Every Scot whom Edward caught he would hang as a traitor (Wallace was hanged in 1305), which was quite a new practice in foreign or even in civil war, wherein there had been a great deal of ‘live and let live’ on either side. Like other narrow and upright men, Edward failed to see that those who resisted him could be as upright as himself. Yet he was such a good soldier and so patient that he had very nearly finished off the conquest of all Southern Scotland when he died on his last campaign in 1307. ‘Carry my bones into battle against them,’ were his last instructions, ‘and on my tomb carve “Edward, the hammer of the Scots”.’ Robert Bruce, King of Scotland, 1306.But it was too late; Scotland had just found a deliverer in Robert Bruce, a baron of Norman descent, who was crowned at Scone in 1306 as King Robert I.
Edward I’s Parliaments.Great as a warrior and imperialist, Edward was even greater as a lawgiver and organizer. All his laws obtained the full sanction of the now regularly constituted ‘House of Lords’. The House of Commons generally met at the same time, and was made up of over two hundred borough-members and seventy-four knights of the shire. It had, at first, no share in the law-making, but it constantly petitioned in favour of particular laws. The clergy, after a short struggle, preferred not to be represented in Parliament except by their bishops and great abbots, who sat with the Lords; but Edward allowed them to keep two assemblies called ‘Convocations’, one in the Archbishopric of Canterbury and one in that of York. These bodies voted taxes for the clergy to pay, just as Lords and Commons voted them for the laymen to pay.
His Law-giving.The House of Lords also became the chief law court to which you could ‘appeal’ from all the three ‘com-