Edward II: May 1322

1322 May

Introduction May 1322

York

2 May - 19 May

For the writs of summons see PW, II, ii, 245-60

(There is no surviving roll for this parliament)

As in the case of Gaveston at the beginning of his reign, Edward's one ambition in August 1321 was the return of the Despensers from exile. Taking a gamble that his enemies would not act together, Edward chose to attack Bartholomew of Badlesmere, the former steward of the household, who had sided with the marchers against the Despensers earlier in 1321 but who was bitterly hated by Lancaster. Having rejoined Hugh Despenser the Younger on the Isle of Thanet, Edward sent his queen to request hospitality from Badlesmere's wife at Leeds castle in Kent. On 13 October, she was, as Edward hoped, refused admission. Edward began a siege and on 31 October the castle surrendered, after the baronial army, which had advanced as far as Kingston-on-Thames, had failed to intervene. Both sides now prepared for open conflict. Lancaster summoned a meeting between himself and the marchers, which was intended to take place at Doncaster on 29 November but was probably held instead at Pontefract. The document they drew up, generally known as the Doncaster petition, accused Despenser of encouraging the king to attack the peers of the realm, contrary to Magna Carta, and the king of supporting him. Edward was asked to answer the petition by 20 December. Instead, on 30 November Edward gave orders for an army to join him at Cirencester on 13 December and on 1 December a council of the province of Canterbury, attended only by the archbishop and four of the sixteen bishops, declared the sentence of exile on the Despensers to be null and void. During the 1321 parliament the bishops had attempted to mediate between the king and his opponents and had refused to approve the sentence on the Despensers. The earls of Pembroke, Richmond, Arundel, and the king's half-brother, the earl of Kent, then concurred. Pembroke was in an especially delicate position since he had taken a leading role in persuading Edward that he must agree to the exile of the Despensers or face deposition. He was however distrusted by the earl of Lancaster who advised the earl of Hereford and the other marchers not to accept any offer of support from him. He was left with little choice but to aid the king in the forthcoming campaign. Edward and his army left London on 8 December; he was in Cirencester on 25 December and reached Worcester on 31 December. Forced to make a detour because the marchers held the crossing of the Severn, Edward arrived in Shrewsbury on 14 January 1322, just as his opponents' ranks were starting to crumble. On 22 January both Roger Mortimer of Wigmore and his uncle, Roger Mortimer of Chirk, surrendered to Edward at Shrewsbury, partly because of Lancaster's failure to help his allies but largely because a Welsh revolt led by Sir Gruffudd Llwyd had captured the Mortimers' castles on behalf of the king. In a skilfully managed and determined campaign, Edward wasted no time in pursuing his remaining enemies. Edward left Shrewsbury on 24 January and on 6 February reached Gloucester where Maurice of Berkeley and Hugh Audley the Elder surrendered. As a last resort the earl of Hereford, Hugh Audley the Younger and Roger Damory fled to join Lancaster. On 11 February Edward issued safe conducts for the Despensers and on 14 February ordered the mustering of troops at Coventry on 5 March. He also ordered Andrew Harclay, the royal commander at Carlisle, to move against Lancaster and his supporters from the north. Edward left Gloucester on 18 February, captured Lancaster's castle of Kenilworth on 26 February and arrived at Coventry on 27 February. On 3 March the Despensers and a large force of troops met him at Lichfield. Hearing of the king's advance, Lancaster and Hereford left Pontefract and took up defensive positions on 1 March at the river-crossing at Burton-on-Trent near Lancaster's castle at Tutbury. On 10 March part of the royal army crossed the river and outflanked Lancaster and Hereford who fled to Pontefract, leaving Tutbury and the mortally wounded Roger Damory to be captured by Edward. On 11 March Edward, with the advice and consent of the earls of Pembroke, Kent, Richmond, Arundel, Surrey, and Athol, declared Lancaster and his allies to be traitors and ordered the siege of Pontefract. Lancaster then attempted to flee to his castle of Dunstanburgh in Northumberland, but got no farther than Boroughbridge in Yorkshire where, on 16 March, he was defeated by Andrew Harclay. Hereford was killed in the battle; Lancaster was captured the next day and taken to York from where he was taken to Pontefract on 21 March. There he was tried in the presence of the king, the Despensers, and the earls of Pembroke, Kent, Richmond, Surrey, Arundel, Atholl, and Angus. Lancaster, who was not allowed to say anything in his defence, was found guilty of treason and beheaded outside his castle on the same day. Of the remaining contrariants, Badlesmere and twenty-six others were executed; the Mortimers, Hugh Audley and many more were sentenced to imprisonment and their lands forfeited to the crown. Some former contrariants regained their lands after paying a fine, but over a hundred individuals suffered enduring losses. The king's victory was confirmed at the parliament which began at York on 2 May 1322. (fn. M1322int-1)

The writs of summons were issued at Derby on 14 March 1322 for a parliament to meet at York on 12 May 1322. The writs say that the king proposes to hold 'parliamentum nostrum' to have a 'colloquium and tractatum' with those attending. A marginal note on the Close Roll also describes the intended meeting as a parliament.

Writs of summons were issued on 14 March 1322 to the two archbishops, nineteen bishops (including the four Welsh bishops), fifty-one abbots, and four priors; eight earls (Chester, the king's son; Norfolk and Kent (created earl in July 1321), the king's half-brothers; Richmond, Pembroke, Arundel, Surrey, and the earls of Angus and Atholl from Scotland. The earls of Lancaster and Hereford were in rebellion against the king and both would soon be dead), to seventy-two barons; thirty-three royal judges and clerks; and for the election of representatives of the knights of the shire and burgesses, and of the lower clergy. Many of the prominent barons who had attended parliament in 1321 would soon be dead or imprisoned. For the first time writs of summons were sent to the Cinque Ports as recognition of the assistance they had given to Hugh Despenser the Younger during his exile. Representatives were also summoned from the Principality of Wales, where the revolt against the marchers had played a large part in undermining Edward II's opponents at the beginning of 1322. (fn. M1322int-2)

The writs of summons issued on 14 March gave the purpose of the parliament as 'various arduous affairs specially touching the king and the state of the kingdom.'

The king's victory was confirmed at the parliament which began at York on 2 May 1322. The Ordinances, from which Edward had been trying to escape since 1311, were formally revoked in the Statute of York, on the grounds that they improperly restrained royal power. In future any such ordinances would be null and void unless agreed in parliament, with the approval of the prelates, earls and barons and the community of the realm. Much of the past speculation about the significance of the Statute of York is anachronistic. Edward II was trying to turn the clock back to before 1310-11, rather than to introduce a new emphasis on the authority of parliament or on the role of the 'community' in its future sense of the 'commons'. No king in his hour of victory was likely to tie his hands for the future by introducing a new constitutional doctrine. However, as a way of emphasising that the Ordinances had originally been imposed upon him and that he was not opposed to reform in principle, Edward had six clauses reissued and confirmed as 'good points'. The rights and liberties of the Church, as contained in Magna Carta and other statutes, were to be observed; the king's peace was to be firmly kept throughout the land; Edward I's establishment concerning prises in the Articuli super Cartas of 1300 was to be upheld (this was the issue which lay behind many of the crises at the beginning of the reign of Edward II); sheriffs and hundreders were to be appointed according to the Statute of Sheriffs of the 1316 Lincoln parliament; Edward I's grant in his Westminster parliament of 1306 concerning his forests was to be upheld; another of the Articuli super Cartas , concerning the estate of the steward and marshals of the household and of pleas to be held there was to be upheld in all its points (cf. Ordinances 26, 27); and the Ordinances concerning the statute of merchants, outlawry and appeals which were given verbatim as in the Ordinances of 1311 (cf. Ordinances 33, 35, 36). The king was however giving with one hand and taking with the other, since one of the consequences of the repeal of the Ordinances was that the king could again levy the 'new custom' on the imports and exports of foreign merchants. This began to be collected again on 21 July 1322 and could be expected to add several thousand pounds annually to the king's ordinary revenue. (fn. M1322int-3)

On 2 May the parliament also confirmed the legal process against Lancaster and formally annulled those against the two Despensers (fn. M1322int-4) who were rewarded with a steady stream of grants of forfeited lands; on 10 May the Hugh Despenser the Elder became earl of Winchester; Andrew Harclay had already been given the earldom of Carlisle on 25 March as a reward for his defeat of Lancaster at Boroughbridge. Hugh Despenser the Younger was not given the earldom of Gloucester as might have been expected, probably because he held only one third of the earldom in right of his wife. On 22 June, a month after the end of the parliament, the earl of Pembroke was punished for his hostility towards the Despensers in 1321 when he was forced to swear an oath of loyalty to the king. A campaign against the Scots had already been ordered on 25 March. During the parliament, on 11 May, the start of the campaign was postponed from 13 June until 24 July. (fn. M1322int-5) The clergy granted an aid for the war in Scotland but, so far as is known, the laity were not asked for a grant of taxation on this occasion. Edward did however revert to an expedient, which had already been tried in 1316 and 1318, for the service for forty days of one foot-soldier from each vill. This was apparently approved at the York parliament, but in June Edward was seeking additional infantry from seventy-two towns. On 18 May an assembly of wool merchants was summoned to meet at York on 13 June, in order to discuss the wool staple but probably also in the hope that they might provide Edward with financial help for the coming campaign. (fn. M1322int-6)

There is no Parliament Roll for this parliament. The Statute of York, which revoked the Ordinances, is recorded on the Statute Roll; the annulment of the processes against the Despensers and the confirmation of that against Lancaster are recorded on the Close and Patent Rolls. The Statute containing the 'good points' of the Ordinances, which were re-enacted in 1322, is recorded on the Close Roll but not on the Statute Roll. Although there is no Parliament Roll, there is evidence from the Patent Rolls that petitions were received and answered by the council during the parliament. There are also some surviving petitions for 1321-2, some of which may belong to this parliament. (fn. M1322int-7) The one surviving document relating to the parliament is an agenda of matters referred by the king to the council before the parliament, which suggests that parliament was to be allowed as little initiative as possible. The first item was the Statute to repeal the Ordinances, which was followed by the Statute to contain the 'good points'. The other matters referred to the council were all connected with reforms of the administration and legislation, such as how the chattels of felons and other profits which hitherto had been levied only in eyre could be levied year by year; the adjustment of traders' balances; matters relating to beer, appeals of felonies, the staple, and other issues. 'On all the king desired all his councils to consider how to amend the law for his profit and that of his people. What was agreed was to be put into the form of a statute ready for the approaching parliament.' (fn. M1322int-8) Not surprisingly, the king obtained most of what he wanted at the parliament. One notable failure was in relation to the goods of fugitives and felons and suggests that the proposal met considerable opposition. 'Since the discontinuance of the general eyre in 1294 nothing had been done to exploit for the king the goods of fugitives and felons. At York the king was proposing to create new arrangements for this purpose, so that he could derive an annual revenue from these windfalls. He was affronting important vested interests among the local officials and other notables. That this was a highly contentious matter is confirmed by its subsequent history. In 1337 Edward III tried again to exploit these potential assets and instituted a preliminary inquiry into what had been happening to confiscated chattels. The next parliament, a few months later, forced him to discontinue the inquiry and abandon his proposals. All this suggests that even at the York parliament of 1322 Edward II may have been unable to overcome all opposition'. (fn. M1322int-9)

This is not however the end of the story. The promulgation by Edward II at the York parliament of 1322 of some of the 'good points' of the Ordinances was not, as has been suggested, a sign of 'the magnanimity of the king in adopting the good reforms of his bitterest enemies', neither was it 'a good augury for the new era'. (fn. M1322int-10) Just as Edward's determination to defeat and destroy his enemies had inspired the Boroughbridge campaign in 1321-22, so now it dictated the ruthless zeal with which Edward and his agents exploited the confiscated lands of the contrariants for the advantage of the royal treasury. The new revenues allowed Edward to pay off his father's debts, to fight a war with France in 1323-5 without the need for additional taxation, and to accumulate by the end of his reign a reserve of treasure of about £60,000, equivalent to a year's income. (fn. M1322int-11) In this new situation there was much less need for Edward to have recourse to parliament. The reality is well expressed in the words of Dr. Natalie Fryde: 'The schedule surviving for the York Parliament of 1322 shows that even in this assembly, which was intended to register the king's victory over his opponents, the king wanted the council to consider beforehand the issues which were to arise 'in order to allow the people who come to the parliament to depart the sooner'. Reluctance to hold parliaments at all characterises the period 1322-6. Of the five assembles summoned between the York parliament of 1322 and that which deposed Edward in January 1327 [October 1322; February 1324; October 1324 (? Parliament); June 1325; November 1325] Edward changed the place and date of meeting of three of them [October 1322; October 1324; June 1325; the date only of February 1324 was changed]. Two [recte three if October 1324 is counted as a parliament] were limited assemblies without burgesses to which the term 'parliament' would cease to be applied in official records after 1327 [February 1324; October 1324; June 1325]. In 1325 a royal memorandum, which has recently come to light [E 175/2/10], differentiated quite clearly between the sort of assembly (consultative) which the king preferred and a proper parliament which he did not want, when he wrote that the magnates should be summoned 'pur conseiller et noun pur parlement'. He merely wanted advice as to whether he should or should not cross to France to render homage to the French king. Writing of the events of the same year the author of the Vita commented on Edward's dislike of parliaments: 'The harshness of the king has to-day increased so much that no-one, however great and wise, dares to cross his will. Thus parliaments, colloquies and councils decide nothing these days. For the nobles of the realm, terrified by threats and the penalties inflicted on others, let the king's will have free-play'. He forcefully finishes this bitter critique with the words, 'Thus today, will conquers reason. For whatever pleases the king, although lacking in reason, has the force of law'. If this regime had persisted very much longer parliament might have virtually disappeared from the vocabulary of English politics'. (fn. M1322int-12)

Another consequence of the tyrannical regime established by Edward II and the Despensers was that the stakes in political controversy were raised to unprecedented levels. The events of 1321-2 had shown that the finely wrought programmes of reform and high-sounding declarations of principle, which had punctuated the political history of England since 1307 and which have so fascinated historians down to the present, counted for nothing when there was deep distrust and even loathing between the opposing sides. In 1322 Edward II had apparently won a stunning victory over his enemies but in doing so had changed the rules of engagement so fundamentally that he was likely to be the next victim. The threat of deposition had already been made to Edward twice, in 1311 and in 1321; if there were ever a next time, the threat would have to be made reality. (fn. M1322int-13)