358

TYRANNY OF THE BARONS.

But after the separation of the Parliament, the barons, under the pretext that they had yet abuses to reform and laws to administer, refused to resign their power; and not content with retaining it illegally, they employed it to their own advantage. Their acts and laws had no other object than their own personal interest. Without knowing it, they were acting ruinously to themselves, for they detached from their party that part of the population which clearly apprehended their designs. Two laws especially alienated the minds of the people from them; one of these laws took away from the sheriffs the right to fine those barons who should refuse to present themselves at the county courts, or at the assizes held by the judges in circuit. The second decided that the judges' circuits should only take place every seven years.

These measures opened the eyes of the people, and they speedily abandoned the authors of them. One fact may prove how far their tyranny had been already exercised at the expense of the country. A deputation was sent to Prince Edward in the name of the English bachelors (communitatis bachelaria Anglia), praying him to compel the barons to finish their work and fulfil their promises, as the king had fulfilled his. The prince replied that he had sworn fidelity to the Acts of Oxford, and that he was resolved to keep his oath. Nevertheless, he demanded of the barons that they should resign their power, threatening if they refused, to compel them to do so, and to take into his hands the interests of the community.

What was this communitas bachelaria Angliæ? There is reason to believe that by this name, the body of knights of shires represented themselves. We see by this that the great barons had alienated from themselves this class of men, and that the king had begun to attach them to his party.

From these facts we see that besides the two great powers anciently established, the nobility and royalty, a third power had been formed at this period, which alternately inclined to one or other of these rival powers, and which already exercised a strong influence, since it ensured victory to the party in whose favour it might pronounce.

HENRY III. AND HIS PARLIAMENT.

359

LECTURE XII.

Struggle between Henry III. and his Parliament.-Arbitration of Saint Louis.-The Earl of Leicester heads the great barons in their struggle with the king.-He is defeated and killed at Evesham (1265). Admission of deputies from towns and boroughs into Parliament (1264).-Royalist reaction.-Leicester's memory remains popular.

WE have seen how, in the midst of the struggles between royalty and the feudal aristocracy, an intermediate class arose, a new but already imposing power, and how the two contending powers each felt the necessity of securing an alliance with this third power; we have now to follow, by the examination of authentic documents, that is to say, of the writs and laws of the period, the progress of this new class, which we shall find taking an increasingly active part in the government of the country.

We have seen how the twenty-four barons, who were commissioned to reform the constitution of the kingdom, abusing the power which they thus held in trust, had refused, in spite of the king and the country, to resign their dictatorship. This refusal soon excited violent dissensions between them and the king, and civil war was on the point of being again enkindled. In 1261, Henry sent writs to several sheriffs, enjoining them to send to him, at Windsor, the three knights of each shire who had been summoned to St. Albans by the Earl of Leicester and his party. These writs plainly show that the king and the barons endeavoured more than ever to conciliate the body of knights, and that the king had then succeeded in attaching them to his party.

Henry sought yet another assistance. On his entreaty, the Pope released him from his oath of fidelity to the Acts of Oxford. Delivered from his scruples, Henry now openly

360

ARBITRATION OF ST. LOUIS.

broke off his agreements with the barons, and again possessed himself of the reins of government. In 1262, he convoked a Parliament at Westminster, that his authority might be sustained by its sanction. He met with but little opposition: wishing, however, to deprive the barons of every motive for revolt, he agreed to leave the adjustment of their claims to the judgment of an arbitrator. The great renown for wisdom and equity which Saint Louis possessed pointed him out as the best judge in this important dispute. Accordingly Henry and his barons agreed to abide by his

decision.

Saint Louis assembled his great council at Amiens, and after careful deliberations, he recorded a judgment by which the Acts of Oxford were to be annulled, and the king to be placed again in possession of his castles, as well as of the right to nominate his own counsellors. But as he was equally careful to preserve the lawful prerogatives of the English people and those of the crown, Saint Louis gave his formal approval to all the ancient privileges, charters, and liberties of England, and proclaimed an absolute and reciprocal amnesty for both parties.

Scarcely had this decision been made known than Leicester and his party refused to submit to it, and took up arms for the purpose of seizing by force that which had been refused to them by justice. Civil war was recommenced with much animosity, but it was not of long duration. Leicester surprised the royalist army at Lewes, in the county of Sussex, on the 14th of May, 1264. Henry and his son Edward, being vanquished and taken prisoners, were constrained to receive the terms offered them by the conqueror. The conditions which he imposed were severe, but he did not assume to himself the right of settling the reforms that were to be made in the government; he only retained as hostages the brother and son of the king, and left to Parliament the care of settling political questions. Ideas respecting the legal authority of Parliaments, and the illegitimacy of force in matters relating to government, must have made considerable progress, when we find that the victorious Earl of Leicester did not venture to regulate on his own sole responsibility the plan of administration for the kingdom.

GOVERNMENT OF LEICESTER.

361

He did not, however, scruple to exercise other rights which did not belong to him any more than these. Under the king's name, who, though to all appearance set at liberty, did in fact remain his prisoner, Leicester governed the kingdom. In each county he created extraordinary magistrates, called preservers of the peace. Their duties were almost identical with those of the sheriffs, but their power was of much wider range. Leicester enjoined them to cause four knights to be elected in each county, and to send them to the Parliament which was to meet at London in June 1264.

This Parliament assembled and passed a decree which was designed to organize the government. This decree constrained the king to follow in everything the advice of a council composed of nine members, nominated by three principal electors, the Earls of Leicester and Gloucester, and the Bishop of Winchester.

Leicester still remained the real head of the State. In the midst of his power he was troubled by alarming disturbances; powerful preparations to oppose him were being made in France. These attempts were unsuccessful, and Leicester, in order to anticipate any fresh opposition, undisguisedly sought protection from that part of the population, which was every day becoming more numerous and powerful, the middle classes. On the 14th of December 1264, he summoned a Parliament, and gave to it all the extent which it has since preserved, that is to say, he called to it the peers, county deputies, and also borough deputies. This innovation was intended to conciliate popular favour, and Leicester did not relax in his endeavours to preserve it. Relieved from royal authority, he wished also to free himself from the aristocracy by whose assistance he had conquered the king. He turned his tyranny against the great barons who were not pliant to his caprices. He confiscated their lands, no longer summoned them to Parliament, and annoyed them in a thousand ways in their persons and their rights. But this was the infatuated course of a conqueror intoxicated by success. As soon as the royal power and the aristocracy combined against him, Leicester was obliged to yield. On the 28th of May, 1266, Prince Edward escaped from his confinement, raised an army against Leicester, and offered

362

BATTLE OF EVESHAM.

him battle on the 4th of August at Evesham. Leicester was defeated and killed in the combat. His conduct was, though factious, yet great and bold, so that he may be called the founder of representative government in England, for, while he struggled at one time against the king, at another time against the barons who were rivals to himself, he hastened the progress of the middle classes, and definitely established for them a place in the national assembly.

Henry, delivered from slavery by the death of Leicester, recovered his power and used it with moderation. Several Parliaments were convoked during the last years of his reign, but it is not proved that any deputies from the counties and boroughs sat in them. There is even reason for thinking that, in the midst of the disorder that then prevailed in the kingdom, the trouble of convoking them, which was always tedious and difficult, was dispensed with. The Parliament held at Winchester on the 8th of September 1265, in which the confiscation of the goods of the rebels was granted to the king, was composed entirely of prelates and barons. This also was the case with regard to that which was convened by the king at Kenilworth, the 22nd of August, 1266, in which, after the rigour of the confiscations had been somewhat moderated, the Acts of Oxford were annulled, but the charters were solemnly confirmed. Nor do we find that deputies were present at the Parliament held at St. Edmundsbury in 1267; but they were admitted to that held at Marlborough, convened in 1269, to which were called "the wisest in the kingdom, as well those belonging to a lower as to a higher rank." Two years afterwards the deputies from counties and boroughs were summoned to a grand ceremony, in order to transfer the remains of Edward the Confessor to a tomb which the king had caused to be prepared in Westminster Abbey. After the ceremony a Parliament assembled; but it is uncertain whether or not the deputies had a place in it. This fact, however, does not the less prove the great importance which had at this time been acquired by the towns, and the habit which had been gradually established of summoning their deputies on all great occasions.

Such are the facts of the reign of Henry III. which relate to the introduction of county deputies into Parliament.