The Perfect King (70 page)

The one positive, creative policy which emerges over the two years leading up to his fiftieth birthday is Edward's strategy of giving his sons positions of dignity and responsibility. If he was deeply upset by the loss of his close friends and daughters - and there is no reason to suppose he was not — he seems to have pushed his energies into furthering his sons' careers. By mid-
1362
he had settl
ed his ideas for the eldest three
. Edward was to be given the titl
e Prince of Aquitaine in addition to that of Prince of Wales, becoming the resident seigneurial lord of that province. Lionel was to start to put his Irish inheritance to good use, bringing that country back into line with royal authority. And John of Gaunt was to be given the lordship of the north. Clearly Edward's idea was to create a series of lesser kings under his sovereignty. Rather than being a king who ruled only a prince and a dozen or so earls, he would be a king who ruled over several dukes and a prince, just as King John ruled over the dukes of Normandy, Burgundy, Brittany and Orleans.

The first-filial ship to be launched upon the high seas of international politics was Lionel. In
1360
the Anglo-Irish had been in a desperate situation and had written to Edward urging him to send 'a good sufficient chieftain, stocked and strengthened with men and treasure' to fight the native Irish and restore English rule in central Ireland. As the earl of Ulster, Lionel was the obvious man for the job. Accordingly in March
1361
Edward announced that twenty-two-year-old Lionel would lead an army to Ireland, as King's Lieutenant, and started to make preparations to help him win praise in his first commission. The exportation of corn from Ireland was forbidden in readiness for his imminent arrival. All the sheriffs in England were ordered to proclaim that anyone having lands in Ireland was to sail with Lionel and defend them. All shipping which could threaten the second-in-line to the throne was arrested. A clerk was sent to Ireland to ride around announcing Lionel's arrival. Eventually (after six months) Lionel himself landed, with an army of fifty knights, three hundred men-at-arms and
540
mounted archers.
In addition he had with him a thousand bows, three thousand sheaves of the best arrows, a 'copper' (i.e. bronze) gun and sixteen pounds of gunpowder for it, all directed to his wardrobe by his careful father. A further six hundred bows and two thousand sheaves of arrows were despatched in May
1362.

The job which Edward had given Lionel was a tough one. When the Anglo-Irish had written in
1360,
their plea was inspired by years of native Irish attacks and English neglect. But neither did they want heavy-handed English intervention. Although Thomas Rokeby had been briefly successful in taming the wilder forces which roamed the borders of the English jurisdiction in the early
1350s,
the plague had ravaged Ireland to the point where rebuilding was required, not just reformation. Edward's instructions of
1350
to reform the land had proved a dead letter: the land was too poor and the people too hard-pressed to obey new laws which were inadequately enforced by a king who had never been to Ireland.

Lionel set about his task with gusto, first attacking resistance from the native Irish in Wicklow and then in Leinster. But soon his campaigning ground to a halt. There was no great army he could attack, no national unity which had to be tamed. There were many small, disparate lords and petty kings, whose allegiances to the English varied in strength. The only way to tackle these men was to leave small garrisons in the
castle
s controlling the roads and territories they ruled. The situation was further complicated by the fact that the 'English born in Ireland' were a breed apart from the 'English born in England'. While the latter were loyal to Edward, the former (the great majority) were loyal only when it suited them. They had marriage ties to the native Irish, dressed in Irish clothes and spoke Gaelic. To all intents and purposes they had 'gone native'. Lionel was to spend a total of five years wrestling with the problem, installing many garrisons and returning to England to consult with his father. In
1366,
with Edward's approval, he finally enacted the major piece of English legislation in medieval Ireland, the Statute of Kilkenny, which encapsulated Edward's instructions of
1342
and
1350
and enforced an absolute distinction between the English and the Irish, prohibiting intermarriage and the use of the Irish language, laws and customs by all the English, wherever they were born. In so doing it recognised native Irish independence through cutting off those parts of Ireland that remained outside royal control and more firmly administering those areas in which the English could exercise jurisdiction. This would remain the basis of English rule in Ireland until
1613.

Edward's eldest son, the prince of Wales, had long been marked down for duty in Gascony. Ever since his first campaign there, when the Gascon nobles had actually requested his presence, it had seemed the ideal training ground for his princely qualities. Accordingly, the prince did homage for the duchy of Aquitaine, which his father now elevated into a principality, on
19
July
1362.
With his wife he then set out for his new domain, where he arrived the following June, having spent the whole winter on his estates in Cornwall. His administration in the duchy began well, ably led by his constable and fellow Garter knight, Sir John Chandos. Nor did Edward wholly give up decision-making over the principality, unable perhaps to relinquish control of the land which his comrades like Manny and Lancaster had fought so hard to secure. One interesting aspect was a code by which Edward could be sure that letters sent to him purporting to be written by the prince were actually written by him. These were to bear one of the prince's mottoes,
'houmont’
(great courage) or
'ich dien
'
(I serve).

The goodwill towards the English in the region remained strong for several years. It was visible in
1364,
when the prince needed to raise money. He instituted a hearth tax, and a high one at that, which should have been very difficult to impose on areas which had largely evaded paying taxes altogether for a number of years. There were questions raised in the Agenais, and the county of Rodez, where the count of Armagnac forbade his vassals from paying the tax, but otherwise this controversial measure was accepted throughout the principality. The prince's autocratic manner, h
owever, did not endear him greatl
y to his subjects, and he personally alienated a number of Gascon lords. Nor did he have the administrative and negotiating capabilities of his father. He proved unable to find diplomatic solutions to the boundary disputes occasioned by the Bretigny treaty, and showed himself unwilling or unable to prevent the army of English freebooters from assaulting French possessions on the fringes of the province. In November
1364,
when the violence of these freebooting companies had reached desperate levels, the order to put down the violence came not from the prince but from King Edward in England. So it was doubly unwise for the prince to parade himself around in magnificent ostentation: he was undermining his own position by claiming too much credit and undertaking too
little
responsibility. Thousands turned out to see the christening at Bordeaux of his first-born son, Edward, in
1365,
and the occasion should have been used to weld the Gascons more firmly into an English-led unity. But the prince saw the moment as one in which all the glory was for him and his family, not Gascony. Edward of Woodstock had all the courage and martial talent of Edward I and Edward
III
, but his autocratic attitude and diplomatic skills were reminiscent of Edward II.

Edward's third son, John of Gaunt, was destined for a northern palatinate, secured on the inheritance of his wife, Blanche, one of the two daughters of the late duke of Lancaster. In April
1362
his inheritance doubled, on the unexpected death of his sister-in-law, Maud. This meant that all of the huge palatinate lordship of the duchy of Lancaster - the richest lordship in England - passed to him. Edward had not expected this to happen, and it is possible that he viewed it as unfortunate, as it gave John a greater income and a larger inheritance than his elder brother Lionel could have hoped to enjoy. John was also the sort of man who made enemies for life. Shortly after inheriting the duchy he was accused of poisoning his sister-in-law. Considerable amounts of money and power were hardly likely to teach him to be more circumspect. Nevertheless, from Edward's point of view it was better that such a massive inheritance came to his son rather than to someone outside the royal family. And Edward may have recognised that it might yield some unexpected advantages. He had at various times in the past discussed the possibility of John becoming the heir of David II of Scotland. If that were to become a reality, it would help secure the border, as John of Gaunt would not only be king north of the border but the largest landowner in the area
directly
south of it. As it happened, when the matter was discussed again in November
1363,
it was ruled out by the Scottish parliament, whose members were adamant in their view that they should not have John or any of Edward's sons for their king.

Edward's plans for his fourth surviving son, Edmund, were concentrated on the Low Countries, and in particular Flanders. His idea was that Edmund should marry the daughter and heiress of Count Louis of Flanders, but in order for this to happen, he needed to persuade the pope. In
1362
Pope Innocent VI died, to be replaced by the pious and studious abbot of Marseilles, who became Urban V Even this most conscientious of religious leaders was unable to overlook the fact that it would be much more in France's interest for the heiress of Flanders to marry a French rather than an English prince, and so Edward's plans were thwarted over and over again.

Edward's fifth son, Thomas, was still young, only seven in
1362,
and as yet remained outside Edward's pan-European dynastic ambitions. His last daughter, Isabella, also remained outside his scheme. Her role would of course lie in being a bride to a ruler rather than taking a role in government. Edward had proposed a series of matches for her, but none had succeeded. The count of Flanders had at one point been about to marry her but that had fallen through. Then, in
1351,
at the age of nineteen, she had simply refused to go through with a marriage to Bernard, the heir of the Gascon Lord Albret. It was her own decision. Edward had declared his readiness that she - 'our very dear eldest daughter, whom we have loved with special affection' - should marry the heir, but she refused to embark on the boat waiting to take her to Gascony. Extraordinarily, Edward did not hold this against her. Later in the
1350s
he gave her annuities and rewards, and she was more constantly with him than any of his other children. It seems that she was set on a love-match, like her elder brother. In
1365,
aged thirty-three, she finally chose Enguerrand de Coucy, a lord in England as a hostage for the
fulfilment of the Treaty of Bre
tigny. Edward acquiesced to her desire, and generously endowed de Coucy with a tide and made him a Knight of the Garter, but Enguerrand's heart never lay in England, and, once the initial passion with Isabella had worn off, they separated. He went to fight in Italy and she remained with her two daughters at her father's court in England.

On
13
November
1362
Edward finally celebrated his fiftieth birthday. To mark the occasion he summoned a parliament, almost entirely consisting of commoners. He issued a general pardon to wrongdoers throughout the realm in commemoratio
n of his jubilee. More importantl
y for the petitioners present, Edward granted a new Statute of Purveyance. In it, all requisitioning of goods for the use of the royal household was done away with except that expressly for the king and queen. The tide 'purveyor' was removed also, being changed to 'buyer'. This more clearly emphasised that people should be paid for the goods seized at the time they were requisitioned. In addition, restrictions were placed on the buyers for the royal household, rendering them liable to arrest if their behaviour was not deemed to be up to standard. Edward obviously intended this legislation to be a gift to his people. Likewise his confirmation that a parliament should be held every year. The same benevolent intention lay behind his promises that royal officers (escheators) who took wards' estates into royal custody should not charge fees, that fines for breaking the Statute of Labourers should be handed over to parliament, and that the subsidy of wool would not constitute a precedent for indirect taxation in peacetime. Whether or not the representatives at Edward's jubilee parliament were grateful we cannot say, but the legislation flowed, and it flowed in the commons' favour.

The
1362
parliament is today remembered for one piece of legislation above all others: 'pleas shall be pleaded in the English tongue and enrolled in Latin'. This is the first piece of legislation which officially recognised the English language. Since the eleventh century the language of the nobility had been French, and the language of the courts had generally been French, translated into Latin for the permanent record. As this new legislation now recognised, it was not right that men and women should be tried in a tongue they did not understand. But its significance was more than just fairness. The Statute of Pleading, as it was called, gave official recognition to English. It was described as the 'Tongue of the Country', and was thus accorded the status of a national language. In doing this, Edward recognised that a great change was taking place. Whereas in
1300
almost no one of importance in England spoke English - it being very definitely the language of the peasantry - by
1400
almost everyone of importance
did
speak English. Edward himself spoke it and used it in his mottoes. The duke of Lancaster spoke it. Edward's grandson, Edward of York, translated Gaston Phoebus's treatise on hunting into English.
27
In
1362
John Wycliffe — the man who first translated the New Testament into English - was Master of Balliol College. His opponent, the gifted Simon Langham - abbot of Westminster, archbishop of Canterbury from
1366,
and in turn both Chancellor and Treasurer — spoke English. Chaucer — the first great poet since Saxon times to write in the English language -was in royal service. Strikingly, from this date on until the end of the reign, parliament was addressed at its opening in English (three times by Langham). By the
1380s
English had supplanted French as the language used in grammar schools. English was coming to the fore, and one of the reasons for its speedy rise was its patronage and use by eminent men, including the king's ministers and members of the English royal family.