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The Plantagenet kings possessed one of the most sophisticated systems of government in later medieval Europe. Royal administration had developed early in England, and by the time Edward III succeeded to the throne the principal departments of state already had a continuous history stretching back over a hundred years and more. The honourable traditions of their offices gave the ministers great personal esteem and political influence. These were the men most regularly in touch with the king, most frequently summoned to his council, and most immediately involved in the implementation of his policies. Their actions therefore did much to mould the attitudes of political society. Our main concern here is with the most senior officials, the chancellor and treasurer, the keeper of the privy seal, and the judges. We may begin, however, with a more general analysis of the structure of the administration and the influence of the civil service in fourteenth-century England.
Edward III’s government may be subdivided according to function into three groups: the secretarial, financial and judicial offices. The most important of the secretarial departments was the chancery, presided over by the king’s senior minister, the chancellor. This office was responsible for writing the charters, letters patent and writs issued in the king’s name and validated with his great seal. It was the largest of all the administrative departments, employing about a hundred full-time staff. Except on rare occasions, the chancery was housed in the Great Hall of Westminster Palace. Next came the privy seal. Prior to Edward III’s reign, this office had formed part of the royal household, but in the mid-fourteenth century it emerged as a separate department of government. It was much smaller than the chancery, employing only about a dozen clerks, but it managed to cope with an astonishing amount of business. It was used especially to draw up writs expressing the wishes of the king and his advisers, which were then sent to the chancery and exchequer as warrants for further administrative action. The last of the secretarial offices was an ad hoc affair staffed by clerks of the royal household, who drew up the letters issued under the king’s secret seal or signet. This correspondence was quite small in volume, but had a special importance because it communicated Edward’s most personal opinions and decisions. By the end of the reign the king’s ‘secretary’, who had custody of the secret seal, was becoming an influential figure at court and in government.
The financial departments were also three in number. Chief in importance was the exchequer, which had become a self-contained department of state as early as the twelfth century. It was headed by the treasurer, and had approximately sixty permanent members of staff. The department was subdivided into the exchequer of receipt (or lower exchequer), which organized the collection and expenditure of royal revenue, and the exchequer of account (or upper exchequer), which audited the returns made by the government’s financial agents. These offices were housed in two purpose-built chambers situated off the Great Hall at Westminster. The other financial departments were contained within the royal household. The wardrobe was responsible for the domestic expenses of the court, and for military expenditure during royal campaigns. Finally the chamber, the office of the privy purse, looked after the store of cash reserved for the king’s personal use.
The judicial administration was headed by the courts of king’s bench and common pleas. Both these tribunals heard large numbers of civil suits; the king’s bench also acted as a criminal court. Each employed a total of about forty officials, and was presided over by a chief justice and a bench of ‘puisne’ or junior judges. These men were professional lawyers, thoroughly immersed in common law procedures and well versed in the statutes. They and various other legal experts from the central courts also staffed the judicial commissions which went out into the provinces to hear assizes and try the prisoners held in royal gaols. While common pleas normally carried on its business in the Great Hall of Westminster Palace, the king’s bench often moved around the provinces, assuming jurisdiction over all cases pending in the shires. In the fourteenth century the judiciary was neither separate from nor independent of the administration, and there was a considerable overlap between the courts and the other offices of government: the lawyers, for instance, were often co-opted to serve as barons of the exchequer. Medieval administrators did not recognize fine bureaucratic distinctions or jurisdictional boundaries because, no matter what their departments, they were all occupied in the service of the crown.
The amount of work done by the civil service in the mid-fourteenth century was prodigious. The business of government had increased enormously since the time of Edward I, and there was a marked tendency to commit more and more of it to writing.1 Despite the fact that all documents had to be written up by hand, certain departments, particularly the exchequer and the courts, thought nothing of making duplicate or even triplicate copies of their main records. The sheer bulk of administrative documentation surviving from Edward III’s reign is impressive. The patent and close rolls, just two of the many series of records kept in the chancery, fill thirty large volumes in their printed and highly abbreviated form.2 The plea rolls of the king’s bench for the same period run to some 28,500 pieces of parchment, each about nine inches wide and between two and three feet long, and written up closely on both sides.3 These random statistics are all the more remarkable when we remember that the surviving records represent only a small part of all the work done. Many thousands of writs issued by the crown to regulate local administration and justice have disappeared, leaving little trace in the central records.4 Chance references indicate that the burden of such business was considerable. On 13 May 1342, for example, the sheriff of Shropshire and Staffordshire received at Wolverhampton a batch of thirty-one exchequer writs, each one requiring him to locate men within the counties and have them, or information supplied by them, returned to Westminster within the following four weeks.5 Between June 1333 and November 1334, the sheriff of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire had to deal with a total of some 2,400 writs sent out by the chancery, exchequer, king’s bench and common pleas. 6 Under special circumstances, this substantial workload could increase still further. When the king’s bench visited York in the Michaelmas term of 1348, for instance, a very large number of local litigants used the opportunity to instigate private proceedings in the court; and long after the judges had left, the sheriff was kept busy clearing the enormous backlog of writs arising from this session.7 These examples provide a graphic illustration of the very real impact that the central government had on its agents in the provinces.
To understand the political influence of the civil service, we must appreciate the elaborate network of personal and professional ties that linked Westminster with the provinces. The regional identification of royal bureaucrats was of great importance in this respect. Many of the clerks in the chancery and exchequer during this period hailed from Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire, and kept up close contact with their native areas. 8 An outstanding example is Thomas Sibthorpe, who came from a village outside Newark (Nottinghamshire). Despite his more or less continuous employment in the chancery from 1317 to his death in 1351, Sibthorpe maintained regular links with his home territory, securing benefices in the dioceses of Lincoln and York and getting himself appointed to all sorts of judicial commissions in the east midlands.9 It is interesting that much of the money he made as a royal clerk was channelled back into the collegiate foundation he established at his birthplace of Sibthorpe.10 Many others, followed a similar course. John Winwick, keeper of the privy seal (1355–60) established a chantry at Huyton church in his native Lancashire; and in the 1350s William Edington was busily involved with the creation and endowment of the ambitious priory church of Sts Mary and Katherine in his home village of Edington (Wiltshire).11 Service to the crown clearly did not disconnect civil servants from their roots; and it was inevitable that the relatives and friends of these men would seek to take advantage of their contacts at the seat of power.
The royal officials most susceptible to outside influence were undoubtedly the professional lawyers. When it came time to appoint judicial commissions in the shires, the judges were almost invariably given responsibility in the areas where they had personal interests. In the midst of his busy career in the central courts, for instance, Sir William Shareshull usually found time to serve on the assize, gaol delivery and peace commissions in his native Staffordshire and his adopted county of Oxfordshire.12 He and most of his colleagues in the king’s bench and common pleas came under constant pressure from individuals and communities anxious to improve their prospects in the courts. When the royal judges arrived in provincial towns such as Norwich or Leicester, the civic authorities often set aside funds in order to fill the bellies and the pockets of their honoured visitors.13 Indeed, the Abbot of Peterborough was said to have spent more than £1,000 to ensure favourable judgments during the Northamptonshire eyre of 1329–30.14Some magnates and religious houses even paid regular fees to the judges in recognition of past and future favours.15 This practice of retaining royal justices was very common in the early fourteenth century; and although judges were occasionally dismissed for corruption, it was rare for the crown to challenge the network of influences which underlay the royal courts. The lawyers therefore provide a particularly illuminating example of the double allegiances which were such a feature of late medieval government and society.
It is easy to assume that such external contacts worked to the detriment of the crown. Medieval administrators inevitably tended to put private concerns first, and the resulting conflict of interests could reflect badly on the king. Under proper control, however, there was no reason why the links between royal administrators and other members of political society should cause embarrassment. Edward III appreciated that his ministers could help guide public opinion in both their professional and personal capacities. He also endeavoured to maintain a sense of loyalty and corporate identity within the civil service. The middle and lower levels of the bureaucracy were still dominated by clerks who expected ecclesiastical benefices in lieu of salaries, and were constantly competing for the richest pickings in the king’s store of patronage. Edward’s two collegiate foundations, at St George’s Windsor and St Stephen’s Westminster, were both conveniently close to the centres of power and provided additional titles and incomes for these acquisitive officials.16 The deanery and canonries of St Stephen’s became especially popular among the clerks of the exchequer and the king’s works, and carried the added bonus of free accommodation within the palace of Westminster.17 The prospect of such preferment obviously provided a powerful incentive to work loyally and efficiently. Finally, the king had the power to investigate and sack all those who proved less than committed to his cause. Robert Wodehouse was peremptorily dismissed from the treasurership in 1338 because of his failure to collect sufficient funds for Edward’s continental campaign.18 In 1353 the chamberlains of the lower exchequer were hauled up before Treasurer Edington on a charge that they had lost counter-tallies (notched sticks recording real or anticipated revenue) to the value of £2,500;19 and in 1365 their successors were subjected to a long corruption trial before the king’s council.20 If there was a clash of principles, even the most exalted of ministers had to go. In 1356 John Thoresby was forced to resign the chancellorship because, in his capacity as Archbishop of York, he had opposed the flagrant violation of ecclesiastical privilege resulting from the king’s arbitrary seizure of the Bishop of Ely’s estates.21 Edward III’s administrators were acutely aware that it was only the goodwill of the king which allowed them continued membership of this exclusive and privileged society.
THE COUNCIL
The centre of political life for the king’s chief ministers was the council. A certain degree of initiative was allowed in each department, but it was only by corporate decisions that the administrators could effect major governmental changes. Unfortunately, it was not until the reign of Richard II that the council began to take steps to record its proceedings and preserve its own archives.22 Many details about the membership and work of Edward III’s council therefore remain obscure. Enough evidence survives, however, for us to be able to discern four fairly distinct uses of the term ‘council’ in this period.23 First, there were great councils, to which the king summoned large numbers of magnates and prelates, and which on some occasions also included representatives of the shires and boroughs. These were extraordinary assemblies summoned only intermittently to discuss important matters of state, such as the making of war (1337) or the setting up of domestic staples (1353).24 Secondly, there were the councils attended by nobles and bishops closely connected with the king and actively involved in his military and diplomatic service. These met rather more frequently. We may reasonably assume, for instance, that it was assemblies of this sort which drew up the numerous schemes for the defence of the realm and the dispatch of troops to Scotland and France in 1337–8, and which in 1341 compiled an elaborate list of soldiers and provisions needed for the king’s forthcoming campaign in Brittany. 25 Thirdly, there were the extraordinary councils appointed during the king’s youth in 1327, and his final incapacitating illness in 1376. These assemblies, staffed by magnates and prelates, also provided the model for the regency administration created by Edward III on his departure for the continent in 1338, and the council forced on him by parliament before his return to the Low Countries in 1340. Finally, there was the administrative council, which sat more or less permanently during the legal and financial terms, was staffed by the ministers of state, and regulated much of the day-to-day government of the realm. It is with this last form of council that we are particularly concerned here.
It is important to remember that there was a considerable overlap between these four tiers of councils. The magnates believed that they were the king’s natural advisers, and some of them actually applied themselves remarkably diligently to the work of government. The Earls of Arundel and Warwick, for instance, appear so frequently in the records of the 1340s and 1350s that they probably deserve to be counted among the members of the administrative council.26 But the king and the majority of the nobility were eager to relieve themselves of governmental responsibilities and get on with their main task, fighting the enemy. Accordingly, for most of Edward III’s reign the core of the permanent council was made up of the chancellor, the treasurer, the judges and the barons of the exchequer. They met wherever was most convenient for them and for the king: in Westminster Palace, at the Tower, at the church of St Mary le Strand,27 at the London houses of various mendicant orders,28 or, during the plague of 1349, at Edward’s country retreat of Woodstock.29 But in the early 1340s a ‘new chamber’ at Westminster was put at their disposal; and it was in this building, later known as the Star Chamber, that the council came to do more and more of its work.30
This move heralded some important procedural changes. The council had no seal of its own, and most of its decisions were implemented through the chancery and exchequer. But in the 1350s, the privy seal office also established headquarters at Westminster, and began to put its secretarial resources at the service of the council.31 By the 1370s the keeper of the privy seal was clearly recognized as the third great officer of state alongside the chancellor and treasurer, and had already become a regular member of the administrative council.32 From the later 1350s it was also agreed that the expenses of the council, previously met only at the whim of the king, should be considered official expenditure and properly subsidized by the exchequer.33 By the second half of Edward III’s reign, the administrative council probably enjoyed a more established place in the structure of government and a greater capacity for business than ever before.
The council was the supreme expression of corporate government, and it is difficult to find any aspect of administration in which it was not involved. Occasional royal letters addressed jointly to the chancellor and treasurer indicate that the majority of important concerns, such as the regulation of the coinage in 1353, were discussed and authorized by the king’s ministers.34 They, like the king, were much occupied with the selection and supervision of lesser officials. It was the council that decided that John Dabernoun should be dismissed from his post as sheriff of Surrey and Sussex in the early 1330s, and that recommended the appointment of Richard Talbot, Richard Willoughby and Robert Thorp to a special commission of oyer and terminer in the 1340s.35 The ministers were often involved in discussions with the merchants and representatives of port towns, and this provided them with valuable information on candidates for the customs administration. The mayors and constables of the new English staples set up in the summer of 1353, for example, were chosen from among the merchants who attended a special meeting with the government in July that year.36 In 1370 the council drew up a complete new list of customs officials; and the extant memorandum, with its various deletions and additions, suggests that there was a lively debate as to the best men for these posts.37 The council also sometimes made recommendations about the personnel of central administration and the regulation of government in the king’s dependent territories of Wales, Ireland and Gascony. 38
Undoubtedly the most interesting work done by the council during Edward III’s reign was in the judicial sphere. The ministers obviously had some general influence over the administration of the law. It was they, for instance, who decided that the king’s bench should move into East Anglia to hold special trailbaston sessions in 1344–5, and who devised the special machinery to enforce the Ordinance of Labourers in 1349.39 But the council also enjoyed considerable judicial authority of its own; and circumstantial evidence suggests that this power was expanding rapidly during Edward III’s reign.40 The council traditionally acted as a tribunal to try cases that could not be resolved at common law, issues involving persons of high rank, and matters too controversial to be heard in the regular courts. Thus, it was the council that in 1354 took proceedings against Sir Walter Mauny’s new wife, Margaret Marshal, on the charge that she had ignored an earlier ban on foreign travel. 41 Lady Mauny, who was Edward III’s cousin and a major landholder in her own right, was actually imprisoned as a result. Inevitably, king and ministers did not always see eye to eye on cases such as this. While the council clung to the letter of the law, the king was often swayed by political considerations. There was a substantial difference of opinion, for example, over Henry of Grosmont’s attempt to secure exemption from the farm charged on his bailiwick of Scalby (Yorkshire). Between 1351 and 1353 the chancellor, treasurer, judges, serjeants at law and barons of the exchequer several times gave their unanimous opinion that Duke Henry should be forced to pay his dues to the crown; but in 1354 the king simply overturned their judgment in one stroke and put an end to any ambiguity on the matter by granting his cousin full rights to the farm of Scalby.42 Disagreements of this kind are interesting; but they were relatively unusual. Edward III, as we have seen, was generally prudent and calculating in his judicial favours to the members of the nobility, and did not normally offend the sensibilities of his councillors.
Edward also appreciated the speed and efficiency of conciliar justice, and encouraged his ministers to increase the range and volume of their work. An important step forward came in 1340 when he returned from the continent and replaced the chancellor and treasurer with laymen. Between 1340 and 1345 the chancery was in the hands of three professional common lawyers: Sir Robert Bourchier, Sir Robert Parving, and Sir Robert Sadington.43 These men frequently intervened in the proceedings of the king’s bench, common pleas, and the exchequer in order to safeguard the interests of the crown and to uphold the jurisdiction claimed by the chancery and the council.44 Such practices continued after the return to clerical chancellors. It was John Thoresby (1349–56), for instance, who was probably responsible for devising the famous sub pena writ, which summoned defendants to appear before the council on unspecified charges and threatened them with a fine for default.45 This writ became the very basis of royal prerogative justice in the late Middle Ages, and marked an important breakthrough in judicial administration. All of these developments enhanced the reputation of the council as a particularly efficient, if somewhat brutal, tribunal dedicated to upholding the authority of the throne. By their actions Edward III’s ministers therefore proved themselves not only to be capable and inventive lawyers, but also loyal political supporters of the regime.
THE MINISTERS AND PARLIAMENT
The expertise and influence of the administrators was particularly valuable to the king during a session of parliament.46 When Edward III called a parliament, he sent personal summonses to various bureaucrats and lawyers who took their place alongside the bishops, abbots and magnates in the lords. This ‘official’ group could vary in size. It usually comprised between ten and fifteen men, although in the consecutive parliaments of September 1334 and May 1335 the number rose to as many as twenty-three.47 Those regularly included in the lists were the judges and serjeants of king’s bench and common pleas, the barons and chancellor of the exchequer, and the high-ranking clerks of the royal diplomatic service. The chancellor and treasurer and various household officials such as the chamberlain and steward would also be present in the lords in their capacity as prelates and barons. Furthermore, many other royal officials were involved to some degree in the work of parliament. Chancery clerks acted as receivers of petitions and compiled the parliament rolls.48 The committees of triers appointed to deal with private petitions normally included the chancellor, treasurer and judges, and were encouraged to take advice from the officers of the king’s chamber and the chief ministers of Ireland and Gascony. Finally, the common petitions were generally heard by the king and his council, who drew up the formal replies and framed the resulting statutes. The influence of the king’s agents was therefore considerably greater than mere numbers might suggest. Parliament had begun life in the thirteenth century as a solemn meeting of the council; and although it had developed into a major political forum by the time of Edward III, it had not altogether lost its earlier character.
It was in the audience of common petitions and the making of legislation that Edward’s administrators really came into their own. The range of issues covered in these petitions, and the technical know-how needed to translate the crown’s replies into statutes, made it imperative that the king should call on expert advice. For example, Sir Geoffrey Scrope, chief justice of king’s bench, has been identified as the likely author of the important peacekeeping regulations contained in the Statute of Northampton of 1328.49The unique legislative committee appointed in the parliament of March 1340 included four royal lawyers (Scrope, Sadington and Parving, along with Sir John Stonor),50 and their influence may well have been decisive in ensuring that certain important legal reforms were incorporated in the resulting statute.51 Another chief justice of king’s bench, Sir William Shareshull (1350–61), has been associated with the programme of judicial, economic and ecclesiastical legislation carried through in response to a series of common petitions in 1351–2.52 Clearly, then, judicial expertise counted for much in the making of parliamentary statutes.
Not all the legislators, however, were common lawyers. The committee of 1340 to which we have just referred also included Archbishop Stratford and the treasurer, William Zouche. It was Stratford’s involvement that probably ensured the passing of an important statute confirming the privileges and immunities of the church. 53 And in the years that followed, clerical chancellors and treasurers apparently became increasingly influential in the making of legislation. John Thoresby was probably responsible for effecting a major change in the procedure for the recovery of mercantile debts in 1353.54 It was the treasurer William Edington whom chroniclers identified as the author of the important coinage reform of 1351.55 Edington also deserves credit for helping to devise the novel scheme adopted in the parliament of 1352, whereby money raised under the Ordinance and Statute of Labourers was used to subsidize direct taxes.56 The considerable legislative output during the middle years of Edward’s reign is testimony to the industry and expertise of these and other like-minded ministers.
Beyond these specific examples, a more general point emerges. We have already noted that, despite the growing influence of the common petitions, Edward III still managed to retain a degree of initiative in the legislative process. The assistance of his ministers was crucial in this respect. It was they who tested the opinions of the lords and commons and advised when it was necessary or advantageous for the crown to make concessions. An interesting example is provided by the debate over weights and measures. The government’s failure to enforce clause 35 of Magna Carta, guaranteeing standard weights and measures, was a constant theme in the common petitions of the 1320s and 1330s, but the crown made only the most cursory of efforts to respond to such criticisms.57 In 1340, the desperate financial situation forced the king to confirm earlier regulations on this subject, and to set up special commissions to regulate weights and measures in the shires.58 But the government saw no particular advantage to be had from the legislation, and the commissions were abandoned in 1344.59 It was only in the early 1350s that the official attitude changed. Shareshull’s work in the provincial sessions of the king’s bench and Edington’s experiences in the reform of the customs service impressed on the government the positive advantages to be had from a rigorous weights and measures policy. Consequently in 1352, when the commons repeated their demand for the confirmation of clause 35 of Magna Carta, the ministers eagerly responded with fresh legislation and an enthusiastic programme of enforcement in the shires and the ports.60 This example, like the statutes on feudal levies and purveyance already discussed,61 shows that the government retained a vital hold over the timing, and therefore the political implications, of its legislation.
It should by now be obvious that the superficial connections often made between the common petitions and the statutes tend to underrate the discretionary power enjoyed by Edward III and his council. To state that the seven articles of the 1344 statute and the twenty-three clauses of the statute of 1352 all arose from common petitions is, in a limited sense, correct.62 But we cannot assume from this that the commons were actively involved in formulating the statutes. The legislative committee set up in the parliament of March 1340 actually included twelve knights and six burgesses, as well as a number of prelates, magnates and ministers.63 This, however, was quite extraordinary. Under normal conditions, parliament was quite content to make general requests and leave the details to the experts. Some of the most important legislation of the mid-fourteenth century, such as the Statute of Provisors (1351), the Statute of Treasons (1352) and the Statute of the Staple (1354), may have resulted from petitions made by the commons in parliament; but their actual formulation was almost wholly the work of the council.64 Even in the 1360s when the king was more inclined to make sweeping concessions, the initiative was still not completely surrendered. The parliament of 1365, for instance, produced some eighteen common petitions.65 Of these, only six were taken up as a basis for formal legislation; and on a number of issues the government substantially qualified parliament’s original suggestions. Thus, while the commons demanded complete freedom of trade, the crown insisted that certain restrictions on wool exports be maintained, and gave the chancellor important powers to decide ambiguous cases.66 It is also worth noting that both sides used the parliament of 1365 to carry through changes in existing legislation. While the commons successfully petitioned for the repeal of the recent sumptuary laws and the alteration of the Statute of the Staple,67 the council seized the opportunity to re-enact the Statute of Provisors, to confirm its legislation on the Gascon wine trade, and to change an earlier law on the penalty for bringing unsubstantiated charges before the king’s courts.68 The making of legislation was still very much a two-way process in Edward III’s later years.
Finally, it is important to remember that the king’s ministers largely dictated how legislation was enforced. In this respect, a clear distinction needs to be drawn between those legal reforms which could be used to the king’s benefit and the more broad-ranging statements about the administrative, judicial or fiscal practices of the government. The labour legislation of 1349–51, for instance, was deliberately designed not only to placate the political community but also to increase the crown’s judicial profits; and it was therefore enforced with a consistency and ruthlessness hitherto unknown in medieval England.69 This contrasts sharply with the government’s casual approach to other more restrictive legislation. The long series of early fourteenth-century statutes requiring the annual replacement of sheriffs was almost completely ignored by Edward’s ministers until after 1371; and the king’s judges seem to have paid remarkably little attention to the frequent legislative changes in common law procedure.70 In 1365 the commons were still demanding that all justices be required to abide by the statutes, and that judgments given by them in contravention of the statutes should be nullified.71 The enforcement of solemn legislation was indeed a matter of constant concern to parliament throughout the fourteenth century. The fact that the commons were so frequently frustrated on this matter says much about the political influence and administrative discretion enjoyed by the king’s professional advisers.
EDWARD III’S CHIEF MINISTERS
So far, we have confined ourselves to assessing the importance of the civil service in politics, and identifying the particular areas of administration in which the king’s ministers were involved. It is now time to focus more closely on the different phases of Edward III’s reign and to try to identify what changes took place within the government in the course of these fifty years. We have already noted that each period of the reign tended to be dominated by a single powerful administrator: Stratford in the early stages, Edington in the 1340s and 1350s, and Wykeham in the later years. Enough has also been said about the king’s attitudes to government and about the evolving role of the council to indicate that the most successful period of the reign in administrative terms was the 1350s. But we must now place those developments in a firmer context, by analysing the state of government under each of the king’s principal ministers.
Considering the political turmoil of the period 1326–30, there was a remarkable degree of continuity between the successive regimes of the Despensers, Queen Isabella, and Edward III. This was partly because middle-ranking officials tended to keep out of politics, and partly because the men who filled the great offices of state simply found party labels too confusing and hazardous. During the insurrection in London in the winter of 1326–7, Edward II’s former treasurer, Walter Stapeldon, was murdered by the mob; and his last chancellor, Robert Baldock, died at Newgate prison.72 These violent events impressed upon the official class the dangers of becoming too closely associated with a divisive political regime, and made them eager to seek an accommodation with the new government of Edward III.
It is therefore misleading to group Edward’s early ministers into two parties, the so-called ‘curialists’ (former supporters of Edward II and the Despensers, or members of Edward III’s own household) and the ‘Lancastrians’ (those who had sympathized with the aims of the baronial opposition in the 1320s, and eventually came out in sympathy with Stratford in the crisis of 1340–1).73 Between 1327 and 1341 there were so many shifts in the political balance that such labels are largely meaningless. In fact, this was the age of the trimmer. Sir Geoffrey Scrope, who remained chief justice of king’s bench more or less permanently from 1324 to 1338, is the classic example of a civil servant who preferred to reach an accommodation with each successive regime rather than lose the income, perquisites and social standing associated with high office.74 However, it is important to recognize that Scrope’s long tenure of office was exceptional. The political sympathies of individual ministers may have shifted in the course of the 1320s and 1330s, but many personal animosities remained. And the resulting tensions manifested themselves in a high turnover of personnel. Since the death of Edward I, there had been chronic instability in the chancellorship and treasurership, and this continued to some extent during Edward III’s early years. Between 1307 and 1340, no one had uninterrupted tenure of these offices for more than three and a half years, and many were in power for much shorter periods.75 The real problem in the 1330s was not some innate ideological conflict, but the failure of Edward III to break down old feuds and establish a proper following for himself within the administrative departments.
This does much to explain the problems encountered by John Stratford during these years. Stratford, who was Bishop of Winchester from 1323 to 1333 and Archbishop of Canterbury from 1333 to his death in 1348, had been one of the principal opponents of the Despenser regime and a staunch supporter of Queen Isabella. Indeed, he had been given custody of the exchequer while the revolution was in hand during the winter of 1326–7. But he had rapidly fallen out with the Earl of March and dissociated himself from Mortimer’s rule. 76 When Edward III seized power in 1330, Stratford was therefore a natural candidate for the chancellorship. He resigned this post on his enthronement as Archbishop of Canterbury in September 1334, but very rapidly found that secular government was more to his taste and went back to the chancery in 1335–7. He was also an experienced diplomat, and accompanied the king to the continent in July 1338. He returned to England late in the following year to act as head of the regency council, and had a further short spell as chancellor in April–June 1340. Stratford’s influence in the chancery was indeed sufficient for a number of his relatives and associates to find employment there; and his own brother Robert, Bishop of Chichester, twice succeeded him as chancellor (March 1337–July 1338 and June–December 1340).
Whether the king felt completely satisfied with Stratford’s ascendancy is another matter. John was at least fifty when the seventeen-year-old Edward III seized power, and the two men seem to have had little in common. It was rumoured that when he had travelled to Kenilworth to receive the abdication of Edward II, Stratford had threatened that the king’s rightful heir might also be disinherited.77 If this is true, it is hardly likely to have endeared him to Edward III. Stratford’s sensitivity to possible rivals also suggested that he often felt politically insecure. In the early 1330s the exchequer gave him much cause for concern. Although his brother served as chancellor of the exchequer in 1331–4, the treasurers of this period – William Melton (November 1330– April 1331), William Airmyn (April 1331–March 1332) and Robert Ayleston (March 1332–February 1334) – had all been prominently associated with the Despenser regime, and at least one (Airmyn) had personal grievances against Stratford.78 They are unlikely to have been much in sympathy with their former opponent-turned-first minister. It is interesting that Stratford was not even certain of his former allies. In 1333 he became involved in an unseemly dispute with Adam Orleton over the latter’s promotion to the bishopric of Winchester. In the course of the debate, damaging accusations were made about the archbishop’s role in the supposed abdication of Edward II.79 Finally, in 1341, Stratford was to make bitter personal attacks on certain royal servants – Bishop Burghersh of Lincoln, Sir Geoffrey Scrope, and, above all, William Kilsby – claiming that they had poisoned the king’s mind against him during the campaigns of 1339–40.80 Whether Edward deliberately tried to antagonize the Stratfords by his choice of advisers is uncertain. But the intense jealousies that broke out in official circles in 1340–1 can clearly be seen as the natural culmination of a decade of resentment and rivalry in government circles.
Against this background, it is not surprising to find that there were few significant administrative advances during the 1330s. In contrast to the major reorganization of the royal archives carried out by Stapeldon in the last years of Edward II,81 and the various administrative novelties introduced by Thoresby and Edington in the middle years of Edward III, the 1330s seem notably unproductive. This in part was the result of the king’s concentration on the Scottish and French wars. All the principal ministers were actively involved in the great spurt of diplomatic activity that preceded the outbreak of the Hundred Years War, and they had little time to devote to mere domestic matters. On several occasions Stratford’s departure from the realm or his preoccupation with other business caused delays in the chancery.82 The removal of the exchequer, chancery and common pleas to York in the mid-1330s, and the king’s absence on the continent in 1338–40, also impeded any efforts to pursue far-reaching reforms. And with the treasurership so frequently changing hands, it was very difficult to maintain the momentum of reform. In 1331 William Airmyn tried to improve the administration of the customs service by appointing resident controllers to supervise the collectors in the ports.83But within months Airmyn had been removed from the treasurership, and the reform was abandoned. The government’s faltering policy towards the wool staple and the keeping of the peace also suggests that it was incapable of consistent policy in these years. 84But undoubtedly the most outstanding example is provided by its attitude towards the escheators. These officials were responsible for administering the lands and other feudal perquisites which fell to the king on the death of any of his tenants-in-chief. Ever since 1311 there had been a difference of opinion as to whether such duties should be undertaken by two high-ranking officials or be divided between eight regional escheators; and between 1327 and 1341 there were no fewer than five changes in government policy on this matter.85 This example strongly suggests that the political and diplomatic pressures on the civil service in the 1330s severely hampered any effective bureaucratic advances, and may indeed have reduced the strength of government at just the time when Edward III needed his administrative resources most.
Had it not been for the king’s financial recklessness in the late 1330s, John Stratford might well have remained a loyal servant of the crown and taken his place among the numerous unremarkable bureaucrat bishops of the Middle Ages. As it was, the quarrel which broke out between king and archbishop in the winter of 1340–1 has given Stratford an enduring fame surpassed only by his predecessor and hero Thomas Becket. The origins and events of this crisis have already been outlined; the intention here is to assess the implications of the dispute for the royal administration. On his return to England late in 1340, Edward dismissed a number of high-ranking officials, and forced several others to resign. Among these were the judges John Stonor, John Shardlow, John Inge and William Shareshull; the chancellor Robert Stratford and the treasurer Roger Northborough; and a number of lesser officials including John St Pol (keeper of the chancery rolls), Henry Stratford, Robert Chigwell and John Wath (senior chancery clerks), John Hildesley (chancellor of the exchequer), and John Thorp (treasurer’s clerk in the exchequer of receipt).86 This represented the most radical and violent reform of government personnel carried out in the whole reign. Unfortunately for the king, the inquiries he launched into official malpractice generally failed to uncover charges on which these dismissed ministers might be indicted. The lawyers were certainly accused, and in some cases convicted, of corrupt practices. Indeed, Richard Willoughby, the former chief justice of king’s bench, was upbraided as an unscrupulous judge who had sold the laws ‘as if they had been oxen or cows’.87 But none of the royal judges was closely involved in the central issue, namely the king’s quarrel with the regency council; and within a short while both Willoughby and a number of his associates were reappointed to senior posts in the courts.88 The real focus of Edward’s blatantly political attack would inevitably be the Stratfords.
Robert Stratford, the dismissed chancellor, was the first to feel the king’s wrath. On 1 December 1340 he was accused of failing to supply the money Edward so desperately needed to fight the war; and he was given until after Epiphany (6 January) to prepare his case.89 Robert obdurately refused to answer these and other accusations, not only because he regarded them as unfounded, but also because, as a prelate, he had immunity from the royal courts.90 Edward seems to have dropped the attack at this point, but only in order to bring increased pressure to bear on the archbishop.
John Stratford had no post in the government in December 1340, and it was therefore doubly difficult to argue that he should answer for his crimes before a secular court. But Edward pressed ahead, and issued a formal statement which accused the archbishop of refusing to provide adequate financial resources, of encouraging opposition to royal taxes, of advocating a policy of largesse which impoverished the crown, and of abusing his authority in order to promote his own and his followers’ interests. This catalogue of half-truths, distortions, and moral imputations – promptly dubbed a libellus famosus (infamous libel) by the outraged archbishop – indicates that the crisis was as much a clash of personalities as a conflict of principles.91 Stratford was certainly not blameless, on either a professional or a personal level. It has been pointed out, for instance, that although the tax of the ninth granted in 1340 was very difficult to collect, it might have raised a good deal more had it been subject to better management by the regency council.92Edward may also have been justified in complaining that Stratford had incited treason and sedition, for the threats of excommunication issued by the archbishop in 1340 against persons infringing the privileges of the Church implied public criticism of the king’s iniquitous financial policies.93 And although accusations of corruption were probably unfounded, it is undeniable that Stratford had done very well out of his connection with the court, securing the greatest ecclesiastical office in the land and regularly being pardoned his debts in the exchequer.94
For all this, however, Edward III had the utmost difficulty in finding a specific offence on which to indict the archbishop. Stratford answered the libellus famosus point by point, disclaiming the charges and stressing his loyalty to the crown. When he arrived at Westminster Palace in April 1341, the government was forced to use a dubious charge of non-payment of wool in order to prevent the archbishop from gaining access to parliament.95 For it was there that he had his supporters, and had decided to take his stand on the issue of privilege. The two main points of the opposition programme – namely, that the ministers of state should be appointed, judged and dismissed in parliament, and that the nobles and prelates should answer for their offences only before their peers – both arose directly from Edward III’s attempts to take arbitrary proceedings against the Stratford brothers. When the king was induced to grant a statute conceding those points in modified form, the Stratfords could claim a major personal victory.
Edward III badly misjudged the situation in 1341. His attempt to punish the members of the regency council for his own ineptitude had rebounded on him, and he had no choice but to patch up his differences with the noblemen and prelates he had alienated since 1338. Edward tactfully dropped the accusations against Stratford, and was formally reconciled with the archbishop later in 1341.96 The exchequer was also instructed to ignore certain small fines (presumably for wool) charged on Stratford, and to abandon their attempts to levy the sum of £220 in amercements imposed on him by the justices of oyer and terminer in Kent and Sussex.97 But despite these marks of favour, the king clearly had no intention of bringing the Stratfords or their followers back into government. The archbishop and his brother never again held official posts; and although John St Pol later went on to a distinguished career in Ireland, neither he nor the other clerks dismissed in 1340 succeeded in gaining readmission to the English chancery and exchequer.98 Both John and Robert Stratford, as well as their nephew Ralph, Bishop of London, served on the regency councils of 1345 and 1346–7,99 but this reflected their importance as churchmen and did not necessarily imply political rehabilitation.100 The Stratford family’s influence was therefore permanently eclipsed after 1340. Edward III learned many a bitter lesson from the events of 1341; and not the least was the need to create a reliable and efficient civil service which would implement his policies and uphold his interests. The ascendancy of Stratford was over, and a very different form of government was to take its place.
If the ministerial history of the 1330s was dominated by Stratford, the 1340s and 1350s belonged to William Edington, Bishop of Winchester.101 Edington was one of a group of administrators closely identified with the king’s party during the opening stages of the Hundred Years War; and it was these men who replaced the older generation in the chancery and exchequer during the early 1340s. This brought about some fundamental changes in the bureaucracy. The most obvious was the notable increase in the length of tenure of high office. John Thoresby held the chancellorship for a continuous period of seven years (1349–56), while Edington was treasurer for a remarkable twelve years (1344–56) before going on to an additional six at the chancery (1356–63). The security of tenure so lacking since Edward I’s time was restored: indeed, Edington’s record at the exchequer was not to be equalled again until Tudor times.102 After the disruptions of 1340–2, the courts also settled down: Sir John Stonor was chief justice of common pleas from 1342 to 1354, and Sir William Shareshull remained chief justice of king’s bench from 1350 to 1361.103 The lower echelons of the bureaucracy always tended to be more stable; but the continuity in the middle ranks during this period is particularly noteworthy. The post of chancellor of the exchequer, for instance, which had changed hands fifteen times between 1305 and 1345, was held continuously by William Stow between 1346 and 1359; while at the chancery, David Wollor acted as keeper of the rolls for some twenty-five years (1345–70).104 Nor did the Black Death seriously disrupt this new-found stability. The plague carried off Chancellor Offord, three of the twelve senior chancery clerks, and a number of key exchequer officials; but their colleagues and successors quickly reverted to normality.105 It is particularly striking how many exchequer officials remained in the same posts throughout the 1350s: in addition to William Stow, these included Ralph Brantingham, the king’s chamberlain (1349–65), Hugh Appleby, the king’s remembrancer (1350–62), William Peek, the treasurer’s remembrancer (1344–61) and Hugh Colwick, the clerk of the pipe rolls (1347–61).106 All this was bound to have some effect on administrative practice, as the inconsistencies of the 1330s gave way to long-term planning and effective implementation of policy. The most important feature of this period, however, and the real key to the administrative strength of the regime, was the co-operation established between all departments of government. Both Stratford in the 1330s and Wykeham in the 1360s tended to stand alone. Edington, by contrast, was simply one of the many capable men who served the crown and influenced its policies in the middle years of Edward III’s reign.
One of the special features of the 1340s and 1350s was the considerable overlap that developed between the major government departments and the lesser offices of the royal household. Historians used to think that there was an innate antagonism between the chancery and exchequer on the one hand and the privy seal and wardrobe on the other.107 This idea has been greatly exaggerated, and is now largely discredited. 108 Nevertheless, it is clear that the physical separation of the departments of state and the household, as in 1338–40, could create considerable conflict within the administration. It is no surprise that William Kilsby, keeper of the privy seal, was one of the royal advisers most intensely criticized by Stratford and his allies in 1341.109 So long as the whole administration was prepared to accept the king’s scale of priorities, however, there was no reason why good relations between departments should not be re-established. This is precisely what happened after 1341 . During the continental campaign of 1346–7, for instance, close links were built up between Chancellor Offord, who had control of the great seal of absence in England, and John Thoresby, who acted as joint keeper of the privy seal and custodian of the great seal at Calais.110 Both men were of like mind and background, trained at Oxford and experienced in royal diplomacy.111 It was therefore a relatively easy matter to maintain contact between the domestic and continental administrations, and there were only a few minor disagreements between king and chancellor (mostly over ecclesiastical patronage) in the course of this lengthy campaign.112 Such links were kept up after Offord’s death and Thoresby’s promotion to the chancellorship, when two other university men, Simon Islip (1347–50) and Michael Northborough (1350–4), were brought in as keepers of the privy seal.113 Indeed, so similar did the practices of the two departments become that for a while it seemed the English crown might adopt French custom and have a single writing office incorporating both the great and privy seals.114 One notable result of this consolidation of resources was that diplomatic correspondence, previously the preserve of the chancery, was largely taken over by the privy seal clerks John Welwick and William Tirrington in the early 1350s.115 The administrative departments, which had threatened to pull apart under the political conditions of the late 1330s, had now resumed their unity of purpose and action.
This development is most strikingly illustrated by Edington’s reforms in the financial offices. Edington’s apprenticeship as receiver of the ninth and keeper of the wardrobe in 1340–4 coincided with the period of greatest financial chaos in the whole of Edward III’s reign.116 The crown had exhausted all its traditional and extraordinary forms of revenue, and had resorted to huge loans of money and wool which it could never hope to repay. 117 Edward chose simply to renege on his debts, driving his Italian financiers into bankruptcy and entering into dubious credit deals with English merchants. When Edington took office as treasurer in 1344 he had not only to clear a backlog of royal debts, but also to re-establish public confidence in the crown’s financial administration. His task was made all the more difficult by Edward’s refusal to limit his military operations. While Edington was reasonably successful in convincing the king that his campaigns must be more economical, he still had to find large amounts of cash for the war during the mid-1340s. The Crécy-Calais campaign, which cost in the region of £225,000,118 was funded largely by a merchant company set up in 1343–4 and given control over wool exports in return for an annual farm of £50,000. The financial demands on the farmers were so intense that, when the Black Death caused a temporary collapse in overseas trade, they promptly went bankrupt.119 Edington was acutely aware that, if stability was ever to be restored to the exchequer, it was essential that the treasurer should have some overall knowledge of income and expenditure and be capable of some basic budgeting. This was a very ambitious plan, for the exchequer was by origin a counting house, and its records and staff were not naturally geared towards the larger task of financial management. Given these limitations, however, the scale and the achievements of the ensuing reform were indeed remarkable.
Edington began with the exchequer itself.120 By introducing a series of new book-keeping devices between 1344 and 1353, he was able to improve his own knowledge of the revenue and expenditure recorded in the receipt and issue rolls. He followed this up in 1348–53 with a concerted effort to achieve comprehensive knowledge of the king’s household finances. He persuaded Edward III to appoint certain prominent exchequer officials to posts in the household: William Cusance as keeper of the wardrobe, John Buckingham as controller and later keeper of the wardrobe, and William Rothwell as receiver of the chamber. By 1355 Edington had established the principle that all the revenue of the royal household, even the money supplied to the king’s privy purse, should be recorded in the exchequer. This was intended not to limit household expenditure (a thing the king would very much have resented), but simply to obtain an overall picture of the state of the royal finances. By the early 1360s, indeed, financial procedures had become so sophisticated that the exchequer was able to draw up detailed statements of royal income and expenditure, something that would have been unimaginable in the 1330s.121
Meanwhile, in 1351, the exchequer had resumed direct control of the customs service, and had proceeded to make a thoroughgoing reform of the officials and procedures at the ports.122 Particular efforts were made to give the exchequer a better knowledge of how the customs revenues were collected and spent. Consequently, by the mid-1350s, when enormous sums were flowing into the royal coffers from both direct and indirect taxation, the exchequer was much better equipped to administer these resources effectively. And since the increase in taxation coincided with a decline in military activity, the king’s ministers found themselves in the enviable and unusual position of having greater revenue than expenditure. The various campaigns of 1355–6, for instance, which culminated in the battle of Poitiers, cost the exchequer just £110,000,123 at a time when the customs system alone was producing an average of about £87,500 a year (see Appendix 4). Indeed, the financial situation had been transformed to such an extent that when Edward III announced his plans for an invasion of France in 1359, the government was able to lay out approximately £75,000 in current or anticipated revenue from the customs, and did not even find it necessary to approach parliament for a grant of direct taxation. This was the first time in the Hundred Years War that the crown was able to mount a major expedition without imposing such burdens on the lay population, and it undoubtedly reflected well on both Edward III and his chief minister.
It is clearly unwise to become too enamoured of Edington’s motives and achievements. Like all other royal ministers, he benefited personally from high office, and was evidently not immune from corrupting influences. During his period as chancellor, for instance, he was given substantial bribes by the monks of Meaux Abbey in order to ensure royal assistance in their dispute with the villein tenants of Wawne in Holderness (Yorkshire).124 Nevertheless, the contemporary image of Edington was that of a scrupulous and public-spirited minister. The chronicler John of Reading described him as a friend of the community who, during the whole period of his office, saved the people from royal extortions and by his hard work and prudence was able to do much for the profit of the king and the realm.125 Clearly, then, Edington’s reforms did much more than transform government finances. They also helped create a sense of trust and common purpose between crown and community, and enormously increased the political prestige of Edward III’s regime.
In the 1360s the situation changed. By the time Edington retired from the chancellorship in 1363, influence was already passing to William Wykeham, who became the dominant figure in government during the decade after the treaty of Brétigny. Wykeham’s rapid rise to power has already been charted, from his appointment as keeper of the king’s works at Windsor to his elevation to the chancellorship in 1367.126 The Windsor posting seems to have earned him early notoriety, for it was apparently at his instigation that the crown began to offer excess wages and to impress building workers in order to create a ready supply of labour at the castle.127 Wykeham’s real influence, however, depended not so much on official titles as on his intimacy with the king. As a member of the royal household between 1360 and 1367, he had many valuable opportunities to meddle in almost every aspect of government. In 1360, for instance, he was closely involved in the negotiations leading up to the treaty of Calais.128 As the clerk of the signet, Wykeham was constantly by the king’s side; and he continued to act as Edward’s conscience and mouthpiece throughout the mid-1360s.129 It was he who provided the essential link between the king and the chancery during the summer of 1361 when Edward was out hunting; and it was he who wrote somewhat imperiously to the chancellor and treasurer in 1366, instructing them not to make arrangements for the recently vacated archbishopric of Canterbury until he brought them the king’s personal instructions on the matter.130 Wykeham clearly inspired enormous confidence in Edward III, and reaped the rewards. The king was prepared to put considerable pressure on the Pope in order to secure his favourite’s appointment as Bishop of Winchester in 1366–7.131 Not surprisingly, this close relationship aroused some resentment. The uneducated Wykeham was disliked by certain members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy; and the chroniclers were to reserve some of their most damning comments for this self-seeking upstart.132By the end of the reign, however, Wykeham’s greatest enemies were to be found in the very circles he had once dominated, the royal household and the court.
As an administrator, Wykeham had a much easier task than either Stratford or Edington. In the 1360s England was at peace, and the crown enjoyed a popularity and a financial security unparalleled since the late thirteenth century. Yet there were certain serious weaknesses in the administration, several of which arose directly out of Wykeham’s ambitious drive for power. It became increasingly apparent that a single powerful minister could not hope to run the government with the same grasp of detail that had characterized the 1340s and 1350s. It is uncertain whether Wykeham deliberately encouraged the king to select obscure men for the principal offices of state, but it is striking that none of Edington’s immediate successors at the exchequer – John Sheppey (1356–60), Simon Langham (1360–3) and John Barnet (1363– 9) – had any experience in financial administration.133 Early in the 1360s the lords complained that Treasurer Sheppey had abandoned the time-honoured practice of allowing men to have written records of the debts they owed to the exchequer.134 This was probably done in the interests of economy, but it can hardly be said to have addressed the main problems of financial administration. Langham in particular, who went on to replace Edington as chancellor (1363–7), seems to have held on to office largely because he was prepared to accept the other influences at work in central government. Indeed, it was later said that it had been Wykeham, not Chancellor Langham, who had acted as ‘chief of the privy council, and governor of the great council’ in the middle years of the decade.135
For a short while in the early 1360s the influence of Thoresby and Edington endured. Household finances were subject to further reform; there was a brief attempt to restore the close working relations between the chancery and the privy seal; and steps were taken to revive the budgeting responsibilities of the exchequer.136 But by 1365 all such efforts had been abandoned; and it was only a matter of time before administrative inertia collapsed into inefficiency and corruption. For instance, there was a marked deterioration in the standard of record-keeping, first detectable in the court of common pleas in 1363–5 and increasingly evident in the exchequer by the end of the decade.137 The high degree of accountability established in both the financial and secretarial offices during the 1340s and 1350s also began to break down. In 1365 it was claimed that the treasurer’s clerk in the lower exchequer, Richard Chesterfield, had taken advantage of the administrative disruption caused by the plague of 1361 in order to embezzle funds.138 In 1364 a writ was issued from the chancery ordering the observance of a clause in the statute of 1341 relating to usury; but it had to be cancelled ‘for having surreptitiously emanated from the chancery without the knowledge of the chancellor and others of the council’.139 Later, Wykeham was to be accused of manipulating the chancery to obtain an illicit pardon of debts for one John Kirkton, who claimed the manors of Tumby and Tattershall (Lincolnshire).140 These examples suggest that government was becoming increasingly prone to outside influence and to certain sharp practices during the 1360s. If this ever became public knowledge, it would inevitably reflect badly on the crown.
The state of the administration was in fact destined to become one of the most serious political issues after the reopening of hostilities with France. On the declaration of war in June 1369, Treasurer Barnet was replaced at the exchequer by Thomas Brantingham, a former official of the wardrobe and treasurer of Calais.141 But the restoration of a financial expert proved of little use. The government apparently tried to repeat the experiment of 1359, appealing to the parliament of 1369 for a renewal of the wool subsidy but deliberately avoiding any demand for direct taxes on the laity. However, overseas trade was temporarily disrupted by the war, and in the exchequer year 1369–70 the customs collectors raised only about £49,000. This was clearly insufficient to fund a major new offensive, and the crown therefore appealed for substantial loans from its lay and clerical subjects.142 In turn, these credit deals pushed up the level of assignment and put additional pressure on the king’s remaining resources. By 1371 there was no option but to appeal to the kingdom for an emergency tax of £100,000, divided equally between the laity and the clergy.
When this subsidy was discussed in parliament, it was made a virtual condition of the grant that Chancellor Wykeham and Treasurer Brantingham, together with the keeper of the privy seal, Peter Lacy, should be dismissed from office.143 Some historians have argued that Wykeham and his colleagues were opposed to the war, and were ousted in 1371 by a group of bellicose magnates led by the young Earl of Pembroke.144 Others have suggested, more plausibly, that they were the victims of a violent anti-clerical reaction in the commons.145 Like Edward III in 1340, the commons were apparently concerned about the immunity that clerical ministers enjoyed from prosecution in the royal courts. Each of the three ministers was therefore replaced by a layman – Robert Thorp as chancellor, Richard Scrope as treasurer, and Nicholas Carew as keeper of the privy seal. However, the opposition is unlikely to have been moved by a mere point of principle. It seems most likely that the lords and commons wished to use Wykeham and Brantingham as scapegoats and to blame them for the military failures and the heavy financial exactions which had accompanied the new phase of the war. It is particularly interesting that Wykeham’s name was closely associated with the campaign to collect loans in 1369–70.146Whether or not these ministers really deserved such harsh treatment is an open question. What is clear is that the reputation for integrity and sound policy earlier associated with Edington’s regime had now broken down.
The new regime of Treasurer Scrope appears to have responded to some of the complaints and misgivings voiced in the parliament of 1371. A period of financial stringency set in;147 a statement of the king’s outstanding commitments was attempted;148 every effort was made to collect revenues in cash, rather than assigning them in advance;149 and a special treasurer of war was appointed in the person of Adam Hartington, a chamberlain of the exchequer.150 For a while, Scrope was successful, and some sense of order returned to the royal finances.151 But when Lord Latimer began to strike his private deals with the London financiers, administrative co-ordination rapidly broke down. During the Good Parliament both Brantingham and Scrope were called upon to give evidence against the king’s own creditors. Such events openly advertised the many tensions existing within the administration, and between the administration and the court, in these last years of Edward III’s reign.
Another of those who publicly attacked the courtiers in the Good Parliament was William Wykeham, present in his capacity as Bishop of Winchester. Wykeham was also appointed to the abortive continual council set up at the end of the session.152 When the court recovered the initiative later in 1376, John of Gaunt was determined to avenge what he saw as a betrayal of trust, and summoned Wykeham before the council on a series of charges relating to his time in government. The only specific point that could actually be proved was that Wykeham, as chancellor, had remitted certain fines which ought to have been paid by Sir John Grey of Rotherfield and others for the issue of solemn documents under the great seal.153 In fact, there may have been some truth behind the other accusations. The charge of peculation was no doubt exaggerated, but it is true that Wykeham had helped the king to divert the revenue from John II’s ransom into the chamber, and to deprive the exchequer of any knowledge or control of the sums involved.154 The same idea may lie behind the statement that Wykeham had taken money from Matthew Gourney, Thomas Fog and John St Loo, for all three of these men are known to have paid fines and ransoms into the chamber in 1361.155 Finally, the charge that Wykeham employed certain of the French hostages, notably the Duke of Bourbon, to go to Avignon and argue his case for the bishopric of Winchester fits perfectly well with the known facts of the case.156 But it is also clear that Wykeham’s enemies were motivated by politics, not the desire for justice. John of Gaunt was attempting to revive official and public suspicion against Wykeham, and to use this as a means of deflecting popular sympathy back towards the crown.
Under these circumstances, the judgment on Wykeham was a foregone conclusion. On 17 November 1376 his estates were confiscated. Unfortunately for the government, however, the Church now took up Wykeham’s cause. 157 The other bishops could hardly countenance such arbitrary actions and blatant infringements of ecclesiastical liberty, and early in 1377 the clergy formally protested about the seizure of the Winchester estates.158 The whole affair ironically served to restore Wykeham’s political credibility, and to ensure a place for him, and for his former colleague Thomas Brantingham, in the minority councils of Richard II.159 The trial of Wykeham is an interesting example of the rapid and sometimes bewildering shifts of political opinion during Edward III’s last years. But more than anything else, it reveals the lack of purpose and leadership within the government. The Good Parliament and the death of Edward III ushered in a new period of uncertainty and instability which was to culminate in Richard II’s first major crisis of 1386.
The link between the administrative and political history of Edward III’s reign has now been clearly established. The uneasy equilibrium of the Stratford regime, the confident reforms of Edington and his colleagues, and the slow slide into corruption during and after Wykeham’s supremacy: all these reflect, and to some extent explain, the political mood prevailing in different phases of the reign. The king’s reputation with his people depended a good deal on his choice of ministers and his ability to supervise and constrain them. In his early years, Edward III either neglected or failed to find men of his own age and outlook, and created a dangerous rift between the household and the central administration that ultimately precipitated the crisis of 1340–1. In the following twenty years the mature king was lucky enough to find and promote a series of quite exceptional administrators who played a major role in restoring public confidence in the crown. But after Edington’s retirement, Edward became increasingly complacent, and allowed power to pass into the hands of unpopular and ultimately unscrupulous men. It was common throughout the Middle Ages for kings and their subjects to blame the ministers when things went wrong. This was not altogether fair: both Stratford and Wykeham were ultimately the victims of circumstance. But the crucial point about the ministerial history of the reign of Edward III lies not in the dismissals of 1341 and 1371, but in the intervening three decades. What happened in the civil service during this period is far too important to be relegated to the annals of mere administrative history, for it provided the very institutional base on which Edward rebuilt the reputation of the English monarchy.