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respect to the odious charge of conjugal infidelity rudely cast upon her during this gross unmanly insult, there is nothing known of her conduct as a wife to justify it; and, on the contrary, she ever fulfilled with zealous courage more than all the duties of her station towards her husband during his difficulties. She remained true to his memory, even after his death, retiring to the seclusion of a convent at Amesbury,' which had been founded by a previous Queen Dowager, and from hence she wrote to her son, trying to convince him that the sanctity of her late husband had effected a miraculous cure on blindness. Edward I., though with too much good sense to attend to this, always showed her a deference inconsistent with any suspicion of her misconduct, and he even permitted his daughter, Mary, to take the veil at her persuasion, contrary to his own wishes. The Queen, keeping her dowry, took the veil herself, at Amesbury, in 1286, and died there, when Edward, who, on a former occasion of sickness, had hastened to her, came expressly from Scotland to attend her funeral.

1 It was a cell to Fontevraud, where so many royal Normans were buried.

2 Princess Mary was born March 11, 1278, and took the veil in 1284. A letter from her, written probably between 1315 and 1317 to her brother Edward II. is in M. A. Wood's Letters, Vol. 1. p. 61. She frequently visited

court, attended confinements of royal ladies, and visited other nunneries; she died 1333, having survived by some years all her family.

3 The Queen's profession took place July 1286, after a visit to her relations on the Continent. She afterwards styled herself "the humble nun of Fontevraud."

CHAPTER VI.

THE AWARD OF AMIENS.

"Most righteous judge! a sentence, come prepare."-M. of Ven.

THE time now approached for the arbitration of the French King, a decision anxiously looked for by all parties, with the hope of putting an end to civil disturbance, and fixing the principles of government on a permanent basis.

The formal instrument, by which such unusual authority was vested in the hands of a foreign King, had been sealed in London, Dec. 13, 1263, by the chiefs of the baronial party, including the Bishops of London and Worcester, the Earl of Leicester, his son Henry, Peter de Montfort, Humphrey de Bohun, jun., Hugh le Despenser, and many others,' who took part in the subsequent battles. The deed contained their oath to abide by the award of King Louis concerning the validity of the Oxford Statutes, whether for or against them, and a similar pledge was given by the King in a letter dated

1 "Ralph Basset de Sapercote, Baldwin Wake, Robert le Ros, Henry de Hastings, Richard Gray, William Bardoulf, Robert Vipont, John Vescy, Nicholas Segrave, Geoffry Lucy."Rymer, from Thes. Cur. Scacc.Geoffry de Lucy held the Cap of State at the Coronation of Richard I. He married Juliana, widow of Peter de Stokes. During the civil wars he fought for King John, and at Lincoln

for Henry III. He was Governor of Jersey, &c., of Porchester, 1238; went on the crusade 1236, and died 1252; his son Geoffry sided with the barons at Oxford, and now with Simon de Montfort. He escaped from the battle of Evesham to Gloucester, which however he surrendered to Pr. Edward, on promise of pardon. He died 1284, and was succeeded by his son Geoffry.

from Windsor about the same time, as well as by Prince Edward, Prince Henry, the Earl de Warenne, the Earl of Hereford, William de Valence, and many other distinguished1 Royalists.

The King repaired to Amiens with several of his adherents, and there met others, who had withdrawn from England in terror, such as the Archbishop Boniface, the Bishop of Hereford, so lately released by the barons, and John Mansel. The latter, indeed, never returned to England; and his fate is as remarkable an instance of fallen fortune as the Wolsey of later times. He, who had often refused bishoprics, both on account of the greater value of the benefices he held, and also because it would have interfered with his free manner of living, now after all his splendour died abroad in poverty and the greatest wretchedness*.

Simon de Montfort appears to have set out from Kenilworth with the intention of being present at Amiens, but his horse accidentally falling with him on the road near Catesby, he was disabled by the fracture of his thigh-bone, and obliged to return home-a misfortune which led to

1 'Hugh le Bigot, Roger le Bigot, Philip Basset, Robert Brus, Roger le Mortimer, Hugh de Percy, William de Breaus," and many others.-Rymer. The mise is frequently referred to in the original: "nos compromisimus in Dominum Ludovicum-super provisionibus Oxoniensibus-de alto et basso."

2 The King was at Dover, January 1; at Amiens from January 12 to 25; at Boulogne, Feb. 7; at Whitsand, Feb. 14; at Dover, Feb 15.-Rymer. In the time of Richard II. the licensed packet-boats conveyed passengers from Dover to Whitsand at the price of 6d. in summer, and 1s. in winter for a single person; for a horse, 1s. 6d. in summer, and 28. in winter. By an Act of Edward III. in 1336, nobody was allowed to go to the continent from any other port than Dover; this was repealed 4° Edward IV.

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3 "Quia lubricus erat."-Chr.Mailr. 4 Chr. T. Wyke. As he had given back some portion of his wealth to the Church by founding a monastery, he is praised as a prudent, circumspect man. M. Par. All his property, including his mansion of Sedgewick, co. of Sussex, which he had licence to embattle, 1259 (Rot. Pat.), were granted after his death to Simon de Montfort, junior. After the battle of Evesham, William de Braose claimed Sedgewick Castle, as escheated to him as lord; but after a lawsuit with him, it was restored in 1266 to John le Savage, in whose family it had long been; some fragments remain near Horsham.-See Sussex Arch. Coll. VIII. p. 35; Placit., p. 174; Rot. Pat. 47 Ĥ. III. 5 Near Daventry, in Northamptonshire, about 20 miles from Kenil worth.

6 Chr. Dunst.

I

unexpected results in the subsequent battle of Lewes. The barons thus temporarily deprived of their chief, wrote, Dec. 31, stating "that being occupied with other matters, they could not attend personally to carry on the mise, and therefore appointed Humphrey de Bohun, jun., Henry de Montfort, Peter de Montfort, and others', as their proxies for the purpose, inviting the King of France to explain his own ambiguous or obscure words." King Henry's oath to the mise was, in like manner, delivered by the proxy of John de la Lynde3, Knight. The discordant parties thus assembled at Amiens, having pleaded their opposite opinions in presence of King Louis IX., during several days, that Sovereign at length delivered his important judgment, with great solemnity, on the 23rd January, 1264.

The deed', which is still extant in the archives of Paris, recites with becoming precision the mutual agreement of the contending parties to accept his arbitration, and after thus authenticating his judicial trust, King Louis pronounces that, "having summoned the King and certain barons, and having heard the arguments on both sides, considering the Oxford Statutes and the results that had flowed from them, that much had been done against the right and honour of the King, to the disturbance of the kingdom, the depression and plunder of churches, with grievous damage done to aliens and natives, both clerical and laymen, and that probably worse might happen hereafter, we, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, annul and make void the Oxford Statutes and all regulations depending on them, more especially inasmuch as the Pope has already annulled them." He then

1 Adam de Neumarket, William le Mareschal, William le Blund, and Masters Thomas Cantilupe, Geoffry Cuberle, and Henry de Braunceston, clerks.-Rymer.

2 John de la Lynde was Justice of the Common Pleas, June 1266, and in 1267 was appointed by the King to act as seneschal in command of the city of London, with John Waleran,

then Constable of the Tower.-Fr. Chr. He was of Bolebrook, Sussex, which he died possessed of.-Inq. p. mort., 1273.

3 Hist. de Fr. Père G. Daniel. 4 The original is in Latin, dated Amiens, on the morrow of St Vincent, 1263.-Rymer. There is also a copy in Lib. de Antiq. Leg.

goes on to forbid all enmities on account of the non-observance of these Statutes, to order all castles to be given up to the King, who was to appoint his own ministers and household as freely as before, the statue of banishment against the aliens to be annulled, and the King to have full power and government in all and over all things as before. "We do not wish, however, or intend, by the present ordinance, to derogate in any thing from the royal privileges, charters liberties, statutes, and laudable customs of the kingdom, which existed before the Oxford Statutes;" desiring, in conclusion, that the King should be indulgent to the barons, and remit all rancour, as the barons, also, on their part should do, neither harassing the other.

Although the obvious meaning of this award seems plain and decisive, yet, as each party put their own construction upon it, and accepted that portion only favourable to their own views, without regard to the rest, it partook in some degree of the ambiguity of an ancient oracle in its effects. While one of the consulting parties could only recognize the total overthrow of the Oxford Statutes, the other noticed only the express reservation in full force of all the great charters of liberty, which those Statues had, in their opinion, only confirmed and enforced. The sanction given by the French decision to the employment of aliens in places of public trust seems the point most open to objection, as contrary to the laws and customs of England; but it seems strange that the high character for equity and chivalrous honour which the kingly arbitrator had established should have blinded the barons to the dangers necessarily attending an appeal to such a tribunal. Even without impugning his honesty, though contemporaries' spoke freely on that subject,

1 "O rex Francorum, multorum
causa dolorum,

Judex non rectus, ideo fis jure
rejectus."

-Polit. S. from MS. Cott., Otho D.
viii. "Rex Francie," " ut dicebatur

ob favorem Dominæ Reginæ et Domini Edwardi dictas provisiones quassavit omnino." "Barones ipsius corruptionem intelligentes."-Chr. Wi

gorn.

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