A Great and Terrible King: Edward I and the Forging of Britain (11 page)

It took the intervention of another earl to pull matters back from the brink. In early April, Richard of Cornwall, having played no discernible part in English politics for over a year, arrived in Westminster to back the beleaguered council and stiffen London’s resolve. Under his direction, all the city’s gates were closed and guarded, and every male over the age of fifteen was issued with arms. Consequently, as the date of the controversial parliament (25 April) drew near, the contending forces found themselves shut out. Gloucester and his supporters made their camp in Southwark, while Edward and Montfort took up residence in the hospital of St John in Clerkenwell. A state of high tension continued until, at last, the king himself returned. Henry entered London on the last day of the month, escorted by a hundred foreign knights.
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The king’s return meant that matters could no longer be decided by force. To cross swords with Gloucester would be one thing, but for Edward and Montfort to move on London now would constitute open rebellion. Negotiation was the only way forward, though the path was far from easy. ‘Let not my son Edward appear before me,’ Henry is reported to have said, afraid his fatherly love would compromise his kingly anger. ‘If I see him, I shall not restrain myself from embracing him.’ Edward’s own anger was directed less at his father than his mother. ‘She was said to be the cause of all the malice,’ said the same chronicler, no doubt reflecting the view from Clerkenwell. With emotions running high on both sides, it took two weeks of further mediation by Richard of Cornwall before Edward and his parents were brought face to face in a specially convened assembly of magnates in St Paul’s Cathedral. Before this company Edward denied his recent actions had been intended to injure his father, at the same time proudly asserting that only his father, together with his uncle, could judge him. Henry and Eleanor in due course gave their son the kiss of peace, but in the queen’s case this was clearly an empty show. The price of reconciliation for Edward was a return to subjugation. It was immediately followed by the removal of his men from his castles and the installation of new appointees.
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For Montfort, meanwhile, there was to be no reconciliation at all. Henry and Eleanor were by this time heartily sick of their brother-in-law, who in the past year had almost derailed the French peace and then seduced their son from the path of obedience, even to the point of rebellion. They were determined to put the earl on trial, and proceedings against him began in parliament in July. An extraordinarily detailed record preserves both Henry’s accusations and Montfort’s denials, the latter sarcastic in tone and reflecting Montfort’s reputation as a silver-tongued speaker. But, in spite of his sparkling performance, Montfort was in a tight spot, short of options and allies. As well as incurring the wrath of the king and queen, he had forfeited the support of moderate councillors such as the Bigods, to whom he had tried to dictate during the recent crisis. The only figure of real consequence who continued to stand beside him was Edward, but he could do little following his return to a state of tutelage. It was, in short, hard to see how either of their situations could be reversed or improved.
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Their unlooked-for saviour was Llywelyn ap Gruffudd. Ever since his stunning victories of 1257 and the revolution in England the following year, the self-proclaimed prince of Wales had been resting on his laurels and restraining his hand. Llywelyn had conquered enough territory for the time being; what he wanted from the English now was the admission of his right to hold it. To his frustration, however, no such recognition had been forthcoming – all the council in England had been prepared to grant him was a series of temporary truces, which suggested that in the fullness of time they expected to challenge his supremacy. By the beginning of 1260 the prince had decided that he could wait no longer, and brought new pressure to bear on the situation by besieging the royal castle at Builth. For six whole months the garrison there had held out, but suddenly in the middle of Montfort’s trial, messengers arrived in Westminster. Builth had fallen, and Llywelyn had razed it to the ground.
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News of this fresh disaster in Wales caused chaos in Westminster. Henry’s orders show him buffeted by conflicting advice, one day commanding harsh retaliation against Llywelyn, the next countenancing the prince’s further appeasement. Undoubtedly the chief advocate of a strong military response was Edward. Builth had been his castle, but – thanks to the restrictions imposed upon him – not under his own control. Furious at its loss, he refused to absolve its keeper, and by extension the council, from blame. A month after the castle’s fall, Edward was in his lordship of Cheshire, preparing to lead an assault into Llywelyn’s territory. Others, meanwhile, raced to renew the truce. In the event, the appeasers won the day. A new two-year ceasefire was agreed and, on 1 September, one week before a royal army was due to muster in Chester, Henry III called off the attack.
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For all Edward’s righteous anger at the loss of Builth (and his presumed anger at being prevented from avenging it), the distraction had been timely. Montfort’s trial had been derailed as soon as news of the crisis had broken. Partly this was because Montfort himself would have been needed in Wales had any war of retaliation taken place. More generally, the crisis had divided the council not only in their opinions but also in their persons. Those councillors with lands in the March had rushed to their defence, while others must have returned to their own parts to raise troops. It was only a temporary diaspora, but it gave Edward and Montfort a crucial respite, and room to manoeuvre.
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The key to their recovery, they realised, was an alliance with the earl of Gloucester. On the face of it this was an astonishing proposition, given that just a few months earlier he had been their chief adversary. There was enough mutual self-interest, however, to recommend a rapprochement. Much as they may have personally disliked Gloucester, both Edward and Montfort recognised that his enormous wealth and power made him an essential ally. If Edward was to regain his independence, and Montfort was to make his temporary reprieve permanent, some form of understanding would have to be reached. Gloucester, for his part, also had good reasons for adopting this new, rather awkward embrace. He had, for one thing, been uneasy about Montfort’s trial since its inception, fearing that it would expose his own dubious and provocative role during the Easter rising. In more general terms, Gloucester found that he was still part of a council intent on pushing ahead with reform, outnumbered by men who remained determined to investigate and correct abuses committed by great lords in the running of their own estates. Here too Gloucester had much to worry about. Having opposed this policy from the start, he now made its emasculation his price for supporting Edward and Montfort. Together they agreed that great lords like themselves should be allowed to correct their own failings, and not have to submit their administrations to any independent scrutiny. It was a shabby compromise, but it worked where a stand on principle had failed. When a new parliament assembled in October, the three improbable allies arrived in Westminster and took over the government.
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Henry III and the other councillors were taken completely off guard by this swift and bloodless coup, and were powerless to prevent it. Committed reformers like the Bigod brothers were ejected from the council or persuaded to bow out; other key figures, such as the treasurer and the chancellor, were replaced by men chosen by Edward and Montfort. The changes were so swift and so silent that they passed almost unnoticed by contemporary chroniclers. All that registered was the spectacle as the new junta brazenly advertised its success. In the course of the parliament Edward publicly knighted Montfort’s two eldest sons, Henry and Simon, respectively a year older and a year younger than Edward himself. As for Henry III, he was simultaneously furious and incredulous. The council that had been foisted upon him two years previously may have been unwanted, but hitherto it had at least had the virtue of being dominated by moderate men; now it was controlled by his principal antagonist. In a few short months his mercurial brother-in-law and his headstrong son had succeeded in completely turning the tables.
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Edward was once again free to decide his own future, and he wasted no time in doing so. Immediately after the October parliament he crossed the Channel. He left with a large entourage of young knights, the two Montfort boys included among his existing cohort of friends. Together they travelled through France as far south as Lyon, participating in tournaments and being honourably received wherever they went. To this extent, the trip was simply a continuation of the chivalric celebrations that had begun at Westminster. But Edward also crossed to France with an express political purpose. Within a month of his departure, while paused in Paris, he was reunited with all four of his exiled Lusignan uncles. Nothing in the past two years had lessened his determination to renew his earlier association with the notorious brothers; quite the reverse. His parents had proved that they were still bent on controlling his behaviour, so he continued to make a special point of defying their wishes. Soon after reaching Gascony, where he and his entourage spent Christmas, Edward appointed Guy de Lusignan his lieutenant in the duchy. There could be no clearer signal, especially to the queen, that her son was determined to control his own destiny.
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Edward remained in Gascony until March, at which point he must have learned of dramatic developments in England. In his absence, Montfort and Gloucester had become complacent, rather assuming that Henry and Eleanor would placidly accept their recent coup. But the king was genuinely incensed by the new state of affairs, as were the queen and her Savoyard supporters. When the time had come for the regular February parliament, it was their turn to seize the initiative. Forsaking the comforts of the Palace of Westminster, they rushed instead to the Tower of London. Henry generally had little use for the great fortress on the city’s eastern edge, established by his more warlike ancestor William the Conqueror almost two centuries before. Indeed, during the two decades prior to this point, there is no record of his having visited the Tower at all. In 1261, however, he was grateful for its mighty walls. Safely ensconced within them, he fulminated against Montfort and Gloucester, accusing them, among other things, of exceeding their authority as councillors, of appointing ministers against his wishes, and of causing Edward to withdraw from his father’s friendship. Negotiation followed, but no resolution. All that was agreed was that the two sides would hold talks at Easter, which fell on 24 April. It may even have been agreed to defer further discussion until Edward’s arrival. In any case, when news reached him of this fresh stand-off, Edward hurried home.
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He returned in the same spirit of determined defiance in which he had left, bringing with him William de Valence, now the most notorious of the Lusignan brothers, Aymer de Valence, equally notorious, having died in December. This alarmed those in the Tower with the king: it was, after all, the queen and her Savoyard circle who had been the chief architects of the Lusignans’ exile. In late March, reflecting the anxieties of those about him, Henry wrote to his son forbidding him to return with Valence by his side. The king’s opponents, by contrast, appear to have been less worried by this prospect. Soon after forging his alliance with Edward, Montfort had contrived to repair his relationship with the Lusignans, and had long been ready to acquiesce in Edward’s wish to see them reinstated. The earl appears to have been convinced that, since Edward himself was still firmly attached to his side, Valence’s loyalty could be similarly retained. It was with the assent of the opposition that both men arrived in England shortly before Easter, and Valence immediately swore the oath to uphold the Provisions of Oxford.

Here, however, Montfort badly miscalculated, reckoning without the independent will of the king, the pragmatism of the queen and, above all, the motives of Valence himself. Henry had never had any quarrel with his half-brother and was delighted by the prospect of his return. Eleanor and her circle, although altogether less elated, now accepted that there was an urgent need for reconciliation. Valence, of course, had returned to England not to fight for any cause other than the restoration of his own estates. It was an easy decision to make. Within days he had crossed over and joined the king’s party.
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The defection of a man who remained deeply unpopular in England was not in itself problematic for the king’s opponents, but it was highly dangerous in creating a conflict of loyalties for their greatest asset. Edward’s long-standing desire to be reunited with Valence, the uncle who encouraged his independence before 1258, was now at odds with his more recent attachment to Montfort, the uncle who had supported his subsequent bids for freedom. There was, of course, still the question of reform, but here too the issue no longer seemed as clear cut as had once been the case. By the time of Edward’s return to England, both sides were claiming to be adhering to the programme that had been set out at Oxford. (His parents had apparently moderated their stance.) It was with some justification that Henry could accuse Montfort and Clare of having exceeded the letter of these reforms, and Edward, as a party to their recent coup, knew that Montfort was not above amending the reform programme to suit his own ends.
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Where, then, should his loyalty lie: with one uncle or the other? With one profession of integrity or another?