Text this colour links to Pages. Text this colour links to Family Trees. Place the mouse over images to see a larger image. Click on paintings to see the painter's Biography Page. Mouse over links for a preview. Move the mouse off the painting or link to close the popup.
Constitutional History by William Stubbs is in Late Medieval Books.
The three estates were summoned on the distinct plea that the absence of the clergy might not be alleged as invalidating the acts of the parliament. The charges against the Despensers were formally stated; they had attempted to accroach to themselves royal power, to ‘estrange the heart of the king from his people and to ‘engross the sole government of the realm. The younger ‘Hugh had attempted to form a league by which the king's will should be constrained; he had taught that it is to the crown rather than to the person of the king that the subject is bound by homage and allegiance, and that thus, if the personal will of the king incline to wrong, it is the sworn duty of the subject to guide or constrain him to do right. The two had moreover prevented the magnates from having proper access to the king, had removed ministers appointed by the great men of the realm, had incited civil war, exer- cised usurped jurisdiction, and in every way perverted and hindered justice.
The sentence is passed in the name of the peers, in the presence of the king: father and son are condemned to forfeiture and exile, not to be recalled but by the assent of prelates, earls, and barons, and that in parliament duly summoned. The award was accompanied by a formal grant of pardon to the prosecutors for all breaches of the law committed in bringing the accused to justice: the chief prosecutor had been the earl of Hereford; he with the two Mortimers, the Audleys and D'Amory, lord Badlesmere, the earl Warenne, John Mowbray, John Giffard, and Richard Gray, and a large number of their followers, received separate pardons on the 20th of August. On the 22nd the parliament separated.
The fall of earl Thomas closes the second act of the great tragedy. The minor leaders fell one by one into the king's hands: Badlesmere was taken at Stow park and hanged at Canterbury: John Mowbray and John Giffard, who were taken at Boroughbridge, shared the same fate: the Mortimers were already prisoners1: the two Audleys surrendered at Boroughbridge, and were spared owing to their connexion with the royal house. Fourteen bannerets and fourteen bachelors were put to death2. Eighty-six bachelors remained in prison. The earl of Warenne and Sir Richard Gray had already changed sides.
Note 1. On June 13 the commission was issued for the trial of Hugh of Audley and the Mortimers; Parl. Writs, II ii. 193: on the 14th of July justices were appointed to pass sentence on the Mortimers; ibid. 213,216: and on the 22nd the sentence of death was commuted for perpetual imprisonment; ibid.
Note 2. Henry le Tyeys at London, April 3; Henry Wylyngton and Henry de Montfort at Bristol, April 5; Bartholomew Ashburnham at Canterbury, the same day; Bartholomew lord Badlesmere, at Canterbury, April 14, were tried by the king's justices and condemned; Parl. Writs, II. ii. 284 sq. Roger Clifford and John Mowbray were drawn and hanged at York; Wals. i. 165: Giffard at Gloucester; Knighton, c. 2541. Eight barons, according to the Chronicler of Lanercost, were hanged, four immediately released, ten imprisoned; fifteen knights hanged, five liberated, sixty-two imprisoned; P- 245. i Cf. Trokelowe, p. 124; Eulogium, iii. 196, 197. The list given in the Parliamentary Writs is not to be trusted as to details. On the 11th of July 138 persons submitted to a fine to save their lives and lands; the fines recorded amount to about £15,000; Parl. Writs, II. ii. 202 sq.
[1324] Three or four good men amongst them stood aloof from politics; three or four were honestly grateful and faithful to Edward: the conduct of the rest proves that the average of episcopal morality had sadly sunk since the death of Winchelsey. Yet Edward in his infatuation or simplicity trusted all alike, except Orlton against whom, when the prelates in the parliament of 1324 had refused to surrender him, he obtained a verdict from a jury of the country as guilty of high treason.
The king, on the news of her landing, after applying in vain to the Londoners for a force, hurried into the West of England; only two earls, Arundel and Warennc, held by him. Archbishop Reynolds, who with Stratford, Stapledon, and a few others remained in London, at first attempted to intimidate the invaders by publishing, on the 30th of September, the bulls of excommunication which the pope had launched against the king's enemies, that is, the Scots.
The writs had been issued first by young Edward at Bristol, on the 28th of October, in his father's name. They stated that the king would be, on the day named, December 15, absent from the kingdom, but that the business would be transacted before the queen and her son, as the guardian of the realm, by whom the writs were tested. After the great seal had been wrested from the king1 new writs of more regular form had been drawn up, and on the 3rd of December the meeting was postponed to the 7th of January.
Note 1. On the 20th the bishop of Hercford was sent to demand the great seal from the king, who was then at Monmouth; he brought it on the 26th to the queen at Martley; on the 3oth, at Cirencester, it was given to the bishop of Norwich; Foed. ii. 646; Parl. Writs, IL i. 349, 350. Stratford was made treasurer, but both he and the chancellor were superseded at the beginning of the new reign; Walsingham, i. 184. See p. 400.
After two vain attempts to persuade Edward to face the parliament—the first made by two bishops1 and the second by a joint committee of two earls, two barons, four knights, and four citizens chosen by the parliament — the three prelates who had had the chief hand in his humiliation, Lincoln, Hereford, and Winchester2, with two earls, two barons, two abbots, and two judges, were sent to request his consent to his son's election. Edward yielded at once. Sir William Trussell, as proctor for the whole parliament, renounced the homage and fealties which the members had severally made to the king3; and Sir Thomas Blount, the steward of the household, broke his staff of office in token that his master had ceased to reign. This was done on the 20th of January.
Note 1. Parl. Writs, II i. p. 354; the two were Winchester and Hereford, who brought their answer on Jan. 12; Ann. Lanerc. p. 257.
Note 2. Parl. Writs, II i. p. 354. T. de la Moor, p. 600.
Note 3. Knighton, c. 2550; M. Malmesb. p. 244. The words of renunciation were as follows: "Jeo William Trussell, procuratour des prelatez, contez et barons et altrez gentz en ma procuracye nomes, eyant al ceo playne et suffysant pouare, les homages et fealtez au vous Edward roy d'Engleterre, come al roy avant ces oeures, de par lez ditz persones en ma procuracye nomes, rend et rebaylle sus a vous Edward et deliver et face quitez lez persones avantditz, en la meillour manere que lez et costome donnent, e face protestacion en non de eaux, quils ne voillent desormes cstre en vostre fealte, ne en vostre lyance, ne cleyment de vous come de roy riens tenir, Encz vous tiegnent des horse priveye persone sanz nule maner de. reale dignite." The last commission contained twenty-four members, the bishops of Winchester and Hereford, the earls of Leicester and Warenne, the barons Ros and Courtenay, two abbots, two priors, two justices, two Dominicans, two Carmelites, two knights from the north of Trent, and two from the south, two citizens from London and two from the Cinque Ports; Ann. Lanerc. p. 258; cf. T. de la Moor.
Become a Member via our 'Buy Me a Coffee' page to read complete text.
Instead of a tenth, a ninth sheaf, fleece, and lamb were granted by the prelates, barons, and knights of the shires for two years: the towns granted a ninth of goods; for the rest of the nation who had no wool and yet did not come into the class of town population, a gift of a fifteenth was added: and besides all this a custom of forty shillings on each sack of wool, on each three hundred woolfells and every last of leather. As a condition of the grant the king accepted the petitions of the commons and ordered them to be referred to a committee of judges, prelates, and barons to whom were added twelve knights and six citizens and burgesses chosen by the commons. This body was to examine the articles and to throw into the form of a statute such of them as were to become law; the rest, which were of a temporary character, being left to the king and council.