Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/42

Edward I left the Scots to their fate. Edward, now that he had at last regained Gascony and was free from embarrassment at home and abroad, was able to carry on a more decided policy with respect to Scotland. Affairs had gone badly there, for on 24 Feb. 1303 Comyn had defeated an English army under Sir John Segrave at Roslin. On 26 May Edward met his army at Roxburgh; he marched by Edinburgh, Perth, Brechin, Aberdeen, and Banff without meeting any resistance save at Brechin, which stood a siege of about three weeks. Then he advanced into Moray, received the submission of the lords of the north at the castle of Lochindorb (, p. 989), and continued his ravages as far as Caithness. Stirling, the only place that still held out against him, he passed by. He marched south to Dunfermline, where he was joined by his queen, and passed the winter there, receiving the fealty of many Scottish nobles, and among them of Comyn. His expenses were heavy, and he was forced to find out some way of raising money. Accordingly, in February 1304, he issued writs for collecting tallage from his demesne. This was contrary to the spirit, though not to the letter, of the confirmation of the charters; it was an expedient that naturally commended itself to his legal mind as a means of obtaining his purpose without violating the exact terms of his pledge. In March he held a parliament at St. Andrews, and all the Scots who were summoned attended it save Wallace and Fraser; of Wallace he wrote on the 3rd that no terms were to be offered him save unconditional surrender. At St. Andrews he fixed the amounts which the barons were to pay as the price of obtaining his peace. When this business was concluded he laid siege to Stirling Castle; it was defended with great courage, and Edward, who was eager to take it, was more than once hit by missiles from the walls. The siege taxed his resources; he sent to England for materials for Greek fire, ordered the Prince of Wales to strip off the lead from the churches of Perth and Dunblane and send it to him, and employed Robert Bruce in conveying the framework for his engines (Documents, ii. 479, 481). The garrison surrendered at discretion on 24 July. Edward granted them their lives and merely punished them by imprisonment. He then made arrangements for the government of the country and the custody of the castles, and, accompanied by a number of Scottish nobles, marched southwards to Jedburgh, re-entered England, and spent Christmas at Lincoln. The court of king's bench and the exchequer, which had been at York ever since June 1297, now returned to Westminster. The following summer Wallace was delivered up to the English, was brought to London, was tried for treason, murders, robberies, and other felonies, and was put to death on 23 Aug.

Edward returned to London on 30 Jan. 1305, and, finding that during his absence a number of crimes of violence had been committed by hired ruffians, he caused a statute to be made against such offences, and in April issued a writ founded upon it, called 'of Trailbaston,' for the arrest and punishment of the guilty (Rolls of Parliament i. 178; Fœdera,. ii. 11960). He had trouble in his own family, for in June the Prince of Wales, who was under the influence of Piers Gaveston, grievously insulted and wronged Bishop Langton, and was kept in disgrace for six months see under Edward II. In the course of the summer a Gascon noble, Bertrand de Goth, archbishop of Bordeaux, one of Edward's subjects, was raised to the papacy as Clement V. Political and personal reasons combined to render him anxious to oblige Edward, and he invited him to be present at his coronation (Fœdera, ii. 966). The king did not go, but sent ambassadors to treat of certain matters that 'lay deep in his heart' (ib. p. 971). These were the promises he had made concerning the charters, and the offence that Winchelsey had given him (Chronicles, Edward I, Introd. cv). He considered that he had been forced to diminish the just rights of the crown by yielding to the demands for a perambulation and disafforesting, and that his subjects had taken an unfair advantage of him; and it can scarcely be doubted that his love of hunting rendered the concessions he was forced to make peculiarly grievous to him. Accordingly, at his request, Clement absolved him from the pledges he had entered into in 1297 (ib. p. 978). In condemning his conduct, and it is certainly worthy of condemnation, it must be remembered that he took no advantage of this bull, and the religious and moral standard of the time should also be taken into account. Clement further ordered that no excommunication was to be pronounced against him without the sanction of the Roman see, and thus deprived Winchelsey of the means of defending himself against the king. Edward had already shown that he looked on the archbishop with disfavour, for he must have approved of the excommunication pronounced against Winchelsey in 1301 in the matter of a suit brought against him at Rome, and his anger was kept alive by a quarrel between Winchelsey and Bishop Langton. In 1300 the archbishop heard that the king and Langton had procured his suspension, and went to the king