and legend, song and fiction have tended to exalt his reputation somewhat unfairly at the expense of other Scottish patriots. Resistance being now apparently at an end, Edward produced his scheme for the government of Scotland. The administration of Scottish Organisation affairs was placed under his nephew John of Brittany as of Scotland. lord-lieutenant and guardian. Two justices each were allotted to four circuits into which the land was divided. The Scottish laws were to be revised and those that were barbarous or contrary to the will of God abolished. Lastly, some representatives for Scotland were to be present in the English parliament. This scheme, if fairly carried out, was not bad; but a national feeling had begun to rise among the Scots, and a new pretender soon appeared to take Robert advantage of it. This was Robert Bruce, grandson of Bruce. the claimant. Though his father played an ambiguous part, this young man, now about twenty-five, had hitherto been on Edward's side, and was consulted by him about the management of the kingdom; but in 1306 he determined to try for the crown himself. In an interview held at Dumfries in 1306 Murder of Comyn. Bruce, in a fit of anger, stabbed Comyn, and whether his determination to try for the crown dates from before or after the murder it is impossible to say. At any rate he raised his standard in Galloway; and, being soon joined by a small following, was crowned at Scone in March. At first the matter did not seem very serious, for Bruce could not hold his own in the open field; but Scotland differed from Wales in this, that whereas in Wales the district of Snowdon could easily be blockaded, in Scotland the lowlands were fringed by a background of inaccessible moors, mountains, and islands to which retreat was always open, and in which pursuit was in vain. Consequently an outlaw could bide his time, and while striking sufficient blows to keep up his reputation and encourage resistance could always keep himself out of harm's way. This was Bruce's game, and circumstances ultimately enabled him to play it with success. Death of Chief of these was the death of the veteran Edward. Over fifty years of active life and anxiety had begun to break down the iron constitution of the king. In the autumn of 1306, when Edward, he first heard of Bruce's rising, he had had to make the journey to Carlisle in a horse litter; and though in 1307 he thought himself so far better that he was able to mount his charger, the effort was too much for his strength, and after two short marches he died at Burgh-on-the Sands on July 7th, 1307. Edward was twice married, first to Eleanor of Castile, who died in 1290. By her he had four sons and nine daughters. Of the sons one only, Edward, the youngest, survived his father. Of the daughters, one married Earl Gilbert of Gloucester; another married Edward's Humphrey, earl of Hereford. By his second wife Margaret family. he left two sons, Thomas, earl of Norfolk, and Edmund, earl of Kent. Most of his other daughters married abroad. CHAPTER II EDWARD II.: 1307-1327 Born 1284; married Isabella of France, 1308; died 1327. CHIEF CONTEMPORARY PRINCES Scotland. Robert I., 1306-1329. France. Philip Iv., 1285-1309 (see page 246). Piers Gaveston-The Lords Ordainers-Gaveston's Death-Bruce's Scottish successes-Bannockburn-The Despensers-Lancasters Defeat at Boroughbridge, and Death-General combination against the Despensers, headed by the Queen and Mortimer, leads to Edward's Dethronement. EDWARD, Prince of Wales, who succeeded his father at the age of twenty-three, was one of the worst of the English kings. His father Character of Edward and his grandfather Henry were both cast in Edward II. a different mould; but the younger Edward inherited neither the statesmanlike ability of the one nor the piety of the other. He grew up utterly frivolous and unprincipled; and though he was handsome, accomplished, and endowed with the power of winning the attachment of his intimate associates, his reign was a complete failure. The most obvious cause of this was his addiction to favourites. The word 'favourite' is one which needs to be used with discrimination. Its Meaning of most obvious signification is that of some one in whom the Favourite.' sovereign delights, and on whom he lavishes gifts and favours; but it is also used less correctly of any person who has special influence over the king's policy, though such influence may be the proper reward of distinguished ability. Favourites of the first class were hateful to the general body of the people, because the wealth lavished on them impoverished the crown, and consequently had to be made good by increased taxation; those of the second were specially disliked by the nobility. In England, it was the claim of the great nobles to be the hereditary advisers of the crown, and as such to have access at all times to the king's person, and, therefore, they regarded with jealousy any one, whether he were an upstart or one of themselves, who secured a paramount influence in the king's deliberations. For centuries this feeling was one of the permanent factors of English politics, and somewhat curiously it seems to have been accepted as right and proper even by the general body of the people. If the king were strong he was able to protect his servants; if he were weak, he and they fell together; but the hatred between the titled nobility and the untitled ministers of the king always existed. It appears in the cases of Flambard and Becket, and such a man as Wolsey, for example, knew that his enemies were always on the watch to attack him the instant the king's favour was withdrawn. The rallying-point of the nobility against the favourite' was almost invariably in England a younger member of the royal family. Even Simon de Montfort, being brother-in-law of Henry III., The opposican hardly be regarded as an exception to the rule. The tion. cause of this was in some measure the difficulty of providing for the princes of the blood. Henry 11. had endeavoured without much success to carve portions for his younger sons out of his continental possessions. Richard was childless. John's sons were children. Henry III. made his only brother, Richard, earl of Cornwall, a position which carried with it the enormous wealth which accrued from the Cornish tin mines. On his second son, Edmund Crouchback or Crossback, Henry, after failing to make him king of Sicily, bestowed the earldoms of Lancaster, Leicester, and Derby, the two latter the forfeited holdings of Earl Simon and Earl Ferrers. Edmund was succeeded by his son Thomas, who married the heiress of Edward's faithful friend the earl of Lincoln and Salisbury, and so expected the eventual succession to two more earldoms, Lincoln and Salisbury. Thomas, generally known as Thomas of Lancaster, was a man of great force of character and violent temper, but in no sense a real statesman. Of the other great earldoms of the country, those of Norfolk and Kent had been given to Edward 1.'s little sons, Thomas and Edmund; those of Cornwall and Chester were in the hands of the king; Gloucester, in those of Gilbert, the king's nephew; Hereford, in those of Edward's brother-in-law, Humphrey de Bohun;1 and Pembroke, in those of Aymer de Valence, the king's half-cousin. Such a concentration of 1 THE BOHUNS. Humphrey de Bohun, friend of Simon de Montfort, died 1275. Humphrey de Bohun, m. Elizabeth, daughter of Edward I.; Eleanor, m. Thomas of Gloucester. Humphrey de Bohun. Mary, m. Henry of Bolingbroke (Henry IV.). property in a few hands was totally foreign to the ideas of such a king as William the Conqueror, for it resulted in any quarrel between the king and his relatives taking the form of civil war. This moment, when the influence represented by the great earldoms was specially concentrated and powerful, Edward chose to advance a Piers favourite, whose name has become typical of such characters Gaveston. for all time. This was Piers Gaveston, a Gascon, who had been the king's playfellow as a boy, and had gained such an influence over him that Edward seemed incapable of existing happily without him. His character, perhaps unfairly, has been assumed to be more than ordinarily depraved; but it is certain that Edward considered him a most improper companion for his son, banished him from the court, and made it one of his last requests to his son that he would free himself from his influence. On the contrary, no sooner was his father dead than Edward recalled Piers, made him earl of Cornwall, a proceeding so unpopular that few would address him by the title; married him to his niece, Margaret of Gloucester; dismissed at his bidding Walter Langton, the trusted treasurer of his father; presented him with vast sums of money, especially with £32,000, reserved by his father for a crusade; made him regent when he went over to France to marry the beautiful Isabella; permitted him to carry the Crown at the coronation, and to take precedence of the ancient nobles of the realm. Had Gaveston been a man distinguished for modesty and tact, such favours would have ensured his unpopularity; but, in fact, he was utterly devoid of any capacity for conciliation, made new enemies by his insolent ostentation, and exasperated the jealous nobles by inventing for them offensive nicknames, which by the folly of his royal patron became public property. Thomas of Lancaster he called 'the Hog'; Warwick, 'the Black Dog of Arden'; Pembroke was 'Joseph the Jew'; his brother-in-law Gloucester was 'the Cuckoo,' and so on. The natural result of such folly was that at the very first great His dismissal Council held by Edward in April 1308, the prelates, earls, demanded. and barons unanimously demanded his banishment; and Edward had to give way. His popularity-if he ever had any-was absolutely gone. He had shown not the slightest capacity for carrying on the ordinary business of state, and what time he could spare from the most frivolous amusements he devoted to plotting the return of his favourite, whom he had made governor of Ireland. In 1309 a Parliament met, and the list of complaints presented proves conclusively in how short a time the course of such a monarch could affect the whole routine of government. Edward was ready to promise amendment, |