Chapter 35

It was a period of very considerable learning among the studious among the clergy in all countries, and every art of peace was making rapid progress in England, under the fostering care of the King and Queen. No sovereign was more respected in Europe than Edward; his contemporary, Dante, cites him as an instance of a gallant son of a feeble parent: and he was often called on as the arbiter of disputes, as when the kings of Arragon and France defied each other to a wager of battle, to take place in his dominions in Southern France, which combat, however, never took place. He was a most faithful and affectionate husband and indulgent father, and the household rolls afford evidences of the kindly intercourse between him and his numerous daughters, judging by the interchange of gifts between them. Eleanor, the eldest, who as princess could only give a gold ring, when Duchesse de Bar brought as a Christmas-gift a leathern dressing-case, containing a comb, a mirror silver-gilt, and a silver bodkin, so much valued by the King that he kept them with him as long as he lived.

Joan of Acre, a wilful, lively girl, was wedded when very young to her father’s turbulent friend, Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester; Margaret was married, at fifteen, to the Duke of Brabant; and Mary was devoted to the cloister. She became a nun of Fontevraud at the priory Ambresbury, in accordance with the exhortations of the clergy to her parents; but there was not much vocation to the cloister in her disposition, and she was as often present at court pageants as her secular sisters. The Abbess of Fontevraud would fain have had the princess among her own nuns, but Mary resisted, and remained in the branch establishment, probably by exerting her influence over her father, who seems seldom to have refused anything to his children.

Stern in executing his duty, gentle to the distressed, most devout in religious exercises, pure in life, true to his word, a wise lawgiver, and steady in putting down vice, Edward seemed to be well deserving of the honor of being the nephew of St. Louis, and to be walking in his footsteps, but with greater force of character and good sense. The Holy Land was still the object of his thoughts, and he had serious intentions of attempting to rescue it, with forces now more complete and better trained than those which he had drawn together in his younger days. His views of this kind were strengthened by a serious illness, and he announced his determination to take the Cross.

But in the twentieth year of Edward’s reign came his great temptation. Ambition was the latent fault of his character, and a decision was brought before him that placed a flattering prize within his grasp. He yielded, and seized the prey; injustice, violence, anger, and cruelty followed, promises were violated, his subjects oppressed, his honor forfeited, and his name stained. From the time that Edward I. gave way to the lust of conquest, his history is one of painful deterioration.

It was unfortunate for him that, at the very time that the lure was held out to him, he was deprived of the gentle wife whose influence had always turned him to the better course. Eleanor of Castile was on her way to join him on his first expedition to the Scottish border, when she fell sick at Grantham, in Lincolnshire; and though he travelled day and night to see her, she died before his arrival, on the 29th of November, 1292. In overwhelming grief Edward accompanied her funeral to Westminster, a journey of thirteen days. Each evening the bier rested in the market-place of the town, where the procession halted, till the clergy came to convey it with solemn chantings to the chief church, where it was placed before the high altar. At each of these resting-places Edward raised a richly-carved market cross in memory of his queen; but, of the whole thirteen, Northampton and Waltham are the only towns that have retained these beautiful monuments to the gracious Eleanor, one of the best-beloved names of our English history.

CAMEO XXXIV. THE HAMMER OF THE SCOTS. (1292-1305.)

_King of England_. 1272. Edward I.

_King of Scotland_. 1292. John Balliol.

_King of France_. 1285. Philippe IV.

_Emperors of Germany_. 1292. Adolph. 1298. Albert I.

_Popes_. 1287. Nicholas IV. 1291. Boniface VIII. 1294. Celestine V. 1303. Benedict XI.

The gallant line of Scottish kings descended from “the gracious Duncan” suddenly decayed and dwindled away in the latter part of the thirteenth century. They had generally been on friendly terms with the English, to whom Malcolm Ceanmore and Edgar both owed their crown; they had usually married ladies of English birth; and holding the earldom of Huntingdon, the county of Cumberland, and the three Lothians, under the English crown, they stood in nearly the same relation to our Anglo-Norman sovereigns as did these to the kings of France. If France were esteemed a more polished country, and her language and manners were adopted by the Plantagenet kings, who were French nobles as well as independent sovereigns of the ruder Saxons, so, again, England was the model of courtesy and refinement to the earlier Scottish kings, who, in the right of inheritance from St. David’s queen, Earl Waltheof’s heiress, were barons of the civilized court of England, where they learnt modes of taming their own savage Highland and island domains.

Thus, with few exceptions, the terms of alliance were well understood, and many of the Cumbrian barons were liegemen to both the English and Scottish kings. Scotland was in a flourishing and fast-improving condition, and there was no mutual enmity or jealousy between the two nations.

Alexander III. was the husband of Margaret, the eldest sister of Edward I., and frequently was present at the pageants of the English court. He was a brave and beloved monarch, and his wife was much honored and loved in Scotland; but, while still a young man, a succession of misfortunes befell him. His queen died in 1275, and his only son a year or two after; his only other child, Margaret, who had been married to Eric, Prince of Norway, likewise died, leaving an infant daughter named Margaret.

Finding himself left childless, Alexander contracted a second marriage with Yolande, daughter of the Count de Dreux; and a splendid bridal took place at Jedburgh, with every kind of amusements, especially mumming and masquing. In the midst, some reckless reveller glided in arrayed in ghastly vestments, so as to personate death, and after making fearful gestures, vanished away, leaving an impression of terror among the guests that they did not quickly shake off--the jest was too earnest.

Less than a year subsequently, Alexander gave a great feast to his nobles at Edinburgh, on the 15th of March, 1286. It was a most unsuitable day for banquetting, for it was Lent; and, moreover, popular imagination, always trying to guess the times and seasons only known to the Most High, had fixed on tins as destined to be the Last Day.

But the Scottish nobles feasted and revelled, mocking at the delusion of the populace, till, when at a late hour they broke up, the night was discovered to be intensely dark and stormy. King Alexander was, however, bent on joining his queen, who was at Kinghorn--perhaps he had promised to come to calm her alarms--and all the objections urged by his servants could not deter him. He bade one of his servants remain at home, since he seemed to fear the storm. “No, my lord,” said the man, “it would ill become me to refuse to die for your father’s son.”

At Inverkeithing the storm became more violent, and again the royal followers remonstrated; but the King laughed at them, and only desired to have two runners to show him the way, when they might all remain in shelter.

He was thought to have been “fey”--namely, in high spirits--recklessly hastening to a violent death; for as he rode along the crags close above Kinghorn, his horse suddenly stumbled, and he was thrown over its head to the bottom of a frightful precipice, where he lay dead. The spot is still called the King’s Crag.

Truly it was the last day of Scotland’s peace and prosperity. Thomas of Ereildoune, called the Rymour, who was believed to possess second sight, had declared that on the 16th of March the greatest wind should blow before noon that Scotland had ever known. The morning, however, rose fair and calm, and he was reproached for his prediction. “Noon is not yet gone!” he answered; and ere long came a messenger to the gate, with tidings that the King was killed. “Gone is the wind that shall blow to the great calamity and trouble of all Scotland,” said Thomas the Rymour--a saying that needed no powers of prophecy, when the only remaining scion of the royal line was a girl of two years old, the child of a foreign prince, himself only eighteen years of age.

The oldest poem in the Scottish tongue that has been preserved is a lament over the last son of St. David.

“When Alysander, our king, was dead, That Scotland led in love and lee, Away was sons of ale and bread, Of wine and wax, of game and glee; Our gold was changed into lead. Christ, born in to virginity, Succour Scotland, and remede That stead is in perplexity.”

The perplexity began at once, for the realm of Scotland had never yet descended to the “spindle,” and the rights of the little “Maid of Norway” were contested by her cousins, Robert Bruce and John Balliol, two of the Cumbrian barons, half-Scottish and half-English, who, though their claims were only through females, thought themselves fitter to rule than the infant Margaret.

Young Eric of Norway sent to entreat counsel from Edward of England, and thus first kindled his hopes of uniting the whole island under his sway. “Now,” he said, “the time is come when Scotland and her petty kings shall be reduced under my power.” The Scottish nobles came at the same time to request his decision, which was readily given in favor of the little heiress, whom he further proposed to betroth to his only son, Edward of Caernarvon; and as the children were first cousins once removed, he sent to Rome for a dispensation, while Margaret sailed from Norway to be placed in his keeping. Thus would the young Prince have peaceably succeeded to the whole British dominions; but the will of Heaven was otherwise, and three hundred years of war were to elapse before the crowns were placed on the same brow.

The stormy passage from Norway was injurious to the tender frame of the little Queen: she was landed in the Orkney Isles, in the hope of saving her life, but in vain; she died, after having scarcely touched her dominions, happy in being spared so wild a kingdom and so helpless a husband as were awaiting her.

Twelve claimants for the vacant throne at once arose, all so distant that it was a nice matter to weigh their several rights, since the very nearest were descendants of Henry, son of St. David, five generations back.

The Scots agreed to refer the question to the arbitration of one hitherto so noted for wisdom and justice as Edward I. They little knew that their realm was the very temptation that was most liable to draw him aside from the strict probity he had hitherto observed.

He called on the competitors and the states of Scotland to meet him at Norham Castle on the 10th of May, 1291, and the conference was opened by his justiciary, Robert Brabazon, who, in a speech of some length, called on the assembly to begin by owning the King as Lord Paramount of Scotland.

It had never been fully understood for how much of their domains the Scottish kings did homage to the English, and the more prudent princes had avoided opening the question, so that there might honestly be two opinions on the subject. Still Edward was acting as the King of France would have done had he claimed to be Paramount of England, because Edward paid homage for Gascony, and he ought to have known that he was taking an ungenerous advantage of the kingless state of his neighbors.

They made answer that they were incapable of making such an acknowledgment; but Edward answered, “Tell them that by the holy St. Edward, whose crown I wear, I will either have my rights recognized, or die in the vindication of them.”

He gave them three weeks to consider his challenge, but in the meantime issued writs for assembling his army; and thus left the more quietly-disposed to expect an invasion, without any leader to oppose it; while each of the twelve claimants could not but conceive the hope of being raised to the throne, if he would consent to make the required acknowledgment.

Accordingly, they all yielded; and when the next meeting took place at Hollywell Haugh, a green plain close to “Norham’s castled height,” the whole body owned Edward as their feudal superior; after which the kingdom of Scotland was delivered over to him, and the great seal placed in the joint keeping of the Scottish and English chancellors.

In the following year, on the 17th of November, the final decision was made. Nine of the claimants had such frivolous claims, that no attention was paid to them, and the only ones worth consideration were those derived from David, Earl of Huntingdon, the crusading comrade of Coeur de Lion, and son of Henry, son of St. David. This Earl had left three daughters, Margaret, Isabel, and Ada. Margaret had married Allan of Galloway, and John Balliol was the son of her only daughter Devorgoil. Isabel married Robert Bruce, and her son, Robert, Earl of Carrick, was the claimant; and Ada had left a grandson, Florence Hastings, Earl of Holland.

A baron leaving daughters alone would divide his heritage equally among them, and this was what Hastings desired; but Scotland was pronounced indivisible, and he retired from the field. Bruce contended that, as son of one sister, he was nearer the throne than the grandson of the other, although the elder; but this was completely untenable, and Balliol, having been adjudged the rightful heir, was declared King of Scotland, was crowned, and paid homage to Edward.

He soon found that the fealty he had sworn was not, as he had hoped, to be a mere dead letter, as with the former kings. Edward used to the utmost the suzerain’s privilege of hearing appeals from the vassal-prince--a practice never put in force by his predecessors, and excessively galling to the new Scottish King, who found himself fettered in all his measures, and degraded in the eyes of his rude and savage subjects, who regarded him as having given away the honor of their crown. Whenever there was an appeal, he was cited to appear in person at the English court, and was treated, in fact, like a mere feudal noble, instead of the King of a brave and ancient kingdom. Indeed, the Scots called him the “toom tabard,” or empty herald’s coat--a name not unsuited to such a king of vain show.

By and by a war broke out between England and France, and Edward sent summonses to the Scottish barons to attend him with their vassals. It was no concern of theirs, and many flatly refused to come, whereupon he declared them to have forfeited their fiefs, and thus pushed his interference beyond their endurance. John Balliol, their unfortunate King, who was personally attached to Edward, and at the same time greatly in dread of his fierce vassals, was utterly confused and distressed; and finding no help in him, his subjects seized him, placed him in a fortress, under the keeping of a council of twelve, and in his name declared war against England.

Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, to whom his father’s claims had descended, remained faithful to King Edward, who, to punish the rebellion of the Scots, collected an army of 30,000 foot and 4,000 horse, and, with the sacred standards of Durham at their head, marched them into Scotland. Berwick, then a considerable merchant-town, closed her gates against him, and further provoked him by the plunder of some English merchant-ships. He offered terms of surrender, but these were refused; and he led his men to the assault of the dyke, that was the only defence of the town. He was the first to leap the dyke on his horse Bayard, and the place was won after a brave resistance, sufficient to arouse the passions of the soldiery, who made a most shocking massacre, without respect to age or sex.

The report of these horrors so shocked John Balliol, that he sent to renounce his allegiance to Edward, and to defy his power. “Felon and fool!” cried Edward, “if he will not come to us, we must go to him.”

So frightful ravages were carried on by the English on one side and the Scots on the other, till a battle took place at Dunbar, which so utterly ruined the Scots, that they were forced to make submission, and Balliol sued for peace. But Edward would not treat with him as a king, and only sent Anthony Beck, the Bishop of Durham, to meet him at Brechin. He was forced to appear, and was declared a rebel, stripped of his crown and robes, and made to stand with a white rod in his hand, confessing that he had acted rebelliously, and that Edward had justly invaded his realm. After this humiliation, he resigned all his rights to Scotland, declaring himself worn out with the malice and fraud of the nation, which was probably quite true. He was sent at first to the Tower, but afterward was released, lived peaceably on his estates in France, and founded the college at Oxford that bears his name and arms.

The misfortunes endured by this puppet did not deter the Earl of Carrick from aspiring to his seat; but Edward harshly answered, “Have I nothing to do but to conquer kingdoms for you?” and sent him away with his eldest son, a third Robert Bruce, to pacify their own territories of Carrick and Annandale. Edward did nothing without law enough to make him believe himself in the right, and poor Balliol’s forfeiture gave him, as he imagined, the power to assume Scotland as a fief of his own. He caused himself to be acknowledged as King of Scotland, destroyed the old Scottish charters, and transported to Westminster the Scottish crown and sceptre, together with the stone from Scone Abbey, on which, from time immemorial, the Kings of Scotland had been placed when crowned and anointed. All the castles were delivered up into his hands, and every noble in his dominions gave him the oath of allegiance, excepting one, William, Lord Douglas, who steadily refused, and was therefore carried off a prisoner to England, where he remained to the day of his death.

Edward did not come in as a severe or cruel conqueror; he gave privileges to the Scottish clergy, and re-instated the families of the barons killed in the war. Doubtless he hoped to do great good to the wild population, and bring them into the same order as the English; but the flaw in his title made this impossible; the Scots regarded his soldiery as their enemies and oppressors, and though the nobles had given in a self-interested adhesion to the new government, they abhorred it all the time, and the mutual hatred between the English garrisons and Scottish inhabitants led to outrages in which neither party was free from blame.

As Hereward the Saxon had been stirred up against the Norman invaders, so a champion arose who kept alive the memory of Scottish independence.

William Wallace was the younger son of Sir Malcolm Wallace of Ellerslie, near Paisley, one of the lesser gentry, not sufficiently high in rank to be required to take oaths to the English King. William was a youth of unusual stature, noble countenance, and great personal strength and skill in the use of arms, and he grew up with a violent hatred to the English usurpers, which various circumstances combined to foster. While very young, he had been fishing in the river Irvine, attended by a boy who carried his basket, when some English soldiers, belonging to the garrison of Ayr meeting him, insisted on seizing his trout. A fray took place, and Wallace killed the foremost Englishman with a blow from the butt of his fishing-rod, took his sword, and put the rest to flight.

This obliged him to fly to the hills. But in those lawless times such adventures soon blew over, and, a year or two after, he was walking in the market-place of Lanark, dressed in green, and with, a dagger by his side, when an Englishman, coming up, insulted him on account of his gay attire, and his passionate temper, thus inflamed, led to a fray, in which the Englishman was killed. He then fled to the house where he was lodging, and while the sheriff and his force were endeavoring to break in, the lady of the house contrived his escape by a back way to a rocky glen called the Crags, where he hid himself in a cave. The disappointed sheriff wreaked his vengeance on the unfortunate lady, slew her, and burnt the house.

Thenceforth Wallace was an outlaw, and the most implacable foe to the English. In his wild retreat he quickly gathered round him other men ill-used, or discontented, or patriotic, or lovers of the wild life which he led, and at their head he not only cut off the parties sent to seize him, but watched his opportunity for marauding on the English or their allies. There is a horrible story that the English governor of Ayr, treacherously inviting the Scottish gentry to a feast, hung them all as they entered, and that Wallace revenged the slaughter with equal cruelty by burning the English alive in their sleep in the very buildings where the murder took place, the Barns of Ayr, as they were called. The history is unauthenticated, but it is believed in the neighborhood of Ayr, and has been handed down by Wallace’s Homer, Blind Harry, whose poem on the exploits of the Knight of Ellerslie was published sixty years from this time.

The fame of Wallace’s prowess swelled his party, and many knights and nobles began to join him. He raised his banner in the name of King John of Scotland, and, with the help of another outlaw chief, Sir William Douglas, pounced on the English justiciary, Ormesby, while holding his court at Scone, put him to flight, and seized a large booty and many prisoners.

His forays were the more successful because the King was absent in England, and the Chancellor, Hugh Cressingham, was not well agreed with the lay-governor, John de Warrenne, Earl of Surrey. Many of the higher nobility took his side, among them the younger Robert Bruce; but as the English force began to be marshalled against him, they took flight for their estates, and returned to the stronger party. It may have been that they found that Wallace was not a suitable chief for more than a mere partisan camp; brave as he was, he could not keep men of higher rank in obedience. He lived by plunder, and horrible atrocities were constantly committed by his men, especially against such English clergy as had received Scottish preferment. Whenever one of these fell into their hands, his sacred character could not save him; his arms were tied behind his back, and he was thrown from a high bridge into a river, while the merciless Scots derided his agony.

Warrene and Cressingham drew together a mighty force, and marched to the relief of Stirling, which Wallace had threatened. The Scots had come together to the number of 40,000, but they had only 180 horse; and Warrenne had 50,000 foot and 1,000 horse. The Scots were, however, in a far more favorable position, encamped on the higher ground on the bank of the river Forth; and Warrenne, wishing to avoid a battle, sent two friars to propose terms. “Return to your friends,” said Wallace; “tell them we came with no peaceful intent, but determined to avenge ourselves and set our country free. Let them come and attack us; we are ready to meet them beard to beard.”