ESTIMATES OF THE ENGLISH KINGS.

XL—EDWARD III.

FEW English -Kings have left behind them so great a reputation in the Chroniclers, and yet few Kings are so slightly deli- neated in their personal characteristics as Edward III. Everybody thinks of him as a sort of impersonation of the spirit of chivalry, but beyond this, few, we believe, have any definite ideas concern- ing him, and beyond this the chroniclers themselves preserve to us but few traits. Their antithetical summaries of his character are but faintly discriminating panegyrics, which approach too much to the nature of tomb-stone memorials to be very useful in an analysis of the man, though they may give us some general idea of his stamp as a King. And it is, in fact, only through a considera- tion of his kingly qualities that we can at all deduce any idea of the personal character of Edward. He began to reign, with the cares at least, if not the responsibilities of a ruler, from his very boyhood, and his personal life was so interwoven with that of the nation, that to separate the two is impossible, until the shadows of his last melancholy years obscure the kingly presence, and leave only the wretched and common-place picture of a doting and disreputable old man. His reputation, which was for so many centuries looked upon as an integral part of the national treasury of glory, has of late years suffered a considerable diminu- tion in the estimates of historians, and we are inclined to think to a somewhat unjust extent ; for though we are not disposed to dispute the truth of the verdict which displaces him from the pinnacle he so long occupied as the greatest of our Kings, we still think that a character may be safely assigned to him which places him decidedly above the average of English Royalty. The modern reaction against mere military glory, and the idea that Edward engaged in his French and Scotch wars through ambition or mere love of fighting, and was himself nothing more than a brave knight, have, we believe, carried away some able writers from a.

wider and fairer consideration of his qualities, and have reduced their estimate to something like a rather prosy sermon against selfish ambition and bloodshed.

Edward M.'s character stands in a very remarkable relation as well as contrast to that of his father. Edward II., as we have already seen, was a bad copy and imperfect realization of a fine character. In Edward III. the copy was successfully achieved, and the conception was realized, but the substratum of character was much the same in both. In both the m.3thetic and sensuous elements were predominant,—the love of pomp and luxury, the pleasure of outward display, and the appreciation of what are -considered the refinements and mere ornaments of life. In the character of each there was latent a feeling that the King should be the social leader of the nation he governed, even mere than her commander in war and her administrator in peace. In neither of them was there the originality or the incisive force of Edward I. The character of both was moulded to a considerable extent by external circumstances, from which, however, one alone drew lessons of wise experience. All three were capable of committing great acts of cruelty, but the cruelty which in the First Edward resulted from an outliurst of ungovernable fury in a forgiving -nature, was in his two successors the dictate of a settled resent- ment, which in the Second Edward was furtive yet implacable, in the Third Edward was open and hard to be appeased. But in the Third Edward the pageant and pomp of life rose into a stately magnificence, contrasting with, bat not unworthy of comparison -with, the simpler stateliness of his grandfather, and far above the tinsel of his wretched father. His luxurious tendencies were for the greater part of his life relieved from reproach and ennobled by :being associated with great purposes and energetic enterprises. He made himself the social centre, not of a little set of unworthy -favourites, but (in all but his closing years) of the entire nation, which he refined without demoralizing. His msthetic tastes found Tent in great architectural achievements, and his natural courtesy -of demeanour never sank into undue familiarity, but preserved the -character of dignified though easy condescension. He, in fact, was a high-bred gentleman in every sense of the term. But the -decay of his faculties disclosed the inherent similarity in the tone of character between father and son, and the decline of Edward III. approximated to the prime of Edward II.

The personal appearance of Edward HE. assimilated with his type of character. He had not indeed the physical presence of his „grandfather, for he was not above the middle height, yet such was the dignity of his bearing that contemporaries seem to have been -equally impressed. He did not inspire awe, but he secured ad- miration and respect. He must have been very attractive, and his countenance appears to have fascinated spectators. He had handsome features, like his father, but they were animated with the most expressive and noble sweetness. His panegyrists speak -of his expression as divine, and we can well conceive that the -union of lofty courtesy and genial brightness in his looks -exercised a spell over those around him which may partly justify this flattering exaggeration of language. We are told that he loved hunting and hawking, but his favourite recreations from the cares of royalty were the chivalrous and martial exercises of the period—tournaments—in which he was himself a most accomplished proficient. Again and again, when the vizor of the successful champion was raised at the conclusion of the contest; the assembled crowds were excited to fresh enthusiasm by dis-

-covering that the unknown knight was no other than the King -himself. And tournaments had a bearing and value much beyond the mere exhibition of a childish pageant. They brought together -all classes of society, and bound them, for the time at least, in a connecting link of common tastes and enjoyments. The King -emerged from his palace, the great baron left the dismal seclusion -of his feudal castle, the citizen quitted his workshop, and the peasant abandoned his plough, and all met together on the -same platform of a common enjoyment and a common expecta- tion. Such bonds of society were especially valuable in an age -emerging from an exclusive and oligarchical feudalism, and pass- ing into a state of society of which wealth and hereditary rank were the bases, in place of military tenures. It was this transitional -character which imparted its charm to the age of chivalry, for while it retained all the romance of arms, it blended with these many of the softer and more graceful features of a higher civiliza- tion. The rules of courtesy and the obligations of humanity were still indeed placed on a very limited basis, so far as class distinctions were concerned, and the ideas which were inculcated by this code were often fantastic and extravagant ; but the tree once planted, however unsteadily, soon became fixed in the earth and spread- ing its roots far and wide, passed beyond the limits of one soil,

and drew from this more varied nurture a more luxuriant and a healthier growth.

But Edward III. was not only in sympathy with, but beyond his age in this point of view. He represented faith- fully, as we have said, the spirit of chivalry, but he also anticipated to some extent the predominant feeling of the age which chivalry was ushering in. He did not, it is true, like his father, seek to gratify his sociable tendencies by lowering him- self to the familiar intercourse of men of low rank and habits ; on the contrary, he made companions and associates, in peace as well as in war, of his great barons and their sons, and he thus broke more effectually the strength of the feudal array, by drawing its members away from the independence of their local territorial

influence, than his predecessors had ever been able to do by force or by fraud. The great baron, who previously prided himself on being bound to the Crown only by strictly-defined feudal obliga- tions, was now comparatively powerless under the spell of personal association with the King and common sympathies and aspira- tions. Attendance on the Royal wars was no longer the grudging discharge of a tax upon property, but the opening of a field of dis- tinction on which, by personal feats, a European reputation might be established far excelling the narrow pride of a local baronial position. But Edward did not contract his sympathies to the limits of this baronial companionship, but gratified his hereditary predilections by also associating himself, without losing his due position, with the mass of the population, and especially with the middle class. He lived in public, in the sight of the nation, see- ing habitually and exchanging courtesies with all classes, without lowering himself to the rank of any, though he naturally preferred the closer and more congenial companionship of the higher classes. His urbanity and his accessibility are spoken of in marked tones by the chroniclers, and from those qualities, after all, was derived the great reputation which descended to posterity in connection with his name. But beyond this, he has the merit of per- ceiving the rising influence of the middle-class, and of inter- esting himself warmly in the progress of their commercial prosperity. He fostered the establishment of commercial guilds and companies, granted fresh privileges to civic corporations, and regulated his foreign alliances to a considerable extent by considera- tions of commercial advantage. The foreign commerce of Eng- land was protected by the assemblage of formidable fleets ; the complaints against or on behalf of English merchant ships became a prominent point in international negotiations, and the rivalries of English and foreign commerce became an important element in the national policy. Again, though Edward's personal associates were of the aristocratic class, he turned for support in his govern- ment, and he recognized a responsibility in his administration to the middle-classes, as represented in the House of Commons, and especially to the representatives of the boroughs. He anticipated the Tudors in making, if possible, Parliament the accomplice in his public acts, and he sought even to engage their complicity in his foreign policy by an artful appeal for their advice, which the wise Commons respectfully declined to give. And he recognized in the House of Commons the dominant element in the Parliament. He did not seek to crush the other orders ; on the contrary, he recognized them each in their natural spheres of influence, but in Parliament he recognized the especial sphere of the middle-classes, and he respected and negotiated with them here accordingly. During the reign of Edward II. the struggle had been mainly between the Crown and the feudal Barons, and Parliament had been little else than a conclave of armed vassals of the Crown, who browbeat others or were browbeaten in their turn by an attendance of armed retainers. But in the reign of Edward III. — though (especially towards the close of his reign) the struggle between prerogative and liberty was nearly as vivid—the scene of contest was the floor of the House of Commons, and the King and the Barons were but accessories, or at best leaders, in struggles in which the benches of the House of Commons were canvassed by both parties for the decision of the quarrel. Edward I. had so far recognized the coming times as to collect irregular and special little parliaments of traders and employers of labour, to give him advice on matters connected with their pursuits, and to assess for him his extraordinary taxation. But laxation had been so palpably the main object of these ap- peals, that the middle-class was very shy of responding to them.

Edward III. pursued the same policy, but he made it also the guiding rule of Royal proclamations and of the enactments which

his Ministers proposed in Parliament, and he assigned to the middle-class an authority on national as well as special legislation. He had the wisdom to encourage all corporate representations of the middle-class, and to recognize in them a conservative instead of a

subversive element of government. He thus (as long as his mind remained unimpaired) rendered himself the King of the middle- classes as much as of the nobles ; and he based his national militia quite as much on the one as on the other. The artizans and yeomen of England were not, as in France, the mere supernumeraries of the army, but its substantial strength. To have seen and acted thus is not the character of a mere Knight-Errant, and however great may have been the shortcomings of Edward in other respects, the basis of his character must be widened to allow for this broader statesmanship.

The pages of Froissart and the other chroniclers of this period are so full of illustrations of the chivalric qualities of Edward III., and also of the less pleasing manifestations of a temperament in which the severer tone of Edward I. supersedes for a time the gentler features of his grandson's mind, that we should only weary our readers by the repetition. The scene after the taking of Calais is well known,—and the latest and most conscientious his- torian of Edward (Mr. William Longman) is inclined to adopt Froissart's version of the intended cruelty and sudden relenting of that King on the intercession of his Queen. Another story, less familiar to the general reader, though also told by Froissart, sup- ports the truth of this representation of Edward's character. The King of France having caused some lords who had been taken and exchanged by the English to be executed on suspicion of trea- son, Edward determined to retaliate upon Sir 1Ierv6 de Loon, his prisoner, and would have done so, if the Earl of Derby had not thus remonstrated:—" My Lord ! if that King Philip has rashly had the villany to put to death such valiant knights as these, do not suffer your courage to be tainted by it ; for in truth, your prisoner has nothing to do with this outrage. Have a goodness, then, to give him his liberty at a reasonable ransom." The King ordered the captive knight to be brought before him, and said, "Ha! Sir Herve ! Sir Herve ! my adversary, Philip de Valois, has shown his treachery in too cruel a manner when he put to death so many knights. It has given me much displeasure, and it appears as if it were done in despite of us. If I were to take his conduct for my example, I ought to do the like to you, for you have done me more harm in Brittany than any other. But I shall bear it, and let him act according to his own will. I will preserve my own honour un- spotted, and will allow you your liberty at a trifling ransom, out of my love for the Earl of Derby, who has requested it, but upon condition that you perform what I am going to ask of you." The Knight replied, "Dear Sire ! I will do to the best of my power, whatever you shall command." The King said, "I know, Sir Herve, that you are one of the richest knights in Brittany, and that if I were to press you, you would pay me 30,000 or 40,000 crowns for your ransom. But you shall go to King Philip de Valois, my adversary, and tell him from me, that by putting so many knights to death in such a dishonourable manner, he has sore displeased me ; that I say and maintain that he has by these means broken the truce he had agreed to ; that from this moment I consider it to be broken, and that I send him by you my defiance. In consideration of your carrying this message, I will let you off for 10,000 crowns, which you will send to Bruges in five days after you shall have crossed the sea. You will also inform all such knights and esquires as wish to attend my feast not to keep away on this account, as we shall be right glad to see them, and they shall have passports for their safe return, to last for fifteen days after it shall be over." The Knight gladly undertook and punctually performed the royal message. This is in itself a picture of Edward which needs no comment.

His veracity is open to some question, for it seems to have been too much dependent on the technical rules of chivalry, and to have been less an instinct of his own mind than was the case with his grandfather. But if he fell below the latter in this respect, he certainly rose far above his father in habitual sincerity, and the actual deficiency was perhaps as much one of temperament as of conscious wilfulness. He neither rose much above nor fell beneath his predecessors in his resort to illegal measures, but he was wiser than several of them in recognizing the expediency of timely retracta- tion and concession. He was perhaps a more faithful personal friend than a just and constant master to his Ministers of State. He was evidently deficient in a keen instinct of justice, but he was not often wantonly unjust ; and if not quite a reliable, he was generally a kindly master and administrator.

His foreign policy has been much blamed, and the terrible error into which his enterprising and warlike spirit betrayed him of claiming the Crown of France shewed a great falling-off from the better policy of Edward I. But even this had the recommenda- tion that it served as a vent to the warlike turbulence of his Barons, and buried the remembrance of civil discords and enmities under an accumulation of common national glories. Nor, considering the _aggressive policy of the French Kings towards the English pos- sessions in France, was it a gratuitously offensive policy. It might well appear to be a case in which there was no medium between giving up everything or claiming everything, in order to obtain a fair compromise ; and had the peace of Bretigni proved a more permanent settlement of the question, some might perhaps praise what they now condemn. As respects Scotland, Edward did but follow in the steps of his grandfather, and wiser than the latter, perhaps from the greater pliancy of his nature, he learned at last and adopted the true policy towards that country.

Of the last years of this remarkable King we have already spoken. The decay which in Edward L's case had been termi- nated at an earlier stage by death, continued with his grandson until scarcely a vestige was left of his great reputation, and he himself had become a mere puppet, scarcely responsible for his actions, in the hands of designing men, and an insolent and greedy woman. But his character must in justice be estimated by reference to his earlier years, when his mind was both vigorous and mature, and he will not then probably be judged wholly unworthy of the title of the greatest Royal leader of the whole of English society, an well as the first hero-King of the whole English nation.