Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/29

Henry III tone, and asked for an aid as a favour. They spoke of the grievances of the church, and their desire to have the Great charter confirmed and a new one granted. When Henry received their answer ‘he swore horribly.’ As his custom was, he appealed to each personally, but to no purpose. On his asking his barons for money they said that they would be guided by the decision of the prelates, remarking one to another that it was absurd for him to go to the crusade, as he was utterly ignorant of martial exercises. He was determined to lead an army into Gascony, and they told him that the Gascons were rogues and rebels, and that Earl Simon had acted rightly towards them. He again had recourse to exactions from the Londoners, and when the citizens beat some of his servants who interrupted them at a game of quintain with abuse and violence, he laid a heavy fine upon them. In order to win over Richard de Clare [q. v.], earl of Gloucester, to his side, he promised that if the earl's son would marry his niece he should have five hundred marks with her. He had not the money, and tried to borrow it from certain abbeys, and failing in this tried to force the treasurers of the Temple and the Hospital to let him have it. Meanwhile matters were going badly in Gascony, chiefly because he listened to rebels, thwarted his vicegerent Simon, and failed to send him needful supplies. Gaston of Béarn and other lords were offering the land to Alfonso X of Castile, and after the departure of Earl Simon broke into rebellion. After much debate in 1253 the prelates and lay lords yielded in some degree to the king's wishes. The tenths from the church were promised when the crusade actually started, a demand being made at the same time for liberty of election; the tenants in chief granted a scutage. In return Henry confirmed the charters. A solemn ceremony was performed in Westminster Hall on 3 May 1253; the bishops excommunicated all who should transgress the charters, the original charter of John was produced, and as the bells sounded and the bishops ended their sentence by dashing their candles on the ground, the king swore to keep the charters unbroken ‘as a man, a Christian, a knight, a king crowned and anointed.’ In order to detach Alfonso from the side of the Gascons, ambassadors were sent to arrange a marriage between his sister and the king's elder son Edward, and a marriage was also proposed between Henry's daughter Beatrice and the eldest son of the king of Aragon.

Leaving the kingdom under the care of his queen and Earl Richard, Henry sailed for Gascony with his army from Portsmouth on 6 Aug. with a fleet of three hundred large and many smaller vessels, and landed at Bordeaux on the 15th. His army took Benauges, La Réole, and several other castles and places, but suffered much from want, and made little real progress. The campaign was mismanaged; as usual he was lenient when he should have been stern, and at the same time allowed his troops to inflict much needless hardship on the people, rooting up their vineyards and burning their houses, and so alienating them. Gaston fled to the king of Castile, but Henry neutralised Gaston's efforts by concluding the marriage treaty, and sent for the queen and his son. He persuaded Earl Simon to come to his aid, and the coming of the earl was enough to reduce the province to order. He also sent to England for reinforcements and supplies, and spent Christmas at Bazas, near La Réole. On 28 Jan. 1254 the prelates, while refusing an aid from the clergy unless the tenth for the crusade was remitted or postponed, decided to grant an aid from themselves in case the king of Castile invaded Gascony, and the lay lords declared themselves ready in that event to go to Gascony; but the regents gathered that no general aid could be granted unless a confirmation of the charters was published (Royal Letters, ii. 101). They called a council to meet at Westminster on 26 April, which is ‘an important landmark in parliamentary history,’ for to it were summoned two knights from each shire to grant an aid (Select Charters, p. 367; Const. Hist. ii. 68). After remaining at Bordeaux until late in the summer, spending vast sums and getting deeply into debt, Henry and his queen performed a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury, at Pontigny (Ann. Burton. p. 327). On recovering from a short sickness there, Henry went to Fontevraud, where he had the body of his mother moved into the church, was met at Chartres by Louis IX, and accompanied him to Paris, where he was lodged in the Old Temple. He stayed eight days, was sumptuously entertained, and spent about 1,000l. Then he went to Boulogne, whence he crossed to Dover, arriving in the last week of the year (1254). As soon as he landed he began to get money out of the Londoners and the Jews, and when the Jews remonstrated and asked to be allowed to leave the kingdom, he swore ‘by God's head’ that he might fairly set his debts at 300,000 marks; they were indeed 350,000 marks.

In April 1255 he complained of his debts to parliament, and asked for an aid. As usual he was met by a demand for elected ministers, irremovable except by the common council. This he again refused, and resorted to