NOTES

NOTE I THE TRUCES OF 1216–1217

From these entries, then, it results that there were two truces, one of which was existing on 28th December, 1216; that a second truce was made before 19th January, 1217; and that a truce—either this second truce, or a third—was existing at some date posterior to 19th January, 1217.

One difficulty remains: the Biographer’s assertion that the second truce was made “sanz le Mareschal.” It seems impossible that this can be correct; no “general truce” between Henry and Louis, such as is clearly indicated by the letters patent, could have been made “without the Marshal,” i.e., without his participation and sanction as governor of King and kingdom. We may, perhaps, account for the Biographer’s mistake—for mistake it must surely be—somewhat as follows. The policy of the Royalist leaders in negotiating truces on such terms was doubtless too subtle for the understanding of most of the rank and file of their party; it seems to have been too profound for the understanding of the sturdy German constable of Berkhamsted, perhaps also for those of Falkes’s Norman lieutenant at Hertford and of the constable of Hedingham. The Marshal’s biographer evidently did not comprehend its object at all, and so disapproved of it utterly. He hints at his disapproval of the cession of Hertford and Berkhamsted—“Seisis en fu, fust dreit ou tort”; he gives us his undisguised opinion that when “cil qui aveient la baillie autre trieve de vint jors pristrent” at the price of evacuating Orford and Norwich, “si mespristrent.” On the other hand, he was not willing to admit that his hero could do wrong; so he decided—with a bold disregard of what was implied in his own statement that the terms were arranged by “cil qui aveient la baillie”—that this “mistake” must somehow have been made without the Marshal’s concurrence.

NOTE II THE BLOCKED GATE AT LINCOLN

The story of Bishop Peter’s discovery of the blocked gate runs thus:

The only two points where the walls of Lincoln city were ever “joined,” in any way whatever, “with those of the castle,” are the two which I have mentioned in p. 35, viz., the north-western and the south-western angles of the castle enclosure. At the former of these two points stood, we know, the West Gate of the medieval city; and this Professor Oman (Art of War in the Middle Ages, p. 410) considers to have been the blocked gate of the poet’s story. I have said in my text that the blocked gate “seems” to have been the West Gate, because it is quite possible that there may have been a gate opening from the city at the other junction-point of the two walls, immediately to the south of the castle ditch. Unfortunately there is no evidence whether a gate at this point ever existed or not. Two considerations arising out of the poet’s story may seem at first glance to raise a slight presumption in favour of the hypothesis that a gate did exist there, and was the one which he had in mind. I think however that in both cases the presumption is more apparent than real.

1. The poet represents Peter as setting out on his reconnaissance in the city from the keep of the castle. He must, as M. Meyer says (Hist. G. le Mar., vol. iii. p. clix), have issued from the small door opening at the south-western angle of the keep. He would therefore, on reaching the further side of the ditch, find himself close to the southern junction-point of the castle wall and the city wall. If there was a gate at this point, and if it was the blocked one, his discovery of it and his return to the castle might have been effected in a few minutes, without difficulty or danger. If, on the other hand, the blocked gate was the West Gate proper, he could not have seen it from the city without going all round the southern, eastern, and northern sides of the castle, by a route answering roughly to the present Drury Lane, Bailgate, and Westgate, right through the heart of the city, and he must have returned by the same lengthy and frequented way to the door in the keep whence he had set out; an adventure which it seems hardly possible he could have achieved in safety, except under one condition. That condition, however, we may surely take for granted; it seems matter of course that before he ventured outside the castle walls he would disguise himself so as to look like an ordinary citizen going about his ordinary business in the city. In that case the longer expedition might be quite practicable, and really attended with very little risk. Moreover, if the blocked gate was the West Gate, Peter must have known of its existence before he entered the castle at all, for in going from the host to the sally-port he would pass before the outer side of the West Gate; and this would go far to account for his eagerness to explore the city—in other words, to ascertain what was on the inner side of a blocked-up gate whose outer side had already attracted his notice.

2. If there was a gate at the southern junction of the walls, it would very probably be “of great antiquity”—as old as the second Roman occupation of Lindum; for the wall itself thereabouts was certainly Roman, as some fragments still remaining testify to this day. The West Gate, on the other hand, in 1217 could not well be more than a hundred and fifty years old. But the poet’s description of the blocked gate as “une vielle porte qui ert de grant antequite” is a detail which—like his use of the word ancienement in l. 16509—need not be taken literally. Such phrases, when used by even a prose writer in an uncritical age, may mean almost anything; moreover, epithets and descriptive phrases of all kinds when used by a medieval writer of verse may occasionally mean nothing. The poet had probably never seen the gate which he was describing; those who told him about it were soldiers, not archæologists; neither he nor they could have a very definite idea as to when it had been built, or how long it had been obstructed. Possibly, however, his use of the expressions above quoted may be accounted for in another way. Lincoln “above hill” unquestionably possessed one gate which even in 1217 could hardly fail to strike the most ignorant observer as being already “of great antiquity.” Some of the poet’s informants may have mentioned this to him, without specifying that it was the North Gate or giving it a name. Others may have told him that the North Gate was called New Port. If he was not further told that the “New Port” and the ancient gate were identical, the fact of their identity could not possibly enter his head; and as the North Gate and the blocked gate were evidently the only two gates (of the city) which played any part in the day’s fighting until it reached the Bar-Gate far away to the south beyond the river, he would naturally conclude that since the first was the “new” gate, the second must be the ancient one.

The real difficulty of the passage is in ll. 16515–16: “Por le chastel plus enforcier La fist abatre e trebuchier.” How could the clearing out and opening of a city gate—whether it were the West Gate or a hypothetical gate further south—tend to reinforce, or strengthen, the castle? Professor Tout, who rejects the whole story of Peter’s reconnaissance, suggests (though without citing these lines) that if any blocked-up gate was re-opened, it may have been the great west gate (or sally-port) of the castle. He thinks that this gate may have been “walled-up” as a measure of precaution, the postern serving in its stead for ordinary communications, and that the difficulty of passing a large number of men through an entrance so small and inaccessible as the postern may have led to the reopening of the great gate, “so that the relieving force could send a strong detachment into the enclosure” (Eng. Hist. Rev., vol. xviii, p. 250, note). But this—whether it was the fact or not—was certainly not the idea of the poet; for (1) the castle sally-port does not “join the walls of the city with those of the castle”; and (2) it is not (as the poet clearly represents his blocked gate to have been) visible from inside the city.

NOTE III FALKES DE BRÉAUTÉ AT LINCOLN

The story of Falkes’s entrance into the castle and his sally thence into the town rests on the authority of Roger of Wendover (vol. iv. p. 22). In the Hist. G. le Mar. the only mention of Falkes in the whole account of the day is in the following lines: “E quant les gens Fauques oïrent Itels moz.” [i.e., Bishop Peter’s report to the host about the gate] “molt s’en esjoïrent; Trestot avant dedenz entrerent, Mes leidement les reuserent Cil dedenz, qu’il n’i furent gueres; Tost lor changierent lor afeires” (ll. 16535–40). Professor Tout (p. 251) says the poet’s “story supposes that Falkes did not enter the castle, but penetrated directly into the town. This is clear from the fact that when beaten they” (?) “were driven out into the open country. There the bishop encountered somewhat later the fugitive soldiers and roughly maltreated them for their cowardice.” For this statement he cites as his authority ll. 16573–6: “E quant les servanz encontrerent Qui leidement parti s’en erent Molt les leidirent cil qui vindrent Quand dedenz la presse les tindrent.” This passage is separated from the one which I have quoted above by thirty-three lines; and these thirty-three lines are entirely occupied with the discourse between the bishop and the Marshal, and the mission of the scouts, summarized in my p. 39. There is nothing to connect ll. 16573–6 with either Falkes or Peter. Cil qui vindrent cannot refer to the bishop individually. There is nothing to identify the “servanz qui leidement parti s’en erent” with Falkes’s men; nothing to suggest that Peter was one of “those who came” (whence and whither we know not) and “met them” [i.e., the “servanz”] and “greatly abused them when they had them fast in the crowd”; and nothing to indicate that this meeting, described by the poet as having taken place dans la presse, occurred as Mr. Tout says it did, in “the open country”; nothing to connect these four lines with anybody or anything previously mentioned in the poem.

In connexion with this point it will be well to consider an apparent difficulty in ll. 16541–5: “Li avesques al Mar. dist: ‘Par mon chief! cist ont mal fait, Car c’est la verite provee Qu’il n’ont pas unquore trovee La dreite entree’” etc. (see above, p. 39). In the poem as we now have it this passage immediately follows the one about Falkes; cist in l. 16542, therefore, would seem to refer to Falkes and his men. As, however, any thing that happened to Falkes and his men must have happened inside either the castle or the city, it could not become known to those who were still outside the western wall so speedily as this interpretation would imply; and I venture to think we may find a probable explanation of the difficulty, without supposing the poet to have been either so confused about the topography, or so careless, as to overlook this obvious fact. The obscurity and seeming incompleteness of the passage relating to Falkes, and the abruptness of the transition in ll. 16540–41, strongly suggest a lacuna in the MS. at this point. If there be one, it is probable that the missing lines contained some further account of Falkes’s mishap; it is possible that they may have also contained an account of some other transaction, the actors in which were the subjects of Peter’s comment recorded in ll. 16541–5; and it is further possible that that transaction may have been the attack on the North Gate recorded by Roger of Wendover.

NOTE IV THE END OF THE BATTLE OF LINCOLN

Of the closing scene of the battle of Lincoln there are two accounts; one by the Biographer of the Marshal, the other by Roger of Wendover.

(1) The Biographer, after describing the fight on the bridge, the accident which there befell William Bloet, and the capture of the two De Quincys and others, continues thus:—

(2) Roger makes no mention of the rally of the French in the lower town, the second fight on the hill-top (“entre le chastiel e le moustier,” see above, pp. 42, 43), the second retreat or flight of the French down hill, and the last fight on and near the bridge; he ends the battle with the death of Perche, and then goes on thus: “Videntes igitur Galligenae phalanges quod major eorum cecidisset, inierunt fugam tam pedites quam equites sibi nimis damnosam; nam flagellum portae australis, per quam fugerunt, quod ex transverso illius portae fuerat fabricatum, fugientes non mediocriter impedivit; etenim quotiescunque aliquis adveniens exire voluit, oportebat eum ab equo descendere et portam aperire, quo exeunte porta denuo claudebatur flagello ut prius posito ex transverso; sicque porta illa fugientibus nimis molesta fuit” (vol. iv., p. 23).

At first glance these two accounts might seem to relate to two distinct occurrences at two different gates. “La dererene porte,” which the cow blocked against the fugitives when they had been driven beyond the bridge “tote la rue contreval qui s’en veit dreit a l’hospital,” is clearly the Great (or West) Bar-Gate. This was quite literally the “outermost” or “hindermost” gate of Lincoln to the southward; and outside it, on the south side of the Sincil Dyke, stood two hospitals, one belonging to the Order of Sempringham and named after the Holy Sepulchre, the other a lazar-house dedicated to the Holy Innocents (Sympson, Lincoln, pp. 386, 338, 344, 351). On the other hand, Roger’s porta australis with the inconvenient sliding bar might, if we looked at his story alone, be taken to represent the south gate of the city proper, i.e., the Stone Bow. But a comparison of his story with that of the poet shews this to be impossible. Had it been the case, the greatest capture of prisoners must have taken place inside the gate; whereas the Biographer clearly indicates that most of the rebel barons (the De Quincys, Fitz Walter, “e moult d’autres dont point ne m’ennuie”) were captured in the fight on and near the bridge, i.e., outside the Stone Bow (ll. 16828–16939); and even after all this, there were still so many left that when the “hindermost gate” was at last reached, “La fu plus fort li encombriers, La ont molt pris de chevaliers” (ll. 16955–6). Moreover, ll. 16947–51 (“En la porte ... nule maniere”), especially ll. 16947–8, where this same “hindermost gate” is specially distinguished as cele qui le fleel porte, tally so closely with Roger’s words about the flagellum and its effects that we cannot separate the two incidents. The difference between the two accounts is simply that the poet gives us the whole topography and tells the whole story, cow and all, while Roger leaves out the cow-incident, just as he has left out several things of far greater importance (the second rally and repulse of the French among them) in his story of the battle as a whole.

NOTE V THE TREATY OF KINGSTON

There can be no reasonable doubt that the series of dates so carefully given in our fullest and most strictly contemporary account of the transactions connected with the treaty between Henry and Louis—the account in the Histoire des Ducs de Normandie—is correct. One of the best contemporary English authorities, the Chronicle of Merton, is in accord with it as to the dates on which the treaty was made and Louis was absolved: “Hoc anno” (1217) “facta est pax ... in quadam insula extra Kingestune, feria tercia ante Exaltationem S. Crucis” (i.e., Tuesday, 12th September), “et in vigilia Exaltationis” (Wednesday, 13th September) “absolutus est dominus Lodowicus in eadem insula” (Chron. Merton, apud Petit-Dutaillis, pp. 514–515). Nearly all the other English chroniclers give a wrong date to the peace; some make it 11th September, others 13th September. The Patent Roll of 1216–17 settles the point against them all; “Si Reginaldus de Cornhill terminos redempcionis suae, statutos ante diem Martis proximam ante Exaltacionem Sanctae Crucis anno regni nostro primo, qua pax reformata fuit inter nos et Lodovicum domini regis Franciae primogenitum, servaverit,” etc. (Pat. Rolls, vol. i. p. 95, 25th September, 1217).

The Barnwell annalist (W. Cov., vol. ii. p. 239) gives no date for the peace, but says Louis was absolved “die Mercurii proxima post Exaltationem S. Crucis,” i.e., 20th September. Curiously enough, the copy of the treaty printed by D’Achéry (Spicilegium, ed. 1723, vol. iii. pp. 586–7) appears to have borne the date “Lamech, anno ab Incarnatione Domini MCCXVII, XX die Septembris.” Rymer, whose text (Foedera, I. i. p. 148) corresponds almost verbatim with D’Achéry’s in all other respects, has the word undecimo instead of the numerals XX. The title of “treaty of Lambeth,” by which—in defiance of all our authorities—the agreement is commonly known, is derived solely from the dating clause as printed by Rymer and D’Achéry. No original copy of the treaty appears to be now known. In the eighteenth century three versions of it were printed, one by Rymer, one by D’Achéry, a third by Martène and Durand (Thesaurus Anecdotorum, vol. i. pp. 857–859, ed. 1717). As to the source of Rymer’s copy we know absolutely nothing. D’Achéry’s text was taken from the cartulary of the monastery of S. Giles at Pontaudemer, that of Martène and Durand—which has no date at all—“ex MS. illustrissimi Marchionis Daubais.” Both of these must obviously have been mere copies; and they differ so widely from each other that they cannot have been derived, even remotely, from one and the same original. The Daubais text not only omits several clauses entirely, as well as all mention of place, date, witnesses, and seals, and gives other clauses in a shortened form, but it inserts one interesting clause of which there is no trace anywhere else—that about the Exchequer documents (above, footnote 315). The Pontaudemer text, on the other hand, is, except as regards the date, practically identical with that which, for want of knowing its source, we can only call Rymer’s. This last contains some verbal corruptions which may be due to Rymer himself; while in D’Achéry’s printed text there is at least one obvious error—the Legate’s name is given as “Gualterius.” The terms of the treaty in the Rymer-Pontaudemer version are substantially the same as those indicated by the chroniclers. The list of attestations comprises only the names of the signataries on the English side; they are the Legate, the King, the Regent, the Justiciar, the Earls of Chester, Salisbury, Warren, and Arundel, William d’Aubigny, William Brewer, William Marshal the younger, Falkes de Bréauté, Ralf de Mortimer, “L. de Erdivert,” Robert de Vipont, Geoffrey de Neville, Brian de Lisle, Philip d’Aubigné, and Richard the late King’s son; all of whom are stated to have set their seals to the treaty. This is a somewhat puzzling statement in view of the fact that the King had as yet no seal of his own. It may be that the Marshal’s seal on this occasion did duty twice, once for its owner and once for his royal ward; though we should have expected, if this were so, to find an explicit mention of the circumstance.

To me there seem to be only two alternative theories by which the printed texts of the treaty can be reconciled with each other and with the evidence of the chronicles: (1) that the document of which Rymer and D’Achéry each had a copy before him was a transcript (more or less exact) of the body of the original treaty of Kingston, to which the list of signataries and the date had been added (the latter incorrectly) from some unknown source; or (2) that the opening words—“Haec est forma pacis facta,” etc. (Rymer) or “Haec est forma finis et concordiae facta,” etc. (D’Achéry)—were in each case the unauthorized addition of a scribe, and that the original document was not an actually executed treaty, but the draft which Hugh de Malaunay carried to Louis on 11th September (above, p. 56), and that this draft was sealed by the Legate, King, and councillors, as a pledge of its authenticity and of their intention to abide by its contents. I incline to the latter alternative, for the following reasons:—

(1) The so-called “form of peace” speaks throughout of what Louis and Henry shall promise and swear, never once of what they have promised and sworn. It seems therefore to date from a time previous to the solemn oaths which Roger of Wendover says they took at Kingston. The actual treaty would not be sealed till the oaths were sworn.

(2) The difficulty about the dates, both of time and place, practically disappears if we adopt the second theory. The date in Rymer can hardly be explained away as a transcriber’s error, because the word undecimo is given in full; it must be either correct, or a downright blunder. Now, we know from Hist. Ducs (p. 203) that 11th September was the day on which Malaunay carried back to Louis the “form of peace drawn up in writing” (R. Wend., vol. iv. p. 30; cf. above, pp. 56, 57) for his acceptance. The Pontaudemer text may have been transcribed from a copy in which the word had been translated into numerals, and if so, “XI” might easily become “XX” in transcription. As for the place, we know that King and regent were at Chertsey every day from 6th September to 12th September, both days inclusive, and we possess no other notice of their having gone to Lambeth on the 11th; but there is no reason why they should not have done so; a prolongation of the truce till the 14th had been guaranteed on the 10th, and it would be quite safe and practicable for the Marshal and the Legate to bring their royal charge as near to London as Lambeth for a few hours, if they found it convenient to do so as a means of saving time in communicating with Louis.

Mr. G. J. Turner (“Minority of Henry III,” part I, Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc., series II, vol. xviii. p. 288, note 3) says, “The treaty was in two parts, of which the text in the Thesaurus is the part executed by Louis.” I do not understand on what grounds this inference is based, as the Daubais (or Thesaurus) text has no attestations, and the formulae employed in it are precisely the same as those in the Rymer-Pontaudemer text, which purports to be attested by the English party. Indeed, I cannot bring myself to believe that the Daubais text can possibly represent the form in which the treaty was “executed” at all. Save for the one clause which is peculiar to it, it is a mere summary, and a very imperfect one, of some—by no means all—of the conditions which the Rymer-Pontaudemer text sets forth in detail. My inference from a comparison of the two texts is that the Daubais text is a mere scribe’s epitome of a third text, now lost, which probably was the true text of the treaty actually executed at Kingston on 12th September, and consisted of the substance of the preliminary draft (the Rymer-Pontaudemer text) plus the article about the Exchequer records.

NOTE VI THE TENURE OF CROWN OFFICES DURING THE MINORITY

Mr. Turner (“Minority of Henry III,” part I, pp. 270–276) has gone into this question with great care and in considerable detail. He sums up his conclusions about it in four passages. (1) “It is highly probable that the three great officials, the two justices” (i.e., the chief Justiciars of England and Ireland) “and the Chancellor, claimed the right to continue in office till the King’s minority had determined.... Direct evidence of the claim is not forthcoming, but there are facts which point to it having been put forward” (p. 271). (2) “The sheriffs and castellans claimed to hold their bailiwicks throughout the King’s minority” (p. 272). (3) “A dispute between Engelard de Cigogné and William de Warenne as to which of them was entitled to the shrievalty of Surrey shows that it was decided early in the reign that the sheriffs who had been appointed by King John claimed the right to continue in office until his successor attained his majority” (p. 274). (4) “It had been decided that John’s sheriffs held office as of right during the minority” (p. 275).

Thus Mr. Turner—if I understand him rightly—regards the existence of this claim in the case of the great officers of state as merely a probable inference; but in the case of the sheriffs and castellans he regards not only the existence, but also the acknowledgment of the claim, as a fact, proved, so far as the sheriffs are concerned, by the case of the shrievalty of Surrey. That case is, briefly, as follows: Early in 1218 there were two rival claimants to the sheriffdom of Surrey; Engelard de Cigogné, who had been appointed to it by John in April, 1216, and William, Earl of Warren. The grounds of William’s claim are unknown. The most obvious conjecture is that he had received a grant, or a promise, of the sheriffdom in the summer of 1217 as the price of his return to allegiance; but this is only a conjecture; his claim may have been based on some old prescriptive right—his proper territorial designation was Earl of Surrey—or on some grant or promise made to him by John; John may have granted or promised the sheriffdom to William, before William’s defection from allegiance, on some special terms such as might justify William in arguing that on his “reversion” the promise was binding on John’s successor. The case was under consideration for nine months, from 1st February till November, 1218; and at the latter date it was still undecided, but Engelard was promised that if the decision went against him, he should be compensated by a grant of land and an annuity from the Treasury. The decision is unrecorded; the end, however, was that William got the sheriffdom and Engelard the promised compensation (Turner, pt. I, pp. 274–5). Whether this was the result of a formal judgement given by the Council in favour of Earl William’s claim, or of a compromise agreed upon between the two claimants and sanctioned by the Council, there is nothing to shew. On this case Mr. Turner comments: “The mere fact that the dispute between Engelard de Cigogné and William de Warenne arose, and was considered judicially by the Council, shews that it had been decided that John’s sheriffs held office as of right during the minority. Otherwise the dispute would have been settled by the immediate appointment of one of the claimants or of a third person without any consideration by the Council” (pp. 275–276).

To me the evidence furnished by this case does not seem as conclusive as it apparently does to Mr. Turner. The fact that the Council did not settle the matter in the summary and arbitrary fashion in which, no doubt, a King of full age would have settled it, does not to my mind necessarily imply an acknowledgement of lack of competence so to settle it. Bearing in mind that we know neither the origin and grounds of the dispute nor the mode in which its final settlement was arrived at;—bearing in mind also that the rival claimants were both of them men whose continued attachment to the King it was important not to endanger—I venture to think that the Council’s dealing with the case may have been dictated chiefly, if not entirely, by motives of policy. Mr. Turner himself says, in the very next sentence after the one which I have quoted above, “There can be little doubt that Gualo and the Earl Marshal acted prudently in allowing the sheriffs to continue in office” (p. 276). Precisely; and they would have acted very imprudently had they, without absolute necessity, given offence either to a servant of the Crown so faithful and so efficient as Engelard de Cigogné (who however, as we have just seen, did not “continue in office”), or to a magnate so powerful and so lately “reverted” as Earl William of Warren. To me it seems hardly safe to argue decisively from a case so isolated and so obscure.

I will not dispute that a claim to continuity of tenure was made, explicitly or implicitly, by some of the castellans, and that in practice they mostly succeeded in enforcing it; but that it ever received formal “recognition” seems to me disproved by (a) the oath of the barons at Henry’s second coronation, and (b) the Pope’s letters on the subject of the royal castles.

(a) “From the annals of Dunstable we learn that on the morrow of the coronation (in 1220) the barons who were there present swore that they would resign their castles and wardships” (castra et wardias suas) “at the King’s will, and would faithfully render accounts of their farms at the Exchequer” (Turner, pt. II, p. 239; see the original, from Ann. Dunst. a. 1220, above, footnote 680). This oath—taken at a time (18th May, 1220) when it had not yet been settled whether Henry was to attain his majority at fourteen or at twenty-one, and when his actual age was twelve years and seven months—is clearly to be understood as a promise to yield up the castles of which they had custody, and render account for them, whenever they should in the King’s name be called upon to do so, from that day forth, not merely after the King’s coming of age. Mr. Turner understands it thus, for he comments upon the passage, “In all probability the chief object of these proceedings was to obtain the castles of Rockingham and Sauvey from the Count of Aumale” (pt. II, p. 240). (b) On 26th May, 1220, the Pope issued orders that all prelates holding royal castles should surrender them; and on 28th May, that no man should be suffered to retain the custody of more than two royal castles at once (Roy. Lett., vol. I, pp. 535, 121; cf. above, pp. 146, 147, and Turner, pt. II, p. 242). To me it appears that these letters are incompatible with any “recognition” by the Pope—who, be it remembered, was acknowledged by all parties as the legal overlord of England and the chief guardian of the King—of the doctrine of the castellans’ right to continuity of tenure during the King’s minority; and that the oath taken after the coronation is equally incompatible with any such recognition on the part of the regents in England, or even with any general recognition of that doctrine among the castellans themselves.

With regard to the great officers of state, Mr. Turner’s inference is based (pt. I, p. 271) on (1) the case of Geoffrey de Marsh, Justiciar in Ireland; (2) that of Richard de Marsh, Chancellor of England; (3) the parallel, or analogy, between the position of the great officers of the Crown and that of the lesser ones—“the sheriffs and castellans claimed to hold their bailiwicks throughout the King’s minority, and the greater officers of state must have considered that they were entitled to the same privilege” (pt. I, 272). Of (1) I have given the whole story in my text, pp. 94, 95, 123–125, 174, 175, 217, 259. Of (2) Mr. Turner says: “Richard de Mareis, the Chancellor, seems to have grievously neglected his office, and to have left his duties to be performed by Ralph de Neville, the vice-chancellor. It is scarcely likely that he would have been permitted to enjoy the emoluments of his office while repudiating its burden, if he could have been removed” (pt. I, p. 272). The Chancellor’s office, unlike that of the Justiciar or the sheriffs, was necessarily vacated by the death of the King, inasmuch as he held it (as Mr. Turner points out, pt. I, p. 271) not by letters patent but by virtue of the delivery of the King’s seal into his hands, and every King had a new seal. The Chancellor appointed by John therefore, could not “claim the right to continue in office until the king’s minority had determined”; such continuity was impossible in an office conferred by the delivery of a symbol which changed with a change of sovereigns. He may, as a great minister of the Crown, have claimed a right to be re-appointed for the term of the King’s minority. A formal re-appointment would not be possible in his case till the new great seal was made, and this was not till October, 1218; but there may have been an informal agreement by which he was left in possession of the functions and rights appertaining to the chancellorship throughout the two years during which the Marshal’s seal was used instead of the King’s, on the understanding that when this latter arrangement terminated he was to receive the new seal in the usual way. Such an agreement need not, however, imply any right of continuity in office. Richard de Marsh was not the only Chancellor who habitually left his duties to a deputy and yet was suffered to retain his title and his profits. As to (3), it would certainly appear that since justiciars, sheriffs, and castellans were all appointed in the same manner and on the same terms—by letters patent, to hold office during the King’s pleasure—the greater officers must have been irremoveable during the minority, if the lesser ones were acknowledged to be so. For the reasons already given, this latter point seems to me not proven.

With regard to the castles a further question remains. Falkes de Bréauté in the “Complaint” which he addressed to the Pope in 1225, and which is preserved in the Barnwell Annals, speaking of the arrest of Peter de Maulay in 1221, says: “De qua captione non ante dictus nobilis evadere potuit quam ea castra quae sibi tam a domino Guala quam etiam a patre domini regis commissa fuerant restitueret, contra pristinum juramentum quod patri fecerat de non restituendis eisdem castris donec iste rex legitimae foret aetatis” (W. Cov., vol. II, p. 260). On this Mr. Turner (pt. I, p. 284) observes: “The castles, he says, were entrusted to Pierre as well by Guala as by King John. It would seem from this that although the castellans were not re-appointed on the King’s death by letters patent under the seal of the Earl Marshal, their castles were formally delivered to them by Guala. The statement is confirmed by a letter dated May 10th, 1220, from Pandulph, who succeeded Guala as legate, to Ralph de Neville the vice-chancellor, in which he asks him to send the form under which Guala delivered castles to their wardens (Shirley, Royal Letters, i. 117).” Pandulf’s words are these: “Item, formam sub qua dominus Gualo castra ad custodiendum tradebat nobis mittas, si ipsam habes, vel ab his qui sciunt diligenter inquiras, et quod inveneres nobis rescribas.”

I venture to think that Mr. Turner’s suggested interpretation of these two passages is a little overstrained. The words of Falkes need not imply any formal act of delivery posterior to the one whereby Peter had originally received the castles to hold for John. Falkes’s “Complaint” is not a legal document, and we are neither obliged nor entitled to construe its phraseology as if it were such. If certain castles which John had committed to a certain man were left in that man’s custody by Henry’s guardians, they were practically committed or entrusted to him by the guardians as well as by John; and a reason why Falkes should bring Gualo’s name into the matter, rather than the name of the Marshal, is not far to seek. Falkes’s “Complaint” is a piece of special pleading addressed to a special person—the Pope—for the purpose of inducing him (as supreme guardian of his feudatary King Henry) to intervene in English affairs in behalf of the complainant Falkes himself; the case of Peter de Maulay being mentioned as an illustration of the ill-treatment which (according to Falkes) the leaders of the party now in power in England were meting out to faithful old servants of King John. In these circumstances it is perfectly natural that whatever sanction, whether explicit or tacit, was, at a time when these leaders were in a subordinate position, given by the highest authorities in the realm to Peter’s retention of the castles in his keeping, should be described as having been given by the Legate. Nor need the words of Pandulf bear any more definite meaning. The letter in which they occur was misdated by Dr. Shirley; its true date is 10th May, 1219 (see Prof. Powicke in Eng. Hist. Rev., vol. xxiii. p. 229), when Pandulf had been Legate about five months, and regent less than as many weeks. That he, at this time, supposed the castles to have been delivered to their wardens by Gualo is no proof that such was the fact. Moreover, the wording of his inquiry suggests that he had no very distinct idea of the thing about which he was inquiring; indeed, it almost suggests some uncertainty on his part whether what he asked for existed at all. I venture to think that—Ralf de Neville’s answer being unfortunately lost—in this uncertainty the question still remains. It would be a very remarkable circumstance if Gualo, who so scrupulously refrained from all shew of intervention in the administration of civil affairs, went out of his way to take upon himself a function utterly alien from his natural sphere of action, and one which there could be no conceivable reason for associating with his office rather than with that of the lay regent. It would be equally remarkable that the castellans, if they considered themselves entitled to retain their wardenships without re-appointment by letters patent from the Governor of King and Kingdom, in the new sovereign’s name, should have quietly submitted to re-appointment in a wholly unprecedented manner at the hands of a foreign ecclesiastic. And it is scarcely less remarkable that a proceeding so unusual, if it really took place, should have left no trace in the official records of the Kingdom and been passed over in silence by all the chroniclers of the time.

NOTE VII THE PAPAL LETTERS OF 1223

The four papal letters summarized in p. 202 are to be found in the Red Book of the Exchequer, fol. 171. The letter which there stands first of the four—that to the Earls and barons of England—is printed in Foedera, I. i. p. 190 (with a marginal date, 1228, which does not agree with the date at the end of the letter itself). The salutation of all four is given in the Red Book as “Gregorius Papa,” etc., and the date as “idus Aprilis anno primo,” i.e., 13th April, 1227. The fact that some instructions about Henry’s coming of age, and about the castles, were issued by Honorius III in 1223 appears from at least three independent sources: the Dunstable Annals, Roger of Wendover, and the Querimonia Falcasii. For the precise wording of any portion of these instructions, and the date on which they (or a portion of them) were issued, the sole authority which has hitherto been recognized is a dateless letter preserved among the “bundles” in the Public Record Office, and printed by Shirley in Roy. Lett., vol. i. pp. 430, 431. Its salutation runs “Sanctissimo patri ... G. Dei gratia summo pontifici, P. Wintoniensis et H. Elyensis divina miseratione episcopi”; i.e. it is a letter to Pope Gregory IX from Bishops Hugh of Ely who was consecrated in June, 1229, and Peter of Winchester who died in June, 1238. (Why Shirley dated this letter “June, 1232—April, 1234,” I cannot guess.) These two prelates write: “Noverit sancta paternitas vestra nos mandatum piae recordationis Honorii praedecessoris vestri propriis manibus tractasse et oculis propriis inspexisse in haec verba: ‘Honorius episcopus, servus servorum Dei, dilecto filio ...’ (Shirley left a blank for the name or initial; presumably it was undecipherable) ‘Cycestrensi electo, carissimi in Christo filii nostri regis Anglorum vice-cancellario, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem.’” They then proceed to quote the whole letter; and it is absolutely identical with the fourth of the letters concerning Henry’s majority, ascribed in the Red Book to Gregory, except that its date is “idus Aprilis, pontificatus nostri anno septimo,” i.e., 13th April, 1223. Long ago Dr. Stubbs remarked that “Curiously enough, the bull of Gregory IX to the same effect” [as the letters in which Honorius on 13th April, 1223, had “declared Henry, although not yet of age, competent to govern”] “is dated 13th April, 1227” (Const. Hist., vol. ii. p. 34, note 2, 1875). A careful consideration of the subject has led me to the conviction that this “curious” correspondence of month and day is due to the fact that the words idus Aprilis are the only correct part of the date as given by the scribe of the Red Book, and that the four letters have been attributed by him to a wrong Pope, being in reality all alike letters of Honorius III, issued on 13th April, 1223.

In further confirmation of this view of the matter, we find Hubert, in his answers to a long indictment brought against him by the King in 1239, quoting, from four letters addressed (1) “Comitibus et baronibus,” (2) and (3) “Comiti Cestriae” and “sub eisdem verbis Wintoniensi Episcopo,” (4) “Cancellario,” passages which all occur in the letters correspondingly addressed in the Red Book, and he describes all these quotations as taken from privileges of Pope Honorius. These answers were put into writing by Master Laurence of S. Alban’s; Laurence’s notes were preserved in a commonplace book of his abbey, and they figure among the miscellaneous collections of Matthew Paris as Responsiones Magistri Laurentii de S. Albano pro comite Kantiae Huberto de Burgo (Chron. Maj., vol. vi. pp. 63–74). The answers in general have an appearance of honesty; but they were drawn up many years after the occurrence of some of the events to which they relate; and from this or some other cause the version given in them of the whole story of Henry’s coming of age is extremely confused, and certainly inaccurate in some particulars, the events of 1227 and those of 1223 being inextricably mixed up together. Hubert’s description of the Pope’s letter about the great seal as addressed “Cancellario,” however, presents no difficulty. The word may stand simply for “him who is Chancellor now,” or the prefix vice may have been omitted by the scribe.

Of the letter in which Honorius bade the prelates enforce by ecclesiastical censure a general surrender of all the royal castles (above, p. 206), no actual copy is known; but there is no reason to question the accuracy of Roger of Wendover’s report of its contents. That report is, I think, confirmed by the brief but significant statements of Falkes de Bréauté. In 1225 Falkes (probably with the help of Robert Passelewe, a well known man of law) drew up a “Complaint” addressed to the Pope and Cardinals about the recent proceedings in England against himself. This complaint is inserted in the Barnwell Annals under the heading Querimonia Falcasii coram Domino Papa (W. Cov., vol. ii. pp. 259–272). It sets the whole political history of England during the years 1221–1224 in a light startlingly different from that in which the same history is treated by the chroniclers; and although its author certainly had good opportunity of knowing the truth about the matters of which he wrote, there are obvious reasons which make him a dangerous authority to rely upon implicitly. The fact, however, that the “Complaint” was addressed to Honorius furnishes some guarantee of the correctness of its statements so far as they relate to the action of Honorius himself. These statements are as follows:—

While the barons in general seem to have regarded Hubert as the instigator of the papal order for a compulsory surrender of castles, etc., Falkes, hostile though he is to the Justiciar, neither asserts nor hints at any thing of the kind. He says indeed nothing whatever as to any suspicions which he or others may have had concerning the origin of that order. Yet I cannot but think that he had a suspicion, and possibly not altogether an unlikely one. Both on personal and political grounds Falkes is bitter enough against Hubert; to him, Hubert is a personal enemy and also an enemy of the peace and prosperity of King and kingdom; but he is neither the sole nor the chief enemy. Throughout his “Complaint,” even in reference to matters in which Hubert appears as the principal or the sole actor, Falkes speaks of “the Justiciar and his accomplices”; and the foremost of these “accomplices,” according to Falkes’s version of history, is the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is Stephen, not Hubert, who is the arch-enemy in the eyes of Falkes—the relentless persecutor of Falkes himself, the persistent sower of discord and plotter of mischief in the realm; one passage relating to him in the Querimonia reads almost like a paraphrase of the accusation said by the Dunstable annalist to have been flung, in a moment of fury, by Hubert at Peter des Roches (above, p. 207). The animus displayed by Falkes against Stephen is in fact so violent that we instinctively feel his narrative is not to be trusted in details where the Archbishop is concerned. Yet there is no intrinsic impossibility in its account of the formal surrender of the castles, in which Stephen is distinctly made to play the most prominent part (above, p. 210). We have seen the difficulties involved in supposing that the Pope’s action was prompted by any person or party among the other councillors of the Crown. Can it have been prompted—on the broad ground of the interest of public order and stable government, irrespective of persons and parties—by the Archbishop of Canterbury?

NOTE VIII THE ROYAL CASTLES IN 1223–1224

The entries in the Patent Roll concerning the changes which took place in the custody of royal castles from November, 1223, to March, 1224, have been collected by Dr. Shirley in Appendix ii. to his edition of Royal Letters, vol. i. pp. 508–516. They are there given in the form and the order in which they appear on the Roll, and accompanied by some other entries which have no direct bearing on the general surrender and redistribution of castles after Christmas, 1223. The entries whose date is earlier than 29th December, 1223, have of course also no bearing upon that subject. A summary analysis, in chronological order, of those which do relate to it may therefore be useful to elucidate and check the statements in my text, pp. 210–212. My references are to the printed Patent Rolls of Henry III, vol. i.

NOTE IX FALKES AND THE “THIRTY PAIRS OF LETTERS.”

The number of illegal disseisins of which Falkes was convicted at Dunstable in June, 1224 (above, p. 231), is officially stated as sixteen: “Cum ... Falcatius ... coram judicibus eisdem in sexdecim causis fuisset convictus ... et ad restitutionem ablatorum et satisfactionem plenam debito modo condemnatus,” are the words of King Henry himself in a letter to the Pope (Roy. Lett., vol. i. p. 225). Roger of Wendover (vol. iv. p. 94) says “Cecidit in misericordia regis de plusquam triginta paribus litterarum, de quibus singulis in centum libris debuerat condemnari.” Matthew Paris (Chron. Maj., vol. iii. p. 84, Hist. Angl., vol. ii. p. 263) copies this; and in an original paragraph of his own, inserted at the end of Roger’s account of the Bedford affair, he says that Falkes “xxxii liberos homines in manerio de Luituna sine judicio de suis tenementis disseisiavit” (Chron. Maj., vol. iii. p. 88). The Dunstable annalist (p. 90) says “Falchasius de triginta quinque saisinis convictus est.” Of course the evidence of the King’s letter is decisive. Roger’s odd phrase, “de plusquam triginta paribus litterarum,” reveals how the number came to be doubled. At some date obviously earlier (probably not less, possibly much more, than six months earlier, since the complaint of the earls is addressed to the Justiciar, not the King) than this Dunstable affair, the Earls of Salisbury and Pembroke, writing to Hubert about Falkes’s outrageous conduct towards John Marshal, reported “quod dominus Johannes Marescallus nobis per literas suas mandavit quod, cum misisset literas domini regis domino Falcasio de Brealte pro bosco suo ... idem Falkasius ad literas domini regis respondit quod si ei misisset triginta paria literarum domini regis, pacem utique non haberet de praedicto bosco,” etc. (Roy. Lett., vol. i. pp. 221, 222). This story of Falkes’s declaration, uttered in a moment of anger, that “if thirty pairs of royal letters should be sent to him” in behalf of one particular person, he would pay no heed to them, seemingly became confused, before it reached S. Alban’s and Dunstable, with a wholly different matter, and the “thirty pairs of letters” were supposed to have been actually sent, as the consequence of his conviction before Henry de Braybroke of the same number of disseisins; Roger or his informant inserted a “plusquam” on the strength of which Matthew raised the number to thirty-two; while the Dunstable annalist further improved it to thirty-five.

NOTE X BEDFORD CASTLE

The nature of Falkes’s tenure of Bedford castle is a question of some difficulty. The only entry relating to it in the Rolls is provokingly laconic: “Mandatum est Waltero de Bellocampo quod habere faciat Falkesio de Breaute manerium de Seldelegia quod est de honore de Bedefordia, quia dominus rex castrum de Bedefordia cum toto honore et pertinentiis dedit Falkesio,” Close Rolls, vol. i. p. 250 b, 4th March, 1216. In July, 1224, King Henry, writing to the Pope about Falkes, calls Bedford “quoddam castrum nostrum quod habebat in custodia” (Roy. Lett., vol. i. pp. 225, 226). So too the Waverley annalist (a. 1224):—“castellum de Bedford quod ab eodem rege [Johanne] in custodiam acceperat.” One of the complaints brought against Hubert in 1239 in connexion with the Bedford affair was that on the capture of the castle he “illud prosterni fecit et reddi Willelmo de Bellocampo, super quem dominus J. rex castrum illud ceperat per guerram, et unde J. rex seisitus fuit quando obiit.” To this Hubert answered that “per consilium magnatum Angliae fuit castrum obsessum, captum, et dirutum ... et quia idem Willelmus semper erat petens versus dictum Falconem dictum castrum ut jus suum, nec habere potuit donec fuit captum per dominum regem; idem dominus rex de consilio magnatum suorum, propter formam pacis factae et prae timore sententiae latae” (i.e. the promise of general amnesty and restitution included in the treaty of Kingston, and the excommunication pronounced against infractors) “dictam sedem castri ei reddidit, tenendum eodem modo quo antecessores sui tenuerunt, prout patet in rotulis domini regis.” (Respons. pp. 67–69; cf. Close Rolls, vol. i. p. 632). The Barnwell annalist (W. Cov., vol. ii. p. 253) says the castle “de jure spectabat ad Willelmum de Bello Campo”; and Ralf of Coggeshall (pp. 205, 206), says “Rex Johannes ... contulit etiam ei [i.e. Falconi] terram Willelmi de Bellocampo, qui enim cum aliis baronibus contra regem conspiraverat. Dedit insuper ei castellum de Bedeford pro servitio suo, et charta sua confirmavit.... Cumque caeteri barones custodias suas regi, ut dictum est, tradidissent” (after Christmas, 1223), “Falco etiam custodias suas regi similiter tradidit; sed castellum de Bedeford nullo modo regi aut Willelmo de Bellocampo tradere voluit, asserens illud suum esse proprium, et a rege Johanne sibi fuisse donatum, et charta sua fore confirmatum pro tam laborioso et diutino servitio suo.” Falkes in his Complaint to the Pope twice speaks of Bedford castle as his own property: “privilegio vestrae sedis per quae ... tam castrum quam caetera bona nostra” (mea in another MS.) “sub protectione benignitatis vestrae fuerant constituta,” p. 264; “amissio castri mei,” p. 272; and the Pope, writing to the King on 17th August, 1224, says “castrum de Betford quod ipse pater tuus eidem [Falchesio] ... sicut dicitur, liberalitate regia, immo merita retributione donavit,” Roy. Lett., vol. i. p. 544.

Ralf of Coggeshall’s story is not self-consistent. He begins by stating, as a positive fact, that John had given Bedford castle to Falkes by charter. Afterwards, however, this fact dwindles down to an assertion reported to have been made by Falkes in answer to a demand in 1223–1224 for restitution of the castle either to the King or to Beauchamp. No charter such as is here mentioned appears in the Charter Rolls of John’s reign. This of course does not prove that no such charter ever existed; nor does the fact that the Patent and Close Rolls of Henry’s reign contain no hint of Falkes’s having ever, before the capture of Henry de Braybroke, been summoned to deliver up the castle, prove that no such summons was ever issued. The words of Falkes himself and those of the Pope—these latter being of course based on information derived from Falkes or his friends—imply that he claimed to hold the castle in fee. But even if this claim was really based on a charter, it could scarcely have availed to bar the claim of the King; for by the treaty of Kingston the Crown as well as its subjects, was to regain whatever it had been seised of before the war, and it had certainly been seised of Bedford castle from the time of Henry II till the autumn of 1215; it seems therefore that Henry might have considered himself entitled to treat a charter granted by his father after that date as null and void, and thus to call Bedford castrum nostrum. With regard to its custody as a royal castle, the law of the matter may very likely have been quite uncertain. It may have been at least arguable that the definition laid down in the treaty did not necessarily cover the custody of a royal castle even if held by hereditary right; and it must be remembered that we do not know what was the precise nature of the tenure by which Beauchamp had held that office. The Barnwell writer, however, certainly appears to have gone too far in stating that the castle itself “de jure spectabat ad Willelmum de Bello Campo.” It had belonged to William’s ancestors; but William’s father had practically renounced all claim to its ownership by fining with King Richard for the office of its constable. William’s right in it was at the utmost only an hereditary title to that office. Whether John did grant the castle to Falkes in fee, or whether he died seised of it himself (as Hubert said)—having given merely the custody of it, as well as the enjoyment of the honour of Bedford, to Falkes quamdiu regi placuerit—we cannot determine. From Henry’s accession till autumn, 1223, any question which might exist on the subject between Falkes and the Crown was of little practical consequence. It was recognized on all hands that throughout that period whatever castles Falkes held, whether as constable or as lord, he held loyally for the King and used for the King’s interest with a rare capability and diligence. Henry’s counsellors might well prefer to leave this particular detail of the great castle-problem undiscussed usque ad aetatem regis. Still more natural was it that Beauchamp’s claim should get no hearing till Falkes had incurred forfeiture in his turn. Then King and Council decided that it would be prudent to satisfy Beauchamp without giving him a chance of treading in Falkes’s steps or repeating his own act of 1215; and they did so by pulling the half ruined castle down altogether and granting him the site, with leave to build himself not a castle, but a dwelling-house, out of its stones (Close Rolls, vol. i. p. 632, 632 b).

NOTE XI THE HANGING OF THE BEDFORD GARRISON

Eight writers tell this grim story very briefly—seven of them in almost identical words—differing only as to the number of the victims. A ninth—Falkes—has a longer and more elaborate version.

(1) “In crastino autem, cum omnes vulnerati et plagis lethiferis afflicti exiissent et ad presentiam regis adducti fuissent, addicti sunt ad suspendium universi; suspensi sunt itaque, inter milites et servientes, qui propter superbiam suam quam regi ostenderant in obsidione jam finita non potuerunt misericordiam impetrare.” Here, in the only two known MSS. of his history (Douce ccvii. and Cott. Otho B. v.), Roger of Wendover’s sentence ends. Obviously it is incomplete, and was meant to have been completed by the addition of a number; but the omission appears to have been an oversight in the original text, for in neither of the extant copies is there any blank between “impetrare” and the first word of the next sentence, “Henricus.” The addition “[viginti quatuor]” in the printed editions (Coxe, vol. iv. p. 98; Howlett, vol. ii. p. 281) is derived from Matthew Paris.

(3) “Capto igitur castro, in Assumptione Beatae Virginis Mariae fere omnes in eo repertos, tam milites quam servientes, vita privavit sententia ignominiosa. Nam jussu regio circiter lxxxᵃ in patibulis sunt suspensi.” W. Cov., vol. ii. p. 254.

(4) “Mane vero sequenti, ante tribunal regis exhibiti, et per episcopos ab excommunicatione absoluti, ad mandatum regis et justitiarii sui suspensi sunt in patibulis octoginta et plures. Tres vero ad preces principum rex indulsit Templariis, ut in habito suo in Terra Sancta Domino militarent.” Ann. Dunst., p. 88.

(5) “Repertos in eodem castro, non considerata cujusquam generositate, usque ad octoginta duos et amplius digno condempnavit suspendio [rex].” Contin. Gerv. Cant., vol. ii. p. 114.

(6) “In patibulis suspenduntur tam milites quam servientes, die Assumptionis Beatae Mariae Virginis, numero octoginta tres.” R. Coggeshall, p. 207.

(7) “Omnes fere qui sponte ingressi in castello inventi sunt suspensi sunt in patibulis, in die videlicet Assumptionis Beatae Mariae, homines circiter octoginta.” Ann. Wav., a. 1224.

(8) “Suspensi sunt xiv milites.” T. Wykes, a. 1220.

(9) “Milites in manu domini regis et misericordia archiepiscopi et episcoporum se devotissime offerentes, sub tutela ecclesiae sicut crucesignati, et quia sub appellationis ad vos” (the Pope) “factae credebant defendi subsidio, in exercitum de castro prodierunt. Quibus in die Assumptionis dato cum ignominio absolutionis beneficio, idem Archiepiscopus cum episcopis Hugoni Lincolniensi, Jocelino Batoniensi et Radulfo Cicestrensi ad regem ingressus est ... ipsius regis adolescentiam ad indebitam provocans iracundiam, talia verba profudit: ‘Nos quidem ut nos decuit rigorem sumus ecclesiasticam executi; jam restat regem facere quod suum est.’ Cumque ad haec verba regis obstupesceret innocentia, et quaereret quid ad majestatem regiam pertineret, rursus idem archiepiscopus, non pater patriae sed tyrannus, ‘Justitiarium,’ inquit, ‘hujus dicti oportet esse interpretem, quia quid ad vos pertineat edocebit.’ Ne autem pro nihilo dictis comitatus esset episcopis, unus ex eis, videlicet Batoniensis, dixit: ‘Si suspensi fuissent qui capti fuerunt apud Biham, isti qui nunc capti sunt nullatenus castrum adversus nutum regium tenuissent.’ Postea vero apud regem altercatione suborta an exspectandi essent barones regni pro judicio faciendo, singuli qui aderant causa prandii ad propria tentoria secesserunt; ipsaque hora prandii milites, servientes, juvenes, cujuscunque conditionis quantaeque nobilitatis, ad numerum nonaginta vii, tam archiepiscopo quam dictis episcopis inspicientibus, in dedecus militiae et perpetuum regis opprobrium sunt suspensi.... Clamore autem tantae crudelitatis audito, aliqui de mensis propriis occurrentes de furcis et patibulis aliquos liberaverunt, qui tamen sub custodia adhuc detinentur.” Quer. Falc., pp. 267, 268.

Now, Falkes certainly did not witness the scenes which he here describes. They may have been reported to him by a member of the Council; but we have no guarantee for the reporter’s truthfulness or accuracy, or even for the report having originated elsewhere than in Falkes’s own brain—a brain which, keen as it was in other respects, really seems to have been, from some cause which we cannot fathom, hardly sane on matters in which Stephen de Langton was concerned. The narrative clearly conveys, and is clearly meant to convey, that it was Stephen who instigated the hanging of the garrison; that he did so in veiled language which the young King’s “innocence” at first failed to understand; that Stephen cast the responsibility of explaining it on the Justiciar (whom, it will be remembered, Falkes has all along represented as being hand and glove with the Archbishop); that before even the justiciar could speak, its meaning was made plain by one of three bishops whom the Primate had brought with him into the King’s presence for that very purpose; that the laymen of the Council, less bloodthirsty than the Primate, hesitated to adopt his suggestion and put off the decision till after dinner; and that while all the barons were occupied with that meal, the deed was done behind their backs (of course under orders issued by the Justiciar in the King’s name), Stephen and his three episcopal friends feasting their eyes on the sight. We should certainly require some other authority than Falkes to make us accept this story as he would have his readers accept it. But the main incidents of the story may be true, and only their meaning perverted by the narrator; the outlines of the picture may be correct, and only the colouring false. The Bedford garrison had submitted to the King; they were therefore entitled to be, after doing penance in the usual form, absolved from the excommunication which had been pronounced against them for resisting him. But they had submitted only on compulsion; therefore they were, by the law of the land, still liable to the extreme penalty due to men who were taken fighting against the person of their sovereign. The duty of the prelates towards these prisoners was to enforce their penance and then give them absolution; this the prelates had done; and therewith their part in the Council’s action was at an end. The temporal fate of the prisoners was a question of life or death, and in such questions, it is well known, ecclesiastics had no voice. In a case such as the present one, it was for the King’s lay counsellors to advise him, and for the King to decide; and if, owing to a divergence of opinions among those counsellors or from any other cause, the young sovereign thus called upon to exercise for the first time such a weighty prerogative felt doubtful of its extent or of the right direction in which to exercise it, the Justiciar was the person to whom he should look for guidance. This, and nothing more, is the plain and natural meaning of the words which Falkes places in the mouth of the Primate. In themselves they afford no ground for the interpretation which he evidently wished his readers to put upon them. Some of the barons were still, it seems, leniently disposed towards Falkes; many of them may have been reluctant to send brave soldiers to the gallows; if so, the execution may have been carried out somewhat as Falkes states. His account of the rescue of “some who are still”—i.e., some nine months later—“detained in custody” is easily reconciled with the story told by Matthew Paris and the Dunstable annalist of the three who were given to the Templars. The touch about the four prelates gloating over the ghastly scene may be set down to a fevered imagination.