THE FIRST KING OF ENGLAND. *
[SECOND NOTICE.]
THE two counts in the indictment against Edward VII., are his achieved conquest of Wales, and his attempted conquest of Scotland. We will briefly state the two cases, following our author in his vindication of his royal client.
The Welsh ease comes first. In the reign of Henry III., the Welsh had in arms nearly 30,000 men and 500 knights. From their mountain fastnesses they poured into Cheshire or Hereford- shire, wasting the country with fire and sword, "giving them- selves up," says Matthew Paris "to slaughter, incendiarism and pillage, till they had reduced the whole border to an unhabitable desert." At Edward's coronation the Prince of Wales was sum- moned, as Edward's acknowledged vassal, to do homage for his crown. Llewellyn disregarded the summons, alleging that a jour- ney to London would expose him to personal danger. "Slow to all manner of strife," Edward offered to meet Llewellyn at Shrewsbury. The Welsh Prince again raised objections, and had Edward been unscrupulous or restlessly ambitious, he might at once "have sent a peremptory summons, and on Llewellyn's con- tinued disobedience have pronounced him contumacious and. his fief a forfeiture." It was thus that Philip of France, possessed himself of Normandy, when John failed to appear before him ; and Edward, had he chosen, could have followed the usual pre- cedent. Instead of this, Edward, after first consulting with his Parliament, summoned Llewellyn a third time, considerately selecting Chester for the interview from its convenient proximity to his Snowdon home. The Welsh Prince was again recusant, rejecting Edward's safe conduct and declining to quit his resi- dence unless he had sent to hint as hostages, the King's son, the Chancellor, and the Earl of Gloucester— a demand, which one historian justly describes as insolent." The negotiations, now suspended, were eventually renewed by Llewellyn himself, who demanded a safe conduct, guaranteed by certain ecclesiastical and spiritual dignitaries, whom he specified, required the Queen with all her attendants to be sent to him, and proposed Montgomery or Oswestry as the rendezvous. On the receipt of this insolent com- munication, Parliament immediately declared Llewellyn contuma- cious. Two years had now been spent in fruitless attempts to bring the Welsh Prince to adopt a rational course. One more effort was made at mediation. A persuasive letter was addressed to the Welsh Prince by the archbishop. Unfortunately, it had no better success than the preceding efforts, and the King prepared for war. What else could he do ? Was he to surrender the rights of the English Crown ? Was he to sacrifice the interests of the English people by a virtual permission to the Prince of Wales to perpetuate the terrible border hostilities ? Llewellyn had been six times summoned, and, prior to his arrogant proposition, a pacific episcopal mission had been resorted to ; but all to no pur- pose! The war commenced. With the approach of winter, Llewellyn asked for peace. Edward, with all England to support him, might have compelled his rebellious vassal to surrender at dis- cretion. But, ever moderate and clement, be granted the request for peace ; he restored Llewellyn to his forfeited principality ; he remitted the fine he had exacted ; he gave up the stipulated-tri- bute for Auglesea ; he sent back the hostages he had demanded. More than this,—he created the rival and brother of Llewellyn an English earl, married him to an earl's daughter, and gave him the equivalent of a rent-roll of 15,000/. a year. What was the result ?—the sudden and treacherous resumption of active hos- tilities under the two brothers now for the first time reconciled ! But even then Edward was ready to entertain pacific propositions. The Archbishop again tendered his services. The 'Welsh print* then handed in a list of grievances. Before redressing them,— assuming that they were boni fide grievances,—Edward required submission. Under the circumstances, could he have required. less ?
• The Greatest of all She Plantagenet*. An Historical Sketch. Published by Bentley. .
[The ascription of the work now reviewed to the pen of Sir Augustos Clifford, in our last number, was undesigned. The name had been inserted provisionally, and was inadvertently allowed to remain ; though we were satisfied, before going to press, that the now suppressed nom de plume was a pseudonym.]
Llewellyn now broke into open rebellion ; his death in an irregular skirmish terminated the war ; the principality of Wales was forfeited ; and, in uniting it to England, Edward consulted the best interests of both countries. "This incorporation, says Mr. Sharon Turner, "was =unquestionable blessing to Wales. That country ceased immediately to be the theatre of homicide and dis- tress, and began to imitate the English habits."
Such is the Welsh ease, in skeleton. Those who wish to follow it in all its completeness, must turn to the impartial present- ment in the volume before us.
We come now to the Scottish case. On the death of Alexander, the succession devolved on his grand-daughter, the young maiden of Norway. The Estates of the realm of Scotland, after a formal consultation, applied to Edward, then in Gascony. Far from giving any indication of restless ambition, Edward counselled them to choose a regency, and carry on the government in the Queen's name. A regency accordingly was chosen ; but in the absence of a visible'sovereign, the contingent claimants of the Crown advanced from rivalry to confederacy, and from confede- racy to open war. The adherents of Baliol and Bruce for two years after the death of the Scottish king, continued their ravages in the country ; on Edward's return from the continent, the Earl of Mar, Robert Bruce, and the "seven earls of Scotland," appealed to the King of England and his royal crown. Hume pronounces the project of marriage between the Prince of Wales and the Maiden of Norway, which Edward proposed, "favourable to the happiness and grandeur of both kingdoms." This plan was un- fortunately defeated by the death of the young queen.
Thereon, the Bishop of St. Andrews, the first on the list of the guardians of the realm, wrote to Edward, entreating his interposi- tion. The regents the states, and even the competitors agreed, says Dr. Henry, to refer this great controversy to the King of England. Thus invoked, Edward consented to adjudicate on the claims of the rival candidates at Norham. Hume says he carried with him a great army. This appears to be piegaresque.fiction No. 1. Edward, indeed, summoned fifty-eight of his military retainers in the Northern counties, among them two Baliols, Comyn, and Bruce, to meet him with a few thousand men at Norham in the beginning of .Tune. Meanwhile, on the 10th of May, the King appeared at the appointed place of meeting with his ordinary retinue. In determining the succession to the Scottish throne, Edward undoubtedly intended to settle another question. Was Scotland a fief of the crown of England ? We cannot go into the details of this question. There are points which we could wish that our author had discussed, as the alleged renunciation, by Richard Cmur de Lion, of the homage which William undoubtedly paid for Scotland, and the violent menace with which, according to Hume, who refers to Hentinyford, Edward assailed the Scotch barons. Leaving these and one or two similar points unsettled, we may at least assume that Edward believed in his own pretensions. He claimed to be lord paramount ; and Sir Francis Palgrave observes, that when the representatives of Scotland appealed to the king of England and his royal crown, it was not easy for him to doubt if he was the lawful owner of the domain. However this be, Edward frankly told the assembled nobles that it was as lord paramount that he had come among them ; and that, there should be no mistake, he asked whether they heartily recognized him as such. From the king's remark, that they were not ignorant of his intentions, it would appear that he had made no secret of his views or purposes. Finding them unprepared with an answer, Edward dismissed them for three weeks to their home. What fraud, what surprise was there here ! They had sufficient delay accorded them to collect a defensive force wherewith to return to the Tweed in June, if they decided on recognizing Edward merely as umpire, and not as superior lord. Such is the reasoning of our historian.
A second great meeting took place in June. Robert Bruce, John Baliol, and all the competitors then solemnly acknowledged the superiority of the English king ; and, together with the guar- dians of the kingdom, and numerous earls, barons, and knights, swore fealty to Edward as lord paramount. The assembly was then adjourned till the 2d of August, to be readjourned till June in the following year. Finally, after three other adjournments, Edward on 17th of November, 1292, declared in favour of John Baliol, undoubtedly the rightful claimant, according to the esta- blished rule of hereditary succession. "So ended this great trans- action, and even Hume is obliged to admit that the conduct of Edward, both in the deliberate solemnity of the proceeding, and in the justice of the award, was so far unexceptionable.'"
Had Edward really cherished the ulterior designs imputed to him, he had two opportunities of carrying them into effect ; first, when in conformity with feudal usage the castles or fortresses of the kingdom were given into his hands ; provided, that is' he had with him an armed force sufficiently great to overawe the Scottish representatives ; and a second time, when two of the competitors, De Hastings and Bruce, "alleged that the kingdom of Scotland was partible, and ought to be divided among the descendants of the three daughters." In disproval of certain other charges im- peaching Edward's honour, we may observe, that Brace was the first that acknowledged the English king's right of superiority over Scotland, that Bruce as well as Baliol was an English baron, and the more English of the two; that he had for many years sat as a judge in Westminster Hall ; and that he and his son were in some sense personal friends of the king's.
There is, in fact, no evidence, as bah Rapin and Sharon Turner allow, tending to show that Edward at the outset contemplated the incorporation of Scotland. To be the lord paramount or
feudal sovereign of Scotland, to "render that kingdom dependent on England," in which, says Rapin, he did but follow the steps of most of his predecessors, "was the sole primary object of Ed- ward." Had he attained this object, he would have attained also the end to which it was the means, "a termination of the pre- datory wars which had always desolated the borders of the two kingdoms," through the establishment of a new and sacred bond of amity. "The facts," continues Turner, "that/or four years Edward did nothing incompatible with the continuance of the Scottish royalty, and that it was the wilful hostility of Scotland itself which forced him into the field against it, afford reasonable evidence that the line which we have drawn, was the limitation of his ambition."
We regret that we cannot follow this interesting argument, step by step, to its final issue. We are compelled, however, by the exigence of space, to forbear. Our historian's pages must themselves supply our deficiencies. The question of the independence of Scotland was decided at Bannockburn ; Scotland was to have her own separate history ; her six great defeats ; her wretched Stuart family : her border raids for centuries to come, to her sore affliction and our own. As a question of policy, Edward's proposed incorporation would have been a blessing to her and to us.
We have read this "Historical Sketch," with great interest and some admiration. Our author writes vigorously and point- edly. He is a fair historian, or, at least, an able historiographer. If we have still some few reservations as to the verdicts which he delivers, we do not hesitate to say, that his excul- pation of his hero is in the main successful. Even if occasional failure could be proved against him, we should still see in Edward a wise, sagacious, patriotic monarch ; a faithful, affectionate, genial man ; a man of kingly powers and noble industry ; a man who, while slow to all manner of strife, was yet "in arms a giant-2. excellent acts doing by dint of sword "—a man, in short, worthy to be called the Greatest of the Plantagenets, and to wear the splendid title, in the moral as well as in the literal sense, of The First English Xing.
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