THE SCOTTOSH KINGDOM
One might suppose that the Lowlands, geographically only an extension of northern England and inhabited by an English-speaking people, would have early united with the southern kingdom. But matters turned out otherwise. The Lowlands and the Highlands came together under a line of Celtic kings, who fixed their residence at Edinburgh and long maintained their independence.
SCOTLAND ANNEXED BY EDWARD I
Edward I, having conquered Wales, took advantage of the disturbed conditions which prevailed in Scotland to interfere in the affairs of that country. The Scotch offered a brave but futile resistance under William Wallace. This heroic leader, who held out after most of his countrymen submitted, was finally captured and executed. His head, according to the barbarous practice of the time, was set upon a pole on London Bridge. The English king now annexed Scotland without further opposition.
[Illustration: A QUEEN ELEANOR CROSS After the death of his wife Eleanor, Edward I caused a memorial cross to be set up at each place where her funeral procession had stopped on its way to London. There were originally seven crosses. Of the three that still exist, the Geddington cross is the best preserved. It consists of three stories and stands on a platform of eight steps.]
ROBERT BRUCE AND BANNOCKBURN, 1314 A.D.
But William Wallace by his life and still more by his death had lit a fire which might never be quenched. Soon the Scotch found another champion in the person of Robert Bruce. Edward I, now old and broken, marched against him, but died before reaching the border. The weakness of his son, Edward II, permitted the Scotch, ably led by Bruce, to win the signal victory of Bannockburn, near Stirling Castle. Here the Scottish spearmen drove the English knighthood into ignominious flight and freed their country from its foreign overlords.
SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE
The battle of Bannockburn made a nation. A few years afterwards the English formally recognized the independence of the northern kingdom. So the great design of Edward I to unite all the peoples of Britain under one government had to be postponed for centuries. [17]