it replaced, by some knights of the King’s own household.[799] On 19th June[800] Alexander and Joan were married by Archbishop Walter.[801] A month later {19 July}, at Westminster, in presence of the bishops of Winchester, London, and Salisbury, Pandulf publicly resigned his legation.[802] Archbishop Stephen, who had been at Rome ever since the previous autumn,[803] was now coming home,[804] bringing with him a grant from the Pope of some important privileges, one of which was that during Stephen’s own lifetime no resident legate should again be appointed in England.[805] In all likelihood Pandulf had asked to be released from the double burden which he had now borne for more than two years.[806] By resigning his legation he also laid down his regency; for it was in virtue of his authority as the Pope’s representative that he had been chosen to succeed the Earl Marshal as regent. Neither the Pope nor the magnates took any steps to provide a successor to Pandulf in this latter office; and thus the first English regency suddenly came to an end.