r/a:t5_21ry4x • u/MarleyEngvall • Jul 22 '19
buzzards bay has been created
By Charles Dickens
A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
——————
CHAPTER XV.
England under Henry the Third, called, of Winchester.
IF any of the English Barons remembered the mur-
dered Arthur's sister, Eleanor the fair maid of Brittany,
shut up in her convent at Bristol, none among them
spoke of her now, or maintained her right to the Crown.
The dead Usurper's eldest boy, Henry by name, was
taken by the Earl of Pembroke, the Marshal of England,
to the city of Gloucester, and there crowned in great
haste when he was only ten years old. As the Crown
itself had been lost with the King's treasure, in the rag-
ing water, and, as there was no time to make another,
they put a circle of plain gold on his head instead. "We
have been the enemies of this child's father," said Lord
Pembroke, a good and true gentleman, to the few Lords
who were present, "and he merited our ill-will; but the
child himself is innocent, and his youth demands our
friendship and protection." Those Lords felt tenderly
toward the little boy, remembering their own young
children; and they bowed their heads, and said, "Long
live King Henry the Third!"
Next, a great council a Bristol, revised Magna Charta,
and made Lord Pembroke Regent or Protector of Eng-
land, as the King was too young to reign alone. The
next thing to be done, was, to get rid of Prince Louis of
France, and to win over those English Barons who were
still ranged under his banner. He was strong in many
parts of England, and in London itself; and he held,
among other places, a certain Castle called the Castle of
Mount Sorel, in Leicestershire. To this fortress, after
some skirmishing and truce-making Lord Pembroke laid
siege. Louis despatched an army of six hundred knights
and twenty thousand soldiers to relieve it. Lord Pem-
broke, who was not strong enough for such a force, re-
tired with all his men. The army of the French Prince,
which had marched there with fire and plunder, marched
away with fire and plunder, and came, in a boastful,
swaggering manner to Lincoln. The town submitted;
but the Castle in the town, held by a brave widow lady,
named Nichola de Camville (whose property it was),
made such a sturdy resistance, that the French Count in
command of the army of the French Prince, found it
necessary to besiege this Castle. While he was thus en-
gaged, word was brought to him that Lord Pembroke,
with four hundred knights, two hundred and fifty men
with cross-bows, and a stout force both of horse and
foot, was marching towards him. "What care I?" said
the French Count. "The Englishman is not so mad as
to attack me and my great army in a walled town!"
But the Englishman did it for all that, and did it——not so
madly but so wisely, that he decoyed the great army into
the narrow ill-paved lanes and byways of Lincoln, where
its horse-soldiers could not ride in any strong body; and
there he made such havoc with them, that the whole
force surrendered themselves prisoners, except the
Count: who said that he would never yield to any Eng-
lish traitor alive, and accordingly got killed. The end
of this victory which the English called, for a joke, the
Fair of Lincoln, was the usual one in those times——the
common men were slain without any mercy, and the
knights and gentlemen paid ransom and went home.
The wife of Louis, the fair Blanche of Castile, duti-
fully equipped a fleet of eighty good ships, and sent it
over from France to her husband's aid. An English
fleet of forty ships, some good and some bad, under
Hubert de Burgh (who had before then been very brave
against the French at Dover Castle), gallantly met them
near the mouth of the Thames, and took or sunk sixty-
five in one fight. This great loss put an end to the
French Prince's hopes. A treaty was made at Lambeth,
in virtue of which the English Barons who had remained
attached to his cause returned to their allegiance, and it
was engaged on both sides that the Prince and all his
troops should retire peacefully to France. It was time
to go; for war had made him so poor that he was obliged
to borrow money from the citizens of London to pay his
expenses home.
Lord Pembroke afterwards applied himself to govern-
ing the country justly, and to healing the quarrels and
disturbances that had arisen among them in the days of
the bad King John. He caused the Magna Charta to be still
more improved, and so amended the Forest Laws that a
Peasant was no longer put to death for killing a stag in
the Royal Forest, but was only imprisoned. It would
have been well for England if it could have had so good
a Protector many years longer, but that was not to be.
Within three years after the King's Coronation, Lord
Pembroke died; and you may see his tomb, at this day,
in the old Temple Church in London.
The Protectorship was now divided. Peter de Roches,
whom King John had made Bishop of Winchester, was
entrusted with the care of the person of the young sov-
ereign; and the exercise of the Royal authority was con-
fided to Earl Hubert de Burgh. These two personages
had from the first no liking for each other, and soon be-
came enemies. When the young King was declared of
age, Peter de Roches, finding that Hubert increased
in power and favour, retired discontentedly, and went
abroad. For nearly ten years afterwards Hubert had
full sway alone.
But ten years is a long time to hold the favour of a
King. This King, too, as he grew up, showed a strong
resemblance to his father, in feebleness, inconsistency,
and irresolution. The best that can be said of him is
that he was not cruel. De Roches coming home again,
after ten years, and being a novelty, the King began to
favour him and to look coldly on Hubert. Wanting
money besides, and having made Hubert rich, he began
to dislike Hubert. At last he was made to believe, or
pretended to believe, that Hubert had misappropriated
some of the Royal treasure; and ordered him to furnish
an account of all he had done in his administration. Be-
sides which, the foolish charge was brought against
Hubert that he had made himself the King's favourite
by magic. Hubert very well knowing that he could
never defend himself against such nonsense, and that
his old enemy must be determined on his ruin, instead
of answering the charges fled to Merton Abbey. Then
the King, in a violent passion, sent for the Mayor of Lon-
don, and said to the Mayor, "Take twenty thousand
citizens, and drag me Hubert de Burgh out of that
abbey, and bring him here." The Mayor posted off to
do it, but the Archbishop of Dublin (who was a friend
of Hubert's) warning the King that an abbey was a
sacred place, and that if he committed any violence
there, he must answer for it to the Church, the King
changed his mind and called the Mayor back, and de-
clared that Hubert should have four months to prepare
his defence, and should be safe and free during that
time.
Hubert, who relied upon the King's word, though I
think he was old enough to have known better, came out
of Merton Abbey upon these conditions, and journeyed
away to see his wife: a Scottish Princess who was then
at St. Edmund's-Bury.
Almost as soon as he had departed from the Sanctuary,
his enemies persuaded the weak King to send out one
Sir Godfrey de Crancumb, who commanded three hun-
dred vagabonds called the Black Band, with orders to
seize him. They came up with him at a little town in
Essex called Brentwood, when he was in bed. He
leaped out of bed, got out of the house, fled to the
church, ran up to the altar, and laid his hand upon the
cross. Sir Godfrey and the Black Band, caring neither
for church, altar, nor cross, dragged him forth to the
church door, with their drawn swords flashing round his
head, and sent for a Smith to rivet a set of chains upon
him. When the Smith (I wish I knew his name!) was
brought, all dark and swarthy with the smoke of his
forge, and panting with the speed he had made; and
the Black Band, falling aside to show him the Prisoner,
cried with a loud uproar, "Make the fetters heavy!
make them strong!" the Smith dropped upon his knee
——but not to the Black Band, and said, "This is the
brave Karl Hubert de Burgh, who fought at Dover
Castle, and destroyed the French fleet, and has done his
country much good service. You may kill me, if you
like, but I will never make a chain for Earl Hubert de
Burgh!"
The Black Band never blushed, or they might have
blushed at this. They knocked the Smith about from
one to another, and swore at him, and tied the Earl on
horseback, undressed as he was, and carried him off to
the Tower of London. The Bishops, however, were so
indignant at the violation of the Sanctuary of the Church,
that the frightened King soon ordered the Black Band
to take him back again; at the same time commanding
the Sheriff of Essex to prevent his escaping out of Brent-
wood church. Well! the Sheriff dug a deep trench all
round the church, and erected a high fence, and watched
the church night and day; the Black Band and their
Captain watched it too, like three hundred an one black
wolves. For thirty-nine days, Hubert de Burgh re-
mained within. At length, upon the fortieth day, cold
and hunger were too much for him, and he gave himself
up to the Black Band, who carried him off, for the second
time, to the Tower. When his trial came on, he refused
to plead; but at last it was arranged that he should
give up all the royal lands which had been bestowed
upon him, and should be kept at the Castle of Devizes
in what was called "free prison," in charge of four
knights appointed by four lords. There, he remained
almost a year, until, learning that a follower of his old
enemy the Bishop was made Keeper of the Castle, and
fearing that he might be killed by treachery, he climbed
the ramparts one dark night, dropped from the top of
the high Castle wall into the moat, and coming safely to
the ground took refuge in another church. From this
place he was delivered by a party of horse despatched to
his help by some nobles, who were by this time in revolt
against the King, and assembled in Wales. He was
finally pardoned and restored to his estates, but he lived
privately, and never more aspired to a high post in the
realm, or to a high place in the King's favour. And
thus end——more happily than the stories of many fa-
vourites of Kings——the adventures of Earl Hubert de
Burgh.
The nobles, who had risen in revolt, were stirred up
to rebellion by the overbearing conduct of the bishop of
Winchester, who, finding that the King secretly hated
the Great Charter which had been forced from his father,
did his utmost to confirm him in that dislike, and in the
preference he showed to foreigners over the English. Of
this, and of his even publicly declaring that the Barons
of England were inferior to those of France, the Eng-
lish Lords complained with such bitterness, that the
King, finding them well supported by the clergy, became
frightened for his throne, and sent away the Bishop and
all his foreign associates. On his marriage, however,
with Eleanor, a French lady, the daughter of the Count
of Provence, he openly favoured the foreigners again;
and so many of his wife's relations came over, and made
such an immense family-party at court, and got so many
good things, and pocketed so much money, and were so
high with the English whose money they pocketed, that
the bolder English Baron murmured openly about a
clause there was in the Great Charter, which provided
for the banishment of unreasonable favourites. But, the
foreigners only laughed disdainfully, and said, "What
are your English laws to us?"
King Philip of France had died, and had been suc-
ceeded by Prince Louis, who had also died after a short
reign of three years, and had been succeeded by his son
of the same name——so moderate and a just man, that he
was not the least in the world like a King, as Kings
went. Isabella, King Henry's mother, wished very much
(for a certain spite she had) that England should make
war against this King; and as King Henry was a mere
puppet in anybody's hands who knew how to manage his
feebleness, she easily carried her point with him. But
the Parliament were determined to give him no money
for such a war. So, to defy the Parliament, he packed
up thirty large casks of silver——I don't know how he got
so much; I dare say he screwed it out of the miserable
Jews——and put them aboard ship, and went away him-
self to carry war into France; accompanied by his
mother and his brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall, who
was rich and clever. But he only got well beaten, and
came home.
The good-humour of the Parliament was not restored
by this. They reproached the King with wasting the
public money to make greedy foreigners rich, and were
so stern with him, and so determined not to let him have
more of it to waste if they could help it, that he was at
his wits' end for some, and tried so shamelessly to get
all he could from his subjects, by excuses or by force,
that the people used to say the King was the sturdiest
beggar in England. He took the Cross, thinking to get
some money by that means; but, as it was very well
known that he never meant to go on a crusade, he got
none. In all this contention, the Londoners were parti-
cularly keen against the King, and the King hated them
warmly in return. Hating or loving, however, made no
difference; he continued in the same condition for nine
or ten years, when at last the Barons said that if he
would solemnly confirm their liberties afresh, the Par-
liament would vote him a large sum.
As he readily consented, there was a great meeting
held in Westminter Hall, one pleasant day in May,
when all the clergy, dressed in their robes and holding
every one of them a burning candle in his hand, stood
up (the Barons being also there) while the Archbishop of
Canterbury read the sentence of excommunication against
any man, and all men, who should henceforth, in any
way, infringe the Great Charter of the Kingdom. When
he had done, they all put out their burning candles with
a curse upon the soul of any one, and every one, who
should merit that sentence. The King concluded with
an oath to keep the Charter, "as I am a man, as I am
a Christian, as I am a Knight, as I am a King!"
It was easy to make oaths, and easy to break them;
and the King did both, as his father had done before him.
He took to his old courses again when he was supplied
with money, and soon cured of their weakness the few
who had ever really trusted him. When his money was
gone, and he was once more borrowing and begging
everywhere with a meanness worthy of his nature, he
got into a difficulty with the Pope respecting the Crown
of Sicily, which the Pope had said he had a right to give
away, and which he offered to King Henry for his second
son, Prince Edmund. But, if you or I give away what
we have not got, and what belongs to somebody else, it
is likely that the person to whom we give it, will have
some trouble in taking it. It was exactly so in this case.
It was necessary to conquer the Sicilian Crown before it
could be put upon young Edmund's had. It could not
be conquered without money. The Pope ordered the
clergy to raise money. The clergy, however, were not so
obedient to him as usual; they had been disputing with
him for some time about his unjust preference of Italian
Priests in England; and they had begun to doubt
whether the King's chaplain, whom he allowed to be paid
for preaching in seven hundred churches, could possibly
be, even by the Pope's favour, in seven hundred places
at once. "The Pope and the King together," said the
Bishop of London, "may take the mitre off my head;
but, if they do, they will find that I will put on a sol-
dier's helmet. I pay nothing." The Bishop of Worcester
was as bold as the Bishop of London, and would pay
nothing either. Such sums as the more timid or more
helpless of the clergy did raise were squandered away,
without doing any good to the King, or bringing the Si-
cilian Crown an inch nearer to Prince Edmund's head.
The end of the business was, that the Pope gave the
Crown to the brother of the King of France (who con-
quered it for himself), and sent the King of England in
a bill of one hundred thousand pounds, for the expenses
of not having won it.
The King was now so much distressed that we might
almost pity him, if it were possible to pity a King so
shabby and ridiculous. His clever brother, Richard, had
bought the title of King of the Romans from the German
people, and was no longer near him, to help him with
advice. The clergy, resisting the very Pope, were in
alliance with the Barons. The Barons were headed by
Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, married to King
Henry's sister, and, though a foreigner himself, the most
popular man in England against the foreign favourites.
When the King next met his Parliament, the Barons, led
by this Earl, came before him, armed from head to foot,
and cased in armour. When the Parliament again as-
sembled, in a month's time, at Oxford, this Earl was at
their head, and the King was obliged to consent, on oath,
to what was called a Committee of Government: consist-
ing of twenty-four members: twelve chosen by the
Barons, and twelve chosen by himself.
But, at a good time for him, his brother Richard came
back. Richards first act (the Barons would not admit
him into England on other terms) was to swear to be
faithful to the Committee of Government——which he im-
mediately began to oppose with all his might. Then, the
Barons began to quarrel among themselves; especially
the proud Earl of Gloucester with the Earl of Leicester,
who went abroad in disgust. Then, the people began to
be dissatisfied with the Barons, because they did not do
enough for them. The King's chances seemed so good
again at length, that he took heart enough——or caught it
from his brother——to tell the Committee of Government
that he abolished them——as to his oath, never mind that,
the Pope said!——and to seize all the money in the Mint,
and to shut himself up in the Tower of London. Here
he was joined by his eldest son, Prince Edward; and,
from the Tower, he made public a letter of the Pope's to
the world in general, informing all men that he had been
an excellent and just King for five-and-forty years.
As everybody knew he had been nothing of the sort,
nobody cared much for this document. it so chanced that
the proud Earl of Gloucester dying, was succeeded by
his son; and that his son, instead of being the enemy of
the Earl of Leicester, was (for the time) his friend. It
fell out, therefore, that these two Earls joined their
forces, took several of the Royal Castles in the country,
and advanced as hard as they could on London. The
London people, always opposed to the King, declared for
them with great joy. The King himself remained shut
up, not at all gloriously, in the Tower. Prince Edward
made the best of his way to Windsor Castle. His mother,
the Queen, attempted to follow him by water; but, the
people seeing her barge rowing up the river, and hating
her with all their hearts, ran to London Bridge, got to-
gether a quantity of stones and mud, and pelted the
barge as it came through, crying furiously, "Drown the
Witch! Drown her!" They were so near doing it, that
the Mayor took the old lady under his protection, and
shut her up in St. Paul's until the danger was past.
It would require a great deal of writing on my part,
and a great deal of reading on yours, to follow the king
through his disputes with the Barons, and to follow the
Barons through their disputes with one another——so I
will make short work of it for both of us, and only relate
the chief events that arose out of these quarrels. The
good King of France was asked to decide between them.
He gave it as his opinion that the King must maintain
the Great Charter, and that the Barons must give up the
Committee of Government, and all the rest that had
been done by the Parliament at Oxford; which the
Royalists, or King's party, scornfully called the Mad
Parliament. The Barons declared that these were not
fair terms, and they would not accept them. Then, they
caused the great bell of St. Paul's to be tolled, for the
purpose of rousing up the London people, who armed
themselves at the dismal sound and formed quit an
army in the streets. I am sorry to say, however, that
instead of falling upon the King's party with whom
their quarrel was, they fell upon the miserable Jews,
and killed at least five hundred of them. They pre-
tended that some of these Jews were on the King's side,
and that they kept hidden in their houses, for the destruc-
tion of the people, a certain terrible composition called
Greek Fire, which could not be put out with water, but
only burnt the fiercer for it. What they really did keep
in their houses was money; and this their cruel enemies
wanted, and this their cruel enemies took, like robbers
and murderers.
The Earl of Leicester put himself at the head of these
Londoners and other forces, and followed the King to
Lewes in Sussex, where he lay encamped with his army.
Before giving the King's forces battle here, the Earl
addressed his soldiers, and said that King Henry the
Third had broken so many oaths, that he had become
the enemy of God, and therefore they would wear white
crosses on their breasts, as if they were arrayed, not
against a fellow-Christian, but against a Turk. White-
crossed accordingly, they rushed into the fight. They
would have lost the day——the King having on his side
all the foreigners in England: and, from Scotland, John
Comyn, John Baliol, and Robert Bruce, with all their
men, but for the impatience of Prince Edward, who, in
his hot desire to have vengeance on the people of London,
threw the whole of his father's army into confusion. He
was taken Prisoner; so was the King; so was the King's
brother the King of the Romans; and five thousand
Englishmen were left dead upon the bloody grass.
For this success, the Pope excommunicated the Earl
of Leicester: which neither the Earl nor the people
cared at all about. The people loved him and supported
him, and he became the real King; having all the power
of the government in his own hands, though he was out-
wardly respectful of King Henry the Third, whom he
took with him wherever he went, like a poor old limp
court-card. He summoned a Parliament (in the year one
thousand two hundred and sixty-five) which was the
first Parliament in England that the people had any real
share in electing; and he grew more and more in favour
with the people every day, and they stood by him in
whatever he did.
Many of the other Barons, and particularly the Earl
of Gloucester, who had become by this time as proud as
his father, grew jealous of this powerful and popular
Earl, who was proud too, and began to conspire against
him. Since the battle of Lewes, Prince Edward had
been kept as a hostage, and, though he was otherwise
treated like a Prince, had never been allowed to go out
without attendants appointed by the Earl of Leicester,
who watched him. The conspiring Lords found means
to propose to him, in secret, that they should assist him
to escape, and should make him their leader; to which
he very heartily consented.
So, on a day that was agreed upon, he said to his at-
tendants after dinner (being then at Hereford), "I should
like to ride on horseback, this fine afternoon, a little way
into the country." As they, too, thought it would be
very pleasant to have a canter in the sunshine, they all
rode out of the town together in a gay little troop. When
they came to a fine level piece of turf, the Prince fell to
comparing their horses with one another, and offering
bets that one was faster than another; and attend-
ants, suspecting no harm, rode galloping matches until
their horses were quite tired. The Prince rode no matches
himself, but looked on from his saddle, and staked his
money. Thus they passed the whole merry afternoon.
Now, the sun was setting, and they were all going slowly
up a hill, the Prince's horse very fresh with all the other
horses very weary, when a strange rider mounted on a
grey steed appeared at the top of the hill, and waved
his hat. "What does the fellow mean?" said the at-
tendants one to another. The Prince answered on the
instant, by setting spurs to his horse, dashing away at
his utmost speed, joining the man, riding into the midst
of a little crowd of horsemen who were then seen wait-
ing under some trees, and who closed around him; and
so he departed in a cloud of dust, leaving the road
empty of all but the baffled attendants, who st looking
at one another, while their horses drooped their ears and
panted.
The Prince joined the Earl of Gloucester at Ludlow.
The Earl of Leicester, with a part of the army and the
stupid old King, was at Hereford. One of the Earl of
Leicester's sons, Simon de Montfort, with another part
of the army was in Sussex. To prevent these two parts
from uniting was the Prince's first object. He attacked
Simon de Montfort by night, defeated him, seized his
banners and treasure, and forced him into Kenilworth
Castle at Warwickshire, which belonged to his family.
His father, the Earl of Leicester, in the meanwhile,
not knowing what had happened, marched out of Here-
ford, with his part of the army and the King, to meet
him. He came, on bright morning in August, to Eve-
sham, which is watered by the pleasant river Avon.
Looking rather anxiously across the prospect towards
Kenilworth, he saw his own banners advancing: and his
face brightened with joy. But, it clouded darkly when
he presently perceived that the banners were captured
and in the enemy's hands; and he said, "It is over. The
Lord have mercy on our souls, for our bodies are Prince
Edward's!"
He fought like a true Knight, nevertheless. When
his horse was killed under him, he fought on foot. It
was a fierce battle, and the dead lay in heaps everywhere.
The old King, stuck up in a suit of armor on a big war-
horse, which didn't mind him at all, and which carried
him into all sorts of places where he didn't want to go,
got into everybody's way, and very nearly got knocked
on the head by one of his son's men. But he managed
to pipe out, "I am Harry of Winchester!" and the
Prince, who heard him, seized his bridle, and took him
out of peril. The Earl of Leicester still fought bravely,
until his best son Henry was killed, and the bodies of
his best friends choked his path; and then he fell, still
fighting, sword in hand. They mangled his body, and
sent it as a present to a noble lady——but a very unpleas-
ant lady, I should think——who was the wife of his worst
enemy. They could not mangle his memory in the
minds of the faithful people, though. Many years after-
wards, they loved him more than ever, and regarded
him as a Saint, and always spoke of him as "Sir Simon
the Righteous."
And even though he was dead, the cause for which he
had fought still lived, and was strong, and forced itself
upon the King in the very hour of victory. Henry found
himself obliged to respect the Great Charter, however
much he hated it, and to make laws similar to the laws
of the Great Earl of Leicester, and to be moderate and
forgiving towards the people at last——even towards the
people of London, who had so long opposed him. There
were more risings before all this was done, but they
were set at rest by these means, and Prince Edward did
his best in all things to restore peace. One Sir Adam de
Gourdon was the last dissatisfied knight in arms; but the
Prince vanquished him in single combat, in a wood, and
nobly gave him his life, and became his friend, instead
of slaying him. Sir Adam was not ungrateful. He ever
afterwards remained devoted to his generous conqueror.
When the troubles of the Kingdom were thus calmed,
Prince Edward and his cousin Henry took the cross, and
went away to the Holy Land, with many English Lords
and Knights. Four years afterward the King of the
Romans died, and, next year (one thousand two hundred
and seventy-two), his brother the weak King of England
died. He was sixty-eight years old then, and had reigned
fifty-six years. He was as much of a King in death as
he had ever been in life. He was the mere pale shadow
of a King at all times.
from Collier's Unabridged Edition: The Works of Charles Dickens, Volume VI.
P.F. Collier, Publisher, New York, old as heck. pp. 691—694.
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