Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/70

Edward III for two or three years enabled the king to hold parliaments less frequently — none, for example, met in 1364 — and encouraged legislation by ordinances of the king and council instead of by statute (ib. p. 409). This parliament obtained a statute providing that, for asmuch as 'the French tongue is much unknown,' all pleadings should for the future be in English in all courts of law; and it was further enacted that the records should be kept in Latin instead of French. This statute was evidently considered an act of grace worthy of the jubilee (ib. p. 414; Rot. Parl, ii. 275, 283; Cont ,p.l98). Next year the chancellor opened parliament with an English speech. Two important concessions were also obtained in 1362: the one provided that no tax should be laid on wool without the consent of parliament, the other related to purveyance. Simon Islip, archbishop of Canterbury, had lately remonstrated indignantly with the king on the hardships inflicted on his subjects by the conduct of his purveyors (Speculum Regis, MS. Bodl. 624, (quoted in ''Const. Hist.'' ii. 375, 404, 414), and Edward now granted a statute limiting purveyance to the use of the king or queen, ordering that all payments on that account should be made in money, and changing the name 'purveyor' to that of 'buyer.' In the autumn of 1363 the king, in commemoration of his jubilee, held great huntings in Rockingham, Sherburn, and other forests, on which he expended 100l. and a hundred marks on alternate days (, c. 2627). In the course of the winter he entertained four kings. Peter of Cyprus came to persuade him to go on a crusade, but Edward declared that he was too old. Waldemar IV of Denmark also consulted him on the same matter, and the kings of France and Scotland had business connected with their ransoms. One of John's hostages, his son the Duke of Anjou, broke his parole and refused to return to Calais, and the French king, partly from a feeling of honour and partly because he longed for the pleasures of Edward's court (Cont., ii. 333), returned to England, and died at the Savoy Palace on 8 April 1364.

From the date of David's release in 1357 Edward took every means to gain a party in Scotland; he welcomed Scottish nobles who came to share in the chivalrous amusements of his court, or, as some did, took service under his banner, encouraged trade between the two countries, and allowed the inhabitants of the districts which remained in his hands to enjoy their own customs. Meanwhile the annual sum due for the king's ransom pressed heavily on the people and fell into arrear. Edward hoped that the Scots would be willing to accept him or one of his sons as David's successor, and so be relieved of this obligation. David, who was childless and completely under Edward's influence, on 27 Nov. 1363, during his visit to Westminster, made a secret treaty with the English king, by which it was agreed that if he could persuade his subjects to accept Edward and his heirs as his successors on the throne of Scotland, the districts then held by Edward should be restored and an acquittance given for the remainder of the ransom; the kingdom of Scotland was not to be merged in that of England, the English king was to receive the Scottish crown at Scone, seated on the royal stone, which was to be sent back from England, and all parliaments relating to Scottish affairs were to be held in Scotland (Fœdera, iii. 715). This project for a union of the kingdoms was defeated by the determination of the Scots never to allow an Englishman to reign over them (, History of Scotland, i. 205-15). In the beginning of October Edward heard of the victory of Auray, where Chandos and Calveley destroyed the army of Charles of Blois, who was slain in the battle, and won Brittany for De Montfort. He was at this time treating for a marriage between his son Edmund, earl of Cambridge, and Margaret, heiress of Lewis, count of Flanders, and widow of Philip de Rouvre, duke of Burgundy. A dispensation was necessary, and Charles V, the new king of France, persuaded Urban V to refuse it, and afterwards obtained the lady and her rich and wide territories for his brother Philip (Fœdera, iii. 750, 758; Cont., p. 200; Ducs de Bourgogne, i. 39 sq.) In May 1366 Simon Langham, bishop of Ely, the chancellor, announced to the parliament that the king desired the advice of the estates, for he had been informed by the pope that he purposed to commence a suit against him for the tribute of a thousand marks which had been promised by John in acknowledgment of homage for the kingdom of England and land of Ireland, and which was then thirty-three years in arrear. The three estates answered with one accord that John had no power to make any such promise, and the temporal lords and the commons declared that should the pope attempt to enforce his claim they would resist him. Edward was so indignant at the pope's conduct that for a short time he even forbade the payment of Peter's pence. This was the last that was heard of the tribute to Rome (Rot. Parl. ii. 289, 290;, p. 277). It is said that about this time Edward, who had made some rather feeble attempts to induce the English free companies