He took him by the treachery of Jack Short, his man : Wherefore to play this trick on him the man Jack was fain." Wallace was brought to London, and though he protested that he had never been the king's subject, and that what he had done had been done in fair war, was tried and condemned for murder, sacrilege, and treason, and punished as Prince David had been, August 24. His brother John soon after met the same fate. 10. In the winter of the same year Robert Brus, grandson of the Claimant, left the English court and took secret counsel with the Bishops of Glasgow and St. Andrews, who like himself had sworn fealty over and over again to Edward. "But false was their promise as frost is in May, Which the sun from the southward soon wipeth away." Brus' revolt and Edward's death, 13061307. To further his plans he hoped to win over his cousin Comyn and the two met early in 1306 at the Greyfriars' Kirk at Dumfries. But Comyn would not agree to his wishes, saying, “I will not break my oath. We have risen four times and been beaten." With that Brus drew his sword in a rage and, leaning over the altar, struck his unarmed cousin a deadly blow, while Seton, Brus' brother-in-law, stabbed Robert, John Comyn's uncle. Brus then rode into the town on Comyn's own black charger, leaving his two kinsmen dying in the chancel. After this crime he had only two paths open, to flee the land at once or to make a bold bid for a kingdom. He chose the latter course, and was hastily crowned at Scone, March 25. Edward was furious at the murder of Comyn, the perjury of Brus and his abettors, and the fresh breach of the union he had worked so hard to bring about. At a great feast at London, where he knighted his son Edward and two hundred squires with him, he took a great oath "upon the swans," according to the wont of knights in that day, to win back Scotland and avenge the blood of Comyn or die in the quarrel. With Aymery of Valence his nephew, and Prince Edward, who had joined in his vow, he moved north, and Brus, "the summer king," as he was called in jest, was driven in deadly peril of his life a wanderer to the Western Isles. The pursuit was hot after him his three brothers, Nigel, Alexander the Dean of Glasgow, and Thomlin; his brother-in-law Christopher Seton; and his friends Simon Fraser and the Earl of Athole, were taken and hanged; his wife and sister imprisoned. But though he was tracked by bloodhounds and hunted by Highlanders, Robert himself managed not only to keep out of the hands of his foes, but even to make head against them. In 1307 Edward made up his mind to put down the rebellion at all hazards, and started with a huger host than before on a campaign which must have ended in complete success. Brus, terrified, sent to Prince Edward begging him to get terms for him; but the old king would not hear of anything but submission at mercy, and Brus,_despairing, resolved to hold out to the death. However, Edward was taken ill and died at Burgh-on-Sands, by Solway Water, Friday, July 7. He sent his last wishes to his son, bidding him go on with the army, bearing his bones with him till Scotland was thoroughly subdued, ordering him to use the treasure of £32,000 to keep sevenscore knights for a crusade to the Holy Land, where he would have his heart buried, praying him to cherish his stepmother and his half-brothers, and forbidding him to recall Piers of Gaveston (who had lately been banished) without leave of Parliament. All which things the Prince promised under pain of his father's curse. Edward's form and looks are often spoken of by the chroniclers. He was stronger, bigger, and taller than most men, deep-chested, thin-flanked, with long limbs, which gave him great power in swordsmanship, riding, and tilting. His face was handsome and stern, only blemished by the falling eyelid which he inherited from his father; his hair was flaxfair in his childhood, dark brown in his manhood, and silver-white in his old age. He was a good and ready speaker, in spite of a slight stammer, and his voice was deep and strong. He kept his full health and strength till within a few days of his death, though his life had been rough and restless. He was as pious and duteous to his kinsfolk as his father had been, as good a knight and as quick a general as Richard Lion-heart, and as wise and hard-working a king as Henry of Anjou. He was truthful, holding ever to his device, "Keep faith;" pitiful, boasting that no man had ever prayed him for mercy and been refused; careful of his money, his time, and his servants, and proud of his strict justice to evil-doers. He was never afraid of confessing his mistakes, and he took pains to show his people that he trusted and cared for them, and sought their love and trust in return. There are many stories that set forth his dutifulness, courage, and princely heart. How he fought Adam of Gordon, a tried and stalwart knight of Montfort's party, single-handed, overcame him, and gave him his life, after Evesham. How he swam a river to get at and chastise an insolent groom, whom he forgave when the fellow in great terror begged pardon for his rudeness. How at Stirling, when his horse was slain by a bolt from an arblast, he turned round to his men, who begged him to withdraw out of range of the castle, with the words, "A thousand shall fall beside me, and ten thousand at my right hand, but their arrows shall not come nigh unto me to do me hurt, for the Lord is with me." He had indeed had many narrow escapes from death. Once a huge stone fell from the roof of the room on the very place where he had just been sitting; another time the lightning struck his bedroom and killed two pages that were standing before him; a third time, his horse, frightened by the sails of a mill, leapt over the wall at Winchelsea, falling many feet down to the road beneath, which luckily happened to be a muddy one, without hurting himself or his rider. But though he believed himself to be specially guarded by God, Edward did not give way to superstition nor let his feelings mislead his reason. When a beggar pretended that his eyes had been opened by praying at King Henry III.'s tomb, he drove the man away, to his mother's displeasure, saying, "My father would rather have had such a lying rascal blinded than given him back his eyesight." Yet he held his father in deep love and respect. A knight once came to him and complained that a Jewish usurer had refused to do him justice, saying that he had leave by charter from King Henry not to appear before any judge but the king himself. Said Edward, "It does not become a son to make void his father's promises, but I will give you leave in another charter to do what you like to this Jew without being obliged to answer for it save to me." When the Jew heard this he at once agreed to forego King Henry's charter and do justice to his creditor. What Edward's people thought of him is shown in their deep grief for his death and the way in which they looked back to his reign as a time of peace and good laws. One song says: "When he reigned over England, he made the law to stand, By Reason and by Righteousness he held the realm in hand, And his dirge runs : "All ye of perfect heart and true hearken an hour my song unto! For a woe that Death hath dared to do: sick and sorry we all must go. I sing of a knight that was so strong on whom God now hath wrought His will. Methinks this Death hath done us wrong: that he so soon should lie so still. All England surely ought to know: of whom the song is that I sing, Of King Edward that lies so low through all the world his praise shall ring. Truest of men in every thing: and in war both wary and wise, We needs for him our hands must wring of Christian kings he bore the prize. To Poitiers town a serjeant pass'd and told the Pope the king was dead The Holy Father's tears fell fast: upon his stole the while he read; 'Alas!' he said, 'is Edward dead to whom God gave such grace and power?' 'Christ on his soul His mercy shed: of Christian kings he was the flower !' Although my tongue were made of steel: my heart cast out of brass, prize. God bring thy soul to that honour that ever was and ever is!" CHAPTER II. Edward II. of Caernarvon, 1307-1327. 1. Prince Edward, now twenty-three years old, was a strong, handsome young man, brave, well-spoken, and able, but headstrong, careless of all but his own pleasures, and given overmuch to the companionship of those beneath him, idling his time away with actors, jugglers, craftsmen, and labourers, when he ought to have been learning and doing his duty as a peer and counsellor. His folly angered his father, who drove him from court for six months when he broke the treasurer's park and slew his deer, and could not refrain from striking him when he begged the earldom of Ponthieu, his mother's portion, for his bosom friend Gaveston. Piers or Peter of Gaveston was the son of a Gascon knight who with his wife had been faithful servants to Edward I.; Queen Eleanor had brought young Piers to her court and made him the playmate of her son, over whom he won the most Edward and Piers of Gaves ton, 1307-1309. unbounded power. Piers is spoken of as a good knight, a gifted man and a skilful soldier ; but his pride and greed made him hateful, and his power over Edward was not used for any good. The new king began his reign by breaking his father's dying wishes. ; He sent his father's body to Westminster to be buried went south himself, though there was every hope, if he had used the power he had, of crushing the rebellion of Brus at one blow; and recalled Gaveston, making him Chamberlain, Earl of Cornwall, marrying him to his niece, and enriching him with his father's treasure and the jewels of the crown. He then dismissed the treasurer and others of the Council who had offended himself or his friends in times past, and appointing the newly-made earl Warden of the Realm, crossed to Boulogne. Here, having done homage for his duchy of Aquitaine, he married the French princess, Isabel, January 28, 1308, amid great feasting and merry-making. On his return he was crowned at Westminster, February 25, where he swore a special oath "to hold and keep the laws and righteous customs which the commonalty of the realm should choose." Very soon the king's folly and extravagance, and Gaveston's open contempt of the Earls of Hereford, Warenne, Pembroke, Warwick, and Lancaster, whom he thwarted in the Council, overthrew in the tournament, and mocked with nicknames (calling Pembroke "Joseph the Jew," Warwick "the black dog of Arden," and Lancaster "the old man" or "the mummer," led to the exile of the favourite at the Council of London. The king made him Warden of Ireland, and there he ruled well and was much liked. However, in 1309, the Parliament of Westminster brought forward certain Articles prohibiting (a) the wrongdoings and illegal tolls taken by the king's officers; (b) the delays and evasions of justice; (c) the new customs upon the foreign merchants, who were not protected by the Charter; (d) the wrong use of the king's right of purveyance. The king agreed to these at Stamford, 1309, and by the persuasion of the Earl of Gloucester the Parliament allowed of Gaveston's return. 2. But the greatest of the English barons, the king's cousin Thomas, son of Edmund Crouchback King of Sicily, and Blanche dowager Queen of Navarre, Earl of Lancaster, Leicester, and Derby, and heir by marriage to Lincoln and Salisbury, was by no means pleased with the king's rule. And as there were many men, rich and poor, who had grievances which they saw little chance of getting removed by the careless, ease-loving king or his proud and lazy ministers, Earl Thomas soon had a large party at his back. The king forbade armed gatherings, but the barons paid no heed to his decree and came in full force to a Parliament at Westminster in Lent 1310, and chose a board of seven bishops, eight earls, and six barons, of whom the Archbishop Robert was the Ο |