Wallace effected his escape with a remnant of his army, and fell back on Stirling. The English followed fast on his steps; but when they arrived at that place he was gone, and the town was a heap of smouldering ruins. St. Andrews and Perth were afterwards also burnt to the ground; the first by the English, and the latter by the inhabitants themselves. As the king passed through the country, he laid waste the villages and the cultivated fields with fire and sword. But the land was poor, and not all the activity of the marauding forces could procure the necessaries of life for so large a body of men. Edward was compelled to retreat, and in the month of September he quitted Scotland, having regained possession only of the southern part of the country.

For several years after the signal defeat he sustained at Falkirk we hear no more of Wallace. He resigned the office of guardian of the kingdom, and, in an assembly of the barons, William Lamberton, Bishop of St. Andrews, John Comyn the younger, John de Soulis, and Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, were appointed guardians in his stead. The new appointments were made, like the old, in the name of Balliol, although that dethroned monarch was then a prisoner in London. It would appear that bitter feuds of long standing were buried in the arrangement by which Bruce and Comyn consented to act together in the name of the man who had successfully rivalled both of them in the contest for the crown. The events of the after life of John Balliol may be told in a few words. In the year 1299 the Pope Boniface VIII. interceded in his behalf, and the fallen king was liberated from his confinement, and conveyed to the estate of Bailleul, in Normandy, from which his ancestors took their name. There he passed the rest of his days in retirement, scarcely remembering his former high position, and little heeding the important events which were deciding the destinies of his country. He died in the year 1314.

Meanwhile, events of some importance had been going on in England. Allusion has already been made to the heavy burdens entailed upon the English people by the repeated wars of their king. In addition to these causes of complaint, the clergy were oppressed by the officers of the crown, who seized their stores and ransacked their granaries for supplies for the king's troops. At length they applied for aid to the Pope; but the only result of the application was to make their condition still more miserable. The Pope granted them a bull, known as "Clericis laicos," directing that the Church revenues should not be devoted to secular purposes without the permission of the Holy See. Such defiance Edward could not be expected to endure. But at this time Boniface was himself in a position of difficulty, and the bull being opposed in France, he was compelled within a year to issue another, which virtually restored matters to their former position, and removed the papal protection from the goods of the Church. Acting upon the authority of the first bull, some of the English clergy refused to satisfy the demands of the king, who then took the extraordinary course of outlawing the whole body. The whole of the property of bishops, abbots, and inferior clergy was seized, insomuch that in many cases they were left without bread to eat or a bed to lie upon.

Meanwhile, the preparations for the French expedition were being pushed on. In February, 1297, Edward was engaged in collecting two armies to proceed, the one into Flanders, and the other to Guienne, when the Earl of Hereford, the constable of England, and the Earl of Norfolk, the marshal, who had been required to quit the country with their armed vassals, directly refused to obey. The king addressed the marshal, and swore by the everlasting God that he should either go or hang; and the earl repeated the oath, and swore that he would neither go nor hang. With these words the two barons quitted the royal presence together, and 1,500 knights immediately followed them. The king thus found himself deserted by his court, and he knew that at such a moment his crown, or even his life, was in imminent danger. With that ability for which he was distinguished, he occupied himself in quelling the storm. He employed all his art to conciliate the clergy, and having in some degree succeeded, he nobly threw himself upon the goodwill of the people. He mounted a platform in front of Westminster Hall, attended only by his son, the Prince of Wales, the Earl of Warwick, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, and addressed the people assembled below him. After a pathetic allusion to the dangers he was about to encounter for his subjects, and expressing a hope that, in the event of his death, they would preserve the succession to his son, the stern warrior-king shed tears before his audience; the archbishop also wept; and the people, overcome by these extraordinary demonstrations, rent the air with shouts of loyalty. The earls still refusing to obey the king, he appointed other officers in their place, and induced the nobles who were with him to make him a money grant.

Edward now appointed the Archbishop of Canterbury to the head of the council of regency, and proceeded to embark on his expedition to Flanders. At Winchester he was met by a deputation, who, in the name of the lords spiritual and temporal of England, tendered him a formal remonstrance. The nobles denied their liability to accompany the king to Flanders, in which country their fathers had never borne arms for the kings of England; and said, moreover, that their means were so reduced by the royal exactions, they could not, if they would, obey his command. They also designated the expedition as unnecessary and impolitic while affairs in Scotland remained in such a critical position. The king made no direct reply to the address, and feeling himself secure in the loyalty of the people, he left the nobles to their discontent, and set sail for Flanders.

REVOLT OF THE BARONS AGAINST THE KING. (See p. [348.])

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It is necessary here to relate the circumstances which led to the expedition in question. The chief was naturally the occupation of Gascony; but there were subsidiary causes. In the year 1294 Edward had concluded a treaty of marriage between his son Edward and Philippa, the daughter of Guy, Count of Flanders. This union was opposed to the interests of the King of France, who exerted every means in his power to prevent it. Having in vain attempted to do so by a course of intrigues, Philip sent to invite the count to meet him at Corbeil, for the purpose of consulting on matters of importance. The old man, whose character was honest and unsuspicious, presented himself at the time appointed, when his person, with that of his wife, was seized by the orders of Philip, who conveyed them prisoners to Paris. This unknightly act of treachery excited general indignation throughout Europe, and the Pope having remonstrated with the king, he was obliged to set the count at liberty. Before doing so, however, he compelled him to make oath that he would abandon the alliance with England, and, in pledge of the fulfilment of the vow, Philippa was required to be sent to Paris as a hostage. These demands having been reluctantly complied with, the old Count took a tender farewell of his child, who was then only twelve years old, and returned to his own dominions. An appeal which he addressed to the Pope for the recovery of his daughter was answered by a threat of excommunication against Philip; but that unscrupulous monarch retained possession of his hostage, in defiance of the thunders of the Church. It was at this time that the Count entered into a coalition which had been recently formed by Edward, and included the Emperor of Germany, the Archduke of Austria, the Duke of Brabant, and the Count of Bar.