haps, hardly so soon as the reign of Edward VI. Neither books nor pictures could find a place in such dwellings as these. Some inventories of furniture, bearing dates in the fourteenth century, have been preserved to our own day, and they are curious and amusing. In Sir F. Eden's work on the State of the Poor, a carpenter's stock is said to have been valued, in the year 1301, at a shilling! In an inventory of the goods of "John Port, late the king's servant," who died about 1524, we find that this gentleman's house had consisted of a hall, parlour, buttery, and kitchen, with five bedsteads, two chambers, three garrets, and some minor accommodations. From this it may be inferred that Mr Port was a rather important man in his day, for very few individuals at that time could boast of such accommodation. His plate was valued at L.94, his jewels at L.23; and his funeral expenses amounted to L.73, 6s. 8d. the middle ages produced, were the religious edifices | houses were furnished with hangings, and that, perbuilt in the twelfth and three following centuries. The superstition of the times was favourable to the production of works of that sort. To leave one's means for such a purpose was deemed so meritorious as to entitle the donor to eternal happiness in the next scene of existence; and men in this world thought it a duty to render structures designed for purposes so sacred as beautiful and becoming as they could. It was about the middle of the twelfth century that what has been called the Gothic style of architecture took its rise, of which the peculiar feature is thought to be the pointed arch, formed by the segment of two intersecting semicircles, struck from points equidistant from the centre of a common diameter. This style of architecture has been said by different individuals to have originated in France, in Germany, in Italy, and in England. The truth is, we neither know where it originated nor from what source it was derived. It has afforded antiquaries a curious subject of speculation how so perfect a system, as this has been thought, should not only have originated but reached perfection in times so dark. Any effectual explanation is probably now impossible; the knowledge of the art was never permitted to go beyond a fraternity of freemasons, and it is not to be supposed that the early archives of that mysterious association have survived so many revolutions. Of all the arts necessary to existence, perhaps that of agriculture was in the most miserable condition during the middle ages. On a thousand spots of land which we now behold subjected to a fruitful cultivation, there was nothing to be seen at that time but "tracts of forest ground, stagnating with bog or darkened by native woods, where the wild-ox, the roe, the stag, and the wolf, had scarcely learned the supremacy of man." We owe the The living even of the highest nobility under the first efforts at improvement in agriculture over the Edwards was such as would not prove very palatable greater part of Europe to the monks. They chose, for to their luxurious descendants. They drank little wine, the sake of retirement, secluded regions, which they had no foreign luxuries, rarely kept male servants ex- cultivated with the labour of their hands. "Of the cept for husbandry, and still more rarely travelled be- Anglo-Saxon husbandry we may remark," says Mr yond their native country. An income of £10 or £20 Turner, "that Doom's-day Survey gives us some indiwas reckoned a competent estate for a gentleman-at cation that the cultivation of the church lands was least the lord of a single manor would seldom have much superior to that of any other. They had much enjoyed more. A knight who possessed £150 a-year less wood upon them, and their meadow was more passed for extremely rich. Sir John Fortescue speaks abundant and in more numerous distributions." The of five pounds a-year as "a fair living for a yeoman;" culture of arable land in general was very imperfect; and we read that the same sum (£5) served as the according to Sir John Cullum, a full average crop on annual expense of a scholar attending the university. an acre sown with wheat amounted only to about nine Modern lawyers must be surprised at the following, or ten bushels-a circumstance, the knowledge of which which Mr Hallam extracts from the churchwarden's may save us any surprise at a calculation by which it accounts of St Margaret, Westminster, for 1476: appears that, in the thirteenth century, the average "Also paid to Roger Fyipott, learned in the law, for his annual rent of an acre of arable land was from sixcounsel giving 3s. 8d., with fourpence for his dinner." pence to a shilling. In the time of Edward I., the or It has been remarked, that the wages of day-labour-dinary price of a quarter of wheat appears to have been ers, particularly those engaged in agriculture, were better in the times of Edward III. and Henry VI. than they have ever been at any other period of English history; nor can it be denied that this, upon the whole, is true. In the fourteenth century, a harvest man had fourpence a-day, which enabled him in a week to buy a comb of wheat; but, says Sir John Cullum, in his History of Hawsted, to buy a comb of wheat, a man must now (1784) work ten or twelve days. "So," says Mr Hallam, "under Henry VI., if meat was at a farthing and a half the pound, which, I suppose, was about the mark, a labourer earning threepence a-day, or eighteenpence in the week, could buy a bushel of wheat, at six shillings the quarter, and twenty-four pounds of meat, for his family. A labourer at present earning twelve shillings a-week, can only buy a bushel of wheat at eighty shillings the quarter, and twelve pounds of meat at sevenpence." It is thus undeniable that the daylabourers' wages could purchase greater quantities of certain kinds of food than the wages given to the same class of persons could do in the present day, but they wanted a thousand comforts which the meanest of our workmen now enjoy; and few surely would be willing to exchange all these blessings for the wars and miseries which Edward caused, even although they were ensured, along with them, of daily supplies of beef and ale, of which the ancient yeomen boasted. The internal accommodation of houses was even less than their outward splendour. A gentleman's house containing three or four beds was thought to be extraordinarily well provided; few probably had more than two. The walls were commonly bare, without wainscot or even plaster, except that some great about four shillings. A sheep was sold high at a shilling, and an ox might be reckoned at ten or twelve. In considering these statements, however, of positive money values, it must be recollected by persons of this day, that the precious metals were depreciated progressively in their value by every sovereign in Europe, who enabled themselves in this way to pay debts in appearance, while in reality they were cheating their creditors to that extent; and sums of small name in those days were every way equal in value to greater sums in our own. At this time wine was sold only in the shops of the English apothecaries. Yet the progress of luxury, as it was called, had already begun to excite serious alarm. The Parliament of Edward III. passed an act prohibit ing the use of gold and silver in apparel to all who had not a hundred pounds a-year; and Charles VI. of France ordained that none should presume to entertain their guests with more than two dishes and a mess of soup. It is almost unnecessary to add, that laws of that sort were passed only with a view to persons in the highest ranks; for others they were not needed. Contemporary history has recorded nothing of the poorer classes but their slaughter in war; but we are at little loss to perceive, that domestic comforts must have been few and slender among them, when we know that neither chairs nor looking-glasses could be found in the bedrooms of the nobility. Ages over which this sketch does not extend, were required before the great mass of human beings should become possessed of personal comforts or of political rights. Printed and published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, Edinburgh. Sold also by W. S. Orr & Co., London, CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF CHAMBERS'S HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, FROM THE CONQUEST BY THE ROMANS TILL THE YEAR 1645. PRICE 1d. CONQUEST BY THE ROMANS. PREVIOUSLY to the year 55 before Christ, the British Islands, in common with the whole of northern and western Europe, were occupied by barbarous tribes, who bore nearly the same relation to the civilised nations of Greece and Italy, which the North American Indians of the present day bear to the inhabitants of Great Britain and the United States. The Romans, who for ages had been extending their power over their rude neighbours, had concluded the conquest of Gaul, now called France, when, in the year just mentioned, their celebrated commander, Julius Caesar, learning from the merchants of that country that there was another fertile land on the opposite side of the narrow sea now termed the British Channel, resolved to proceed thither, and subject it also to the Roman arms. Disembarking at the place since called Deal, he soon overawed the savage natives, though they were naturally warlike, and averse to a foreign yoke. He did not, however, gain a firm footing in Britain till the succeeding year (54 before Christ), when he employed no fewer than 800 vessels to convey his troops from Gaul. Except on the coasts, where some tillage prevailed, the British tribes lived exactly as the Indians now do, upon animals caught in hunting, and fruits which grew spontaneously. They stained and tattooed their bodies, and had no religion but a bloody idolatry called Druidism. The people of Ireland were in much the same condition. Little was done on this occasion to establish the Roman power in Britain; but about a century afterwards, namely, in the year of Christ 43, when the Emperor Claudius was reigning at Rome, another large army invaded the island, and reduced a considerable part of it. A British prince called Caradoc, or Caractacus, who had made a noble defence against their arms, was finally taken and sent prisoner to Rome, where he was regarded with the same wonder as we should bestow upon a North American chief who had greatly obstructed the progress of our settlements in that quarter of the world. In the year 61, an officer named Suetonius did much to reduce the Britons, by destroying the numerous Druidical temples in the Isle of Anglesea; religion having, in this case as in many others since, been a great support to the patriotic cause. He soon after overthrew the celebrated British princess Boadicea, who had raised an almost general insurrection against the Roman power. In the year 79, Agricola, a still greater general, extended the influence of Rome to the Firths of Forth and Clyde, which he formed into a frontier, by connecting them with a chain of forts. It was his policy, after he had subdued part of the country, to render it permanently attached to Rome, by introducing the pleasures and luxuries of the capital. He was the first to sail round the island. In the year 84, having gone beyond the Forth, he was opposed by a great concourse of the rude inhabitants of the north, under a chief named Galgacus, whom he completely overthrew at Mons Grampius, or the Grampian Mountain. It is generally allowed that the Romans experienced an unusual degree of difficulty in subduing the Britons; and it is certain that they were baffled in all their attempts upon the northern part of Scotland, which was then called Caledonia. The utmost they could do with the inhabitants of that country, was to build walls across the island to keep them by themselves. The first wall was built in the year 121, by the Emperor Hadrian, between Newcastle and the Solway Firth. The second was built by the Emperor Antoninus, about the year 140, as a connexion of the line of forts which Agricola had formed between the Firths of Forth and Clyde. When the conquest was thus so far completed, the country was governed in the usual manner of a Roman province; and towns began to rise in the course of time, being generally those whose names are now found to end in chester, a word derived from castra, the Latin word for a camp. The Christian religion was also introduced, and Roman literature made some progress in the country. CONQUEST BY THE SAXONS. At length a time came when the Romans could no longer defend their own proper country against the nations in the north of Europe. The soldiers were then withdrawn from Britain (about the year 440), and the people left to govern themselves. The Caledonians, who did not like to be so much straitened in the north, took advantage of the unprotected state of the Britons to pour in upon them from the other side of the wall, and despoil them of their lives and goods. The Britishi had no resource but to call in another set of protectors, the Saxons, a warlike people who lived in the north of Germany, and the Jutes and Angles, who inhabited Denmark. The remedy was found hardly any better than the disease. Having once acquired a footing in the island, these hardy strangers proceeded to make it a subject of conquest, as the Romans had done before, with this material difference, that they drove the British to the western parts of the island, particularly into Wales, and settled, with new hordes of their countrymen, over the better part of the land. So completely was the population changed, that, excepting in the names of some of the hills and rivers, the British language was extinguished, and even the name of the country itself was changed from what it originally was, to Angle-land, or England, a term taken from the Angles. The conquest required about a hundred and fifty years to be effected, and, like that of the Romans, it extended no farther north than the Firths of Forth and Clyde. Before the Britons were finally cooped up in Wales, many battles were fought; but few of these are accurately recorded. The most distinguished of the British generals were the Princes Vortimer and Aurelius Ambrosius: it is probably on the achievements of the latter that the well-known fables of Arthur and his knights are founded. William, Duke of Normandy, a man of illegitimate birth, attended by a large and powerful army. Harold opposed him at Hastings (October 14), and, after a well-contested battle, his army was defeated, and himself slain. William then caused himself to be crowned king at Westminster; and in the course of a few years he succeeded, by means of his warlike Norman followers, in completely subduing the Saxons. His chiefs were settled upon the lands of those who opposed him, and became the ancestors of the present nobility of England. Previously to this period, the church of Rome, which was the only surviving part of the power of that empire, had established its supremacy over England. The land was also subjected to what is called the feudal system, by which all proprietors of land were supposed to hold it from the king for military service, while their tenants were understood to owe them military service, in turn, for their use of the land. All orders of men were thus kept in a chain of servile obedience, while some of the lower orders were actually slaves to their superiors. In the year 853, Kenneth, King of the Scots, had England, exclusive of the western regions, was now added the Pictish kingdom to his own, and his dedivided into seven kingdoms, called Kent, Northumber-scendant Malcolm II., in 1020, extended his dominions land, East Anglia, Mercia, Essex, Sussex, and Wessex, over not only the south of Scotland, but a part of the each of which was governed by a race descended from north of England. Thus, putting aside Wales, which the leader who had first subdued it; and the whole continued to be an independent country, under its own have since been called by historians the Saxon Hep- princes, the island was divided at the time of the Nortarchy, the latter word being composed of two Greek man Conquest, into two considerable kingdoms, Engwords, signifying seven kingdoms. To the north of the land and Scotland, as they were for some centuries Forth dwelt a nation called the Picts, who also had a afterwards. Ireland, which had also been invaded by king, and were, in all probability, the people with whom hordes from the north of Europe, was divided into a Agricola had fought under the name of Caledonians. number of small kingdoms, like England under the HepIn the Western Highlands there was another nation, tarchy. known by the name of the Scots, or Dalriads, who had gradually migrated thither from Ireland, between the middle of the third century and the year 503, when they established, under a chief named Fergus, a monarchy destined in time to absorb all the rest. About the year 700, there were no fewer than fifteen kings, or chiefs, within the island, while Ireland was nearly in the same situation. In Britain, at the same time, five languages were in use, the Latin, Saxon, Welsh, (or British), the Pictish, and the Irish. The general power of the country has been found to increase as these nations and principalities were gradually amassed together. EARLY NORMAN KINGS. William, surnamed The Conqueror, reigned from 1066 to 1087, being chiefly engaged all that time in completing the subjugation of the Saxons. He is allowed to have been a man of much sagacity, and a firm ruler; but his temper was violent, and his dispositions brutal. At the time of his death, which took place in Normandy, his eldest son Robert happening to be at a greater distance from London than William, who was the second son, the latter individual seized upon the crown, of which he could not afterwards be dispossessed, till he was shot accidentally by an arrow in the New Forest, Although three of the Saxon kingdoms, Wessex, in the year 1100. Towards the close of this king's Mercia, and Northumberland, became predominant, reign, the whole of Christian Europe was agitated by the Heptarchy prevailed from about the year 585 to the first crusade an expedition for the recovery of the 800, when Egbert, King of Wessex, acquired a para- Holy Land from the Saracens. Robert of Normandy mount influence over all the other states, though their had a high command in this enterprise, and gained kings still continued to reign. Alfred, so celebrated for much fame as a warrior; but while he was in Italy, his virtues, was the grandson of Egbert, and began to on his return, his youngest brother Henry usurped the reign in the year 871. At this time, the Danes, who throne left vacant by William, so that he was again are now a quiet, inoffensive people, were a nation of disappointed of his birthright. HENRY I.—surnamed pirates, and at the same time heathens. They used to Beauclerk, from his being a fine scholar-was a prince come in large fleets, and commit dreadful ravages on of some ability; but he disgraced himself by putting the shores of Britain. For some time, they completely out the eyes of his eldest brother, and keeping him overturned the sovereignty of Alfred, and compelled nearly thirty years in confinement. Such barbarous him to live in obscurity in the centre of a marsh. But conduct shows that, in this age, might was the only he at length fell upon them, when they thought them-right, and that men hesitated at no actions which selves in no danger, and regained the greater part of his kingdom. Alfred spent the rest of his life in literary study, of which he was very fond, and in forming laws and regulations for the good of his people. He was perhaps the most able, most virtuous, and most popular prince that ever reigned in Britain; and all this is the more surprising, when we find that his predecessors and successors, for many ages, were extremely cruel and ignorant. He died in the year 901, in the fifty-third year of his age. CONQUEST BY THE NORMANS. The Saxon line of princes continued to reign, with the exception of three Danish reigns, till the year 1066, when the crown was in the possession of a usurper named Harold. The country was then invaded by might promise to advance their own interests. Contemporary with William the Conqueror in England, was MALCOLM III. in Scotland, surnamed Canmore, from his having a large head. This prince, after overthrowing the celebrated usurper Macbeth, married Margaret, a fugitive Saxon princess, through whom his posterity became the heirs of that race of English sovereigns. He was a good prince, and, by settling Saxon refugees upon his lowland territory, did much to improve the character of the Scottish nation, who are described as having been, before this time, a nation in which there was no admixture of civilisation. At Malcolm's death, in 1093, the crown was contested for a while by an usurper called Donald Bane, and the elder sons of the late monarch, but finally fell to the peaceable possession of his youngest son DAVID I., who was a prince of much superior character, apparently, to the Norman sovereigns who lived in the same age. The Church of Rome having now gained an ascendancy in Scotland, David founded a considerable number of monasteries and churches for the reception of the ministers of that religion. All the most celebrated abbacies in Scotland took their rise in his time. Henry Beauclerk of England, in order to strengthen his claim by a Saxon alliance, married Maud, the daughter of Malcolm Canmore and of the Princess Margaret. By her he had an only daughter of the same name, whom he married first to the Emperor of Germany, and then to Geoffrey Plantagenet, eldest son of the Earl of Anjou, in France. This lady, and her children by Plantagenet, were properly the heirs of the English crown; but on the death of Henry, in 1135, it was seized by an usurper named STEPHEN, a distant member of the Conqueror's family, who reigned for nineteen years, during which the country was rendered almost desolate by civil wars, in which David of Scotland occasionally joined. On the death of Stephen, in 1154, the crown fell peacefully to HENRY II., who was the eldest son of Maud, and the first of the Plantagenet race of sovereigns. Henry was an acute and politic prince, though not in any respect more amiable than his predecessors. His reign was principally marked by a series of measures for reducing the power of the Romish clergy, in the course of which, some of his courtiers, in 1171, thought they could not do him a better service than to murder Thomas-à-Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had been the chief obstacle to his views, and was one of the ablest and most ambitious men ever produced in England. For his concern in this foul transaction, Henry had to perform a humiliating penance, receiving eighty lashes on his bare back from the monks of Canterbury. We are the less inclined to wonder at this circumstance, when we consider, that, about this time, the Pope had power to cause two kings to perform the menial service of leading his horse. Henry was the most powerful king that had yet reigned in Britain. Besides the great hereditary domains which he possessed in France, and for which he did homage to the king of that country, he exacted a temporary homage from William of Scotland, the grandson of David, a monarch of great valour, who took the surname of the Lion, and who reigned from 1166 to 1214. Henry also added Ireland to his dominions. This island had previously been divided into five kingdoms-Munster, Leinster, Meath, Ulster, and Connaught. The people, being quite uncivilised, were perpetually quarrelling among themselves; and this, with their heathen religion, furnished a flimsy pretext for invading them from England. Dermot Macmorrough, King of Leinster, having been dethroned by his subjects, introduced an English warrior, Richard Earl of Strigul, generally called Strongbow, for the purpose of regaining his possessions. A body composed of fifty knights, ninety esquires, and four hundred and sixty archers, in all six hundred men, was enabled by its superior discipline to overthrow the whole warlike force that could be brought against them; and the conquest was easily completed by Henry in person, who went thither in 1172. The military leaders were left to rule over the country, and they managed their trust so ill, that the Irish never became peaceable subjects of the Norman king, as the English had gradually done. RICHARD COEUR DE LION.-JOHN.-MAGNA CHARTA. Henry II. was much troubled in his latter years by the disobedience of his children. At his death, in 1189, he was succeeded by his son RICHARD, styled Cœur de Lion, or the Lion-hearted, from his headstrong courage, and who was much liked by his subjects on that account, though it does not appear that he possessed any other good qualities. At the coronation of Richard, the people were permitted to massacre many thousands of unoffending Jews throughout the kingdom. Almost immediately after his accession, he joined the King of France in a second crusade; landed in Palestine (1191), and fought with prodigious valour, but with no good result. On one occasion, being offended at a breach of truce by his opponent Saladin, he beheaded 5000 prisoners; whose deaths were immediately revenged by a similar massacre of Christian prisoners. In 1192, he returned with a small remnant of his gallant army, and, being shipwrecked at Aquileia, wandered in disguise into the dominions of his mortal enemy the Duke of Austria, who, with the Emperor of Germany, detained him till he was redeemed by a ransom, which impove rished nearly the whole of his subjects. This prince spent the rest of his life in unavailing wars with Philip of France, and was killed at the siege of a castle in Limousin, in 1199, after a reign of ten years, of which he had spent only about three months in England. JoN, the younger brother of Richard, succeeded, although Arthur, Duke of Bretagne, the son of an intermediate brother, was the proper heir. John, who was at once vain, cruel, and weak, alienated the affections of his subjects almost at the very first by the assassination of his nephew, which he is said to have performed with his own hands. The weakness of kings is often the means of giving increased liberties and privileges to the people. The paltry tyranny and wickedness of John caused his barons to rise against him, and the result was, that, on the 19th June 1215, he was compelled by them to sign what is called the Magna Charta, or Great Charter, granting them many privileges and exemptions, and generally securing the personal liberty of his subjects. The principal point concerning the nation at large, was that no tax or supply should be levied from them without their own consent in a Great Council the first idea of a Parliament. Some excellent provisions were also made regarding courts of law and justice, so as to secure all but the guilty. The Pope, it appears, regarded the Magna Charta as a shameful violation of the royal prerogative, and excommunicated its authors, as being worse, he said, than infidels. The opinion of a modern historian is very different. He says, "To have produced the Great Charter, to have preserved it, to have matured it, constitute the immortal claim of England on the esteem of mankind." HENRY III.-ORIGIN OF PARLIAMENT. John, at his death in 1216, was succeeded by his son, HENRY III., a weak and worthless prince, who ascended the throne in his boyhood, and reigned fifty-six years, without having performed one worthy act of sufficient consequence to be detailed. In his reign was held the first assemblage approaching to the character of a Parliament. It was first called in 1225, in order to give supplies for carrying on a war against France. The money was only granted on condition that the Great Charter should be confirmed; and thus the example was set at the very first, for rendering supplies a check upon the prerogative of the king, and gradually reduc ing that power to its present comparatively moderate level. Under the earlier Norman kings, and even, it is believed, under the Saxons, an assembly called the Great Council had shared with the sovereign the power of framing laws; but it was only now that the body had any power to balance that of the king, and it was not till 1265 that representatives from the inhabitants of towns were introduced. EDWARD I. AND II.-ATTEMPTED CONQUEST OF SCOTLAND. Henry III., at his death in 1272, was succeeded by his son EDWARD I., a prince as warlike and sagacious as his father was the reverse. He distinguished himself by his attempts to add Wales to his kingdom, an object which he accomplished in 1282, by the overthrow and murder of Llewellen, the last prince of that country. In the mean time, from the death of William the Lion in 1214, Scotland had been ruled by two princes, ALEXANDER II. and III., under whom it advanced considerably in wealth, civilisation, and comfort. On the death of Alexander III., in 1285, the crown fell to his grand daughter MARGARET, a young girl, whose father was Eric, King of Norway. Edward formed a treaty with the Estates of Scotland for a marriage between this princess and his son, whom he styled Prince of Wales. Unfortunately, the young lady died on her voyage to Scotland; and the crown was left to be disputed by a multitude of distant relations, of whom JOHN BALIOL and ROBERT BRUCE seemed to have the best right. Edward, being resolved to make Scotland his own at all hazards, interfered in this dispute, and being appointed arbitrator among the competitors, persuaded them to own, in the first place, an ill-defined claim put forward by himself of the right of paramountcy or superior sovereignty over Scotland. When this was done, he appointed Baliol to be his vassal king, an honour which the unfortunate man was not long permitted to enjoy. Having driven Baliol to resistance, he invaded the country, overthrew his army, and, stripping him of his sovereignty, assumed to himself the dominion of Scotland, as a right forfeited to him by the rebellion of his vassal. After he had retired, a brave Scottish gentleman, named William Wallace, raised an insurrection against his officers, and, defeating his army at Stirling in 1298, cleared the whole country of its southern invaders. But in the succeeding year, this noble patriot | was defeated by Edward in person at Falkirk, and the English yoke was again imposed. It is to be remarked, that this could have hardly taken place if the common people, who rose with Wallace, and who were wholly of Celtic and Saxon race, had been led and encouraged by the nobility. The grandees of Scotland, and even the competitors for the crown, being recent Norman settlers, were disposed to pay obedience to the English sovereign. Some time after the death of Wallace, while Edward was engrossed with his French wars, ROBERT BRUCE, Earl of Carrick, grandson of him who had competed with Baliol, conceived the idea of putting himself at the head of the Scots, and endeavouring, by their means, at once to gain the crown, and to recover the independence of the kingdom. After a series of adventures, among which was the unpremeditated murder of a rival named Comyn, Bruce caused himself, in 1306, to be crowned at Scone. For some time after he had to skulk as a fugitive, being unable to maintain his ground against the English officers; but at length he became so formidable, that Edward found it necessary (1307) to lead a large army against him. The English monarch, worn out with fatigue and age, died on the coast of the Solway Firth, when just within sight of Scotland, leaving his sceptre to his son EDWARD II. That weak and foolish prince immediately returned to London, leaving Bruce to contest with his inferior officers. After several years of constant skirmishing, during which the Scottish king was able to maintain his ground, Edward resolved to make one decisive effort to reduce Scotland to subjection. In the summer 1314, he invaded it with an army of 100,000 men. Bruce drew up his troops, which were only 30,000 in number, at Bannockburn, near Stirling. Partly by steady valour, and partly by the use of stratagems, the Scots were victorious, and Edward fled ignominiously from the field. The Scottish king gained an immense booty, besides securing his crown and the independence of his country. He soon after sent his brother Edward, with a body of troops, to Ireland, to assist the native chiefs in resisting the English. This bold young knight was crowned King of Ireland, and for some time held his ground against the English, but was at length defeated and slain. The weakness of Edward II. was chiefly shown in a fondness for favourites, into whose hands he committed the whole interests of his people. The first was a low Frenchman, named Piers Gaveston, who soon fell a victim to the indignation of the barons. The second, Hugh Spencer, misgoverned the country for several years, till at length the Queen and Prince of Wales raised an insurrection against the king, and caused him to be deposed, as quite unfit to reign. The Prince was | then crowned as EDWARD III. (1327), being as yet only about fourteen years of age; and, in the course of a few months the degraded monarch was cruelly murdered in Berkeley Castle. During the minority of the young king, the reins of government were held by his mother and the Earl of March. Under their administration, a peace was concluded with King Robert of Scotland, of which one of the conditions was a full acknowledgment of the independence of the Scottish monarchy, which had been a matter of dispute for some ages. EDWARD III.RICHARD II. Edward III., who soon after assumed full power, was destined to make good the remark prevalent at this time, that the kings of England were alternately able and imbecile. He was a warlike and sagacious monarch, and inspired by all his grandfather's desire of conquest. In 1329, Robert Bruce died, and was succeeded by his infant son DAVID II., to whom a young sister of the English king was married, in terms of the late treaty. Notwithstanding this connexion, Edward aided a son of John Baliol in an attempt to gain the Scottish crown. Edward Baliol overthrew the Regent of Scotland at Duplin, September 1332, and for two months reigned as King of Scots, while David and his wife took refuge in France. Though now expelled, Baliol afterwards returned to renew his claims, and for many years the country was harassed by unceasing wars, in which the English took a leading part. But for his attention being diverted to France, Edward III. would have made a more formidable effort to subdue Scotland, and might have succeeded. He was led into a long course of warfare with France, in consequence of an absurd pretension which he made to its crown. In the victories which he gained at Cressy (August 26, 1346) and Poitiers (September 17, 1356), the national valour, his own, and that of his celebrated son, the Black Prince, were shown conspicuously; but this lavish expenditure of the resources of his kingdom, in which he was supported by his parliament, was of no permanent benefit, even to himself, for whom alone it was made. In those days, almost all men fought well, but very few had the art to improve their victories. John, King of France, who had been made captive at Poitiers, and David, King of Scotland, who had been taken in 1346, while conducting an invasion of England, were at one time prisoners in England; but no permanent advantage was ever gained over either of the states thus deprived of their sovereigns. In 1361, after about twenty years of active fighting, the English king left France with little more territory than he had previously enjoyed. Edward had invaded Scotland with a powerful army in 1356, but without making any impression. The Scots, under David's nephew, Robert Stewart, effectually protected themselves, not only from his arms, but from a proposal which David himself basely undertook to make, that Lionel, the third son of the English king, should be acknowledged as his successor. Edward died in 1377, a year after the decease of his son the Black Prince; and notwithstanding all their brilliant exploits, the English territories in France were less than at the beginning of the reign. England was at this time affected more than at any other by the fashions of chivalry. This was a military enthusiasm, which for some centuries pervaded all Christian Europe. It prompted, as one of its first principles, a heedless bravery in encountering all kinds of danger. Its votaries were expected to be particularly bold in behalf of the fair sex, insomuch that a young knight would sometimes challenge to mortal combat any one who denied his mistress to be the loveliest in the world. Tournaments were held, at which knights clad in complete armour would ride against each other at full speed with levelled lances, merely to try which had the greatest strength and skill; and many were killed on these occasions. It was a system full of extravagance, and tending to bloodshed; but, nevertheless, it maintained a courtesy towards females, aud a |