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Rex et ministri: English Local Government and the Crisis of 1341

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2014

W. R. Jones
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Extract

Edward III's foreign ambitions, which in 1337 precipitated the Hundred Years' War, generated such severe financial pressures at home that eventually the fiscal crisis became a political one. Exasperated by the inability or unwillingness of the government of regency under Archbishop Stratford to provide him with money and matériel for his continental campaign, an outraged Edward returned to England on November 30, 1340, determined to purge the government of those corrupt and disloyal officials whom he blamed for his humiliation. The attack on the chief ministers, especially Stratford, who was both primate and principal councillor, created a political crisis of considerable proportions, wherein some dominant issues of medieval English politics — the liberties of the church and clergy and the role of the baronage in political decision-making — were re-stated and re-argued. Modern historians have focused their attention on the more dramatic aspects of the crisis of 1341, particularly its “constitutional” implications. Lapsley, Clarke, and Wilkinson, for instance, examined the conflicts of the king with Stratford and with the baronage — events reminiscent of the confrontations of Henry II with Thomas Becket and of Edward II with the Lancastrians. Tout explained the administrative reforms of the early part of Edward III's reign, which, by subjecting the great offices of state to the control of the king's itinerant household, were designed to transform the administrative system into a device for purveying supplies and cash to feed the English war-machine. More recently, E. B. Fryde has described the ordinary and extraordinary financial techniques employed to subsidize the king's expensive foreign policies.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , November 1973 , pp. 1 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1973

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References

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34. Just 1/258/5, 12d. For the indictment of other judges, see PRO, Just 1/258/4d.

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36. Hughes, , Early Years of Edward III, pp. 185–91Google Scholar. Pole had been pardoned and had founded a new wool company by 1343. See Fryde, , “English Farmers of the Customs,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Fifth Series, IX, 9–10Google Scholar. Accusations of the other prominent merchant-financiers, John Pulteney and Reginald Conduyt, both former mayors of London, are to be found in the private petitions submitted to the king and council, PRO, Just 1/552/38, 69, 74.

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38. During the late 1330s the crown turned from assemblies of merchants to parliament to obtain approval for augmented customs duties and a forced loan of wool, thereby broadening the basis of payment to include a larger part of the population. See Wilkinson, B., “The Beginnings of Parliamentary Control over the Custom of Wool,” Studies in the Constitutional History of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries [Publications of the University of Manchester, Historical Series, 73] (2d. ed.; Manchester, 1952), pp. 55–81Google Scholar; Fryde, , “Parliament and the French War,” Essays in Medieval History Presented to Bertie Wilkinson, pp. 250–69Google Scholar.

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40. PRO, Just 1/716/3. See also PRO, Just 1/715/9, 17d.

41. PRO, Just 1/1141/14.

42. PRO, Just 1/770/2, 4.

43. Hughes, , Early Years of Edward III, p. 204Google Scholar.

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54. PRO, Just 1/770/14. For another indictment of John of Coggeshall, sheriff of Hertfordshire, see PRO, Just 1/337/4.

55. PRO, Just 1/770/14.

56. For the indictment of John le Mareschal, John Husbonde, John of Oxford, and Ivo of Aldeburgh, former sheriffs of Buckinghamshire, London, Nottinghamshire, and Rochester respectively, see PRO, Just 1/74/7; PRO, Just 1/552/43; PRO, Just 1/691/1; PRO, Just 1/730/1d.

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59. PRO, Just 1/770/16, 16d.

60. Hunnisett, R. F., The Medieval Coroner (Cambridge, 1961), pp. 118–33Google Scholar; Cam, , “Shire Officials,” English Government at Work, III, 159Google Scholar; Hughes, , Early Years of Edward III, p. 199Google Scholar. For indictments of coroners before the justices, see PRO, Just 1/770/9; PRO, Just 1/521/13, 17.

61. See, for background, Cam, , “Shire Officials,” English Government at Work, III, 165–83Google Scholar. For the indictment of bailiffs, see PRO, Just 1/770/4d, 6; PRO, Just 1/258/7.

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63. PRO, Just 1/770/14.

64. PRO, Just 1/715/7.

65. The indictments of the earl of Hereford's seneschal and the keeper of Colchester castle are in PRO, Just 1/258/4; and those of the jailer of Newgate and the constable of Banbury castle are in PRO, Just 1/552/71, 72 and PRO, Just 1/715/5, 6d.

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67. For indictments of local ecclesiastical judges for exacting fees for testamentary probate and acquittance, see PRO, Just 1/770/16; PRO, Just 1/521/10; PRO, Just 1/691/6; PRO, Just 1/337/7; PRO, Just 1/258/5, 5d, 6d. For their indictment for commuting penance, see PRO, Just 1/770/14, 15; PRO, Just 1/716/1d; PRO, Just 1/521/14d; PRO, Just 1/337/1d, 3, 5, 6.

68. PRO, Just 1/715/5d.

69. PRO, Just 1/521/12d.

70. PRO, Just 1/258/3d.

71. PRO, Just 1/521/9d.

72. PRO, Just 1/770/14; PRO, Just 1/258/3d; PRO, Just 1/715/2d; PRO, ust 1/691/2. The prosecution for perjury in a church court of a person who had accused another before a secular judge was said to be contra coronam et dignitatem Regis in PRO, Just 1/770/6d. See the petition, Rotuli Parliamentorum, II, 9bGoogle Scholar.

73. Rotuli Parliamentorum, II, 129bGoogle Scholar; Statutes of the Realm, I, 296Google Scholar: 15 Edward III, Statute 1, c. 6.

74. PRO, Just 1/716/1d.

75. Statutes of the Realm, I, 297Google Scholar; 303: 15 Edward III, Statute 2, and 18 Edward III, Statute 3, c. 6; Rotuli Parliamentorum, II, 152aGoogle Scholar.

76. E.g., PRO, Just 1/430/28.

77. Rotult Parliamentorum, II, 128bGoogle Scholar.

78. Ibid., p. 131a.

79. Ibid., pp. 133b-34b.

80. Ibid., pp. 130b, 133a; Hughes, , Early Years of Edward III, pp. 175–77Google Scholar.

81. Rotuli Parliamentorum, II, 141aGoogle Scholar. For a specific complaint, see PRO, Just 1/258/9d.

82. Hughes, , Early Years of Edward III, pp. 171–73Google Scholar; Rotuli Parliamentorum, II, 137Google Scholar.

83. Statutes of the Realm, I, 305Google Scholar: 20 Edward III, c. 6.

84. For an example of official misconduct at the end of the reign, see PRO, Just 1/749/2d.

85. See McKisack, , Fourteenth Century, pp. 203–09Google Scholar; Hughes, , Early Years of Edward III, pp. 212–36Google Scholar.

86. Hughes, , Early Years of Edward III, p. 219Google Scholar. For an especially notorious case of the use of armed force to intimidate the king's justices, see the indictment of John of Wodehull in PRO, King's Bench [KB] 9/1/1/3; PRO, KB 9/1/1/5; PRO, KB 9/1/1/12; PRO, KB 9/1/1/13, PRO, KB 9/1/1/18.

87. In 1341 the crown ordered Robert Parving and his colleagues in Middlesex to investigate the existence of unlawful associations (colligaciones et confederaciones per convenciones iuramenta et alios modos illicitos) in the vicinity of London. See PRO, Just 1/552/4.

88. The author expresses his appreciation for assistance provided by the Central University Research Fund of the University of New Hampshire in completing research for this article.