But the men of the North met the Southron on equal terms. Less
refined, probably, because less commercial, there was no inferiority in
aught that related to the science of government and the custom of poli-
tical association. The Scottish horse was inferior both in number and
equipment to the baronial chivalry of the south ; but, though over-
whelmed by ' England's arrow-flight,' while the battle was at a dis-
tance, the heavier weapons of the northern infantry seem to have had
the advantage when the fight was hand to hand. Want of mutual con-
fidence and co-operation was the bane of Scotland in the hour of her
depression ; but there never lacked leaders, brave and skilful, even to
her failing cause. Wallace, Douglas, Randolph, the Bruces, were
among the most accomplished officers of their day, and they might
have dictated their own terms as the price of their submission ; yet,
though danger and a bloody death on the scaffold or the field menaced
the holy insurrection, they put all to hazard for the independence of
their country, and, after a long and doubtful struggle, effected their
noble purpose. Edward's first measures for the union of the two coun-
tries had been wise and honourable. He negotiated a marriage be-
tween his son and the heiress of Scotland, and the treaty had been
concluded on terms satisfactory to both nations, when the whole
scheme was rendered vain by the death of the princess. Edward,
however, was not content to have his favourite object thus defeated,
and he pressed steadily and unscrupulously forward to its attainment.
The power of England was not only physically and economically
greater than that of Scotland, but her strength was concentrated under
the command of an able and politic monarch, while the energies of the
latter were exhausted in domestic broils, and misapplied by dishonest
counsels. At least a dozen claimants were clamouring for the crown,
and in evil hour Edward was made the referee, a measure which might
have been the result of mere timidity, but which has marvellously
the aspect of treacherous compact. It forms no part of our plan
assuredly it was none of Edward's to settle the question of personal
right, in the controversy of Bruce and Baliol ; it is quite enough to
observe, that when the sovereignty was awarded to the latter, the king
of England exhibited a much more accurate knowledge of individual
character, than disinterested regard for the well-being of the nation
which had chosen him as umpire. 2 He availed himself of the occasion
to set up the most extravagant claims, and a large concession of feudal
rights gave him a solemn investiture as seezerain of Caledonia. 3 The
parchment king took the oath of fealty, and kept it so long as there
was no temptation to break it : but in 1295, an opportunity offering of
alliance with France, he listened to bolder counsels, and forwarded to
England a formal renunciation of his fealty. Edward received the
document with stern contempt. " Does the senseless traitor play the
fool after this fashion ? If he come not to us, we will go to him."
His general, the earl Warenne, gained the decisive battle of
Dunbar; Baliol surrendered, and military possession was taken of
" Heming, I. 30. ' Rym. II. 512 530.
PERIOD.] EUWAHU I. Ol.>
the northern kingdom. In the meantime, the war with France
was ill conducted by the English leaders, and Edward himself land-
ed in Flanders, but the farther prosecution of hostilities was termi-
nated by a truce, and the Scots were left to their own resources.
This state of things would, probably, have remained for some time
undisturbed, but for the rigour and rapacity of the men to whom the
management of the king's affairs in Scotland had been committed.
It was attempted to oppress as a conquered nation, a brave and
high-spirited people, and that selfish and dastardly policy met with its
just reward. A man one of that class which never finds a congenial
field of action, but in the agony of nations stood boldly forward in
vindication of his injured country. Opposed or imperfectly aided by a
jealous nobility, William Wallace was constrained to rely on his own
exertions, and on such help as might be obtained by his own popularity
and by the sanctity of his cause. Strong both in mental anil bodily
frame, he was equal to all emergencies; and if his actions were not al-
ways under the direction of a mild and regulated morality, if he were
sometimes sanguinary and vindictive, his excuse, so far as it may be
permitted to extenuate, is to be found in the circumstances of his country
and the temper of his times. His exploits, on a smaller scale, were ro-
mantic and almost uniformly successful; by his skilful dispositions, and
the strange infatuation of the enemy, he gained a great victory at Stir-
ling; and when irretrievably defeated at Falkirk, it was from no defect
in his plans or dispositions, they were perfect, but treachery betrayed
his movements and crippled his manoeuvres. Yet, though Edward in
person commanded against him, not even the presence and personal ex-
ertions of that great master in the art of war, could prevent him from
effecting a soldierly retreat. This was in 1298 ; seven years afterward,
Wallace, who had never ceased to harass the enemies of his nation,
was betrayed to his pursuers. His death was by the hangman's hand,
with all the bloody circumstance of a traitor's condemnation ; and the
treachery of the false friend who guided his captors, with the mean and
barbarous revenge which doomed the patriot to a felon's fate, have con-
signed to infamy the names of Monteith and King Edward.* Still Scot-
land, though crushed, was not subdued; the unconquerable spirit of
freedom kept alive a dubious and exhausting conflict ; and the remainder
of Edward's reign was wasted in the ineffectual struggle. A greater
than Wallace took the field, and the royal Bruce commenced that series
of bold and well-conducted efforts which gave, in the event, indepen-
dence to his country, and a crown to himself. The treachery of
Comyn, its home charge upon the traitor by Bruce, the fierce and in-
sulting denial, Bruce's hasty dagger, and the ' Mak sicker' of Kirkpa-
trick, were the turning point of a course of history scarcely rivalled in
romantic interest and glorious achievement.
This exhibition of the character of Edward's principal antagonists
was necessary for the thorough illustration of his own. Those remark-
able individuals tasked the utmost efforts of his power, and but for their
opposition it is impossible to guess how widely his ambition might have
ranged; he was not, however, a man to dissipate his strength by multi-
plying his objects, and he adressed himself with intense and undivided
. 4 West. 451 Stow, 409 Fordun, Bocco, Buchannn, Blind Marry, passim.
316 POLITICAL SERIES. [TulRD
purpose to the conquest of Scotland. All the ' pomp, pride, and cir-
cumstance' of chivalry were displayed in the preparations, and at length
he poured on the Scottish frontier the full tide of war. No effective
opposition could be anticipated, since the small army of Bruce had been
ruined by the fatal result of an attempted camisade at Perth. But a
mightier hand arrested the invader on his path. His health had long
been failing, and on the 6th of July 1307, in the 69th year of his age,
and the 35th of his reign, 5 he died at Burgh on the Sands, " in sight,"
says Lord Hailes, " of that country which he had devoted to destruction."
Edward's reign was, notwithstanding the pecuniary exactions conse-
quent on an almost unceasing state of war, on the whole, beneficial to
England. His fiscal necessities constrained him to important political
concessions; reluctantly, however, and with an ill grace, did he make
them, nor were they confirmed until after the persevering employment
of every possible method of evasion. In truth, his character admitted
the smallest possible portion of the magnanimous. Without fear, and
without weakness, he was also destitute of those relentings of our com-
mon nature, without which resolution becomes obstinacy, and justice
degenerates into brutal revenge. He has been called, by a strange
confusion of cause and effect, the English Justinian, and it is admitted
that during his reign great improvements were made in both the system
and the administration of law. The ecclesiastical courts were shorn of
their injurious privileges, and abridged of their usurpations; the secular
tribunals were reformed, and their distinct jurisdiction ascertained by
specific definition. The courts of assize were regulated; the police of
the realm was made more efficient; justices of the peace were made
permanent; entails were secured; the practice of sub-infeudation was
done away; the abuses of mortmain were restrained. Yet of all these
salutary enactments, but a slender proportion is due to the sagacity or
patriotism of the monarch. They were the work of parliament, with
the king they were considered as mere ways and means. Edward was
the huckster of reform, and rated his concessions to his people at the
value of gold : he had a tariff of constitutional amendments, and each of
them was duly and securely taxed. He haggled with his parliament,
tried all methods of raising his price, and tasked his ingenuity to get the
highest charge for the smallest possible abatement of prerogative.
With all his faults, however, Edward was a splendid prince. If he
were not like the Alfreds and the Charlemagnes, an outrunner of his
age, he was at least one of its brightest ornaments. He had no taste
for the mere trappings of royalty, his crown was worn on his coronation
day, and then laid aside, his dress was simple, and his habits of life
temperate. His munificence was kingly, and he was steady in his at-
tachments. His domestic conduct was exemplary: son, husband,
father in all these relations he was worthy of the highest admiration.
He persecuted the Jews, it is true, but in that day it was esteemed a
virtue to heap insults and exactions on that doomed race; yet Edward
was no bigot, and the expulsion from a commercial country, of an en-
tire caste of active merchants and extensive capitalists, was a measure
of which the impolicy did not altogether escape the shrewd and ob-
servant even of that ill-informed period.
Rym. ii. 1059-
Pinion.] 317
BORN A. D. 1284 DIED A. D. 1327.
IF the brilliant reign of the first Edward have tempted us somewhat
beyond our assigned limits, we may conveniently allow ourselves to trim
the balance by a more cursory review of the inglorious rule of his de-
generate son. His was the reign of favourites ; to them and to his
caprice he sacrificed his tranquillity, his kingdom, and his lite. As
heir-apparent he had, by his excesses, repeatedly provoked the repre-
hension of his father. His companion, from a very early age, had been
Piers de Gaveston, the son of a knight of Gascony, and with this youth
he ran a wild and profligate course, until the king, shortly before his
death, banished the injurious associate, under oath from his son never
to recall him. 1 The oath was kept so long as violation was impossible,
but its obligation was forgotten or rejected when he assumed the crown.
Gaveston returned, and with him came revelry, splendour, waste, po-
verty, exaction, remonstrance and rebellion. Few kings have ascended
the throne under circumstances more promising. Prepossessing in ex-
terior, vigorous and active in frame, and, it should seem, with enough
of intellectual quickness to have carried him through the easy task of
royal representation with dignity and grace, the waywardness of his
temper, and the perverse obstinacy of his self-will, neutralized all these
advantages, involved him in perpetual storms, and at last left him hope-
lessly stranded. Never was any human being so utterly reckless of
appearances and consequences in the childish determination to have his
own way. In the indulgence of his capricious preferences he outraged
the law, insulted his nobles, alienated his queen, and oppressed his
people. His first step was prophetic : the recall of Gaveston gave true
indication of his character, and he never either contradicted or retrieved
the folly of that weak and unseasonable act. He lavished on his rapa-
cious favourite, honours and treasure ; dismissed or imprisoned his fa-
ther's faithful ministers, and suspended the invasion of Scotland for
which a formidable and expensive armament had been prepared. Nor
did Gaveston bear his faculties meekly. At the coronation he assumed
the place of honour and precedency ; shamed wealth and nobility in his
dress and personal attendance ; contemned the petition of the barons for
his immediate exile ; and having, by his address in the tournament, un-
horsed several noblemen of the highest rank, in his pride and petulance
laughed them to scorn. His enemies, however, were too powerful,
and his banishment was decreed ; yet even this overwhelming opposi-
tion did the infatuated Edward strive to evade by appointing him to the
viceroyalty of Ireland.
Edward's accession was in 1307 ; early in the following year he mar-
ried Isabel of France, one of the loveliest women of her time; and the
exercise of a slender portion of common sense and rectitude of principle
might have made him happy and respected. All, however, wa* in vain ;
his pride and petulance were not to be controlled, and every tiling was
put to the risk for that one wretched bauble on which he had set Ida
1 Rym. ii. 1043.
318 POLITICAL SEIUES. [Tmiui
heart. Partly by cajolery, partly by violence, Gaveston, after a brief
absence, was brought back, but neither had learned wisdom: the mi-
serable game of haughtiness and outrage, concession and resumption
was played over again, until affairs became desperate. The barons
armed, and, after appointing a council of peers, under the name of
Ordainers, for the redress of grievances, Gaveston concealed himself,
re-appeared, was forced into banishment, returned, until at length ex-
asperation reached its height, war was levied against the king and his
minion, and the latter perished in the strife. He appears to have been
by no means destitute of eminent qualities, and a discreet conduct and
courteous demeanour might have enabled him to maintain his position ;
but he was vain and unprincipled, it was impossible to trust him, and
he fell the victim of his own incurable folly. Edward was outrageous
in his grief and anger ; he resisted strenuously the demands for an am-
nesty ; but the barons were in arms, and he was compelled to yield.
Gaveston was beheaded in June 1312 ; in October, pardons general
and particular, were issued under the sign-manual.
In the meantime Bruce had been availing himself to the utmost of
the opportunities given him by these injurious dissensions. By a series
of gallant and well-managed enterprises, he gained possession of the
principal fortresses of his kingdom, and pressed so closely the siege of
Stirling, that the governor agreed to surrender if not relieved before
the feast of John the Baptist. On the eve of that festival the army of
Edward appeared in sight, and, on the 24th of June 1314, was fought
the decisive battle of Bannockburn, an illustrious instance of the supe-
riority of intellect over force. The advantage of numbers was greatly
on the side of Edward ; but the Scots were under the direction of the
ablest officers of the age. Bruce commanded, and he was seconded by
Randolph and Douglas. Nothing could be finer than the position and
arrangement of the Scottish army, and throughout the battle not an error
seems to have been committed : the defensive system was maintained un-
til its utmost effect had been produced, the stratagems of war were skil-
fully and seasonably employed, and at the critical moment a bold offen-
sive movement completed the success. On the other side nothing could
be more miserably handled than the English army on that day : there
was no presiding genius, the subordinate commanders were rash, and
the attack was made without support or simultaneousness, no provision
had been made for retreat, and all was dispersion and utter rout. Ed-
ward displayed courage in the fight, but his escape was difficult, and
tried to the utmost the speed of his horse. The gain of this great
battle encouraged the Scots to make strenuous efforts for the conquest
of Ireland, but they were unsuccessful, and the death in battle near
Dundalk, in October 1318, of the gallant Edward Bruce, left the
English in undisputed possession.
During three years after the battle of Bannockburn, famine and pes-
tilence afflicted England, and that unhappy country seemed to be given
up to an accumulation of miseries. The king and his most powerful
nobles were at variance ; desire of revenge filled his breast, and distrust
of his intentions prompted their movements, while the Scots, taking ad-
vantage of these dissensions, pushed their inroads to the Humber and
the Tyne ; they took Berwick, and an attempt by Edward to retake it
failed. In the meantime the king, untaught by experience, was renew-
PKRIOD.] KDW.MID u. C19
ing his former fault, and attaching himself to a new favourite, who, in
his turn, renewed the errors of Gavcston, and distinguished himself by
his haughtiness and rapacity. Hugh lo Despenser anglicised to Spen-
ser was the name of the individual who now became, c.r ojfit-io, an ob-
ject of hatred to the barons. They rose in arms, proscribed the Spen-
sers, father and son, insulted the queen, and opened a correspondence
with the Scots. This time Edward was successful, and he gratified his
revengeful disposition by the execution of his most obnoxious adver-
saries.
This victory over domestic insurrection was followed by a truce with
Scotland, and it might have been hoped that an interval of quiet might
have allowed the country a breathing-space from its disasters. But lid-
ward was the lord of misrule, and his administration was doomed to
misfortune. The king of France invaded Guienne ; conspiracies were
frequent and alarming ; and the escape of Lord Mortimer from the
tower of London set loose the most formidable of the conspirators.
Calamity was now hastening on, and the credulity of Edward lent it
speed. He suffered himself to be deluded into a fatal snare, devised,
it is probable, by Mortimer, who had found an asylum with the king
of France, Charles IV., brother of Edward's queen. It was the first
object of this subtle man to obtain possession of the prince-royal, and
for that purpose he intrigued successfully. Isabel left England for her
brother's court, where she became the mistress of Mortimer, and they,
soon after, on a specious pretence, persuaded Edward to send over the
young prince. Measures were now taken for an invasion of England,
and, in September 1326, Mortimer and the queen landed in Suffolk
with an armed force. The king was friendless ; his capital rejected
him, and he fled to Wales. His enemies pursued him without respite:
the elder Spenser surrendered at Bristol, and died the bloody death as-
signed to traitors ; his son soon after underwent the same fate* The
tragedy was now hastening to its conclusion : the crown was declared
forfeited, and Edward of Carnarvon was nominally succeeded by Ed-
ward of Windsor, while the real power was exercised by Mortimer and
Isabel. 2 But one step more remained, and this strange complication of
folly, fraud, and violence was completed in September 1327, by the
murder of the king. His character has been already sufficiently illus-
trated, and we need not swell our pages by further exposition. There
is, however, one event which occurred in his reign, which, though but
slightly connected with his personal character, it were improper to pass
without mentioning : The order of the Knights Templars, established
in 1118, originally poor, had become powerful and immensely rich.
Their wealth was, probably, their crime ; the pope and the king of
France, Philip the Fair, seized upon their persons and dissolved the or-
der : they were persecuted unrelentingly, and many of them suffered a
cruel death. In England they were more leniently treated ; they were
not injured in person, but their property was transferred to the Knight-
Hospitallers. 3
Feed. i. 600. * Slat, at larto, \. A pp. 23.
320 POLITICAL SERIES. [THIRD
of
DIED A. D. 1322.
AMONG Edward's English nobles, the most powerful was Thomas,
the grandson of Henry III., who united in his single person the five
earldoms of Lancaster, Lincoln, Leicester, Salisbury, and Derby. He
was the eldest son of Edmond, surnamed Crouchback, the favourite son
of Henry III. Edward had received from his father a large portion of
the forfeited estates of the rebellious barons, and many other magnifi-
cent donations : he had also obtained valuable grants from his brother,
Edward I., and his mother, Eleanor. Two successive marriages, first
with Aveline, sole heiress of the earl of Albemarle, who, dying with-
out issue, bequeathed to him the whole of her vast possessions, and
next with Blanche of Artois, daughter of Henry Lacy, earl of Lincoln,
had vastly augmented Edmond's already extensive possessions, and this
accumulation of wealth and power was turned against the crown by his
descendants. The confederate barons, while concerting measures for
the overthrow of the hated Gaveston, placed themselves under the
leadership of Thomas Plantagenet, Edmond's eldest son, now the first
prince of the blood, and by far the most potent nobleman in the king-
dom. He headed the armed barons who presented themselves in the
parliament at Westminster, and extorted from their intimidated sover-
eign an order for the immediate banishment of the man whom he most
delighted to honour. Upon Gaveston's return to England, he raised
and led on the army, which, for a time, set the royal power at defi-
ance, and wielded the destinies of the kingdom ; and when that unfor-
tunate minion was doomed to expiate his manifold offences against the
haughty nobility of England on the scaffold, the spot selected for his
execution was fixed within the jurisdiction of the earl of Lancaster,
who alone, of all the conspirators, dared to brave the highest resentment
and indignation of his sovereign. 1 In the negotiations which followed
betwixt the king and his nobles, the earl of Lancaster still acted the
most conspicuous and important part ; and when a pacification was at
last concluded betwixt the two parties, the approbation of Lancaster
and his chief associates, who were absent at the time, was specially
stipulated for by the rest.
In 1316, when, yielding to the necessities of his situation, Edward
consented to the execution of the ' ordinances,' as they were called,
and submitted to the other conditions imposed upon him by the predo-
minating faction, the earl of Lancaster was appointed chief of the
council, as well as commander-in-chief of the expedition then prepar-
ing against Scotland. On this occasion, the earl accepted the presi-
dentship on three conditions : That he should be allowed to resign if
the king refused to follow his advice ; that nothing of consequence
should be done till he had been consulted ; and that unprofitable coun-
sellors should be removed, from time to time, by authority of parlia-
ment. These terms were entered at his demand on the rolls. 2 These
stipulations were wise and prudent ; but the influence of the royalists,
1 Walsing. 101. T. dela More, 593. * Rot. Parl. i. 352.
PKRIOD.] THOMAS, EARL OP LANCASTKH. .'}21
notwithstanding, prevailed to such an extent, that Lancaster hesitated
to attend the rendezvous at Newcastle previous to the inroad upon
Scotland, and absented himself likewise from two successive Hirelings
of parliament. In justification of this conduct, he alleged hi* know-
ledge of a clandestine correspondence betwixt Edward and the Scottish
monarch, and of designs having been formed against his own life by
his enemies at court. Whatever truth there might be in either of these
allegations, it is certain that the popular party hung together by ties of
so slender a nature, that a breath of suspicion might dissolve them.
There were always men found willing to link their own fortune to that
of their sovereign ; and if the influence of Lancaster had been even
more predominating than it was, there existed a source of dissension in
his own family, which must have gone far to weaken his hands in so
turbulent a period. His countess, Alice, only child of Henry, earl of
Lincoln, who had brought her husband an immense accession of pro-
perty, being the greatest heiress in the kingdom, appears to have lived