ROYAL LETTERS.*
THE letters which Mr. Shirley has published supply a great gap in the history of the middle ages. A series of invaluable publi- cations under the Old Record Commission gave us the Patent and Close rolls, the Tower charters, the Exchequer receipts and disbursements, the Norman accounts, aud a portion of the crimi-
nal and civil records of King John's reign. Unmatched and unmatchable in any country, the collection was being continued under the happiest auspices, and the whole official history of the thirteenth century would have been disinterred had not a sudden cry for retrenchment been raised. The national memorials were, of course, the first thing sacrificed, and in several instances books
were left uncompleted, while in one, at least, a printed volume was withdrawn almost instantly from circulation. The series
now issuing is a slight, but by no means a full compensation for the lose then sustained. Several chronicles have been published at full length, whose entire value might have been given in a thin book of excerpts. A fatal rule for some time forbade the publication of anything already printed, even though, like Bacon's "Opus Majus ; or, the Chronicle of Dunstaple," it might be prac- tically unattainable ; and the first relaxation of the rule has been in favour of Walsingham's" Chronicle,' a sufficiently common book, and of no very high value in its earlier parts. We notice this fault of management, because it is evident that Mr. Shirley's volume has suffered very much by it. He has felt that the letters he is editing demanded illustration, and, being forbidden to add historical notes, lie has wisely smuggled in a number of documents, which the reader must have sought in a dozen different and difficult sources : in the " Documens Inedits " of Champollion Figeac, in Papal letters and bulls, or in our own unpublished Patent and Close rolls. Still lie has not ven- tured, or, we suspect, has not been allowed, to carry out this principle to its legitimate extent. For instance, several letters in the present collection turn on the famous quairel with Faukes de &Saute, Shakespeare's Faulconbridge, which ended in the expulsion of that turbulent adventurer from England.
But the most important State paper on the subject, the memorial which Faukes de Braute addressed to the Pope in justification of his conduct, is not given. We call it the most im- portant, because true or false, it is a narrative of the whole quarrel between the Government and the barons from the op- position point of view. Its length, and the fact that it has been published in the Bannatyne edition of the " Lanercost Chronicle," are, no doubt, the reasons which have induced or compelled Mr. Shirley to omit it. The result is, that students of the period must make the study of the sources of English history a separate part of their education, whereas the same expenditure, with a little method, would have given them all substantially important materials in a dozen volumes at most for any reign.
In saying this, we are not blaming the Master of the Rolls for not reverting to the plan discontinued in 18:36. We are quite aware that the mass of material for Henry M.'s reign is far too vast to be printed in its entirety. But it would be perfectly possible for trained and judicious editors like Mr. Hardy, Pro- fessor Brewer, or Mr. Shirley, to make a selection of all docu- ments of importance bearing on a critical period, or on any single reign. This would, in fact, be a republication of Rymer's " Fcedera," with the single but important difference, that every period should be kept separate. In the "New Rymer," now known to be inadequate and inaccurate, 350 folio pages are devoted to the fifty-seven years of Henry ITL's reign. At a little sacrifice of the luxurious margins and type now adopted, which no scholar would regret, these might pro- bably, be given in a single volume, such as Mr. Shirley's, or,
• Royal and other Historical Letters, illustrative of the Reign of Beery ILL Selected and edited by the Rev. W. W. Shirley, ).LA., under the direction of the Master of the Longman.
at most, in one and a half, and six or eight such, with a catalogue of all unprinted material, would amply satisfy his- torians. An obvious arrangement would be to keep the affairs of Ireland and France separate from those of England. The money required for the purpose might easily be economized if books like " Capgrave," "John of Oxenedes," and the " Eulo- glum Historiarum," were simply excerpted, instead of being given in full ; or if care were taken that no work should again be given to the less competent scholar when the more competent has it in the University Press.
The volume before us is an excellent instance of the light that may be thrown upon history by the publication of new material. Take, for instance, the relations of England with the Papacy. Every one knows that they were never more vexatious than in the reign of Henry III., when the barons and gentry had to form Committees of Public Safety, as they would now be called in America, for doing summary justice on the foreign collectors, who were draining England of its wealth. But few, probably, have thought of connecting this fact with John's ignominious surrender of his crown. Mr. Shirley's volume supplies the mis- sing link, and he draws attention to it in a very able preface. Both as suzerain of England and by John's special testamentary dispositions, the Pope was guardian of the young Henry III., and, of course, also of his estate, England. In different times the claim might never have been pressed. But the triumph of the Royalists was due in so large a measure to the Pope and the Papal Legate, who had thrown the whole weight of Rome into the scale, that gratitude and policy combined to make them the first power in the country. While the Earl Marshal was alive, and during the legateship of Gualo, the council seems to have been fairly independent. But when the Earl Marshal was succeeded by Hubert de Burgh, a new man, and the weak Gualo by the resolute and ambitious Pandulph, neither primate nor justiciary could hold their own against the imperious foreigner ; " Whereas " he once writes to the justiciary, "you have told me that Marlborough Castle is being fortified, we order you to cause letters to be sent without any loss or delay, strictly forbidding the Marshal to fortify or strengthen the said castle in any way." "Let no money be paid out of the Ex- chequer without my knowledge or order ; " be writes on another occasion to the acting Chancellor. This intolerable assumption of power culminated in an attempt to nominate a governor of Gascony and Guienne against the wish of the cities in the pro- vinces, and against the better opinion of the majority in the English Council. Stephen Langton in despair applied to Rome, and partly, no doubt, by remonstrances, partly, in all likelihood, by bribes, procured a revocation of the injurious legative power so long as he should be alive. Yet Rome was still recognized as the Court of Appeal. It was to Rome that the Ministry sent to pro- cure orders for the surrender of the royal castles, or to have the King no longer declared a minor. The prestige of Papal authority even survived the term of guardianship, no doubt chiefly through the superstition inherent in Henry's character. It grates on every English feeling to hear of the Pope issuing a commission to decide whether the Grand Justiciary of England had, or had not, opposed the collection of Papal dues, (1232.) As late as 1245 the importance attached by the English delegates in the Council of Lyons to the annulling of the Charter of Submission, shows that they connected it specially with the extortions they com- plained of. In fact, so far as monarchy was an estate, the Pope had acquired the rights of a landlord over England. It is only by understanding this, and by remembering that our barons and gentry were as impatient then as they would be now of foreign dominion, that we can understand how the century of Grostete and of the Franciscans, in which benefit of the clergy was first in- disputably established, was also that in which a stern haired of Rome was burned, as it were, into the soul of every Englishman. Another very important point elucidated by Mr. Shirley's letter, is the conditions under which private war was possible in England. Our knowledge of this subject has hitherto been lamentably imperfect. The popular belief is that every feudal baron lived in a castle, surrounded by armed retainers, whom he employed to rob merchants or attack his neighbours, as interest or humour dictated. " Every offended baron," says Robertson, "buckled on his armour and sought redress at the bead of his vassals. His adversary met him in like hostile array. Neither of them appealed to impotent laws, which could afford them no protection." Hume takes the same view in his spirited romance, and speaks of "the daily inroads and ittjuries committed by the neighbouring barons." Modern research has ruthlessly destroyed this 'statue of an impossible society. It is now well known that "the right to have fortified houses or castles," to quote Mr. Kemble, was monopolized in Norman times by our kings, and "extended to their adherents and favourites by special licence." The policy of the first Plantagenets, we may add, was to commit them to foreign mercenaries or offi- cials. As regards private war, Ordericus Vitalis calls it an unwonted offence (crimen inusitatum) in England, and always ex- piated by heavy punishment. Glanville observes that a lord could not oblige his tenant to fight in a private cause for him. Under Edward III, the judges even went so far as to declare the offence treason, on the ground that it was an accroaching of the royal prerogative; and though Parliamentmodified the rigour of this decision, they left it felony or trespass, as the case might be. The practice of the country of course differed under a weak and a strong Government. Men with arms in their hands and with interest at Court, were not always willing to leave their wrongs to be redressed by the Royal Justiciaries, and, times of civil war in particular, were invariably complicated with private feuds. During the minority of Henry III., the royal castles were unhappily in the hands of the native nobility, and a certain amount of feudal anarchy was the consequence. The best instance of the state of things prevailing may be gathered from a letter of Faukes de Breaute, ci-devant Norman adventurer, and actual English baron, "to my dearest lord and friend, Hubert de Burgh, Justiciary.'' We give an abstract of the letter, as the best way of rendering its contents faithfully :—" My bailiffs in Devonshire tell me that W. Briwere the younger, Robert Comte- nay, and many other nobles of Cornwall and Devonshire, have had a meeting in Exeter, to confederate against me, and proposed to ravage my lands. But the same day they got letters from the Earl of Salisbury, saying that he had concluded a truce with me till a fortnight after Easter, as he wanted to go
into Lincolnshire. My bailiff, accordingly, wished to trans- port corn from my manor of Exminster (near Exeter) to my Castle of Plimpton. Robert Courtenay, however, stopped the ship, and imprisoned and flogged the captain, saying he had a brief from the King to forbid all shipments of corn from that port. Surely, any respectable man (probus homo) may move his corn from one part of his property to another? Pray order R. Courte- nay to give up the corn and man, and to abstain from interfering." In this unique document it must be borne in mind that the writer is a foreigner, and that he probably addresses the Justiciary as a private friend. Not having Hubert de Burgh's answer, we cannot tell whether he acquiesced in the tacit assumption that troops might be raised, castles besieged, and battles fought without warrant from the Crown. But the evident respect for the King's writ in such times and by such a man as De Breaute is remarkable, and shows that the Crown was still the first power in the kingdom. With the expulsion of Faukes three years later it recovtred all its old authority, and private war ceases to be heard of, except as an incident of rebellion.
We have probably said enough to show the interest and value of Mr. Shirley's publication. But our space has only allowed us to touch on two of the principal points in which these letters add to our conception of history. Our relations with the French towns are curiously lighted up by many documents in the volume. Again, the personal character of men like Llewellyn of Wales, or Faukes de Breaute, who till now have been mere names to us, comes out with broad and life-like traits in these portraitures by their own hand. Our power of dealing with the conflicting evi- dence of the times is literally doubled by the presence of these psychological data for appreciating character. If the second volume be as full proportionally on the period of the second barons' war, Mr. Shirley will have deserved the historical coun- terpart to the civic crown, " ob cives servatos," "for our country- men given back to us."
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