Read The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 Online
Authors: David Hume
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that violence and injustice would every where be imputed to him, if he attacked with superior force a minor king, and a brother-in-law, whose independant title had so lately been acknowledged by a solemn treaty. And as the regent of Scotland, on every demand which had been made of restitution to the English barons, had always confessed the justice of their claim, and had only given an evasive answer, grounded on plausible pretences, Edward resolved not to proceed by open violence, but to employ like artifices against him. He secretely encouraged Baliol in his enterprize; connived at his assembling forces in the north; and gave countenance to the nobles, who were disposed to join in the attempt. A force of near 2500 men was inlisted under Baliol, by Umfreville earl of Angus, the lords Beaumont, Ferrars, Fitz-warin, Wake, Stafford, Talbot, and Moubray. As these adventurers apprehended, that the frontiers would be strongly armed and guarded, they resolved to make their attack by sea; and having embarked at Ravenspur, they reached in a few days the coast of Fife.
Scotland was at that time in a very different situation from that in which it had appeared under the victorious Robert. Besides the loss of that great monarch, whose genius and authority preserved entire the whole political fabric, and maintained an union among the unruly barons, Lord Douglas, impatient of rest, had gone over to Spain in a crusade against the Moors, and had there perished in battle:
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The earl of Murray, who had long been declining through age and infirmities, had lately died, and had been succeeded in the regency by Donald earl of Marre, a man of much inferior talents: The military spirit of the Scots, though still unbroken, was left without a proper guidance and direction: And a minor king seemed ill qualified to defend an inheritance, which it had required all the consummate valour and abilities of his father to acquire and maintain. But as the Scots were apprized of the intended invasion, great numbers, on the appearance of the English fleet, immediately ran to the shore, in order to prevent the landing of the enemy. Baliol had valour and activity, and he
drove back the Scots with considerable loss.c
He marched westward into the heart of the country; flattering himself that the ancient partizans of his family would declare for him. But the fierce animosities, which had been kindled between the two nations, inspiring the Scots with a strong prejudice against a prince supported by the English, he was regarded as a common enemy; and the regent found no difficulty in assembling a great army to oppose him. It is pretended, that Marre had no less than 40,000 men under his banners; but the same hurry and impatience, that made him collect a force, which from its greatness was so disproportioned to the occasion, rendered all his motions unskilful and imprudent.
The river Erne ran between the two armies; and the Scots,
11th Aug.
confiding in that security, as well as in their great superiority of numbers, kept no order in their encampment. Baliol passed the river in the night-time; attacked the unguarded and undisciplined Scots; threw them into confusion, which was encreased by the darkness and by their very numbers to which they trusted; and
he beat them off the field with great slaughter.d
But in the morning, when the Scots were at some distance, they were ashamed of having yielded the victory to so weak a foe, and they hurried back to recover the honour of the day. Their eager passions urged them precipitately to battle, without regard to some broken ground, which lay between them and the enemy, and which disordered and confounded their ranks.
Baliol seized the favourable opportunity, advanced his troops upon them, prevented them from rallying, and anew chaced them off the field with redoubled slaughter.
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There fell above 12,000 Scots in this action; and among these the flower of their nobility; the regent himself, the earl of Carric, a natural son of their late king, the earls of Athole and Monteith, lord Hay of Errol, constable, and the lords Keith and Lindsey. The loss of the English scarcely exceeded thirty men; a strong proof, among many others, of the miserable state of military discipline in those ages.
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Baliol soon after made himself master of Perth; but still was not able to bring over any of the Scots to his party. Patric Dunbar, earl of March, and Sir Archibald Douglas, brother to the lord of that name, appeared at the head of the Scottish armies, which amounted still to near 40,000 men; and they purposed to reduce Baliol and the English by famine. They blockaded Perth by land; they collected some vessels with which they invested it by water: But Baliol’s ships, attacking the Scottish fleet, gained a complete victory; and opened the communication between Perth and the sea.
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The Scotch armies were then obliged to disband for want of pay 27th Sept.
and subsistence: The nation was in effect subdued by a handful of men: Each nobleman, who found himself most exposed to danger, successively submitted to Baliol: That prince was crowned at Scone: David, his competitor, was sent over to France with his betrothed wife, Jane, sister to Edward: And the heads of his party sued to Baliol for a truce, which he granted them, in order to assemble a parliament in tranquillity, and have his title recognized by the whole Scottish nation.
But Baliol’s imprudence or his necessities making him dismiss 1333.
the greater part of his English followers, he was, notwithstanding the truce, attacked of a sudden near Annan by Sir Archibald Douglas, and other chieftains of the party; he was routed; his brother John Baliol was slain; he himself was chaced into England in a miserable condition; and thus lost his kingdom by a revolution as sudden as that by which he had acquired it.
While Baliol enjoyed his short-lived and precarious royalty, he had been sensible, that, without the protection of England, it would be impossible for him to maintain possession of the throne; and he had secretly sent a message to Edward, offering to acknowledge his superiority, to renew the homage for his crown, and to espouse the princess Jane, if the pope’s consent could be obtained, for dissolving her former marriage, which was not yet consummated.
Edward, ambitious of recovering that important concession,
War with Scotland.
made by Mortimer during his minority, threw off all scruples, and willingly accepted the offer; but as the dethroning of Baliol had rendered this stipulation of no effect, the king prepared to re-instate him in possession of the crown; an enterprize, which appeared from late experience so easy and so little hazardous. As he possessed many popular arts, he consulted his parliament on the occasion; but that assembly, finding the resolution already taken, declined giving any opinion, and only granted him, in order to support the enterprize, an aid of a fifteenth, from the personal estates of the nobility and gentry, and a tenth of the moveables of boroughs. And they added a petition, that the king would thenceforth live on his own revenue, without grieving his subjects by illegal taxes, or by the outrageous seizure of their goods in the
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As the Scots expected, that the chief brunt of the war would fall upon Berwic, Douglas, the regent, threw a strong garrison into that place under the command of Sir William Keith, and he himself assembled a great army on the frontiers, ready to penetrate into England, as soon as Edward should have invested that place. The English army was less numerous, but better supplied with arms and provisions, and retained in stricter discipline; and the king, notwithstanding the valiant defence made by Keith, had in two months reduced the garrison to extremities, and had obliged them to capitulate: They engaged to surrender, if they were not relieved within a few days by their countrymen.
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This intelligence, being conveyed to the Scottish army, which was preparing to invade Northumberland, changed their plan of operations, and engaged them to advance towards Berwic, and attempt the relief of that important fortress. Douglas, who had ever purposed to decline a pitched battle, in which he was sensible of the enemy’s superiority, and who intended to have drawn out the war by small skirmishes, and by mutually ravaging each other’s country, was forced, by the impatience of his troops, to put the fate of the kingdom upon the event of one day.
He attacked the English at Halidown-hill, a little north of 19th July.
Berwic; and though his heavy-armed cavalry dismounted, in
order to render the action more steady and desperate, they were received with such valour by Edward, and were so galled by the English archers, that they were soon thrown into disorder, and on the fall of Douglas, their general, were totally routed.
The whole army fled in confusion, and the English, but much more the Irish, gave little quarter in the pursuit: All the nobles of chief distinction were either slain or taken prisoners: Near thirty thousand of the Scots fell in the action: While the loss of the English amounted only to one knight, one esquire, and thirteen private soldiers: An inequality almost incredible.
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After this fatal blow, the Scottish nobles had no other resource than instant submission; and Edward, leaving a considerable body with Baliol to complete the conquest of the kingdom, returned with the remainder of his army to England. Baliol was acknowledged king by a parliament assembled at Edinburgh;
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the superiority of England was again recognized; many of the Scottish nobilily swore fealty to Edward; and to complete the misfortunes of that nation, Baliol ceded Berwic, Dunbar, Roxborough, Edinburgh, and all the south-east counties of Scotland, which were declared to be for ever annexed to the English monarchy.
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If Baliol, on his first appearance, was dreaded by the Scots, as an 1334.
instrument employed by England for the subjection of the
kingdom, this deed confirmed all their suspicions, and rendered him the object of universal hatred. Whatever submissions they might be obliged to make, they considered him, not as their prince, but as the delegate and confederate of their determined enemy: And neither the manners of the age, nor the state of Edward’s revenue permitting him to maintain a standing army in Scotland, the English forces were no sooner withdrawn, than the Scots revolted from Baliol, and returned to their former allegiance under Bruce. Sir Andrew Murray, appointed regent by the party of this latter prince, employed with success his valour and activity in many small but decisive actions against Baliol; and in a short time had almost wholly expelled him the kingdom.
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Edward was obliged again to assemble an army and to march
1335.
into Scotland: The Scots, taught by experience, withdrew into their hills and fastnesses: He destroyed the houses and ravaged the estates of those whom he called rebels: But this confirmed them still farther in their obstinate antipathy to England and to Baliol; and being now rendered desperate, they were ready to take advantage, on the first opportunity, of the retreat of their enemy, and they soon re-conquered their country from the English.
Edward made anew his appearance in Scotland with like success: 1336.
He found every thing hostile in the kingdom, except the spot on which he was encamped: And though he marched uncontrouled over the low countries, the nation itself was farther than ever from being broken and subdued.
Besides being supported by their pride and anger, passions difficult to tame, they were encouraged, amidst all their calamities, by daily promises of relief from France; and as a war was now likely to break out between that kingdom and England, they had reason to expect from this incident a great diversion of that force, which had so long oppressed and overwhelmed them.
We now come to a transaction, on which depended the most
1337. King’s claim to
memorable events, not only of this long and active reign, but of the crown of France.
the whole English and French history, during more than a
century; and it will therefore be necessary to give a particular account of the springs and causes of it.
It had long been a prevailing opinion, that the crown of France could never descend to a female; and in order to give more authority to this maxim, and assign it a determinate origin, it had been usual to derive it from a clause in the Salian Code, the law of an ancient tribe among the Franks: though that clause, when strictly examined, carries only the appearance of favouring this principle, and does not really, by the confession of the best antiquaries, bear the sense commonly imposed upon it. But though positive law seems wanting among the French for the exclusion of females, the practice had taken place; and the rule was established beyond controversy on some ancient as well as some modern precedents. During the first race of the monarchy, the Franks were so rude and barbarous a people, that they were incapable of submitting to a female reign; and in that period of their history there were frequent instances of kings advanced to royalty in prejudice of females, who were related to the crown by nearer degrees of consanguinity. These precedents, joined to like causes, had also established the male succession in the second race; and though the instances were neither so frequent nor so certain during that period, the principle of excluding the female line seems still to have prevailed, and to have directed the conduct of the nation. During the third race, the crown had descended from father to son for eleven generations, from Hugh Capet to Lewis Hutin; and thus, in fact, during the course of nine hundred years, the French monarchy had always been governed by males, and no female and none who founded his title on a female had ever mounted the throne.