Chapter X.

Malleus Scotorum Edward I. (1272-1307.) Edward II. (1307-1327.)

The English fleet was speeding towards the coast of Tunis, to which place the policy of Charles of Anjou had taken Louis IX. Prince Edward was already rejoicing at the idea of going back to his uncle, to gain instruction in Christian chivalry. But with the land appearing in the horizon, when approaching the port, the French vessels were seen in mourning, the flag being at half-mast. A feeling of uneasiness spread through the fleet. A little bark put out from shore; she came alongside the prince's vessel. "The holy king is dead," said the sailors, and they burst into tears. Prince Edward was in despair; he landed, but in imagination seemed to be walking among ghosts. The French soldiers, discouraged, sick, and disheartened, resolved to give up an enterprise the commencement of which had been so disastrous. The young King of France, Philip the Bold, urged Prince Edward to return like himself to his country; but Edward was inflexible. "I would go," said he, "even had I only with me Torvac, my equerry." As far as Trapani, in Sicily, he accompanied the funeral procession of King Philip, bearing the coffins of his father and brother. When he reached France the unfortunate young monarch had added to these the biers of his wife, his sister, and his brother-in-law, the King of Navarre.

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Prince Edward left Sicily in the spring of 1271, making sail towards Acre, the only place which still remained in the hands of the Christians. He commanded a small band of troops, and the European knights who were in Palestine did not respond very readily to his appeal. An attack on Nazareth, followed by the massacre of the Mussulman garrison, and the repair of the walls round Acre, was the result of the Seventh Crusade, when Edward himself nearly fell a victim. He was in his camp, on the Friday after Whit-Sunday, towards the time of vespers; overcome by the heat, he was resting upon a couch, when a messenger from the Emir of Jaffa presented himself at the door of the tent. He was in frequent communication with the prince, and was, therefore, allowed to enter. The Arab presented his papers; then, suddenly drawing a dagger from his long sleeve, he stabbed the Prince in the region of the heart. Edward sprang up from his couch, and, knocking down the assassin, fractured his skull with a stool. Then, repressing with a sign the violence of his attendants, who had appeared on hearing the commotion, and who were mutilating the assassin's body,--"Of what use is it," he asked, "to strike a dead man?"

The prince's wound was slight, but the idea of poison presented itself to everybody's mind. The Spanish legend relates that Eleanor of Castile kneeled down before her husband, and, applying her lips to the wound, sucked the poison from the wound. This noble instance of conjugal love is disbelieved, however, by some historians. An English surgeon was called, who commenced a cruel operation. {240} Eleanor was very pale, and her brother-in-law dragged her out of the tent. She struggled with him, weeping all the while. "It is better that you should cry," he said abruptly, "than that all England should be in mourning." Edward's wound was soon healed. As soon as his wife had recovered, after the birth of a little girl, called Joan of Acre, in token of her birthplace, the English troops set sail again, promising themselves, as King Richard had done, to come back to the Holy Land with larger forces. But the ardor for the crusades had died out. Saint Louis and Prince Edward of England were the last crusaders, and eighteen years later, in 1291, the last remains of Christian power in the East disappeared in its turn. Acre was retaken from the Templars by the Sultan Keladeen. The Holy Sepulchre thenceforth remained in the hands of the infidels.

Prince Edward passed through Italy and paid a visit at Rome to Pope Gregory X., formerly Archdeacon of Liege, a friend of the prince, and while with him received tidings of the death of the king his father. The grief which this loss caused him was so violent that Charles of Anjou was astonished; a throne would readily have consoled him for the death of the weak Henry of Winchester. "You lost two children," he remarked, "without displaying as much grief." "The Lord who gave me my children, can give me others," rejoined Edward; "but who can give me back a father?"

The new king was in no hurry to return to his kingdom. He stayed in Italy to obtain justice for the murder of Henry of Almagne; but Simon of Montfort was already dead, and Guy was subjected only to a term of imprisonment, but contrived to elude his gaolers. Edward then proceeded to France to do homage for Guienne to King Philip the Bold; he at the same time visited his possessions, being apprehensive, no doubt, that some plot might be on foot to deprive him of them. {241} On his return he was challenged to single combat in a tournament by the Count of Ch√¢lons. Edward was warned by the Pope that that nobleman sought his life. He was by nature distrustful, and when he saw at Ch√¢lons a larger number of knights than he possessed himself, his suspicions were aroused, and the tournament became a battle. The English gained the victory; the Count of Ch√¢lons himself was for a moment in danger; Edward compelling him to save his life by surrendering to a mere man-at-arms.

On the 2nd of August, 1274, the King of England at length landed at Dover, and on the 19th of the same month was crowned at Westminster, to the great delight of the people. The nation was proud of its young king, of his reputation for courage and virtue, of his exploits and perils in the Holy Land. His reign commenced under happy auspices. The Jews alone disliked the accession of a prince so renowned for his austere piety and for his zeal against the infidels. Their instinct had not deceived them; Edward was always violently hostile to them, and one of the first acts of his government, on his return from the crusade, was to hang all the Jews who were in possession of sweated coin. More than two hundred of them perished in London alone for this offence, common among both the Jews and the Christians. It was but the beginning of their grievances. Persecuted, plundered, imprisoned, the unlucky Israelites were finally banished from the country in 1290, and all the property which they were obliged to leave behind them was confiscated.

While the king was hanging the Jews, he was also instituting a commission instructed to inquire into the state of landed property in the kingdom, in order to put to a test the title-deeds of the Christians. {242} When proofs were wanting the king exacted a fine before granting fresh letters patent; but this useful device was not always practicable. When Earl Warren was called upon to produce his documents, he drew his sword. "That is the title by which I hold my lands," he said, "and that will suffice me to defend them. Our fathers who came over with William the Bastard acquired the land with their good lances; he did not conquer the country unassisted; he was supported by others, and his supporters shared the spoil with him." The earl's title deeds were deemed sufficient.

The prosperity of England was great at this time; several years of rest had allowed its commerce to develope itself. The king respected the charters in all important particulars; his zealous judicial administration had diminished the number of robbers who infested the highways, and secured the integrity of the magistrates; and in consequence he was popular among his subjects. But this peaceful glory did not suffice for Edward I. As ambitious as his ancestors, he had a desire to make conquests in other quarters. Instead of looking with an envious eye on the Continent, he had conceived the project of subjecting the whole of Great Britain to his dominion. Scotland was far off, and he could find no pretext for declaring war in that direction. Wales had never recognized anything but a partial authority of the kings of England, and the reigning prince, Llewellyn, had neglected to do homage to Edward I. on his accession to the throne. It was in this direction then that the king turned his attention. He advanced towards the frontiers of Wales towards the end of the year 1276. All attempts at negotiation failed, and Llewellyn was declared a rebel in that part of the year when the snow was beginning to cover the mountains. The war could not possibly begin for several months.

[Image] "That is the title by which I hold my lands."

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Edward however, did not lose time. David, the younger brother of Llewellyn, had been deprived by the latter of all his property; the King of England conferred many favors upon him, and the prince, out of gratitude, summoned all his partisans under the standard of England. Hostilities began in the summer; Edward entered the enemy's territory, while his fleet took possession of the Isle of Anglesey, and, driving Llewellyn from castle to castle, from retreat to retreat, he reduced him in a short time to famine in the depths of the forests. The Welsh prince was obliged to surrender, hard as were the conditions which were imposed upon him. But Edward was generous, although severe; he remitted his demands one by one, and ended by consenting to the marriage of Llewellyn with Eleanor of Montfort, daughter of the Earl of Leicester; she had for some time been affianced to him, and had been captured at sea in the preceding year, when she was proceeding to Wales. David had received a large gift of property. Edward withdrew his armies, leaving in Wales only some soldiers in the castles, and the Chief Justice, Roger Clifford, who was entrusted with the government of the new conquest.

The King of England had not taken into account the patriotic spirit which endeared their national independence to the Welsh people. In vain had he raised David to the rank of earl; in vain had he given him an English wife; as soon as the Welsh prince found himself in his mountains again, he remembered only that his country was formerly free and that he had contributed towards reducing it to subjection. The civil and military measures ordained by Edward were obnoxious to the people; the highways which were opened up across forests, the executions of criminals for crimes which had formerly been punished by fines, according to the Welsh laws; the encroachments of the king's officers upon the rights of the Welsh nobility; so many grievances easily furnished pretexts for David's new resolve. {244} He persuaded his brother to break all his engagements with Edward. An old prophecy of Merlin began to circulate again throughout the mountains; it was to the effect that the Prince of Wales would be crowned in London when the money in that town should be round, and it was rumored in Wales that it was forbidden to cut in halves the new coin which had recently been struck in England, as had hitherto been the practice. The day of victory seemed at length to have arrived.

It was on Palm Sunday, 1282; dark night had come on, and a violent storm was raging in the forests. David suddenly attacked Hawarden Castle, where the chief justicier resided. The latter was seized in his bed, wounded, and dragged into the mountains. All the country rose; Llewellyn joined his brother and laid siege to the castles of Flint and Rhuddlam; the English settlers were everywhere murdered. All Wales was up in arms when tidings of the insurrection reached the king.

Edward pretended not to believe in the magnitude of the rebellion; but he adopted active measures to repress it. He soon arrived in the mountains; the autumn had come, the bad weather was beginning, and the English suffered greatly from the inclemency of the climate. A portion of the army who tried to make use of the temporary bridge uniting the Isle of Anglesey to the mainland, were attacked by the insurgents and completely destroyed. Edward himself was several times obliged to retreat. Llewellyn, emboldened by his success, entrusted David to defend the defiles of the mountains, and marched to meet the king, who had gathered large forces near Carmarthen. A detachment encountered the Welsh prince in a farm where he had slept, and, without knowing him, an English knight engaged in a combat with him. {245} Llewellyn was killed; the struggle was then carried on between the English and the Welsh who had come to join their prince. When the dead were despoiled after the battle, Llewellyn was recognized, and his head was sent to Edward in token of victory. David still held his position in the mountains; at length he was betrayed, delivered up to the English, and imprisoned in Durham Castle with his wife and children. In the month of September, 1283, the English Parliament condemned him to death as guilty of high treason, while Edward promised a new prince to the country which he had just subdued. Queen Eleanor was at Carnarvon Castle, waiting to be delivered of a child; she gave birth to a son on the 25th of April, 1284. The child was immediately called Edward Prince of Wales; and when he found himself heir presumptive to the throne, by the death of his elder brother Alphonsus, his title became the appanage of the eldest son of the King of England, thus perpetuating the remembrance of the definitive subjection of the Welsh people and the feeble consolation which the conqueror had offered to them.

A few years of peace followed the conquest of Wales. The king had been recalled on the Continent to serve as an arbitrator on the claims of the houses of France, of Arragon, and of Anjou to the crown of Sicily. His English subjects were clamoring for his return, and they ended by refusing him the necessary subsidies. The king then returned to England; but a great misfortune awaited him; Queen Eleanor died on the 29th of November, 1292. With her disappeared the softening influence which had modified the haughty character and ambitious views of the king; and just at this moment a great temptation offered itself to him.

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The King of Scotland, Alexander III., had died in 1286, leaving no other heir than his granddaughter Margaret, princess of Norway. She was still a child, and her father had kept her for some time past with him. She at length sailed for Scotland in 1290; but she died during the passage, and Scotland became a prey to all the evils of a contested succession. Thirteen noblemen, descendants of members of the royal family, set up claims to the throne simultaneously; but two of them had prospects very much better than those of any of the others: these were John Baliol and Robert Bruce, grandson and son of two elder daughters of David, earl of Huntingdon, the younger brother of King William the Lion; but no one possessed claims sufficiently strong to impress the people in their favor. The Scotch, troubled by the prospect of anarchy without result, sent an embassy to King Edward to ask him to act as arbitrator in this serious aspect of affairs, and to decide who should be King of Scotland.

Edward received the deputation at Norham on the 10th of May, 1291, and from the first declared that, as liege lord of Scotland, he would settle the question of the succession, insisting, first of all, upon the recognition of his rights of superiority by the pretenders. The Scotch people hesitated; they asked for a delay. "By St. Edward, from whom I hold my crown," cried the King of England, "I will establish my just rights, or perish in the attempt." And the assembly was adjourned until the 2nd of June following. Edward had convoked all the barons.

On the appointed day, eight claimants had met near Norham, in the plain of Hollywell-Haugh, on the Scotch territory. When the Chancellor of England asked the pretenders, among whom was Robert Bruce, whether they were willing to abide by the decision of Edward, king of England, as liege lord of Scotland, Bruce recognized with out hesitation the rights of the powerful monarch who could award the crown to him. {247} His rivals did likewise, and John Baliol, who arrived on the morrow, was the more willing to compromise the safety of his country as he believed he had secured the favor of Edward. The chancellor had taken care to announce, in the name of his master, that the right of the king as liege lord, which had just been recognized, in no way affected the titles to property which he might think proper to proclaim valid thereafter. On the 3rd of June, a commission was appointed to examine the rights of the two great pretenders, and the regents of Scotland consigned all the royal castles to Edward, on condition that he should give them up two months after the decision between Bruce and Baliol. On the 15th of the same month, the pretenders took the oath of allegiance to Edward, as did also a great number of Scotch barons, and peace was proclaimed in his name, as liege lord of Scotland. The first step in the path of dependence had been made.

The second act of the drama was enacted at Berwick Castle, on the 17th of November, 1292. There King Edward, having made a scrutiny of the rights of all the pretenders, and having consulted the Parliament of Scotland, at length declared that the grandson of the elder daughter had a prior claim to that of the son of the younger daughter, thus deciding in favor of Baliol to the exclusion of Bruce. On the 19th the governors of the castles received instructions to give up their keys to the new king, and on the morrow Baliol swore fidelity to Edward at Norham. Having been crowned on the 30th at Scone, he proceeded to England, whither King Edward had been called in consequence of the illness and death of Eleanor of Castile; the new king did homage for the kingdom of Scotland on the 26th of November, at Newcastle. The King of England again reserved his rights of property.

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While Edward was laboring to subject the Scotch people, King Philip the Fair was secretly plotting with the intention of driving the English from the French soil and depriving them of Aquitaine. An encounter had taken place between the English and Norman sailors on the coast of Guienne; the merchantmen of the two countries taking sides warmly, had been engaged in several fights with each other. The King of France seized the opportunity, some outrages having been committed on his subjects, to summon King Edward to appear at his court, as Duke of Aquitaine, in order to answer before his peers for the offences committed against his liege lord. Edward sent his brother Edmund, who weakly consented to satisfy the feudal honor of King Philip by placing in the hands of the French officers the duchy of Gascony for a period of forty days. The conditions were agreed to. The question was not one of territorial aggrandisement but of reparation. The English prince waited for forty days. This period of time having elapsed, he came to claim the restoration of his domains; the King of France laughed, and declared that the Duke of Aquitaine had forfeited his rights as a vassal by not presenting himself personally before his liege lord. The grand constable was at once sent to all the towns and castles belonging to King Edward; a large number of them opened their gates to him; the duchy of Aquitaine was returning, it was said, to the crown. Edward I., however, had commenced his preparations for reclaiming his provinces by force of arms. The English ships were about to weigh anchor, when a violent insurrection broke out in Wales. The king despatched a little body of troops into Gascony, sent his fleet to hover round the coasts and seize all the French ships which might come in their way, and despatched the greater portion of his forces to Wales. {249} In spite of the winter, the snow, the mountains, the impenetrable forests, and the obstinacy of the insurgents, Edward pursued his enemies in all directions, and contrived to subdue them. Madoc, the ringleader, laid down his arms; the most intractable chiefs were sentenced to be imprisoned for life, and the king, triumphant, left Wales to embark for France. The Scotch did not allow him time, however, to accomplish his intention.

Since Edward had placed the feeble Baliol upon the throne of Scotland, he had spared him no humiliation. Every time that a petitioner, dissatisfied with the justice of the King of Scotland, thought proper to appeal to the liege lord, Edward would summon Baliol to appear at his court to render an account of his judgment, and this summons was repeated four times during the first year of his reign. At length, in 1293, in the matter of a complaint of the Earl of Fife, Baliol, who was tired of these proceedings, declared that the question concerned his subjects, and that he could not reply to the appeal without consulting his people. "What!" cried Edward; "you are my vassal, you have done homage to me, and it is to answer to me for your acts that you are here." Baliol persisted; the English Parliament condemned his conduct, and King Edward only consented to retard by some months the pronouncing of the sentence. In the interval, the difficulty about Guienne occurred, and King Edward, occupied with his struggles against his own liege lord, soon learnt that his vassal, the King of Scotland, led on by the national movement in his country, had contracted with King Philip an alliance cemented by a promise of marriage between his young son Edward and Jane of Valois, niece of the King of France. {250} A short time before, the Parliament of Scotland had decided on sending back all the Englishmen employed at the court and formed a council consisting of four earls, four bishops, and four barons, who were entrusted with the management of the affairs of the kingdom. Baliol was held by his subjects in a kind of captivity.

The suspicions which King Edward had conceived, and which had kept him in England, while he sent his brother into Guienne, were soon justified. The Scotch invaded the county of Cumberland with a large army, but were easily repulsed. Edward soon advanced towards the frontier, marching first of all against Berwick. He attacked the town by land and sea, and all resistance was useless. The king, mounted upon his horse Bayard, was the first to spring across the dyke which protected the town. A fearful massacre took place; neither age nor sex excited any pity. It was on the 30th of March, 1296. On the 5th of April, the abbot of Arbroath presented himself at the English camp; he brought Baliol's renunciation of all homage towards the King of England. Edward had a short time before addressed a similar communication to Philip, king of France; but this coincidence did not appease his anger. "Ah! then the scoundrel has dared to defy me!" he cried; "if he will not come to us, we will go to him." And he marched forward, taking possession on his way of the castles which resisted him. Dunbar, Roxburgh, Dunbarton, Jedburgh, Edinburgh, Stirling, had already fallen into Edward's hands, when a fresh message from Baliol was brought to him. He humbly begged for peace. The king did not do his revolted vassal the honor of treating him as a sovereign and of negotiating personally with him; he ordered Baliol to proceed to the castle of Brechin, to which place he despatched the Bishop of Durham. {251} A few days later, on the 7th of June, 1296, Baliol, deprived of all his regal insignia, with a white rod in his hand, presented himself at the cemetery of Strathkathro, in the county of Angus, acknowledging that he had violated all his obligations towards his liege lord, who had very justly invaded his fief. After this act of self-abasement and renunciation, tired, he said, of the malice and ingratitude of men, he was sent to the Tower in honorable captivity, and subsequently ended his life in his domains of Normandy, forgotten or despised by all.

Robert Bruce at once claimed the crown. "Do you think that I have nothing else to do but to conquer kingdoms for you?" King Edward harshly replied; and he marched towards the north, receiving everywhere the homage of the Scotch nobility. He had convened a Parliament at Berwick; he proceeded there on the 28th of August, in order to arrange the government of his new acquisition. He displayed on this occasion great prudence and moderation; he returned to the Church all property which had been confiscated from it, and left the inferior offices in the hands of the functionaries who occupied them; but the guardianship of the castles was confided to the English. Warren, earl of Surrey, was nominated governor; Hugh de Cressingham, treasurer; and William Ormesby, chief justicier. Scotland was treated as a conquered country. King Edward now thought himself at leisure to devote his attention to his affairs in France and to prepare to cross the Channel.

The allies of England upon the Continent were in urgent need of his help. The Earl of Bar, the son-in-law of Edward, had been defeated and made a prisoner in an attempt against Champagne, and his wife, being unable to regain her liberty, had died of grief. {252} Guy, count of Flanders, had been attracted to Paris under false pretences, together with his wife and his daughter Philippa, who was affianced to Prince Edward of England; all three had been thrown into prison, and, although the count succeeded in buying his freedom, he had been compelled to leave his daughter in the hands of Philip the Fair, who denied the right of vassals to give their daughters in marriage without the authority of their lord.

King Edward would have had great difficulty in helping his foreign allies, for he was engaged in a struggle against his English subjects. The conquest of the countries of Wales and Scotland had required great efforts, and the nation had borne its heavy burdens without murmuring. In 1295, however, on a demand of the king, who required one-half of their revenues, the clergy appealed to Pope Boniface VIII., who issued a bull in their favor. But the ecclesiastical thunders had begun to lose their terrors; Edward had seized upon the property of the clergy, and the bishops had ended by giving in. The merchants and citizens were more obstinate than the priests, and when the king, in 1297, conceived the idea of imposing an enormous tax upon every bale of wool, making at the same time large requisitions for grain, the complaints became loud. From remonstrance, the people had arrived at overt resistance, when the king seized at all the ports the wool and skins intended for exportation, and sold them for his own benefit. The merchants met together, protested against this "evil toll," as they called it, and declared that the Magna Charta ordered that the English people were not to be taxed without their own consent. A certain number of powerful noblemen supported the citizens in this movement.

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King Edward had raised two armies: one was to march to Guienne, and the other to Flanders, to help the Count Guy, who was anxious to avenge his injuries on King Philip. Edmund, King Edward's brother, had died in Guienne. The king himself reckoned upon commanding the expedition in Flanders. He summoned to Salisbury Humphrey Bohun, earl of Hereford and constable of England, and Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk, field-marshal, to entrust to them the command of the army of Guienne. Both replied that their offices compelled them to remain near the king's person during the war, and that they would not proceed to Guienne without him. "By the Lord God Almighty, my lord earl!" cried Edward, addressing himself to Bigod, "You shall go, or you shall be hanged." "By the Lord God Almighty, Sire king," replied the proud baron, calmly, "I shall not go, neither shall I be hanged." And both retired to their estates, immediately followed by thirty bannerets and by fifteen hundred knights, who everywhere created an opposition to the levying of the taxes.

The king was in an awkward position. He convoked in London a popular assembly, having taken care first of all to become reconciled with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Winchelsea, who had been the prime mover in the resistance of the clergy, and had found himself deprived of all his revenues in consequence; then, accompanied by the prelate, the Earl of Warwick, and Prince Edward, the king appealed directly to the people, assuring them that nothing was more disagreeable to him than to impose heavy burdens upon his well-beloved subjects; but that he had been compelled to do so in order to defend them against the Scotch, the Welsh, and the French. "I am now going to expose myself for you to the risks of war," said he; "if I return alive, I will repay you for everything; if I should die, there is my son: place him upon the throne, and his gratitude will reward your fidelity." The king was weeping, and all those who were present were profoundly touched. {254} Prince Edward was declared regent amid public acclamation; the Archbishop of Canterbury was nominated as his adviser, and the king marched towards the coast. He had only arrived at Winchester, when he was stopped, on the 12th of August, by a remonstrance from the prelates, the earls, the barons, and the commoners of England, declaring that they were not obliged to accompany him into Flanders, their ancestors not having served the kings of England in that country; and they added that, even were they so disposed, the poverty to which they had been reduced did not allow them to do so. "The king," they said, "had already violated on several occasions the charters which he had solemnly ratified; his 'evil toll' was intolerable, and his absence was about to leave the country a prey to the invasions of the Scotch and the Welsh." The king made an evasive reply to this declaration; reckoning upon the affection of the common people, he made sail with the troops who remained with him, and disembarked at Sluys towards the end of August.

Scarcely had Edward left the coasts of England when Bigod and Bohun entered London, on the 24th of August, at the head of considerable forces. The strictest discipline prevailed in the ranks of their followers. They went straight to the treasury, and deposited their complaints against the arbitrary exactions and the violations of Magna Charta committed by the king; then, proceeding to Guildhall, they exhorted the citizens of London to maintain their rights. The young regent, being alarmed, convoked a Parliament, which abolished the impost upon wool, and decreed that no tax whatever should in future be raised without the consent of the bishops, peers, citizens, and freemen of the kingdom, and that the king should not seize upon any goods without the authority of the owners. {255} Orders were sent out to read the Magna Charta in all the churches once a year, under pain of excommunication against those who should endeavor to prevent it. This law was to be proclaimed every Sunday in all the churches.

The act, signed in London, was sent to Ghent, where King Edward was at the time. They demanded that it should be ratified. The barons undertook to join the king in Flanders, or to march against Scotland, where the people had again risen, according to his pleasure. During three days, the pride of King Edward resisted; at length he signed the document, promising himself to make all his concessions void afterwards. As soon as they were secure in their victory, the barons set out for Scotland.

Edward needed the support and good will of his English subjects, for he had gained but little success in Flanders. After having with difficulty quelled the violent rivalries which had occurred in his fleet between the sailors of the different ports, he had found a great number of Flemish towns occupied by the French, supported by a party powerful in the country itself. The Count Guy had again fallen into the hands of the King of France. The Flemish and English would often engage in struggles against each other, after having fought together against the French; Edward's foreign allies, the Emperor, the Duke of Austria, and the Duke of Brabant, sent no help, believing they had done their share in receiving the subsidies of England. King Edward listened to the overtures of Pope Boniface VIII., who was endeavoring to re-establish peace. He left Guy of Flanders in prison, where the latter, as well as his daughter, afterwards died. He affianced his son Edward to Isabel of France, thus laying the foundation of the misfortune of his lifetime, and himself married Princess Margaret, who was then seventeen years of age, contenting himself with recovering Aquitaine, while Guienne still remained in the hands of Philip the Fair. {256} Peace being thus concluded, Edward started on his return to his kingdom, where the position of affairs imperatively required his presence.

The great Scotch noblemen had taken the oath of allegiance to the King of England, but the less powerful ones had not had the honor of accomplishing that act of submission. Sir Malcolm Wallace, of Ellerslie, had not taken the oath, nor had his second son, William Wallace, who was already outlawed for the murder of an English soldier in consequence of a dispute. He had lived since then in the mountains; but, having one day appeared at the market in Lanark, he was insulted by an Englishman, whom he killed. He found a friendly shelter, and contrived to escape; but the house which had protected him was burnt, and the mistress of it lost her life. Wallace swore to wreak a terrible revenge upon the English.

Soon, all the adventurers, outlaws, and bold spirits, weary of subjection, rallied round Wallace. At the moment when King Edward started for Flanders, the Scottish leader had already become a dangerous partisan, attacking the English when he met them in small numbers, and plundering the country under their authority. His forces were increasing in number; many noblemen had joined him, and were raising their standards in favor of John, king of Scotland. A certain number of powerful noblemen followed them. Robert Bruce himself, grandson of him who had contested the crown against Baliol, had come over to the national party. "The Pope will absolve me from all the oaths which I have involuntarily sworn in favor of King Edward," said the future deliverer of Scotland. The Earl of Surrey was raising forces in the southern part of the kingdom.

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When the two armies came in sight of each other, near the town of Irvine, in the county of Ayr, they were about equal in numbers; but the English troops were well drilled and obedient to a single general; Wallace's army was disorderly, divided, led by rival chiefs, and little disposed to admit the superiority of an outlaw of low origin. No encounter took place. On the 9th of July, the great Scotch noblemen laid down their arms and tendered their submission to King Edward. One baron alone. Sir Andrew Moray of Bothwell, remained faithful to the national party; but Wallace took with him a large number of vassals of the noblemen who had surrendered, and his raids upon the territory occupied by the English became bolder and bolder every day.

Stirling was seriously threatened by the insurgents, when the Earls of Surrey and Cressingham advanced with large forces. The two parties occupied the opposite banks of the Forth; Wallace's position was excellent, and he was offered terms. "Tell your masters," he replied to the envoy, "that we are not here to parley, but to assert our rights and to deliver Scotland. Let them advance, we are ready." The English hesitated. Surrey deemed the attack dangerous, but Cressingham, like a true financier, was complaining loudly of the ravages made upon the king's treasury by an army which did not fight, and the general yielded. At daybreak, on the 11th of September, 1297, the English army began marching across the bridge. It was narrow, and the soldiers passed over it slowly. When one portion of the army had crossed, Wallace caused the bridge to be occupied by a detachment, and he attacked the English, who had not yet had time to form in order of battle. The slaughter was fearful. Among the dead bodies was found Cressingham, who was odious to the Scotch by reason of the severity of his administration. {258} His savage enemies flayed him, in order to preserve his skin in remembrance of their revenge. Surrey retreated with the remainder of his forces. But Wallace's success had delivered Scotland for the time being; the castles were surrendering in every direction; the popular champion entered Northumberland and pillaged the English territory, while famine kept him away from Scotland. When he reappeared in his country, laden with plunder, an assembly of noblemen awarded to him the title of governor of the kingdom and commander-in-chief of King John's forces. Baliol, still imprisoned in England, smiled bitterly at this use of his name.

Meanwhile, King Edward had recrossed the sea, and his orders for the levying of a large army had preceded him. In the eyes of the conqueror of Scotland the insurrection led by Wallace was a rebellion, not a patriotic movement. Scarcely had he set foot in England than he marched towards the North. Having halted for a while at York, where he was to have convened a Parliament, the barons who had formerly placed themselves at the head of the popular resistance came and met him to demand the ratification of the concessions granted at Ghent. "By and by," cried Edward; "I have no leisure time just now; I must first of all reduce the Scotch rebels to obedience." And he swore before three bishops that he would occupy himself with the liberties of his English subjects when he should have riveted the chains of his Scottish subjects. Bigod and Bohun were satisfied with this promise, and followed him into Scotland.

The king's vessels were delayed. He was detained between Edinburgh and Linlithgow, when an insurrection broke out in his camp. The Welsh troops threatened to leave him and to go over to the Scotch. "I care little," said Edward, "if my enemies join my enemies; I will punish them all in one day." {259} The provisions began to run short, and a retreat was spoken of, when the Bishop of Durham was warned, on the 10th of July, 1298, that the Scotch army was encamped in the forest of Falkirk, and was preparing to attack the English troops. "Glory be to God," cried Edward. "He has delivered me up to the present from all dangers. They need not follow me, for I will go to them." And, raising his camp, he marched against the Scotch troops. It is related that, during the night before the battle, being asleep by the side of his horse, the king had two ribs broken by a kick from the animal. This circumstance created a profound sensation throughout the army; it was said that the king was dying through some treachery. Edward donned his armor, mounted his horse, and continued the march. The Scotch army was at length in sight. In front of them was a marsh, and the archers and pikemen were protected by a palisade. When Wallace saw the lances of the enemy glistening in the sun, he called out to his men, "I have led you to the dance, now hop if you can." The Scottish infantry valiantly withstood the shock of the two army corps led by Bigod, Bohun, and the bellicose Bishop of Durham, but the cavalry were terrified on seeing the superior forces of the English, and fled in confusion. The pikemen and archers began to give way; the palisades were trampled down, and the victory was complete. The field of the battle of Falkirk was strewn with the corpses of the Scottish soldiers, when Wallace contrived to fall back upon Stirling with the remainder of his army. The English followed him there; but they found the town burnt. Wallace had disappeared. King Edward was desolating the country by fire and sword; the inhabitants of the towns were flying at his approach; St. Andrew's was deserted when the king set fire to it. {260} The citizens of Perth burnt their own town. Provisions were now scarce; Edward was obliged to retreat towards the end of September, 1298, leaving all the north of Scotland in the hands of the patriots, who had just constituted a council of the regency, at the head of which was John Comyn. Scarcely had the king crossed the frontier when his enemies threatened Stirling Castle.

Other troubles awaited Edward in England; he had convoked the Parliament at Westminster for the month of March, 1299; the barons claimed the fulfilment of his promises, and the ratification of the new liberties added by them to the Magna Charta. The king still delayed, denying the validity of a confirmation made in a foreign country; he experienced, he said, displeasure at finding himself thus pressed to grant a favor against his inclination. The barons, however, insisting, the king left London, almost secretly, and went into the country under pretence of being indisposed; the barons followed him there, renewing their demands. At length the king, wearied of this, sent to the Parliament the required ratification; but, with a puerile want of good faith, he added to the concessions so hardly won this little sentence: "Saving the rights of the crown." The barons, indignant, left London in their turn, but to prepare for resistance. The king still reckoned upon the devotion of the people of the city; he ordered the sheriffs to cause the charter to be read at the cross of St. Paul's; an immense crowd was assembled, hailing with applause each of the clauses which guaranteed the rights of the people; but when the reader came to the phrase, "Saving the rights of the crown," his voice was drowned by whistling, shouting, and loud menaces. {261} Edward was too shrewd and sagacious to resist the will of the people when expressed in such an unmistakable manner; he convened a fresh Parliament, solemnly ratified all the concessions, without mentioning the rights of the crown, and nominated a commission of three bishops, three earls, and three barons, to prepare a charter limiting the royal forests, which had hitherto been extended at times into private property. This charter was ratified in the year 1300. Bohun had just died; but Bigod was still alive, and the victory was definitively assured to the Barons, in spite of the efforts which the king was still making to deliver himself from a yoke which was insupportable to his haughty character and his ambitious projects.

The marriage of King Edward with Margaret of France had taken place, as had also his son's betrothal to Isabel (September, 1299), and two little incursions into Scotland had produced no other result than an intervention on the part of Pope Boniface VIII. in favor of the Scotch, by virtue of the rights which he claimed over that kingdom. Although haughtily refusing to recognize this strange pretension, the King of England had three times granted a truce to the insurgents. The third had just expired, when the treaty of Montreuil, made between England and France on the 30th of May, 1303, gave up Guienne to Edward, who abandoned his Flemish allies as Philip the Fair did his Scottish allies. Freed from care on the score of continental affairs, Edward, on the day following the ratification of the treaty, marched into Scotland. He was already at Edinburgh on the 4th of June, and his progress across the northern counties resembled a triumphal march; all the fortresses opened their gates; Buchan Castle alone remained closed. While the English were attacking, Sir Thomas Maule, the governor, was marching up and down the ramparts, with a handkerchief in his hand, wiping off the dust raised by the battering-rams. On the twentieth day of the siege he was struck with an arrow, and, when dying, stigmatized the soldiers as cowards, who were asking permission of him to surrender. {262} Scarcely had the valiant champion breathed his last when his castle was given up to the English forces. The king established himself in winter quarters in the abbey of Dunfermline, and it was there that the Scotch barons came to negotiate for peace; each one had drawn up his own conditions. Wallace had disappeared since the battle of Falkirk; the noblemen had supplanted him in the government of the country, which he had delivered without their aid. The king caused a proclamation to be made that the outlaw should surrender at discretion. Wallace, however, took no notice, but remained in the mountains. The Castle of Stirling now alone offered any resistance, in spite of the injunctions of the Scottish Parliament assembled by Edward. Sir William Oliphant, who commanded it, was compelled to surrender on the 26th of July, 1304.

A last blow was about to strike the patriotic party in Scotland. Wallace, betrayed by his friend Monteith, was delivered into the hands of the English in the month of August, 1305. King Edward had not the generosity to pardon the proud patriot who had so long resisted him. Wallace had broken no oath; he had never sworn allegiance to King Edward, and he had fought for the independence of his country, but he was nevertheless condemned to suffer a traitor's death. He was executed at Smithfield, on the 23rd of August, and the portions of his dismembered body were sent to different towns in Scotland, where, however, the people were more inclined to treat them as sacred relics than to consider them as emblems of disgrace. Wallace had kindled a fire which was not destined to die out, and it was in vain that Edward had thought to stifle it by severe punishment.

[Image] Bruce Warned By Gilbert De Clare.

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Scarcely had the government of Scotland been constituted by a commission of prelates and Scottish barons, pursuing their labors in London in conjunction with the English members of Parliament, when a fresh insurrection broke out in Scotland. A new chief presented himself for the cause of independence, one who was destined to achieve the task begun by Wallace; it was Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick.

For a long time Bruce had vacillated between the two parties; having been engaged during his youth in the service of Edward by his father, he had sworn allegiance, then violated his oath, but finally determined to observe his old professions. After the fall of Baliol, he had proposed to Comyn, surnamed the Red, a powerful Scottish lord, and one of his neighbors, that whichever of the two should establish his claim to the crown should bequeath the kingdom to the other as an indemnity. Comyn had pretended to accept the bargain, but had secretly warned Edward of the conspiracy. Bruce, who was in England, was about to be arrested, in spite of his kinship to the royal family (he had married Joan of Valence, Edward's cousin), when Gilbert de Clare sent a pair of spurs to him by a messenger. Bruce took the hint and immediately mounted his horse; he did not know what danger threatened him, or who had betrayed him, yet he was careful to conceal his traces. Meeting with a servant of Comyn, who was carrying fresh communications to Edward, he seized the missives and assured himself of Comyn's treachery, then hastened back to Scotland. A few days later, on the 10th of February, 1306, these two enemies met at Dumfries, and Bruce called Comyn into a chapel of the Minorites, in order to demand an explanation of his conduct. They were alone; the dispute became furious. Bruce drew his dagger and struck Comyn, who fell upon the steps of the high altar. Pale and agitated, Bruce left the chapel hurriedly; his haggard appearance struck his friends who were in attendance upon him. {264} "What have you done?" Fitz-Patrick of Colesburn asked him. "I think I have killed Comyn." "You think?" cried Fitz-Patrick, "then I will make sure of it." And, re-entering the holy place, he struck the wounded man another blow; killed the latter's uncle, Sir Robert Comyn, who tried to defend his nephew, and returned to Bruce. The little band hurried away at a gallop. Bruce had only one course before him now; he was henceforth an outlaw, and the boldest action became necessary. But the fire was smouldering in all the noble hearts of Scotland. As soon as Bruce raised the standard of independence, some priests and lords gathered round him and boldly crowned him at Scone. On the day of the Annunciation (1306) Scotland had a king; Edward I. heard of it at Winchester a few days later.

In the eyes of the King of England Bruce was a rebel, and was, moreover, a man who must be punished for having committed sacrilege; he sent a small army into Scotland under the command of the Earl of Pembroke, and, tired and sick as he was, began to make extensive preparations for marching personally against the insurgents. Prince Edward, his son, was twenty-two years of age, and had not yet been knighted. On the 23rd of May, during Whitsuntide, the young man, having received his spurs from the hands of his father, conferred the same distinction upon two hundred and seventy young lords, companions of his pleasures, who were about to become his comrades in arms. All the company then met at a magnificent banquet; a golden filet was brought upon a table, containing two swans, emblems of constancy and fidelity; then the king, placing his hand upon their heads, swore to avenge the death of Comyn and to punish the rebels of Scotland, without sleeping for two nights in the same place, and to start immediately afterwards for Palestine in order to rescue the Holy Sepulchre. {265} The young men swore the same oath as the king, and the latter made them promise if he should die during the war in Scotland, not to bury his body until the conquest should have been achieved. The prince immediately afterwards started for the frontiers with his companions. The king followed less rapidly, as he could only travel upon a litter.

Meanwhile Bruce's forces had increased rapidly; the malcontents--and they were very numerous--were beginning to declare themselves and to rally round the new king. When the Earl of Pembroke arrived in Scotland, the insurgents were in high spirits; but a battle was fought on the 19th of June, near the woods of Methven, which destroyed their illusions; many Scots were killed, the prisoners were put to death, and Bruce retired into the mountains of Athol with five hundred men. Too ill to proceed further, King Edward had been obliged to stop at Carlisle, but he was directing all the operations of his troops, and ordering the execution of the prisoners, thus bearing witness to his deep-rooted resentment against Scotland. Bruce was leading the life of a roaming knight in the forests, hunting and fishing, accompanied only by a few faithful friends; his wife, his two sisters, and the Countess of Buchan shared with him his adventurous existence, which the fine weather rendered tolerable, even in Scotland.

Meanwhile, winter was coming on, and it became necessary to seek more civilized quarters. Bruce's little band was attacked by Lord de Lorn, a relation of Comyn's, and a mortal enemy of Bruce. The King of Scotland's companions were falling under the battle-axes of Lochaber, when he sounded the retreat, and, clad in armor and mounted upon a good war-horse, took up his position in a defile, and defended the approach single-handed. {266} Lorn's mountaineers hesitated, being terrified at the immovable countenance, the long sword always on guard, and the bright eyes glistening under the helmet; at length three men, a father and two sons, named Mac-Androsser, famous in their clan for their strength and courage, sprang forward together upon the royal champion; one seized the bridle of the horse, and his arm fell at his side, his hand being severed; another fastened himself to the leg of the horseman: the horse pranced about, and the unhappy warrior had his head split open by a sword-stroke. The father, who was more skilful, as well as maddened at the fate of his sons, clutched the king's cloak; he was still holding it after his death, and Bruce was compelled to leave in the hands of the corpse this token of the desperate struggle. The king had retreated without being wounded, but it was necessary to place his wife and sisters in safety, and the castle of Keldrummie afforded them a shelter, while Bruce took refuge in the Hebrides. The separation was doomed to be a sad and long one, for the castle was taken, and Nigel Bruce, Robert's younger brother, was cruelly put to death. The Queen of Scotland was sent to England, and Bruce's sisters-in-law, shut up in wooden cages, were exposed to the public sight of Berwick and Roxburgh. Every time that any of the adherents of Bruce fell into the hands of the English troops they were put to death; the king himself, who was now excommunicated and proscribed, had taken refuge in the little island of Rachrin. His retreat was unknown to his enemies, and a reward was offered in Scotland to whoever would give news of Robert Bruce, who was "lost, stolen, or strayed."

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It was in the spring of 1307, that Bruce suddenly reappeared, supported by some ships which had been lent to him by Christiana, Lady of the Isles. Deceived by a false indication, he attacked Henry Percy, to whom King Edward had recently given the castle of Carrick, Bruce's own property; and, taking his enemies by surprise, he defeated them, caused great slaughter, and returned in triumph to the castle, which however he could not hold for any length of time, surrounded as he was on all sides, not only by the English forces, but by his personal enemies, and all the family of Comyn.

The capture of Carrick Castle was nevertheless Robert's first step upon the ladder of fortune; but yesterday a fugitive, he was now rejoined by his scattered supporters: after his success, warriors who had previously been undecided, embraced the cause of Bruce, whose forces became so formidable, that Edward, who was furious, resolved to leave Carlisle to march in person against the rebels. He caused his litter to be hung up in York cathedral in memory of his sickness, and was about to mount his horse when he heard that the Earl of Pembroke had been defeated on the 10th of May by Bruce at Loudon Hill; the rage of the king lent him strength for awhile; he started out for Carlisle at the head of a large corps; but the journey was cut short, and he was obliged to stop. When not more than three leagues from Carlisle, death came and chilled the proud heart and the indomitable spirit, once animated by the noblest and most chivalrous desires, but for several years absorbed in ambitious projects and cruel schemes of revenge. His last words were a recommendation to his son to finish the task which had been begun, to be good to his young brothers, and to maintain three hundred knights in the Holy Land. When he was buried at Westminster an inscription was placed upon his tomb, covered by a block of stone brought from Palestine:--

Eduardus Primus. Edward I.

Malleus Scotorum. The Scourge of the Scots,

1307 Pactum Serva. 1307 Keep the Covenant.

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Among the sovereigns who had governed England, very few had held the power with a firmer hand than Edward I.; very few, however, saw the foundation of more liberties. In vain, in 1307, when the king had thought the conquest of Scotland assured, had he hoped to effect his deliverance from the yoke which his people had imposed upon him; in vain had he obtained from the Pope a bull on the 4th of January, 1305, which relieved him of his oaths and annulled the charters which he had ratified, forbidding any one, under pain of excommunication, to claim their fulfilment; in vain, Bohun being dead, had Edward's threats succeeded in intimidating old Bigod and his faithful ally, the Archbishop of Canterbury; the attitude taken by the entire nation had caused the king to hesitate, and he had not yet made public the Papal bull, when the insurrection in Scotland absorbed all his attention and necessitated the assistance of Parliament. The liberties acquired by the barons now had a durable guarantee; the great lords were not obliged to resort incessantly to arms. Parliaments having been instituted. We have seen the deputies of the towns summoned to Parliament for the first time by the Earl of Leicester. Under King Edward I. the barons began to hold their deliberations privately, and the knights from the shires and the deputies from the towns who were summoned less frequently, formed a second chamber. From this time dates the origin of the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The most complete Parliament which had yet sat, was that of 1295, convened by King Edward before his campaign in Flanders: an Ecclesiastical Parliament had been convoked at the same time. The subsidies which were then granted, and which the king endeavored to increase by acts of extortion, were the cause of the opposition of Bigod and Bohun. {269} At the death of Edward, the charters had been so firmly established in England, that no monarch dreamt of disturbing them again, until the unhappy days of Charles I. The liberties of the nation were assured by the frequent meeting of the Parliaments, their faithful and natural guardians. The constitution of England was founded.

The burdensome inheritance left by the king who had just died fell into hands too feeble to support it. Edward II. was twenty-three years of age when he succeeded his father; the latter had had six sons, of whom three only survived him; the young king had already shown signs of frivolity and obstinacy which augured the misfortunes of his reign. Brought up from childhood with a young Aquitanian, Piers Gaveston, he had conceived for this companion so strong an affection, that the king, his father, had been alarmed thereat, and had on several occasions banished the young favorite. At the death of Edward I. Gaveston was in exile; but at the news of the accession of his young master, he hastened to him, and the first act of the king was to confer upon him the Earldom of Cornwall, which had previously been deemed a position sufficiently conspicuous for princes of the royal blood. Edward did not content himself with this; while he was pretending to carry on a campaign in Scotland, the great officers of the crown were changed; the Lord Treasurer, the Bishop of Lichfield, was even deprived of his property and cast into prison. In spite of the oath which the old king had exacted from his son, the latter had returned to London to inter his father, leaving Bruce free to pursue his successes. Gaveston, who had lately married Margaret, a niece of the king, was nominated regent of the kingdom in the month of January, 1308, by the king, who went over to France to marry the Princess Isabel, according to Froissart, one of the most beautiful women in the world.

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King Philip the Fair had just caused the dissolution of the order of Templars in France, an iniquitous proceeding, inspired rather by the prince's greed than by the offences of the order. Philip thereby obtained for the King of England the dowry promised to the latter, and persuaded him, without great difficulty, to withhold his protection from the Templars established in England. A short time afterwards they were prosecuted. Edward set sail on the 7th of February to return to England; he was accompanied by a numerous suite of French noblemen, at the head of whom were two uncles of the Queen. Gaveston came to meet the king, and as soon as Edward perceived him, forgetting his young wife and his noble followers, he threw himself into the arms of the favorite, embracing him and calling him brother, to the great indignation of Isabel and all the beholders. Their indignation was increased when they saw Gaveston decked out with all the jewels which the King of France had recently given Edward. The discontent reached its height, when, at the ceremony of the coronation, which took place with great splendor on the 14th of February, Piers Gaveston, as the people persisted in calling him, in spite of his elevation to the Earldom of Cornwall, was entrusted with the task of carrying before the king the crown of St. Edward, to the exclusion of the highest noblemen of the kingdom, who were all anxious for this honor.

Isabel had already begun to complain to her father of her husband and the favorite, when the barons came to the king four days after his coronation. "Sire," they said, "send back this stranger who has no business here." {271} The king promised to give his reply on the assembling of Parliament after Easter: meanwhile, he endeavored to lessen the resentment of the noblemen towards his friend. But Piers was most imprudent, frivolous and vain; he loved to make a show of his talent for chivalrous exercises, and threw successively from their horses in several tournaments the Earls of Lancaster, Hereford, Pembroke, and Warren, whose wounded pride was added to the many serious causes of resentment against him. On the assembling of Parliament, the annoyance of the barons was so great, that the king was constrained to give way and to banish Gaveston; he loaded him with presents on his departure, giving him all the jewels which he had received from Queen Isabel, and accompanied him as far as Bristol to bid him farewell. Gaveston was believed to be in Aquitaine, when news came that the king had appointed him governor of Ireland, and that he had just established himself there with a degree of splendor almost regal.

The king longed to recall his favorite; he lavished favors upon the great lords in order to win them over, and, when he had been relieved by the Pope of the oath which he had sworn never to recall Gaveston to England, he sent for his friend, and went as far as Chester to meet him, publicly announcing that the Earl of Cornwall had been unjustly banished, and that justice demanded a fresh examination of his conduct. On the other hand, the barons declared that the king had violated his oath and would not scruple to break all those which he had sworn for the maintenance of the public liberties. The discontent was increasing; the queen complained of the desertion of her husband; the Countess of Cornwall was representing to her brother, the Earl of Gloucester, Gaveston's unworthy conduct towards her. The king and his favorite did not heed the storm which was about to burst; feasts, dances, and tournaments succeeded each other without intermission at the court. The king's funds meanwhile had run low, and, in the month of August, 1311, he found himself compelled to convene Parliament at Westminster.

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The barons came, discontented but resolute; old Archbishop Winchelsea had exhorted them to deliver the kingdom from the power of the favorite; the Earl of Lincoln, when dying, had sent for his son-in-law, the Earl of Lancaster. "Do not abandon England to the king and the Pope," he said; "do as the ancient barons did, and stand firmly by your privileges." Scarcely had the barons arrived at Westminster, when they renewed the stipulations of the "Mad Parliament" of Oxford; they demanded the formation of a temporal council entrusted with the task of providing for the government of the kingdom; one of the new concessions forced from the king was that he should convoke Parliament at least once a year.

The barons had brought with them their men-at-arms. Edward II. signed all that they demanded, and Gaveston was once more obliged to leave the country. The king then proceeded to the North, and was busy raising an army, when his favorite suddenly appeared at his side. Such daring was beyond endurance. The Earl of Lancaster, the king's cousin, came unexpectedly upon Edward; the king only had time to escape with Gaveston, leaving the queen in the hands of the barons, who treated her with great respect. The king and his friend had set out in a little bark; they landed at Scarborough, and Piers shut himself up in the fortress there, while the king proceeded to York in the hope of joining his army. But the barons had already set out for Scarborough. Being besieged in the castle, Gaveston surrendered, on the 17th of May, to the Earl of Pembroke and Lord Henry Percy, who promised to spare his life, and then undertook to take him to his castle of Wallingford. {273} The little band started on their journey; but when they arrived at Dedington, the Earl of Pembroke left his prisoner to go and see his wife, who was in the neighborhood. On the morning of the 19th, Gaveston received orders to dress himself at once; he descended into the courtyard, and found that his guards had been changed; the Earl of Warwick, the "black dog of the Ardennes," as the favorite called him when jesting with the king, had arrived during the night; the prisoner was tied on the back of a mule and led to Warwick Castle. The Earl of Lancaster was there. Piers was accustomed to call this nobleman the "old boar," but he now threw himself at his feet, begging for mercy. The judges were inflexible; he was hastily tried, and being condemned, the unlucky Piers was conducted to Blacklow Hill, between Warwick and Coventry, where a scaffold had been erected; the executioners hesitated for a moment to accomplish so horrible a deed. "You have caught the fox; if you let him go, you will have to give chase to him again," cried a voice from among the crowd, and the favorite's head fell; he was only thirty-three years of age.

While Edward II. was mourning for his murdered friend, Robert Bruce was slowly conquering Scotland; twice had the king of England attempted an expedition in support of the power which was slipping from his hands, and twice he had returned without result; the authority of Bruce was being established everywhere in his country; the castles of Perth, Jedburgh, Dunbar, Edinburgh were in his hands; he was besieging the fortress of Stirling, when the governor, Sir Philip Mowbray, contrived to make his appeals for succor reach the king; Edward aroused himself for a moment from his natural indolence and raised a large army to march against Scotland; he started from Berwick on the 11th of June, 1313.

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The forces of the King of England amounted, it is said, to nearly a hundred thousand men. While they were marching with their banners flying, the sun, which was glistening upon the armor and the lances, appeared to inundate the country with a flood of light. King Robert was concealed in the forests with an army of forty thousand men, nearly all on foot, awaiting the enemy, and preparing barriers which were intended to check the onslaught of the English troops, on the only spot open to attack. On the morning of the 23rd of June, 1313, the two armies met near Bannockburn.

The English had hastened their march, and had arrived in some disorder, in front of the Scottish army. Lord Clifford, who attempted an ambuscade, was repulsed by Randolph, earl of Moray, nephew of King Robert and one of his best knights; the king himself, with a golden crown on his helmet, was marching slowly along the line of his troops. A relative of the Earl of Hereford's, Sir Henry Bohun, sprang forward against the "Scottish traitor," reckoning upon throwing him by the weight of his horse alone, Bruce being mounted upon one of the small horses of the country.

The king did not expect the shock; he turned, however, with great skill, and Bohun's lance passed close by his side without inflicting any injury upon him. Raising himself up in his stirrups and displaying his gigantic figure, he struck the rash Englishman a terrible blow with his battle-axe: the helmet was shattered by his powerful arm, and Sir Henry Bohun, whose skull was fractured, was carried off by his horse dead. Bruce returned slowly to the spot where the greater part of his forces was concentrated. While his friends were surrounding him, reproaching him for running so great a risk, the Scottish hero was looking sorrowfully at his notched axe, and laughingly answered, "I have spoilt my good battle-axe."

[Image] Robert Bruce Regretting His Battle-axe.

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The night had been passed in prayer in the Scottish camp and in feasting and debauchery by the English. King Edward had not expected a battle, and held his forces assembled in such a manner as to render any manœuvres impossible. At daybreak the young king was astonished at the good order observed in the Scottish ranks. "Do you think they will fight?" he asked of his marshal, Sir Ingeltram d'Umfreville. At the same moment the Abbot Maurice d'Inchaffray appeared before the Scottish troops holding a crucifix in his hand. All bent their knees, all uncovered their heads. "They are asking for mercy," cried Edward. Umfreville smiled bitterly. "Of God, not of us, Sire," said he; "these men will win the battle or die at their posts." "So be it!" replied the king, as he gave the signal for the attack.

The struggle was furious from the commencement; the Earls of Gloucester and Hereford sprang towards the Scottish infantry, which remained firm; their long lances withstood the onslaught of the English knights. Randolph was still advancing with his best regiment. Keith was attacking with five hundred mounted men-at-arms, the English archers, who could not fight at close quarters and were trampled under foot by the horses. Banners were torn and lances and swords were shattered to pieces; the feet of the combatants were slipping in the blood; the majority of the English began to hesitate. "They fly, they fly!" cried the Scotch. At the same moment a loud noise was heard behind them upon the hill; the camp followers and the sick and the wounded soldiers, excited by the ardor of the struggle, were descending in a mass towards the scene of action. The English imagined themselves attacked by a fresh army; a disorderly retreat had begun, when Robert Bruce, charging with his reserve, decided the fate of the day beyond the possibility of a doubt. {276} The Earl of Gloucester was killed while attacking Edward Bruce, Robert's brother. Clifford and twenty-seven other barons fell by the king's side. The Earl of Pembroke seized the bridle of Edward's horse and dragged him away from the battlefield. Sir Giles d'Argentine accompanied him out of the crowd, then retraced his steps, exclaiming, "It is not my custom to fly!" and was killed by Bruce's soldiers.

Never had a victory been more complete: the fortress of Stirling surrendered immediately; the Earl of Hereford, who had shut himself up in Bothwell Castle, offered to capitulate, and was exchanged for the wife, the sister, and the daughter of the King of Scotland, who had been detained for several years in England. There still remained a great deal of territory to conquer, but the work of Edward the First was destroyed, and Scotland was no longer a dependency of England.

Edward Bruce's ambition was not satisfied; he had assisted his brother in conquering a kingdom, and he now wished to secure a crown for himself. On the 23rd of May, 1315, while England was beginning to feel the miseries of a famine which was soon to be followed by a plague, he landed at Carrickfergus in Ireland at the head of six thousand men. He was soon joined by a large number of Irish chiefs; and they then proceeded to ravage the territory of the English colonists there, pillaging and burning the towns. At length he caused himself to be crowned King of Ireland on the 2nd of May, 1316. His brother Robert came to his assistance, and, in spite of the resistance of the English, who held Dublin and several other important towns, the invading army overran the whole of Ireland. The northern portion of the country had been completely subjugated by Edward Bruce, when King Robert was called back to his kingdom, in consequence of the incursions of the English. {277} Nineteen pitched battles besides numberless skirmishes had been fought, and had exhausted the resources of the rash conqueror, when, on the 5th of October, 1318, Edward Bruce was at length defeated and killed at Fagher, near Dundalk, and the little body of Scots who escaped returned to Scotland. The death of one man had sufficed to overthrow the slender edifice, which for three years he had been striving to raise. The independence of Scotland was more firmly established than the conquest of Ireland.

Berwick had at length fallen into the power of the Scotch; King Edward II. resolved, in 1319, to make a fresh effort to regain that town and to recommence his attempts against Scotland. On the 1st of September he laid siege to Berwick, by land and by sea; but while he was detained there by the obstinate resistance of the Lord Stewart of Scotland, Douglas and Randolph, King Robert's most faithful companions, had crossed the borders into England with fifteen thousand men, carrying their ravages as far as York, so that Edward was obliged to abandon Berwick and march against the invaders of his own dominions. The Scots escaped from him and re-entered their country; a truce of two years was concluded, and, in 1323, after several renewals of hostilities, it was followed by a new treaty which restored peace to the two countries; not, however, without leaving in England a feeling of animosity against the little country whose proud independence of spirit all their power had not been able to subdue.

King Edward had not taken warning by the fate of Piers Gaveston; he had become attached to a young man at his court, Hugh le Despencer, who had been placed at his side by his cousin the Earl of Lancaster, and whom he soon elevated to the dignity of chamberlain. {278} A short time afterwards he married him to Eleanor de Clare, sister of the young Earl of Gloucester, who had been killed at Bannockburn; she brought him an enormous estate upon the borders of Wales. His aunt, Margaret de Clare, had enriched Gaveston in the same manner. Le Despencer was an Englishman, and Edward had perhaps hoped to enjoy his friendship in peace; but the benefits which he heaped upon his new favorite soon excited the jealousy of the barons. At their head was the Earl of Lancaster, who was enraged at seeing preferred to himself a man who had formerly been a member of his own household. An abuse of the royal authority for the benefit of the royal favorite soon furnished a pretext to the great noblemen for resisting the king's authority. They armed their vassals; the lands of the Despencers were pillaged and their castles destroyed, in 1321. Lancaster joined the insurrection, swearing not to lay down his arms before banishing the favorite. They advanced as far as St Alban's, and the earl sent a messenger to the king to announce the conditions of peace. Edward was as timid as he was stubborn; he defended his friends as well as he was able, and declared that they could not be condemned without a trial. The barons marched towards London and took up their quarters in the suburbs; Parliament was convened at Westminster; and with their arms in their hands, the Earl of Lancaster and his friends accused Hugh le Despencer and his father of having usurped the royal authority, kept the king away from his faithful barons, and illegally imposed taxes, &c. At length they demanded that they should be banished. The bishops protested that the sentence was irregular; the king gave in; the two Le Despencers left England, and the barons became so arrogant, that Queen Isabel, when making a pilgrimage to Canterbury, was refused admittance to Leeds Castle, in the county of Kent, although that fortress belonged to the crown. The governor's wife, Lady Badlesmere, even caused several arrows to be shot at the royal suite, and several of the queen's attendants were killed.

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This insolence enraged the king. He punished Lord and Lady Badlesmere, and at the same time recalled the Despencers. Lancaster rallied round him all his friends and entered into a correspondence with the Scots, who promised to invade the northern provinces. This negotiation had no other effect than to crush the popularity of the Earl of Lancaster, the Scots being so much detested. The king had already attacked and defeated the Earl of Hereford and his ally, Roger Mortimer, and the latter was a prisoner in the Tower. Hereford had joined Lancaster, and the king was marching against them. The two earls had raised the siege of Tichnall Castle and were retreating before the royal army, when at Boroughbridge, on the borders of the Urc, Lancaster found the Governors of York and Carlisle with a body of troops, prepared to dispute his passage. Hereford was killed upon the bridge, and during the retreat which followed, Lancaster was made a prisoner. He was brought back in triumph to his Castle of Pontefract, and the king soon joined him there. Lancaster foresaw the fate which awaited him. "Lord," he said on being captured, kneeling before a crucifix, "I surrender to Thee, and throw myself upon Thy mercy." His conviction was certain, his treason being flagrant. Lancaster was condemned by six earls and six barons. The people insulted him while he was being led to the scaffold. He lifted his pinioned hands towards heaven. "Heavenly King, have mercy on me," he cried, "for the king of earth has abandoned me." He was beheaded on the 22nd of March, 1322. Fourteen bannerets and as many knights also suffered the extreme penalty. Mortimer was condemned to imprisonment for life. {280} The Despencers enriched themselves with the spoils taken from the victims; the father was created Earl of Winchester, and the enmity of the people towards the favorites was increased by the compassion which the condemned men inspired. It was found necessary to forbid the people to kneel before the portrait of the Earl of Lancaster in St. Paul's Cathedral, and rumors of miracles which had taken place at his tomb were spread throughout England, as had formerly been the case with Simon of Montfort, Earl of Leicester.

Roger Mortimer had succeeded in escaping from prison, probably not without having held some communication with Queen Isabel, who resided at the Tower during his captivity. He was in France and had just entered the service of Charles the Beautiful. The queen was enraged at the execution of his uncle, the Earl of Lancaster. When her husband came back from the expedition in the North, she received him haughtily, and manifested towards the Despencers the same hostility which she had formerly displayed towards Piers Gaveston. The King of France, Charles the Beautiful, seized the pretext of the grievances of Isabel, to take possession of the greater number of the towns and castles belonging to Edward. The latter, in return, seized upon all the property which the queen held in England, declaring that she should possess nothing while in communication with his enemies.

Isabel immediately proposed to act as mediator between her brother and her husband. The weak king fell into the trap, and allowed her to depart. She was received in France with open arms, and soon informed her husband that he would have to come and do homage to the King of France for his duchy of Aquitaine. Edward was preparing to start when he was detained in England in consequence of indisposition. {281} The Despencers, who did not dare to accompany him into France, but who would not lose sight of him, persuaded the weak monarch to cede Guienne and Ponthieu to his son, Prince Edward, the King of France promising to content himself with receiving homage from the young man. The Prince of Wales therefore followed his mother into France. But in vain did the king await the return of his wife and son, the queen was continually delaying; at length, she haughtily declared that her life was not safe in England and that the Despencers were plotting against her and her son.

King Edward, astounded, defended himself as well as he was able, causing all the prelates in England to write and reassure the queen; but she would not be convinced, and when King Charles the Beautiful, tired, no doubt, of the bad conduct of Isabel, and of the injunctions which he received from England, told his sister that he could no longer keep her at his court; she set out, surrounded by the knights who had embraced her cause, the Earl of Kent, her husband's brother, D'Artois, John of Hainault, and, still accompanied by her favorite, Mortimer, she embarked at Dort with a little army of Frenchmen and Brabantines, to land at Orcewell in Suffolk, on the 24th of September. Scarcely had she set foot upon English soil with her son, when, in spite of all the damaging rumors which were afloat concerning her, a large number of knights flocked round her standard. The people were tired of the weakness of King Edward, of the avidity of his favorites, and of the disorder which reigned over the kingdom. When Edward sent and asked for the assistance of the citizens of London, they replied that by their charters they were not obliged to follow him into battle, but that they would be faithful to the king, the queen, and the princes, by closing their gates to the foreigners. Edward was alone with the two Despencers, the Chancellor Baldock and a few knights. {282} Scarcely had he set out for Wales, when the people of London rose, murdered the Bishop of Exeter, who had been elevated by the king to the position of governor, and sent his head to the queen. Edward had halted at Gloucester, whence he had sent old Despencer to defend Bristol; the citizens revolted, and Despencer was compelled to surrender at the discretion of Isabel. She immediately caused him to be executed as a traitor, and the old man's head was exposed to the public sight at Winchester. Hugh le Despencer and Chancellor Baldock, as well as the king, were wandering in the county of Glamorgan, where they had been shipwrecked, after having ineffectually endeavored to take refuge in Ireland. Le Despencer and the chancellor were recognized and arrested. The king immediately surrendered to his enemies, having decided to share the fate of those who loved him, and who were already condemned in anticipation.

Baldock soon died of ill-treatment, and it was necessary to hasten the execution of Hugh le Despencer. He had refused to take any food since his arrest, and he was half dead when he was dragged to the scaffold to suffer the same fate as his father. The Earl of Arundel, who had been at the head of the judges who condemned Lancaster, was beheaded with two of his friends, and their property was given to Mortimer.

The queen had arrived in London, Parliament had just met; and, on the 7th of January, 1327, the Bishop of Hereford, Adam Orleton, Isabel's adviser and able agent, asked this question of the assembly: "Should the father be re-established upon the throne, or ought the son to replace him?" He dwelt upon the weakness, the bad deeds, the treacherous acts of King Edward, and asked the lords to reply on the morrow to his question. {283} The decision was not doubtful. While the barons were pronouncing, in the great hall of Westminster, the fall of Edward II., King of England, the people of London, assembled in crowds at the doors of the palace, loudly demanded his immediate condemnation. Several bishops alone had the courage to speak in favor of the unhappy king, who had not seen a sword drawn nor a bow stretched in his defence: they were insulted, and the Bishop of Rochester was trampled in the mud on leaving the palace. The young prince was proclaimed king by the public voice, and all the peers who were present swore allegiance to him on the spot.

When the queen was informed of the success of all her schemes, she cried bitterly. "Alas!" she said, "they have deposed my husband the king. Parliament has overstepped its authority." These hypocritical tears did not deceive anybody; the young prince, Edward, alone was touched at them. "Do not be afraid, mother," said he, "I will never deprive my father of his crown." A deputation was therefore sent to the poor king, who was a prisoner in Kenilworth Castle. When Edward II. perceived the Bishop of Hereford at the head of the embassadors, he fell to the ground, stricken with grief. The judge who had condemned the two Despencers, Sir William Trussel, advanced in the name of the Parliament, and, taking his turn to speak, told Edward that he was no longer King of England. At the same moment, Sir Thomas Blount, steward of the royal household, broke his baton, renouncing his allegiance to the king. Edward listened without complaining, and without urging anything on his own behalf, simply thanked the Parliament for having recognized the rights of his son. On the 24th of January, 1327, King Edward III. was proclaimed throughout the kingdom. Edward II. was, according to the decree of Parliament, deposed from the throne by the lords and commons, and the power was entrusted to Queen Isabel, who was to administer the affairs of the kingdom for her son, then only fifteen years of age.

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Isabel was herself under the influence of Mortimer. Edward II. being dethroned could not hope to live long. The power of the favorite over the queen became a matter for alarm; several monks preached against him; the Earl of Lancaster, to whose keeping the deposed king had been entrusted, seemed to have conceived a feeling of pity for his prisoner, so the latter was removed to another place. Being consigned to the charge of Lord Berkeley and Sir John Maltravers, he was taken to Bristol, where also the people began to be touched at his fate. Two scoundrels who had been sent to him as gaolers, dragged him out half naked and took him to Corfe Castle. The poor king asked to be allowed to dress himself; some dirty water was brought him in a helmet. Tears rolled down his cheeks. "I have some purer water, in spite of you," he said. A crown of dry herbs had been placed upon his head. At length, moving from place to place, the dethroned monarch was brought to Berkeley Castle, on the river Severn, where an attempt was made to poison him, but without success. At length, one night, the governor of the castle being away, piercing cries were heard, and immediately afterwards all was silent again. The inhabitants of the neighborhood shuddered on hearing them. On the morrow, when the doors were opened, the death of Edward II. was announced, and the country people were admitted to view the corpse of him who had been their king. The expression of agony which rested upon the once handsome features of the unhappy monarch, terrified all who saw it. The body was taken to the abbey of Gloucester and buried soon afterwards; but the people went in crowds to the tomb of this king whom no one had defended during his life-time. {285} The offerings made in his honor at the convent were so considerable that the monks were enabled to add an aisle to their church. This unfortunate monarch, so weak and so frivolous, consistent only in his affection, so harshly abandoned and so cruelly murdered, was not yet forty-three years of age when he expired on the 21st of September, 1327.