Under Philip V. and his successor, Charles IV. (1322-1328), there was cruel persecution of the Jews, and many people suffered death on the charge of sorcery.
EDWARD I. OF ENGLAND (1272-1307): CONQUEST OF WALES: WILLIAM WALLACE.—Edward, who was in the Holy Land when his father died, was a gallant knight and an able ruler,—"the most brilliant monarch of the fourteenth century." Llywelyn, prince of Wales, having refused to render the oath due from a vassal, was forced to yield. When a rebellion broke out several years later, Wales was conquered, and the leader of the rebellion was executed (1283). Thus Wales was joined to England; and the king gave to his son the title of "Prince of Wales," which the eldest son of the sovereign of England has since worn. Edward was for many years at war with Scotland, which now included the Gaelic-speaking people of the Highlands, and the English-speaking people of the Lowlands. The king of England had some claim to be their suzerain, a claim which the Scots were slow to acknowledge. The old line of Scottish princes of the Celtic race died out. Alexander III. fell with his horse over a cliff on the coast of Fife. Two competitors for the throne arose, both of them of Norman descent,—John Baliol and Robert Bruce. The Scots made Edward an umpire, to decide which of them should reign. He decided for Baliol (1292), stipulating that the suzerainty should rest with himself. When he called upon Baliol to aid him against France, the latter renounced his allegiance, and declared war. He was conquered at Dunbar (1296), and made prisoner. The strongholds in Scotland fell into the hands of the English. The country appeared to be subjugated, but the Scots were ill-treated by the English. William Wallace put himself at the head of a band of followers, defeated them near Stirling in 1292, and kept up the contest for several years with heroic energy. At length Edward, through the skill acquired by the English in the use of the bow, was the victor at Falkirk in 1298. Wallace, having been betrayed into his hands, was brutally executed in London (1305).
Edward carried off from Scone the stone on which the Scottish kings had always been crowned. It is now in Westminster Abbey, under the coronation chair of the sovereign of Great Britain. There was a legend, that on this same stone the patriarch Jacob laid his head when he beheld angels ascending and descending at Bethel. Where that stone was, it was believed that Scottish kings would reign. This was held to be verified when English kings of Scottish descent inherited the crown.
ROBERT BRUCE.—The struggle for Scottish independence was taken up by Robert Bruce, grandson of the Bruce who had claimed the crown. His plan to gain the throne was disclosed by John Comyn, nephew of Baliol: this Comyn young Bruce stabbed in a church at Dumfries. He was then crowned king at Scone, and summoned the Scots to his standard. The English king sent his son Edward to conquer him; but the king himself, before he could reach Scotland, died.
PARLIAMENT: THE JEWS.—Under Edward, the form of government by king, lords, and commons was firmly established. Parliament met in two distinct houses. Against his inclination he swore to the "Confirmation of the Charters," by which he engaged not to impose taxes without the consent of Parliament. The statute of mortmain has been referred to already. The clergy paid their taxes to the king when they found, that, unless they did so, the judges would not protect them. Edward had protected the Jews, who, in England as elsewhere, were often falsely accused of horrible crimes, and against whom there existed, on account of their religion, a violent prejudice. At length he yielded to the popular hatred, and banished them from the kingdom, permitting them, however, to take with them their property.
Edward II. (1307-1327).—Edward II., a weak and despicable sovereign, cared for nothing but pleasure.
He was under the influence of the son of a Gascon gentleman, Peter of Gaveston, whom, contrary to the injunction of his father, he recalled from banishment. Gaveston was made regent while the king was in France, whither he went, in 1308, to marry Isabel, daughter of Philip the Fair. After his return, the disgust of the barons at the conduct of Gaveston, and at the courses into which Edward was led by him, was such, that in 1310 they forced the king to give the government for a year to a committee of peers, by whom Gaveston was once more banished. When he came back, he was captured by the barons, and beheaded in 1312.
BRUCE: BANNOCKBURN: DEPOSITION OF EDWARD II.—After various successes, Robert Bruce laid siege to Stirling in 1314. This led to a temporary reconciliation between the king and the barons. Edward set out for Scotland with an army of a hundred thousand men. A great battle took place at Bannockburn, where Bruce, with a greatly inferior force of foot-soldiers, totally defeated the English. He had dug pits in front of his army, which he had covered with turf resting on sticks. The effect was to throw the English cavalry into confusion. Against the Despencers, father and son, the next favorites of Edward, the barons were not at first successful; but in 1326 Edward's queen, Isabel, who had joined his enemies, returned from France with young Edward, Prince of Wales, and at the head of foreign soldiers and exiles. The barons joined her: the Despencers were taken and executed. The king was driven to resign the crown. He was carried from one castle to another, and finally was secretly murdered at Berkeley Castle, by Roger Mortimer, in whose custody he had been placed.
On the suppression of the Knights Templars by Pope Clement V., their property in England was confiscated. The Temple, which was their abode in London, became afterwards the possession of two societies of lawyers, the Inner and Middle Temple.