The Three Edwards by Thomas B. Costain Page A

history French kings were believed in England to be wily and ambitious), and he made this a pretext to seize Gascony, which was about all that was left to England of the immense possessions Eleanor of Aquitaine had brought with her when she became the wife of Henry II. Negotiations between the two monarchs came to naught and so Edward, needing money badly, took emergency measures to raise it. There were glum and hostile faces when Parliament opened. The two glummest and most hostile were those of the fifth Earl of Norfolk, who was hereditary marshal of England, and the Earl of Hereford, who held the post of constable. When Edward announced that he planned to lead an army into Flanders to fight things out with the French king and would send another army to recover Gascony, the meeting flared into opposition.
    It was the marshal, Roger Bigod, who was most outspoken. When all the sons of the great William the Marshal died without issue in the middle years of the century, the post had gone to the son of Matilda, the oldest daughter, who married Hugh Bigod. The son of this marriage died in 1270 and his nephew, Roger, succeeded to the earldom and the baton of marshal. This was the member of the nobility who now took it on himself to oppose his will to that of the king.
    He seems to have been lacking in the qualities of the fourth earl, who, although devoid of subtlety and the qualities of leadership, was brave and open in all his dealings. The nephew, who now faced Edward, had adegree of pride which verged on truculence. When Edward told his marshal that he was to go with the army to Gascony, Bigod flatly refused.
    “With you, O King,” he declared, “I will gladly go. As belongs to me by my hereditary right, I will go in the front of the host before your face.”
    Edward regarded the set expression of the marshal and the stiffness of his back and no doubt said to himself: “So! Now what have we here?”
    Restraining himself from the peremptory response he would ordinarily have made, the king said, “But without me, you will of course go with the rest.”
    “I am not bound to go,” asserted Bigod. “And go, I will not!”
    This was too much for the hot Plantagenet temper which Edward had been holding in check. From his great height he looked down on the somewhat squatty figure of the marshal and his eyes began to blaze.
    “By God, Sir Earl!” he cried. “You shall go or hang!”
    “By God, Sir King!” declared the marshal. “I will neither go nor hang!”
    This story is told because of the light it throws on certain phases of the character of the king. With any other of the Plantagenets, this episode would have exploded into violence at this point. Edward was in a white-hot rage but he was able, nonetheless, to handle the situation in a reasonable way. In the first place, he knew he was in no position to quarrel with the baronage, having the French war on his hands and rebellion flaring around his home frontiers. In addition, he knew himself on dangerous ground, having adopted means of raising money which broke the stipulations of the Great Charter.
    The result was that Roger Bigod neither went to Gascony nor hanged. In concert with the constable and a number of other prominent barons he got together a party of fifteen hundred men who stood under arms until the issue was settled. This was close to open rebellion. Edward, however, did not fly into the rage which was so common to his grandfather, John of infamous memory, or John’s father, Henry II. Instead he excused the two hereditary officers from performing the duties of their respective posts and appointed temporary substitutes.
    At this point Edward made it clear that he had an appreciation of the need to retain the affection of his subjects. He went about it, moreover, with what would be called today a high degree of showmanship. On a platform in front of Westminster Hall he made a public appearance with his son and heir on one side of him and the Archbishop of