Kings and Castles by Marc Morris Read Free Book Online Page A

political crisis, when this normal
working relationship broke down. Again, however, this does not seem to have
happened. There were three great crises in the thirteenth century – in 1215,
1258 and 1297 – and in each case earls were at the forefront of opposition to
the Crown. Yet, in the propaganda and the programmes for reform they generated,
nothing specific is said about the role of earls. ‘Community’ and ‘common
counsel’ – these were the buzzwords of thirteenth-century political debate. Nor
was this mere rhetoric to disguise the schemes of great aristocrats: the demand
for greater political involvement of the wider community led to the firmer
establishment of parliament, and parliament involved more than just earls and
barons.
    The failure to develop any special claims for the rank of
earl is seemingly underlined by the fairly desperate attempts of certain
thirteenth-century earls to invest their other honorific titles with greater
meaning. Simon de Montfort, the celebrated earl of Leicester
who effectively seized control of Henry III’s government after the battle of Lewes in 1264, sought to bolster his precarious
position by investigating his rights as hereditary steward of the king’s
household – even to the extent of quizzing an aged and distant female relative
about their precise extent. Similarly, when Roger Bigod and Humphrey de Bohun opposed Edward I’s plan to lead an army to Gascony
in 1297, they took their stand not as the earls of Norfolk
and Hereford,
but in their capacities as the king’s hereditary marshal and constable.
    And yet, as the thirteenth century progressed, and the power
of the Crown increased inexorably, the notion did begin to develop that earls
were in some sense uniquely placed to challenge it. The germ of such an idea
can be found as early as the 1230s, in a legal treatise known as Bracton , notable in almost every other respect for its
staunch defence of royal supremacy. In one particular passage, inspired by a
rebellion against Henry III in 1233–34, the author speaks of the necessity of
‘bridling’ the king if he goes beyond the rule of law. He is not terribly
specific about what this entails or who is to do it – responsibility for
dragging the king into line falls to the ‘his court – that is, his earls and
barons’. Elsewhere, however, Bracton had more to say
on the subject of earls. They are called comites (the
plural of comes), he said, because they are the king’s companions.
Etymologically speaking, he was quite right: originally comes had simply meant
‘companion’; it was first used as an official title in the fourth century for
the courtiers of the Roman emperors. Having reasserted this
idea, Bracton expanded on it: the king’s associates
helped him to govern the people, he said, and the swords with which they were
girded signified the defence of the kingdom.
    From these two unconnected and rather unpromising strands a
new theory of what it meant to be an earl was woven in the latter part of the
thirteenth century, when the power of the English medieval monarchy reached its
highest point. During the reign of Edward I (1272–1307), huge armies, tens of
thousands strong, conquered Wales
and invaded Scotland, while
in England
royal lawyers were pushing the Crown’s rights to their utmost limits, even to
the extent of debating whether in all instances the king was bound by the law.
Just as military expansion provoked resistance from the likes of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd and William Wallace, so too did the
extension of the king’s power in England find its opponents. The
Mirror of Justices, a legal diatribe written in the period 1285–90, took as its
main theme the idea that the king should not be allowed to rule unfettered.
Taking his cue from the earlier comments of Bracton ,
the author of The Mirror concocted a spurious historical justification for what
he saw as the proper function of earls vis-à-vis the
king. When the Anglo-Saxons, he says, first