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lations for the government of Scotland, now considered as conquered, are drawn up.

Robert Brucey leaves the English court, and repairs to Scotland.

A.D. 1306. Bruce, failing to induce Comyn to join him in throwing off the English yoke, kills him in the Minorite convent at Dumfries, Jan. 29, or Feb. 10.

He is joined by numbers, drives out the English justiciaries, and garrisons, who flee to Berwick, and ravages the lands of the adherents of the king.

Bruce is crowned king (Robert I.) at Scone, March 25, in presence of the bishops of St. Andrew's and Glasgow, five earls, and many knights; the ceremony is repeated on Palm Sunday, March 27.

A large army sent against the Scots, in May, under Aymer de Valence, who defeats Bruce, July 22, and obliges him to flee to Cantyre, and thence to the Isles.

The king marches into Scotland, in July; little opposition is made to him, but he captures and executes many of Bruce's adherents, and commits those who surrender to close custody.

Bruce suddenly issues from his retreat, at the end of September; he besieges Henry de Percy in Turnbury castle (near Girvan, in Ayrshire), but a large English force puts him again to flight.

The son of the competitor for the crown, who died in April, 1304.

z Son of William de Valence, half-brother of Henry III.

Among them were Nigel Bruce, his brother, Seton, his brotherin-law, the earl of Athol, and Simon Fraser. His wife, his daughter, his two sisters, and the countess of Buchan, were captured, and imprisoned until after the battle of Bannockburn.

A.D. 1307. A parliament meets at Carlisle in January. Peter of Spain, the papal legate, excommunicates Bruce, Feb. 22.

Piers Gaveston, a favourite of the king's son Edward, is banished from England.

A party of Scots, headed by Alexander and Thomas Bruce, land in Galloway, Feb. 10; they are captured by Duncan Macdonald, a partisan of the English, and sent to the king, who has them all executed, Feb. 17.

Bruce again appears, (about the end of March,) defeats Aymer de Valence, and besieges the earl of Gloucester in Ayr.

The king raises the siege, and Bruce retires.

The king summons his army to assemble at Carlisle at the beginning of July.

He commences his last march against Scotland, leaving Carlisle July 3; reaches Burgh on the Sands (five miles distant), July 5; dies there, July 7; his body is brought to Westminster, and buried, Oct. 27.

The papal bull authorizing this is dated May 18, 1306; it is grounded on the murder of Comyn in a church.

His dying injunction was thus disregarded, as he had desired that his remains should be carried about with the army, and not deposited in the grave until the entire conquest of Scotland had been achieved.

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EDWARD, the fourth son of Edward I. and Eleanor of Castile, was born at Carnarvon, April 25, 1284. By the death of his brother Alphonso in the August following he became heir to the throne, and he soon after received the title of Prince of Wales.

Piers Gaveston, the son of a Gascon gentleman of merit, was chosen as the companion of the young prince, and this circumstance exercised a most unhappy influence on the destiny of both. Edward was frequently embroiled with his father in consequence of his own misconduct as well as that of his favourite, and one of the last acts of the dying king was an endeavour to perpetuate the banishment of the latter.

Edward became king July 8, 107, being then on the border of Scotland, but he at once abandoned the contest, recalled his favourite, and imprisoned or banished

many of his father's ministers. Gaveston was created earl of Cornwall, and married to the king's niece, Margaret de Clare; his insolence was intolerable to the nobles, and after being more than once banished and recalled, he was put to death by them in the year 1312, the king having in the meantime been stripped of power, by his cousin, Thomas, earl of Lancaster, and his associates.

In 1314 Edward invaded Scotland at the head of a large army, but was signally defeated by Robert I. at Bannockburn, June 24, and never after made any serious attempt to renew the enterprise; while the Scots, on the other hand, ravaged the north of England, and attempted the conquest of Ireland.

After some years, unwarned by the fate of Gaveston, the king chose a new favourite, Hugh Despenser, who, however, was soon banished. The king took up arms, recalled Despenser, and defeated and killed the earls of Lancaster and Hereford; but their party was joined by the queen, whom Despenser had offended. She went to France, taking her son Edward with her, under the pretext of accommodating a dispute with the French king (her brother) about the homage of Gascony. The earl of Kent (the king's brother), Roger Mortimer, and other nobles, repaired to her, and a small mercenary force was raised, with which she invaded England, in September, 1326; the king fled before them, his favourites were seized and executed, and he himself being captured, he was formally deposed, Jan. 7, 1327, and murdered at Berkeley castle, the 21st of September following.

Edward married, in 1308, Isabella, daughter of Philip IV. of France. She bore him two sons and two daughters, but disgraced herself by a criminal amour with Roger Mortimer, and died in 1357, after an imprisonment of twenty-seven years. Of the children of their marriage,

1. EDWARD became king.

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2. John of Eltham, born Aug. 25, 1315. was in 1328 created earl of Cornwall, and in the following year named custos of the kingdom, during the absence of the king in France. He died at St. John's town, near Perth, in Scotland, Oct. 1334.

3. Eleanor, born 1318, married Reynald II., count of Gueldres, and, after a life rendered miserable by the ill conduct of her husband and her sons, she died in a nunnery at Deventer, April 22, 1355.

4. Joan, born in the Tower, in 1321, was in 1329 married to David, prince of Scotland, (afterwards David II.) She accompanied him alike in his exile in France and his imprisonment in England, but was at length obliged to separate from him through his own misconduct, and return to her brother's court, where she died, Sept. 7, 1362.

Edward II. bore the same arms as his father, but for a badge he used a castle, probably in token of his descent from the kings of Castile.

The character of this king was manifestly rather weak than wicked; those who deposed and murdered him charged him with neglect of his office, and profusion,

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