England Under Edward The First

England Under Edward The First, Called Longshanks

Author: Dickens, Charles

Chapter XVI.

It was now the year of our Lord 1272; and Prince Edward. the heir to the

throne, being away in the Holy Land, knew nothing of his father's death. The

barons, however, proclaimed him king, immediately after the royal funeral; and

the people very willingly consented, since most men knew too well by this time

what the horrors of a contest for the crown were. So King Edward the First,

called, in a not very complimentary manner, Longshanks, because of the

slenderness of his legs was peacefully accepted by the English nation.

His legs had need to be strong however long and thin they were; for they

had to support him through many difficulties on the fiery sands of Asia, where

his small force of soldiers fainted, died, deserted, and seemed to melt away.

But his prowess made light of it; and he said, "I will go on, if I go on with

no other follower than my groom!"

A prince of this spirit gave the Turks a deal of trouble. He stormed

Nazareth, at which place, of all places on earth, I am sorry to relate, he

made a frightful slaughter of innocent people; and then he went to Acre, where

he got a truce of ten years from the Sultan. He had very nearly lost his life

in Acre, through the treachery of a Saracen noble, called the Emir of Jaffa,

who, making the pretence that he had some idea of turning Christian, and

wanted to know all about that religion, sent a trusty messenger to Edward,

very often, - with a dagger in his sleeve. At last, one Friday, in

Whitsun-week, when it was very hot, and all the sandy prospect lay beneath the

blazing sun, burnt up like a great overdone biscuit, and Edward was lying on a

couch, dressed for coolness in only a loose robe, the messenger, with his

chocolate-colored face and his bright dark eyes and white teeth, came creeping

in with a letter, and kneeled down like a tame tiger. But the moment Edward

stretched out his hand to take the letter, the tiger made a spring at his

heart. He was quick, but Edward was quick too. He seized the traitor by his

chocolate throat, threw him to the ground, and slew him with the very dagger

he had drawn. The weapon had struck Edward in the arm, and, although the

wound itself was slight, it threatened to be mortal, for the blade of the

dagger had been smeared with poison. Thanks, however, to a better surgeon

than was often to be found in those times, and to some wholesome herbs, and,

above all, to his faithful wife, Eleanor, who devotedly nursed him, and is

said by some to have sucked the poison from the wound with her own red lips

(which I am very willing to believe), Edward soon recovered and was sound

again.

As the king his father had sent entreaties to him to return home, he now

began the journey. He had got as far as Italy, when he met messengers who

brought him intelligence of the king's death. Hearing that all was quiet at

home, he made no haste to return to his own dominions, but paid a visit to the

pope, and went in state through various Italian towns, where he was welcomed

with acclamations as a mighty champion of the cross from the Holy Land, and

where he received presents of purple mantles and prancing horses, and went

along in great triumph. The shouting people little knew that he was the last

English monarch who would ever embark in a crusade, or that within twenty

years every conquest which the Christians had made in the Holy Land, at the

cost of so much blood, would be won back by the Turks. But all this came to

pass.

There was, and there is, an old town standing in a plain in France,

called Chalons. When the king was coming towards the place on his way to

England, a wily French lord, called the Count of Chalons, sent him a polite

challenge to come with his knights and hold a fair tournament with the count

and his knights, and make a day of it with sword and lance. It was

represented to the king that the Count of Chalons was not to be trusted, and

that, instead of a holiday-fight for mere show and in good humor, he secretly

meant a real battle, in which the English should be defeated by superior

force.

The king, however, nothing afraid, went to the appointed place on the

appointed day with a thousand followers. When the count came with two

thousand, and attacked the English in earnest, the English rushed at them with

such valor, that the count's men and the count's horses soon began to be

tumbled down all over the field. The count himself seized the king round the

neck; but the king tumbled him out of his saddle in return for the compliment,

and, jumping from his own horse and standing over him, beat away at his iron

armor like a blacksmith hammering on his anvil. Even when the count owned

himself defeated, and offered his sword, the king would not do him the honor

to take it, but made him yield it up to a common soldier. There had been such

fury shown in this fight, that it was afterwards called the little battle of

Chalons.

The English were very well disposed to be proud of their king after these

adventures; so, when he landed at Dover in the year 1274 (being then

thirty-six years old), and went on to Westminster where he and his good queen

were crowned with great magnificence, splendid rejoicings took place. For the

coronation feast there were provided, among other eatables, four hundred oxen,

four hundred sheep, four hundred and fifty pigs, eighteen wild boars, three

hundred flitches of bacon, and twenty thousand fowls. The fountains and

conduits in the street flowed with red and white wine instead of water; the

rich citizens hung silks and cloths of the brightest colors out of their

windows to increase the beauty of the show, and threw out gold and silver by

whole handful to make scrambles for the crowd. In short, there was such

eating and drinking, such music and capering, such a ringing of bells and

tossing of caps, such a shouting and singing and revelling, as the narrow

overhanging streets of old London City had not witnessed for many a long day.

All the people were merry, - except the poor Jews, who, trembling within their

houses, and scarcely daring to peep out, began to foresee that they would have

to find the money for this joviality sooner or later.

To dismiss this sad subject of the Jews for the present, I am sorry to

add that in this reign they were most unmercifully pillaged. They were hanged

in great numbers, on accusations of having clipped the king's coin, - which

all kinds of people had done. They were heavily taxed; they were

disgracefully badged; they were, on one day, thirteen years after the

coronation, taken up with their wives and children, and thrown into beastly

prisons, until they purchased their release by paying to the king twelve

thousand pounds. Finally, every kind of property belonging to them was seized

by the king, except so little as would defray the charge of their taking

themselves away into foreign countries. Many years elapsed before the hope of

gain induced any of their race to return to England, where they had been

treated so heartlessly and had suffered so much.

If King Edward the First had been as bad a king to Christians as he was

to Jews, he would have been bad indeed. But he was, in general, a wise and

great monarch, under whom the country much improved. He had no love for the

Great Charter, - few kings had, through many, many years, - but he had high

qualities. The first bold object which he conceived when he came home was to

unite under one sovereign, England, Scotland, and Wales; the two last of which

countries had each a little king of its own, about whom the people were always

quarrelling and fighting, and making a prodigious disturbance, - a great deal

more than he was worth. In the course of King Edward's reign, he was engaged,

besides, in a war with France. To make these quarrels clearer, we will

separate their histories and take them thus: Wales, first; France, second;

Scotland, third.

Llewellyn was the Prince of Wales. He had been on the side of the barons

in the reign of the stupid old king, but had afterwards sworn allegiance to

him. When King Edward came to the throne, Llewellyn was required to swear

allegiance to him also, which he refused to do. The king being crowned and in

his own dominions, three times more required Llewellyn to come and do homage;

and three times more Llewellyn said he would rather not. He was going to be

married to Eleanor de Montfort, a young lady of the family mentioned in the

last reign; and it chanced that this young lady, coming from France with her

youngest brother, Emeric, was taken by an English ship, and was ordered by the

English king to be detained. Upon this the quarrel came to a head. The king

went with his fleet to the coast of Wales, where, so encompassing Llewellyn

that he could only take refuge in the bleak mountain region of Snowdon, in

which no provisions could reach him, he was soon starved into an apology, and

into a treaty of peace, and into paying the expenses of the war. The king,

however, forgave him some of the hardest conditions of the treaty, and

consented to his marriage. And he now thought he had reduced Wales to

obedience.

But the Welsh, although they were naturally a gentle, quiet, pleasant

people, who liked to receive strangers in their cottages among the mountains,

and to set before them with free hospitality whatever they had to eat and

drink, and to play to them on their harps, and sing their native ballads to

them, were a people of great spirit when their blood was up. Englishmen,

after this affair, began to be insolent in Wales, and to assume the air of

masters; and the Welsh pride could not bear it. Moreover, they believed in

that unlucky old Merlin, some of whose unlucky old prophecies somebody always

seemed doomed to remember when there was a chance of its doing harm; and just

at this time some blind old gentleman, with a harp and a long white beard, who

was an excellent person, but had become of an unknown age and tedious, burst

out with a declaration, that Merlin had predicted that when English money had

become round, a prince of Wales would be crowned in London. Now King Edward

had recently forbid the English penny to be cut into halves and quarters for

halfpence and farthings, and had actually introduced a round coin; therefore

the Welsh people said this was the time Merlin meant, and rose accordingly.

King Edward had bought over Prince David, Llewellyn's brother, by heaping

favors upon him; but he was the first to revolt, being perhaps troubled in his

conscience. One stormy night, he surprised the Castle of Hawarden, in

possession of which an English nobleman had been left, killed the whole

garrison, and carried off the nobleman a prisoner to Snowdon. Upon this, the

Welsh people rose like one man. King Edward, with his army, marching from

Worcester to the Menai Strait, crossed it - near to where the wonderful

tubular iron bridge now, in days so different, makes a passage for railway

trains - by a bridge of boats that enabled forty men to march abreast. He

subdued the Island of Anglesea, and sent his men forward to observe the enemy.

The sudden appearance of the Welsh created a panic among them, and they fell

back to the bridge. The tide had in the mean time risen, and separated the

boats; the Welsh pursuing them, they were driven into the sea, and there they

sunk, in their heavy iron armor, by thousands. After this victory, Llewellyn,

helped by the severe winter-weather of Wales, gained another battle; but the

king ordering a portion of his English army to advance through South Wales,

and catch him between two foes, and Llewellyn bravely turning to meet this new

enemy, he was surprised and killed, - very meanly, for he was unarmed and

defenceless. His head was struck off, and sent to London, where it was fixed

upon the Tower, encircled with a wreath, some say of ivy, some say of willow,

some say of silver, to make it look like a ghastly coin in ridicule of the

prediction.

David, however, still held out for six months, though eagerly sought

after by the king, and hunted by his own countrymen. One of them finally

betrayed him, with his wife and children. He was sentenced to be hanged,

drawn, and quartered; and from that time this became the established

punishment of traitors in England, - a punishment wholly without excuse, as

being revolting, vile, and cruel, after its object is dead; and which has no

sense in it, as its only real degradation (and that nothing can blot out) is

to the country that permits on any consideration such abominable barbarity.

Wales was now subdued. The queen giving birth to a young prince in the

Castle of Carnarvon, the king showed him to the Welsh people as their

countryman, and called him Prince of Wales, - a title that has ever since been

borne by the heir-apparent to the English throne, which that little prince

soon became by the death of his elder brother. The king did better things for

the Welsh than that by improving their laws and encouraging their trade.

Disturbances still took place, chiefly occasioned by the avarice and pride of

the English lords, on whom Welsh lands and castles had been bestowed; but they

were subdued, and the country never rose again. There is a legend, that, to

prevent the people from being incited to rebellion by the songs of their bards

and harpers, Edward had them all put to death. Some of them may have fallen

among other men who held out against the king; but this general slaughter is,

I think, a fancy of the harpers themselves, who, I dare say, made a song about

it many years afterwards, and sang it by the Welsh firesides until it came to

be believed.

The foreign war of the reign of Edward the First arose in this way. The

crews of two vessels, one a Norman ship and the other an English ship,

happened to go to the same place in their boats to fill their casks with fresh

water. Being rough, angry fellows, they began to quarrel, and then to fight,

- the English with their fists, the Normans with their knives, - and in the

fight a Norman was killed. The Norman crew, instead of revenging themselves

upon those English sailors with whom they had quarrelled (who were too strong

for them, I suspect), took to their ship again in a great rage, attacked the

first English ship they met, laid hold of an unoffending merchant who happened

to be on board, and brutally hanged him in the rigging of their own vessel

with a dog at his feet. This so enraged the English sailors that there was no

restraining them; and whenever and wherever English sailors met Norman

sailors, they fell upon each other tooth and nail. The Irish and Dutch

sailors took part with the English, the French and Genoese sailors helped the

Normans; and thus the greater part of the mariners sailing over the sea

became, in their way, as violent and raging as the sea itself when it is

disturbed.

King Edward's fame had been so high abroad, that he had been chosen to

decide a difference between France and another foreign power, and had lived

upon the Continent three years. At first, neither he nor the French king

Philip (the good Louis had been dead some time) interfered in these quarrels;

but when a fleet of eighty English ships engaged and utterly defeated a Norman

fleet of two hundred in a pitched battle fought round a ship at anchor, in

which no quarter was given, the matter became too serious to be passed over.

King Edward, as Duke of Guienne, was summoned to present himself before the

King of France at Paris, and answer for the damage done by his sailor

subjects. At first he sent the Bishop of London as his representative, and

then his brother Edmund, who was married to the French queen's mother. I am

afraid Edmund was an easy man, and allowed himself to be talked over by his

charming relations, the French-court ladies; at all events, he was induced to

give up his brother's dukedom forty days, - as a much astonished, when the

time was out, to find that the French king said, to satisfy his honor, - and

he was so very much astonished, when the time was out, to find that the French

king had no idea of giving it up again, that I should not wonder if it

hastened his death, which soon took place.

King Edward was a king to win his foreign dukedom back again, if it could

be won by energy and valor. He raised a large army, renounced his allegiance

as Duke of Guienne, and crossed the sea to carry war into France. Before any

important battle was fought, however, a truce was agreed upon for two years,

and in the course of that time the pope effected a reconciliation. King

Edward, who was now a widower, having lost his affectionate and good wife,

Eleanor, married the French king's sister, Margaret; and the Prince of Wales

was contracted to the French king's daughter, Isabella.

Out of bad things, good things sometimes arise. Out of this hanging of

the innocent merchant, and the bloodshed and strife it caused, there came to

be established one of the greatest powers that the English people now possess.

The preparations for the war being very expensive, and King Edward greatly

wanting money, and being very arbitrary in his ways of raising it, some of the

barons began firmly to oppose him. Two of them in particular, Humphrey Bohun,

Earl of Hereford, and Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, were so stout against him

that they maintained he had no right to command them to head his forces in

Guienne, and flatly refused to go there. "By Heaven, Sir Earl," said the king

to the Earl of Hereford, in a great passion, "you shall either go or be

hanged!" "By Heaven, Sir King," replied the earl, "I will neither go nor yet

will I be hanged"; and both he and the other earl sturdily left the court,

attended by many lords. The king tried every means of raising money. He

taxed the clergy, in spite of all the pope said to the contrary; and when they

refused to pay reduced them to submission by saying, Very well, then they had

no claim upon the government for protection, and any man might plunder them

who would, - which a good many men were very ready to do, and very readily

did, and which the clergy found too losing a game to be played at long. He

seized all the wool and leather in the hands of the merchants promising to pay

for it some fine day; and he set a tax upon the exportation of wool, which was

so unpopular among the traders that it was called "The evil toll." But all

would not do. The barons, led by those two great earls, declared any taxes

imposed without the consent of Parliament unlawful; and the Parliament refused

to impose taxes, until the king should confirm afresh the two Great Charters,

and should solemnly declare in writing that there was no power in the country

to raise money from the people evermore but the power of Parliament

representing all ranks of the people. The king was very unwilling to diminish

his own power by allowing this great privilege in the Parliament; but there

was no help for it, and he at last complied. We shall come to another king,

by and by, who might have saved his head from rolling off, if he had profited

by this example.

The people gained other benefits in Parliament from the good sense and

wisdom of this king. Many of the laws were much improved; provision was made

for the greater safety of travellers, and the apprehension of thieves and

murderers; the priests were prevented from holding too much land, and so

becoming too powerful; and justices of the peace were first appointed (though

not at first under that name) in various parts of the country.

And now we come to Scotland, which was the great and lasting trouble of

the reign of King Edward the First.

About thirteen years after King Edward's coronation, Alexander the Third,

the King of Scotland, died of a fall from his horse. He had been married to

Margaret, King Edward's sister. All their children being dead, the Scottish

crown became the right of a young princess only eight years old, the daughter

of Eric, King of Norway, who had married a daughter of the deceased sovereign.

King Edward proposed that the Maiden of Norway, as this princess was called,

should be engaged to be married to his eldest son; but unfortunately, as she

was coming over to England, she fell sick, and, landing on one of the Orkney

Islands, died there. A great commotion immediately began in Scotland, where

as many as thirteen noisy claimants to the vacant throne started up, and made

a general confusion.

King Edward being much renowned for his sagacity and justice, it seems to

have been agreed to refer the dispute to him. He accepted the trust, and went

with an army to the Border-land where England and Scotland joined. There, he

called upon the Scottish gentlemen to meet him at the Castle of Norham, on the

English side of the River Tweed; and to that castle they came. But, before he

would take any step in the business, he required those Scottish gentlemen, one

and all, to do homage to him as their superior lord; and when they hesitated,

he said, "By holy Edward, whose crown I wear, I will have my rights, or I will

die in maintaining them!" The Scottish gentlemen, who had not expected will

die in maintaining them!" The Scottish gentlemen, who had not expected this,

were disconcerted, and asked for three weeks to think about it.

At the end of the three weeks, another meeting took place, on a green

plain on the Scottish side of the river. Of all the competitors for the

Scottish throne, there were only two who had any real claim, in right of their

near kindred to the royal family. These were John Baliol and Robert Bruce;

and the right was, I have no doubt, on the side of John Baliol. At this

particular meeting John Baliol was not present, but Robert Bruce was; and on

Robert Bruce being formally asked whether he acknowledged the King of England

for his superior lord, he answered plainly and distinctly, Yes, he did. Next

day John Baliol appeared, and said the same. This point settled, some

arrangements were made for inquiring into their titles.

The inquiry occupied a pretty long time, - more than a year. While it

was going on, King Edward took the opportunity of making a journey through

Scotland, and calling upon the Scottish people of all degrees to acknowledge

themselves his vassals, or be imprisoned until they did. In the mean while,

commissioners were appointed to conduct the inquiry, a parliament was held at

Berwick about it, the two claimants were heard at full length, and there was a

vast amount of talking. At last, in the great hall of the Castle of Berwick,

the king gave judgment in favor of John Baliol; who, consenting to receive his

crown by the King of England's favor and permission, was crowned at Scone, in

an old stone chair which had been used for ages in the abbey there, at the

coronations of Scottish kings. Then King Edward caused the great seal of

Scotland, used since the late king's death, to be broken in four pieces, and

placed in the English treasury; and considered that he now had Scotland

(according to the common saying) under his thumb.

Scotland had a strong will of its own yet, however. King Edward,

determined that the Scottish king should not forget he was his vassal,

summoned him repeatedly to come and defend himself and his judges before the

English Parliament when appeals from the decisions of Scottish courts of

justice were being heard. At length John Baliol, who had no great heart of

his own, had so much heart put into him by the brave spirit of the Scottish

people, who took this as a national insult, that he refused to come any more.

Thereupon, the king further required him to help him in his war abroad (which

was then in progress), and to give up, as security for his good behavior in

future, the three strong Scottish castles of Jedburgh, Roxburgh, and Berwick.

Nothing of this being done, - on the contrary, the Scottish people concealing

their king among their mountains in the highlands, and showing a determination

to resist, - Edward marched to Berwick with an army of thirty thousand foot,

and four thousand horse, took the castle, and slew its whole garrison, and the

inhabitants of the town as well, - men, women, and children Lord Warrenne,

Earl of Surrey, then went on to the Castle of Dunbar, before which a battle

was fought, and the whole Scottish army defeated with great slaughter. The

victory being complete, the Earl of Surrey was left as guardian of Scotland;

the principal offices in that kingdom were given to Englishmen; the more

powerful Scottish nobles were obliged to come and live in England; the

Scottish crown and sceptre were brought away; and even the old stone chair was

carried off, and placed in Westminster Abbey, where you may see it now.

Baliol had the Tower of London lent him for a residence, with permission to

range about within a circle of twenty miles. Three years afterwards he was

allowed to go to Normandy, where he had estates, and where he passed the

remaining six years of his life; far more happily, I daresay, than he had

lived for a long while in angry Scotland.

Now there was, in the west of Scotland, a gentleman of small fortune,

named William Wallace, the second son of a Scottish knight. He was a man of

great size and great strength; he was very brave and daring; when he spoke to

a body of his countrymen, he could rouse them in a wonderful manner by the

power of his burning words; he loved Scotland dearly, and he hated England

with his utmost might. The domineering conduct of the English, who now held

the places of trust in Scotland, made them as intolerable to the proud

Scottish people as they had been under similar circumstances to the Welsh; and

no man in all Scotland regarded them with so much smothered rage as William

Wallace. One day an Englishman in office, little knowing what he was,

affronted him. Wallace instantly struck him dead; and taking refuge among the

rocks and hills, and there joining with his countryman, Sir William Douglas,

who was also in arms against King Edward, became the most resolute and

undaunted champion of a people struggling for their independence that ever

lived upon the earth.

The English guardian of the kingdom fled before him; and, thus

encouraged, the Scottish people revolted everywhere, and fell upon the English

without mercy. The Earl of Surrey, by the king's commands, raised all the

power of the border counties, and two English armies poured into Scotland.

Only one chief, in the face of those armies, stood by Wallace, who, with a

force of forty thousand men, awaited the invaders at a place on the River

Forth, within two miles of Stirling. Across the river there was only one poor

wooden bridge, called the Bridge of Kildean, - so narrow that but two men

could cross it abreast. With his eyes upon this bridge, Wallace posted the

greater part of his men among some rising grounds, and waited calmly. When

the English army came up on the opposite bank of the river, messengers were

sent forward to offer terms. Wallace sent them back with a defiance, in the

name of the freedom of Scotland. Some of the officers of the Earl of Surrey,

in command of the English, with their eyes also on the bridge, advised him to

be discreet and not hasty. He, however, urged to immediate battle by some

other officers, and particularly by Cressingham, King Edward's treasurer and a

rash man, gave the word of command to advance. One thousand English crossed

the bridge, two abreast; the Scottish troops were as motionless as stone

images. Two thousand English crossed; three thousand, four thousand, five.

Not a feather, all this time, had been seen to stir among the Scottish

bonnets. Now they all fluttered. "Forward, one party, to the foot of the

bridge!" cried Wallace, "and let no more English cross! The rest, down with

me on the five thousand who have come over, and cut them all to pieces!" It

was done, in the sight of the whole remainder of the English army, who could

give no help. Cressingham himself was killed, and the Scotch made whips for

their horses of his skin.

King Edward was abroad at this time, and during the successes on the

Scottish side which followed, and which enabled bold Wallace to win the whole

country back again, and even to ravage the English borders. But, after a few

winter months, the king returned, and took the field with more than his usual

energy. One night, when a kick from his horse, as they both lay on the ground

together, broke two of his ribs, and a cry arose that he was killed, he leaped

into his saddle, regardless of the pain that he suffered, and rode through the

camp. Day then appearing, he gave the word (still, of course, in that bruised

and aching state) forward! and led his army on to near Falkirk, where the

Scottish forces were seen drawn up on some stony ground, behind a morass.

Here he defeated Wallace, and killed fifteen thousand of his men. With the

shattered remainder, Wallace drew back to Stirling; but being pursued, set

fire to the town, that it might give no help to the English, and escaped. The

inhabitants of Perth afterwards set fire to their houses for the same reason;

and the king, unable to find provisions, was forced to withdraw his army.

Another Robert Bruce, the grandson of him who had disputed the Scottish

crown with Baliol, was now in arms against the king (that elder Bruce being

dead), and also John Comyn, Baliol's nephew. These two young men might agree

in opposing Edward, but could agree in nothing else, as they were rivals for

the throne of Scotland. Probably it was because they knew this, and knew what

troubles must arise, even if they could hope to get the better of the great

English king, that the principal Scottish people applied to the pope for his

interference. The pope, on the principle of losing nothing for want of trying

to get it, very coolly claimed that Scotland belonged to him; but this was a

little too much, and the Parliament in a friendly manner told him so.

In the spring time of the year 1303, the king sent Sir John Segrave, whom

he made Governor of Scotland, with twenty thousand men to reduce the rebels.

Sir John was not as careful as he should have been, but encamped at Roselyn,

near Edinburgh, with his army divided into three parts. The Scottish forces

saw their advantage, fell on each part separately, defeated each, and killed

all the prisoners. Then came the king himself once more, as soon as a great

army could be raised; he passed through the whole north of Scotland, laying

waste whatsoever came in his way; and he took up his winter quarters at

Dunfermline. The Scottish cause now looked so hopeless, that Comyn and the

other nobles made submission, and received their pardons. Wallace alone stood

out. He was invited to surrender, though on no distinct pledge that his life

should be spared; but he still defied the ireful king, and lived among the

steep crags of the Highland glens, where the eagles made their nests, and

where the mountain torrents roared, and the white snow was deep, and the

bitter winds blew round his unsheltered head, as he lay through many a

pitch-dark night wrapped up in his plaid. Nothing could break his spirit;

nothing could lower his courage; nothing could induce him to forget or to

forgive his country's wrongs. Even when the Castle of Stirling, which had

long held out, was besieged by the king with every kind of military engine

then in use; even when the lead upon cathedral roofs was taken down to help to

make them; even when the king, though an old man, commanded in the siege as if

he were a youth, being so resolved to conquer; even when the brave garrison

(then found with amazement to be not two hundred people, including several

ladies) were starved and beaten out, and were made to submit on their knees

and with every form of disgrace that could aggravate their sufferings, - even

then, when there was not a ray of hope in Scotland, William Wallace was as

proud and firm as if he had beheld the powerful and relentless Edward lying

dead at his feet.

Who betrayed William Wallace in the end is not quite certain. That he

was betrayed - probably by an attendant - is too true. He was taken to the

Castle of Dumbarton, under Sir John Menteith, and thence to London, where the

great fame of his bravery and resolution attracted immense concourses of

people to head behold him. He was tried in Westminster Hall, with a crown of

laurel on his head, - it is supposed because he was reported to have said that

he ought to wear, or that he would wear, a crown there, - and was found guilty

as a robber, a murderer, and a traitor. What they called a robber (he said to

those who tried him), he was, because he had taken spoil from the king's men.

What they called a murderer, he was, because he had slain an insolent

Englishman. What they called a murderer, he was, because he had slain an

insolent Englishman. What they called a traitor, he was not for he had never

sworn allegiance to the king, and had ever scorned to do it. He was dragged

at the tails of horses to West Smithfield, and there hanged on a high gallows,

torn open before he was dead beheaded, and quartered. His head was set upon a

pole on London Bridge, his right arm was sent to Newcastle, his left arm to

Berwick, his legs to Perth and Aberdeen. But if King Edward had had his body

cut into inches, and had sent every separate inch into a separate town, he

could not have dispersed it half so far and wide as his fame. Wallace will be

remembered in songs and stories while there are songs and stories in the

English tongue; and Scotland will hold him dear while her lakes and mountains

last.

Released from this dreaded enemy, the king made a fairer plan of

government for Scotland, divided the offices of honor among Scottish gentlemen

and English gentlemen, forgave past offences, and thought, in his old age,

that his work was done.

But he deceived himself. Comyn and Bruce conspired, and made an

appointment to meet at Dumfries, in the church of the Minorites. There is a

story that Comyn was false to Bruce, and had informed against him to the king;

that Bruce was warned of his danger and the necessity of flight, by receiving

one night as he sat at supper, from his friend the Earl of Gloucester, twelve

pennies and a pair of spurs; that as he was riding angrily to keep his

appointment (through a snow-storm, with his horse's shoes reversed that he

might not be tracked), he met an evil-looking serving-man, a messenger of

Comyn, whom he killed, and concealed in whose dress he found letters that

proved Comyn's treachery. However this may be, they were likely enough to

quarrel in any case, being hot-headed rivals; and, whatever they quarrelled

about, they certainly did quarrel in the church where they met; and Bruce drew

his dagger, and stabbed Comyn, who fell upon the pavement. When Bruce came

out, pale and disturbed, the friends who were waiting for him asked what was

the matter? "I think I have killed Comyn," said he. "You only think so?"

returned one of them; "I will make sure!" and going into the church, and

finding him alive, stabbed him again and again. Knowing that the king would

never forgive this new deed of violence, the party then declared Bruce King of

Scotland; got him crowned at Scone, - without the chair; and set up the

rebellious standard once again.

When the king heard of it, he kindled with fiercer anger than he had ever

shown yet. He caused the Prince of Wales and two hundred and seventy of the

young nobility to be knighted, - the trees in the Temple Gardens were cut down

to make room for their tents, and they watched their armor all night,

according to the old usage, some in the Temple Church, some in Westminster

Abbey; - and at the public feast which then took place, he swore, by Heaven,

and by two swans covered with gold network which his minstrels placed upon the

table, that he would avenge the death of Comyn, and would punish the false

Bruce. And before all the company, he charged the prince, his son, in case

that he should die before accomplishing his vow, not to bury him until it was

fulfilled. Next morning, the prince and the rest of the young knights rode

away to the Border-country to join the English army, and the king, now weak

and sick, followed in a horse-litter.

Bruce, after losing a battle, and undergoing many dangers and much

misery, fled to Ireland, where he lay concealed through the winter. That

winter, Edward passed in hunting down and executing Bruce's relations and

adherents, sparing neither youth nor age, showing no touch of pity or sign of

mercy. In the following spring Bruce reappeared, and gained some victories.

In these frays, both sides were grievously cruel; for instance, Bruce's two

brothers, being taken captives, desperately wounded, were ordered by the king

to instant execution. Bruce's friend, Sir John Douglas, taking his own Castle

of Douglas out of the hands of an English lord, roasted the dead bodies of the

slaughtered garrison in a great fire made of every movable within it; which

dreadful cookery his men called the Douglas larder. Bruce, still successful,

however, drove the Earl of Pembroke and the Earl of Gloucester into the Castle

of Ayr, and laid siege to it.

The king, who had been laid up all the winter, but had directed the army

from his sick-bed, now advanced to Carlisle, and there, causing the litter in

which he had travelled to be placed in the cathedral as an offering to Heaven,

mounted his horse once more, and for the last time. He was now sixty-nine

years old, and had reigned thirty-five years. He was so ill, that in four

days he could go no more than six miles; still, even at that pace, he went on,

and resolutely kept his face towards the Border. At length he lay down at the

village of Burgh-upon-Sands; and there, telling those around him to impress

upon the prince that he was to remember his father's vow, and was never to

rest until he had thoroughly subdued Scotland, he yielded up his last breath.