Chapter X (1)

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.