Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/347

A.D. 1307.] preserve himself by hiding in the hills and wastes of Galloway, till, on the 10th of May, he succeeded at London Hill in completely defeating the Earl of Pembroke. Three days after, he again defeated the English under the Earl of Gloucester, and pursuing them, to the castle of Ayr, there besieged them.

Meantime Edward had been advancing by slow marches northward. Though it is not distinctly stated by the historians, there is little doubt that his health was giving way at the time that he first received the news at Winchester. Ho had immediately sent off the Earl of Pembroke, and prepared to follow himself. He knighted his son, the Prince of Wales, with great pomp and ceremony, preparatory to his taking part in the expedition, who, in turn, knighted, on the 22nd of May, 270 young men of noble family. At the feast given on this occasion, in the Palace of Westminster, Edward made a solemn vow to God to avenge the death of Comyn, and punish the insurgent Scots; and at this time he conjured his son, and the whole company, in the event of his death, to keep his body unburied until this vow was accomplished. Thus he had the probability of death in his thoughts at the outset of this expedition, and ho advanced in it with the tardiness of a sick man. While Bruce was spending the winter at Rachrine, he was passing it in severe illness at Lanercost. It was the commencement of July when he arrived at Carlisle, where the news of Bruce's fresh successes, and the defeat and close besiegement of his generals, had the effect of rousing his irritable temperament to a desperate effort. He threw aside the litter in which he had hitherto travelled, mounted his horse, and having reached, on the 7th of that month, the village of Burgh-upon-Sands, he sank completely exhausted, with his latest breath, and with a tenacity of purpose characteristic of the man, enjoining his successor, through the ministers who surrounded him, never to cease his efforts till he had thoroughly subjugated Scotland.

Thus terminated this remarkable man his remarkable career, in the sixty-ninth year of his age, and the thirty-fifth of his reign. Since the days of Richard I. there had been no martial monarch of equal bravery and ability; since those of the Conqueror, none who had the same genius for civil administration and the framing of laws and institutions which gave not only a character to his own times, but to the ages which came after him. Hume does not hesitate to assert that "the enterprises of this prince, and the projects which he formed and brought near to a conclusion, were more prudent, more regularly conducted, and more advantageous to tho solid interests of his kingdom, than those which wore undertaken in any reign, either of his ancestors or successors." However we may be disposed to modify this praise in regard to what Edward actually carried out, there can be no question that his perception of tho vast advantages which would result to every part of the island from its consolidation into one kingdom was evidence of a great and comprehensive genius; and the ardour, based on an indomitable spirit of perseverance, with which he pursued that great end, is equal evidence of a mind, not only of the clearest acumen, but of the loftiest qualities of human nature. He succeeded in winning to the English nation, and amalgamating with it for ever, the principality of Wales; and if he failed in effecting tho annexation of Scotland, it was only through being actuated more by the military spirit of the times than by those moral and political influences which later generations have discovered to be the most prevailing. It was beyond the intellectual horizon of the age to aim at the union of the kingdoms by the careful demonstration of those greater mutual advantages, and of the infinitely expanded capabilities of glory and power to Britain, as a whole, which were applied successfully four centuries afterwards.

By seeking to accomplish the union of England and Scotland by the forces most familiar to the spirit of that era—that is, by the power of arms and numerical ascendancy—his scheme, grand and beneficent in itself, necessarily failed. The plea was premature; it existed in the nature of things, but it lacked that philosophical regard to national character and feeling, and that tone of mutual forbearance, which it required centuries yet to ripen. The rude idea of bearing down a brave and high spirited people by armed power and arbitrary will necessarily irritated those on whom the attempt was made; and it thou became a question of moral forces, and of the natural, defences of the country, whether it should succeed. It succeeded in Wales, though after a brave resistance, because there was no proportion betwixt the extent and the physical resources of the two countries. It failed in Scotland, because the areas of the two contending kingdoms, though greatly unequal, were yet more approximate; and because the martial qualities and spirit of proud independence had been long fostered in Scotland by the arduous contests of different clans and parties. The Scotch were a hardy and an heroically brave people, with their magnificent mountains at their back; and, in their struggles with the ponderous power of England, discovered an invincible vigour, not only of resistance, but of resilience. Though hurled violently to the earth time after time, they rose, Antæus-like, as if with augmented strength and freshness. While the two nations, therefore, heated by contest and the savage warfare of that age, learned to hate one another with a vigorous and long-continuing hatred, they learned also to know each other's strength, and inwardly to respect it. Therefore, after the battle of Bannockburn, English dreams of the subjugation of Scotland began to wane, and though there still were many and bloody wars between the two nations, there ceased to exist on either side the hope of conquest by more force of arms.

In these conflicts, good as well as evil was elicited, and the bravery and spirit of dominion which distinguish united Great Britain no doubt draw a large amount of their life from the mutual struggles and rivalries of the two peoples. In the very attempts, therefore, of Edward to add Scotland to the kingdom by force, as he did Wales, he may be said to have laid the foundation of much of the common greatness of the nation; but from incidental causes arising out of his military attempts, both in Scotland and France, and still more from his directly constructive talent and wisdom, we owe to him much which we are apt to lose sight of in the blaze of his ways and expeditions. He was as remarkable for his sturdy maintenance of the laws as for his military ambition. Simple and frugal himself, he was ever ready to support useful enterprises. He was liberal of his treasuries on such