nation in its former independence. Baliol was carried a prisoner to London, and he carefully destroyed all records and monuments of antiquity that inspired the Scots with a spirit of national pride. 24. These expeditions, however, terminated rather in glory than advantage; the expences which were requisite for carrying on the war, were only burthensome to the king, but even in the event, threatened to shake him from his throne. 25. In order at first to set the great machine in movement, he raised considerable supplies by means of his parliament; and that august body was then first modelled by him into the form in which it continues to this day. 26. As a great part of the property of the kingdom was, by the introduction of commerce, and the improvement of agriculture, transferred from the barons to the lower classes of the people, so their consent was thought necessary for raising any considerable supplies. 27. For this reason he issued writs to the sheriffs enjoining them to send to parliament along with the knights of the shire, (as in the former reign,) two deputies from each borough within their county; and these provided with sufficient powers from their constituents, to grant such demands as they should think reasonable for the safety of the state. 28. One of their first efforts, therefore, was to oblige the king's council to sign the Magna Charta, and to add a clause, to secure the nation for ever against all impositions and taxes, without the consent of parliament. 29. This the king's council (for Edward was at that time in Flanders) readily agreed to sign; and the king himself, when it was sent over to him, after some hesitation, thought proper to do the same. 30. These concessions he again confirmed upon his return; and though it is probable he was averse to granting them, yet he was at length brought to give a plenary consent to all the articles that were demanded of him. 31. Thus, after the contest of an age, the Magna Charta was finally established; nor was it the least circumstance in its favour, that its confirmation was procured from one of the greatest and boldest princes that ever swayed the English sceptre. 32. In the mean time, William Wallace, so celebrated in Scottish story, attempted to rescue Scotland from the English yoke. He was younger son of a gentleman, who lived in the western part of the kingdom. He was a man of gigantic stature, incredi ble strength, and amazing intrepidity; eagerly desirous of independence, and possessed with the most disinterested spirit of pa triotism. 33. To this man had resorted all those who were obnoxious to the English government; the proud, the bold, the criminal, and the ambitious. These bred among dangers and hardships themselves, could not forbear admiring in their leader a degree of patience, under fatigue and famine, which they supposed beyond the power of human nature to endure; he soon, therefore, became the principal object of their affection and their esteem. 34. His first exploits were confined to petty ravages, and occasional attacks upon the English; but he soon overthrew the English armies and slew their generals. 35. Edward, who had been over in Flanders, while these misfortunes happened in England, hastened back with impatience to restore his authority, and secure his former conquests. He quickly levied the whole force of his dominions; and at the head of a hundred thousand men, directed his march to the north, fully resolved to take vengeance upon the Scots for their late defection. 36. A battle was fought at Falkirk, in which Edward gained a complete victory, leaving twelve thousand of the Scots, or, as some will have it, fifty thousand dead upon the field, while the English had not a hundred slain. 37. A blow so dreadful had not as yet entirely crushed the spirit of the Scottish nation; and after a short interval they began to breathe from their calamities. Wallace, who had gained all their regards by his valour, showed that he still merited them more by his declining the rewards of ambition. 38. Perceiving how much he was envied by the nobility, and knowing how prejudicial that envy would prove to the interests of his country, he resigned the regency of the kingdom, and humbled himself to a private station. 39. He proposed Cummin as the properest person to supply his room; and that nobleman endeavoured to show himself worthy of that pre-eminence. He soon began to annoy the enemy and not content with a defensive war, made incursions into the southern counties of the kingdom, which Edward had imagined wholly subdued. They attacked an army of the English lying at Rossin, near Edinburgh, and gained a complete victory. 40. But it was not easy for any circumstances of bad fortune to repress the enterprising spirit of the king. He assembled a great fleet and army, and entering the frontiers of Scotland, appeared with a force which the enemy could not think of resisting in the open field. 41 Assured of success, he marched along and traversed the kingdom from one end to the other, ravaging the open country taking all the castles, and receiving the submission of all the nobles. 42. There seemed to remain only one obstacle to the final destruction of the Scottish monarchy, and that was William Wallace, who still continued refractory; and wandering with a few forces from mountain to mountain, preserved his native independence and usual good fortune. 43. But even their feeble hopes from him were soon disappointed, he was betrayed into the king's hands by Sir John Monteith, his friend, whom he had made acquainted with the place of his concealment, being surprised by him as he lay asleep in the neighbourhood of Glasgow. 44. The king, willing to strike the Scots with an example of severity, ordered him to be conducted in chains to London, where he was hanged, drawn and quartered, with the most brutal ferocity. 45. Robert Bruce, who had been one of the competitors for the crown, but was long kept a prisoner in London, at length escaping from his guards, resolved to strike for his country's freedom. Having murdered one of the king's servants, he left himself no resource, but to confirm by desperate valour, what he had begun in cruelty, and he soon expelled such of the English forces as had fixed themselves in the kingdom. 46. Soon after he was solemnly crowned king, by the bishop of St. Andrews, in the Abbey of Scone; and numbers flocked to his standard, resolved to confirm his pretensions. 47. Thus after twice conquering the kingdom, and as often pardoning the delinquents; after having spread his victories in every quarter of the country, and receiving the most humble submissions, the old king saw that his whole work was to begin afresh; and that nothing but the final destruction of the inhabitants could give him assurance of tranquillity. 48. But no difficulties could repress the arduous spirit of this monarch, who though now verging towards his decline, yet resolved to strike a parting blow, and to make the Scots once more tremble at his appearance. 49. He vowed vengeance against the whole nation; and aver red that nothing but reducing them to the completest bondage could satisfy his resentment. 50. He summoned his prelates, nobility, and all who held by knight's service, to meet him at Carlisle, which was appointed as the general rendezvous; and in the mean time, he detached a body of forces before him to Scotland, under the command of Aymer de Valence, who began the threatened infliction by a terrible victory over Bruce, near Methuen in Perthshire. 51. Immediately after this dreadful blow, the resentful king appeared in person, entering Scotland with his army, divided into two parts, and expecting to find, in the opposition of the people, a pretext for punishing them. But this brave prince, who was never cruel but from motives of policy, could not strike the poor, submitting natives, who made no resistance. 52. His anger was disappointed in their humiliations; and he was ashamed to extirpate those who only opposed patience to his indignation. His death put an end to the apprehensions of the Scots, and effectually rescued their country from total subjection. 53. He sickened and died at Carlisle, of a dysentery; enjoining his son, with his last breath, to prosecute the enterprise, and never to desist, till he had finally subdued the kingdom. He expired July the 7th, 1307, in the sixty-ninth year of his age, and the thirty-fifth of his reign, after having added more to the solid interests of the kingdom, than any of those who went be fore or succeeded him. CHAPTER XIII.-EDWARD II. SURNAMED OF CAERNARVON. 1. EDWARD was in the twenty-third year of his age when he succeeded his father, of an agreeable figure, of a mild, harmless disposition, and apparently addicted to few vices. But he soon gave symptoms of his unfitness to succeed so great a monarch as his father; he was rather fond of the enjoyment of his power, than the securing it; and lulled by the flattery of his courtiers, he thought he had done enough for glory when he had accepted the crown. 2. Instead therefore of prosecuting the war against Scotland, according to the injunctions he had received from his dying father, he took no steps to check the progress of Bruce; his march into that country being rather a procession of pageantry than a warlike expedition. 3. Weak monarchs are ever governed by favourites, and the first Edward placed his affections upon, was Piers Gavestone, the son of a Gascon knight, who had been employed in the service of the late king. 4. This young man was adorned with every accomplishment of person and mind that was capable of creating affection, but he was utterly destitute of those qualities of heart and understanding that serve to procure esteem. 5. He was beautiful, witty, brave, and active, but then he was vicious, effeminate, debauched and trifling. These were qualities entirely adapted to the taste of the young monarch, and he seemed to think no rewards equal to his deserts. 6. Gavestone, on the other hand, intoxicated with his power, became haughty and overbearing, and treated the English nobility, from whom it is probable he received marks of contempt, with scorn and derision. A conspiracy, therefore; was soon formed against him, at the head of which queen Isabella, and the earl of Lancaster, a nobleman of great power, were associated. 7. It was easy to perceive that a combination of the nobles, while the queen secretly assisted their designs, would be too powerful against the efforts of a weak king, and a vain favourite. The king, timid and wavering, banished him at their solicitation, and recalled him soon after. 8. This was sufficient to spread an alarm over the whole kingdom; all the great barons flew to arms, and the earl of Lancaster put himself at the head of this irresistable confederacy. A. D. 1312. 9. The unhappy Edward, instead of attempting to make resistance, sought only for safety. Ever happy in the company of his favourite, he embarked at Tinemouth, and sailed with him to Scarborough, where he left Gavestone, as in a place of safety, and then went back to York himself, either to raise an army to oppose his enemies, or by his presence to allay their animosity, 10. In the mean time, Gavestone was besieged in Scarbo rough by the earl of Pembroke, and had the garrison been sufficiently supplied with provisions, that place would have been impregnable. 11. But Gavestone, sensible of the bad condition of the garrison, took the earliest opportunity to offer terms of capitulation. He stipulated, that he should remain in Pembroke's hands as a prisoner for two months; and that endeavours should be used, in the mean time, for a general accommodation. 12. But Pembroke had no intention that he should escape so easily; he ordered him to be conducted to the castle of Deddington, near Banbury, where, on pretence of other business, he left him with a feeble guard, which the earl of Warwick having notice of, he attacked the castle in which the unfortunate Gavestone was confined, and quickly made himself master of his person. 13. The earls of Lancaster, Hereford, and Arundel, were soon apprised of Warwick's success, and informed that their common enemy was now in custody in Warwick castle. Thither, therefore, they hasted with the utmost expedition to hold a consultation upon the fate of their prisoner. 14. This was of no long continuation; they unanimously resolved to put him to death, as an enemy to the kingdom, and gave him no time to prepare for his execution. They instantly had him conveyed to a place called Blacklow Hill, where a Welsh executioner, provided for that purpose, severed his head from his body. |