After the subjugation of Wales, Edward proceeded to the continent, where he remained upwards of three years, and acted as umpire in a dispute which had arisen between Alphonso, king of Arragon, and Philip the Fair of France, respecting the island of Sicily. On his return home he found that the affairs of his own kingdom had fallen into confusion, and that corrupt judges had taken advantage of his absence to poison the fountains of justice. He had scarcely remedied these evils when his ambition led him to intermeddle with the affairs of Scotland, with the view of adding that country to his hereditary dominions. The greater part of the measures which he adopted were as nefarious as the end was unjust. He first proposed a marriage between the princess Margaret, the infant heir to the Scottish throne, and his son Edward, prince of Wales. When that project was frustrated by the death of the princess, he succeeded in inducing the competitors for the crown, and a large proportion of the Scottish nobility, to accept of his mediation, and to acknowledge his claim to give judgment in the character of feudal superior of Scotland—a claim which both he and they knew to be utterly untenable upon any ground of truth or justice. His award in favour of John Baliol, and the mode in which he speedily contrived to quarrel with his vassal king and to goad him into resistance, have already been noticed in the life of Baliol. On the surrender of the kingdom by that well-meaning but weak-minded monarch, Edward placed garrisons in the fortresses, received the submission of the Scottish barons and prelates, and concluded what he deemed the complete conquest of Scotland, by removing to Westminster the Scottish crown and sceptre, together with the famous stone on which the kings of Scotland from time immemorial had been crowned.
But Scotland, though cast down, was not destroyed. The great body of the nobility had in the most base and selfish manner submitted to the usurpation of the English monarch, but the middle and lower classes, animated by an ardent spirit of patriotism, burned with impatience to throw off the English yoke, and led on by the illustrious William Wallace, flew to arms in the defence of the liberty and independence of their country. For a time the efforts of this noble patriot were attended with success. (See Wallace, Sir William.) The English were speedily expelled from the country, and the victorious Scotsmen ventured to cross the border, and laid waste Northumberland and Cumberland. Edward, in the meanwhile, was absent in Flanders, but on hearing of these disasters he hurried home, and once more invaded Scotland at the head of eighty thousand infantry and seven thousand cavalry. The battle of Falkirk—in which fifteen hundred Scots fell—the betrayal and death of Wallace, and the submission of nearly the whole country rapidly ensued.
Believing that the conquest of Scotland was at length completed, Edward proceeded to frame a system of government for the country, which, as he fondly hoped, was now indissolubly united with the English crown, and revised the laws and statutes of the kingdom so as to secure the complete control of all its affairs. But while he was flattering himself that he was at length about to reap the fruit of fifteen years' incessant labours, the system which he had reared at a vast expense of blood and treasure was entirely overthrown by a new insurrection of the Scottish nation led on by Robert Bruce.—(See Robert Bruce.) Enraged at the defeat of his forces under Pembroke, whom he had in all haste despatched into Scotland, Edward resolved to march in person against the Scots, and to take signal vengeance upon them for their insubordination. He was detained, however, at Lanercost and Carlisle during the whole winter and spring by the wasting effects of a dysentery; but, flattering himself that the virulence of his malady was abated, he proceeded towards Scotland, though he was so weak that he required to be supported on the saddle. On reaching the small village of Burgh-upon-Sands, on the shores of the Solway Frith, he expired on the 7th of July, 1307, in the sixty-ninth year of his age, and the thirty-fifth of his reign. In his last moments his thoughts were entirely occupied with the subjugation of Scotland; and his dying injunctions to his son were, that he should prosecute the war without truce or breathing-space, and that his bones should be carried at the head of the invading army, and never be committed to the tomb till Scotland was entirely subdued. His son, however, carried his body to London, and interred it in Westminster abbey, where his tomb is still to be seen, bearing the appropriate inscription in Latin—"HERE LIES EDWARD THE FIRST, THE HAMMER OF THE SCOTTISH NATION."
Edward I. was twice married. By his first wife, Eleanor, daughter of Ferdinand III, king of Castile and Leon, he had four sons and nine daughters. His second wife, Margaret, daughter of Philip, king of France, bore him two sons. Edward was undoubtedly one of the ablest sovereigns who have occupied the English throne. He possessed a sound judgment, vigour, decision, industry, and great military talents. But he was, irascible, vindictive, cruel, and unprincipled. His ambition was insatiable, and his treatment of the Welsh prince and his chieftains, his crusade against the liberties and independence of Scotland, and the shocking cruelties which he inflicted upon Wallace and his fellow-patriots, have left an indelible blot upon his memory.—J. T.
EDWARD II., King of England, was the only surviving son of Edward I., and Eleanor of Castile, his queen. He was born at Caernarvon, shortly after his father had completed the subjugation of Wales, and was immediately invested in the principality. But the death of his eldest brother, Alphonso, soon after made Edward the heir of the English throne, and the principality of Wales was henceforth annexed to the crown. Edward ascended the throne in 1307, in his twenty-third year; and his prepossessing appearance and mild and amiable disposition made him at first a universal favourite. But the feebleness of his character, his aversion to business, his fondness for frivolous amusements, and his proneness to favouritism, speedily lost him the confidence and affection of his subjects. Even in his father's lifetime he had betrayed these weaknesses; and one of his associates, Piers Gaveston, the son of a Gascon knight, had obtained such an ascendancy over the youthful prince, that the stern old king had banished the favourite from the kingdom, and on his deathbed had made his son promise never to recall him. But Edward paid no regard whatever to his father's injunctions or to his own promises. He withdrew ingloriously from the Scottish war, and not only recalled Gaveston, but conferred upon him the earldom of Cornwall, with other honours and estates; appointed him lord chamberlain; and married him to his own niece, sister of the earl of Gloucester. He even bestowed upon him the money which his father had set apart for a new crusade, and nothing was done by the king without the advice and consent of his favourite. In January, 1308, Edward sailed for France, in order to espouse the Princess Isabella, to whom he had long been affianced. He appointed Gaveston regent of the kingdom during his absence, with unusually extensive powers. On his return with his bride, the infatuated monarch exhibited his attachment to his favourite in such an open and disgraceful manner as to give mortal offence to his queen, who was of an imperious and intriguing spirit, and could ill-brook the ascendancy of the royal minion. A combination of the nobles under the earl of Lancaster was formed against the insolent stranger, and they compelled the king to banish his favourite, and imposed on him an oath never to return. Edward, however, merely appointed the exile lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and, unable to endure his absence, recalled him in little more than a year. By making important concessions to the leading barons, and bestowing upon them various offices and grants, he succeeded in obtaining their formal consent in parliament to Gaveston's continued residence in England. But the king and his favourite were alike incapable of learning wisdom from experience. New causes of offence speedily arose. The barons finding the arrogant behaviour of the favourite intolerable, and that no confidence could be put in the kings promises of redress, assembled in arms at the meeting of parliament in 1311, decreed the banishment of Gaveston on pain of death in case of return, and imposed several important restrictions on the royal authority. They compelled the king to give his sanction to certain ordinances, which declared that the great officers of the crown and all the military governors should be chosen by the baronage in parliament, or, with their advice and assent; authorized the nobility to appoint a regent during the royal absence; revoked all the late grants of the crown; and ordained that the king should "hold a parliament once a year, or twice if need be." Gaveston on this retired to Flanders; but in less than two months he again joined his royal master at York, and received from him a new grant of his estates and honours. The barons on this took up arms, and besieged Scarborough castle, in which the favourite had taken refuge. He surrendered, 19th May, 1312; but, in defiance of a solemn capitulation, he was put to death after a hurried trial at War-
