221. Revolt and Death of Wallace (1303).
A new revolt now broke out in Scotland (S219). The patriot, William Wallace, rose and led his countrymen against the English,—led them with that impetuous valor which breathes in Burns's lines:
"Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled."
Fate, however, was against him. After eight years of desperate fighting, the valiant soldier was captured, executed on Tower Hill in London as a traitor, and his head, crowned in mockery with a wreath of laurel, was set on a pike on London Bridge.
But though the hero who perished on the scaffold could not prevent his country from becoming one day a part of England, he did hinder its becoming so on unfair and tyrannical terms. "Scotland," says Carlyle, "is not Ireland. No; because brave men arose there, and said, `Behold, ye must not tread us down like slaves,—and ye shall not,—and ye cannot!'" But Ireland failed, not for any lack of brave men, but for lack of unity among them.
222. Expulsion of the Jews, 1290.
The darkest stain on Edward's reign was his treatment of the Jews (S119). Up to this period that unfortunate race had been protected by the Kings of England as men protect the cattle which they fatten for slaughter. So long as they accumulated money, and so long as the sovereign could extort from them whatever portion of their accumulations he saw fit to demand, they were worth guarding. A time had now come when the populace clamored for their expulsion from the island, on the ground that their usury and rapacity was ruining the country.
Edward yielded to the clamor, and first stripping the Jews of their possessions, he prepared to drive them into exile. It is said that even their books were taken from them and given to the libraries of Oxford. Thus pillaged, they were forced to leave the realm,—a miserable procession, numbering some sixteen thousand. Many perished on the way, and so few ventured to return that for three centuries and a half, until Cromwell came to power, they disappear from English history (S458).
223. Death of Queen Eleanor.
Shortly after this event, Queen Eleanor died (S216). The King showed the devoted love he bore her in the beautiful crosses of carved stone that he raised to her memory, three of which still stand.[1] These were erected at the places where her coffin was set down, in its transit from Grantham, in Lincolnshire, where she died, to the little village of Charing (now Charing Cross, the geographical center of London). This was the last station before her body reached its final resting place, in that abbey at Westminster which holds such wealth of historic dust. Around Queen Eleanor's tomb wax lights were kept constantly burning, until the Protestant Reformation extinguished them, nearly three hundred years later.