into effect. Nigel Bruce was brought to trial at Berwick, hanged, and
beheaded. Christopher and Alexander Seton, both Englishmen, shared
the same sentence. These had been all concerned, in various ways, in
the murder. The earl of Athol had taken part in the coronation of
Bruce, and had been in arms at the affair of Johnstown. He attempted
to escape by sea, but was driven back by a storm, and captured. Sir
Simon Fraser was the same person who had cruelly murdered Ralph the
cofferer at the battle of Roslyn, in 1302. He had received pardon for
the offences of that period, but was now found again in arms. These two
were tried in Westminster Hall, and executed, and their heads placed on
London Bridge. “If we consider these men,” says Lingard, “as champions
of freedom, they may demand our pity; but their execution cannot
substantiate the charge of cruelty against Edward. Some were murderers,
all had repeatedly broken their oaths of fealty, and had repeatedly
been admitted to pardon.”
The winter now reigned, and Bruce was hidden in the little isle of
Rachrin. On the approach of spring he surprised the isle of Arran, and
from thence sent spies into his own country of Annandale. The English
in and near Turnberry Castle were cantoned in careless security,
hearing nothing of any enemy; and it was not difficult to take them by
surprise. Lord Henry Percy shut himself up in the castle; but he was
soon relieved by the arrival of Sir Roger St. John with a thousand men.
About this time two of Bruce’s brothers, Thomas and Alexander, having
collected about seven hundred men in Ireland, landed in Galloway. But
they were met on landing by Macdowal, a Scottish chief, who remained
true to his oath. The Irish auxiliaries were routed and scattered, and
both the Bruces, with Sir Reginald Crawford, were taken prisoners.
They were sent to Carlisle, and, having been concerned in Comyn’s
murder, were immediately brought to trial and executed. The whole
of the executions on the scaffold, which took place in consequence
of this rebellion, included about sixteen or eighteen persons. Most
of these had been concerned in Comyn’s murder, either as actual
parties, or as accessories. Yet is it insisted upon by some writers
that these punishments partook of cruelty. These critics, however,
have no censure to spare for such atrocities as “the Douglas larder,”
which was perpetrated on Palm Sunday. Sir James Douglas, one of
Bruce’s adherents, surprised the English garrison of Douglas _while
in church_. He butchered them all, after Wallace’s manner, and as he
had no strength wherewith to hold the castle, he raised a great pile
of wood, threw the bodies of the English garrison upon it, and then
setting it on fire, consumed the whole.[164] Such deeds as these were
not calculated to soften the king’s disposition, or to dispose him to
lenity when any of Bruce’s immediate accomplices fell into his hands.
Yet, when was such a rebellion as this suppressed—as, during Edward’s
lifetime, it _was_ suppressed—with so small an amount of judicial
punishment? Four centuries later, another Scottish rebellion was
quelled, while England was guided by the councils of Pelham, Hardwicke,
Stephen Fox, Granville, and the elder Pitt. And these statesmen did
not shrink from exhibiting, in various places, eighty ghastly heads;
or from beheading, on Tower Hill, lords Kilmarnock and Balmerino, and
finally, lord Lovat, a man whose years were fourscore![165]
The spring of 1307 was now advancing, and Bruce, whose valour and
personal prowess were of the highest order, found many opportunities of
harassing the English, by surprises and sudden encounters. His success,
however, was not unvaried. On one occasion he lost his banner, and was
in the greatest peril of capture or death. In May he ventured to stand
the assault of the earl of Pembroke, and by strongly posting his men,
armed with long spears, he defeated the earl’s attempt to break his
line, and drove back the English, who had only cavalry to oppose to his
spears. Three days after, he encountered the earl of Gloucester, whose
force he also routed, and who retreated into the castle of Ayr. But the
king, hearing that Bruce was in the field, sent a force from Carlisle,
before which the rebel chief retreated. “He then took refuge in the
marshes and forests, where the English found it impossible to follow
him.”[166] And thus stood matters at the opening of July, 1307.
But now drew near that great event for which, there can be no doubt,
Bruce had long been eagerly looking, and which entirely changed the
whole position of affairs. The king, as our readers will probably have
observed, had never made his appearance in the field during the whole
of the fifteen months which had elapsed since the first outbreak of
the rebellion. He had found it possible to get as far as Carlisle and
Dumfries, but Bruce knew full well that his active career as a military
commander was for ever terminated. The last few months of his life
presented merely a painful struggle between a still vigorous mind and a
decaying body. During all the spring of 1307, a dysentery had detained
and weakened him, and the natural ardour of his temperament must have
conspired with the disease. His very longing for the active life to
which he had been so long accustomed, supplied fuel to the inward fire
which was already consuming him. Bruce’s reappearance in the field, and
his occasional successes, made any longer delay appear intolerable.
Persuading himself, at the beginning of July, that his disease was
abating, he offered up the litter in which he had hitherto travelled,
in the cathedral of Carlisle, and mounted his horse for a new
expedition into Scotland; but the decaying body was unable to answer
the call of that powerful spirit. The effort merely brought on at once
that termination of his disease which might otherwise have been delayed
for months. In the course of the next two or three days, he was unable
to proceed more than some six or seven miles; reaching the village of
Burgh on the Sands, where he probably halted at the close of the first
or second day’s march, and where, on the seventh of that month, he died.
His last hours were spent in vainly endeavouring to impress upon his
son some obvious lessons of prudence and firm resolve—lessons which
were indeed greatly needed, but which the young prince seemed mentally
incapable of receiving. He enjoined upon him never to permit the return
of Gaveston. He urged him forthwith, and once for all, to put down
the Scottish revolt, the means of which were all prepared and ready
to his hand. So earnestly and enthusiastically did he dwell upon this
point, that he desired his son to carry, after his death, his bones at
the head of his army; so that he, before whose charge no Scottish army
had been able to stand, might, even after death, be still in some sort
present in the first shock of the battle.
But he spoke to ears which had already been closed, by luxury and
dissipation, against all high and noble counsels. Not one of his
commands was obeyed. The young king no sooner saw the opulence and
splendour of royalty within his grasp, than he turned his back at
once on the calls of honour and duty. The great and all‐important
object of putting down the insurrection in Scotland was disregarded.
The forward march was countermanded, the anticipations of Bruce were
fully realized, and the union of the two kingdoms—the great object
of Edward’s labours during the last ten years—was forgotten and
practically abandoned. The remains of the greatest king that England
had ever seen were, after some delay, removed to Westminster, and were
placed near to his father Henry and to his beloved Eleanor. A simple
tomb received that noble heart, with the brief inscription:—
=Edvardus Primus: Scotorum Malleus:
Hic Est: mcccviii[167]
Pactum Serva.=
The death of Edward may be said to have ensured the ultimate success
of Bruce’s ambitious enterprise. “The two greatest (_i.e._, most
puissant) knights in Europe at that period,” says Froissart, “were king
Edward and Robert Bruce.” Edward being removed, Bruce found no equal in
the field. Not only so, but there was opposed to him, in Edward’s room,
the weakest and most incompetent monarch that ever sat on the throne of
England. It was nearly inevitable, therefore, that he should entirely
succeed in the enterprise to which he had devoted himself. He decided
the question of Scottish independence at Bannockburn, inflicting on
the English the greatest defeat they had received since the battle of
Hastings. This victory established him on the throne of Scotland, of
which he held entire possession for the remainder of his life.
One very serious and very deplorable mistake has been made in modern
times, in misinterpreting all these events, and, instead of seeing
in them another successful Norman enterprise,—regarding them as an
effort of the highest “patriotism.” Thus Bruce is described by Sir
Walter Scott as “the vindicator of his country’s liberty”—as one who
had adopted “the unalterable resolution, either to free his country or
to perish in the attempt;”[168] while Hume unhesitatingly tells us,
that “Bruce had long harboured in his breast the design of freeing his
enslaved country;” and a writer of our own day styles him “the most
heroic, as well as the most patriotic, monarch which Scotland has ever
produced.”
It is difficult to imagine a greater abuse of language than this.
Patriotism is a love of country; and a real patriot will labour and
suffer, and, if needful, will die for his country; but Robert Bruce
conspired against his country, fought against his country, and, in the
end, inflicted upon his country the most grievous injuries. If this be
“patriotism,” then words have lost their meaning.
“Bruce was an Englishman;”—we quote the words of a volume put forth by
a committee of Scottish gentlemen, “Bruce by descent was an Englishman,
and probably so by affection as well as interest.”[169]
The son of a great Yorkshire baron, and heir to ninety‐four English
lordships and to two Scottish estates, he was born, as we have seen, in
the metropolis of England, a few weeks before Edward’s coronation. We
entirely accept, therefore, the statement of the _Wallace Documents_,
that “Bruce was an Englishman;”—but we read with hesitation the rest
of the sentence—“and probably so by affection as well as interest.” We
believe that Sir Walter Scott formed a more accurate estimate of these
matters when he wrote, concerning the Norman knights who were settled
in Scotland, that “Two or three generations had not converted Normans
into Scots; in fact, _the Normans were neither by birth nor manners
accessible to the emotions which constitute patriotism_.” “The ideal
perfection of the knight‐errant was, to wander from land to land in
quest of renown; to gain earldoms, _kingdoms_, nay, empires, by the
sword; and to sit down a settler on his acquisitions, without looking
back on the land which gave him life.”[170] This vivid sketch seems as
if it had been meant to describe a Robert de Brus.
Still, so long as Edward could keep the field, the young aspirant
remained in quietness; but when he had seen distinctly that the great
captain’s campaigns were ended, Bruce came boldly to the front, and
soon won a kingdom for himself. Such honour and credit as belong to
a feat of this kind ought to be awarded to Bruce; but this sort of
merit should not be confounded with the far higher virtue of real
“patriotism.”
Bruce’s success made him to all succeeding ages a hero. “So long as
thou doest well unto thyself,” says the Psalmist, “men will speak good
of thee.” With this sort of popular and vulgar applause we shall not
quarrel, but the more serious and thoughtful students of history should
pause before they award a nobler kind of praise to a mere knight‐errant
of the Norman breed.
His success placed him on the throne of Scotland, and maintained him
on that throne to the end of his life; and yet it may be questioned
whether, even on the lowest view, of mere material and personal
advantage, his success was such as a man might look back upon with
satisfaction. He was crowned king at Scone in March, 1306. Edward’s
death assured to him the quiet possession of that throne, and he
did, in fact, retain it until 1331, when he died. Fourteen years of
uncertain warfare, and then eleven years of settled dominion, made
up the whole of his kingly career. He had indeed succeeded, but such
a success was scarcely better than failure. His family had been
destroyed. Of a brotherhood of five gallant knights who took part in
the murder of Comyn, he, the king, was, in 1318, the sole survivor.
Three of his brothers had perished on the scaffold before a year had
been completed from Comyn’s death; and the fourth, endeavouring to
find for himself a throne in Ireland, died in the attempt; and he, the
beginner of the strife, was now left alone. His wife for several years
was held in captivity in England; he himself died of leprosy in 1331,
and his son spent a large portion of his life in an English prison. On
the son’s death the line of Bruce ended, and that of Stewart came in
its stead—a line scarcely to be paralleled in history for disaster,
wretchedness, and disgrace.[171] This being the measure of Bruce’s
success, it may be questioned whether failure would not have been on
the whole preferable, so far as he personally was concerned.
But what of Scotland? Are the usual phrases of “deliverance,”
“independence,” “freedom from a foreign yoke,” etc., properly applied
to this case? In the year 1603, Scotland became permanently united
to England, and has ever since been ruled by governments sitting at
Westminster. Has this change been calamitous for Scotland? Is there
a Scotchman living, whose opinion is worth a straw, who would desire
to see Bruce’s enterprise repeated, and a new Scottish monarchy
established?
No, Scotland was very far from benefiting by this greatly‐lauded
“deliverance.” A separation of the northern and southern districts of
this island had indeed been effected, but that separation was not then,
any more than it would be now, for the good of either section.
In mere military glory, the advantage could not long remain on the
Scottish side. “Never,” says Alison, “at any subsequent period, was
Scotland able to withstand the more powerful arms of the English
yeomanry. Thenceforward, her military history is little more than a
melancholy catalogue of continued defeats.”
The discomfitures of Halidon‐hill, of Dupplin‐moor, of Durham, of
Hamildon‐hill, of Flodden, and of Pinkie, soon left Bannockburn the
one solitary triumph amidst a long history of disaster. These six
battles are computed to have inflicted on the Scots a loss of one
hundred thousand men. Allow one‐half or one‐third of this number
for the English losses, and then add to the reckoning the perpetual
drain arising from skirmishes and “border‐raids,” and we shall see
that this irrational idea of “Scottish independence” must have cost
the two nations, from Bruce’s day to Elizabeth’s, at least a quarter
of a million of valuable lives. The loss of property and of material
prosperity during the same period cannot easily be estimated.
An unfriendly critic remarks of Edward, that, with statesmanlike
sagacity, “he saw that, before England could mount very high in the
scale of nations, the whole island must be one undivided power, instead
of three.” This aim and object was a noble one, and if pursued by
honourable means—as we believe that it was—it casts lustre on the
sovereign’s name. But how, then, shall we praise the man who, from
the far lower motive of mere personal ambition, withstood and finally
frustrated the great king’s purpose?
Scotland was not benefited by Bruce’s success. Her independence, as
we have just remarked, brought upon her a long train of calamitous
wars and ruinous defeats. The uniform custom of France, whenever she
quarrelled with England, was, to send to Scotland, and to incite her to
attack her neighbour on the northern side, as a diversion in favour of
the war beginning in the south: but Scotland, so allied with France,
was merely the dwarf going to battle by the side of the giant. Of the
hard blows she received a full share; but the glory and the profit,
when there were any, usually fell to the lot of her ally.
Nor did Scotland gain, by her desired “self‐government,” any recompence
for what she lost in her external relations? All Scottish historians
of any credit admit, that Edward’s mode of government was liberal,
mild, and upright. Mr. Tytler confesses that “the measures he adopted
were equally politic and just.” “No wanton or unnecessary act of rigour
was committed, no capricious changes introduced.” And when, in 1304-5,
a new “settlement of Scotland” was required, the king called on the
most active of the Scottish prelates, Wishart, upon Mowbray, and upon
Bruce, and placed the matter wholly in their hands.
Could Scotland obtain, then, in recompense for all the losses she
suffered in this home‐warfare, any solid advantages, springing out of
“home‐government,” which could counter‐balance long years of carnage
and desolation? History gives no affirmative answer. We will ask the
Scottish writers, and them only. Describing a period only sixty years
after Bruce’s death, Sir Walter Scott says: “To use a scriptural
expression, ‘every one did that which was right in his own eyes,’ as
if there had been no king in Scotland.” A little later he says: “If we
look at Scotland generally during the minority, it forms a dark and
disgusting spectacle.” And Mr. Tytler uses similar language. In one
place he says: “The nation had been reduced to the lowest pitch of
impoverishment in every branch of public wealth” (vol. ii. p. 75); in
another, “The pride and power of the feudal barons had risen to a pitch
destructive of all regular subordination” (p. 85); and again, “Scotland
seemed to be rapidly sinking under her accumulated distresses” (p. 94).
No—the “recovery of her independence” had been no gain to Scotland;
to each district of the island—to Scotland as well as to England—it
had brought merely weakness, distraction, and loss. Edward’s desire to
create one united Britain was wise and statesmanlike. Had Llewellyn and
Balliol co‐operated with him, each of them might have preserved his
throne. But Bruce’s enterprise, commencing with an atrocious murder,
was strictly one of personal ambition. If he ever really dreamed that
he was conferring a benefit on Scotland, he fell into a grievous
error; but if his self‐consciousness prevented this, and he merely
used “independence” as a popular cry,—a device, then his scheme and
his effort, from first to last, was a grievous crime. Let us leave
this part of the subject, however, and try to take a fitting leave of
the great sovereign whose reign we have endeavoured to describe. And
here we must remember that, at each point of the story, we have freely
expressed an opinion—have endeavoured to meet hostile attacks, and to
place Edward’s character in the fullest light of truth. We must not now
repeat all these arguments. We prefer, for obvious reasons, to gather
into one view the judgments formed by many eminent writers, both of
past times and of our own day, and thus to collect, by degrees, the
verdict of a very competent jury.
* * * * *
Two very different and, in fact, opposite beliefs have obtained
currency in England during the last five centuries. For four hundred
years Englishmen formed their own opinions, and spoke of Edward as
they knew him, or as their forefathers had known him. Then, for one
hundred years, they submitted to have a different view forced upon
them; and they received in silence, until they gradually came to
believe it—the estimate of Edward which was formed by the admirers of
Bruce and of Wallace;—of Bruce the false and of Wallace the ferocious.
Thus, strangely enough, the people of England learned to think, in the
eighteenth century, quite differently of the greatest of their kings
from what their forefathers had done, during at least ten or twelve
generations.
The men of his own day admired and venerated Edward. Hemingford speaks
of him as “the most excellent, wise, and sagacious king.” Rishanger
tells us of “his infinite labours and manifold troubles,” and of “his
numberless good deeds.” Wykes dwells on “his wonderful mercy towards
transgressors,” “a mercy which not only relinquished revenge, but
freely granted pardon.”
This estimate, this character of him, had gone abroad. Uberti, an
Italian poet of Edward’s own time, condemns his father, Henry, but adds—
“Yet there’s some good to say of him, I grant,
Because of him was the good Edward born,
Whose valour still is famous in the world.”[172]
A little later another foreigner, Froissart, uses the same language,
describing him as he who was “called the good king Edward, who was
brave, wise, and fortunate in war.”
During four centuries our own chroniclers and historians continue to
use the same language. Fabyan, in 1494, describes him as “slow to all
manner of strife; discreet, and wise, and true of his word; in arms
a giant.” Holinshed speaks of him as “wise and virtuous, gentle and
courteous.” John Foxe, the puritan, terms him “valiant and courageous,
pious and gentle.” Prynne, another puritan, speaks of him as “the most
illustrious,—our glorious king Edward.” Camden, in Elizabeth’s days,
describes him as “a monarch most renowned, in whose valiant soul the
spirit of God seemed evidently to dwell; so that he justly merited
the character of one of the greatest glories of Britain.” And when we
turn to Rapin, who wrote towards the end of the seventeenth century,
and who was, like Froissart, a foreigner, and wholly impartial—we find
him giving this deliberate judgment:—“Edward joined to his bodily
perfections a solid judgment:, a great penetration, and a prudence
which rarely suffered him to make a false step. Besides this, he had
principles of justice, honour, and honesty, which restrained him from
countenancing vice. He was also of an exemplary chastity, a virtue
seldom found in sovereigns. All these noble qualities bred in the
hearts of his subjects a love and esteem which greatly contributed to
the peace of his kingdom.”[173]
Thus, through a period of several succeeding centuries, Englishmen,
with one consent, regarded this great sovereign with veneration—not so
much for his valour or his prowess, in which the Conqueror, or him of
the “lion heart,” might, perhaps, equal him, as for his wisdom, his
statesmanlike qualities, his “legislative mind,” and, still more, for
his uprightness, his truthfulness, his merciful disposition, and his
various moral excellences. In their eyes he was indeed “great,” but,
still more remarkably, he was “good.”
But in the eighteenth century, new histories, brought up to more recent
times, were needed, and English attempts to supply the want generally
failed. Brady, in 1685, Tyrrell, in 1700, and Carte, in 1747, were
laborious and dull. To supply the want, which could not but be felt,
two Scotchmen, of unquestionable talent, offered themselves, and the
histories written by Hume and by Henry soon became the favourite
authorities. An Anglo‐Irishman, Goldsmith, was content to follow
in their track. Other Scotchmen of high merit—Mackintosh, Scott,
Macfarlane, Tytler, and Chambers—have succeeded Hume and Henry; and of
three generations it may be said with truth, that Englishmen have been
content to learn the history of their own land from the lips and pens
of the natives of Caledonia.
Now, for the greater part of the story, this might occur without any
injurious consequences; but how would it affect that part of the
narrative which described the wars between England and Scotland? Above
all, how were the enthusiastic admirers of Bruce and Wallace to discuss
impartially the deeds of him who had twice conquered Scotland, and who
had sent Wallace and three of the family of Bruce to the scaffold? That
they should do so was evidently impossible. Yet they gained almost
entire possession of the public ear, and then they utterly changed the
public feeling as to this, the greatest of all the English kings.