No, Scotland was very far from benefiting by this greatly‐lauded “deliverance.” A separation of the northern and southern districts of this island had indeed been effected, but that separation was not then, any more than it would be now, for the good of either section.
In mere military glory, the advantage could not long remain on the Scottish side. “Never,” says Alison, “at any subsequent period, was Scotland able to withstand the more powerful arms of the English yeomanry. Thenceforward, her military history is little more than a melancholy catalogue of continued defeats.”
The discomfitures of Halidon‐hill, of Dupplin‐moor, of Durham, of Hamildon‐hill, of Flodden, and of Pinkie, soon left Bannockburn the one solitary triumph amidst a long history of disaster. These six battles are computed to have inflicted on the Scots a loss of one hundred thousand men. Allow one‐half or one‐third of this number for the English losses, and then add to the reckoning the perpetual drain arising from skirmishes and “border‐raids,” and we shall see that this irrational idea of “Scottish independence” must have cost the two nations, from Bruce’s day to Elizabeth’s, at least a quarter of a million of valuable lives. The loss of property and of material prosperity during the same period cannot easily be estimated.
An unfriendly critic remarks of Edward, that, with statesmanlike sagacity, “he saw that, before England could mount very high in the scale of nations, the whole island must be one undivided power, instead of three.” This aim and object was a noble one, and if pursued by honourable means—as we believe that it was—it casts lustre on the sovereign’s name. But how, then, shall we praise the man who, from the far lower motive of mere personal ambition, withstood and finally frustrated the great king’s purpose?
Scotland was not benefited by Bruce’s success. Her independence, as we have just remarked, brought upon her a long train of calamitous wars and ruinous defeats. The uniform custom of France, whenever she quarrelled with England, was, to send to Scotland, and to incite her to attack her neighbour on the northern side, as a diversion in favour of the war beginning in the south: but Scotland, so allied with France, was merely the dwarf going to battle by the side of the giant. Of the hard blows she received a full share; but the glory and the profit, when there were any, usually fell to the lot of her ally.
Nor did Scotland gain, by her desired “self‐government,” any recompence for what she lost in her external relations? All Scottish historians of any credit admit, that Edward’s mode of government was liberal, mild, and upright. Mr. Tytler confesses that “the measures he adopted were equally politic and just.” “No wanton or unnecessary act of rigour was committed, no capricious changes introduced.” And when, in 1304–5, a new “settlement of Scotland” was required, the king called on the most active of the Scottish prelates, Wishart, upon Mowbray, and upon Bruce, and placed the matter wholly in their hands.
Could Scotland obtain, then, in recompense for all the losses she suffered in this home‐warfare, any solid advantages, springing out of “home‐government,” which could counter‐balance long years of carnage and desolation? History gives no affirmative answer. We will ask the Scottish writers, and them only. Describing a period only sixty years after Bruce’s death, Sir Walter Scott says: “To use a scriptural expression, ‘every one did that which was right in his own eyes,’ as if there had been no king in Scotland.” A little later he says: “If we look at Scotland generally during the minority, it forms a dark and disgusting spectacle.” And Mr. Tytler uses similar language. In one place he says: “The nation had been reduced to the lowest pitch of impoverishment in every branch of public wealth” (vol. ii. p. 75); in another, “The pride and power of the feudal barons had risen to a pitch destructive of all regular subordination” (p. 85); and again, “Scotland seemed to be rapidly sinking under her accumulated distresses” (p. 94). No—the “recovery of her independence” had been no gain to Scotland; to each district of the island—to Scotland as well as to England—it had brought merely weakness, distraction, and loss. Edward’s desire to create one united Britain was wise and statesmanlike. Had Llewellyn and Balliol co‐operated with him, each of them might have preserved his throne. But Bruce’s enterprise, commencing with an atrocious murder, was strictly one of personal ambition. If he ever really dreamed that he was conferring a benefit on Scotland, he fell into a grievous error; but if his self‐consciousness prevented this, and he merely used “independence” as a popular cry,—a device, then his scheme and his effort, from first to last, was a grievous crime. Let us leave this part of the subject, however, and try to take a fitting leave of the great sovereign whose reign we have endeavoured to describe. And here we must remember that, at each point of the story, we have freely expressed an opinion—have endeavoured to meet hostile attacks, and to place Edward’s character in the fullest light of truth. We must not now repeat all these arguments. We prefer, for obvious reasons, to gather into one view the judgments formed by many eminent writers, both of past times and of our own day, and thus to collect, by degrees, the verdict of a very competent jury.
Two very different and, in fact, opposite beliefs have obtained currency in England during the last five centuries. For four hundred years Englishmen formed their own opinions, and spoke of Edward as they knew him, or as their forefathers had known him. Then, for one hundred years, they submitted to have a different view forced upon them; and they received in silence, until they gradually came to believe it—the estimate of Edward which was formed by the admirers of Bruce and of Wallace;—of Bruce the false and of Wallace the ferocious. Thus, strangely enough, the people of England learned to think, in the eighteenth century, quite differently of the greatest of their kings from what their forefathers had done, during at least ten or twelve generations.