Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/231

 of the Poictevin succession affected the different fate of Guienne and Gascony; but I pass on, for I have mentioned that already in reference to Henry III and S. Lewis; I may just add that when Lewis, in 1 359, obtained from his brother-in law a final surrender of Normandy and homage and fealty for Guienne, Henry formally acknowledged the justice of the sentence under which his father had forfeited the former, and Lewis practically acknowledged the justice of the claim by which Henry retained his hold upon the latter. A piece of legal formalism this, we say; yet it was so powerful a piece of formalism that it unquestionably made the breach between Simon de Montfort and the royal party an irreparable breach, and led directly to the catastrophes of Lewes and Evesham.

We come next to the French and Scottish wars of Edward I. The claim of the Scottish overlordship was made with every pretence to legality, and, there can be little doubt, was believed by the king himself and accepted by the lords of Scotland as long as they remained hopeless of their national independence or blind to their chances of escape. John Balliol's forfeiture, his renunciation of homage, his cession of the crown to Edward, were all legal acts: the attempt of Philip the Pair to exert over Edward the same sort of jurisdiction that Philip Augustus had successfully exercised over John, was foiled by Edward, but was in itself an almost exact parallel to his treatment of Balliol. The Scottish war was again, in his eyes, an attempt not to choke national independence, but to enforce legal right. As the age advances, we find Philip of Valois and Edward III comparing pedigrees before they go to war; for more than a century two rival kings, Philip and Charles, kings of the French, and Edward, Richard and the Henries, kings of France, dispute the sovereignty of a great nation which is not consulted under which lord it will live, but has to abide by the conflicting judgments of varying courts appellate on the field of battle.

After that come the wars of the Roses; wars which were at once fought out in battle, camp and court, pamphlet, book and parliament. In the wars of York and Lancaster, just as in the war of Stephen and Matilda, the legal recognition