Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/30

Henry III extracting the tenth from the clergy. Matters were now entering on a new stage. While he was in Gascony, Innocent IV, who was engaged in a struggle with Manfred, king of Sicily, the illegitimate son of Emperor Frederick II, offered Henry the crown of Sicily for one of his sons, in order to secure the wealth of England to assist him in his schemes. Henry accepted it for his second son, Edmund, and bound himself to bear the cost of the war. Pope Alexander IV confirmed the agreement on his accession. This business was regarded with great displeasure in England. In October 1255 the lords refused Henry an aid for the war, and the pope's envoy (Rustand) failed to obtain money from the prelates. Nevertheless on the 18th Edmund was invested with the kingdom of Sicily by the envoy, to the great joy of his father, who promised to go in person to Apulia, and was allowed to reckon the war as a satisfaction of his vow of crusade. By the advice of the Savoyard, for whom he had obtained the see of Hereford, he obtained blank forms sealed by some of the bishops, and filled them up, with promises to pay, and sent them to Rome to satisfy some of his Italian creditors. Among his quarrels with his subjects in this year (1255) he had a fierce dispute with the earl-marshal [see, fourth ], which ended by his declaring: ‘I will send and have your corn threshed out and sold, and so humble your pride.’ To which the earl replied: ‘And I will send you the heads of the threshers.’ In August Henry marched to Scotland to arrange some troubles there [see ]. On the 25th he put out a proclamation at Newcastle that he would do nothing to prejudice the liberties of the kingdom (Fœdera, i. 327). Alexander sent his queen to meet her father, and Henry was at Werk during most of September, for she fell ill while with him. He met Alexander at Roxburgh, and caused him to change his counsellors, and took several Scottish lords under his protection (ib. p. 329). In February 1256 Pope Alexander wrote that unless Henry paid what he owed for the war he would renounce the Sicilian arrangement; the amount owed at Rome about this time was 135,501 marks. Henry obtained a respite. Rustand pressed the prelates, who obtained a confirmation of John's charter of freedom of elections, but as pope and king were united in a scheme of plunder it was of no avail. They refused to contribute from their baronies. The king made many efforts to obtain money; he oppressed the Londoners and the Cistercians, fined those who neglected to receive knighthoods, fined all the sheriffs, and begged, borrowed, and extorted supplies from every quarter. Early in 1257 the pope sent the Archbishop of Messina to Henry apparently to get money. The election of Richard of Cornwall as king of the Romans put an end to his brother's chance of borrowing from him; Richard wanted all his money for his own schemes. At Mid-Lent Henry appeared before the parliament with Edmund in Apulian costume, declared that he had accepted the Sicilian crown for him, and incurred a debt of 150,000 marks by the advice of the English church, which the bishops denied; he asked for a tenth of ecclesiastical revenues for two years, and other grants from the church. The bishops unwillingly granted him 52,000 marks, stipulating for the observance of the Great charter. Many troubles came on him in this year (1257); he lost a daughter, Katharine—dumb but very pretty—on 3 May; his Sicilian project looked hopeless, and the Welsh, who had for some months been troublesome, were laying waste the border under their prince, Llewelyn, the son of Griffith. These mortifications threw him into a dangerous fever towards the end of May, and he lay some time sick at London. In September he marched to Chester, and thence to Gannoch, where he stayed about a month, and then, having made a discreditable peace with Llewelyn, returned home on 13 Oct. and levied a heavy scutage for the cost of his expedition. The pope sent several envoys and legates in succession to try to make Henry pay his debts to him, and the king was even threatened with excommunication if he failed.

He met his parliament on 9 April 1258; the nobles were not in a compliant mood, for there had been a terrible famine during the winter, and the Welsh were wasting the border, and had made alliance with the Scottish lords. He told them his difficulties, and asked for a large grant. They answered that his difficulties were the result of his own folly, and refused his request. Some recriminations passed between the king's friends and other lords, and the meeting was adjourned. After trying with only partial success to persuade the abbots of some great houses to become sureties for him, he on the 28th announced in parliament that he must have a third of all property. On the 30th the king was startled by the appearance before him of the barons in armour, their swords, however, being left at the door of Westminster Hall. ‘What is it, my lords?’ he cried; ‘am I your prisoner?’ That Roger Bigod denied, but said that the aliens must be banished, and that the king and his son must swear that he would be guided by a council of twenty-four elected magnates which