On this Day in History ... 16th July

Annals of Six Kings of England by Nicholas Trivet. 1216. Pope Innocent III, while endeavouring to make peace between the Genoese and the Pisans for the aid of the Holy Land, died [on 16th July 1216] on the journey at Perugia, having sat for seventeen years, four months, and twenty-three days, and was buried in the church of San Lorenzo Cathedral. Among other works, he founded the Hospital of the Holy Spirit, restored the church of St Sixtus, composed decretals, sermons, and the book On the Misery of the Human Condition, and many other notable works. He also gave to each church in Rome one pound of silver for each chalice, where they did not already possess silver chalices, on condition that they might not sell them. In his time Livonia was converted to the faith. After his death, Pope Honorius III, a Roman by birth, was immediately elected. He too is said to have compiled decretals, and to have restored the church of St Lawrence outside the Walls, and the basilica called the Holy of Holies.

1216. INNOCENTIUS papa, cum inter Januenses et Pisanos, pro subventione Terræ Sanctæ, pacem intenderet reformare, in itinere constitutus moritar Perusii, cum sedisset annis decem et septem, mensibus quatuor, diebus viginti tribus, et in ecclesia S. Laurentii tumulatur. Hic inter alia fecit Hospitale Spiritus Sancti, et renovavit ecclesiam S. Sixti; composuit et decretales, sermones, librumque de misera conditione humani generis, et multa alia gloriosa. Item dedit singulis ecclesiis in Roma unam libram argenti, pro singulis calicibus earum, quæ non habuerunt calices argenteos, tali pacto quod eos vendere non possent. Hujus temporibus Livonia conversa est ad fidem. Post mortem hujus Innocentii statim electus est Honorius tertius, natione Romanus, qui et decretales dicitur compilasse, et ecclesiam S. Laurentii extra muros, basilicamque, quæ Sancta Sanctorum dicitur, renovasse.

Adam Murimuth Continuation. On the Thursday following, namely the seventeenth day before the Kalends of August [16th July], according to others on the previous day, the Ides of July [15th], the king, together with the queen who was pregnant and the king's two daughters, entered the sea at Ipswich with a great fleet of five hundred ships. Concerning this crossing a certain poet composed these verses:

In the year of the Lord one thousand three hundred thirty-eight

M once, C thrice, X thrice, V once, I three times,

Edward the Third from the Conquest entered the sea;

The warlike king Edward thrice crossed the sea;

In the twenty-sixth year of his life and the twelfth of his reign,

On the fifteenth day of July he entered the sea,

And on the following day, according to some,

The seventeenth day before the Kalends of August.

These verses signify that in the year of the Lord 1337 Edward, the third king of England from the Conquest, in the twenty-sixth year of his life and the twelfth year of his reign, entered the sea on the fifteenth day of July and sailed toward Brabant. They landed at Antwerp, where they were received at first with honour. There the duke of Brabant, the counts of Hainaut, Guelders, and Jülich, and other magnates of those regions came to meet him, declaring themselves ready to serve him, provided that the agreement made with them was fulfilled, namely that they should be paid a great sum of money for their expenses. The royal treasury, however, was insufficient for this.

Et die Jovis tunc sequente, videlicet XVIJ kalendas Augusti, secundum alios die præcedenti, videlicet, idus Julii dominus rex et regina prægnans et duæ filiæ regis, cum magna classe quingentarum navium, intrarunt mare apud Gypeswych; de cujus transitu quidamn versificator composuit istos versus:

id est: anno Domini M trecentesimo tricesimo octavo

M. simplex, c. ter, x. triplex, v. semel, i. ter,

Edwardus tertius a conquæstu intravit mare;

Belliger E. ter rex trans mare sumpsit iter;

id est: anno a nativitate ipsius vicesimo VJ et anno regni sui XIJ,

Ortus vigeno sexto, regni duodeno,

decimo quinto die Julii ingressus mare; et die sequenti intrat mare,

scilicet XVIJ kalendas Augusti, secundum aliquos.

XV lux Julii fit sibi navigii.

Qui versus tamen significant quod, anno Domini MCCCXXXVII, Edwardus rex Angliæ tertius a conquæstu, anno nativitate sua XXVJ et anno regni sui XIJ, XV die mensis Julii, intravit mare versus Brabanciam; et applicuecrunt apud Andewerpiam,ubi fuerunt prima facie cum honore recepti. Et sibi dederunt obviam ibi dux Brabanciæ, comites Hanoniæ, de Geldreet de Juliers et alii magnates partium illarum, parati ad suum servitium, ut dixerunt, dum tamen conventio facta servaretur eisdem, videlicet quod solveretur eis magna quantitas pecuniæ pro expensis, ad quod regis ærarium non suffecit.

Calendar Inquitisitions Port Mortem Volume 8 Edward III 185. 185. Giles De Badelesmere [deceased], Knight.

Writ to Henry Darcy, mayor of the city of London, and king's escheator there, 16 July [1338], 12 Edward III.

London.

Inq. Friday before St. Bartholomew, 12 Edward III.

Alegate. A tenement, 17 shops, and a garden adjacent, within Alegate, worth when let 9l.; out of which there are paid yearly to the lords of that fee for quit rent, 56s. 4d., and for repairs, 40s.

Lymstret lane. A tenement and a garden, worth 40s., out of which are paid yearly for repair of houses and walls and for enclosing of the said tenement and garden, 20s.

All held of the king in chief, as the whole of the city of London is.

Margery [aged 30] the wife of Sir William de Ros [aged 53], Maud [aged 30] the wife of the earl of Oxford [aged 26], Elizabeth [aged 25] the wife of the earl of Northampton [aged 28], and Margery [aged 23] (sic) the wife of Sir John Tipetoft [aged 24], are his sisters and co-heirs, and of full age.

John Tiptoft 2nd Baron Tibetot.

Continues.

Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Thus, in the twelfth year of his reign over England, on a Friday the 16th July [1338] King Edward crossed¹ the sea with an armed fleet. Accompanied by his pregnant queen and their two daughters, he landed at Antwerp with a fleet of 500 ships. There, he was received with honour and peace and was met by: the Margrave of Jülich, the Margrave and Duke of Brabant, the Counts of Guelders and Hainaut, and other nobles of the surrounding regions. All of them pledged loyalty to him and promised armed support against all his adversaries, under oath, on the condition that they would fight in his service at his expense.

... mare armatorum classe transivit, anno regni sui Anglie XIJ, in quodam die Veneris, qui erat XVIJ kalendas Augusti. Igitur rex cum regina pregnante atque duabus filiabus eius in classe quingentarum navium applicuerunt apud Andewarp, ubi cum honoure et pace recepti habuerunt obviam marchionem Iuliacensem, dominum marcravium et ducem Brabancie et comites Gelrie et Hannonie et alios magnates illarum parcium, qui omnes sibi fidelitatem et armatam comitivam contra quoscumque suos adversarios compromiserunt sub iuratoria caucione, dum tamen suis stipendiis militarent.

Note 1. Edward sailed from Orwell (apparently in the ship 'Christopher') between six and seven o'clock in the morning on the 16th July 1338. Rymer's Fœdera 2.1050: "Memorandum that on Sunday, the 12th day of July, in the twelfth year of the reign of King Edward the Third after the Conquest, the same lord King departed from his manor of Walton, near the port of Orwell, where he was then lodging, about the ninth hour, and came to the same port, where a great fleet of ships, assembled for the passage of the said lord King and of certain magnates and other faithful men of the same lord King, was gathered. And there he remained until the Thursday next following, namely the 16th day of July. And on the same day, at about half-past the first hour, the sails of the aforesaid ships being raised, the said lord King placed himself upon the sea with the magnates and other faithful men aforesaid. And that fleet of ships which had been gathered at Great Yarmouth, in which Henry of Lancaster, Earl of Derby, and other faithful men of the King were assembled for the service of the said King, set forth upon the sea; to which fleet, the fleet in which the said lord King was, joined itself, to the parts beyond the sea, there to land, with the help of God."

Chronicle of Walter of Guisborough. The law of nature, prior to all else and teaching all living creatures alike, has granted the right of self-defence against violent wrongs, establishing as a universal legal principle that whatever a person does to ward off force and injury, he does lawfully for his own protection. Now, when for some time past the dangers of war, fierce in spirit, and the injurious risks of losses have been stirred up against us and inflicted upon us, things which are well known to the whole world and, through our frequent notification, have also been sufficiently made known to your blessedness at the apostolic see, having, as God knows, a peace-loving heart, we have, in order to avoid and put an end to those troubles, voluntarily offered to our assailant, reverently and humbly, ways of peace, perhaps too graciously, and not without great prejudice to our own rights. Thus, setting aside the further pursuit of any of our legal claims at that time of just grief, when, on account of the aroused rage of the Sultan of Babylon, and of other enemies of the Cross, and of the crusade sworn and solemnly proclaimed against them in overseas parts, Christians were perishing and still perish, and the injuries to the Crucified grow monstrously, we might, as we ought and as we most eagerly desire, devote ourselves to the cause of Christ, which is being neglected, indeed rather brought into grave neglect, to the great discredit and notorious dishonour of every king who professes Christ, and most of all of one who most deserves otherwise. Yet we do not know by what sin it comes about that, from the offers of peace humbly made, out of which there ought to have arisen love of peace, there has grown, in him who persecutes us solely by his own will, a swelling of greater wrath and greater hardness of heart. And yet, God and our conscience being witness for us, nothing done or attempted by us against him provokes him thus against us; indeed, the eyes of the world, our public witnesses, see that our aforesaid persecutor, styling himself king of France, wounds and diminishes us and our rights with many and grievous injuries. He is, in truth, the invader and unlawful occupier of the very kingdom of France, which is known to pertain to us by every legitimate hereditary right. That kingdom, which, had he wished to claim it lawfully, he ought, with us summoned or defended, to have sought according to the due order of law, he did not hesitate to seize, although we were a man, and a person whose interest in it was notoriously certain, and although our right in that kingdom was as notorious as it was founded on the common law. For it is presupposed, as the clear evidence of a notorious fact presupposes, that Philip, of celebrated memory, once king of France, the father of Charles, king of France of blessed memory, lately deceased, and of our serene lady Isabella, queen of England, our mother, was our grandfather; and since, at the time of Charles's death, there was no male descendant surviving from the same Philip more closely related to him than we were, and since, by the law long preserved in that kingdom, a female person is incapable of the said kingdom, that law, having regard to the favour of the right to the aforesaid throne, so that the kingdom might not fall under the weak governance of a woman, and for that reason excluding the person of a woman, does not exclude the person of a male descending through a woman so excluded, lest there be made an endless and always hateful prolongation of hostilities, from person to person, sex to sex, cause to cause, hatred to favour; and lest, against the common traditions of the law, the female sex, where it is most a matter of hostility, should disinherit the male. Moreover, by the aforesaid law, the weakness of the female sex is excluded from the kingdom, so that the kingdom may be more safely provided for, and the nearer male is to be admitted, especially in the case where the right in question does not arise primarily from the mother so excluded, but is propagated in the grandson, deriving originally from the grandfather. Otherwise, there would follow another absurdity of injustice, through the odious prolongation mentioned above, namely, that the closer collateral relative would be excluded so that the more remote might be called, whereas by the law of nations itself and by natural law, brothers and sisters and their children, in mutual succession, are preferred to other collaterals of a different line. And thus, from the said law, arising for the benefit of the kingdom and from the hostility toward a woman's incapacity to rule, there would arise, by injury to males through the female line, an occasion contrary to both the law and to the descendants. Nor should the intention of the said law be considered so unjust as to condemn both mother and son alike by contradictory reasoning. Rather, on the contrary, by the judgment of that same law, whereby the mother is expelled from the succession, the succession is then deferred to the son who enters into the degree of his mother, by likeness to the son who enters in the place of a failing parent, so that he may be admitted to the succession even with uncles; and thus, rightly, the sorrowful mother, stripped, by the aforesaid severity, of the royal inheritance, may be consoled by the substitution thus made for her, rejoicing in her son, nor should affliction be heaped upon affliction, which holy consideration of the law abhors. For we see this also where the burden of affliction has not been directly imposed by the law, but arises by chance in the law, namely, that the customary law granting the goods of shipwrecked persons to another is condemned; and by this reasoning, what is corrected in express statute to avoid the addition of affliction is, with much greater force, forbidden in the case of an unexpressed rule. Let the law, therefore, of the kingdom of France be more than fully satisfied, that it has cut off the royal roots from the mother, not by her own fault, but by the act of nature which made her a woman, and that the mother, expressly by that law, suffers, as it were, a kind of shipwreck through her own disinheritance, without its being the case that, by the silent consequence of the aforesaid law, and contrary to all right, she should again suffer shipwreck together with her disinherited son, and that punishment should be found to be increased without fault, when, even where there is fault, it ought to be softened. Otherwise, if it were understood that the son is to be excluded from the kingdom because the mother is not admitted to the kingdom by law, then the kingdom of the Jews would not have legitimately come to Jesus, against the foundation of the faith, who, though born by the mystery of God and not by union with a man, from the female royal line of David in the Virgin Mary, not admitted nor even admissible to such a kingdom, yet by the certain truth of the faith was the true and lawful king of the Jews. Far be it that the royal succession of Jesus, son of David, should be regarded as a breaking or loosening of legal observance or bond, since He declares that He came not to destroy the law but to fulfil it. This most excellent example of lawful succession reasonably imposes silence on the loquacity of the law contrary to our right in the aforesaid kingdom of France, lest in respect of the legitimate degree and order of succession we be surpassed in the framing or interpretation of law by those whom in this matter the identity of reason makes our equals. Moreover, not only was our due summons and our right of defence omitted, where so great a prejudice to us was in question, but also our procurators, who went into France so that they might lawfully appear for us and for our right, were not only not admitted to plead in court, but were driven away under threat of a horrible death. And thus the aforesaid title of ours is in no way excused by the act of the twelve peers of France, who, as regards us, being at that time of tender years and under age, by abandoning the role of judges, thereby took upon themselves the role of robbers; whose process, carried out to our prejudice, was made invalid in law by our minority, which, even in the case of one of full age, would not have been valid when the defence, which belongs to every man by the law of nature and cannot be taken away by prince or by law, was taken away in such a manner. It is also commonly known everywhere how, in our duchy of Aquitaine, he has always attacked and assaulted our rights, invading and laying waste to our lands, which he seized when he could, adding them to our other lands which he occupied, and, claiming a right for himself at will, with the fear of God set aside, holding them for himself. The Scots also, who by the rights of former times were subject to our crown, but who, through the mad injustice of rebellion, stubbornly kicking against their natural lord, were guilty of the crime of lèse-majesté against our predecessors and ourselves, he, in order that he might omit no injury against us, joined to himself by a treaty, thereby in so great a crime of injury to us supporting those whom, by blood and by nature, he ought rather to have aided. And when all these things did not fulfil the vow of injury he had made, gathering from everywhere whatever forces he could, he has amassed them so that the torrent of his wrath might swallow us up, intent on removing us from the world, although we had given no attention to that, perhaps measuring our intent against him by his own deed against us, which he could not have gathered or measured from any judgment on any act of ours not yet committed. Moreover, begrudging the gift of divine grace bestowed upon us, he has seemed to regard as an injury to himself that we should live upon the earth in our kingdom of England, if not, so far as the Lord granted, prosperously, at least in all things peacefully as far as he was concerned, and that the people who serve us, or rather whom we serve, should in our times, by the gift of God, have been glorious. These things, however, did not at once, when heard or known, move us; rather, we passed them over in silence, sparing no one in burden or in honour, so that his persecution and injury against us might cease, and that our time with him might be one of peace, until we saw the sword drawn close to us, prepared for the slaughter and destruction of ourselves and our people. But is there anyone who would believe that the spirit of a prince of such great power, known to us, and, as stated above, already in possession of what he had taken from us, should be disregarded, when he, armed with the strength of his own will and surrounded on every side by power summoned to his aid, has abandoned the sworn cause of Christ solely so that he might more freely persecute us at his own pleasure? What then, for the sake of his own right and his own security, was not lawful for a king who already saw the danger to his position and his people? Let him who knows say what is not lawful for a man striving to avoid injuries and losses, especially in those matters which clearly set the axe to the root of life and state. Could the fear be called light or vain, which, if it could shake the hearts of illustrious and valiant men united to us, should far more strongly have struck terror into us, upon whom alone the conceived machinations of these dangers were aimed? Therefore, by the dictate of natural law, as defenders not voluntary but necessary both of ourselves and of our rights, and attending to timely precautions, following the proven precepts of the military art of illustrious men of old, that the dangers plotted by great power are more perilous the longer they are awaited, we went out to meet, with greater prudence, those very fires lately rushing toward the setting of our life and safety, so that they might not perhaps proceed to our harm, but be stifled at their source. We did this relying on the counsel and aid offered to us by those whom blood and marriage bound to us, and who, together with us, were concerned to meet the dangers of our destruction, and to guard against them with counsel and help, placing in the hand of God that cause of ours, justified as far as we could, which once we wished to place in the hands of your apostolic see or of other good and impartial men, so that He, looking down from on high upon what is right, might deliver a just sentence and execute it in the power of His sword. Nor, we believe, good father, will any upright arbiter or just judge so interpret or twist our deed as to think that what we did, for the protection and securing of our rights in so great a danger, for our own defence, was an injury or offence to another, one which we neither intended, nor did, nor will do. Rather, we believe, and are certain, that the intention of our action will be considered, and that what is done, where it is done, and for what reason it is done, will be weighed with due consideration, and will be measured in the scales of a just judge. And, as the sanction of law teaches, it is not the deed that should be judged from the word, but the word from the deed. Indeed, it would not be a worthy presumption of law, nor a benign or civil interpretation such as legal judgment always dictates, if anyone should say that the known exercise of our right, and the necessity of our defence, is the loss of another's right through an unlawful offence. Let, therefore, we pray, all conjecture about our certain actions cease, and let it only claim a place in matters that are uncertain. For perhaps our accuser, a malicious interpreter of our conduct, will say that we have received a man against whom, it is reported, the Church has proceeded, or one who is not obedient to the vicar of the Church. He will not say that we act in the place of a brother and kinsman, and that we do not claim for ourselves the title of right in this matter, but only take to ourselves the use of his power, so that, supported by a necessary protection, we may, where we now are, defend ourselves from the dangers heaped up for our ruin, and strive for the just attainment of our rights. He will not say that we intend to defend ourselves and to contend for our own right, not to attack the Church or to favour its attackers, indeed, for its honour we would surely contend, without regard for any danger, as befits the Catholic excellence of kings. For, as all law holds, the intention and the final cause or principal reason of any action is above all to be attended to, and from the knowledge of the will and purpose arises a distinct and certain understanding of the accused deed; and only the actual deeds of men, not verbal constructions, should be weighed. He will not say that we have made of this matter a shield against one who aimed the blow of death at our head; nor that we have acted after the example of a wise physician, who causes a death-bearing matter, rushing toward those parts of the body where life resides, to turn aside to the limbs in which the matter cannot be feared, though it was prepared for the destruction of what was nearest. Thus speaks, holy father, thus speaks the man who, in his snares, sought to find us unguarded and entirely unprepared. But without doubt it was more prudent for us, according to the military theory which teaches that the peril of war is more avoided by pursuing it away from the border of one's land, to engage with our notorious enemy for our right, allied with the lands of powerful men, rather than in our own person alone. Let not, therefore, in the heart of your mercy and holiness, the hostile or distorted reports of detractors find a place, concerning a son who, in the hereditary right of his ancestors, has always remained, and will remain, steadfast in the grace and obedience of your predecessors, of yourself, and of the apostolic see. Indeed, if any suggestion of this kind about the son should perhaps strike the ears of your blessedness, let no credence be given to it by your holy dignity until the son himself, who is concerned, has been heard, he who trusts, and ceaselessly intends, before the judgment of your holiness, which presides over every creature, that to deny heresy is to prove, to declare, or to make any cause of one's own to be just. Finally, we say, adding this for greater clarity of our intention and devotion, that if there be anyone joined to us by the bond of nature, and united with us in our defence, who does not walk, as he ought, in the way of obedience to your apostolic see, we intend to give, as we trust we can very usefully give, our unwearied effort, that, leaving aside every deviation, he may return to the way of obedience and make all his path straight. One thing again, which we have heard from many, we respectfully request leave not to pass over in silence, something said before, but the more attentively it is considered, the more sharply it pierces our mind, namely, that the hands of our adversary, now as before, are notoriously armed solely for our destruction, and that, while waging war, he is armed against no one, nor is anyone armed against him, except ourselves, from the patrimony of Christ. This, certainly, neither the kings of England, our illustrious predecessors, champions of Christ, athletes of the faith, most loving zealots of Holy Mother Roman Church, and most devoted observers of her commands, nor we ourselves, have, as far as we know or believe, deserved. And although, because of this, it is said by many, though not by us, that aid given against us has been, as far as we are concerned, not the act of a father or mother, but of a stepmother, nevertheless we steadfastly affirm that we are, and will remain, the devoted and humble son, not the stepson, of your holiness and your see. From this, not without reason, we hope that our humility, made greater and firmer by that injury which it did not deserve, should find a more abundant increase of your fatherly charity and grace, so that what the previous harshness of wounding inflicted upon us without fault, the following gentleness of anointing may erase and make good. We therefore lay open to your pre-eminence of holy height this account of our justice and of the injury so multiplied against us, so that your supreme and sacred measure of good and just, whose office from God it is to give the keys, to open and close to those on earth the gates of heaven, should, as the fullness of your power and the excellence of your tribunal require, favour our right so far as reason allows; being always ready, not only to be humbly instructed by your holy judgment, which presides over all, but also by any other who may know the truth of the contrary. And we, who freely submit to reason, will embrace any truth thus given us, with full and humble gratitude. And because you, reverend fathers, have been called by worthy merit into the share of the care and counsel of the said lord supreme pontiff, and sit beside him to give to the people of Christ the knowledge of salvation, we wish these things to be known to you, so that, when you have learned the justice of our cause, you may give to the truth what you owe to it. For this we stir your provident circumspection with our earnest prayers, you who are accustomed to weigh the rights of each without respect of persons in an equal balance. And if perhaps in our conduct anything should appear that requires the safeguard of wiser counsel, we wish to be healthfully instructed by you in this matter, ready to yield to reason in all our undertakings. Given at Antwerp on the sixteenth day of July, in the year of our Lord 1339.

Jus naturæ prævium, pariter animalia cuncta docens, contra violentas injurias licentiam defensionis indulsit, statuens universaliter jure factum, quod quisque, vim injuriamque propulsans, suam fecerit ad cautelam. Sane, cum dudum animosa guerrarum pericula, injuriosa damnorum discrimina nobis mota fuerunt et illata, quæ toti mundo notoria, et nostra etiam intimatione frequenti apostolicæ sedi facta, satis pro constanti supponitur beatitudini vestræ nota; nos, cor habentes pacificum, novit Deus, pro vitandis illis, et pacificis subducendis, obtulimus nos voluntarie persequenti reverenter et humiliter forte nimis amabiles vias pacis, non sine nostrorum magno jurium interesse, ut, neglecta prosecutione alia cujuslibet juris nostri, tempore illo justi doloris, quo propter accensam furoris Soldani Babiloniæ rabiem, et crucis hostium aliorum ex causa jurati contra eos passagii, et solemniter publicati in partibus transmarinis, peribant, et pereunt Christiani, et crescunt immaniter injuriæ crucifixi, possemus sicut debemus, et propensius anhelamus, intendere causæ Christi, quæ negligitur immo verius imponitur in magnam cujuslibet christicolæ regis, maxime demerentis, infamiam et ignominiæ magnæ notam. Sed nescimus veniat quo peccato, quod de pacificis oblatis humiliter, ex quibus surgere debuit pacis amor, in eo, qui nos sola voluntate persequitur, majoris iracundiæ majorisque duritiæ crevit tumor. Contra nos tamen illum non provocat, Deo et conscientia nostra teste nobis, aliquod factum nostrum vel attemptatum per nos aliud contra eum; immo vident oculi mundi, publici testes nostri, præfatus persecutor noster, Franciæ regem se nominans, damnosis injuriis quot et quantis nos et nostra jura vulnerat et defalcat, Ipsius quidem regni Franciæ, quod ad nos omni successorio jure legitimo pertinere cognoscitur, est invasor et illicitus occupator; regnum ipsum, quod debuit nobis vocatis vel defensis legitime debito juris ordine petere, non veritus occupare, cum vir essemus et quod persona essemus cujus principaliter interesset notorie certum esset, et in regno ipsum jus nostrum foret tam notorium quam communi jure fundatum; supposito, sicut evidentia facti notorii præsupponit, quod celebris recordationis Philippus olim rex Franciæ pater claræ memoriæ Caroli regis Franciæ immediate defuncti, et serenissimæ dominæ Isabellæ reginæ Angliæ matris nostræ, fuerit avus noster, cum eidem Carolo, tempore mortis suæ, ex descendentibus secum ab eodem Philippo masculus superstes proximior fuerit nullus nobis, et persona feminea dicti regni, per jus in eodem regno setting forth servatum antiquitus, sit non capax, quod nos the throne of jus regni præfati favorem in viam causæ finalis attendens, ne regnum ipsum sub feminea fragili gubernatione labatur, et propter hoc personam mulieris excludens, non excludit personam masculi per sic exclusam feminam descendentis, ne fiat juribus semper odibilis prorogatio odiorum, personæ videlicet ad personam, sexus ad sexum, causæ ad causam, odii ad favorem, neve, contra legum traditiones communes, femineum genus, ubi maxime de odio agitur, concipiat masculum. Ad hæc etiam per jus memoratum a regno fragilitas muliebris excluditur, ut regno salubrius consulatur, et proximior masculus admittendus, alias admittatur potissime ad jus illud quod primordialiter a matre sic exclusa non oritur, sed in nepotem propagatum ab avo originaliter derivatur. Alioquin sequeretur et alia iniquitatis absurditas per prorogationem odibilem supradictam, quod excluderetur collateralis conjunctior ut remotior vocaretur, cum tamen, ipso jure gentium naturali, fratres et sorores eorumque filii in successione mutua collateralibus aliis alterius lineæ præferantur. Et unde dictum jus pro regni favore ac odiis femineæ inhabilitatis ad regendum exoritur tam juris quam descendentium, per femineam masculorum injuriam occasio nasceretur. Nec est putanda memorati juris intentio sic iniqua ut matrem et filium ratione contraria similiter damnet. Immo e contra juris ejusdem judicio quo mater a successione expellitur, filio gradum matris ingresso successio tunc differtur, similitudine filii, qui parentis deficientis ingreditur, ut ad successionem cum patruis etiam admittatur, ut sic merito tristis mater, præfato rigore regia hæreditate nudata, substitutione taliter sibi facta, de filio gaudeat consolata, nec afflictioni afflictionem accumulet, quod sancta consideratio legis abhorret, sicut videmus etiam ubi onus afflictionis præamabile non intulit lex, sed casus in lege, scilicet quod consuetudinariam legem damnat, bona concedentem alii naufragorum, qua ratione quod in expresso legali pro vitanda afflictionis adjectione corrigitur, multo fortius in tacito prohibetur. Legi ergo regni Francia sufficiat plusquam plene, matri, non suo vitio, sed naturæ facto, quæ feminam fecit illam, radices regias succidisse, quodque mater expresse per legem ipsam exhæredationis propriæ, quasi quoddam naufragium patiatur, absque eo quod ex legis præfatæ consequenti tacito, omni jure contrario, cum filio exhæredato iterum naufragetur, et sine culpa pœna inveniatur augeri, cum, ubi etiam culpa est, debeat emolliri. Aliter etiamsi pro eo quod mater ex jure non admittetur ad regnum, repelli jure filius intelligeretur a regno. Judæorum regnum contra fidei fundamentum non pervenisset legitime ad Jesum, qui tamen natus Dei misterio, non virili consortio, ex feminea regali prole Davitica Maria virgine, ad regnum hujusmodi non admissa nec etiam admittenda, per certam fidei veritatem, rex verus et legitimus extitit Judæorum. Absit etiam quod Jesu filii David regalis successio, legalis observantiæ sive nodi fuerit fractura sive solutio, cum dicit legem non venerit solvere sed adimplere. Hoc autem excellentissimum legitimæ successionis exemplum rationabiliter imponit silentium loquacitati contrarii juri nostro in regno Franciæ memorato, ne quoad legitimum gradum et ordinem succedendi superemur in constitutione vel interpretatione juris, quos quoad hoc parificat identitas rationis. Nedum autem debita nostri vocatio nostraque defensio, ubi de tanto nostro agebatur præjudicio, est omissa, sed etiam nostri procuratores qui in Franciam ierant, ut pro nobis et nostro jure legitime comparerent, non solum fuerunt in judicio non admissi sed mortis horribilis comminatione repulsi. Et sic nostrum memoratum titulum, factum duodecim parium Franciæ non excusat, qui quoad nos, quibus ætatis tenellæ minoritas tunc favebat, relictis partibus judicum, ex hoc functi partibus sunt prædonum; quorum processum, factum in nostrum præjudicium, ipso jure nostra fecit invalidum minor ætas; qui quoad majorem efficax non fuisset, taliter defensione sublata, quæ competit homini ex jure naturæ, quod tolli nequit a principe nec a jure. Notum etiam communiter est ubique, qualiter in Aquitaniæ nostro ducatu semper invaserit et colliserit jura nostra, terras nostras invadens et dissipans quas capere potuit, aliis nostris terris quas occupavit adjungens, et, jus sibi dicens ad libitum Dei timore postposito, sibi tenens. Scoti etiam, quos nostræ coronæ subjecerant jura temporum antiquorum, sed iniqua rebellionis dementia contra naturalem dominum calcitrantes contumaciter in nostros prædecessores et nos, læsæ majestatis criminis rei erant, ut contra nos nihil injuriæ omitteret, ad nostras injurias fœdere adjunxit, in tanto crimine nostræ injuriæ fovens eos, qui sanguinis et naturæ debuit potius nos juvare. Cumque præmissa omnia non implerent de injuriis votum suum, collectis undique viribus quicquid potuit, ut nos iræ suæ torrens absorbeat aggregavit, tollere nos de mundo sollicitus, ad illud non intentos, forsitan ex intento facto suo contra nos, nostrum contra se metitus intentum, quod colligere vel metiri nequivit per alicujus actus nostri judicium nondum actum. Donum insuper nobis impensum divini muneris ægre ferens, extimare visus est suam injuriam in Angliæ regno nostro nos vivere super terram etsi quantum dabat Dominus prospere, saltem per omnia pacifice quoad eum, quodque serviens nobis populus, vel verius cui servimus, nostris temporibus Dei dono fuerit gloriosus. Hæc autem non statim audita vel cognita nos moverunt, sed illa sub dissimulatione transivimus, nulli parcentes oneri vel honori, ut contra nos persecutio sua injuriaque quiesceret, nostrumque cum eo pacificum tempus esset, donec propinquum nobis vidimus gladium nostræ ac nostrorum neci et exterminio præparatum. Sed nunquid aliquis est qui credat quod animus nobis cognitus principis tantæ potentiæ, et sic, ut præmittitur, occupatæ nobis, fuerit negligendus, qui suæ viribus voluntatis armatus, potentia undique vocata vallatus, solum ut possit liberius pro sua voluntate nos persequi, juratam deserit causam Christi. Quid ergo pro suo jure suaque securitate non licuit regi, sui status suique populi periculum jam videnti, dicat qui noverit, quid non liceat homini de vitandis injuriis damnisque certanti, in illis præsertim quæ ad vitæ statusque radices securim ponere probabant. Levis ne timor dici poterit aut vanus, qui pro nobis si potuit conjunctorum nobis illustrium fortiumque constantia corda concutere, multo fortius debuit etiam nos terrere, quos solos periculorum concepta molimina concernebant? Propter hoc igitur jure naturæ dictante, facti tam nostri quam nostrorum jurium, non voluntarii sed necessarii defensores, ac opportunis cautionibus attendentes, juxta rei militaris documenta probata illustrium antiquorum, quod potentiæ magnæ pericula conspirata periculosius exspectantur, in laribus illis nuper currentibus ad nostræ lucis et salutis occasum consultius venimus in occursum, ne contra nos forte discriminose procederent, sed sui ortus præfocarentur loca, eorum freti consilio et auxilio nobis oblato, quos nobis consanguinitas et affinitas conjungebat, et ad quos simul spectabant nobiscum periculis nostræ destructionis occurrere, illaque consiliis et auxiliis præcavere; ponentes in manu Dei, quam in manibus apostolicæ sedis vestræ vel aliorum bonorum virorum communium ponere quondam voluimus justificatam, quantum potuimus, causam nostram, ut Ipse, rectum ex alto prospiciens, sententiam justam ferat, et in sui gladii viribus exequatur. Nec, credimus, alme pater, quod arbiter quivis rectus, vel etiam judex justus, sic interpretetur aut torqueat nostrum factum, ut quod pro nostrorum tuitione et assecutione jurium, in tanto discrimine nostram fecimus ad defensam, alterius, quam non intendimus, non agimus, nec agemus, putet injuriam vel offensam. Immo credimus, et certi sumus, quod facti nostri intentio attendetur, et quid, ubi, ac propter quid fiat, debita consideratione librabitur, et justi statere judicis appendetur, et sicut sanctio legis docet, non factum ex dicto, sed dictum pensetur ex facto, non esset equidem juris præsumptio nobilis, quod supponit factum ab homine fieri suo jure non benigna interpretatio vel civilis, qualem semper fieri dictat censura legalis, si nostri juris usum notorium, nostræque defensionis compendium, dispendium offensionis illicite quis diceret alienæ. Cesset igitur, quæsumus, omnis conjectura in actibus nostris certisque, locum duntaxat sibi vindicat in non certis. Denique dicet forsitan accusator, calumniosus nostræ actionis interpres, quia suscepimus hominem contra quem processisse fertur ecclesia vel non parentem ecclesiæ vicario; non dicet quod fratris et affinis vicibus fungimur, non ad juris habendum titulum necessarium nobis potentiæ solum usum asciscimus ut necessario fulti præsidio, ubi nunc sumus, nos a congestis in nostram ruinam periculis defendamus, et pro nostrorum justa jurium assecutione certemus. Non dicet, quod intendimus nos defendere, pro nostro jure certare, non ecclesiam impugnare, vel ejus impugnationi favere, pro cujus utique certaremus honore, nullius habita respectione periculi, sicut catholicam excellentiam regum decet, cum tamen ut omnis juris censet intentio, ac cujuslibet actionis finalis causa vel ratio principaliter attendenda, et ex notitia voluntatis atque propositi, surgat distincta certaque cognitio operis accusati, solumque de gestis hominum realis actio, non verbalis conceptio, ponderetur. Non dicet quod facimus de materia ista scutum contra eum, qui nostro prominebat capiti mortis ictum; quodque fecerimus medici sapientis exemplo, qui materiam morte plenam, currentem ad partes corporis ubi vita se recipit, divertere facit ad membra, in quibus materia nequit fore suspecta, quæ ad proximum fuerat interitum præparata. Sic loquitur, sancte pater, sic loquitur propter vehementiam, qui in suis insidiis nos invenire quærebat incautos et penitus imparatos. Sed proculdubio cautius fuit nobis, juxta militarem theoricam edocentem, quod mota guerræ periculum plus evitat qui eam a terræ suæ limite prosequestrat, contra notorium hostem nostrum pro jure nostro nos congredi, et terris potentum potentibus sociatos, quam in propria persona nostra solos. Non igitur apud vestræ viscera misericordiæ et sanctitatis locum inveniant detrahentium informatio æmula vel sinistra facta, de filio qui suorum hæreditario jure majorum, in vestrorum prædecessorum, vestra, et apostolicæ sedis gratia et obedientia semper inconcusse perstitit et persistet. Immo, si quævis de filio taliter facta suggestio pulsaverit vestræ beatitudinis forsitan aures, non prius a vestra dignatione sancta credulitas illi detur, quam auditus sit filius qui tangetur, qui confidit, et indesinenter intendit, ante sanctitatis vestræ judicium omni præsidens creaturæ, quod negare hæresin est probare, justam dicere, vel justam facere quamlibet causam suam. Illud demum dicimus, ad nostræ intentionis majorisque devotionis evidentiam subjungentes, quod si sit aliquis de nobis fœdere naturæ conjunctus, nobisque ad nostram defensionem adjunctus, qui per viam obedientiæ apostolicæ sedis vestræ non ambulet, sicut debet, dare intendimus, quam non parum utiliter dare posse confidimus operam indefensam, ut omni dimisso devio ad viam obedientiæ redeat, omnemque faciat semitam suam rectam. Unum rursus, quod a multis audivimus, petita cum reverentia, non tacemus, quod alias ditum, quanto consideratur attentius, acutius mentem nostram, videlicet quod sarii nostri manus, notorie nunc ut prius, ad nostrum tantum laborantis exitium, cum guerram faceret nemo sibi nec ipse alii nisi nobis de Christi patrimonio sit armatus. Quod certe reges Angliæ nostros prædecessores illustres Christi pugiles, fidei athletas, sanctæ Romanæ matris ecclesiæ amantissimos zelatores, ejusque mandatorum devotissimos servatores, vel nos etiam nec scimus nec credimus meruisse. Et licet propter hoc dicatur a pluribus, non a nobis, quod contra nos facta subventio, quoad nos, actus patris vel matris non extiterit sed novercæ; nihilominus tamen constanter asserimus quod sumus, et perseveranter erimus, vestræ sanctitatis vestræque sedis, devotus et humilis filius, non privignus. Ex quo non sine ratione speramus quod nostra humilitas facta major et firmior per illud quod non meruit nocumentum, vestræ paternæ caritatis et gratiæ invenire debeat exuberantius incrementum, ut quod nobis insontibus intulit, quæ præcessit asperitas punctionis, sequens deleat et compenset vestræ lenitas unctionis. Hunc autem nostræ justitiæ et contra nos injuriæ sic multiplicatæ processum præeminentiæ vestræ sancti culminis intimamus, ut vestra summa sanctaque mensura boni et æqui, cujus a Deo sibi competit dare claves, aperire et claudere in terra positis portas cœli, prout exigit plenitudo suæ potestatis et præcellentia sui fori, quantum fuerit rationis, favere debeat nostro juri, parati semper, nedum a vestro sancto cunctis præsidente judicio, immo et a quolibet alio de veritate contrarii, si quis eam noverit, humiliter informari. Et qui sponte rationi subjicimur, aliam datam nobis intelligi veritatem cum plena et humili gratitudine complectemur. Quia vero vos, patres conscripti, estis in partem sollicitudinis et consilii dicti domini summi pontificis condignis meritis evocati, sibique lateraliter ad dandam plebi Christi salutis scientiam assidetis, ista vestræ patere cupimus notitiæ, ut, cognita causæ nostræ justitia, veritati possitis impendere, quod debetis. Ad quod circumspectionem vestram providam, quæ solet sine personarum acceptione jura singulorum æquo libramine ponderare, votivis precibus excitamus. Et si forsan in facto nostro quicquam appareat, cautelam exposcentes consilii sanioris, a vobis super hoc cupimus salubriter informari, parati in agendis nostris singulis cedere rationi. Datum apud Antewerpe XVI die Julii, anno Domini MCCCXXXIX.

Deeds of King Edward III by Robert of Avesbury. "Edward, by the grace of God king of England and lord of Ireland and duke of Aquitaine, to the college of cardinals of the holy Roman Church, beloved of God the Fathers, greeting and the affection of sincere love. To the most holy father, the lord supreme pontiff, after the due offerings of reverence, we have written in these words: 'The primal law of nature, which likewise teaches all living creatures, has granted leave of defense against violent wrongs, laying down as universally rightful whatever each man does for his own protection while repelling force and injury. And so, since long ago the perils of warlike passions and the injurious hazards of losses have been stirred up and brought upon us, things which, being notorious to the whole world and also often made known by our communications to the apostolic see, may reasonably be supposed to be sufficiently known to your blessedness, we, having a peaceable heart, as God knows, offered ourselves, in order to avoid those evils and to withdraw from them peaceably, to pursue agreeable ways of peace, and that reverently and humbly, perhaps even too humbly, not without great danger to our own rights. We did this so that, setting aside for that time the prosecution of any of our other rights, in this season of just sorrow, when, because of the inflamed fury of the sultan of Babylon and the enemies of the cross, Christians in the overseas parts were perishing and do perish by reason of the crusade sworn against them and solemnly proclaimed, and the wrongs done to the Crucified were growing monstrously, we might be able, as we ought and as we more eagerly long, to devote ourselves to Christ's cause, which is neglected, or rather hindered, to the great disgrace and mark of shame of every Christian king, and most of all to our demerit. But we do not know from what sin it comes that, from the peaceful offers humbly made by us, from which love of peace ought to have arisen, there has grown in him who persecutes us from mere wilfulness a swelling of greater anger and greater hardness. Yet it is no deed of ours, nor anything attempted by us against him, that provokes him against us, God and our conscience bearing witness for us; rather the eyes of the world, our public witnesses, see how this aforesaid persecutor of ours, calling himself king of France, wounds and diminishes us and our rights by injuries both many and great. He is indeed an invader and unlawful occupier of that very kingdom of France, which is known to belong to us lawfully by every hereditary right. He did not fear to seize that kingdom, which he ought, if he had summoned us or allowed us to defend ourselves, to have claimed from us by due order of law, since it was notoriously certain where we were and what person we were, whose interest in that matter was principal, and since in that kingdom our right was founded as notoriously as by common law. This is so on the supposition, which the evidence of notorious fact presupposes, that Philip, formerly king of France of famous memory, father of Charles, late king of France of illustrious memory, and of the most serene lady Isabella, queen of England, our mother, was our maternal grandfather; and since, at the time of Charles's death, there survived no male descended from the same Philip who was nearer than we, and since a female person is not capable of that kingdom by the law anciently observed in that kingdom. But that law of the aforesaid kingdom, regarding the favour of the final cause, namely lest the kingdom slip under the rule of a fragile woman, and for that reason excluding the person of a woman, does not exclude the person of a man descending through such an excluded woman, lest there arise a propagation of hatreds, ever odious to rights, namely from person to person, sex to sex, cause to cause, hatred to favour, and lest, contrary to the common traditions of laws, the female sex, where hatred is chiefly concerned, should conceive the male. Moreover, by that same law the weakness of woman is excluded from the kingdom in order that the kingdom may be more beneficially provided for, and thus the nearest male, who otherwise ought chiefly to be admitted to that right, is admitted to it, a right which does not arise primarily from the mother thus excluded, but is derived originally from the grandfather and passed on to the grandson. Otherwise there would follow another absurdity of injustice through the odious transmission aforesaid, namely that a collateral kinsman nearer in degree would be excluded so that a more remote one might be called, although by natural law itself, common to all nations, brothers and sisters and their children are preferred in mutual succession to other collaterals of a different line. And thus from that very law, which arose for the kingdom's good and from dislike of the unfitness of women for rule, there would spring an occasion both of wrong to the right itself and to men descending through a woman. Nor is it to be supposed that the intention of the said law is so unjust as to condemn mother and son together on opposite grounds. Rather, by the contrary judgment of that same law, by which the mother is repelled from succession, succession is then deferred to the son when he enters the degree of his mother, by the likeness of a son who enters the degree of a failing parent and is admitted with that parent to the succession of an uncle. Thus, the mother, sorrowful indeed because by the aforesaid rigor she is stripped of the inheritance of a king, may nevertheless be comforted and rejoice in her son as her substitute, nor does affliction heap affliction upon itself, a thing which the second consideration of law abhors. So too we see, where the burden of affliction is not imposed by the law itself, but by the event, that the law corrects even customary law which condemns and grants the goods of a shipwrecked man to another; and for that reason what is corrected in an express law to avoid an addition of affliction is much more strongly forbidden where it is only tacit. Therefore, let it suffice for the law of the kingdom of France, more than fully, to have lopped off from the mother, not by her own fault but by the act of nature which made her a woman, the royal roots, and that the mother should expressly by that law suffer, as it were, a kind of shipwreck of her own inheritance, without it happening by a tacit consequence of that same law, contrary to all right, that together with her son she should suffer shipwreck a second time, be disinherited again, and have punishment increased without fault, whereas, even where there is fault, punishment ought to be softened. Again, if because the mother was not admitted by law to rule, the son were also understood to be repelled by law from the kingdom, then the kingdom of the Jews could not lawfully, consistently with the foundation of the faith, have come to Jesus, who nevertheless, born by God's mystery and not by union with a man, from a woman, the Virgin Mary of the royal line of David, though she was neither admitted nor to be admitted to such a kingdom, was yet by certain truth of faith the true and lawful king of the Jews. Far be it also that to Jesus, the son of David, royal succession should have been a loosening or breaking of legal observance, since he came not to destroy the law but to fulfil it. This most excellent example of lawful succession reasonably imposes silence on the talkativeness of those contrary to our right in the said kingdom of France, lest those whom identity of reason makes equal with regard to lawful degree and order of succession should be separated in the framing or interpretation of law. Nor was not only our lawful summons and our defense omitted, when so great a prejudice to us was being dealt with, but our procurators who were in France in order lawfully to appear for us and for our right were not only not admitted in court but were even driven away under threat of horrible death. And thus our aforesaid rival is not excused by the act of the twelve peers of France, who, so far as we were concerned, to whom then the condition of tender age was favourable, abandoning the part of judges, acted in this matter as robbers. Their process done to our prejudice was made invalid by our minority itself, a minority which, even as against one of full age, would not have been effective where the defense is removed which belongs to a man by that law of nature which can be taken away neither by a prince nor by law. It is also commonly known everywhere how in our duchy of Aquitaine he has always invaded and battered our rights, invading and laying waste our lands which he was able to seize, adding to others of ours which he occupied, and, putting aside the fear of God, arrogating to himself whatever right he pleased. He also joined himself in alliance with the Scots, whom the rights of ancient times have subjected to our crown, but who by the madness of wicked rebellion strive to kick against their natural lord, and who were guilty of the crime of injured majesty against our predecessors and against us, so that he might omit nothing that could wrong us, thus fostering them in so great a crime and so great an injury to us, although by right of blood and nature he ought rather to have helped us. And when all these things did not fulfil his desire of injuring us, he gathered strength from every side, whatever he could, that the torrent of his wrath might swallow us up, busied with removing us from the world and intent on nothing else, perhaps measuring from his own design and deed against us what he supposed ours to be against him, though he could not infer or measure this by the judgment of any act of ours not yet done. Moreover, bearing with bitterness the gift bestowed on us by divine bounty, he seemed to think it an injury to himself that we should live upon the earth in our kingdom of England, although, as the Lord prosperously granted, we were at least in every way peaceable toward him, and that the people serving us, or rather whom we serve, should in our times by God's gift be glorious. Yet these things, heard or known, did not move us at once; rather we passed them over in dissimulation, sparing no burden or honour in order that his persecution and wrong against us might cease and that our times with him might be peaceful, until we saw the sword near us, prepared for the death and extermination of us and ours. But is there anyone who believes that a prince's mind, known to us, of such great power and thus, as aforesaid, occupied against us, could have been neglected by us, he who, armed with the strength of his will and surrounded by forces summoned from every side, had sojourned from Christ's cause under oath only that he might more freely persecute us according to his pleasure? What therefore was not lawful for a king to do for his own right and his own safety, when he already saw the peril of his estate and his people? Let him say, whoever knows. What may not be lawful for a man striving to avoid wrongs and damages, especially those which were preparing to lay the axe to the roots of life and condition? Could fear be called slight or vain, which, if it could shake the hearts of illustrious and strong men united to us, ought much more to terrify us, whom alone the machinations of the conceived dangers chiefly concerned? Therefore, nature dictating, we made ourselves, and our rights, defenders not by choice but by necessity. And taking heed, with suitable precautions, according to the tested teachings of the military art of illustrious men of old, that the conspiracies of great power are more perilous when merely awaited, amid those troubles recently running on toward the setting of our light and safety we came more wisely to meet them, lest perhaps they proceed dangerously against us, but rather that they might be stifled in the place of their birth. In this we relied on the counsel and aid of those whom kinship and affinity joined to us, and to whom it likewise belonged together with us to meet the dangers of our destruction and by counsels and aids to guard against them. Thus, we placed our cause, which we ask to be deemed just, in the hand of God, as once we also wished to place it in the hands of your apostolic see or of other upright common arbiters, so that He, beholding right from on high, may give just sentence and execute it by the power of His sword. Nor do we believe, holy father, that any upright arbiter or just judge would so interpret or twist our deed that what we did for the protection and attainment of our rights, and for our defense in so great a danger, should be thought an injury or offense of another sort, which we neither intend, nor pursue, nor shall pursue. Rather we believe, indeed we are certain, that the intention of our act will be regarded, and that where and for what reason it was done will be weighed with due consideration and balanced in the scales of a just judge, so that, as the sanction of law teaches, not the deed be weighed from the word, but the word from the deed. It would indeed not be a noble presumption of law, which supposes a deed to be done by a man in his own right, nor a kindly or civil interpretation, such as legal censure always commands, if anyone were to call the notorious exercise of our right and the economy of our defense an unlawful injury to another. Let therefore every conjecture concerning our actions cease, we beseech you, since conjecture claims a place only in uncertain matters. Finally, a calumnious accuser, interpreter of our action, may perhaps say that we have taken up a man against whom the Church is said to have proceeded, or a man not obeying the Church's vicar. He will not say that we are acting in the place of a brother and kinsman, not to acquire a title of right, but only a necessary support of power, so that, upheld by needed aid, where now we are, we may defend ourselves against dangers piled up for our ruin and contend for the just attainment of our rights. He will not say that we intend to defend ourselves and contend for our right, and not to attack the Church or favour its attackers, for whose honour surely we would stand, no regard at all being had for danger, as befits the catholic excellence of kings. Yet, since the whole order of law judges that intention and the final cause or reason of every action are what ought chiefly to be considered, and since from knowledge of will and purpose there arises the distinct and certain understanding of the act accused, and since in human deeds real action, not verbal conception, is weighed, he will not say that in this matter we make a shield against him who was threatening a mortal blow to our head, and that we did as a wise physician's example teaches, who turns matter full of death, rushing toward those parts of the body where life has taken refuge, toward limbs in which the matter cannot be suspected, though it had been preparing the nearest destruction. Thus, he speaks, holy father, thus speaks he who sought to find us unwary and wholly unprepared in his snares. But without doubt it was more prudent and safer for us, according to military theory teaching that he more avoids the danger of war who keeps it farther from the border of his own land, to engage our notorious enemy for our right from lands not our own, allied with powerful men, than alone in our own. Therefore, let not the hostile or sinister information of detractors find place in the bowels of mercy of your holiness against a son who, in the grace and obedience of your predecessors, of yourself, and of the apostolic see, has always persisted and will persist unshaken in the hereditary right of his ancestors. Rather, if any such suggestion concerning the son should perhaps strike the ears of your blessedness, let no belief be given it by your holy condescension before the son who is touched by it has been heard, he who trusts and unceasingly intends before the judgment of your holiness, which presides over every creature, that it is heresy to deny that anyone may prove, declare just, or make just his own cause. This at least we say in conclusion, adding it for greater evidence of our intention and devotion, that if there be anyone connected with us by the bond of nature and joined to us for our defense who does not walk in the way of obedience to the apostolic see as he ought, we intend to give, and trust that we can give not a little usefully, unwearied effort that, all deviation laid aside, he may return to the way of obedience and make all his path straight. One thing further, which we have heard from many, we do not pass over, begging pardon with reverence, because, unheard before, the more attentively it is considered, the more sharply it pierces our mind: namely, that the hand of our adversary, notoriously then as before labouring for our destruction, while he was making war on us, on whom no one was making war, nor was he making war on anyone save us, has been armed from Christ's patrimony. This surely neither the kings of England, our predecessors, illustrious champions of Christ, athletes of the faith, most loving zealots of the holy Roman mother Church, and most devoted keepers of her commands, nor we ourselves, know or believe that we have deserved. And although because of this many say, though not we, that such aid given against us was, so far as concerns us, the act not of a father or mother but of a nurse or stepmother, nevertheless we steadfastly assert that we are and shall perseveringly remain the devoted and humble son of your holiness and of your see, not a stepson. Hence we hope, not without reason, that our humility, made greater and firmer by that which did not deserve harm, ought to find a more abundant increase of your fatherly love and grace, so that what the harshness of the preceding prick has inflicted upon us, though guiltless, the gentleness of your anointing which follows may erase and make good. But this course of our justice and of the wrong thus multiplied against us we intimate to the eminence of your holy summit, in order that your highest and holy measure of the good and the fair, to whom by God through the keys given it belongs to open and close for those placed on earth the gates of heaven, may, as the fullness of its power and the excellence of its forum require, favour our right so far as reason shall warrant; we being always prepared, not merely by your holy judgment which presides over all, but even by any other, humbly to be informed of the truth of the contrary, if anyone knows it. And we, who submit ourselves willingly to reason, will embrace with full and humble gratitude any other truth given us to understand.' And because you, reverend fathers, are by worthy deserts called to share in the solicitude and counsel of the said lord supreme pontiff, and sit at his side to give the people of Christ the knowledge of salvation, we desire these things to be open to your knowledge, so that, the justice of our cause being known, you may be able, as you ought, to attend to the truth. To this we urge your prudent circumspection, which is wont, without accepting persons, to weigh the rights of each by an even balance. And if perhaps in our act there should appear anything that requires the caution of sounder counsel, we desire to be wholesomely informed by you upon it, being ready in all our actions to yield to reason. Given at Antwerp, on the sixteenth day of July, in the thirteenth year of our reign [1339]."

Amabilium Deo patrum sacrosanctæ Romanæ Ecclesiæ cardinalium collegio Fdwardus, Dei gratia rex Angliæ et dominus Hibernis et dux Aquitanis, salutem et sincere dilectionis affectum. Sanctissimo patri, domino summo pontifici, post debita reverentiæ munera, scripsimus in hæc verba:— 'Jus naturæ primævum, pariter animalia cuncta docens, contra violentas injurias licentiam defensionis indulsit, statuens universaliter jure factum quod quisque, vim injuriamque propulsans, suam fecerit ad tutelam Sane, cum dudum animoss guerrarum perioula, injurioss dampnoram discrimina, nobis mota faerint et illata, quæ, toti mundo notoria, ex nostra etiam intimatione frequenti apostolicæ sedi facta satis pro constanti supponitur beatitudini vestræ nota, nos, cor habentes pacificam, novit Deus, pro vitandis illis et pacifice subducendis, obtulimus nos voluntarie pro sequenti, et reverenter ac humiliter forte nimis, amabiles vias pacis, non sine nostrorum magno jurium periculo, interesse, ut, neglecta ' prosecutione alias cujuslibet juris nostri, tempore illo justi doloris, quo, propter accensam faroris soldani Babiloniæ rabiem et crucis hostiam aliorum ex causa jurati contra eos passagii et solempniter publicati, in partibus transmarinis peribant et pereunt Christiani et crescant immaniter injuriæ Orucifixi, possemus, sicut debemus et propensius anhelamus, intendere causæ Christi, quæ negligitar, immo verius præpeditur, in magnam cujuslibet Christicolæ regis maxime demerentis infamiam et ignominiæ magnæ notam. Sed nescimus quo veniat peccato quod, de pacificis oblatis humiliter, ex quibus surgere debuit pacis amor, in eo, qui nos sola voluntate prosequitur, majoris iracundiæ majorisque duritiæ crevit tumor. Contra nos tamen illum non provocat, Deo et nostra conscientia teste nobis, aliquod factum nostrum vel attemptatum per nos aliquod contra eum; immo vident oculi mundi, publici testes nostri, quomodo præfatus persecutor noster, Franciæ regem se nominans, dampnosis injuriis quot et quantis nos et jura nostra vulnerat et defalcat. Ipsius quidem regni Franciæ, quod ad nos omni successorio jure legitime pertinere cognoscitur, est invasor et illicitus occupator, regnum ipsum, quod debuit nobis vocatis vel defensis legitime debito juris ordine petere, non veritus occupare, cum, ubi essemus et quod persona essemus cujus principaliter interesset, notorie certumn csset, et in regno ipso jus nostrum foret tam notorie quam communi jure fundatum; supposito, sicut evidentia facti notorii præsupponit, quod celebris recordationis Philippus, olim rex Franciæ, pater claræ memoriæ Karoli, regis Franciæ, immediate defuncti, et serenissimæ dominæ Isabellæ, reginæ Angliæ, matris nostræ, maternus fuerat avus noster, cum eidem Karolo, tempore mortis suæ, ex descendentibus secum ab eodem Philippo masculus superstes proximior nullus nobis fuerit, et persona feminæ dicti regni, per jus in eodem regno servatum antiquitus, non sit capax; quod jus regni præfati, favorem in viam causæ finalis attendens, ne regnum ipsum sub femina fragili gubernatione labatur, et propter hoc personam mulieris excludens, non excludit personam masculi per sic exclusam feminam descendentis, ne fiat juribus semper odibilis propagatio odioram, personæ videlicet ad personam, sexus ad sexum, causæ ad causam, odii ad favorem, neve, contra legum traditiones communes, femineum genus, ubi maxime de odio agitur, concipiat masculinum. Ad hoc etiam per jus memoratum a regno fragilitas muliebris excluditur, ut regno salubrius consulatur, et proximior masculus admittendus alias admittatur potissime ad jus illud, quod primordialiter a matre sic exclusa non oritur, sed in nepotem propagatum ab avo originaliter derivatur. Alioquin sequeretur et aliaæ iniquitatis absurditas per propagationem odibilem supradictam, quod excluderetur collateralis convicinior, ut remotior vocaretur, cum tamen, ipso jure gentium naturali, fratres et sorores eorumque filii in successione mutua collateralibus aliis alterius lineæ præferantur; et, unde dictum jus pro regni favore ac odio feminæ inhabilitatis ad regnam exoritur, tam juris quam descendentium per feminam masculorum injuriarum occasio nasceretur. Nec est putanda memorati juris intentio sic iniqua, ut matrem et filium ratione contraria simul dampnet. Immo contrario ejusdem juris judicio, quo mater a successione repellitur, filio matris gradum ingresso successio tuno differtur similitudine filii qui gradum parentis deficientis ingreditur, ut ad patrui sucoessionem cum patrais etiam admittatur, ut sic merito tristis mater, præfato rigore regis hereditate nudata, substitutione taliter sibi facta, de filio gaudeat consolata, nec afflictionem affliictioni accumulet, quod secunda consideratio legis horret. Sic videmus etiam ubi onus afflictionis præamabile non intalit lex, sed in lege casus, scilicet quæ consuetudi nariam legem dampnat bona concedentem alii nanfra goram; qua ratione quod in expresso legali pro vitanda afflictionis adjectione corrigitur, multo fortius in tacito prohibetur. Legi ergo regni Franciæ sufficiat plus quam plene, matri, non suo vitio sed naturæ facto quæ feminam fecit illam, radices regias sucoidisse, quodque mater expresse per legem ipsam exheredationis propriæ quasi quoddam naufragium patiatur, absque eo quod ex legis præfatæ consequenti tacito, omni jure contrario, cum filio exhercditato iterum naufragetur, et sine culps pœna inveniatur augeri, cum autem, ubi culpa est, debeat emolliri Aliter etiam, si, pro eo quod mater ex jure non admitteretur ad regnam, repelli jure filius intelligitur a regno, Judæorum regnum contra fidei fandamentum legitime non pervenisset ad Jesum, qui tamen natus Dei mysterio, non viri consortio, ex femina, regali prole Davitica, Maria Virgine, ad regnum hujusmodi non admissa nec etiam admittenda, per certam fidei veritatem rex verus et legitimus exstitit Judæorum. Absit etiam quod Jesu, filii David, regalis successio legalis observantiæ sive nodi fuerit solutio seu fractura, cam non venerit legem solvere sed implere. Hoc autem excellentissimum legitimæ successionis exemplum rationabiliter imponit silentium loquacitati contrariæ juri nostro in regno Franciæ memorato, ne, quoad legitimum gradam et ordinem succedendi, separentur in constitutione vel interpretetione juris quos quoad hoc parificat identitas rationis Nedum autem debite nostri vocatio nostraque defensio, cum de tanto nostro agebatur præjudicio, fait omissa, sed etiam nostri procuratores qui in Franciam inerant, ut pro nobis et nostro jure legitime comparerent, non solum fuerunt in judicio non admissi sed etiam mortis horribilis comminatione repulsi. Et sic nostrum æmulum memoratum factum duodecim parium Franciæ non excusat, qui, quoad nos, quibus ætatis tenellæ ratio tunc favebat, relictis partibus judicum, ex hoc functi partibus sunt prædonum. Quoram processum, factum in nostram præjudicium, ipso jure etiam nostra fecit invaliduam minor ætas, quæ, quoad majorem etiam, efficax non fuisset, taliter defensione sublata quæ competit homini eo jure naturæ, quod tolli nequit principe nec a jure. Notum etiam communiter est ubique qualiter in Aquitaniæ nostro ducatu semper invaserit et Colliserit jura nostra, terras nostras invadens et dissipans quas capere potuit, aliis nostris quas occupavit adjungens, et jus sibi dicens ad libitum, Dei timore postposito, sibi tenons. Scotis etiam, quos nostræ coronæ subjecerunt jura temporum antiquorum, sed per nequam rebellionis dementiam contra naturalem dominum calcitrare conantibus, qui in nostros prædecessores et nos læsæ majestatis criminis rei erant, ut contra nos injuriæ nihil omitteret, ad nostras injurias fœdere se adjunxit, in tanto crimine tanto nostræ injuriæ fovens eos, qui jure sanguinis et naturæ nos debuit potius adjuvare. Cumque præmissa omnia non implerent de nostris injuriis votum suum, collectis undique viribus, quicquid potuit, ut nos iræ suæ torrens absorbeat, aggregavit, tollere nos de mundo sollicitus, ad aliud non intentus, forsitan ex intento factoque suo contra nos nostrum contra se metitus intentum, quod colligere vel metiri nequivit per alicujus nostri actus judicium nondum actam. Donum insuper nobis impensum divini muneris ægre ferens, æstimare visus est suam injuriam in Angliæ regno nostro nos vivere super terram, etsi, quantum dabat Dominus prospere, saltem per omnia pacifice quoad eum, quodque serviens nobis populus, vel verius cui servimus, nostris temporibus Dei dono fuerit gloriosus. Hæc autem non statim audita vel cognita nos moverunt, sed illa sub dissimulatione transivimus, nulli parcentes oneri vel honori, ut contra nos perseoutio sua injuriaque quiesceret nostrumque cum eo pacificum tempus esset, donec propinquum nobis vidimus gladium, nostræ ac nostrorum neci et exterminio præparatum. Sed numquid aliquis est qui credat quod animus nobis cognitus principis tantæ potentiæ et sic, ut præmittitur, occupatæ nobis fuerit negligendus, qui, suæ viribus voluntatis armatus, potentia undique vocata vallatus, solum ut possit liberius pro sua voluntate nos persequi, juratam degerit causam Christi P Quid ergo pro suo jure suaque securitate non liocuit regi, sui status suique populi periculum jam videnti, dicat qui noverit. Quid non liceat homini, de vitandis injuriis dampnisque certanti, illis præsertim quæ ad vitæ statusque radices securim ponere præparabant Levisne timor dici poterit aut vanus, qui pro nobis, si potuit conjunctoram nobis illustrium fortiumque coustantia corda concutere, multo fortius debuit etiam nos terrere, quos Solos periculorum concepta molimina concernebant Propter hoc igitur, natural dictante, facti tam nostri quam nostrorum jurium mon voluntarii sed mnecessarii defensores, ac opportunis cautionibus attendentes, juxta rei militaris documenta probata illustrium antiquorum, quod potentiæ magnæ pericula conspirata periculosius exspectantur, in laboribus illis nuper currentibus ad nostræ lucis et salutis occasum consultius venimus in occursum, ne contra nos forte discriminose procederent, sed sui ortus præfocarentur in loco, illorum freti consilio et auxilio nobis prælato, quos nobis consanguinitas et affinitas conjungebat et ad quos simul spectabat nobiscum periculis nostræ destructionis occurrere illaque consiliis et auxiliis præcavere; ponentes tamin manu Dei, quam in manibus apostolicæ sedis vestræ, vel aliorum bonorum virorum communium, ponere quondam voluimus, justificatam, quam petimus, causam nostram, ut Ipse, rectum ex alto prospiciens, sententiam justam ferat et in sui gladii viribus exsequatur. Nec credimus, alme pater, quod arbiter quivis rectus vel etiam judex justus sic interpretetur aut torqueat factam nostrum, ut, quod pro nostrorum tuitione et assecutione jurium et in tanto discrimine nostram fecimus ad defensam, alterius, quam non intendimus, non agimus, nec agemus, putet injuriam vel offensam. Immo credimus, quin potius certi sumus, quod facti nostri intentio attendetur, et quod, ubi ac propter quod fiat, debita consideratione librabitur et justi statera judicis appendetur, ut, sicut sanctio legis docet, non factum ex dicto, sed dictum pensetur ex facto. Non esset equidem juris præsumptio nobilis, quod supponit factum ab homine fieri suo jure, non benigna interpretatio vel civilis, qualem fieri semper dictat censura legalis, si nostri juris usum notorium nostræquo defensionis compendium dispendium.offensionis illicite quis diceret alienæ. Cesset ergo, quæsumus, omnis conjectura in actibus nostris certisque, locum dumtaxat sibi vendicat in non certis. Denique, dicet forsitan accusator calumpniosus mnostræ actionis interpres quod suscepimus hominem contra quem processisse fertur ecclesiam, vel hominis non parentis ecclesiæ vicariam. Non dicet quod fratris et affinis vicibus fungimar, non ad juris habendum titulam, sed necessarium nobis potentiæ solum asum, ut, necessario suffalti præsidio, ubi nunc sumus, nos congestis in nostram ruinam periculis defendamus et pro nostrorum jurium justa assecutione certemus. Non dicet quod intendimus nos defendere et pro nostro jure certare, nec ecclesiam impugnare vel ejus impugnationi favere, pro cujus utique staremus honore, nullius habita ratione periculi, sicut catholicam excellentiam regam decet. Cum tamen, ut omnis juris series censet, intentio et cujuslibet actionis finalis causa vel ratio sit principaliter attendenda, et ex notitia voluntatis atque propositi surgat distincta certaque cognitio operis accusati, solumque de gestis hominum realis actio, non verbalis conceptio, ponderetur; non dicet quod facimus de materia ista scutam contra eum, qui nostro prominebat capiti mortis ictum, quodque fecerimus médici sapientis exemplo, qui materiam morte plenam, currentem ad partes corporis ubi vita se recipit, divertere facit ad membra in quibus materia fore nequit suspecta, quæ ad proximum fuerat interitum præparata. Sic loquitur, sancte pater, sic loquitur qui in suis insidiis nos invenire quærebat incautos et penitus imparatos. Sed procul dubio cautius et tutius fuit nobis, juxta militarem theoricam edocentem quod motæ guerræ periculum plus evitat qui eam a suæ terræ limite plus sequestrat, contra notorium hostem nostrum pro jure nostro nos congredi ex terris potentiam potentibus sociatos, quam in propria nostra solos. Non igitur apud vestra viscera misericordiæ sanctitatis locum inveniat detrahentium informatio æmula vel sinistra facta de filio, qui suorum hereditario jure majorum in vestrorum prædecessorum, vestra, et apostolicæ sedis, gratia et obedientia semper inconcusse persistit et persistet. Immo, si quævis de filio taliter facta suggestio pulsaverit vestræ beatitudinis forsan aures, non prius a vestra dignatione sancta credulitas illil detur, quam auditus sit filiius qui tangetur, qui confidit et indesinenter intendit ante sanctitatis vestræ judicium, omni præsidens creaturæ, quod negare hæresim est probare, justam dicere vel justam facere quamlibet causam suam. Illud nempe demum dicimus, ad nostræ intentionis majorisque devotionis evidentiam, subjungentes quod, si sit aliquis de nobis fœdere naturæ conjunotus nobisque ad postram defensionem adjunctue, qui per viam obedientiæ apostolicæ sedis non ambulat sicut debet, dare intendimus, quam non parum utiliter dare posse confidimus, operam indefessam, ut, omni dimigso devio, ad viam obedientiæ redeat omnemque faciat semitam suam rectam. Unum rursus, quod a multis audivimus, petits venia cum reverentia, non tacemus, quod alias inauditum, quanto consideratur attentius, pungit acutius mentem nostram; videlicet quod adversarii nostri manus, notorie tunc, ut prius, ad nostrum tantam laborantis exitium, cum guerram faceret nemo sibi, nec ipse alii nisi nobis, de Christi patrimonio sit armata. Quod certe reges Angliæ, nostros prædecessores, illustres Christi pugiles, fidei athletas, sanctæ Romanæ matris ecclesiæ amantissimos zelatores, ejusque mandatorum devotissimos servatores, vel nos etiam nec scimus nec credimus meruisse. Et licet propter hoc dicatur a plurimis, non nobis, quod talis contra nos facta subventio, quoad noe, actus patris vel matris non extitit, sed nutricis vel novercæ, nibilominus tamen constanter asserimus quod sumus ot perseveranter erimus vestræ sanctitatis vestræque sedis devotus et humilis filius, non privignus. Ex quo non sino ratione speramus quod nostra humilitas, facta major et firmior per illud quod non meruit nocumentum, vestræ paternæ caritatis et gratiæ invenire debeat exuberantins incrementum, ut, quod nobis insontibus intulit quæ præcessit asperitas punctionis, sequens deleat et compenset vestræ lenitas unctionis. Hunc autem nostræ justitiæ et contra nos injuriæ sic multiplicatæ processum præeminentiæ vestri sancti culminis intimamus, ut vestr summa sanctaque mensura boni et æqui, cujus a Deo sibi datæ clavi competit aperire et claudere in terra positis portas cœli, prout exigit plenitudo suæ potestatis et præcellentia sui fori, quantum fuerit rationis, favere debeat nostro juri; parati semper, nedum a vestro sancto cunctis præsidente judicio, immo a quolibet alio, de veritate contrarii, si quis eam noverit, humiliter informari. Et, qui sponte rationi subjicimur, aliam datam nobis intelligi veritatem cam plena et humili gratitudine complectemur.' Quia vero vos, patres conscripti, estis in partem sollicitudinis et consilii dicti domini summi pontificis condignis meritis evocati, sibique lateraliter, ad dandam plebi Christi salatis scientiam, assidetis, ista vestræ cupimus patere notitiæ, ut, cognita causæ nostræ justitia, veritati possitis intendere, quod debetis. Ad quod circamspectionem vestram providam quæ solet, sine personarum acceptione, jura singuloram æquo libramine ponderare, votivis precibus excitamus. Et, si forsan in facto nostro quicquam appareat cautelam exposcens consilii sanioris, vobis super hoc cupimus salubriter informari, parati in agendis nostris singalis codere rationi. Datæ apud Andewerpiam, xvj. die Julii, anno regni nostri tertio decimo."

Adam Murimuth Continuation. "To the beloved fathers in God, the venerable college of cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, Edward, by the grace of God king of England, lord of Ireland, and duke of Aquitaine, sends greeting and the affection of sincere love. To the most holy father, the lord supreme pontiff, after the due offerings of reverence, we have written in these words: 'The primal law of nature, which teaches all living things alike, has granted the right of defence against violent injuries, establishing universally that whatever anyone does for his own protection, in repelling force and wrong, is lawful. Since for some time past the dangers of wars, the injuries of wrongs, and the losses of damages have been stirred up against us and inflicted upon us, matters notorious to the whole world, and made sufficiently known to the apostolic see by our frequent declarations, we suppose that these things are well known to your blessedness. Yet we, having a heart inclined to peace, as God knows, in order to avoid these evils and to remove them peaceably, offered ourselves willingly to pursue the paths of peace, reverently and humbly, perhaps too humbly, not without great peril to our own rights. We were ready, even to set aside the pursuit of any claim of ours at that time of just grievance, so that, while the fury of the sultan of Babylon was inflamed and the sacrifice of the Cross, for which a passage had been sworn and solemnly proclaimed, was perishing in overseas lands, and Christians were suffering and perishing, and the injuries done to the Crucified were growing ever greater, we might, as we ought and earnestly desire, devote ourselves to the cause of Christ. That cause is neglected, indeed rather hindered, to the great shame and dishonour of every Christian king, and especially of one who fails in this duty. But we do not know by what sin it comes about that, from our peaceful offers humbly made, whence the love of peace ought to have arisen, there has instead grown in him who persecutes us by mere will a swelling of greater anger and harsher obstinacy. For he is not provoked against us by any deed of ours, as God and our conscience bear witness, nor have we attempted anything against him. Rather, the eyes of the world, our public witnesses, see how the aforesaid persecutor of ours, calling himself king of France, has wounded and diminished us and our rights with numerous and grievous injuries. He is in truth an invader and unlawful occupier of the kingdom of France, which is known to belong to us by every legitimate right of succession. He has not feared to seize that kingdom, which he ought to have sought from us, once we had been duly summoned or called to defend our right, according to the proper course of law, even though it was publicly certain both where we were and what manner of person we were, whose interest in that matter was principal, and even though our right in that kingdom was as manifest as it was grounded in common law. For it is presupposed, as the evidence of a well-known fact establishes, that Philip, formerly king of France of famous memory, father of Charles, late king of France of illustrious memory, and of the most serene lady Isabella, queen of England, our mother, was our maternal grandfather. And since, at the time of that Charles's death, no nearer male descendant of the same Philip survived except ourselves, and since a woman is not capable of holding that kingdom according to the law long observed there, that law, considering the final cause, namely that the kingdom should not fall under the governance of a weak woman, excludes the female person; yet it does not exclude a male descending through such an excluded woman. Otherwise there would arise, hateful to all law, a propagation of exclusions: from person to person, from sex to sex, from cause to cause, from hatred to favour; nor should the female sex, especially where exclusion is based on such reasoning, thereby exclude the male. Moreover, by that same law, the weakness of the female sex is excluded from the kingdom in order that provision may be made more beneficially for its governance, and that the nearest male may be admitted, indeed most especially to that right which does not arise originally from the mother so excluded, but is derived in the grandson from the grandfather as its primary source. Otherwise, another absurdity of injustice would follow from the aforesaid hateful propagation, namely that a nearer collateral kinsman would be excluded while a more remote one was called, although by the natural law of nations brothers and sisters and their children are preferred in succession to other collaterals of another line. And thus, from that law, which arose for the benefit of the kingdom and from the exclusion of women as unfit to rule, there would instead arise injury both to the law itself and to males descending through a woman. Nor should it be thought that the intention of that law is so unjust as to condemn both mother and son on opposite grounds. Rather, by the contrary judgment of the same law, whereby the mother is repelled from succession, the succession is then deferred to the son who enters into the degree of the mother, in the likeness of a son who succeeds to the place of a failing parent, so that he may be admitted to the inheritance even alongside his uncles. Thus, the mother, though justly deprived of the royal inheritance by the aforesaid strict rule, may nevertheless be comforted through such substitution in her son, and rejoice in him, and not have affliction heaped upon affliction, a result which a secondary consideration of the law abhors. So too we see that where the burden of affliction is not imposed by the law itself, but arises from circumstance, the law may correct it, just as customary law condemns provisions that grant goods to another in cases of shipwreck. By the same reasoning, what is expressly corrected in law to avoid the addition of affliction is much more strongly forbidden implicitly. Therefore, for the law of the kingdom of France it is more than sufficient that the mother, not by her own fault but by the condition of nature which made her a woman, is cut off from the royal line, and that she, by the express provision of that law, suffers a kind of shipwreck in her own disinheritance, without it being added, by a tacit consequence of that same law and contrary to all justice, that she should again suffer shipwreck together with her son and that punishment should be increased without fault, when even where there is fault it ought rather to be mitigated. Furthermore, if because the mother is not admitted to the kingdom by law, the son were also to be excluded, then the kingdom of the Jews would not, consistently with the foundation of the faith, have lawfully come to Jesus. Yet he, though born by divine mystery and not by the union of a man, from a woman, Mary the Virgin, of the royal line of David, who herself was not admitted nor could be admitted to that kingdom, was nevertheless, by certain truth of faith, the true and lawful king of the Jews. Far be it, therefore, that in Jesus, the son of David, the royal succession should have been a breaking or dissolution of legal observance; for he came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it. This most excellent example of lawful succession reasonably imposes silence upon those who speak against our right in the aforesaid kingdom of France, lest, in framing or interpreting the law, they separate those whom identity of reason makes equal with respect to the proper degree and order of succession. Nor was our lawful summons, and our opportunity of defence, when so great a prejudice to us was at stake, merely omitted; rather, our representatives who were in France, in order to appear lawfully on our behalf and for our right, were not only refused admission to judgment, but were even driven away under threats of a horrible death. Thus, our aforesaid rival is not excused by the act of the twelve peers of France, who, as far as we are concerned, when our tender age ought then to have been taken into account, abandoned the role of judges and in this matter acted rather as plunderers. Their proceeding, carried out to our prejudice, was rendered invalid by our minority itself; and even had we been of full age, it would not have been valid in such a case, since the defence which belongs to a person by the law of nature, something that cannot be taken away either by a prince or by law, had been denied. It is also commonly known everywhere how, in our duchy of Aquitaine, he has continually encroached upon and broken our rights, invading and devastating our lands wherever he was able, annexing those he seized to others he had already occupied, and claiming right at his own will, setting aside the fear of God and holding all things as if they were his. He has also allied himself by treaty with the Scots, who, by the rights of ancient times, are subject to our crown, but who, through the madness of wicked rebellion, strive to kick against their natural lord, and who were guilty of treason against our predecessors and against us, in order that he might omit nothing of injury against us; thus, in so grave a crime, he supports them to our harm, though by right of blood and of nature he ought rather to have aided us. And when all these things did not satisfy his desire to injure us, he gathered forces from every side, assembling whatever he could, as if to overwhelm us in the torrent of his wrath, striving to remove us from the world, intent on nothing else, perhaps measuring our intention toward him by his own intention and actions against us, though he could not infer or judge any such intention from any deed of ours, since none had yet been done. Furthermore, he bears with resentment the gift bestowed upon us by divine favour, and seems to reckon it an injury to himself that we live upon the earth in our kingdom of England, even though, so far as God has granted prosperity, we have lived entirely in peace toward him, and that the people serving us, or rather whom we serve, have in our time, by God's grace, flourished in honour. These things, however, did not at once, when heard or known, move us; rather we passed them over with dissimulation, sparing neither labour nor honour, so that his persecution and injury against us might cease and that we might enjoy a time of peace with him, until we saw the sword drawn near to us, prepared for the destruction and death of ourselves and of our people. But is there anyone who would believe that the known disposition of so powerful a prince, who, as has been said, has acted thus toward us, ought to be disregarded? Armed with the strength of his will, surrounded by forces summoned from every side, and having set aside the sworn cause of Christ in order more freely to pursue us according to his will, what, then, would not be permitted to a king who already sees the danger to himself and his people? Let whoever knows say what would not be lawful for him in defence of his right and his safety. And what is not permitted to a man striving to avoid injuries and losses, especially those which were preparing to strike at the very roots of his life and condition? Can that fear be called light or vain which was able, if it could, to shake the steadfast hearts of those illustrious and powerful men joined to us, and which must much more strongly have terrified us, whom alone the plots of these dangers chiefly concerned? Therefore, compelled by nature, we became defenders, not voluntarily, but necessarily, both of ourselves and of our rights; and, taking prudent precautions, according to the well-tested principles of warfare established by the illustrious men of old, that dangers devised by great power are the more perilous the longer they are awaited, we judged it wiser to go out to meet those dangers, lest they should proceed against us to our ruin, and rather to stifle them at their origin. In this we relied on the counsel and aid of those whom kinship and affinity bound to us, and to whom it likewise belonged to meet, together with us, the dangers of our destruction and to avert them by counsel and assistance. And we have placed our cause, just, as we claim it to be, in the hands both of God and of your apostolic see, or of other upright men, where once we wished to commit it, so that He who looks down from on high upon what is right may give a just judgment and execute it by the power of His sword. Nor do we believe, most holy father, that any upright arbiter or just judge would so interpret or distort our action as to think that what we have done for the protection and preservation of our rights, and in so great a peril for our defence, was an injury or offence against another, something which we neither intend, nor do, nor will do. Rather, we believe, indeed we are certain, that the intention of our action will be considered, and that both the place and the cause for which it was done will be weighed with due reflection and measured in the balance of a just judge; so that, as the sanction of law teaches, not the deed should be judged from the word, but the word from the deed. For it would not be a noble presumption of law, which assumes that a man acts within his right, nor a fair or civil interpretation, such as legal judgment always requires, if anyone were to say that the evident exercise of our right, and the necessary means of our defence, constituted an unlawful offence against another. Let, therefore, we pray, all conjecture cease in regard to our actions, which are certain; for conjecture claims a place only where matters are uncertain. Finally, a slanderous accuser, an interpreter of our conduct, may perhaps say that we have taken up the cause of a man against whom the Church is said to have proceeded, or have assumed the office, as it were, of one not obedient to the Church. But he will not say that we act in the place of a brother and kinsman, not to obtain any title of right, but only to secure for ourselves the necessary support of power, so that, sustained by needed assistance where we now stand, we may defend ourselves against the dangers amassed for our destruction and strive for the just recovery of our rights. He will not say that we intend to defend ourselves and contend for our right, nor that we aim to attack the Church or to favour any attack upon it, for whose honour indeed we would stand, without regard to any danger, as befits the catholic excellence of kings. And yet, as the whole course of law judges, the intention and final cause or reason of any action must chiefly be considered, and from the knowledge of the will and purpose there arises a clear and certain understanding of the act in question; and only the real act of men, not a verbal interpretation, ought to be weighed. Nor will he say that we have made of this matter a shield against him who threatened our head with the blow of death, and that we have acted according to the example of a wise physician, who diverts a deadly force rushing toward the vital parts of the body into other members where it cannot do harm, though it had been prepared for imminent destruction. Thus, speaks, most holy father, thus speaks he who sought to find us unguarded and wholly unprepared in his snares. But without doubt it was more prudent and safer for us, according to the teaching of military theory, that he who removes war further from the borders of his own land better avoids its danger, to engage our notorious enemy for our right from lands beyond, joined with powerful allies, rather than alone within our own realm. Let not, therefore, at the seat of your holy compassion, any envious or hostile misrepresentation find place against a son who, by hereditary right from his ancestors, has always steadfastly persisted, and will persist, in the grace and obedience of your predecessors, of yourself, and of the apostolic see. Rather, if any such suggestion concerning your son should perhaps reach the ears of your blessedness, let no credence be given to it by your holy authority until the son concerned has been heard, he who trusts, and continually intends, to appear before the judgment of your holiness, which presides over every creature, to show that to deny what is just is to prove error, and to declare or establish the justice of his cause. Finally, to make clearer our intention and our greater devotion, we add this: if there is anyone joined to us by the bond of nature and associated with us in our defence who does not walk as he ought in obedience to the apostolic see, we intend, and confidently believe we can do so with no small benefit, to devote unceasing effort to bring him, abandoning every deviation, back to the path of obedience and to make all his ways straight. One thing more, which we have heard from many, we do not omit to mention, begging pardon with due reverence, though it is something hitherto unheard of and, the more closely it is considered, the more sharply it pierces our mind: namely, that the hands of our adversary, which were then, as before, manifestly directed solely toward our destruction, are armed, while he wages war against no one else, nor anyone against him save ourselves, with the patrimony of Christ. Which indeed we neither know nor believe that the kings of England, our predecessors, illustrious champions of Christ, athletes of the faith, most zealous lovers of Holy Mother Church of Rome, and most devoted observers of her commands, nor we ourselves have deserved. And although, on this account, it is said by many, not by us, that such aid given against us has not been the act of a father or mother, but rather of a nurse or a stepmother, nevertheless we steadfastly affirm that we are, and will perseveringly remain, the devoted and humble son of your holiness and of your see, not a stepson. From this we reasonably hope that our humility, made greater and firmer by that which did not deserve harm, ought to find a more abundant increase of your paternal charity and grace, so that what the preceding harshness of wounding has inflicted upon us undeservedly, the following gentleness of your anointing may wipe away and heal. We therefore make known to the height of your holy eminence this course of our justice and of the injuries so often multiplied against us, so that your most high and sacred measure of goodness and equity, whose office it is, by the keys given to it by God, to open and to close the gates of heaven to those on earth, may, as the fullness of its power and the excellence of its tribunal require, favour our right insofar as reason shall demand. We are always ready, not only before your holy judgment, which presides over all, but even before any other, to be humbly instructed concerning the truth of the contrary case, if anyone should know it. And since we willingly submit ourselves to reason, we shall embrace with full and humble gratitude whatever truth is shown to us.' And because you, revered fathers, have been called, by your worthy merits, to share in the care and counsel of the lord supreme pontiff, and sit beside him to impart the knowledge of salvation to the people of Christ, we desire that these things be made known to you, so that, having understood the justice of our cause, you may attend, as you ought, to the truth. To this end we earnestly entreat your prudent circumspection, which is accustomed, without respect of persons, to weigh the rights of each with equal balance. And if perhaps in our action anything should appear to require the caution of sounder counsel, we desire to be profitably instructed by you in this matter, being ready in all our actions to yield to reason. Given at Antwerp, on the sixteenth day of July, in the thirteenth year of our reign [1339]."

"Amabiliam Deo patram sacrosanctæ Romanæ ecolesiæ cardinalium collegio venerando Edwardus, Dei gratia rex Angliæ et dominus Hiberniæ et dux Aquitaniæ, salutem et sinceræ dilectionis affectum. Sanctissimo patri, domino. summo pontifici, post debita reverentiæ munera, ecripsimns in hæc verba: 'Jus nature primævum, pariter animalis cunota docens, contra violentas injurias licentiam defensionis indulsit, statuens universaliter jure factum quod quisque, vim injuriamque propulsans, suam fecerit ad tutelam Sane, cum dudum animoss guerrarum pericala, injurioss dampnoram discrimina, nobis mota fuerint et illata, quæ, toti mundo notoria, ex nostra etiam intimatione frequenti apostolicæ sedi facta satis pro constanti sup ponitur beatitudini vestræ nota, nos, cor habentes pacifleoum, novit Deus, pro vitandis illis et pacifice subdu cendis, obtulimus nos voluntarie pro sequenti, et reverenter ac humiliter forte nimis, amabiles vias pacis, non sine nostrorum magno jurium periculo, interesse, ut, neglecta prosecutione alis cujuslibet juris nostri, tempore illo justi doloris, quo, propter accensam faroris soldani Babiloniæ rabiem et orucis hostiam aliorum ex causa jurati contra eos passagii et solempniter publicati, in partibus transmarinis peribant et pereunt Christiani et crescant immaniter injuriæ Orncifixi, possemus, sicut debemus et propensias anhelamus, intendere causæ Christi, quæ ne gligitur, immo verius præpeditur, in magnam cujuslibet Christicolæ regis maxime demerentis infamiam et ignominiæ magnæ notam. Sed nescimus quo veniat peccato quod, de pacificis oblatis humiliter, ex quibus surgere debuit pacis amor, in eo, qui nos sola voluntate prosequitur, majoris iracundiæ majorisque duritiæ crevit tumor. Contra nos tamen illum non provocat, Deo et nostra con scientia teste nobis, aliquod factam nostrum vel attemptatam per nos aliquod contra eum; immo vident oculi mundi, publici testes nostri, quomodo præfatus persecutor noster, Franciæ regem se nominans, dampnosis injuriis quot et quantis nos et jura nostra valnerat et defalcat. Ipsius quidem regni Franciæ, quod ad nos omni succes sorio jure legitime pertinere cognoscitur, est invasor et illicitus occupator, regnum ipsum, quod debuit nobis vocatis vel defensis legitime debito juris ordine petere, non veritus occnpare, cum, ubi essemus et quod persona essemus cujus principaliter interesset, notorie certum esset, et in regno ipso jus nostrum foret tam notorie quam communi jure fundatum; supposito, sicut evidentia facti notorii præsupponit, quod celebris recordationis Philippus, olim rex Franciæ, pater claræ memoriæ Karoli, regis Franciæ, immediate defuncti, et serenissimæ dominæ Isabellæ, reginæ Angliæ, matris nostræ, maternus fuerat avus noster, cum eidem Karolo, tempore mortis suæ, ex descendentibus secum ab eodem Philippo masculus superstesproximior nullus nobis fuerit, et persona feminæ dicti regni, per jus in eodem regno servatum antiquitus, non sit capax; quod jus regni præfati, favorem in viam causæ finalis attendens, ne regnum ipsum sub femina fragili gubernatione labatur, et propter hoc personam mulieris excludens, non excludit personam masculi per sic exclusam feminam descendentis, ne fiat juribus semper odibilis propagatio odiorum, personæ videlicet ad personam, sexus ad sexum, causæ ad causam, odii ad favorem, neve, contra legum traditiones communes, femineum genus, ubi maxime de odio agitur, concipiat masculinum. Ad hoc etiam per jus memoratum a regno fragilitas muliebris excluditur, ut regno salubrius consulatur, et proximior masculus admittendus alias admittatur potissime ad jus illud, quod primordialiter a matre sic exclusa non oritur, sed in nepotem propagatum ab avo originaliter derivatur. Alioquin sequeretur et alia iniquitatis absurditas per propagationem odibilem supradictam, quod excluderetur collateralis convicinior, ut remotior vocaretur, cum tamen, ipso jure gentium naturali, fratres et sorores eorumque filii in successione mutua collateralibus aliis alterius lineæ præferantur; et, unde dictum jus pro regni favore ao odio feminæ inhabilitatis ad regnam exoritur, tam juris quam descendentium per feminam masculorum injurisrum occasio nasceretur. Nec est putanda memorati juris intentio sic iniqua, ut matrem et filium ratione contraria simul dampnet. Immo contrario ejusdem juris judicio, quo mater a successione repellitur, filio matris gradum ingresso successio tuno differtur similitudine filii qui gradum parentis deficientis ingreditur, ut ad patrui sucoessionem cum patruis etiam admittatur, ut sic merito tristis mater, præfato rigore regia hereditate nudata, substitutione ta liter sibi facta, de filio gaudeat consolata, nec afflictionem affliotioni accumulet, quod secunda consideratio legis horret. Sic videmus etiam ubi onus afflictionis præamabile non intalit lex, sed in lege casus, scilicet quæ consuetudinariam legem dampnat bona concedentem alii nanfra gorum; qua ratione quod in expresso legali pro vitanda afflictionis adjectione corrigitur, multo fortius in tacito prohibetur. Legi ergo regni Franciæ sufficiat plus quam plene, matri, non suo vitio sed naturæ facto quæ feminam fecit illam, radices regias sucoidisse, quodque mater expresse per legem ipsam exheredationis propriæ quasi quoddam naufragium patiatur, absque eo quod ex legis præfatæ consequenti tacito, omni jure contrario, cum filio exhercditato iterum naufragetur, et sine culps pœna inveniatur augeri, cum autem, ubi culpa est, debeat emolliri. Aliter etiam, si, pro eo quod mater ex jure non admitteretur ad regnam, repelli jure filius intelligitur a regno, Judæorum regnum contra fidei fandamentum legitime non pervenisset ad Jesum, qui tamen natus Dei mysterio, non viri consortio, ex femina, regali prole Davitica, Maria Virgine, ad regnum hujusmodi non admissa nec etiam admittenda, per certam fidei veritatem rex verus et legitimus exstitit Judæorum. Absit etiam quod Jesu, filii David, regalis successio legalis observantiæ sive nodi faerit solutio seu fractura, cum non venerit legem solvere sed implere. Hoc autem excellentissimum legitimæ successionis exemplum rationabiliter imponit silentium loquacitati contrariæ juri nostro in regno Franciæ memorato, ne, quoad legitimum gradum et ordinem succedendi, separentur in constitutione vel interpretatione juris quos quoad hoc parificat identitas rationis Nedum autem debita nostri vocatio nostraque defensio, cum de tanto nostro agebatur præjudicio, fuit omissa, sed etiam nostri procuratores qui in Frauciam inerant, ut pro nobis et nostro jure legitime comparerent, non solum fuerunt in judicio non admissi sed etiam mortis horribilis comminatione repulsi. Et sic nostrum æmulum memoratum factum duodecim parium Franciæ non excusat, qui, quoad nos, quibus ætatis tenellæ ratio tunc favebat, relictis partibus judicum, ex hoc funoti partibus sunt predonum. Quorum processum, fac t tum in nostrum prejudicium, ipso jure etiam nostra fecit inyalidum minor ætas, que, quoad majorem etiam, efficax non fuisset, taliter defensione sublata quæ competit homini eo jure naturæ, quod tolli nequit principe nec a jure. Notum etiam communiter est ubique qualiter in Aquitaniæ nostro ducatu semper invaserit et colliserit jura nostra, terras nostras invadens et dissipans quas capere potuit, aliis nostris quas occupavit adjungens, et jus sibi dicens ad libitum, Dei timore postposito, sibi tenens. Scotis etiam, quos nostræ coronæ subjecerunt jura temporum antiquorum, sed per nequam rebellionis dementiam contra naturalem dominum calcitrare conantibus, qui in nostros prædecessores et nos læsæ majestatis criminis rei erant, ut contra nos injuriæ nihil omitteret, ad nostras injurias fœdere se adjunxit, in tanto crimine tanto nostræ injuriæ fovens eos, qui jure sanguinis et naturæ nos debuit potius adjuvare. Cumque præmissa omnia non implerent de nostris injuriis votum suum, Collectis undique viribus, quicquid potuit, ut nos iræ suæ torrens absorbeat, aggregavit, tollere nos de mundo gollicitus, ad aliud non intentus, forsitan ex intento factoque suo contra nos nostrum contra se metitus intentum,. quod colligere vel metiri nequivit per alicujus nostri actus judicium nondum actam. Donum insuper nobis impensum divini muneris ægre ferens, æstimare vieus est suam injuriam in Angliæ regno nostro nos vivere super terram, etsi, quantum dabat Dominus prospere, saltem per omnia pacifice quoad eum, quodque serviens nobis populus, vel verius cui servimus, nostris temporibus Dei dono fuerit gloriosus. Hæc autem non statim audita vel cognita nos moverunt, sed illa sub dis simulatione transivimus, nulli parcentes oneri vel honori, ut contra nos persecutio sua injuriaque quiesceret nostrumque cum eo pacificum tempus esset, donec propinquum nobis vidimus gladium, nostræ ac nostrorum neci et exterminio præparatum. Sed numquid aliquis est qui credat quod animus nobis cognitus principis tantæ potentiæ et sic, ut præmittitur, occupatæ nobis fuerit negligendus, qui, suæ viribus voluntatis armatus, potentia undique vocata vallatus, solam ut possit liberius pro sua voluntate nos persequi, juratam degerit causam Christi P Quid ergo pro suo jure suaque securitate non licuit regi, sui status suique populi periculum jam videnti, dicat qui noverit. Quid non liceat homini, de vitandis injuriis dampnisque certanti, illis præsertim quæ ad vitæ statusque radices securim ponere præparabant Levisne timor dici poterit aut vanus, qui pro nobis, si potuit conjunctorum nobis illustrium fortiumque coustantia corda concutere, multo fortius debuit etiam nos terrere, quos solos periculoram concepts molimina concernebant Propter hoc igitur, natura dictante, facti tam nostri quam nostrorum jurium non voluntarii sed mnecessarii defensores, ac opportunis cautionibus attendentes, juxta rei militaris documents probata illustriam antiquorum, quod potentiæ magnæ pericula conspirata periculosius exspectantur, in laboribus illis nuper currentibus ad nostræ lucis et salutis occasum consultius venimus in occursum, ne contra nos forte discriminose procederent, sed sui ortus præfocarentur in loco, illorum freti consilio et auxilio nobis prælato, quos nobis consanguinitas et affinitas conjungebat et ad quos simul spectabat nobiscum periculis nostræ destructionis occurrere illaque consiliis et auxiliis præcavere; ponentes tamin manu Dei, quam in manibus apostolicæ sedis vestræ, vel aliorum bonorum virorum communium, ponere quondam voluimus, justificatam, quam petimus, causam nostram, ut Ipse, rectum ex alto prospiciens, sententiam justam ferat et in sui gladii viribus exsequatur. Nec credimus, alme pater, quod arbiter quivis rectus vel etiam judex justus sic interpretetur aut torqueat factum nostrum, ut, quod pro nostrorum tuitione et asgecutione jurium et in tanto discrimine nostram fecimus ad dofensam, alterius, quam non intendimus, non agimus, nec agemus, putet injuriam vel offensam. Immo credimus, quin potius certi sumus, quod facti nostri intentio attendetur, et quod, ubi ac propter quod fiat, debita consideratione librabitur et justi statera judicis appendetur, ut, sicut sanctio legis docet, non factum ex dicto, sed dictum pensetur ex facto. Non esset equidem juris præsumptio nobilis, quod supponit factum ab homine fieri suo jure, non benigna interpretatio vel civilis, qualem fieri semper dictat censura legalis, si nostri juris usum notorium nostræquo defensionis compendium dispendium offensionis illicite quis diceret alienæ. Cesset ergo, quæsumus, omnis conjectara in actibus nostris certisque, locum dumtaxat sibi vendicat in non certis. Denique, dicet forsitan accusator calumpniosus nostræ actionis interpres quod suscepimus hominem contra quem processisse fertur ecclesiam, vel hominis non parentis ecclesiæ vicariam. Non dicet quod fratris et affinis vicibus fangimur, non ad juris habendum titulam, sed necessarium nobis potentiæ solum asum, ut, necessario suffalti præsidio, ubi nunc sumus, nos congestis in nostram ruinam periculis defendamus et pro nostrorum jurium justa assecutione certemus. Non dicet quod intendimus nos defendere et pro nostro jure certare, nec ecclesiam impugnare vel ejus impugnationi favere, pro cujus utique staremus honore, nullius habita Tatione periculi, sicut catholicam excellentiam regum decet. Cum tamen, ut omnis juris series censet, intentio et cujuslibet actionis finalis causa vel ratio sit principaliter attendenda, et ex notitia voluntatis atque propositi surgat distincta certaque cognitio operis accusati, solumque de gestis hominum realis actio, non verbalis conceptio, ponderetur; non dicet quod facimus de materia ista scutam contra eum, qui nostro prominebat capiti mortis ictum, quodque fecerimus médici sapientis exemplo, qui materiam morte plenam, currentem ad partes corporis ubi vita se recipit, divertere facit ad membra in quibus materia fore nequit suspects, quæ ad proximum fuerat interitum præparata. Sic loquitur, sancte pater, sic loquitur qui in suis insidiis nos invenire quærebat incautos et penitus imparatos. Sed procul dubio cautius et tutius fuit nobis, juxta militarem theoricam edocentem quod motæ guerræ periculum plus evitat qui eam a suæ terræ limite plus sequestrat, contra notorium hostem nostrum pro jure nostro nos congredi ex terris potentiam potentibus sociatos, quam in propria nostra solos. Non igitur apud vestra viscera misericordiæ sanctitatis locum inveniat detrahentium informatio æmula vel sinistra facta de filio, qui suorum hereditario jure majorum in vestrorum prædecessorum, vestra, et apostolicæ sedis, gratia et obedientia semper inconcusse persistit et persistet. Immo, si quævis de filio taliter facta suggestio pulsaverit vestræ beatitudinis forsan aures, non prius a vestra dignatione sancta credulitas illi detur, quam auditus sit filius qui tangetur, qui confidit et indesinenter intendit ante sanctitatis vestræ judicium, omni præsidens creaturæ, quod negare hæresim est probare, justam dicere vel justam facere quamlibet causam suam. Illud nempe demum dicimus, ad nostræ intentionis majorisque devotionis evidentiam, subjungentes quod, si sit aliquis de nobis fœdere naturæ conjunctus nobisque ad postram defensionem adjunctus, qui per viam obedientiæ apostolicæ sedis non ambulat siocut debet, dare intendimus, quam non parum utiliter dare posse confidimus, operam indefessam, ut, omni dimigso devio, ad viam obedientiæ redeat omnemque faciat semitam suam rectam. Unum rursus, quod a multis audivimus, petits venia cum reverentis, non tacemus, quod alias inauditum, quanto consideratur attentius, pungit acutius mentem nostram; videlicet quod adversarii nostri manus, notorie tunc, ut prius, ad nostruam tantum laborantis exitium, cum guerram faceret mnemo sibi, nec ipse alii nisi nobis, de Christi patrimonio sit armata. Quod certe reges Angliæ, nostros prædecessores, illustres Christi pugiles, fidei athletas, sancte Romanæ matris ecclesiæ amantissimos zelatores, ejusque mandatorum devotissimos servatores, vel nos etiam nec scimus nec credimus meruisse. Et licet propter hoc dicatur a plurimis, non nobis, quod talis contra nos facta subventio, quoad noe, actus patris vel matris non extitit, sed nutricis ve novercæ, nihilominus tamen constanter asserimus quod sumus ot perseveranter erimus vestræ sanctitatis vestræque sedis devotus et humilis filius, non privignus. Ex quo non sino ratione speramus quod nostra humilitas, facta major et firmior per illud quod non meruit nocumentum, vestræ Paternæ caritatis et gratiæ invenire debeat exuberantins incrementum, ut, quod nobis insontibus intulit quæ præcessit asperitas punctionis, sequens deleatet comperset vestræ lenitas unctionis. Hunc autem mostræ justitiæ et contra nos injuriæ sic multiplicatæ processum præeminentiæ vestri sancti culminis intimamus, ut vestr summa sanctaque mensura boni et æqui, cujus a Deo sibi datæ clavi competit aperire et claudere in terra positis portas cœli, prout exigit plenitudo suæ potestatis et præcellentia sui fori, quantum fuerit rationis, favere debeat nostro juri; parati semper, nedum vestro sancto cunctis præsidente judicio, immo a quolibet alio, de veritate contrarii, si quis eam noverit, humiliter informari. Et, qui sponte rationi subjicimur, aliam datam nobis intelligi veritatem cum plena et humili gratitudine complectemur.' Quia vero vos, patres conscripti, estis in partem sollicitudinis et consilii dicti domini summi pontificis condignis meritis evocati, sibique lateraliter, ad dandam plebi Christi salutis scientiam, assidetis, ista vestræ cupimus patere notitiæ, ut, cognita causæ nostræ justitia, veritati possitis intendere, quod debetis. Ad quod cireumspectionem vestram providam quæ solet, sine personarum acceptione, jura singuloram æquo libramine ponderare, votivis precibus excitam us. Et, si forsan in facto nostro quicquam appareat cautelam exposcens consilii sanioris, vobis super hoc cupimus salubriter informari, parati in agendis nostris singalis codere rationi. Datæ apud Andewerpiam, xvj. die Jnlii, anno regni nostri tertio decimo."

Deeds of King Edward III by Robert of Avesbury. "And in that region sixty men-at-arms and other servants were lying in an ambush, intending to do harm to our men. Fifteen of our English men-at-arms encountered them and killed them all, which was considered a miracle. On Tuesday my lord moved to Carentan. On Wednesday he came to the aforesaid Montebourg, in the Cotentin peninsula. On that day, when my lord first entered the said peninsula, Robert Knolles, with seven men-at-arms, rode ahead of my lord to arrange lodging for him and his men. Suddenly they encountered one hundred and twenty men-at-arms, crossbowmen, brigands, and Frenchmen, who had come out from a castle in those parts in order to rob and burn a town that was under our obedience. Robert and the seven men-at-arms killed them all, except three who were taken for ransom. Every town in which my lord lodged was a fine, large, and rich town, and each day the men captured various fortresses and a great number of prisoners and spoils. When they returned, they brought with them two thousand horses belonging to the enemy. Thus, in this expedition my lord gained great favour and great honour, for never had so few men been seen to make such a campaign in such a country, and without losing any of their men, praised be God. Written at Montebourg, the 16th day of July, in the year of grace 1356."

"Et en cele pays LX hommes darmes et aultres servauntz estoient en un enbusshment, pur feare le mal qils purroient a noz geantz; ove quex XV de noz geantz darmes Dengleterre avoient affeare et lez tuerent trestoutz: quele chose feust tuen pur miracle. Et le Marsdy mounseignur se remua a Carantan. Et le Meskerdy il vient a Mountburgh avauntdit, en la isle de Constantin. Le quel jour, qaunt monseignur primerment entra la dite isle, Robert Cnolles od VIJ hommes darmes chivacha devaunt mounseignur, pur luy etsez gentz herberger, et encouutra sodeynement VJ^xx hommes darmes, darblasters, brigauntz, et Fraunceys, qissierent dun chastiel qest en celes parties, pur avoir robbe et ars une ville qest a nostre obeisaunce. Et le dit Robert et les VIJ dits hommes darmes lez tuerent trestoutz, horpris IIJ qe fusrent pris a raunsoun. Et chescune de lez ditz villes ou mounseignur estoit herberge foust beale ville, graunde, et riche, et chescun jour lez gentz pristerent diverses forteresses et mult graunt plente de prisoners et de pilages; et a lour retourner amesnerent ovesgqe eux M^lM^l chivals des enemys; si qe en ceste chivache mounseignur sad eu graunt grace et graunt honur, qar unges nestoit vewe si poy de gentz feare tiel chivache en tiele pays, et saunz perdre de sez gentz, ent loiez soit Dieu. Escript a Mountburgh, le XVJ jour de Juyl, lan du grace mil CCCLVI."

Memoires Jacques du Clercq. On the 16th day of July 1453, after the duke had stayed twelve days at Courtrai, a large sum of money was brought to him. From this he paid all his men-at-arms for the coming month. Then, on that same day, he departed from Courtrai and went to besiege a very strong castle called Gavere, located between Ghent and Oudenaarde, where the people of Ghent were holding out. Before arriving there, he arranged his army into three divisions, called, as mentioned before, the vanguard, the main battle, and the rearguard. In the first battle was the Marshal of Burgundy, with Anthony, the Bastard of Burgundy, Sir Jean de Croy, great bailiff of Hainaut, together with men from Hainaut and many other knights, squires, and soldiers, too many to name. In the second division was the Duke of Burgundy himself, fully armed. As was said, and believed by those who knew him, he was the boldest and most valiant man in his entire army. He had already proven this in many great battles, and was considered a man without fear. Although he was then fifty-six years old, he still cut a fine figure in armour. (The chronicler notes that those who wish to know more of his valour can read accounts of his earlier campaigns, such as at Saint-Riquier, in Holland, and in Bruges.)

Le xvj^e jour de juillet mil quatre cens liij, après que le duc eust sejourné douze jours a Courtray, on apporta grosses finanches audit duc; sy feit d'icelles payer touts ses gensdarmes pour ung mois advenir, puis icelluy jour se partist de Courtray, et alla assieger ung moult fort chastel qui est entre Gand et Audenarde, auquel chastel les Gantois se tenoient, pour lequel chastel adsieger, et ains qu'il arriva la, ordonna ses gens en trois batailles, qu'on appelle, comme dessus est dit, avant garde, bataille et arriere garde; en la premiere bataille qu'on appelle avant garde, estoit chief le marischal de Bourgogne, avecq lui estoit Anthoine, bastard de Bourgogne, messire Jehan de Croy, grand bailly de Haynault, avecq les Hennuers et maints aultres chevalliers, escuyers et gens de guerre, dont trop longue chose seroit a racompter les noms, et aussy certes j^e ne sçauroys; en la seconde bataille estoit le duc de Bourgogne armé tout au clair, lequel, comme on disoit, et pour tel estoit tenu de ceulx qui le cognoissoient et l'avoient veu, estoit le plus hardy et le plus valliant homme qui fust en toute son assemblée, et bien l'avoit monstré en son temps en plusieurs grandes et grosses batailles, et estoit ung homme sans poeur, comme on disoit; et combien qu'il euist lors cinquante six ans, sy le faisoit il beau veoir en armes: qui de sa vaillance voldra ouyr parler ou veoir, le verra es cronicques de ceulx qui ont mis par escript la bataille qu'il olt a St Ricquier contre les Franchois, et qui ont mis aussy par escript comment il meit le pays de Hollande en sa subjection, et comment ceulx de Bruges le cuiderent mectre a mort, et toute sa compagnie en ladite ville de Bruges. j^e me tairay a tant de ce et retourneray a ma matiere.

Foxe's Book of Martyrs. [16th July 1546] The sermon being finished, the martyrs [Anne Askew [aged 25]], standing there tied at three several stakes ready to their martyrdom, began their prayers. The multitude and concourse of the people was exceeding; the place where they stood being railed about to keep out the press. Upon the bench under St. Bartholomew's church sat Wriothesley [aged 40], chancellor of England; the old duke of Norfolk, the old earl of Bedford [aged 61], the lord mayor, with divers others. Before the fire should be set unto them, one of the bench, hearing that they had gunpowder about them, and being alarmed lest the faggots, by strength of the gunpowder, would come flying about their ears, began to be afraid: but the earl of Bedford, declaring unto him how the gunpowder was not laid under the faggots, but only about their bodies, to rid them out of their pain, which having vent, there was no danger to them of the faggots, so diminished that fear.

Then Wriothesley, lord chancellor, sent to Anne Askew letters, offering to her the king's pardon if she would recant; who, refusing once to look upon them, made this answer again, that she came not thither to deny her Lord and Master. Then were the letters likewise offered unto the others, who, in like manner, following the constancy of the woman, denied not only to receive them, but also to look upon them. Whereupon the lord mayor, commanding fire to be put unto them, cried with a loud voice, Fiat justitia.

And thus the good Anne Askew, with these blessed martyrs, being troubled se many manner of ways, and having passed through so many torments, having now ended the long course of her agonies, being compassed in with flames of fire, as a blessed sacrifice unto God, she slept in the Lord A.D. 1546, leaving behind her a singular example of Christian constancy for all men to follow.

John Evelyn's Diary. 15th July 1669. Having two days before had notice that the University intended me the honor of Doctorship, I was this morning attended by the beadles belonging to the Law, who conducted me to the Theater, where I found the Duke of Ormond [aged 58] (now Chancellor of the University) with the Earl of Chesterfield [aged 35] and Mr. Spencer [aged 40] (brother to the late Earl of Sunderland). Thence, we marched to the Convocation House, a convocation having been called on purpose; here, being all of us robed in the porch, in scarlet with caps and hoods, we were led in by the Professor of Laws, and presented respectively by name, with a short eulogy, to the Vice-Chancellor, who sat in the chair, with all the Doctors and Heads of Houses and masters about the room, which was exceedingly full. Then, began the Public Orator his speech, directed chiefly to the Duke of Ormond, the Chancellor; but in which I had my compliment, in course. This ended, we were called up, and created Doctors according to the form, and seated by the Vice-Chancellor among the Doctors, on his right hand; then, the Vice-Chancellor made a short speech, and so, saluting our brother Doctors, the pageantry concluded, and the convocation was dissolved. So formal a creation of honorary Doctors had seldom been seen, that a convocation should be called on purpose, and speeches made by the Orator; but they could do no less, their Chancellor being to receive, or rather do them, this honor. I should have been made Doctor with the rest at the public Act, but their expectation of their Chancellor made them defer it. I was then led with my brother Doctors to an extraordinary entertainment at Doctor Mewes's, head of St John's College, Oxford University, and, after abundance of feasting and compliments, having visited the Vice-Chancellor and other Doctors, and given them thanks for the honor done me, I went toward home the 16th, and got as far as Windsor, Berkshire [Map], and so to my house the next day.

Greville Memoirs. 16th July 1830. The King's good-nature, simplicity, and affability to all about him are certainly very striking, and in his elevation he does not forget any of his old friends and companions. He was in no hurry to take upon himself the dignity of King, nor to throw off the habits and manners of a country gentleman. When Lord Chesterfield went to Bushy to kiss his hand, and be presented to the Queen, he found Sir John and Lady Gore there lunching, and when they went away the King called for their carriage, handed Lady Gore into it, and stood at the door to see them off. When Lord Howe came over from Twickenham to see him, he said the Queen was going out driving, and should 'drop him' at his own house. The Queen, they say, is by no means delighted at her elevation. She likes quiet and retirement and Bushy (of which the King has made her Ranger), and does not want to be a Queen. However, 'L'appétit viendra en mangeant.' He says he does not want luxury and magnificence, has slept in a cot, and he has dismissed the King's cooks, 'renversé la marmite.' He keeps the stud (which is to be diminished) because he thinks he ought to support the turf. He has made Mount Charles [aged 63] a Lord of the Bedchamber, and given the Robes to Sir C. Pole, an admiral. Altogether he seems a kind-hearted, well-meaning, not stupid, burlesque, bustling old fellow, and if he doesn't go mad may make a very decent King, but he exhibits oddities. He would not have his servants in mourning—that is, not those of his own family and household—but he sent the Duke of Sussex to Mrs. Fitzherbert to desire she would put hers in mourning, and consequently so they are. The King and she have always been friends, as she has, in fact, been with all the Royal Family, but it was very strange. Yesterday morning he sent for the officer on guard, and ordered him to take all the muffles off the drums, the scarfs off the regimentals, and so to appear on parade, where he went himself. The colonel would have put the officer under arrest for doing this without his orders, but the King said he was commanding officer of his own guard, and forbade him. All odd, and people are frightened, but his wits will at least last till the new Parliament meets. I sent him a very respectful request through Taylor that he would pay £300, all that remained due of the Duke of York's debts at Newmarket, which he assented to directly, as soon as the Privy Purse should be settled—very good-natured. In the meantime it is said that the bastards are dissatisfied that more is not done for them, but he cannot do much for them at once, and he must have time. He has done all he can; he has made Errol Master of the Horse, Sidney a Guelph and Equerry, George Fitzclarence the same and Adjutant-General, and doubtless they will all have their turn. Of course the stories told about the rapacity of the Conynghams have been innumerable. The King's will excited much astonishment, but as yet nothing is for certain known about the money, or what became of it, or what he gave away, and to whom, in his lifetime.