heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

ROYAL HERALDRY. 361
Geoffrey le Scrope acted as the King's prolocutor. The House adjourned
and the clergy, barons, and knights of the shires each order separately
debated, on the King's request, to give him counsel and advice on the
affairs of Scotland until the following Friday; when, all together, they
resolved that, without the assistance of the absent members, they dared
not advise the King. The matter was adjourned to the following year.
Edward, however, at once besieged Berwick, and routed the Scotch force
which came to its relief under Douglas, at the battle of Halidon Hill,
restoring Baliol to his throne.
For three years Edward continued his support in battle after battle
against the despairing efforts of the Douglases, and other nobles who still
adhered to the House of Bruce, during each of which the parliaments
assembled in York ;
since which time, with the exception of the parliament
held (1640) in the hall of the Old Deanery, from September 24th
to October 28th, it has never again assembled in this ancient city. In
'337 the outbreak of the war with France compelled Edward to withdraw
his forces. Baliol retired to the Court of Edward. The freedom of
Scotland was in fact secured. From a war of conquest and patriotic
resistance the struggle died into a petty strife between two angry neighbours
which became a mere episode in the larger contest between England
and France.
But the Royal Heraldry of York Minster points also to this other
critical epoch in English history, which thus commenced in the reign of
Edward III., and, indeed, may be regarded as the aim and policy thereof
the assertion of English supremacy in France. Up to this time the royal
arms had been, as we have seen, the three leopards. Now we find the
shield divided into four, and the fleurs-de-lis occupying the prominent
positions on the shield, viz., the first and fourth quarterings, the leopards
of England relegated to the second and third; and this really indicates
the reason for the commencement and continuation of which is called
the Hundred Years' War, which lasted, more or less, from the time of
Edward III. to the reign of Henry VI.
It is not uninteresting to notice what large portions of France and
England were gradually welded together under one " over-lord," and how
gradually and irrevocably they were, as completely, separated.
As regards the former, first, by conquest: when "the Conqueror,"
by his victory at Hastings, acquired Wessex, East Anglia, and Northumbria,
in addition to his patrimony of Normandy and feudal sovereignty
of Bretagne. Secondly, by alliance: Anjou, Maine, and Touraine were
added by the marriage of Geoffry Martel to the Empress Matilda, daughter
of Henry I.
By his marriage with Eleanor of Aquitane, her son, Henry II.,
acquired Aquitaine and Poitou, which rendered him almost the sole