abundantly supplied with every variety of merchandize and provision.587 But at present, although the charter has appointed two markets to be holden in every week,-upon Monday and Friday throughout the year-yet during a long period the former day. only has been so employed; at which time the attendance and supply are usually very large. Indeed it is probable that thisthough not the most convenient day for such a purpose-has been thus employed here at least since the year 1201; down to which period Sunday was in many cities and boroughs the open marketday. But in that year the abbot of St. Germer de Flaix, by preaching in various towns against this custom, occasioned the market to be held on the following day.588 There are still, however, some lingering vestiges of the Friday's market; such as the attendance of the country carriers on that day, together with certain signals of attempts at traffic displayed in the immediate vicinity of the hall. : The facility of communication in modern times, will hardly allow us to form an adequate notion of the ancient importance of our public fairs. For at these seasons, only, could the householder find sufficient variety and supply of many most important articles. The concourse of buyers from the whole vicinity, as well as that of vendors from different parts, was consequently large and the commodities were provided in sufficient quantities to supply the purchasers during great portion of the year.589 Thus the business then to be transacted within a given term was often so engrossing, that even the church itself was not exempt from secular invasion. For by the Benedictine Statutes of Reformation, enacted in 1249, it is ordained that no bargains shall be drove in churches, unless at the time of fairs;590 when, indeed, a universal licence seems anciently 587 Grants of 1st Edward III. 3d Edward III, and 2d Henry IV. cited in chapter xviii. of the present volume. 588 Chronicle of Jocelin de Brokeland, published by Camden Society. 589 From the earl of Northumberland's Household Book, A. D. 1512, printed by Dr. Percy, we learn that the stores of his lordship's house at Wresille, for the whole year, were laid in from fairs." He that stands charged with my lorde's house for the houll yeir, if he maye possible, shall by at all faires, where the groice emptions shall be boughte, for the house for the houll yeir; as wine, wax, beiffes, multons, wheite and malt.”—Beiffes and multons were salted oxen and sheep, cured for the winter; when formerly fresh provisions were rarely to be had in "merrie England.” 590 Stevens's Additions to Dugdale's Monasticon, vol. i. page 186. London, 1722. to have prevailed. The number of fairs secured to this borough by its governing charter, is at present doubled; and the first fair named therein has been altered from the feast of St. Silvan, to Candlemass-day. The present number of annual fairs for live-stock and other produce is consequently six. These are severally held on February 2, the second Monday after Easter-day, Whit-Monday, the second Monday in August, the 21st of September, and the second Monday in December. Those in August and December were added by the corporation in 1795, and are declared in the minute on the books, dated 13th June in that year, to be both toll-free fairs. There are also two yearly "statutes " held on the Friday before and after Old Michaelmas day, at which agricultural and even domestic servants stand in rows for inspection by masters and mistresses, and thus wait for hours in all kinds of weather seeking to be "hired." These strange assemblages are locally termed "mops," and are also general in the neighbouring towns. How long is the dignity of human nature to be thus outraged? Measures have already been adopted to obviate the evil even at Winchcomb, a smaller and adjacent town. CHAPTER XVI. THE CAREER OF SYMON DE MONTFORT-THE BATTLE WHEN the sovereignty of England was at length wrested from the Anglo-saxon nation, and that indomitable race had finally submitted to their Norman conquerors, a morose and sullen gloom obscured the character of the people; who brooded angrily over the remembrance of past injury from their Norman spoliators, and ever and anon were goaded anew by the studied insults which long continued to be offered them by their oppressors. At the commencement of the thirteenth century the heartburnings and animosity between the Saxons and the Normans had become somewhat ameliorated by time. And now, as if to induce a nearer approach toward union, king John, prone to the influence of favorites, and fascinated by the wit and sprightliness of his continental allies, facilitated the ingress of adventurers from Poictou and Anjou into England; to welcome whom, Normans were removed from high and courtly offices, that these fresh favorites might be dignified and enriched. The new courtiers, hastening to amass wealth, scrupled not to abuse their public station; exacting alike from the cheiftain of Norman birth and from the Saxon vassal. By these measures both races of inhabitants were for the first time roused against a common enemy; the only ground of concurrence upon which they had met, since their violent and unge nial union. The descendants of the Norman invaders were in like manner made aware that before they could retain their Anglo-saxon spoils -the lands, and serfs, and towns, with which their progenitors had been rewarded-the sovereign must cease to retain the discre tional powers of a supreme military commander. And such restriction, they had already learned, could only be effected by the execution of a defined or written constitution: for while written grants, obtained from recent sovereigns had been observed, the harsher grievances of the feudal system were to some extent ameliorated. Hence the Great Charter took its rise; wherein were embodied the most urgent grievances of the age, to remedy which that document was prepared by the temporal and spiritual baronage of the period. The citizens of London also lent their aid, hoping to obtain by the same charter a government less vexatious, and treatment distinguished by less of personal harshness and contempt. John, styled by contemporaries "the faithless and the deceitful " was, it is true, at length frighted into an acceptance of this charter: but his repeated renunciation of its authority, and his habitual evasion of its provisions, corroborated earlier proofs that moral obligation was to him a stranger. Henry the Third, while yet a child, succeeded him. Environed thus by the adherents of his vacillating father, we wonder not that each demand from his people for the confirmation of the charter, was for a while evaded; nor, at a later period, when his disposition became manifested, that even his oaths and judicial imprecations were, in this particular, uttered only to be set aside. But, as though this were not sufficient imitation of his predecessor, Henry aggravated another grievance of the former reign, and inundated England with a fresh swarm of foreigners. His mother Isabel of Angouleme having re-married in her own country, his half-brothers and their connections were rapidly admitted to our civil, military, and ecclesiastical dignities. And upon his own marriage with Eleanor of Provence in 1236, the natives of that district also flocked hither, together with Savoyards, Piedmontese, and Italians. To feed these multiplied and rapacious aliens, Henry persisted in levying the most grievous exactions upon all classes of his subjects: 591 for even such parliaments as he and his advisers chose to 591He was blamed also for his mode of procuring victuals and drink, particularly his wines, also his robes; all which were wont to be seized by violence against the will of the true owners and of those who sold them; ou which account both native summon, either refused him aids on each occasion, till the charter should be again nominally affirmed, or otherwise they neglected to appear; alleging the danger to which they should be exposed upon their journey from the armed bands of the king's chief favorite and prime minister, Peter de Roches, the Poitevin bishop of Winchester. The clergy were at the same time equally disaffected; foreigners being preferred to the vacant benefices; to what extent, may be judged from the fact that Johannes Maunsel, one of them, actually held seven hundred English livings, which brought him in an income of 18000 marks. 592 And in addition to the aids which the king directly wrung from them, the papal bulls exacted unconscionable sums; under cover of a professed engagement to prosecute a claim to Sicily, with which the pope had deluded Henry. In this manner the English ecclesiastics were made to feel that their interest was sacrificed to the king and pontiff, thus leagued together in shameless combination. This state of national dissatisfaction had endured for upwards of thirty years, when on the 11th of June 1258, the parliament at Oxford decided that all previous confirmations of the charter having been defeated by evil advisers, the only security that remained was, to vest the administration in other hands than those of the sovereign. Twenty-four barons were therefore chosen, twelve by the king and twelve by the parliament. This body was empowered to redress grievances and to reform the state-but subject to a parliament to be assembled thrice a year—and they were to be informed of all breaches of law and justice by four knights, to be elected for that purpose from every county. Although the Provisions of Oxford have been denounced as factious and unwarrantable; yet upon a calm survey of the sovereign's aggravated violation of the conditions upon which he had repeatedly agreed to govern, we must admit this procedure to have been temperate as well as prudent; in an age when no alternative was presented save deposition, or tame submission to the despotism of the crown. and foreign tradesmen withdrew and hid themselves, and goods were not imported nor brought to market. Trade became extremely injured, and the public much distressed and incommoded; for in truth mercantile people experiencing this vile treatment went home full of invective and contemptuous reports of the king."-M.Paris. 502 Chronicle de Mailros, page 239. |