Welsh Journals

REGALIAN RIGHT IN WALES AND THE MARCH: THE RELATION OF THEORY TO PRACTICE THE year 1290 saw a sharp confrontation between the assertive kingship of Edward I and the dangerous pretensions of the most powerful of his marcher lords, Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester and lord of Glamorgan.1 The clash was on two main counts: firstly, the cherished marcher claim to wage war on other lords of the march, which does not directly concern us here; and secondly, the earl's claim to regalian right over the bishopric of Llandaff. It is a commonplace that Edward I, in his investigation into jurisdictional franchises, was not aiming at a general revocation of them, but rather at the recovery of those franchises which had been usurped and a clearer recording and definition of others. Even on the issue of royal authority over franchisal justice, the Quo Warranto proceedings at times revealed an implicit compromise over the high Bractonian theory, and subjects were allowed to claim franchises on the ground that they were held 'from time out of mind'.2 The king's attitude to the exercise of regalian right over Llandaff was different. Here he sought to destroy the earl's long established right, and he succeeded. The fact that he granted back the patronage of the bishopric to Earl Gilbert and his wife Joan for the term of their lives simply amounts to a tacit admission on the king's part that the earl had a very strong case. 'Precedent', according to Professor Glanmor Williams, 'was irrefutably on the earl's side.'3 Yet Edward was determined to strip the earl of what has been well described as 'one of the major privileges of his Marcher standing'.4 This cause celebre has usually been considered in the context of Edward I's tough policies towards the marcher lords and their liberties.5 It can, however, be looked at in a different context. The 1 For recent comments on the aggressive quality of Edward I's policies, see K. B. McFarlane, 'Had Edward I a "policy" towards the earls?', History, L (1965), 149-56, and M. Prestwich, War, Politics and Finance under Edward I (London, 1972), p. 227. D. W. Sutherland, Quo Warranto Proceedings in the Reign of Edward I (Oxford, 1963), pp. 82-83 and 182-84. See also M. Prestwich, op. cit.; H. M. Cam, Liberties and Communities in Medieval England (2nd ed., London, 1963), pp. 180-81, and F. M. Powicke, The Thirteenth Century (Oxford, 1953), pp. 376-77. Glanmor Williams, The Welsh Church from Conquest to Reformation (Cardiff, 1962), p. 47. 4 M. Altschul, A Baronial Family in Medieval England: The Clares, 1217-1314 (Baltimore, 1965), p. 50. Ibid., pp. 273-80; J. E. Morris, The Welsh Wars of Edward I (Oxford, 1901), pp. 228-30, and A. J. Otway-Ruthven, 'The Constitutional Position of the Great Lordships of South Wales', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, VIII (1958), 15-18.