4. Edward's Decision.—Edward decided with perfect justice, according to the ideas of modern law, that Balliol, as the grandson of the eldest daughter, had the best right to the throne. In early times in Scotland no one would have thought of doubting Bruce's claim as next in degree. As Edward refused to divide the dominions among the heirs of the three daughters, it is clear that he looked on Scotland as a dependent kingdom, and not as an ordinary fief, which would have been shared among the three rivals. Judgment was given at Berwick, November 1292, eighteen months after the first meeting of the council. During this time the government had been nominally in the hands of the guardians of the kingdom; but Edward had the strongholds, twenty-three in number, in his own hands, and seems to have looked upon the two countries as really united. At the end of the suit he gave up the strongholds, and by so doing showed that he meant to act fairly.
5. John, 1292-96. Policy of Edward.—The great scheme of Edward's life was to unite Britain under one government, of which he himself was to be the head. He had already added to England the dependent principality of Wales. Hitherto his actions towards Scotland had been perfectly fair and upright. In placing John Balliol, the rightful heir, on the throne, he was doing no more than had been done by the King of England, acting as over-lord, in the cases of Malcolm Canmore and Eadgar: but his way of placing him there was not strictly just; the conditions which he required were such as he had no right to exact, nor John to accept. He made him do homage for his kingdom as though it had been an English fief. Now, though this was true as far as concerned Lothian, and partly true as concerned Strathclyde, as concerned Scotland it was untrue. Although Scotland had, since 924, been in some degree subject to the King of England, this dependence was no more than was implied by the "commendation," the very natural relation of the weaker to the stronger. But it must be remembered that three centuries had passed since that first commendation, and in that time the original simplicity of the feudal tenure had been altogether changed and in great measure forgotten. Edward looked on the three parts of Scotland as fiefs, and therefore subject to the same burthens as his other fiefs; the Scots knew that they were not thus subject, and they therefore argued that their kingdom was in no way dependent on England: thus both parties were partly right and partly wrong. Even the amount of dependence implied in the original commendation had, in the last reign, been refused by the Scottish King, and had not been insisted on by the English one. But John Balliol was weak and foolish, while Edward was wise, strong, and determined to rule the whole country indirectly through his submissive vassal.
6. Coronation of John.—John was duly crowned and enthroned on the Stone of Destiny, after which he renewed his homage to Edward, in 1292. He then summoned the Estates at Scone. This was the first meeting of the Estates which was called a parliament. John was not popular with his subjects, who looked on him as a tool in the hands of Edward. Before many months had passed Roger Bartholomew, a burgess of Berwick, being dissatisfied with a decision given against him in Scotland, appealed to Edward, who named a council at Newcastle to hear the case. This was a direct violation of the treaty of Brigham, and Edward obliged John to sign a discharge and renunciation of this treaty and of any other document then in existence which might call in question his superiority. Another appeal was made a few months afterwards against the decision of the Estates by a Scot of the old kingdom, Macduff, the grand-uncle of the Earl of Fife, and this was followed by appeals respecting the lands of the houses of Bruce and Douglas. John was summoned to appear before the Parliament of England, was voted a contumacious vassal, and commanded to give up the three principal strongholds of his kingdom into the hands of his over-lord till he should give satisfaction.
7. French Alliance.—In 1294 war broke out between France and England, and John, with the nobles and commons of his kingdom, entered into an alliance for mutual defence with Eric of Norway and Philip of France against Edward. This was the beginning of the foreign policy maintained in Scotland for several centuries, until the Reformation, when religious sympathy got the better of national hatred, and Roman Catholic France became more dreaded than Protestant England. In compliance with this treaty a Scottish army crossed the Border and swept and wasted the northern counties.
8. Edward's first Conquest.—Edward's dealings with Scotland now became those of a conqueror instead of a protector. The Scots had, without gainsaying, acknowledged his supremacy. It was the appeal of Scottish subjects which had tempted him to extend the incidents of that supremacy beyond legal limits, and now it was the Scots who began the war, and thus gave Edward the excuse, for which he was waiting, for conquering their country. He at once marched northwards with a great army, and besieged and took Berwick, a large and wealthy trading town. Provoked by the resistance and insults of the citizens, the King wreaked a fearful vengeance on them, and Berwick was reduced to the rank of a common market-town. While he was at Berwick, John's renunciation of fealty was sent to him by the party of independence, who were keeping their King in custody lest he should repent and submit. When Edward had secured Berwick, he marched to Dunbar, took the castle, and then went on to Edinburgh. He there took up his quarters in Holyrood, laid siege to the castle, took it, seized the crown jewels, and then passed on to Perth, taking possession of Stirling on the way. To crush out all idea of an independent kingdom, and to let the people see that they were conquered, he carried off from Scone the Stone of Destiny, with which the fate of the Scottish monarchy was supposed to be mystically joined. This stone was removed to Westminster, and was placed under the seat of the coronation-chair. He also took with him the Holy Rood of Queen Margaret, and obliged all the nobles who submitted to him to swear allegiance on this much valued relic. Edward did not go further north than Elgin, and he returned to Berwick in 1296, having marched all through Scotland in twenty-one weeks. All the nobles and prelates did personal homage to him. John submitted himself to Edward's pleasure, and was degraded and dispossessed. He was then sent as a prisoner to England, was afterwards made over to the keeping of the Bishop of Vicenza, the Pope's representative, and at last he retired to his own estates in Picardy, where he died in 1315. Edward treated his kingdom as a fief forfeited by the treason of the vassal who held it. This notion of the thirteenth century, that the fief was forfeited by treason, would not have occurred to anyone in the tenth century, when probably John would only have been deposed, and some one else set up in his stead. The seizure of Normandy from John of England by Philip of France was a case of the same kind, and quite as unprecedented.
9. English Government.—Edward at once took measures for joining Scotland on as an integral part of the English kingdom. He took care that the strongholds should be commanded and garrisoned by persons without any Scottish connexion. He appointed John, Earl of Warrenne and Surrey, Guardian, Hugh of Cressingham, Treasurer, and Ormsby, Justiciar of the kingdom; sent them forms of writs to be used in the re-granting of lands; took measures for the establishment of Courts of Chancery and Exchequer at Berwick, and summoned a council of merchants to consider the best measures for the future conduct of the trade and commerce of the country. Cressingham was enjoined to raise all the money he could, for the maintenance of internal peace and order, and to put down the wicked rebels, homicides, and disturbers of the peace, who swarmed all over the land.
10. Wallace's Revolt.—The Celts in the North looked on this change in the government with apathy. To them it probably made little difference who sat on the Scottish throne, and Edward had not entered their district. The Norman nobles quietly agreed to it, for they were afraid of losing their estates in England. But it roused a spirit of defiance and opposition where resistance was least to be looked for, among the Lowlanders. They were the descendants of the earliest Teutonic settlers, and had remained more purely English in blood and speech than their kinsfolk on the southern side of the Border. This latent feeling of discontent gradually ripened into rebellion, and the standard of revolt was raised by William Wallace, a native of Clydesdale, who, unlike most of his countrymen, had not sworn allegiance to Edward. He surprised and cut to pieces the English garrison at Lanark, and slew William Haselrig, the newly appointed sheriff of Ayr. This outbreak was followed by similar attacks on detached bodies of the troops in occupation. His little band of followers gradually attracted more, and at length they surprised the Justiciar Ormsby, while holding a court at Scone, and, though he escaped out of their hands, they secured both prisoners and booty. Anthony Beck, Bishop of Durham, was next attacked in Glasgow, and forced to flee. After these successes Wallace was joined by William of Douglas, a renowned soldier, and by Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, grandson of the original claimant of the crown.
11. Surrender at Irvine.—But there was a want of system and of unity of purpose in the nation, and this noble effort on the part of the people was not seconded by the nobles. A large army under Henry, Lord Percy, was sent by Edward to put down the rising; those of the nobles who had joined the popular movement deserted it, and renewed their allegiance to Edward at Irvine, July 1297. But when Edward, who believed the revolt to be completely crushed, was absent in Flanders, Wallace mustered the people of the Lowlands north of the Tay and made himself master of the strongholds in that district.
12. Battle of Stirling.—The English army was now hastening northward under Cressingham and Warrenne, Earl of Surrey. Wallace resolved to give them battle on the Carse of Stirling, a level plain, across which the river Forth winds in and out among the meadows like the links of a silver chain. Wallace showed his skill as a general by the choice of the ground on which he posted his men. He drew them up within one of the links of the river, which swept round in front between them and the English, while a steep rocky hill, called the Abbey Craig, rose right behind them and protected the rear. The English had to cross the river by a narrow bridge. Wallace waited till half of them were over, and then attacked them. Taken thus at a disadvantage, they were easily routed. The panic spread to those on the opposite bank, who fled in disorder. In this action, called the Battle of Stirling, which was fought September 11, 1297, Cressingham was slain, and Surrey was forced to retreat to Berwick. After this victory the Scots recovered the strongholds south of the Forth, and Wallace acted as Guardian of the kingdom in the name of King John, and with the consent of the commons. Unhappily the Scots were not content with driving out the invaders, but carried the war over the Border, and wasted the northern counties of England with all the fierceness and cruelty of brigands.
13. Battle of Falkirk.—Edward returned from Flanders and raised a large army for the subjection of Scotland, promising pardon to all vagrants and malefactors who would enlist in it. The King himself led the army. The Scots wasted the country and retreated before him through the Lothians; and Wallace, who knew well the weakness of his own force, tried to avoid a battle till the great army of Edward should be exhausted from want of food. But tidings were brought to Edward that Wallace was near Falkirk, and he marched northward in haste and forced his enemy to give battle. At Stirling Wallace had won the day by his happy choice of the ground; he now showed still greater skill by the way in which he drew up his little army. It was made up for the most part of footmen, who at that time were held of no account as soldiers. The genius of Wallace found out how they might be made even more formidable than the mounted men-at-arms, in whom at that time it was supposed that the strength of an army lay. He drew them up in circular masses; the spearmen without and the bowmen within. The spearmen with lances fixed knelt down in ranks, so that the archers within could shoot over their heads. When his men were thus placed, Wallace said to them, "I have brought ye to the ring—hop gif ye can;" that is, show how well you can fight. But, though they fought well and held their ground bravely, and the English horse were driven back by the spear-points, the Scots were at last beaten down by force of numbers, and the English won the day, 1298. After this victory Edward returned to Carlisle, and Wallace resigned the Guardianship. Edward held the country south of the Forth, but the northern Lowlands seem to have maintained their independence until the spring of 1303, when Edward marched north at the head of a great army and again subdued the whole country. He made Dunfermline, the favourite seat of the Scottish court, his head-quarters. Stirling Castle alone, under Olifant the valiant governor, held out for three months, but when it was taken the lives of the garrison were spared. All the leaders in the late rising were left unharmed in life, liberty, or estate, with the exception of William Wallace. He was required to submit unconditionally to the King's grace.