Cassell's Illustrated History of England/Volume 1/Chapter 60
CHAPTER LX.
Having concluded peace with Franco, Edward immediately turned his attention to Scotland. Notwithstanding the decisive victory of Falkirk, and the apparent surrender of tho cause by Wallace, the subjugation of that country was far from being effected. There still existed in every quarter a determined spirit of hostility to the English, kept alive by the memory of the recent defeats, and not less so of the preceding triumphs. In 1300 the king made an incursion into Annandaie, which he laid waste, and received tho speedy submission of Galloway. The Scots, who were making zealous efforts to secure assistance from foreign courts, thought it prudent to make a truce, which was ratified in November at Dumfries, and was to continue in force till the summer of the following year. Their applications, however, to the continental courts received but little encouragement. Philip of France, as was to be expected after so recent a pacification with the English monarch, rejected their suit. The only person who seems to have responded to their appeal was the Pope Boniface YIII. He wrote a letter to Edward, entreating him to put an end to his ravages and oppressions in Scotland, and adducing a great number of historical proofs of the ancient and unquestionable independence of that kingdom—proofs with which, no doubt, the Scottish envoys had taken care to supply him. With a singular inconsistency, however, the Pope concluded his letter by asserting that Scotland was, in reality, a fief of the Holy See. This claim, never before heard of, and in utter contradiction to the whole tenor of tho Papal brief, called forth the most earnest reply from Edward, who set about and constructed a catalogue of sovereign claims on Scotland, from the fabled age of Brutus the Trojan, who, he asserted, founded the British monarchy in the days of Eli and Samuel, down to those of King Arthur, the hero of romance rather than of history; concluding with the full and absolute homage done by William of Scotland to Henry II. of England; taking care to omit all mention of the formal abolition of that deed by Richard Cœur-de-Lion, who had frankly pronounced it an extorted one, and therefore invalid. This royal epistle was seconded by a very spirited remonstrance from 104 barons, assembled by tho king's command at Lincoln, who proudly maintained the temporal independence of both the kingdoms of Scotland and England of the see of Rome declaring that they had sworn to defend the king's prerogatives, and that at no time would they permit them to be questioned.
These, or other arguments which do not appear on the face of history, produced a very sudden revulsion in the Papal mind. Boniface soon after wrote to the Scots, exhorting them to cease their opposition to "his dearly beloved one in Christ," King Edward, and to seek forgiveness from God for their resistance to his claims. Edward, thus sanctioned, again advanced into Scotland in the summer of 1301, where he found tho country laid waste before him by the politic Scots, and was obliged to take up his quarters, on tho approach of winter, in Linlithgow, where he built a castle and kept his Christmas. Another truce was entered into the following spring, and the king then left John de Segrave as his lieutenant in Scotland, at the head of an army of 20,000 men. Early in the year 1303, the Scots having appointed John Comyn regent of the kingdom, ho, with Sir Simon Prazer, not contented with maintaining the independence of the northern parts, descended into the southern counties, which Edward imagined were wholly in his power. His general, John de Segrave, marched out to repulse them; and on the morning of the 21th of February, near Roslin, he came up with them. He had divided his army into three sections: the first division, being suddenly attacked by Comyn and Sir Simon Fraser, were speedily routed, and in their flight coming in contact with tho second division, throw that also into confusion, which, however, still made a stout resistance, but was eventually also routed, fell back on tho third division, and communicated its disorder to them; so that the whole force was completely put to flight, and pursued with heavy loss. The English commander himself was taken prisoner, being dangerously wounded in the very first encounter. Sixteen knights and thirty esquires were found amongst the captives, including the brother and son of the general. It is reported that the Scots were compelled to slaughter a great number of their prisoners, in order to engage with safety the successive bands that they came up with. They boasted of thus achieving three victories in one day. The éclat of this brilliant action turned the popular tide at once in their favour. The people everywhere came forward to assist them. The regent very soon made himself master if all the fortresses in the south, and once more the country was lost to the English.
This sudden and complete prostration of all his ambitious hopes, and reversement of his victories, effectually aroused the martial king. He assembled a great army, supported by a formidable fleet; and by rapid marches, at the head of his hosts, he appeared before Roxburgh on the 21st of May, and reached Edinburgh on the 4th of June. His progress was marked by the most terrible devastation. He came upon the devoted country like a lion exasperated by wounds of tho hunters. No foe could be found able to resist him, and he ravaged tho open country, and laid in ruins the towns and villages, his fleet supplying his destroying forces with abundant provisions.
Having made a short pause in Edinburgh, to leave all secure there, he again advanced, with desolating speed and vengeance, through Linlithgow and Clackmannan to Perth, and thence to Aberdeen, and so on to Moray. He posted himself in the great and strong fortress of Lochendorb, situated on an island in the midst of a Morayshire loch; and there he remained till the autumn, employed in subduing and receiving the homage of tho great Highland chiefs. "Tradition," says Tytler, "still connects the ruins of Lochendorb, after the lapse of more than 500 years, with tho name of the great English king." On his return southward ho met with a stout resistance from the strong castle of Brechin, defended by Sir Thomas Maule, which was only compelled to open its gates to the conqueror after the death of its valiant commander. The victorious king took up his quarters for the winter at Dunfermline. He was careful this time not to withdraw to England, even during tho inactivity of the season, nor to trust the great charge of a kingdom's safety to any deputy. His soldiers are said to have amused themselves during this time in destroying the magnificent abbey of the Benedictines; "a building," says Matthew of Westminster, "so spacious, that three kings, with all their retinues, might have been conveniently lodged there." The remains of this noble abbey, including the parish church, still attest its original splendour; and the Scots regarded it with high veneration as the resting-places of no less than eight of their ancient kings, and five of their queens.
The last remains of the army of Scotland assembled to defend the castle of Stirling, that being the only stronghold which now remained in Scottish hands; but they were speedily dispersed by the English cavalry. Soon after this, Comyn, the regent and chief commander of the forces, came in and made his submission to the royal commissioners at Strathorde, in Fifeshire; and his example was followed by all the nobility. These, with a few exceptions, as Wishcart, Bishop of Glasgow, Sir John Foulis, the Steward, and a few others, were allowed to retain their lives and lands, subject only to such penalties and terms of banishment as the king might choose to impose. During Lent a Parliament was held at St. Andrews, when Sir William Wallace, Sir Simon Frazer, and the governor of Stirling, were summoned to surrender themselves on penalty of outlawry, if failing to appear. All these persons, not even excepting Frazer, accepted tho terms offered to them. The brave Sir William only refused to put himself into the power of the English king, except on a written assurance of life and estate, signed and sealed by the monarch himself; and his caution was at once justified by the event, for the king, on hearing this, cursed Wallace and all who supported him, and set a reward of 300 marks upon his head. The brave patriot had for a time escaped from the snare, and once more retreated to his hiding-places in the forest of Dunfermline.
Edward now turned his whole attention to the reduction of the castle of Stirling. This royal fortress, placed like an eagle's eyrie on its precipitous rook, was defended by one of the most stout-hearted men of Scotland, Sir William Oliphant, with the insignificant garrison of 140 men; yet, for about three months, that is, from the 22ud of April to the 20th of July, did they withstand the whole force of the English king. Edward directed all the operations against it in person, and brought a number of engines which throw immense stones and darts upon it. He sent to England to collect all kinds of missiles, which were discharged against the place; but it was not yielded till the garrison was reduced to the extremity of famine, and the building to a mass of ruins. They were then compelled to surrender at discretion, for the ruthless conqueror would grant no other terms; and the brave defenders wore obliged to solicit pardon and their lives on their knees—all circumstances of great humiliation. Their lives were given them, but they were sent to the Tower of London and other dungeons. On marching out, it was found that thirteen ladies, wives and sisters of the gallant officers, had shared the perils and hardships of the siege. Stirling reduced, there wanted only one other surrender to complete the triumph of Edward—that of Wallace, the man who has made his name and the noblest patriotism synonymous to all time. Edward made every exertion, and offered high rewards for his apprehension. One Haliburton, a soldier of the late garrison of Stirling, so far showed his unworthiness to share in the glory of the late siege as to lend himself to this base purpose. Sir William was surprised and conveyed to the castle of Dumbarton. There Sir John Monteith was the commander; and Hume, following the traditions of the time, has accused Sir John of having been the betrayer of Wallace, whom he represents as his friend, and to whom he had made known his retreat. This foul accusation, however, has been clearly refuted by succeeding historians; and, indeed, it does not appear how tho governor of the castle, in the service of the English king, could be in a position to act the traitor towards him. The calumny may have arisen from the invidious duty which Sir John, as a Scotchman, was under the necessity of performing—that of retaining the prisoner in his charge, and conveying him to London.
Sir William Wallace, whose bravery and magnanimity deserved a very different treatment at the hands of a brave and martial king, was carried to London in chains as a traitor, though he had never acknowledged Edward as his sovereign, and owed him no fealty. In Stow, the London annalist, we can still perceive the sensation which the arrival of this famous warrior as a captive created in the metropolis. Crowds were assembled to gaze on him. He was conducted on horseback to Westminster by Sir John Segrave, late governor of Scotland, by the mayor, sheriffs, and aldermen of London, accompanied by other gentlemen; and in Westminster Hall he was insulted by being crowned with laurel when placed at the bar, because he had been reported to have said that ho ought to be crowned there. He was condemned as a traitor, and executed, with every circumstance of ignominy, at the Elms in West Smithfield, on the 23rd of August, 1305. To this place he was drawn at the tails of horses; and, after being hanged on the gallows, while he yet breathed, his bowels were taken out and burnt before his face. His head was then struck off, his body divided into quarters, one of which was sent to be exposed at Newcastle, another at Berwick, a third at Perth, and the fourth at Aberdeen; his head being stuck on a pole on London Bridge. So much did they in that day fail to perceive the everlasting infamy attendant on the unworthy treatment of the nobles of our race—the intrepid defenders of the liberties of their country. The barbarous policy of the English king produced the very results that he sought to prevent. The whole Scottish nation resented with inexpressible indignation this disgraceful outrage perpetrated on their national hero. Everywhere the people burned with fury against England, and were ready to rise at the call of some surviving patriot.
Such a man was not long in presenting himself. Robert Bruce had not forgotten the words of fire which Wallace had addressed to him across the Carron as he was in slow and reluctant retreat from tho battle of Falkirk. He remembered how he had called upon him to come forth from crouching to tho tyrant; to come forth from servile submission to a glorious independence; to remember the royalty of his birth, the dignity of his family, tho genius and tho energies which God and nature had conferred upon him, and the profound responsibility which these had laid him under to his country. Ho recalled the majestic figure of that illustrious man as he bade him behold tho glorious prize which Heaven itself had set before him, the most glorious which could possibly be awarded to man—that of ending the sufferings of his country; that of converting its groans, its tears of blood and shame, into cries of exultation, and of placing his native laud on the firm basis of national independence.
The last spur was now given to the spirit of Brace. The words of Wallace to him were now become so many sacred commands. Wallace had declared that while he himself lived, it should only be to defend the liberties of his people; and he prayed that his life might terminate when he was reduced to wear the chains of the tyrant. He had been compelled to wear them by treason, and he had perished in his greatness. No indignities, no attempted humiliations, could pluck from him the sublime immortality of the martyr—the beautiful halo of a nation's homage. The die was cast for Robert Bruce. The spirit of Wallace had fallen upon him; henceforth he must spurn the blandishments of the English king, and tread the same path to death or victory.
And, indeed, Bruce had much to risk as well as to aspire to. His father had remained to the last attached to the English interests. On his death, in 1304, Edward had fully invested him with all his hereditary rights, titles, and estates, both in England and Scotland. He had all that the most ambitious nobleman could desire, short of the crown itself. For that crown, the host of conflicting and, for the most part, unworthy competitors had afforded him at least plausible ground for standing aloof and leaning towards the English power which held them in chock. He had accordingly been honoured when other of the greatest men of the realm had been fined, mulcted, and punished. He had been entrusted with considerable commands; amongst others, with the important fortress of Kildrummie, in Aberdeenshire. But now things were come to such a pitch between the English king and his country, that there could be no longer any wavering in the bosom of a true man. Edward appeared resolved to reduce Scotland to the condition of a conquered province. If he setup a nominal king in place of the imbecile Baliol, it would be Comyn, whom he regarded as a traitor. It was time to reveal himself as his country's champion.
Edward having once more finished his work of subjugation, and all Scotland lying prostrate at his feet, he now set to work about the important task of so modelling the government and administration of the country that it should most completely remain in his grasp as a permanent portion of his realm. For this purpose he appointed a council, so called, of the Scottish nation. This was to consist of two bishops, two abbots, two earls, two barons, and two representatives of the boroughs, who were to assemble in London, and to sit, in conjunction with twenty commissioners of the English Parliament, to frame a constitution for the conquered territory. But this council, as was intended, carried things with a high hand against the people of Scotland. It cleared away all the Scottish laws and customs at a sweep, and substituted English ones in their stead. It destroyed all ancient monuments which perpetuated the spirit of nationality. Whatever histories or records had escaped the former search of the king were now ruthlessly destroyed; and the work of utterly rooting out the Scottish name and institutions was going on, when the whole was suddenly brought to a stand by a fresh and more determined insurrection.
The resolve of Bruce to throw off all disguise and declare himself openly for his country had been accelerated by the treason of Comyn; and six months had scarcely passed over the bloody relics of Wallace when the Scots were up in arms again, round the champion he had himself invoked to assume that post. In June, 1305—two months before the execution of Wallace—it appears that Bruce had made a secret compact with William de Lamberton, the Bishop of St. Andrews, of mutual aid and support. This contract, still preserved in the Annals of Lord Hailes, had for its ultimate object the claims of Bruce on the crown. Comyn had come by some means to the knowledge of this league; had pretended to join in it, but had betrayed it to the king. Bruce was marked for duo vengeance by Edward, who only waited for an opportunity also to seize his three brothers, resident in Scotland. But, through the friendship of the Earl of Gloucester, the son-in-law of the king, Bruce was apprised of his danger by the earl sending him a pair of gilt spurs and a purse of gold, under pretence that he had borrowed them of him. Bruce caught the meaning of the device, and resolved to escape at once. To this purpose, tradition says, he had his horse shod backwards, so as to deceive those who might attempt to trace his route, for the ground was then covered with snow. Bruce arrived safely in a few days at his castle of Lochmaben, in Annandale, the chief seat of his family; and here he found, fortunately, a great number of the Scottish nobility assembled, and in the midst of them no other than John Comyn, his professed friend, but treacherous, secret foe. If ho had wanted any evidences of the perfidy of this man, he had them now in his pocket; for on the way thither from town he had met a courier bearing letters from Comyn to King Edward, urging the absolute necessity of his instant death or imprisonment. This man he slew, on the principle "that dead men tell no tales, and carry no messages;" and the fatal secret now in his possession presents us with a certain clue to the motive of a much more startling act which he perpetrated soon after.
Death of Comyn
Wallace Crowned with Laurel in Westminster Hall. (See page 329)
Certain that this harangue, which electrified the whole assembly, would be transmitted without delay to London, he followed Comyn, on the dissolution of the party, into the cloisters of the Minorites at Dumfries, and ran him through the body. Hurrying from the convent, he cried, "To horse!" and Sir Roger Kirkpatrick, one of his attendants, seeing him greatly agitated, demanded whether the traitor was slain. "I doubt so," replied Bruce. "You doubt!" exclaimed Kirkpatrick; "I will make sure;" and so saying, he rushed into the monastery, stabbed the Comyn to the heart, and killed also his kinsman. Sir Robert Comyn, who strove to defend him. From this circumstance the Kirkpatrick family adopted the crest of a bloody hand holding a dagger, and the motto, "I make sicker."
The die was now cast. There was no retreat, no reconciliation after that terrible deed. Bruce called his staunchest friends hastily around him; they were few, but devoted spirits. The Bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow, the Abbot of Scone, the four brothers of Bruce, his nephew Thomas Randolph, his brother-in-law Christopher Seton, and some ten or twelve young men, gathered at the call. Bruce flew in various directions, exciting his countrymen to arms. He attacked and defeated the English, took some of their forts, and drove them from the open country.
Edward, on receiving this news, at once prepared to take signal vengeance on the insurgents, and this time to give the nation such a castigation as should effectually quell its spirit. Not waiting for his own slower movements, he sent on Aymer de Valence, the Earl of Pembroke, with a small army, to check the spread of the disaffection. He met with Bruce near Methven, in Perthshire, on the 19th of Juno, and falling on his forces by surprise, ho put them utterly to the rout. Bruce was three times unhorsed in the battle, and escaped with the greatest danger. His friends the Earl of Atholl, Simon Frazer, and Sir Christopher Seton, were taken prisoners and executed. Amongst the prisoners was also his nephew Randolph. His wife and his daughter Marjory having left the fortress of Kildrumraie, were seized by the Earl of Ross in the sanctuary of St. Duthac, at Tain: the knights who attended them were put to death, and they themselves were sent to England, where they remained prisoners eight years. His brother Nigel, much beloved by the people, was compelled to surrender Kildrummie, and was also hanged and afterwards beheaded Berwick, with many other knights and gentlemen. He himself with great difficulty made his escape into the mountains of Atholl, with about five hundred followers, the sole remnant of the army with which he had hoped to redeem Scotland. For many months he and this little band wandered amongst the hills in the utmost wretchedness, destitute of shelter, and often of food. A price was set upon their heads; their enemies, the Comyns, infuriated by the slaughter of their chief, and now in the ascendant as allies of England, pursued them with vindictive rage, driving them farther and farther into the labyrinth of the hills. On reaching the borders of Argyll, they encountered the Lord of Lorn, who had married an aunt of the Comyn, at the head of 1,000 men, and who occupied a narrow defile. A desperate conflict took place, and Bruce and his followers narrowly escaped extermination. Finally, Bruce found means to pass over to the Isle of Rachrine, on the north coast of Ireland. Here was a reverse terrible and complete enough to have extinguished the hopes of all but a true hero. His forces defeated, destroyed, or dispersed; his wife and daughter captive; his brother and most of his chief men taken and executed; himself a fugitive; the English king still lord paramount in Scotland. All readers are familiar with the story of the spider which Bruce saw in a moment of his deepest depression—a moment when he was nearest to despair, and which rekindled his hope and ardour, by six times failing in its attempt to raise itself to the roof of the hut under which he lay, but accomplishing its object on the seventh essay. But it is not so generally known that such was his distress of mind, and the hardships he endured after the battle of Methven, that he was affected by a scorbutic disorder, then styled leprosy. Mr. Train informed Sir Walter Scott that Bruce was, according to tradition, benefited by drinking the waters of a well about a mile north of the town of Ayr—thence called "King's Ease;" that, in grateful memory of this, and of the immortal hero of his time. Sir William Wallace, he built eight houses for lepers round the well, to whom and their successors he left a stated allowance of oatmeal and £28, Scottish money, per annum; and that this institution remained so long as the family of Wallace existed there, when the property was purchased by the town of Ayr, and its proceeds devoted to the poor.
Whatever was the momentary despondency and misery of Bruce, he passed over from Rachrine early in the spring of 1307, in order to make one more effort far the expulsion of the English. His followers, on landing on the Carrick coast, near his ancestral castle of Turnberry, amounted only to 300; and he was there nearly betrayed by the unexplained lighting of a fire upon a hill, the very signal which ho had agreed upon if it were safe to approach. As he drew near the landing-place, he was met by the information that the English were in full possession of Carrick, and Lord Percy, with a strong garrison, held Turnberry Castle. Bruce was thunderstruck at the intelligence; but making a sudden attack on a party of English that lay close at hand, he created a momentary panic, and, under advantage of that, made good his retreat into the mountains. The war became desultory and undecided; and two of Bruce's brothers, Thomas and Alexander, as they were bringing over a band of Irish adventurers to his assistance, were taken prisoners by Duncan M'Dowal, a chief of Galloway, and, being conducted to King Edward, were instantly ordered for execution.
Fortune still continued to pursue Bruce He could only preserve himself by hiding in the hills and wastes of Galloway, till, on the 10th of May, he succeeded at London Hill in completely defeating the Earl of Pembroke. Three days after, he again defeated the English under the Earl of Gloucester, and pursuing them, to the castle of Ayr, there besieged them.
Meantime Edward had been advancing by slow marches northward. Though it is not distinctly stated by the historians, there is little doubt that his health was giving way at the time that he first received the news at Winchester. Ho had immediately sent off the Earl of Pembroke, and prepared to follow himself. He knighted his son, the Prince of Wales, with great pomp and ceremony, preparatory to his taking part in the expedition, who, in turn, knighted, on the 22nd of May, 270 young men of noble family. At the feast given on this occasion, in the Palace of Westminster, Edward made a solemn vow to God to avenge the death of Comyn, and punish the insurgent Scots; and at this time he conjured his son, and the whole company, in the event of his death, to keep his body unburied until this vow was accomplished. Thus he had the probability of death in his thoughts at the outset of this expedition, and ho advanced in it with the tardiness of a sick man. While Bruce was spending the winter at Rachrine, he was passing it in severe illness at Lanercost. It was the commencement of July when he arrived at Carlisle, where the news of Bruce's fresh successes, and the defeat and close besiegement of his generals, had the effect of rousing his irritable temperament to a desperate effort. He threw aside the litter in which he had hitherto travelled, mounted his horse, and having reached, on the 7th of that month, the village of Burgh-upon-Sands, he sank completely exhausted, with his latest breath, and with a tenacity of purpose characteristic of the man, enjoining his successor, through the ministers who surrounded him, never to cease his efforts till he had thoroughly subjugated Scotland.
Thus terminated this remarkable man his remarkable career, in the sixty-ninth year of his age, and the thirty-fifth of his reign. Since the days of Richard I. there had been no martial monarch of equal bravery and ability; since those of the Conqueror, none who had the same genius for civil administration and the framing of laws and institutions which gave not only a character to his own times, but to the ages which came after him. Hume does not hesitate to assert that "the enterprises of this prince, and the projects which he formed and brought near to a conclusion, were more prudent, more regularly conducted, and more advantageous to tho solid interests of his kingdom, than those which wore undertaken in any reign, either of his ancestors or successors." However we may be disposed to modify this praise in regard to what Edward actually carried out, there can be no question that his perception of tho vast advantages which would result to every part of the island from its consolidation into one kingdom was evidence of a great and comprehensive genius; and the ardour, based on an indomitable spirit of perseverance, with which he pursued that great end, is equal evidence of a mind, not only of the clearest acumen, but of the loftiest qualities of human nature. He succeeded in winning to the English nation, and amalgamating with it for ever, the principality of Wales; and if he failed in effecting tho annexation of Scotland, it was only through being actuated more by the military spirit of the times than by those moral and political influences which later generations have discovered to be the most prevailing. It was beyond the intellectual horizon of the age to aim at the union of the kingdoms by the careful demonstration of those greater mutual advantages, and of the infinitely expanded capabilities of glory and power to Britain, as a whole, which were applied successfully four centuries afterwards.
By seeking to accomplish the union of England and Scotland by the forces most familiar to the spirit of that era—that is, by the power of arms and numerical ascendancy—his scheme, grand and beneficent in itself, necessarily failed. The plea was premature; it existed in the nature of things, but it lacked that philosophical regard to national character and feeling, and that tone of mutual forbearance, which it required centuries yet to ripen. The rude idea of bearing down a brave and high spirited people by armed power and arbitrary will necessarily irritated those on whom the attempt was made; and it thou became a question of moral forces, and of the natural, defences of the country, whether it should succeed. It succeeded in Wales, though after a brave resistance, because there was no proportion betwixt the extent and the physical resources of the two countries. It failed in Scotland, because the areas of the two contending kingdoms, though greatly unequal, were yet more approximate; and because the martial qualities and spirit of proud independence had been long fostered in Scotland by the arduous contests of different clans and parties. The Scotch were a hardy and an heroically brave people, with their magnificent mountains at their back; and, in their struggles with the ponderous power of England, discovered an invincible vigour, not only of resistance, but of resilience. Though hurled violently to the earth time after time, they rose, Antæus-like, as if with augmented strength and freshness. While the two nations, therefore, heated by contest and the savage warfare of that age, learned to hate one another with a vigorous and long-continuing hatred, they learned also to know each other's strength, and inwardly to respect it. Therefore, after the battle of Bannockburn, English dreams of the subjugation of Scotland began to wane, and though there still were many and bloody wars between the two nations, there ceased to exist on either side the hope of conquest by more force of arms.
In these conflicts, good as well as evil was elicited, and the bravery and spirit of dominion which distinguish united Great Britain no doubt draw a large amount of their life from the mutual struggles and rivalries of the two peoples. In the very attempts, therefore, of Edward to add Scotland to the kingdom by force, as he did Wales, he may be said to have laid the foundation of much of the common greatness of the nation; but from incidental causes arising out of his military attempts, both in Scotland and France, and still more from his directly constructive talent and wisdom, we owe to him much which we are apt to lose sight of in the blaze of his ways and expeditions. He was as remarkable for his sturdy maintenance of the laws as for his military ambition. Simple and frugal himself, he was ever ready to support useful enterprises. He was liberal of his treasuries on such occasions. Easy and affable to his courtiers and dependents, he was yet severe in restraining licence and punishing offenders. His fine person and skill in military exercises made him popular with the people, when he did not press too heavily on them by his expensive wars; and thus, relying on his sense of justice, they were not backward in expressing their opinions, as we have seen. Though he was extremely cruel to the Jews—a feature of his character springing from the prejudices of his age—and often forgot the magnanimity of a great monarch in his resentment against those who successfully thwarted his plans, as in the case of Sir William Wallace and others, his sense of justice in his calmer moments and in his peaceful pursuits was so great that he not only encouraged an honourable administration of the laws, but he corrected and amended them, and added so many new ones, in accordance with the progress of society, that he has been termed the English Justinian, Sir Edward Coke, in his "Institutes," says that the statutes passed in his reign were so numerous and excellent, that they actually deserved the name of establishments, being more constant, standing, and durable than any made from his reign to the time of that great lawyer; and Sir Matthew Hale pays him the like compliment, declaring that down to his own day they had scarcely received any addition. He was the first to establish justices of the peace. He repressed robberies, and encouraged trade by giving merchants an easy method of recovering their debts. He abolished the office of chief justiciary, which he thought possessed too much power. He divided the court of exchequer into four distinct courts, each attending to its own branch, and independent of any one magistrate, while the several courts became rivals, not checks to each other; a circumstance tending greatly to improve the practice of law in England.
The grand obstacle to the impartial execution of justice in those times was the power of the groat barons. These despots he strove to overawe and restrain; but while aiming at this, he at the same time allowed them to entail their estates, and thus preserved to them that influence in the constitution of the country which the aristocracy have ever since maintained. He has the honour, too, of being the first Christian prince who put a stop to the alarming absorption of the landed property of the country by the clergy, setting bounds to it by passing a statute of mortmain. In this, however, he was avowedly actuated by his wish to prevent the diminution of feudal services and emoluments, which became extinguished when lands passed from the laity to the Church. But, to compensate the clergy, he was the first to allow the levy of first-fruits.
Far greater, however, were the innovations which this monarch introduced into the British constitution—innovations of the mighty influence of which he could form no conception. He was the father and originator of the Parliament of England. Before his time the barons had met the sovereign to determine on peace or war, and to consent to the raising of the necessary funds. But Edward had occasion to make such frequent and extensive demands on his barons, that ho frequently found them daring to reject his calls for money, and refusing even his summons to war, as in the case of Bohun, Earl of Hereford, and Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, who positively declined to follow him to his campaign in Flanders. The obvious means of at once creating a counterbalancing power to this overgrown one of feudal chiefdom, and of replenishing his coffers, was to elevate the people of the towns, who had now advanced to a considerable degree of wealth. His father had sought to supply the diminution of revenue and power which had occurred from the great feudal barons gradually, by one means or other, freeing themselves from their obligations, through summoning to Parliament the lesser barons and knights. Henry III. had made it an occasional practice to allow these lesser noblesse to choose a certain number of their order in each county to represent their whole body; hence our knights of shires. Edward established this as a fixed and uniform practice, and he wont further. He had been obliged, for his expedition into Poitou and the repression of the Welsh, to levy no less than a sixth of all the movables from the laity, and a moiety of all ecclesiastical benefices. He saw clearly this necessity must often recur if he prosecuted his great designs of national aggrandisement, and he resolved to summon the representatives of all the boroughs to Parliament. Here, then, we have the origin of our House of Commons; and we come, in this fact, upon one of the greatest epochs in our national history. This great event took place in the year 1295, in the twenty-third year of Edwards I.'s reign, and is a date that should be for ever memorable.
The words of the preamble of the writ, by which this new power in the state was called into existence, are truly remarkable, and indicate a principle of liberal equity in the mind of the king worthy of a British monarch. "It is a most equitable rule," says this document, "that what concerns all should be approved of by all, and common dangers be repelled by united efforts."
But no party whatever had at the time the slightest idea of the unparalleled importance of this innovation; of what a tree lay in this small acorn of popular life; what a colossus in this constitutional embryo. The king, with all his sagacity, did not grasp it in its full Titanic bulk and multiplicity of bearing; he was looking rather at his own necessities. The barons certainly did not, or they would have opposed it with all their power. Least of all did the people themselves comprehend the act which was calling them from the borders of serfdom to become the ruling power in the nations, the artificers and foster-fathers of the world's civillisation. It was to them the new birth from slavery, degradation, and contempt, into life, liberty, and greatness. Yet they shrank from it as a burdensome imposition, a repulsive duty. The people who resided in the country under the great barons still were treated as a very inferior class, and with much of that haughty rudeness and injustice which marked the earlier ages of Norman feudality. Those who had escaped into towns, and devoted themselves to trade, had acquired many privileges in comparison with those who still tilled the soil. They were endowed with liberty to trade; boroughs wore erected by royal patent, in which they were empowered to farm their own tolls and customs, to elect their own magistrates, and were freed from any attendance on the sheriffs or county courts. But they still bore about with them the traces of the iron of serfdom, which for so many ages had entered into their souls. They were rude in dress, in manners, and little enlightened on matters beyond their own immediate sphere. The people of London, as was seen when Edward attempted to impose on them in regard to the charter, were much in advance of the inhabitants of other towns, who retained a deep sense of their own humility, and a dread of the feudal lords.
When, therefore, representatives were called for from their body to attend Parliament, every one shrank from the appointment. They heard with consternation of their election; and it was found necessary, says Brady, in his "History of Boroughs," for the aldermen and councils of the towns to take sureties from these deputies of the people for their due attendance. To them a journey to London at that day was a most formidable enterprise, both from the perils and toils of the way and the great expense. Their charges were therefore borne by the respective corporations. They had so little idea of the honour or benefit of appearing as legislators, that they regarded the function as destitute of both profit and repute. They knew that they should be looked on with scorn, if not direct insult, by the great lords with whom they had to assemble. And, in fact, these proud men, both barons and knights, disdained to mix with so mean a throng as they regarded them. They compelled them to sit apart; and these unhonoured legislators were glad to hasten away and get them home again the moment they had voted the necessary sums.
Little were these primeval commoners aware of what they were to grow into; that within 300 years they would rise to be virtually and avowedly the chief power of the state; that they would not only hold the purse-strings of the nation, but would have called before them, arraigned, condemned, and executed the very monarch of the realm on a charge of high treason against the people; that, having given a fresh trial to this monarch's family, they would, on finding it incurably despotic, have driven its representative from the throne, and issued a new national charter, under the title of a Bill of Rights, declaring that the people were the source of all power. The contempt of the aristocracy, compelling them to sit apart, was the deciding cause of their becoming a distinct house—the House of the Commons; and this House of Commons has risen, in about four centuries and a half—though still too neglectful of its great powers—to the noblest position of any senate which the world ever saw, its words listened to by the proudest kings as most potent for peace or war, and felt in every region of the earth as the hope of the enslaved, the terror of the despot, the central citadel of civilisation and freedom. Thus, the English House of Commons can point to a history as glorious as its origin was humble.
Yet even in the time of the first Edward the vigour inherent in the people began to manifest itself in these their representatives. As the royal necessities continued to increase, and the king's demands for money and men to become proportionably heavy, the Commons plucked up courage, and began, though not allowed to legislate, to present petitions of their grievances. To these petitions the king, from perceiving his dependence on the growing wealth and resources of this class, was obliged to listen with attention and at least external respect. With his growing difficulties these petitions became more frequent and more bold in tone. They wore referred to the judges, and, when sanctioned by them, were submitted to the king, and frequently to the barons, and eventually became laws. Here was the young lion beginning to feel his strength and to put it forth, had the upper classes and the court been able to see it; but it yet came forward in too modest a shape. This power was next greatly augmented by the knights of the shires being, as a representative and not an hereditary body, removed from the baronial assembly, and by the king appointed to moot with the other representative class—that from the boroughs. This common feature of delegation made the transition natural and easy. The knights and country gentlemen made now no scruple to assemble with the burgesses of the towns on this common principle, and all distinction was soon lost in the lower house, which thenceforth assumed a place and dignity worthy of its functions, impose the taxes on their own order. This great king was 500 years in advance of the legislators of the reign of George III., who lost an empire rather than admit the doctrine that there should be no taxation without representation. He not only voluntarily avowed the principle, but immediately acted upon it.
Tomb of Eleanor, Queen of Edward I., in Westminster Abbey.
There was another institution which arose simultaneously with the House of Commons, and from precisely the same causes, the king's necessities and his admirable sense of political justice. Ho was obliged to levy contributions from the clergy; and he deemed it absolutely necessary that, as a body, they should also fiend up representatives to an assembly of their own to clergy, for the first time in English history, therefore, met by delegation as a lower house of convocation.
Yet Edward was not so liberal where his own prerogative was concerned; and this reign presents tho narrative of a great contest for the confirmation of the Great Charter of the nation, and tho lesser charter, that of the forests. In both cases, however, the king was compelled to give way, and under him the Great. Charter was finally and fully established. From that day, whatever might be the arbitrary encroachments on the liberties of the people, whether it were the erection of the Star Chamber, imprisonment by warrants from the Privy Council, martial law, or practices of a similar stamp, these have always been looked upon as violations of the constitution; and the validity of the Great Charter as the basis of English government, and the sure touchstone of every act of government, has never since been formally disputed.
All these circumstances marked the reign of Edward I. as one of the most important in our history. The organic principles which he introduced into our constitution struck deep and indestructible roots there, and have, by their permanent and progressive operation, made us in a great measure, as a nation, what we are.
Marriage of Edward II. and Isabella of France.
Edward had a numerous family by his two wives, but a great many of his children died in their infancy. By his first wife, Eleanor of Castile, Edward, his heir and successor, was the only son, out of four, who survived him. Of eleven daughters by the same queen, four only appear to have lived. Joan was married, first to the Earl of Gloucester, and after his death to Ralph do Monthermer. Margaret married John, Duke of Brabant. Elizabeth married first, John, Earl of Holland; and secondly, the Earl of Hereford. Mary was Abbess of Ambresbury. By his second wife, Margaret of France, ho had a daughter who died in infancy, and two sons—Thomas, created Earl of Norfolk and Mareschal of England; and Edmund, made Earl of Kent by his brother, Edward II.