Parliament of 1327: Difference between revisions

Isabella spent the last months of 1326 in the [[West Country]], and while in [[Bristol]] witnessed the [[hanging]] of Despenser's father, the [[Hugh le Despenser, 1st Earl of Winchester|Earl of Winchester]] on 27 October. Despenser himself was captured in [[Hereford]] and executed there within the month.{{sfn|Given-Wilson|Brand|Phillips|Ormrod|2005|p=}} In Bristol Isabella, Mortimer and the accompanying lords discussed strategy.{{Sfn|Ormrod|2011|pp=512–513}}{{Refn|With Isabella and Mortimer, says Ormrod, were the [[Alexander de Bicknor|Archbishop of Dublin]] (his counterpart of Canterbury, says Ormrod, was "keeping out of sight and dithering"{{sfn|Ormrod|2011|p=512}} over his loyalties), the Bishops of Winchester, Ely, Lincoln, Hereford and Norwich, the earls of Norfolk, Kent and Leicester, Thomas Wake, Henry Beaumont, [[William de la Zouche]], amongst others.{{sfn|Ormrod|2011|pp=512–513}}|group=note}} Not yet possessing the [[Great Seal]], on 26 October they proclaimed Edward, Earl of Chester as guardian of the realm,{{sfn|Given-Wilson|Brand|Phillips|Ormrod|2005|p=}} declaring that "by the assent of the whole community of the said kingdom present there, they unanimously chose [Edward III] as keeper of the said kingdom". He was not yet officially declared king.{{Sfn|Dunham|Wood|1976|p=740}} The rebels' description of themselves as a "community" deliberately harked back to the reform movement of [[Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester|Simon de Montfort]] and the [[Second Barons' War|baronial league]], which had described its reform programme as being of the community of the realm against [[Henry III of England|Henry III]].{{Sfn|Ormrod|2011|p=44}} [[Claire Valente]] has pointed out how, in reality, the most common phrase heard "was not 'the community of the realm', but 'the quarrel of the earl of Lancaster'", illustrating how the struggle was still a factional one within baronial politics, whatever cloak it may have appeared to possess as a reform movement.{{sfn|Valente|2016|p=231}}

Isabella, Mortimer and the lords arrived in London on 4 January 1327.{{Sfn|Mortimer|2010|p=166}} In response to the previous year's spate of murders, Londoners had been forbidden to bear arms, and two days later all citizens had sworn an oath to keep the peace.{{Sfn|Phillips|2011|p=525}} Parliament met on 7 January to consider the state of the realm now the King was incarcerated. It had originally been summoned by Isabella and the Prince, in the name of the King, on 28 October the previous year. Parliament had been intended to assemble on 14 December 1326, but on 3 December—still in the name of the King{{Refn|The writs were not just issued in the name of the King, but were sealed in [[Chancery (medieval office)|Chancery]] as if they had been instructed from [[Kenilworth]], where the King was confined. This was a bureaucratic fiction; Mortimer and the Queen instructed Chancery, first from [[Woodstock]], then from Wallingford, and Ormrod is clear that "no one actively involved in the regime was now under any illusion as to where the source of royal authority lay".{{sfn|Ormrod|2011|p=48}}|group=note}}—further writs were issued deferring the sitting until early the next year. This, it was implied, was due to the King being abroad, rather than imprisoned.{{sfn|Given-Wilson|Brand|Phillips|Ormrod|2005|p=}} Because of this, parliament would have to be held before the Queen and Prince Edward.{{Sfn|Ormrod|2011|p=49}} ''[[The History of Parliament|The History of Parliament Trust]]'' has described the legality of the writs as being "highly questionable",{{sfn|Given-Wilson|Brand|Phillips|Ormrod|2005|p=}} and C. T. Wood called the sitting "a show of pseudo-parliamentary regularity",{{Sfn|Wood|1972|p=533}}{{Refn|And one that did not go unnoticed by contemporary observers: Ormrod cites the case of the [[Roger Martival|Bishop of Salisbury]]'s [[Registrar (ecclesiastical)|registrar]], who "took great exception" to the misuse of the King's seal in authenticating his bishop's writ of parliamentary summons.{{sfn|Ormrod|2011|p=49}}|group=note}} "stage-managed" by Mortimer and [[Thomas Wake, 2nd Baron Wake of Liddell|Thomas, Lord Wake]].{{Sfn|Phillips|2011|p=537}} For Isabella and Mortimer, governing through parliament was only a temporary solution to a constitutional problem, because at some point their positions would likely be challenged legally.{{Sfn|Mortimer|2010|p=166}} Thus, suggests Ormrod, they had to enforce a solution favourable to Mortimer and the Queen, by any means they could.{{Sfn|Ormrod|2011|p=49}}

Contemporaries were uncertain as to the legality of Isabella's parliament.{{Sfn|Dunham|Wood|1976|p=739}} Edward II was officially still King, although in official documents, this was only with aongside his "most beloved consort Isabella queen of England" and his "firstborn son keeper of the kingdom",{{Sfn|Fryde|1996|p=526}}—in in what hasPhil beenBradford describedcalled as a "nominal presidency".{{Sfn|Bradford|2011|p=192 n.15}}—as his conduits.King HeEdward was said to be abroad when in reality he was imprisoned in [[Kenilworth Castle]]. It was maintained that he desired a "''colloquium''" and a "''tractatum''" (conference and consultation){{Sfn|Fryde|1996|p=526}} with his lords "upon various affairs touching himself and the state of his kingdom", hence the holding of parliament. Supposedly it was Edward II himself who postponed the first sitting until January, "for certain necessary causes and utilities", presumably at the behest of the Queen and Mortimer.{{sfn|Given-Wilson|Brand|Phillips|Ormrod|2005|p=}}

{{Quotebox|quote=Although the deposition of Edward II did not attack kingship itself, the actual process of deposing a legitimate and anointed king involved an attempt to square the circle. That process had taken place during, in, on the margins of, and outside an assembly whose own legitimacy was, to say the least, doubtful.{{sfn|Phillips|2011|p=538}}|source=[[J. R. S. Phillips|Seymour Phillips]]|width=25em|salign=center|bgcolor=#FFFFF0|align=left|qalign=center}}No parliament had sat since November 1325.{{Sfn|Maddicott|2010|p=359}} Only 26 of the 46 barons who had been summoned in October 1326 for the December parliament were then also summoned to that of January 1327, and six of those had never received summonses under Edward II at all.{{Sfn|Powell|Wallis|1968|pp=310–314}} Officially, the instigators of the parliament were the Bishops of Hereford and Winchester, Roger Mortimer and Thomas Wake; Isabella almost certainly played a background role.{{Sfn|Maddicott|2010|p=360}} They summoned, as [[Lords Spiritual]], the Archbishop of [[Walter Reynolds|Canterbury]] and fifteen English and four Welsh bishops as well as nineteen abbots. The Lords Temporal were represented by the Earls of Norfolk, Kent, Lancaster, [[John de Warenne, 7th Earl of Surrey|Surrey]], [[Robert de Vere, 6th Earl of Oxford|Oxford]], [[John Campbell, Earl of Atholl|Atholl]] and [[John de Bohun, 5th Earl of Hereford|Hereford]]. Forty-seven [[baron]]s, twenty-three [[royal justice]]s, and several [[knight]]s and [[Burgess (title)|burgesses]] were summoned from the [[shire]]s{{sfn|Given-Wilson|Brand|Phillips|Ormrod|2005|p=}} and the [[Cinque Ports]].{{Sfn|Mortimer|2010|p=166}} They may well have been encouraged, suggests Maddicott, by the wages to be paid to those attending: the "handsome sum" of four shillings a day for a knight and two for a burgess.{{sfn|Maddicott|1999|p=78}}{{refn|This, says Maddicott, compared favourably to contemporary salaries. These amounts remained the fixed rate for parliamentary attendance for the next fifty years.{{sfn|Maddicott|1999|p=78}}|group=note}} The knights provided the bulk of Isabella's and the Prince's vocal support; they included Mortimer's sons, Edward, Roger and John.{{Sfn|Phillips|2011|p=532 n.63}} Sir William Trussell was appointed [[Speaker of the House of Commons (United Kingdom)|procurator]], or Speaker,{{Sfn|Clarke|1933|p=42}} despite his not being an elected member of parliament.{{Sfn|Phillips|2011|p=537}} Although the office of procurator was not new, the purpose of Trussell's role set a constitutional precedent, as he was authorised as to speak on behalf of parliament as a body.{{Sfn|Roskell|1965|p=5}} HeA waschronicle describeddescribes Trussell as one "who cannot disagree with himself and, [therefore], shall ordain for all."{{Sfn|Clarke|1933|p=42}} There were fewer lords present than were traditionally summoned, which increased the influence of the Commons.{{Sfn|Maddicott|2010|p=359}}{{refn|Historians H. G. Richardson and [[G. O. Sayles]] have identified the 1327 parliament as the point when knights of the shires and burgesses started to be consistently summoned to parliament.{{sfn|Richardson|Sayles|1930|pp=44–45}} What had previously been an indulgence of the king had become the "right—perhaps we should say the duty" of the Commons to attend.{{sfn|Richardson|1946|p=27}} Although, they say, "the intention behind this was doubtless political", it was still an important shift in the balance of power between the two classes of MPs. Until now, for example, the difference between knight and baron was still relatively fluid, and indeed, in the 1306 parliament, they sat together.{{sfn|Richardson|Sayles|1930|pp=44–45}}|group=note}} This may have been a deliberate strategy on behalf of Isabella and Mortimer, who suggests Dodd, would have known well that in the occasionally tumultuous parliaments of earlier reigns, "the trouble that had been caused in parliament had emanated almost exclusively from the barons".{{Sfn|Dodd|2006|p=170}} The Archbishop of York, who had been summoned to the December parliament, was "conspicuous by his absence" from the January sitting.{{Sfn|Phillips|2011|p=532 n.86}} Some Welsh MPs also received summonses, but these had deliberately been despatched too late for those elected to attend; others, such as the [[sheriff]] of [[Meirionnydd]], [[Gruffudd Llwyd]], refused to attend, out of loyalty to Edward II and also hatred of Roger Mortimer.{{Sfn|Chapman|2015|p=54}}

It was not only the first deposition in English history, but no European ruler of equivalent status had suffered the fate (with the exception, says Ian Mortimer, of a "minor German prince of small reputation earlier in the fourteenth century".{{sfn|Mortimer|2010|p=169}}|group=note}} Valente has described how this "upset the accepted order of things, threatened the sacrosanctity of kingship, and lacked clear legality or established process".{{Sfn|Valente|1998|p=852}} Contemporaries were also uncertain as to whether Edward II had abdicated or was being deposed. On 26 October it had been recorded in the [[Close Roll]]s that Edward had "left or abandoned his kingdom",{{sfn|Given-Wilson|Brand|Phillips|Ormrod|2005|p=}}{{Refn|Even if, as [[J. R. S. Phillips]] has noted, when Edward had been captured he had been attempting to escape to Ireland: If he had reached there successfully, the accusation of abandoning his realm would have fallen since, at that time, Ireland was part of the royal dominions.{{sfn|Phillips|2006|p=232}}|group=note}} and his absence enabled Isabella and Mortimer to rule.{{Sfn|Valente|1998|p=869}} They could legitimately argue that King Edward, having provided no regent during his absence (as would be usual), should make his son governor of the kingdom in his father's stead.{{Sfn|Ormrod|2011|p=44}} They also said Edward II held Parliament in contempt by calling it a treasonous assembly{{Sfn|Valente|1998|p=869}} and insulted those attending it his "enemies andas traitors".{{Sfn|Phillips|2011|p=525}} It is unknown whether the King did, in fact, say or believe this, but it certainly suited Isabella and Mortimer for parliament to think so.{{Sfn|Valente|1998|p=869}} If Edward did denounce parliament then he probably did not realise how it could be used against him.{{Sfn|Ormrod|2011|p=513}} In any case, Edward's absence saved the couple the embarrassment of having a reigning king present when they deposed him, and Seymour Phillips suggests that if Edward had attended he may have found enough support to disrupt their plans.{{Sfn|Phillips|2011|p=525}}

Whether Edward II resigned his throne or was forced from it{{Sfn|Valente|1998|p=858}} under pressure,{{Sfn|Phillips|2011|p=538}} the crown legally changed hands on 13 January{{Sfn|Valente|1998|p=858}} with the support, it was saidrecorded, of "all the baronage of the land".{{Sfn|Dunham|Wood|1976|p=739}} Parliament met in the morning and then suspended itself.{{Sfn|Valente|1998|p=858}} A large group of the lords temporal and spiritual{{Refn|The group was composed of twenty-four barons, two archbishops, twelve bishops, seven abbots and priors twelve elected shire knight (and one who was unelected), thirty men from the Cinque Ports, thirteen from St Albans, and five from Bury St Edmunds. This group included men who were not formally attending the parliament but were closely aligned with the protagonists (for example, Isabella's household knights took the oath), as well as omitting some who would have been expected to attend but whom the political situation kept out of London (the Earl of Lancaster, for instance, was guarding Edward II at Kenilworth Castle).{{Sfn|Phillips|2011|p=432 n.59}}{{Sfn|Phillips|2011|p=432 n.63}}|group=note}} made their way to the City of London's [[Guildhall, London|Guildhall]] where they swore an oath{{Sfn|Valente|1998|p=858}} "to uphold all that has been ordained or shall be ordained for the common profit".{{Sfn|Keen|1973|p=76}} This was intended to present those in parliament who disagreed with deposition with a ''fait accompli''.{{Sfn|Mortimer|2010|p=168}} At the Guildhall they also swore to uphold the constitutional limitations of the [[Ordinances of 1311]].{{Sfn|Bryant|2015|p=66}}{{Refn|The 1311 ordinances specifically restricted the King's reliance on any perceived as "evil councillors" (such as Gaveston) and placed other limits on royal power, which was replaced by baronial control. The King could only appoint officials "by the counsel and assent of the baronage, and that in parliament". Likewise, the baronial council had the deciding say on the launching of foreign wars, and parliament had to be held annually.{{sfn|Prestwich|2005|pp=182–183}}|group=note}}

During the sermons, the articles of deposition were officially presented to the assembly. In contrast to the elaborate and floridly hyperbolic accusations previously launched at the Despensers, this was a relatively simple document.{{sfn|Phillips|2011|p=529}} The King was accused of being incapable of fair rule; of indulging false counsellors; preferring his own amusements to good government; neglecting England and losing Scotland; dilapidating the church and imprisoning the clergy; and, all in all, being in fundamental breach of the coronation oath he had made to his subjects.{{sfn|Dunham|Wood|1976|p=740}} All of which, the rebels claimed, was so well known as to be undeniable.{{sfn|Phillips|2011|p=530}} The articles accused Edward's favourites of tyranny although not the King himself,{{sfn|Phillips|2011|p=530}} althoughwhom he wasthey described as "incorrigible, without hope of reform".{{sfn|Ormrod|2006|p=32}} England's succession of military failures in Scotland and France rankled with the lords: Edward had fought no successful campaigns in either theatre, yet had raised enormous levies to enable him to do so. Such levies says [[F. M. Powicke]], "could only have been justified by military success".{{sfn|Powicke|1960|p=556}} Accusations of military failure were not wholly fair in placing the blame for these losses, as they did, so squarely on Edward II's shoulders: Scotland had arguably been almost lost in 1307.{{sfn|Phillips|2011|p=530}} Edward's father had, says Seymour Phillips, left him "an impossible task", having started the war without making sufficient gains to allow his son to finish it. And Ireland had been the theatre of one of the King's few military successes{{sfn|Phillips|2011|p=530}}—the English victory at the [[Battle of Faughart]] in 1318 had crushed [[Robert the Bruce]]'s [[Bruce campaign in Ireland|ambitions in Ireland]] (and seen the death of [[Edward Bruce|his brother]]).{{sfn|McNamee|1997|pp=166–205}}{{Refn|As Mark Ormrod puts it, "Whatever his other deficiencies, Edward of Caernarfon tended to be resolute in the defence of his theoretical rights".{{sfn|Ormrod|2011|p=31}}|group=note}} Only the King's military failures, though, were remembered, and indeed, they were the most damning of all the articles:{{sfn|Powicke|1960|pp=556–557}}{{Refn|In fact, Powicke says, many attendees of the 1327 parliament would have had direct knowledge of the catastrophic 1322 campaign, particularly among the [[knights of the shire]] (less so for the barons, only a few of whom had taken part): "The class of county knights, organised in their thirty-seven county communities, supplied nearly all the judicial and administrative leadership in the nation",{{sfn|Powicke|1960|p=557}} as a result of which the ordinary soldier would identify more with them in the localities than with an earl or baron.{{sfn|Powicke|1960|p=557}}|group=note}}

It was not long before the crisis impacted on Mortimer's relationship with the young King. Notwithstanding Edward's coronation, Mortimer was the country's ''de facto'' ruler.{{sfn|McKisack|1959|pp=98–100}} The high-handed nature of his rule was demonstrated, according to Ian Mortimer, on the day of the new King's coronation. Not only did he arrange for his three eldest sons to be knighted, but—feeling a knight's ceremonial robes were inadequate—he had them dressed as earls for the occasion.{{Sfn|Mortimer|2010|p=170}} Mortimer himself occupied his energies in getting rich and alienating people, and the defeat of the English army by the Scots at the [[Battle of Stanhope Park]] (and the [[Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton]] which followed it in 1328) worsened his position.{{sfn|McKisack|1959|pp=98–100}} [[Maurice Keen]] describes Mortimer as being no more successful in the war against Scotland than his predecessor had been.{{Sfn|Keen|1973|p=77}} Mortimer did little to rectify this situation and continued to show Edward disrespect.{{sfn|Mortimer|2006|p=67}} Edward, for his part, had originally (and unsurprisingly) sympathised with his mother against his father, andbut thisnot had never translated into "affection or mercy"necessarily for Mortimer.{{Sfn|Ormrod|2011|p=36}}{{Refn|In fact, says Ormrod, Edward rightly or wrongly seems to have held Mortimer—rather than the Despensers—as the true cause of the rift between new King's mother and father in 1326.{{sfn|Ormrod|2011|p=36}}|group=note}} Michael Prestwich has described the latter as a "classic example of a man whose power went to his head", and compares Mortimer's greed to that of the Despensers and his political sensitivity to that of Piers Gaveston.{{Sfn|Prestwich|2005|p=221}} Edward had married Philippa of Hainault in 1328, and they [[Edward, the Black Prince|had a son]] in June 1330.{{sfn|Mortimer|2006|p=67}}{{sfn|Mortimer|2006|p=81}} Edward decided to remove Mortimer from the government: accompanied and assisted by close companions, Edward launched a coup d'état which took Mortimer by surprise at [[Nottingham Castle]] on 19 October 1330. He was hanged at [[Tyburn]] a month later{{Sfn|Keen|1973|p=105}} and Edward III's personal reign began.{{sfn|Prestwich|2005|pp=223–224}}

The parliament also illustrates how contemporaries viewed the nature of tyranny. The leaders of the revolution, aware that deposition was a barely understood and unpopular concept in the political culture of the day, began almost immediately re-casting events as an abdication instead. {{Sfn|Valente|1998|p=853}} ItFew hascontemporaries beenovertly commenteddisagreed howwith "few chroniclers lamented theEdward's deposition, of Edward II ... "but the fact of deposition itself caused immense anxiety", suggested David Matthews.;{{Sfn|Matthews|2010|p=81}} it was an event as yet unheard of in English history.{{Sfn|Prestwich|2005|p=216}}{{Refn|Prestwich notes that "there was no workable English precedent; chronicle tales taken from Geoffrey of Monmouth's fantasy Arthurian history may have told of kings being removed from office, but did not give any details of how to do it".{{sfn|Prestwich|2005|p=216}}|group=note}} Phillips comments that "using accusations of tyranny to remove a legitimate and anointed king were too contentious and divisive to be of any practical use",{{Sfn|Phillips|2011|p=531}} which is why Edward had been accused of incompetence and inadequacy and much else, and not of tyranny.{{Sfn|Phillips|2011|p=531}}{{Refn|Contemporary analyses of royal tyranny are ambiguous. Both [[John of Salisbury]] ("a tyrant ... brings the laws to nought"){{sfn|Rouse|Rouse|1967|pp=693–695}} and [[Bracton]] ("the King who violates his duty to maintain justice ... is no longer a king, but a tyrant"){{sfn|Schulz|1945|pp=151–153}} are clear about what constituted tyranny in the medieval mind. Both are also equivocal about what action to take against a tyrant, and Bracton, at least, refuses to justify [[tyrannicide]].{{sfn|Phillips|2011|p=531 n.53}}|group=note}} The [[Brut Chronicle]], in fact, goes so far as to ascribe Edward's deposition, not to intentions of men and women, but to the fulfilment of a [[prophecy]] by [[Merlin]].{{Sfn|Phillips|2011|p=536}}

Indeed, it has been suggested Richard II may have been responsible for the disappearance of the 1327 parliament roll when he recovered personal power in two years later.{{Sfn|Clarke|1964|p=177 n.1}}{{Refn|The earldom of Lancaster provides another direct link between the two Kings; in 1397, there was rumoured to be major plotting against [[John of Gaunt]], to which Richard II was said to be a party. The King, allegedly, was intending to repeal the act of the 1327 parliament which restored Henry of Lancaster, which would, in turn, have reaffirmed the 1322 confiscation:{{sfn|Given-Wilson|1994|p=560}} "From such a process there could be but one real loser: the house of Lancaster".{{sfn|Given-Wilson|1994|p=567}} Gaunt held his Lancastrian titles and estates through his wife, [[Blanche of Lancaster|Blanche]] (Earl Henry, restored 1328, was her grandfather).{{sfn|Palmer|2007|p=116}}|group=note}} Given-Wilson says that Richard considered Edward's deposition a "stain which he was determined to remove"{{Sfn|Given-Wilson|1994|p=567}} from the English royal family, which he intended to's achievehistory by proposing Edward's [[canonisation]].{{Sfn|Given-Wilson|1994|p=567}} Richard's subsequent deposition by [[Henry IV of England|Henry Bolingbroke]] in 1399 naturally drew direct parallels with that of Edward. Events which had taken place over 70 years earlier were by 1399 considered "ancient custom",{{Sfn|Giancarlo|2002|p=98}} which had set [[Legal precedence|legal precedent]], if an ill-defined one.{{Sfn|Giancarlo|2002|p=98}} A prominent chronicle of Henry's usurpation, composed by [[Adam of Usk]], has been described as bearing "a striking resemblance" to the events of the 1327 parliament. Indeed, said Gaillard Lapsley, "Adam uses words that strongly suggest that he had this precedent in mind."{{sfn|Lapsley|1934|p=437 n.4}}