through the land from end to end, reduced it once more to apparent submission.

1305

Soon after the fall of Stirling, Wallace fell into the hands of his relentless foe. After being hunted like a wild beast through the woods, he was caught asleep, and was borne to Dumbarton Castle, then commanded by Sir John Menteith, who forwarded the great prize to London. There, impeached of treason and condemned, he was put to death with the multiplied cruelties that characterized the age (August 23). His head was placed on the spikes of old London Bridge, and his hacked limbs were sent to strike terror through the north.

Another man, not greater, only more successful, arose to fill the place of Scotland's champion. The younger Bruce, educated in the household of Edward, was placed in command of the castle of Kildrummie in Aberdeenshire. He cherished a secret design on the Scottish crown, to wear which he had some claim. The Red Comyn of Badenoch, Balliol's nephew, advanced a rival claim, and, it is said, disclosed the ambitious schemes of Bruce to the English monarch. Riding in 1306 flight from the English court, Bruce summoned Comyn

to a meeting in the Church of the Grey Friars at Dumfries. Stung by an insulting denial, he so far forgot the place he stood in as to stab his betrayer by the altar-steps. His friend Kirkpatrick, rushing in as Bruce ran out in dismay, completed the dreadful crime (Feb. 10).

The passionate deed had far-reaching and unlooked-for effects in Scotland. It forced Bruce to go on. Nothing but success could condone his sacrilege. Necessity committed him to the cause of Scottish independence. He had no choice but to accept the position, and he was crowned at Scone, within two months of the bloody meeting at Dumfries. When the news of this daring move, for which Scottish affairs were hardly ripe, reached the king at Winchester, his wrath flamed violently up. After a splendid gathering of knights in the gardens of the

Temple and the court-yards of Westminster, after the Prince of Wales had received his spurs, and Edward had sworn to avenge the death of Comyn, the great armament that had been mustering against Bruce moved toward the north.

Having suffered a severe defeat in the wood of Methven near Perth, Bruce betook himself with his scanty train to the mountains, suffered there many perils and distresses, and was at last forced to hide his head in the isle of Rathlin on the Irish coast.* A winter there gave him abundant time to think. The next spring found him once more in Carrick. In May, he defeated Pembroke and Gloucester at Loudon Hill, drove them into the castle of Ayr, and besieged them there.

Meanwhile Edward, who was manifestly dying, braced himself for a final effort against Scotland. The spring air breathed a deceitful strength into his frame. He thought himself fit once more for the saddle; and having offered up his litter in Carlisle Cathedral, he feebly rode forward, with 1307 the help of a horseman on each side, to the Solway shore, making six miles in four days. He never rode again. At Burgh-on-the-Sands, on the 7th of July 1307, he died, aged sixty-eight years.

A striking event of this reign was the expulsion of the Jews from England. They had come to the island under the patronage of the Conqueror, who had protected them. The feeling against them grew more intense during the subsequent reigns, and occasionally broke into violence. At length, in 1279, numbers of them were executed for clipping the coin; and eleven years later, in 1290, they were driven almost penniless to the Continent, where they found shelter for their wearied heads. Several very important statutes were passed during Edward's reign. First, there was the Statute of Mortmain, passed in 1279. Land held by corporate bodies-for example, by monas

* This small island lies a few miles from the Antrim coast, within sight of the Mull of Cantire.

teries and churches-was said to be in mortuâ manu (in a dead hand), and was exempted from some of the feudal dues. By a trick of the law, laymen got the benefit of these exemptions. They gave lands to the Church, and received them back again as tenants of the Church. The statute checked these abuses, by making it illegal to grant land to the clergy without the king's consent. Next in order was the Statute of Winchester, passed in 1285. It re-enacted and enlarged the Assize of Arms of Henry the Second (1181), and made provision for the defence and the police of the country. The justices appointed to secure the observance of the statute afterwards became the justices of the peace. The Statute of Quia Emptores (1290) enacted that portions of estates granted as sub-tenancies should be held directly of the lord-superior. Another statute, known as the Second Statute of Westminster, established the law of entail, by enacting that a land-owner had only a life-interest in his land, so that, if he died childless, it should revert to the original grantor.

CHAPTER XI.

THE INDEPENDENCE OF SCOTLAND.

Gaveston-The Ordainers-The northward march-Bannockburn-Siege of Berwick-The Despensers-Berkeley Castle -Mortimer.

HE seven years that elapsed between the death of the

first Edward and the defeat of his son at Bannockburn were to England years of shame and suffering. Two solemn injunctions uttered by his dying father's lips young Edward disobeyed wilfully and at once: he did not carry the bones of the old warrior at the head of the English army into Scotland ; and he did recall to his presence and close friendship a handsome, vicious, and overbearing Gascon youth named Piers de Gaveston, who had been banished a few months previously. Publicly honoured and caressed by the king, the favourite ran his course of brilliant folly, until the spirit of stern men could no longer brook his insults. The barons took up arms against him, and the king placed him for safety in Scar- 1312 borough Castle. There he was forced to surrender, and

in spite of a promise of life, his head was struck off at Blacklow Hill.*

Before the death of Gaveston, the Parliament had tried to curb the headlong vice and riot of the king's life. Appearing at Westminster in arms, as their fathers had 1310 done when John and Henry reigned, they forced Edward to submit his affairs, domestic and public, to the control

*This hill rises above the Avon between Coventry and Warwick.

of a committee of peers, consisting of eight bishops and thirteen barons, who sat in London under the name of Ordainers. The

Parliament of the following year extorted the royal 1311 signature to several ordinances which made serious gaps in the royal prerogative. Among these were the following:-1. All grants made thereafter to favourites without the consent of Parliament should be invalid. 2. The king should not leave the kingdom or make war without the consent of the barons. 3. The barons, in Parliament assembled, should appoint a guardian or regent during the royal absence. 4. The king should hold a Parliament once a year, or twice if need be. Edward gave his assent in writing to the ordinances, but at once began to cast about for means to break his written promises.

During all these years, Bruce, aided by his gallant brother Edward, and by Randolph and Douglas, had been recovering the castles which the English held within his realm. At length only Stirling remained of all the keeps that the great Plantagenet had won; and even that stood in imminent peril; for the troops of Edward Bruce lay around its lofty battlements, and Sir Philip Mowbray, the governor, had consented to surrender on Midsummer day the next year, unless previously relieved by an English army. Edward recognized the urgency of the case, and made such an effort as was quite unusual with him. He equipped a fleet, and he marched northward at the head of an army of 100,000 men, including 40,000 cavalry. Edward trusted in numbers alone. He knew that his troops were not animated by the spirit of patriotism. The Earl of Lancaster and several other nobles had refused to accompany him, and some of those who followed him proved traitors in the field.

Against this mighty wave of war the King of Scotland could muster scarcely 40,000 men. But the battle is not to the strong. When the bright sun of June flashed on the English