The command of the sea continued to be a vital question. The Norman sailors were eager to avenge their former defeats, and Philip saw that the best way to preserve his hold over Gascony was to be master of the Channel and the Bay of Biscay. Edward prepared to meet attack by establishing an organisation of the English navy which marks an epoch in the history of our admiralty. He divided the vessels told off to guard the sea into three classes, and set over each a separate admiral. John of Botecourt was made admiral of the Yarmouth and eastern fleet; William of Leyburn was set over the navy at Portsmouth; and the western and Irish squadron was put under a valiant knight of Irish origin. Meanwhile the French planned an invasion of England, and promised James of Aragon that, when England was conquered, its king should be considered his personal prize. Galleys were hired at Marseilles and Genoa for service in the Channel, and Sir Thomas Turberville, a Glamorganshire knight captured at Rioms, turned traitor and was restored to England in the hope that he might obtain the custody of some seaport and betray it to the enemy. Turberville strove in vain to induce Morgan to head another revolt in Glamorgan, and urged upon Philip the need of an alliance with the Scots. At last the invasion was attempted, and the French admiral, Matthew of Montmorenci, sacked and burnt the town of Dover. Luckily, however, Turberville's treason was discovered, and the Yarmouth fleet soon avenged the attack on Dover by burning Cherbourg. In the face of such resistance, Philip IV. abandoned his plan of invasion and tried to establish a sort of "continental blockade" of English ports in which a modern writer has seen an anticipation of the famous dream of Napoleon.[1] Though nothing came of these grandiose schemes, yet the efforts made to organise invasion had their permanent importance as resulting in the beginnings of the French royal navy. As late as 1297 a Genoese was appointed admiral of France in the Channel, and strongly urged the invasion of England and its devastation by fire and flame. But the immediate result of Philip's efforts to cut off England from the continent was that his Flemish allies found in his policy a new reason for abandoning his service. On January 7, 1297, a fresh treaty of alliance between Edward and Guy, Count of Flanders, was concluded.

[1] See for this Jourdain, Mémoire sur les Commencements de la Marine française sous Philippe le Bel (1880), and C. de la Roncière, Le Blocus continental de l'Angleterre sous Philippe le Bel in Revue des Questions historiques, lx. (1896), 401-41.

More effective than Philip's efforts to combine the Continent against the English were his endeavours to stir up opposition to Edward in Britain. The Welsh rising of 1294 had taken place independently of him, but it was not Philip's fault that Morgan did not once more excite Glamorgan to rebellion. A better opening for intrigue was found in Scotland. Ever since the accession of John Balliol, there had been appeals from the Scottish courts to those of Edward. Certain suits begun under the regency, which had acted in Edward's name from 1290 to 1292, gave the overlord an opportunity of inserting the thin end of the wedge; and it looked as if, after a few years, appeals from Edinburgh to London would be as common as appeals from Bordeaux to Paris. But whatever were the ancient relations of England and Scotland, it is clear that the custom of appeals to the English king had never previously been established. It was no wonder then that what seemed to Edward an inevitable result of King John's submission, appeared to the Scots an unwarrantable restriction of their independence.

The weakness and simplicity of King John left matters to take their course for a time, but the king, who was not strong enough to stand up against Edward, was not the man to resist the pressure of his own subjects. On his return from the London parliament of June, 1294, the Scots barons virtually deposed him. A committee was set up by parliament consisting of four bishops, four earls, and four barons which, though established professedly on the model of the twelve peers of France, had a nearer prototype in the fifteen appointed under the Provisions of Oxford. To this body the whole power of the Scottish monarchy was transferred, so that John became a mere puppet, unable to act without the consent of his twelve masters. Under this new government the relations of England and Scotland soon became critical. The Scots denied all right of appeal to the English courts, and expelled from their country the nobles whose possessions in England gave them a greater interest in the southern than in the northern kingdom. Among the dispossessed barons was Robert Bruce, son of the claimant, by marriage already Earl of Carrick, and now by his father's recent death lord of Annandale. In defiance of Edward's prohibition the Scots received French ships, and subjected English traders at Berwick to many outrages. At last, on July 5, 1295, an alliance was signed between Scotland and France, by which Edward Balliol, the eldest son of King John, was betrothed to Joan, the eldest daughter of Charles of Valois, the brother of the French king. On this, Edward demanded the surrender of three border castles, and on the refusal of the Scots, cited John to appear at Berwick on March 1, 1296. Thus, by a process similar to that which had embroiled Edward with his French overlord, the King of Scots also was forced to face the alternative of certain war or humiliating surrender.

To Edward a breach with Scotland was unwelcome. In 1294 the Welsh had prevented him using all his power against France, and in 1295 the Scots troubles further postponed his prospects of revenge. But no suggestion of compromise or delay came from him. On his return to London early in August, 1295, he busied himself with preparing to resist the enemies that were gathering around him on every side. It was the moment of the raid on Dover, and the French question was still the more pressing. In a parliament of magnates at London, Edmund of Lancaster told the story of his Paris embassy with such effect that two cardinal-legates, whom the new pope, Boniface VIII., had sent in the hope of making peace, were put off politely, on the ground that Edward could make no treaty without the consent of his ally, the King of the Romans. Edmund was appointed commander of a new expedition to Gascony, though his weak health delayed his departure. Meanwhile Edward called upon every class of his subjects to co-operate with him in his defence of the national honour. He was statesman enough to see that he could only cope with the situation, if England as a whole rallied round him. His best answer to the Scots and the French was the convention of the "model parliament" of November, 1295.

The deep political purpose with which this parliament was assembled is reflected even in the formal language of the writs. "Inasmuch as a most righteous law of the emperors," wrote Edward, "ordains that what touches all should be approved by all, so it evidently appears that common dangers should be met by remedies agreed upon in common. You know well how the King of France has cheated me out of Gascony, and how he still wickedly retains it. But now he has beset my realm with a great fleet and a great multitude of warriors, and proposes, if his power equal his unrighteous design, to blot out the English tongue from the face of the earth." To avert this peril, Edward summoned not only a full and representative gathering of magnates, but also two knights from every shire and two burgesses from every borough. Moreover, the lower clergy were also required to take part in the assembly, the archdeacons and deans in person, the clergy of every cathedral church by one proctor, the beneficed clerks of each diocese by two proctors. Thus the assembly became so systematic a representation of the three estates' that after ages have regarded it as the type upon which subsequent popular parliaments were to be modelled. This gathering marks the end of the parliamentary experiments of the earlier part of the reign. It met on November 27, and each estate, deliberating separately, contributed its quota to the national defence. The barons and knights offered an eleventh, and the boroughs a seventh. It was a bitter disappointment to Edward that the clergy could not be induced to make a larger grant than a tenth. Enough, however, was obtained to equip the two armies which, in the spring of 1296, were to operate against the French and the Scots.

The Gascon expedition was the first to start. Early in March, 1296, Edmund of Lancaster, accompanied by the Earl of Lincoln, landed at Bourg and Blaye. John of St. John was still maintaining himself in that district as well as at Bayonne. On the appearance of the reinforcements the Gascon lords began to flock to the English camp, and a large force was at once able to take the field. On March 28 an attempt was made to capture Bordeaux by a sudden assault. On its failure Edmund, who did not possess the equipment necessary for a formal siege, sailed up the river to Saint-Macaire and occupied the town. But the castle held out gallantly, and after a three weeks' siege Edmund retired to his original position on the lower Gironde. Even there he found difficulty in holding his own, and before long shifted his quarters to Bayonne. He had exhausted his resources, and found that his army could not be kept together without pay. "Thereupon," writes Hemingburgh, "his face fell and he sickened about Whitsuntide. So with want of money came want of breath too, and after a few days he went the way of all flesh." Lincoln, his successor, managed still to stand his ground against Robert of Artois. At last Artois made a successful night attack upon the English, captured St. John, and destroyed all his war-train and baggage. The darkness of the night and the shelter of the neighbouring woods alone saved the English army from total destruction. "After this," boasted William of Nangis, "no Englishman or Gascon dared to go out to battle against the Count of Artois and the French." At Easter, 1297, a truce was concluded which left nearly all Gascony in French hands.

Soon after the departure of his brother for Gascony, Edward went to war against the Scots, regarding the non-appearance of King John on March 1 at Berwick as a declaration of hostility. The lord of Wark offered to betray his castle to the Scots, and Edward's successful effort to save it first brought him to the Tweed. Meanwhile the men of Annandale under their new lord, the Earl of Buchan, engaged in a raid on Carlisle, but failed to capture the city, and speedily returned home. On March 28, the day on which his brother attacked Bordeaux, Edward crossed the Tweed at Coldstream, and marched down its left bank towards Berwick. On March 30 Berwick was captured. The townsmen fought badly, and the heroes of the resistance were thirty Flemish merchants, who held their factory, called the Red Hall, until the building was fired, and the defenders perished in the flames. The garrison of the castle, commanded by Sir William Douglas, laid down their arms at once.

Edward spent a month in Berwick, strengthening the fortifications of the town, and preparing for an invasion of Scotland. Early in April, King John renounced his homage and, immediately afterwards, the Scots lords who had attacked Carlisle devastated Tynedale and Redesdale, penetrating as far as Hexham. Edward's command of the sea made it impossible for the raiders to cut off his communications with his base, and they quickly returned to their own land, where they threw themselves into Dunbar. Though the lord of Dunbar, Patrick, Earl of March, was serving with the English king, his countess, who was at Dunbar, invited them into the fortress. Dunbar blocked the road into Scotland, and Edward sent forward Earl Warenne with a portion of the army in the hope of recapturing the position. Warenne laid siege to Dunbar, but on the third day, April 27, the main Scots army came to its relief. Leaving some of the young nobles to continue the siege, Warenne drew up his army in battle array. The Scots thought that the English were preparing for flight, and rushed upon them with loud cries and blowing of horns. Discovering too late that the enemy was ready for battle, they fell back in confusion as far as Selkirk Forest. Next day Edward came up from Berwick and received the surrender of Dunbar. Henceforth his advance was but a military promenade.

Edward turned back from Dunbar to receive the submission of the Steward of Scotland at Roxburgh, and to welcome a large force of Welsh infantry, whose arrival enabled him to dismiss the English foot, fatigued with the slight effort of a month's easy campaigning. Thence he made his way to Edinburgh, which yielded after an eight days' siege. Stirling castle, the next barrier to his progress, was abandoned by its garrison, and there Edward was reinforced by some Irish contingents. He then advanced to Perth, keeping St. John's feast on June 24 in St. John's own town. On July 10 Balliol surrendered to the Bishop of Durham at Brechin, acknowledging that he had forfeited his throne by his rebellion. Edward continued his triumphal progress, preceded at every stage by Bishop Bek at the head of the warriors of the palatinate of St. Cuthbert. He made his way through Montrose up the east coast to Aberdeen, and thence up the Don and over the hills to Banff and Elgin, the farthest limit of his advance. He returned by a different route, bringing back with him from Scone the stone on which the Scots kings had been wont to sit at their coronation. This he presented as a trophy of victory to the monks of Westminster, where it was set up as a chair for the priest celebrating mass at the altar over against the shrine of St. Edward, though soon used as the coronation seat of English kings.