EDWARD I.—Continued.
How King Edward went to war with the Welsh; how Prince Llewellyn and
his brother David were put to death for defending their country; how
he made war upon Scotland, and put Sir William Wallace to death; and
how ambition was the cause of his cruelty.
I am afraid I must not praise King Edward so much, now we are come to
his wars, for he was twice very cruel indeed.
You remember that the old Britons were driven by the Angles and
Saxons out of England into different countries, and that most of them
went to live among the mountains in Wales, where the conquerors could
not easily get to them.
These Britons chose princes of their own: one to reign over them in
North Wales, one in South Wales, and one in Powys, which was between
the two. Many of these princes were very good rulers of the country,
and protected it from all enemies, and improved the people very much,
by making good laws.
I am sorry to say, however, that the princes of the different parts
of Wales sometimes quarrelled with one another, and very often
quarrelled with the English who lived nearest to Wales. They did so
while Edward was King of England, and he went to war with them, as
he said only to make their prince come to him and do him the homage
that the Welsh princes had done in former times. But, finding that he
could very easily conquer the first of them with whom he fought, he
determined to get all Wales for himself, by degrees, and to join it
forever with England.
Llewellyn was the last real Prince of Wales before it was taken by
the English kings. He loved a young lady called Elinor de Montfort
very much, for she was good and beautiful, and he intended to marry
her. She was the daughter of the brave Simon de Montfort who fought
against Henry the Third. She had been staying a little while in
France, and was coming to Wales in a ship, and was to be married
to Llewellyn as soon as she arrived. Unhappily, King Edward heard
of this, and sent a stronger ship to sea, and took the young lady
prisoner, and shut her up in one of his castles for more than two
years, and would not let the prince see her until he should do him
homage.
Llewellyn fought a great many battles to defend his native land. At
last he had no part of Wales left but Snowdon and the country round
it. Then he yielded to Edward, who gave him Elinor de Montfort to
wife. But he soon began to fight again, hoping that he might by
degrees get the better of the English, but at the last he was killed
by a soldier, who cut off his head and took it to King Edward, who
was then at Shrewsbury.
Edward was so glad to find that Llewellyn was dead, that he forgot
how unbecoming it is for really a brave man to be revengeful,
especially after an enemy as brave as himself is dead; and I am sorry
and ashamed to say that, instead of sending the head of Llewellyn to
his relations, to be buried with his body, he sent it to London, and
had it stuck up over one of the gates of the city with a wreath of
willow on it, because the Welsh people used to love to crown their
princes with willow.
Soon after the death of Llewellyn, his brother David was made
prisoner by the English. Edward treated him with still greater
cruelty than he had treated Llewellyn, and, after his head was cut
off, set it up over the same gate with his brother’s.
[Illustration: Death of Llewellyn, last of the Welsh Princes.]
It has been said, that because the _bards_ or poets of Wales used to
make verses, and sing them to their harps, to encourage the Welshmen
to defend their country and their own princes from Edward, he was so
cruel as to order them all to be put to death. I hope it is not true.
For two hundred years Wales was in a sad state. The English kings
did not rule it wisely; for they did not treat the Welsh so well as
they did the English. The Welsh, therefore, feeling this to be very
unjust, were often trying to set up princes for themselves. But at
last, a king of Welsh descent, named Henry the Eighth, thought it
right to make the Welsh and English equal: and from that time they
have lived happily together.
We must now speak of King Edward’s wars in Scotland.
I told you that, while Henry the Second was king, William, King of
Scotland, had made war in England; and after being taken prisoner and
brought to London, Henry had set him free, on his promising that the
kings of England should be lords over the kings of Scotland.
Now, it happened that while Edward the First was King of England,
Alexander, King of Scotland, died, and left no sons. The Scotch sent
to fetch Alexander’s granddaughter from Norway, where she was living
with her father, King Eric, that she might be their queen. But the
poor young princess died.
Two of her cousins, John Baliol and Robert Bruce, now wanted to be
king; but as they could not both be so, they agreed to ask King
Edward to judge between them; and King Edward was very glad, because
their asking him showed the people that they owned he was Lord of
Scotland, and he chose John Baliol to be king of Scotland.
You will read the story of all that John Baliol did in the history of
Scotland.
Edward watched Scotland very narrowly, and when any Scotsman thought
that King John had treated him unjustly, he would appeal for justice
to Edward, who said that, as he was Lord of Scotland, he would take
care that Scotland was governed properly; till at last John Baliol
went to war with Edward; but he was beaten, and the richest and best
part of Scotland was taken by Edward. He was very severe, nay, cruel,
to the Scots.
At last a gentleman named Sir William Wallace could not bear to have
the Scots so ill treated as they were by the English governors that
Edward sent into the country. So he went himself, or sent messengers
to all the barons and gentlemen he knew to beg them to join him, and
drive the English out of Scotland; and they did so, and might have
made their own country free, if Sir William Wallace had not been
taken prisoner and carried to London, where King Edward ordered his
head to be cut off; which was as wicked and cruel as his cutting off
the heads of the two Welsh princes.
This did not end the war in Scotland; for another Robert Bruce, who
had come to be king after Baliol, determined to do what Sir William
Wallace had begun; I mean, to drive the English out of Scotland; and
he made ready for a long and troublesome war, and King Edward did
the same; but when Edward had got to the border of Scotland with his
great army, to fight King Robert, he died.
If King Edward I. had been content to rule over his own subjects,
and to mend their laws, and encourage them to trade and to study, he
would have made them happier; and we who live now should have said he
deserved better to be loved.
Indeed, he did so much that was right and wise, that I am sorry we
cannot praise him in everything.
His greatest fault was ambition,—I mean, a wish to be above
everybody else, by any means. Now, ambition is good when it only
makes us try to be wiser and better than other people, by taking
pains with ourselves, and being good to the very persons we should
wish to get the better of.
But when ambition makes us try to get things that belong to others,
by all means, bad or good, it is wrong.
Ambition caused wise King Edward to forget himself, after conquering
the Prince of Wales, and to take Wales as if it were his own country,
that there might never be greater men in Wales than the kings of
England.
The ambition to be King of Scotland made Edward go to war with the
Scots, and made him so cruel as to cut off the head of Sir William
Wallace, because he wanted to save his country from being conquered
by Edward.
So you see ambition led Edward to do the two most cruel actions he
was ever guilty of.