| Copyright | ||
|
Home An Early Great Britain and its Failure Edward I and the Scottish Throne; Part 3 |
Edward I and the Scottish Throne; Part 3Balliol strove to gain time. He protested; he actually came to England. But the Scots had by this time made up their minds. They drove out all Englishmen and seized their estates. They persuaded Balliol to make an alliance with France (1295). As Edward was at war with France, this was open defiance.As soon as Edward could disentangle himself from his difficulties with France, he marched with an army into Scotland to subdue one whom he looked on as a rebel. He stormed Berwick, where the townsmen were brutally massacred by his soldiers; he defeated a Scottish army at Dunbar - the Scots rushing down to attack what they thought to be a retreating force, and being themselves routed - and soon overran the whole country. Balliol was deposed, and Edward took Scotland for himself, setting up Warenne and Cressingham as regents. Scotland as an independent kingdom seemed to have come to an end. Thus Edward had been led from policy to force, from being an umpire into becoming a combatant. In following him step by step it is not easy to say at what precise point he transgressed from what was fair into what was not justifiable. Each act may be described as the natural or legal consequence of what went before. Yet none the less at the end he found himself in the position which only " Might" could turn into "Right". He had undertaken to crush a nation because its chief men had broken faith with him, and this to one whose motto was "Keep troth " may have been reason enough. But the life of a nation cannot be forfeited in this way, and Edward was bound to appear as a foreigner, aiming at couquest. Thus he raised against himself a force which he was unable to subdue. |
Chronology |
| copyright by uus-ununseptium.info |