and their esteem. 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.

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.

A battle was fought at Falkirk, at 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.

A blow so dreadful had not as yet entirely crushed the spirit of the Scots nation; and, after a short intervál, they began to breathe from their calamities. Wallace, who had gained all their regards by his valour, shewed that he still merited them more by his declining the rewards of ambition. 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. He proposed Cummin as the properest person to supply his room; and that nobleman endeavoured to shew himself worthy of this 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 English lying at Roslin, near Edinburgh, and gained a complete victory."

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. 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 submissions of all the nobles. 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. 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. 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.

Robert Bruce, who had been one of the competitors for the crown, but was long kept 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. 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. 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. 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. He vowed revenge against the whole nation; and averred, that nothing but reducing them to the completest bondage could satisfy his resentment. 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 complete victory over Bruce, near Methwen, in Perthshire. 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. His anger was disappointed in their humiliation; 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. He sickened and died at Carlisle, of a dysentery;

G

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 7, 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 before or succeeded him.

ED

NDWARD 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 of securing it; and, lulled by the flattery of his courtiers, he thought he had done enough for glory when he had accepted the crown. 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.

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. This young man was adorned with every accomplishment of person and mind that were capable

of creating affection; but he was utterly destitute of those qualities of heart and understanding that serve to procure esteem. 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. Gavestone, on the other hand, intoxicated with his power, became haughty and overbearing; and treated the English nobility, from which 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.

A. D. 1312.

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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. 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 irresistible confederacy. The unhappy Edward, instead of attempting to make resistance, sought only for safety: ever happy in the company of his favourite, he embarked at Tinmouth, 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. In the mean time, Gavestone was besieged in Scarborough by the Earl of Pembroke; and, had the garrison been sufficiently supplied with provisions, the place would have been impregnable. 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. 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 information of, he attacked the castle in which the unfortunate Gavestone was confined, and quickly made himself master of his person. The Earls of Lancaster, Hereford, and Arundel, were soon apprized of Warwick's success, and informed that their common enemy was now, in custody in Warwick castle.

Thither, therefore, they hastened with the utmost expedition, to hold a consultation upon the fate of their prisoner. This was of no long continuance: 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 the body.

To add to Edward's misfortunes, he soon after suffered a most signal defeat from the Scots army under Bruce, near Bannockburn; and this drove him once more to seek for relief in some favourite's company. The name of his new favourite was Hugh de Spenser, a young man of a noble English family, of some merit, and very engaging accomplishments. His father was a person of a much more estimable character than the son; he was venerable for his years, and respected through life for his wisdom, his valour, and his integrity. But these excellent qualities were all diminished and vilified, from the moment he and his son began to share the king's favour, who even dispossessed some lords unjustly of their estates, in order to accumulate them upon his favourite. This was a pretext the king's enemies had been long seeking for: the Earls of Lancaster and Hereford flew to arms; sentence was procured from parliament of perpetual exile against the two Spensers, and a forfeiture of their fortunes and estates. The king, however, at last rousing from his lethargy, took the field in the defence of his beloved Spenser, and, at the head of thirty thousand men, pressed the Earl of Lancaster so closely, that he had not time to collect his forces together; and, flying from one place to another, he was at last stopt in his way towards Scotland by Sir Andrew Harcla, and made prisoner. As he had formerly shewn little mercy to Gavestone, there was very little extended to him upon this occasion. He was condemned by a court-martial; and led, mounted on a lean horse, to an eminence near Pomfret, in circumstances of the greatest indignity, where he was beheaded by a Londoner.

A rebellion thus crushed, served only to increase the pride and rapacity of young Spenser: most of the forfeitures were seized for his use; and, in his promptitude to punish the delinquents, he was found guilty of many acts of rapine and injustice.

But he was now to oppose a more formidable enemy in Queen Isabella, a cruel, haughty woman, who fled over to France, and refused to appear in England till Spenser was removed from the royal presence, and banished the kingdom.