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The Charter and its Guardian, Parliamen
Edward I and the Law; Part 2

Edward I and the Law; Part 2

Edward's troubles did not end, however, with the holding of the Model Parliament. Money had been voted, but it took time to collect it, and Edward, at war with Scots, Welsh, and Frenchmen, was in a desperate hurry for supplies. To make things worse, Pope Boniface VIII, who wished to force Edward and Philip IV, King of France, to make peace, determined to cut off the supplies of money which they drew from the clergy in their realms. He therefore issued a bull known as "Clericis Laicos", forbidding all payments "from the clergy to the laity" without his sanction. As a matter of fact both kings treated the bull as a vexatious piece of papal interference. Edward I let it be understood that if the clergy refused to pay the grant they had promised, he would treat them as outlaws; that is to say, the law of England would give them no rights against anyone who defrauded or wronged them. Still, the result was to leave Edward in even greater straits for money, and, what was worse, his barons refused to go to the war in France. They were bound, they admitted, to accompany him; but they understood their obligation to "accompany" in the narrowest sense: declared they would not go to Gascony while he went to Flanders. The Constable Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, and the Marshal Bohun, Earl of Hereford, were the ringleaders. "By God, Sir Earl," said Edward to the Constable in a ferocious pun, "thou shalt go or hang." "By God, Sir King," was the cool reply, "I will neither go nor hang." The two earls went home and fifteen hundred knights with them, and Edward, now at his wits' end for money and men, seized the wool from the merchants in the ports, ordered the courtiers to find him provisions, and soon after sailed for Flanders.

No sooner was he out of the kingdom than the two earls appeared in London, and forbade the King's Council to collect any of the moneys irregularly levied on wool. A Parliament was hastily summoned, and the earls demanded that the Great Charter should be solemnly confirmed, with the addition of a clause that the king was not to take "such manner of aids or prises save by the common assent of the realm"; that the "evil tax" (the maltote) on wool was to be given up; and that for the future the king and his heirs would not take anything without the common consent and goodwill of the commonalty of the realm, save only the ancient "custom" on wool, skin, and leather already granted. The Council of Regency gave their promise to this, and the king afterwards confirmed their promise.

Thus the years 1295 and 1297 saw the fulfilment of what had been first shadowed out eighty-two years before; the year 1213 saw the first appearance of representatives of the Commons at a great Council; 1295 saw the principle established as a model Magna Carta was signed in 1215: its most important principles were reasserted and agreed to in the most solemn way in the Confirmation of the Charters of 1297. Eighty years had the struggle over the Charter lasted: it had ended in the victory of the nation over the king, and in the creation of a body whose chief duty was to watch over the Charter, namely Parliament. Yet it is noteworthy that the victory was won, as it was in 1215, by a rebellious gathering of barons. Parliament had not yet the vigour to stand for itself. In extremity the old remedy against misgovernment, an armed rising, was once more used. But while the first monarch, John, only gave promises as a convenient way out of a temporary difficulty, Edward's word could be trusted. His motto was "Keep troth", and he took pride in maintaining it. Then again the Confirmation of the Charters went much further than Magna Carta. That had only forbidden the levy of illegal scutages or aids, and in word at any rate Edward had not broken it. Taxing wool was not taking either scutage or aid. Edward was within the letter of the law. But the barons went by the spirit of it. They read the Charter as laying down the restriction of all taxation (save the three regular feudal aids) unless by the consent of the realm, and Edward, by yielding, admitted that they were right in their view.

Chronology

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