Part 3 (1/2)

Pursued by the dream of recovering the French Empire, lost by his father, and of retracting the promises given in the Charter, Henry III.

spent his entire reign in conflict with the barons and the people, who were closely drawn together by the common danger and rallied to the defence of their liberties under the leaders.h.i.+p of Simon de Montfort.

[Sidenote: Beginnings of House of Commons, 1265. First true Parliament, 1295. Edward I., 1272-1307]

It was at the town of Oxford that the great council of barons and bishops held its meetings. This council, which had long been called ”Parliament” (from _parler_), in the year 1265 became for the first time a representative body, when Simon de Montfort summoned not alone the lords and bishops--but two citizens from every city, and two burghers from every borough. A Rubicon was pa.s.sed when the merchant, and the shopkeeper, sat for the first time with the n.o.ble and the bishops in the great council. It was thirty years before the change was fully effected, it being in the year 1295 (just 600 years ago now) that the first true Parliament met. But the ”House of Lords” and the germ of the ”House of Commons,” existed in this a.s.sembly at Oxford in 1265, and a government ”of the people, for the people, by the people,” had commenced.

Edward I., the son and successor of Henry III., not only graciously confirmed the Great Charter, but added to its privileges. His expulsion of the Jews, is the one dark blot on his reign.

[Sidenote: North Wales Conquered, 1213. Conquest of Scotland, 1296.]

He conquered North Wales, the stronghold where those Keltic Britons, the Welsh, had always maintained a separate existence; and as a recompense for their wounded feelings bestowed upon the heir to the throne, the t.i.tle ”_Prince of Wales_.”

Westminster Abbey was completed at this time and began to be the resting-place for England's ill.u.s.trious dead. The invention of gunpowder, which was to make iron-clad knights a romantic tradition, also belongs to this period, which saw too, the conquest of Scotland; and the magic stone supposed to have been Jacob's pillow at Bethel, and which was the Scottish talisman, was carried to Westminster Abbey and built into a coronation-chair, which has been used at the crowning of every English sovereign since that time.

Scottish liberties were not so sacrificed by this conquest as had been the Irish. The Scots would not be slaves, nor would they stay conquered without many a struggle.

[Sidenote: Robert Bruce, Bannockburn, 1314. Edward II., King 1307-1327.

Edward III., 1327-1377.]

Robert Bruce led a great rebellion, which extended into the succeeding reign, and Bruce's name was covered with glory by his great victory at Bannockburn (1314).

We need not linger over the twenty years during which Edward II., by his private infamies, so exasperated his wife and son that they brought about his deposition, which was followed soon after by his murder; and then by a disgraceful regency, during which the Queen's favorite, Mortimer, was virtually king. But King Edward III. commenced to rule with a strong hand. As soon as he was eighteen years old he summoned the Parliament. Mortimer was hanged at Tyburn, and his queen-mother was immured for life.

We have turned our backs upon Old England. The England of a representative Parliament and a House of Commons, of ideals derived from a wider knowledge, the England of a Westminster Abbey, and gunpowder, and cloth-weaving, is the England we all know to-day.

Vicious kings and greed of territory, and l.u.s.t of power, will keep the road from being a smooth one. but it leads direct to the England of Victoria; and 1895 was roughly outlined in 1327, when Edward III.

grasped the helm with the decision of a master.

[Sidenote: Battle of Crecy, 1346]

After completing the subjection of Scotland he invaded France,--the pretext of resisting her designs upon the Netherlands, being merely a cover for his own thirst for territory and conquest. The victory over the French at Crecy, 1346, (and later of Poitiers,) covered the warlike king and his son, Edward the ”Black Prince,” with imperishable renown.

Small cannon were first used at that battle. The knights and the archers laughed at the little toy, but found it useful in frightening the enemies' horses.

Edward III. covered England with a mantle of military glory, for which she had to pay dearly later. He elevated the kings.h.i.+p to a more dazzling height, for which there have also been some expensive reckonings since. He introduced a new and higher dignity into n.o.bility by the t.i.tle of Duke, which he bestowed upon his sons; the great landholders or barons, having until that time const.i.tuted a body in which all were peers. He has been the idol of heroic England. But he awoke the dream of French conquest, and bequeathed to his successors a fatal war, which lasted for 100 years.

The ”Black Prince” died, and the ”Black Death,” a fearful pestilence, desolated a land already decimated by protracted wars. The valiant old King, after a life of brilliant triumphs, carried a sad and broken heart to the grave, and Richard II., son of the heroic Prince Edward, was king.

[Sidenote: Richard II.,1377-1399. Wat Tyler's Rebellion 1381.]

This last of the Plantagenets had need of great strength and wisdom to cope with the forces stirring at that time in his kingdom, and was singularly deficient in both. The costly conquests of his grandfather, were a troublesome legacy to his feeble grandson. Enormous taxes unjustly levied to pay for past glories, do not improve the temper of a people. A s.h.i.+fting of the burden from one cla.s.s to another arrayed all in antagonisms against each other, and finally, when the burden fell upon the lowest order, as it is apt to do, they rose in fierce rebellion under the leaders.h.i.+p of Wat Tyler, a blacksmith (1381).

Concessions were granted and quiet restored, but the people had learned a new way of throwing off injustice. There began to be a new sentiment in the air. Men were asking why the few should dress in velvet and the many in rags. It was the first revolt against the tyranny of wealth, when people were heard on the streets singing the couplet

”When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?”

As in the times of the early Saxon kings, the cause breeding destruction was the widening distance between the king and the people.

In those earlier times the people unresistingly lapsed into decadence, but the Anglo-Saxon had learned much since then, and it was not so safe to degrade him and trample on his rights.