LETTER XXXVI.

ENGLAND, DURING THE REIGN OF EDWARD I. WITH AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF SCOTLAND; SOME ACCOUNT OF THE CONQUEST OF THAT COUNTRY BY THE ENGLISH, AND THE FINAL REDUCTION OF WALES.

THE reign of Edward I. my dear Philip, as already observed, forms a new era in the history of Britain. I must now make you sensible what entitles it to that distinction.

As soon as Edward returned to England (where his authority was firmly established, by his high A. D. 1874. character both at home and abroad), he applied himself assiduously to the correcting of those disorders, which the civil commotions, and the loose administration of his father, had introduced into every part of government. His policy, though severe, was equally liberal and prudent. By an exact distribution of justice, and a rigid execution of the laws, he gave at once protection to the inferior orders of the state, and diminished the arbitrary power of the nobles. He made it a rule in his own conduct to observe, except upon extraordinary occasions, the privileges secured to the barons by the Great Charter, and he insisted on their observance of the same charter towards their vassals; he made the crown be regarded as the grand fountain of justice, and the general asylum against violence and oppression. By these wise measures, the state of the kingdom was soon wholly changed; order and tranquillity were restored to society, and vigour to govern

ment'.

Now it was, that the enterprising spirit of Edward began more remarkably to shew itself. He A. D. 1276. undertook an expedition against Lewellyn,

1. M. West. T. Walsingham.

prince of Wales, who had formerly joined the rebellious barons, and whose two brothers, David and Roderic, had fled to Edward for protection; craving his assistance to recover their possessions, and seconding his attempts to enslave their native country.

The Welsh prince had no resource against the superior force of Edward but the inaccessible situation of his mountains, which had hitherto protected his forefathers against all the attempts of the Saxon and Norman conquerors. He accordingly retired with the bravest of his subjects among the hills of Snowdon. But Edward, no less vigorous than cautious, pierced into the heart of the country, and approached the Welsh army in its last retreat. Having carefully secured every pass behind him, he avoided putting to trial the valour of a nation proud of its ancient independency. He trusted to the

A. D. 1277.

more slow but sure effects of famine for success; and Lewellyn was at length obliged to submit, and receive the terms imposed upon him by the English monarch2.

These terms, though sufficiently severe, were but ill observed by the victors. The English oppressed and insulted the inhabitants of the districts which were yielded to them. The indignation of the Welsh was roused: they flew to arms; and Edward again entered Wales with an army, not displeased with the occasion of making his conquest final. This army he committed to the command of Roger Mortimer, while he himself waited. the event in the castle of Rudhlan; and Lewellyn, having ventured to leave his fastnesses, was defeated A. D. 1283. by Mortimer, and slain, together with two thousand of his followers. All the Welsh nobility sub. mitted to Edward, and the laws of England were estab lished in that principality3.

In order to preserve his conquest, Edward had recourse to a barbarous policy. He ordered David,

2. T. Wykes. Powel, Hist. Wales.

3. T. Walsingham. T. Wykes, Annal. Waverl.

brother

brother to Lewellyn, and his successor in the principality of Wales, to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, as a traitor, for taking arms in defence of his native country, which he had once unhappily deserted, and for maintaining by force his own hereditary authority. He A.D. 1284. also ordered all the Welsh bards to be collected together and put to death; from a belief, and no absurd one, that he should more easily subdue the independent spirit of the people, when their minds ceased to be roused by the ideas of military valour and ancient glory, preserved in the traditional poems of these minstrels, and recited or sung by them on all public occasions and days of festivity.

Edward's conduct, in regard to Scotland, at which his ambition now pointed, is little more excusable. But several things must be premised, my dear Philip, before I proceed to his transactions with that country.

On the final departure of the Romans from this island, you have seen the Scots and Picts, its northern inhabitants, ravaging South Britain. They were repelled, but not subdued by the Saxons; and the first Norman princes were too much occupied with the affairs of the continent to push their conquests beyond the Tweed. Meanwhile fierce and bloody wars were, during several ages, carried on between the Scots and Picts, and Kenneth II. the sixty-ninth Scottish king, according to tradition, had obtained, in 838, a complete victory over the Picts, and united into one monarchy the whole country at present known by the name of North Britain. The Scots thenceforth became more formidable; and having less business on their hands at home, were always ready to join the English malecontents, and made frequent incursions, into the bordering counties. In one of these incursions, as I have had occasion to notice, William king of Scotland was taken prisoner; and Henry I. as the price of his liberty, not only extorted from him

4. Sir J. Wynne.

an

an exorbitant ransom, and a promise to surrender the places of greatest strength in his dominions, but compelled him to do homage for his whole kingdom. Richard I. a more generous but less politic prince than his father, solemnly renounced his claim of homage, and absolved William from the other hard conditions which Henry had imposed. The crown of Scotland was therefore again rendered independent, and the northern potentate only did homage for the fiefs which he enjoyed in England, (a circumstance which has occasioned many mistakes, and much dispute among historians) in the same manner as the king of England himself swore fealty to the French monarch for the fiefs which he inherited in France. But on the death of Alexander III. near a century after the captivity of William, Edward I. availing himself of the situation of affairs in Scotland, revived the claim of sovereignty which had been renounced by Richards.

A.D. 1286.

This is the real state of the controversy concerning the independency of Scotland, which took its rise about this time, and in the following manner. As Alexander left no male issue, nor any descendant except Margaret of Norway, his grand-daughter, who did not long survive him, the right of succession belonged to the descendants of David, earl of Huntingdon, third son of king David I. Of that line, two illustrious competitors for the crown appeared: Robert Bruce, son of Isabel, earl David's second daughter; and John Baliol, grandson of Margaret, the eldest daughter. According to the rules of succession now established, Baliol's right was preferable; he would succeed as the representative of his mother and grandmother; and Bruce's plea of being one degree nearer the common stock, would be disregarded. But in that age the question appeared no less intricate than important: the sentiments of men were divided: each claim was supported by a powerful faction; and arms alone, it was feared,

5. Buchanan, Hist. Scot. lib. viii. Robertson, book i.

must

must terminate a dispute too weighty for the laws to decide.

In this eritical situation the parliament of Scotland, in order to avoid the miseries of civil war, embraced the dangerous resolution of appealing to Edward I. He was accordingly chosen umpire, and both parties agreed to acquiesce in his decree. Now it was that this ambitious and enterprising prince, already master of Wales, resolved more determinedly to make himself lord of the whole island of Britain, by reviving his obscure claim of feudal superiority over Scotland. Under pretence of examining the question with the utmost solemnity, he summoned all the Scottish barons to attend

A. D. 1291. him in the castle of Norham, a place situated on the southern bank of the Tweed; and having gained some and intimidated others, he prevailed on all who were present, not excepting Bruce and Baliol, the two competitors for the succession, to acknowledge Scotland a fief of the English crown, and swear fealty to him as their sovereign or liege lord".

A. D. 1292.

This step led to another still more important. As it was in vain to pronounce a sentence which he had not power to execute, Edward demanded possession of the disputed kingdom, that he might be able to deliver it to him whose right should be found preferable: and that exorbitant demand was complied with both by the barons and the claimants. He soon after gave judgment in favour of Baliol, as being the least formidable of the competitors, we are told, by a respectable historian; but in justice to Edward, I am bound to say, that his award, which was no less equitable than solemn, seemed to proceed merely from the state of the question. He not only referred it to the consideration of an hundred and forty commissioners, partly English and partly Scotch, but proposed it to all the celebrated lawyers in Europe, who returned an uniform answer con

6. Rymer, vol. ii. W. Hemming, vol. i. Scotland, book i.

7. Robertson, Hist.

formable