A Great and Terrible King Page 17

  At this point, however, his plans were rudely interrupted by the rebellion of the greatest lord in Gascony (after Edward himself, that is). Gaston de Bearn, whose lands lay in the hills along the duchy's southern border, had a history of causing trouble. He had been, for example, the chief ringleader of local resistance during the unpopular rule of Simon de Montfort. The reason for his recalcitrance in 1273 is altogether less certain, but it seems to have stemmed from an escalating disagreement with the duchy's abrasive new seneschal, Luke de Tany. (Before his departure on crusade, Edward had appointed his old friend Roger Leybourne as lieutenant in Gascony, but Leybourne had been another of the many unexpected casualties during Edward's absence, dying in the autumn of 1271.) Whatever the precise cause, Gaston refused to appear before Edward, forcing the new duke to break off his administrative business and embark on a punitive military expedition.

  This took a long time. Although Gaston was initially brought to heel within a matter of weeks, he immediately broke the terms of his surrender and retreated to his castles in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Flushing him out involved a series of sieges that kept Edward occupied throughout the autumn and into the winter. It was not until the beginning of 1274 that the rebellious vicomte was finally cornered and once again forced to submit.

  Nor was that the end of the matter. After his second surrender, Gaston immediately appealed to Philip III, and the French king obliged him by revoking his dispute with Edward to Paris. In this way, Gaston exposed and exploited the great chink in Edward's armour: namely, the non-absolute nature of his authority. Here was the most pernicious effect of the Treaty of Paris. If the duke of Gascony was properly subordinate to the king of France, it followed that any Gascon who was disgruntled by a ducal decision could appeal to the higher judgement of the French king's court. Edward could do all he might to limit this tendency, but he could not deny the fundamental principal. In 1274, therefore, much to his chagrin, he had no option but to abandon his attempt to discipline Gaston de Beam and leave the matter in the hands of his lawyers.

  It was time to move on. With the winter now wasted by his fruitless pursuit of Gaston, Edward had to abandon his intention of returning to England by Easter. Instead he spent the spring completing the interrupted survey of his ducal rights, which culminated in March with a parliament in Bordeaux. In April he and Eleanor left Gascony, but on their way north there was more delay in Limoges, a once debatable area of ducal authority, where the oppressed citizens were keen to acknowledge Edward as their lord, but the oppressive local viscountess would have none of it. The result was yet another appeal to Philip III, who must have been pleased at the frequency with which opportunities to display his superiority were accumulating. It was not until the end of July that Edward reached the French coast and took ship to England.

  His year in France had not been a complete waste of time. During his stay in the south Edward had taken the opportunity to cultivate good relations with his neighbours, the kings of Navarre and Aragon, and had concluded alliances with both. Eleanor, meanwhile, had been pleased to meet up with her half-brother, Alfonso X of Castile, for the first time in twenty years. The Spanish king had travelled to meet her at Bayonne, where he had become the godfather to her newly delivered third son: Alfonso junior had been sent back to England ahead of his parents in June.20 In overall terms, however, the visit to Gascony had been a frustrating one. Edward had made a start on consolidating his authority within the duchy, but there was still much work to be done. Moreover, with regard to the all-important issue of his relationship with the king of France, things seemed more complicated than ever, and the questions of territory and authority remained to be satisfactorily answered.

  When Edward landed at Dover on 2 August 1274 it was clearly to a tremendous sense of popular excitement. 'Behold, he shines like a new Richard!' enthused one Londoner in a song written shortly before the new king's arrival. But it was not merely the fact that Englishmen now had not one but two crusading heroes to boast about; nor was it that, after almost four years of absence, Edward had kept his public in England waiting for such a very long time. It was probably not even the palpable sense of relief at his safe return, and the prospect of better royal rule that only a resident king could provide. Important though all these factors were, they must for the moment have taken second place to the sheer visceral thrill that accompanied the knowledge that the country was about to witness a coronation.

  Coronations were by their nature rare events, but in this particular instance the wait had been quite exceptional. Almost four decades had elapsed since the ceremony staged in 1236 for Eleanor of Provence, and Eleanor had only been a queen consort. To recollect the coronation of a reigning monarch would have been a feat beyond the memories of most Englishmen, for it was well over half a century since the young Henry III had been transformed from a boy of nine into a king.

  Edward, of course, by virtue of the ground-breaking decision taken before his departure, was considered a king already. This did not mean, however, that in his case a coronation was in any way redundant or unnecessary: quite the contrary. The royal title may have passed to him, as his writs proclaimed, 'by the grace of God', but it still remained to call upon the Almighty to bless his rule, and for that the ancient, mystical rite of a coronation remained essential. Moreover, the fact that there was no longer the need to rush matters meant that those responsible for orchestrating the ceremony had months rather than days to make their preparations, and this in turn meant that the scale of the celebrations could be truly majestic. If there was a quantum leap in the history of the coronation as a royal spectacle, this was it.

  On Saturday, 18 August Edward and his entourage rode into London. The mayor and citizens had adorned their city 'without consideration of cost' with silks and cloth of gold. Not just the citizens themselves, we are told, but all the magnates of the kingdom, both clerks and laymen, had gathered in the capital to cheer the arrival of their new king. Unfortunately, only one chronicler set these events down in any detail, and he was evidently somewhat overwhelmed by the spectacle, declaring that 'neither tongue nor pen' would suffice to describe it. He does, however, mention the 'multifarious inventions' that had been prepared in Edward's honour, which sound a lot like the kind of pageants that are generally held to be the preserve of later coronations.

  The fact that Edward had entered London on a Saturday was also highly significant. Very likely what our tongue-tied correspondent was witnessing was the birth of the custom whereby a new king would ride from the Tower of London to Westminster on the day before his coronation. The king's ministers had certainly taken the trouble to spruce up the Tower in advance of his arrival, and, at Edward's express request, the mayor had cleared the clutter from Cheapside — London's main market, and the east-west thoroughfare along which later 'vigil processions' would pass. This being the case, Edward would seem to have begun another new tradition in 1274; one that would last until the seventeenth century.

  In processing ceremoniously through London, Edward was following a fashion laid down by his father, who had loved to indulge in such showy excesses — spectacle being one of the few things that Henry III could usually be relied upon to get right, and a way of compensating for his political failures. On several important occasions during his reign — the reception of Eleanor of Castile in 1255, for example — the late king had staged similarly elaborate parades through the capital. Henry's contribution, moreover, went beyond the provision of general precedents. In fact, much of the detailed long-term planning for Edward's coronation can be traced back to his father's initiative.

  As an example, consider where and how Edward spent the night before his coronation. When the procession ended, the king and his household would have installed themselves in the Palace of Westminster, where Edward would have prepared himself for a solemn spiritual exercise akin to the one he had performed in Burgos some twenty years before. Just like a young man about to be knighted, so too with a king about to crowned: he was expecte
d to spend the night before the ceremony in quiet contemplation, reflecting on the responsibilities that went with the awesome status about to be conferred upon him.

  The location for this time-honoured tradition would have been the king's bedchamber in the palace — later known, for reasons that will become apparent, as the Painted Chamber. It was here that Henry III had died, and in 1274 his spirit still hung about the walls. Some ten years earlier, the old king had caused the room to be redecorated. A disastrous fire that had ripped through the palace in 1263 had provided the excuse, and Henry's life-threatening illness the same year had suggested a suitable theme. On the wall directly behind the royal bed, the king's painters had created a coronation scene. The subject, naturally, was Edward the Confessor, being crowned by a crowd of bishops. On either side, outside of the curtains that closed around the bed, King Solomon's guards stood watch. Henry's aim, we must assume, was to provide his son with appropriate images on which to reflect during his vigil. Edward was to ponder the example of the Confessor, and the wisdom of Solomon.

  * * *

  On Sunday, 19 August, the day itself dawned. Regrettably, we have no detailed eyewitness accounts of the kind that survive for some other medieval coronations. Past precedent and later example indicate that Edward, accompanied by Eleanor, led by the clergy and the magnates, would have processed the short distance from the palace to the abbey. The new abbey, of course, was Henry Ill's greatest legacy, and Edward was the first king to be crowned in it. Henry and his architect had been acutely conscious of Westminster's long-standing role as the coronation church, and had tailored the new building accordingly. Its ornate north portal was sufficiently huge to admit with ease those processing from the palace; the galleries around its transepts allowed spectators to view the proceedings from on high. The crossing of the church, where much of the ceremony would be acted out, seems to have been rendered deliberately massive for this reason. On the day of Edward's coronation, as on later occasions, it was very likely filled with a giant wooden stage. This was elevated so that those standing in the nave could observe the king, and - most remarkably - of sufficient height that those earls, barons and knights among the congregation could ride underneath it. In seeking to picture Edward's coronation, we must imagine the north and south transepts of the abbey filled with aristocrats who were not merely elaborately dressed, but apparently mounted on their horses too.25

  Once the procession from the palace had passed inside the abbey, the ceremony itself began. In keeping with the grandeur of the setting and the splendid array of the participants, it was a magnificent piece of religious drama. Solemn prayers were intoned, censers were swung, torches and candles burned, glorious anthems rang out. If this all sounds slightly vague, it is because, once again, we cannot say precisely what took place. Indeed, contemporaries would have struggled to do so. The long years from one king's inauguration to the next gave ample scope for old practices to be forgotten and new ones to be introduced. In the case of Edward's coronation, one senses that Henry III, as well as designing the theatre, must also have contributed many details to the script. Later medieval kings, for example, would begin by making an offering at the altar of two gold figurines, one of Edward the Confessor, the other of St John the Evangelist — a 'tradition' almost certainly introduced in 1274 on the posthumous instructions of the Confessor's most avid devotee.

  Nevertheless, at the heart the proceedings lay strong strands of continuity. In its bare essentials, the English coronation service had changed (and has changed) very little across the centuries. The coronation oath, for example - Edward's next significant act after making his offering at the altar — had been a central part of the service since it was first devised in the tenth century. By this long-established convention, the new king made three basic promises: to protect the Church, to do good justice, and to suppress evil laws and customs. A fourth promise, to protect the rights of the Crown, had been added in the mid-twelfth century. This was, of course, a much more self-interested pledge as far the king was concerned, and one to which Edward would attach much importance later in his reign.

  The next part of the service, the unction, was of similar long standing. Edward would have descended from the stage towards the altar and disrobed down to his undershirt, in order that the archbishop of Canterbury could anoint various bits of his body with holy oil. The most mystical part of the whole ceremony, it took place on a suitably mystical pavement of multi-coloured marble mosaic, the work of Italian craftsmen, and another finishing touch supplied by Henry III. The unction was the point where medieval practice drew on biblical precedent: the Old Testament kings, David and Solomon, had been anointed in this way, and, for this reason, the choir in Westminster Abbey sang the anthem Unxerunt Salomonem (They Anointed Solomon) while the act was performed. Traditionally this had been the critical part of the service — the religious ritual that transformed a mere man into a king — and Edward, although king in name already, must nevertheless have regarded it as the supreme spiritual moment. At this moment his rule became blessed, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit were bestowed upon him. In more practical terms, it meant that, in addition to the holy oil that had been applied to his breast, shoulders and elbows, Edward also had chrism — an even holier oil — poured over his head, where custom decreed that it must remain for a full seven days.

  Lastly came the investiture: the part of the ceremony where the king was re-dressed in the most elaborate royal fashion and adorned with all manner of symbolic baubles (collectively known as the regalia). These had tended to multiply over the years, with the result that by the thirteenth century the new king was weighed down with glittering ornament. Edward was vested in a golden tunic, girded with a sword, and robed with a mantle woven with gold. A gold ring was placed on his finger, and golden spurs were attached to his heels. Once he was wearing his special coronation gloves, a golden rod and a golden sceptre were placed in his hands. These items had for the most part been wrought in the early thirteenth century but, thanks to the enthusiasm and credulity of Henry III, by 1274 each was believed to have been an original first used by Edward the Confessor himself. When, therefore, Edward was invested with the greatest item of all - described in a later account as 'a great crown of gold . . . with precious jewellery of great stones, rubies and emeralds', he understood this to be the same object once worn by his sainted namesake.

  Edward's coronation, therefore, for all that it took place in a magnificent new church, and despite the manifold small details of staging introduced by Henry III, was essentially traditional in format and stuck to a time-honoured script. There was, however, one genuine moment of novelty in the proceedings, a deviation so striking that several chroniclers saw fit to record it, even though they recorded nothing else. It was supplied by the king himself, at what was literally the crowning moment. Once the great gold crown had been placed on his head, Edward immediately removed it and set it aside, saying (according to one chronicler) 'he would never take it up again until he had recovered the lands given away by his father to the earls, barons and knights of England, and to aliens'.

  By this deliberately dramatic act, Edward revealed the policy that would preoccupy him during his first years of government, and to some extent for the rest of his reign: namely, the recovery of things that he believed his father had lost. The chronicler's implication that the king was concerned only with lands is probably slightly skewed, perhaps through misreporting, perhaps through oversimplification. Henry III, it is true, had granted away plenty of property, both to Englishmen and foreigners: the greatest beneficiaries had been those closest to him, such as Richard of Cornwall, William de Valence and Simon de Montfort. It would have been politically unthinkable, however, for Edward to have taken back these lands, from such men or their descendants, and even more inconceivable for him to have implemented what in the fifteenth century would have been called an Act of Resumption, demanding at a stroke the return of all the lands alienated by his father. Edward did have the sense that the
Crown could use more land, but he preferred to act privately, and wrangle it out of softer targets.

  What Edward was determined to recover - and what he more likely declared he would recover — were his rights. Chroniclers were apt to confuse lands and rights, since the two often went together.

  In the Middle Ages, landowners might claim all manner of rights and privileges: the right to hold a court, for example, or to take a toll, even the right to do justice on red-handed thieves with their own private gallows. Rights could also be expressed negatively, as the right not to have to do something. Some landowners would claim that they and their tenants did not have to attend the king's court, or to answer the summons of his officials. Either way, in asserting and maintaining such rights or liberties, there was financial advantage to be had. Holding your own court, for example, meant you received the profits it raised in fines; not attending a royal court meant you avoided paying similar fines to the king.

  Such rights and privileges could be very ancient and legitimate; they might also be officially sanctioned by the king. Henry III, when he found it difficult to obtain the support of his greatest subjects, was wont to appease them by granting just such exemptions. Often as not, however, rights and privileges were simply assumed by landowners who sensed that they could get away with it, and this had been the case during much of Henry's lax rule. Great men in particular had taken excessive liberties, shutting out the king's agents - his sheriffs, justices and bailiffs — and creating what amounted to their own private fiefdoms.33

  Edward was determined not only to halt this tendency (thereby upholding his coronation oath to protect the rights of the Crown), but also to throw it into reverse (hence his vow to recover his father's losses). He was, of course, well-qualified for the task, by virtue of being a more masterful man than Henry. In the course of the struggle with Simon de Montfort he had fought hard to earn the personal authority that his father had so visibly lacked. There was, as a result, little chance of anyone scaring or dominating Edward in the way that Montfort had scared and dominated Henry. Similarly, Edward's crusade had further enhanced his standing, cementing his relationships with a powerful circle of friends of the kind his father had never known. The crusaders returned from the East as brothers-in-arms, their loyalties to each other, and above all to their new king, heightened by a sense of having been tested together in a great adventure. With such men to support him, Edward would have no need to resort to his father's policy of appeasement in order to get his own way.