self there until relieved, and places London under an interdict.

Many of the nobles from Ely join the earl of Clare in London; they are welcomed by the Londoners, and together plunder the palace at Westminster.

The king sells the jewels of the church of Westminster, and hires forces both from France and Scotland.

Prince Edward at length reduces the isle of Ely, and grants the terms of the edict of Kenilworth to its defenders, July 25.

Peace is made with Llewelyn, who acknowledges that he holds his principality of the king; he promised to pay a sum of money, and was to receive in return the district called the Four Barriers, which had been seized by the English in the time of Prince David.

The earl of Clare is reconciled to Mortimer and the other marchers, and gives security for his future conduct. A parliament held at Marlborough, in November, at which various provisions are made to preserve the peace, and curb the excesses of the victorious royalists.

A.D. 1268. The legate holds a council at London, April 16, which publishes a decree to remedy the evils of the civil war; he holds another at Northampton, at which Prince Edward and his brother Edmund, together with the earl of Clare and many other nobles, assume the cross.

See p. 311. By Matthew Paris this transaction is ascribed to the year 1259; Llewelyn's charter, in the Tower, bears date "Die Sanctorum Gervasii et Prochasii, A. D. MCCLXV.' (June 19, 1265), but that being before the battle of Evesham, it is presumed there is an error in the year, and the statement of Matthew of Westminster, that Llewelyn submitted shortly after the reduction of the isle of Ely, has been followed.

!

John, earl of Warrenne, having wounded Alan de la Zouche, the king's justiciary, in Westminster Hall, is besieged in his castle of Reigate by Prince Edward, and obliged to surrender.

A.D. 1269. Prince Edward proceeds on the crusade, in May.

A.D. 1270. The charters of the city of London are restored, July 16.

King Louis dies before Tunis, Aug. 25; Tunis is taken shortly after, when the French abandon the crusade, but Prince Edward proceeds with the English to Palestine.

The Scots complete the conquest of the Isle of Man.

A.D. 1271. Henry, son of the king of Germany, is killed at Viterbo, by Guy and Simon de Montfort, in March.

Prince Edward captures Nazareth, in May, and gains several battles against the Saracens.

A.D. 1272. An attempt made to assassinate Prince Edward at Acre, June 17; he soon after makes a truce with the Mohammedans, and sails for Italy, Aug. 15.

The king dies, Nov. 16; he is buried at Westminster, Nov. 20, fealty being at once sworn to his son Edward, though men were ignorant whether he was alive, for he had gone to distant countries beyond the sea, warring against the enemies of Christ."

a

They ruled it until 1290, when the inhabitants took advantage of the disturbed state of Scotland to claim the protection of Edward I.

EDWARD, the eldest son of Henry III. and Eleanor of Provence, was born at Westminster, June 18, 1239, and baptized four days after in the conventual church. As early as 1249 the nominal government of Gascony was bestowed on him, and his marriage in 1254 with Eleanor of Castile, sister of Alphonso IV., was attended by the resignation of the pretensions of that monarch to the province.

Edward took a very active part in the transactions of the latter years of his father's reign, and having replaced him on the throne by the death of De Montfort, he soon after went on the crusade with Louis IX. of France, but his force was too small to effect anything of consequence, for the French abandoned the enterprise on the death of Louis. The prince's reputation was such that fealty was sworn to him in his absence, and he did not return to his

a These claims were founded on an alleged grant by Henry II. to Alphonso III., who married his daughter Eleanor, and they were favoured by the Gascons, who greatly disliked their English rulers.

kingdom till nearly two years after his father's death, employing the interval in reducing the Gascons to obedience, and settling some commercial disputes between his subjects and the Flemings.

Llewelyn, prince of Wales, had been an active ally of De Montfort, and he had been included in the peace made before Edward's departure for the crusade, on promising fealty to the king. He was now summoned to attend the English parliament, his refusal was punished by the invasion of his country, and he was speedily reduced to subjection; the unbearable oppressions of the marchers compelled him to resume his arms, in the year 1282, but this step was soon followed by his own death in the field, and the execution as a traitor of his brother David, when the land was filled with English strongholds, and the title of Prince of Wales was bestowed on the heir-apparent of the English crown.

Edward thus destroyed the Welsh princes for disputing his feudal superiority, but he resisted a similar claim on himself from the king of France. A piratical war having broken out between the Normans and the Cinque Ports men, Edward was summoned to Paris to answer for the conduct of his subjects; he refused, and his fiefs were declared forfeited. Gascony was, in consequence, overrun by the French, and Prince Edmund died in an attempt to recover it, but Edward allied himself with the Flemings, carried on a fierce war with his liege lord, and eventually obtained peace on his own terms, Gascony being restored to him, and the sister of the French king becoming his wife.

The success of his iniquitous enterprise against Wales probably inspired Edward with the hope of uniting the

whole island of Britain under his sway, and this he at first attempted by peaceable means, afterwards by violence, but in neither was he successful.

Alexander III. of Scotland died in 1287, and his crown fell to his grand-daughter, a child, named Margaret, the Maid of Norway; a marriage treaty, which was intended to unite the two kingdoms, was concluded between her and Prince Edward, `but this arrangement failed through her premature death. Numerous competitors arose for the crown, and to avert the danger of civil war the states of Scotland unwisely referred the decision of their claims to Edward. He had recently arbitrated between the kings of France and Arragon concerning the isle of Sicily, but here he was too deeply interested to be just. Having assembled a large army on the border, his first step was to assert that he came to decide the dispute in his quality of sovereign lord, a demand which excited much surprise and remonstrance, but to which the states and the competitors were ultimately obliged to agree, as also to place in his hands the royal castles. A decision was at length given in favour of John Baliol, who did homage for his kingdom; but though acquiesced in for a while, this state of vassalage was odious to the great body of his people: they, rather than the nobles, took up arms, formed an alliance with France, and superseded Baliol. Edward advanced against them, mercilessly ravaged their country from one end to the other, and formally annexed it to England. Very many of the nobles submitted to him, but Wallace and Robert Bruce kept the field. Wallace was captured and executed; Bruce assumed the crown, and though most of his family fell into the hands of Edward, he still stub