Next DAVID on the scaffold yields his breath,
And EDWARD'S laurels wither in their death.

His Queen the politic usurper sends
Caernarvon with a royal birth to grace;
And compliments his new made Cambrian friends
With a Welch sovereign of English race.*

Next, SCOTIA, thou wert doom'd to know
EDWARD a fierce and cruel foe.

BALIOL and BRUCE from civil feud,
Appeal to England to award,

Whose title was "maist faire, and gude,"
To reign as Caledonia's Lord;

And EDWARD's arbitrary arbitration
TO BALIOL decrees the Scottish nation,
Provided to the English Monarch's throne
The King so named does homage for his own ;
BALIOL with this, at first, complies,
Then, blushing for his bargain, from it flies,

The

* Edward the Second, born at Caernarvon Castle. Welch had promised, it is said, to be satisfied with a native prince, who could not speak a word of English, and this ruse of Edward's perfectly succeeded.-Vide The Chapter of Welch Princes at the end of this reign.

VOL. I.

And

And, EDWARD being then at war with France,* 'Gainst England BALIOL ventures to advance; But England made a sudden truce

With France, and gain'd the aid of BRUCE,†
Who sided with the English band,

And luckless BALIOL lost his land.‡

And SCOTIA too had bow'd her down
For ever to the English crown,

* Edward was delighted when Baliol, by refusing to go and pay homage, gave him pretence to subdue Scotland. "Ha," said he, "Le fol felon tal folie fait! S'il ne voulut venir à nous, nous "viendrons a lui."-" Is he then so great a fool! Well, if he will "not come to me, I must e'en go to him."

FORDUN.

The wife of Bruce, while at the English court, had the following odd attendant allowed her: “a footboy, sober, and not 66 riotous, to make her bed."

RYMER'S FÆdera.

She had also three men and three women servants, three greyhounds, plenty of fish and game, and the fairest house in the

manor.

J. P. ANDREWS.

At the battle of Dunbar, where Baliol was taken prisoner, and Edward became possessed of the national regalia, together with the fatal stone, on which was engraven,

Ni fallat fatum, Scoti quocunque locatum,
Invenient Lapidem, Regnare tenentiur ibidem.

Anglice.

Or fate's deceived, and heav'n decrees in vain,

Or where they find this stone, the Scots shall reign."

CAMB-WALS.

But

But WALLACE, far-famed WALLACE, rose,

The terror of invading foes.

"Scots wha hae wi WALLACE bled,"

Cou'd ye my feeble muse inspire,
With soul of feeling, and of fire,
To sing the good, the valiant dead!
Whose patriot aims by men of birth,
(Poor substitute for genuine worth),
Were meanly thwarted, cool'd, and crost,
Till what his talents gain'd their envy lost;
Who after many a hard fought field,

Where English chiefs were fain to yield,
In FALKIRK's long remember'd fight,
(His band preferring death to flight,)
When left alone to stem the day,
Still kept his enemies at bay,

And from his native shelt'ring rocks,
Awhile fierce EDWARD's fury mocks ;

Till Fortune, fickle, worthless, blind,

The patriot to his foe resign'd,

The savage foe by honour unconfin'd,

Again bids" hangman's hands" pollute the brave,

And dooms an HERO to a Traitor's grave.

COMYN next leads the plaided warriors on,
And STIRLING battle is by England won;
Still are the SCOTS determin'd to oppose,
And treat intruding EDWARD's friends as foes.
Till the revengeful King in proud array,
*Swears to make Scotland bend beneath his sway;
Or to exterminate the hardy race,

Who greatly scorn'd to give invasion place:
But Heaven, in all its dispensations just,
Levell'd the haughty monarch with the dust.
Thus LONGSHANKS fell, and thus did he bequeath,
His hate to Scotia with is dying breath.
"EDWARD, my gallant son," the monarch cried,
Carry my bones AGAINST the Scots," and died.*

66

In this reign WICKLIFFE lived, and ROGER BACON :

One preach'd reform, Rome thunder'd, he preach'd louder;

* He called the God of MERCY (a most ill-applied attribute) to witness that he would utterly exterminate the Scotch revolters, which oath was rendered more solemn (according to the strange romantic turn of the age) by the presence of two milk white swans with trappings of gold, which were brought into Westminster-abbey on this occasion, and had their part in the sacred rites of the day.

SPEED.

The

The second, or historians are mistaken,

From nitre found the way to make gunpowder; But BACON was of fellow men a lover,

Nor would the death-fraught recipe discover:
Some manuscripts, he left behind, reveal'd
What his humanity had kept conceal'd.

That poetry in progress was but slow, These lines of "Adam Davie," serve to show, (Adam was Marshall styled of Stratford Bow).

"To our Lord Jhesu Christe in heaven,

I, to-day, shew mine swyven ;*

"That ich motte,† in one nycht,

"Of a knyghte of myche mycht,

"His name is y hole, ‡ Syr Edward the Kyng, "Prince of Wales, Engelonde, the fair thynge. "Me motte that he was armed well,

"Both with yrne and with stele;

"And on his helm that was of stele,

"A coroune of gold becomen him wele;

"Before the shryne of St. Edward he stood,

'Myd glad cheere, and mylde of mood."

Dream.

† Dreamed.

Called

As