Thomas Frederick Tout ‎

“ Gloucester was a man of great and restless energy, hot-tempered and impulsive, of gracious and popular manners, eloquent, plausible, and affable. His title of the 'good duke' is due, not to his moral virtues, but to the applause of the men of letters whom he patronised and the popular notion that he was a patriot. ”

“ Counts, knights, towns, and peasants were too poor, divided, and limited in their views, to aim at common action. But among the princes of secondary importance were men too far-seeing and politic to adopt a merely isolated attitude, while their consciousness of the limitation of their resources left them without so much as the wish of aspiring to follow from afar the example of Charles the Bold or Albert IV of Munich. To the abler German lords of this type the feudal ideal of absolute domination over their own fiefs was less satisfying in itself and moreover less probable of realisation. ”

“ Bruce was soon crowned king of Scots, and at the age of seventy Edward had to face the prospect of conquering Scotland for the third time. He resolved to take the field in person; but the effort was too great, and on the 7th of July 1307 he died at Burgh-on-Sands, near Carlisle. His death destroyed the last faint hope of conquering Scotland, and showed that the chief ambition of his life was a failure. Yet his conquest of Wales, his legislation, his triumph over his barons, his ecclesiastics, and the greatest of French medieval kings indicate the strength and permanence of his work. ”

“ Young, ardent and active, he strove with all his might to win back for England something of the position which it had acquired under Edward I. He bitterly resented the concession of independence to Scotland by the treaty of Northampton of 1328, and the death of Robert Bruce in 1329 gave him a chance of retrieving his position. The new king of Scots, David, who was his brother-in-law, was a mere boy, and the Scottish barons, exiled for their support of Robert Bruce, took advantage of the weakness of his rule to invade Scotland in 1332. ”

“ But Albert passed away before he was so much as able to visit the Empire, and in the long reign of his kinsman and successor Frederick III (1440-93) the imperial authority sunk down to its lowest point. A cold, phlegmatic, slow and unenterprising prince, Frederick of Austria busied himself with no great plans of reform or aggression, but seemed absorbed in gardening, in alchemy, and in astrology rather than in affairs of State. Under his nerveless rule the Luxemburg claims over Bohemia and Hungary passed utterly away. ”

“ Since Edward had put himself in the hands of Pembroke and Badlesmere he had enjoyed comparative security and dignity. Only when great enterprises were attempted was Lancaster still in a position to break up the government of the country. But Edward loved neither Pembroke nor his allies, and had now found in the younger Hugh le Despenser [q. v.] a congenial successor to Gaveston. The increasing favour shown by Edward to father and son, the revival of the old court following under their leadership, and the extensive grants lavished on them by the king, made them both hated and feared. ”

“ His effectiveness and love of strong government stand in strong contrast to his father’s weakness. Though he loved power, and never willingly surrendered it, he saw that to be successful he must make his policy popular. Thus he continued the system which Montfort had formed with the object of restraining the monarchy, because he saw in a close alliance with his people the best means of consolidating the power of the crown.
The first years of Edward’s reign were mainly occupied by his efforts to establish a really effective administration. ”

“ A large proportion of the Habsburg hereditary lands, including Tyrol and the scattered Swabian estates, were ruled by a rival branch of the ruling house represented by the Archduke Sigismund, while Austria itself fell into the hands of Matthias Corvinus. Yet in his cautious and slow-minded fashion Frederick was by no means lacking in ability and foresight. If he were indifferent to the Empire, he looked beyond the present distress of his house to a time when politic marriages and cunningly devised treaties of eventual succession would make Austria a real ruler of the world. ”

“ As he approached York the new dean and his old enemy, Archdeacon Osbert, endeavoured to prevent his entrance into the city by declaring their intention of appealing against his appointment. But William proceeded on his way undismayed by their hostility. A great procession of clergy and laity welcomed him into the town. The wooden bridge over the Ouse gave way under the pressure of the crowd, and many were precipitated into the river; but the prayers of William saved, as men thought, the lives of every one of them. ”

“ Why should a small ring of elderly princes of the second rank deprive the younger generation of all power at home or prospect of distinction abroad? He appealed to the particularistic interests, which were endangered, like his own, by the unionist policy of the Electors. He invoked the chivalrous and adventurous spirit which might well find a more glorious career in fighting Turks and French under the brilliant ruler than in wrangling about constitutional reform at home. ”

“ He was not well educated, and took the coronation oath in the French form, provided for a king ignorant of Latin. He was fond of fine clothes, and with all his taste for low society liked pomp and state on occasions. He had the facile good nature of some thoroughly weak men. Without confidence in himself, and conscious probably of the contempt of his subjects, he was never without some favourite of stronger will than his own for whom he would show a weak and nauseous affection. Sometimes with childlike passion he would personally chastise those who provoked his wrath. ”

“ Maximilian was ever restless, a hard and quick, though by no means a thorough, worker, with real insight into many knotty problems and no small power of judging and knowing men. Keenly conscious of his own ability, and morbidly jealous of his own authority, he strove to keep the threads of affairs in his own hands, and seldom or never gave implicit confidence even to his most trusted ministers. ”

“ HEREWARD (fl. 1070–1071) , outlaw (called on the bad and late authority of ‘John of Peterborough’ the Wake, i.e. apparently ‘the watchful one’) , fills a larger place in legend than in authentic history. A few references to him in the chronicles and an account of his possessions in Domesday are all that we really know of him. But his exploits in defending Ely from the Normans caused the generation succeeding his own to regard him as the popular hero of the English resistance to their French conquerors. ”