Biography of Isabella Plantagenet Holy Roman Empress 1214-1241

Chronica Majora. 5th January 1237. In the year of our Lord 1237 which was the twentieth of the reign of King Henry the Third, he held his court at Christmas, at Winchester, whence he forthwith sent royal warrants throughout all the English territories, ordering all nobles belonging to the kingdom of England, namely, archbishops, bishops, abbats, installed priors, earls, and barons, all to assemble without fail in the octaves of the Epiphany at London, to arrange the royal business and matters concerning the whole kingdom. The nobles on hearing this immediately obeyed the king's summons, and accordingly on the day of St. Hilary, a countless multitude of nobles, namely, the whole community of the kingdom, came to London, and proceeded to the royal palace at Westminster to hear the king's pleasure. When they had all taken their seats, there stood up in the midst of them, one William de Kaele, a clerk and familiar of the king's, a discreet man and well skilled in the laws of the land, who, acting as a sort of mediator between the king and the nobles, disclosed to them the king's pleasure and intentions. "My lord the king," he said, "informs you that, whatever he may have done heretofore, he now and henceforth will, without hesitation, submit himself to the advice of all of you, as his faithful and natural subjects. But those men who have till now, in the management of his affairs, been in charge of his treasury, have rendered him an incorrect account of the moneys received by them, and owing to this the king is now destitute of money, without which any king is indeed destitute; he therefore humbly demands assistance from you in money, on the understanding that the money which may be raised by your good will shall be kept to be expended for the necessary uses of the kingdom, at the discretion of any of you elected for the purpose. "When the assembled nobles heard this speech, they each and all, not expecting anything of this sort, murmured greatly, and "Alter in alterius jactantes lumina vultus". [Each hearer lost in dire amaze, Turned on his neighbour's face his gaze.]

And they said to one another, Fuderunt partum montes: en ridiculus mus. [The labouring mountains shook the earth, And to a paltry mouse gave birth. This is a quote from Aesop's Fable "The Mountain in Labour". It refers to speech acts which promise much but deliver little].

They then replied with indignation that they were oppressed on all sides, so often promising and paying now the twentieth, now the thirtieth, and now the fiftieth part of their property, and they declared that it would be unworthy of them, and injurious to them, to allow a king so easily led awav, who had never repelled or even frightened one of the enemies of the kingdom, even the least of them, and who had never increased his territories but rather lessened them, and placed them under foreign yoke, to extort so much money, so often, and by so many arguments, from his natural subjects, as if they were slaves of the lowest condition, to their injury and for the benefit of foreigners. "When the king heard this, he wished to calm the general discontent, and promised on oath that he would never again provoke or annoy the nobles of the kingdom by injuring them in that way, provided that the thirtieth part of all moveable property in England was granted and paid to him for his present use; because the large sum of money which he had a little while before sent to the [her husband] emperor (age 42) (as he stated) for the marriage of his sister (age 23), and also what he had spent at his own marriage, had in a great degree exhausted his money. To this they openly replied that he, the king, had done all this without the advice of his liege subjects, and they ought not to share the punishment as they were innocent of the crime. They however withdrew to a private place to consult about obeying the king's demand, and supplying his necessities, and to discuss the kind and quantity of assistance which was demanded. As they were withdrawing for this purpose, Gilbert Bassett (age 49) said to the king in the hearing of all. and with less circimispection of speech than he ought, - "My lord king, send some one of your friends to be present at the conference of your barons." He was, when he said this, sitting on one side of the king, with only a few persons between them, and in reply to his speech, Richard Percy (age 67), who had been at the conference of the nobles, and was, not without cause, angry at it, said, "What is it, friend Gilbert, that you said? are we too foreigners, and are we not amongst the number of the king's friends? "And Gilbert felt himself rebuked by this unpleasant and sudden speech. And thus by a multipHcity of arguments the conference was protracted for four days.