Edwards Revenue

Edward had received feudal revenues, had imposed scutages, and had been granted the customary national taxes of the thirteenth century.' But these had proved insufficient for the growing kingdom, and he had early found a new source of income. A brisk trade in wool, owing to the activity of the Cistercian order in England, had grown up with Flanders. On his way back to England, in 1274, he had negotiated a treaty with the Flemings, which had considerably enlarged the market for wool. England provided the raw material, while the Flemings worked it up into fine cloths. To this international trade Edward had given security, in 1275, by fixing the amount of duty to be placed upon goods exported from England by the merchants, who were generally foreigners from Flanders or some of the German towns. His first parliament had granted him this duty for life: half a mark on each sack of wool, half a mark on each three hundred wool-fells, and a mark on each last' of leather.' This was another advantage to the merchants, in that it made unjust tolls (mala tolta) illegal. But even the returns from these new sources failed to meet his needs in the present emergency he was driven to high-handed methods to raise additional funds. In 1294 he demanded of the clergy one-half of their goods; of the laity, one-sixth from those living in the boroughs and one-tenth from the rest. But still he was in sore straits. He could no longer exact money from the Jews, for, in 1290, he had cut off this source of supply by driving the Jews from England as a concession to the popular will. He had borrowed large sums of the Florentine and other Italian bankers and mortgaged his revenues for the payment.

The Model Parliament

To gain the support of his people and to raise money Edward summoned the famous parliament of 1295. Up to this time, notwithstanding Earl Simon's innovation of 1265, neither knights nor burgesses were necessary to constitute a parliament. But Edward fully understood that feudalism was on the wane and that a feudal parliament composed only of tenants-in-chief was no longer abreast of the growing interests of the kingdom. So while summoning his barons as usual, he determined also to reach out and to bring into one body members of other than the feudal class, that is, members of the agricultural, clerical, and trading classes.

There were many reasons for this decision. His legal mind was certainly impressed with the old Roman doctrine, that what touches all should be discussed by all," but he had other and more practical motives. He was in need of money and knew that the knights were wealthy landholders and that the towns were becoming the centres of trade and industry and consequently of wealth. Therefore he summoned both knights and burgesses. He knew, too, that he must draw the clergy more closely to him, if he were to checkmate the papal policy, taken up more vigorously than ever in his own day by Boniface VIII, of separation of the clergy from the laity, and of entire independence of the church in its convocations. Therefore he attached to the writs addressed to the bishops a separate clause, beginning with the word praemunientes, bidding each bring with him his prior or dean of the cathedral chapter, the archdeacons of his diocese, one proctor' or agent for his cathedral chapter, and two of his diocesan clergy. Thus there were present in this famous parliament two archbishops, eighteen bishops with their lesser clergy, sixty-six abbots, three heads of religious orders, nine earls, forty-one barons, sixty-three knights of the shire, and one hundred and seventy-two citizens and burgesses, about four hundred persons in all. Later the archdeacons, priors, proctors, and abbots ceased to attend; but in other respects for five centuries the legal form of this great national body remained unchanged.

Yet it must not be supposed that this was a modern parliament. The Model Parliament did nothing more than vote Edward a subsidy of one-eleventh of the goods of the nobility and the landowners and one-seventh of the goods of the burgesses. To grant money and to present petitions from the king's subjects were the functions of this and succeeding parliaments. But by fusing "the thousand diverse interests of shires and boroughs, clergy and laity, magnates and humble folk, into one national whole," it "made possible the existence of national legislation."

Submission of Scotland

With the money thus granted by a parliament of the English people, Edward turned to face the threatening danger. Having captured Madoc in the winter of 1294-1295,1 he took up the campaign in the north, where the Scots were already asserting their independence, and where Balliol, having entered into an alliance with Philip of France, had sent John Comyn, a son of his brother-in-law, to invade Cumberland. In 1296 Edward led an army northward, captured the frontier fortress Berwick, and on April 27 defeated the Scottish army at Dunbar and captured the castle. Step by step Edward advanced until, after many adventures, Balliol gave himself up and was dealt with as a feudal vassal who had broken his contract. Edward declared the kingdom itself forfeited. He marched as a conqueror through the land, carried off from Scone the ancient coronation stone, and treated the land as a fallen fief. Scotland seemed to be as thoroughly conquered as Wales had been; but Edward, with extraordinary blindness, failed to see that there was a national feeling in Scotland as well as in England, and that the time was past when the Scots could with impunity be handed over like the tenantry of an estate from one feudal lord to another.