This is a step which we shall not attempt to justify, however consistent it might be with the general belief of those days: in truth, we feel it to be the weakest and most indefensible act of Edward’s life. Yet still we must not forget, that it was consistent with the current belief of those days. Men knew then, as we know now, that some vows are rash vows; that some oaths, like that of Herod (Mark vi. 26), are unfit to be kept; and they believed also—what we do not believe—that Christ had left authority with the bishop of Rome, to “bind and loose” in all such matters; and that when he had declared any oath or vow to be null and void, it became as though it had never been given. These views, as we have said, were held by all men at that time;[114] and although we now reject them, we ought to judge any man’s character mainly by his adherence to what he conscientiously believes to be true; acting honestly on that measure of light which he possesses.
There was also another feature of the case which greatly weighed with the king; a feature, too, which our courts of equity up to the present hour always take into the account, when examining into the validity of a man’s engagements; we mean, that of coercion and intimidation.
He had left Winchelsey, in 1297, one of the council of the young prince. The council, on Wallace’s success, called a parliament in London; and to that parliament there came Hereford and Norfolk, with a large body of armed retainers, and insisted on a fresh confirmation of the charters, with a new clause. Their demands were remitted to Edward in Flanders, with an earnest request, on the part of the council, that he would concede to the wish of the two earls. So advised, the king assented to these proposals. Since then, it had been shown to him, that all these proceedings in 1297 were the result of a conspiracy between Winchelsey and the two earls; and he had had a letter put into his hands which proved this fact. At Lincoln, too, in 1301, he had observed the same conspiracy or confederacy at work; and had again found that civil war was contemplated and prepared for by the conspirators. Thus a sort of treason had been, for three or four years, going on all around him. Any man of a generous and noble mind, and with a just sense of his kingly rights, would naturally feel indignant at such treatment; and Edward, in his application to the pope, dwells especially on these proceedings, as taking from his engagements that character of freedom which ought to attend them. In our own day, if a woman, in contracting a marriage, or a man, in giving a bond, is found to have been acting under coercion or fear, or to have been the victim of a conspiracy, those obligations can be set aside by our courts of equity. Rome, at that time, claimed to be the court of equity for all the sovereigns of Europe, and the pope professed to act upon principles which are recognized by English lawyers in the present day. The bull was granted, and the extorted concessions declared to be null and void.