A History of England, Period I. MediAEval Monarchy

FOOTNOTES:

[1] French Chroniclers have made this sudden death a judgment of God. Godwine is described as wishing that the piece of bread he ate might choke him if he were guilty of the death of Alfred, whereupon the bread stuck in his throat.

[2] This is the Siward who occurs in the Macbeth of Shakspere. Though the events connected with his invasion of Scotland are very obscure, the poet seems on the whole to have changed the real history but slightly.

[3] As an illustration of this, Harold’s great Foundation of the Holy Rood at Waltham was occupied by secular canons, and had a school attached, while Stigand, one of his firmest supporters, was the uncanonical Archbishop of Canterbury.

[4] See p. 48

[5] It is not certain how old Eadgar was. His father died in 1057. He must have been therefore at least nine years old, and was probably some years older, as we hear of his executing several acts of kingly authority.

[6] Called also Count of Meulan.

[7] Her name was Nesta. She married Gerald of Windsor, who, as constable of Arnulf of Shrewsbury, commanded the castle of Pembroke. Their grandson was the historian Geraldus Cambrensis.

[8] Stubb’s Select Charters.

[9] Ordericus Vitalis.

[10] William of Malmesbury.

[11] Lappenberg, Thorpe’s translation, page 377. There were certainly several more at the time of the accession, as their names occur attesting the charter of Stephen.

[12] Fiscal earls.

[13] Adulterine Castles. Will. Malm. Hist. Nov. I. § 18.

[14] See the conduct of Fitz-Hubert and Fitz-Gilbert at Devizes and Marlborough, page 82.

[15] William of Malmesbury, Hist. Nov. II. § 34.

[16] The Bishop seems to have been appointed by Stephen as her escort. William of Malmesbury says that no gentleman could refuse an escort even to his enemy.

[17] Son of Count Alan Fergant of Brittany. Ang. Sax. Chron. ann. 1127.

[18] Bishop of SeÉz, in Southern Normandy.

[19] Stubb’s Select Charters, page 21, from Matthew of Paris, 1153.

[20] While Eleanor had been his wife, Louis had systematically pressed her claim.

[21] Ramiro of Aragon, a monk, who, for the sake of continuing the succession, was taken from his monastery, and married. His only daughter was the wife of Raymond of Barcelona. Their son became King of Aragon.—Robert de Monte.

[22] The individual payment in Normandy was sixty shillings in Angevin money. The knights’ fees of England were popularly put at 60,000: at the same rate this would have amounted to £180,000. The scutage in England was, however, only two marks on a knight’s fee. The scutage was repeated two years afterwards. On the supposition that the sum mentioned applies to both those scutages, there would have been a payment of four marks, or £2, 13s. 4d., on a knight’s fee. This would give £160,000. The sum actually paid seems not to have been more than a fifth of that sum.

[23] This view rested chiefly on the False Decretals, a body of false edicts purporting to be the decisions of very early Popes, which was produced the ninth century.

[24] The Decretal of Gratian was produced about the end of Stephen’s reign. Gratian, a Tuscan Canonist, produced a collection of Papal decisions, known by his name, in 1151. The Decretals are collections of letters written by the early Popes in answers to questions addressed to them by the Bishops. The first collection was made at Rome by Dionysius in 550. In this collection, letters exaggerating Papal authority were subsequently introduced, known as the False Decretals. They received the Papal sanction from Nicholas I. about 860.

[25] These Constitutions will be found in full in Stubbs’ Charters, p. 132.

[26] He is said to have objected especially to Articles 1, 3, 4, 7, 8 and 12.

[27] Robert de Monte.

[28] So called from a table chequered like a chessboard, and used for reckoning.

[29] The details of the King’s last days are to be found in Giraldus Cambrensis, and in Hoveden. They are thrown together in an eloquent passage by Professor Stubbs in his Preface to Hoveden.

[30] See genealogy at the end of the chapter.

[31] See genealogy at the end of the chapter.

[32] A fanatical sect established in 1090 in the mountains of North Persia. They had two chief places, the one the fortress of Alamout in Persia, the other Masgat in the mountains of Libanus. Their name is derived from Haschich, an intoxicating drink with which they raised their enthusiasm.

[33] John de Grey belonged to this class.

[34] He had married Joanna, John’s natural daughter.

[35] By writ of quo warranto.

[36] 20,000 are said to have died in London alone.

[37] There were about 150 Baronies at this time, but several Barons had more than one.

[38] They were the Bishop of Worcester, the Earls of Leicester, Gloucester, Norfolk, Hereford, John Fitz-Geoffrey, Peter de Montfort, Richard de Grey, Roger Mortimer, and Albemarle. Of the King’s party, Boniface of Canterbury, Peter of Savoy, the Earl of Warwick, John Mansell, and James d’Audley: (in this signature he signed his name as James of Aldither, Fitz-Geoffrey as Geoffreyson.)

[39] Fifteen at least of the royal castles were in the hands of foreigners.

[40] Kenilworth and Odiham.

[41] Formal reference does not seem to have been made till 1263.

[42] Rishanger de Bell. Lew.

[43] Wykes is the most important.

[44] Stubbs.

[45] It is thus that the bankers’ street in London is called Lombard Street.

[46] “Homagium suum nobis debitum nobis absque conditione aliqua obtulit et detendit.”—Rymer.

[47]

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David I., 1124-1153. " Henry, Earl of Huntingdon, d. 1152. " +--------------+--------+-----------+ " " " Malcolm IV., William the Lion, David, Earl of 1153-1165. 1165-1214. " Huntingdon. " " Alexander II., +-----+--------+--------+ 1214-1249. " " " " Margaret. Isabella. Ada. Alexander III., " " " 1249-1286 +--+-------+ " " " " " Bruce. " " Devorgilda. Marjory. Henry " " " Hastings. " Balliol. Comyn. " " John Hastings. +--------------+--+ " " Alexander, Margaret = Eric of died 1283. d. 1283. " Norway. " Margaret. d. 1290.

[48] She was the widow of the King of Navarre.

[49] They are said even to have thrown little children into the air and caught them on their lances.

[50] There was probably no separate statute “De tallagio non concedendo,” though quoted as a statute in Charles I.’s reign. The articles given by Walter of Hemingburgh, which were regarded as that statute, omit the saving clause, but are now not considered authoritative.

[51] Sir Walter Scott.

[52] His sentence was: “That for the robberies and felony of which he had been guilty, he should be hanged by the neck; that as an outlaw, and not having come to the King’s peace, he should be cut down and beheaded as a traitor; that for sacrileges committed by him, he should be disembowelled, and his entrails burnt as a warning to others; that his head should be fixed to London Bridge, and his quarters to the towns of Berwick, Newcastle, Stirling, and Perth.”

[53] There were present at this Parliament seven Earls and forty-one Barons.

[54]

“Sire, si je voderoi mon garsoun chastier

De une buffe ou de deus, pur ly amender,

Sur moi betera bille, e me frad attachier,

E avant que isse de prisone raunsoun grant doner.”

The Outlaw’s song of Traillebaston.

Political Songs, p. 231.

[55] A curious question was raised, whether a torturer could be fetched from the Continent, there being none in England.—Hemingburgh, 2287.

[56] He had lately received the Earldom of Norfolk, and the rank of Earl Marshall, by the death of Bigod without heirs.

[57] These are only the principal articles; there were many others, the arrangement of the law courts, the royal prerogative of justice, etc.

[58]

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Philip III., 1270-1285. " +------------------------+---------------------------+ " " Philip IV., 1285-1314. Charles " of Valois. +-----+---+------------+-----------+ " " " " " " Louis X. Philip V. Charles IV. Isabella = Edward II. Philip VI. 1314-1316. 1316-1322. 1322-1328. " 1328-1350. " Edward III. " Joan = King of Navarre. John. 1350-1364.

[59] Made Duke of Lancaster in 1350.

[60] He alleged as his reason that he was now on his own lawful ground, in right of his mother.

[61] See page 257.

[62] The revolted peasantry.

[63] Each piece of gold (a mark) was worth 13s. 4d., or two nobles.

[64] In 1385, during his Scotch expedition, his uncles, Cambridge and Buckingham, had been made Dukes of York and Gloucester; Lancaster’s son Henry, Earl of Derby; the Duke of York’s son George, Earl of Rutland; Robert de Vere, Marquis of Dublin; and De la Pole, Earl of Suffolk.

[65] Brother of Arundel, Bishop of Ely, subsequently Archbishop of York and of Canterbury.

[66] William of Wykeham again took the Seal.

[67] 38 Edward III.

[68] 16 Richard II.

[69] Berner’s Froissart, IV., chap. 78.

[70] There is an account preserved in the exchequer of the exports and imports in the year 1354. The total value of the exports was £212,338. They consisted of 31,651 sacks of wool, at £6 a sack; 65 wool-fells, hides, to the value of £89; 4774 pieces of cloth; 8061 pieces of worsted stuff. The imports mentioned consist of a little fine cloth and wax; 1830 tuns of wine; and linens, mercery, and grocery to the value of £23,000. To show the severity of the wool tax, it is to be observed that on the above-named exports the duty was £81,846, or more than 40 per cent. Robert of Avesbury gives a somewhat different account. He put the exports at 100,000 sacks of wool. He is thought to have died about 1356.

[71] In 1250 a fair was held in Tothill Fields, and all the shops in London were shut.—Matthew of Paris.

[72] There were also great Italian merchants and bankers. Thus we hear that Edward III. ruined the Bardi, that the taxes at the end of Edward I. were pledged to and collected by the Frescobaldi. The extent of the German transactions may be seen by a complaint in 1348, that the Tidmans of Limburg had bought up all the Cornish tin.

[73] By the 14th Richard II. half the money they received was to be expended in the commodities of the land.

[74] For the history of guilds, see Dr Brentano’s Preface to the “Ordinance of British Guilds,” in the English Text Society.

[75] The goldsmith’s mark on all silver plate is a relic of this custom.

[76] Chaucer’s Prologue:—

“He knew well alle havans as they were,

Fro’ Gothlande to the Cape of Finnisterre.”

[77] “Quod progenitores nostri, Reges AngliÆ, domini maris et transmarini passagii, totis prÆteritis temporibus extiterunt.”—Rymer, ii. 953.

[78] Rymer, ii. 823.

[79] Half a yard long.—Mon. Evesham.

[80] The Welsh infantry, who were largely employed after Edward I., had 2d. a day.

[81]

“To seche silver to the kyng y mi seed solde,

Forthi mi lond leye lith ant leorneth to slepe.

Seththe he mi feire feh fatte y my folde;

When y thenk o mi weole wel neh y wepe;

Thus bredeth monie beggares bolde.

Ther wakeneth in the world wondred ant woe,

Ase god is swynden anon as so for to swynke.”

Political Songs, p. 152.

[82] The historian of this chivalrous knighthood was Froissart.

[83] Maintainers seem to have been of two sorts. On the borders of the counties palatine, confederacies were formed, who made sudden irruptions into the neighbouring counties, and carried off young women, particularly heiresses. They then retired within the freedoms of the counties palatine, and held their captives to ransom. The bodies of retainers who gathered round individual nobles, and stood by one another in such illegal actions as forcible desiesin, or ejection of rightful owners from their property, also received the name.

[84] The priest had, however, been dead a month before.

[85] Walsingham, 379.

[86] Four years afterwards he was captured and put to death, not as a traitor, but as a heretic. This throws considerable doubt on the truth of his connection with the present insurrection, a charge which was very slightly supported by evidence.

[87] There were fifteen Prelates and twenty-eight Temporal Peers at this council.

[88] A duke, 13s. 4d. a day; an earl, 6s. 8d; a baron, 4s.; a knight, 2s.; a man-at-arms, 1s.; an archer, 6d.; a hundred marks to each who supplied thirty armed men.

[89] The close connection between Sigismund and England is illustrated by the fact that in the following reign, on one occasion, a magnificent table decoration was introduced, representing Henry VI. and Sigismund receiving at the hands of a kneeling priest ballads in derision of the Lollards.

[90] This Lord Salisbury was son of Sir John de Montacute, a zealous Lollard, the faithful adherent of Richard II., who was beheaded, 1400, at Cirencester. Henry IV. restored the Earldom to his son. Lord Salisbury’s daughter married Richard Neville, the Yorkist partisan, and father of the Kingmaker Warwick.

[91] This Beauchamp was the 5th Earl of Warwick, and it was his daughter who carried the title to Richard Neville the Kingmaker.

[92] This Prince was the second son of Louis II., Duke of Anjou, Count of Provence, and (as heir to his father, Louis I., who had been adopted by Joanna I. of Naples) titular King of Naples. All these titles RÉnÉ inherited, besides the duchy of Bar, from his uncle, and the duchy of Lorraine from his wife. He was, moreover, himself named heir by Joanna II. of Naples, but failed to obtain the crown. At the time of Margaret’s marriage, of all his territories Provence was the only one he retained.

[93] For a description of this disorder see a letter from “The chief persons in the county of Kildare to Richard Duke of York,” Ellis Letters, second series, vol. i. 117.

[94] The Staffords, the head of whom was the Duke of Buckingham, were descended from Anne Plantagenet, daughter of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, son of Edward III.

[95] Cromwell had been a great friend of Bedford and his financial reformer, but dislike to the conduct of the Suffolk party had driven him to join York.

[96] William of Worcester, however, puts it at 9,000.

[97] Stafford, the young Duke of Buckingham; the heir of Bourchier, Earl of Essex; Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel; Lord Strange of Knokyn; and Lord Herbert. Thomas Grey, her son by her first marriage, was engaged to the daughter and heiress of the Duke of Exeter, the King’s niece.

[98] “Every tavern was full of his meat, for who that had any acquaintance in that house, he should have had as much sodden and roast as he might carry upon a long dagger.”—Stowe.

[99] Even ordinary observers saw this. “I cannot tell what will fall of the world, for the King verily is disposed to go into Lincolnshire, and my Lord of Warwick, as it is supposed, shall go with the King; some men say that his going shall do good, and some say that it doth harm.”—Paston Letters.

[100] Wisdom iv. 5.

[101] She was the daughter of his sister Elizabeth and the Duke of Suffolk.

[102] The love of the Princess rests upon a doubtful letter abridged by Buck in Kennett I. 568.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

The maps listed in the List of Maps were missing from the set of images of this book used for the creation of this etext. The map of ‘Saxon England’ was partly available and has been included here in the etext.

Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources.

Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained: for example, poll-tax, poll tax; Ferry Bridge, Ferrybridge; Kingmaker, King-maker; forbad; counsellor; guerilla; conventual; inutility; schismatical; discrown; carucate; enfiefed; bason; disafforesting; intrenched.

Pg xvi: ‘Battle of Brenville’ replaced by ‘Battle of Brenneville’.
Pg xxii: ‘Return of De Monfort’ replaced by ‘Return of De Montfort’.
Pg xxxiv: ‘Attemps to win’ replaced by ‘Attempts to win’.
Pg xxxviii: ‘the arbitrary of’ replaced by ‘the arbitrary’.
Pg xxxviii: ‘miscomprehension the’ replaced by ‘miscomprehension of the’.
Pg xli: the section heading ‘GENEALOGIES OF THE LEADING FAMILIES’ was missing in the original text, and has been copied from the page header.
Pg 19: ‘acts of villany’ replaced by ‘acts of villainy’.
Pg 68: ‘upon Henry which’ replaced by ‘upon Henry from which’.
Pg 160: ‘fifteen counsellers’ replaced by ‘fifteen counsellors’ (two occurrences).
Pg 216: ‘been so closly’ replaced by ‘been so closely’.
Pg 233: ‘But, succesful’ replaced by ‘But, successful’.
Pg 303: Missing header ‘CONTEMPORARY PRINCES’ inserted.
Pg 311: ‘he was disappoined,’ replaced by ‘he was disappointed,’.
Pg 328: Missing header ‘CONTEMPORARY PRINCES’ inserted.
Index.
Alodial: replaced by ‘Allodial’.
Bereta: replaced by ‘Bercta’.
Orleton: ‘his conpiracy,’ replaced by ‘his conspiracy,’.
Soken: ‘meaning of, 23’ replaced by ‘meaning of, 33’.

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