1313. He left behind him the reputation of a saint and a hero, and a

movement was undertaken for his canonisation. With all his faults, he was the greatest churchman of his time, and the most steadfast and unselfish of ecclesiastical statesmen. Despite his palsy, he had shown wonderful activity since his return. The brain and soul of the ordainers, he equally made it his business to uphold extreme hierarchical privilege. Bitterly as he hated Walter Langton, he was indignant that a bishop should be imprisoned and despoiled by the lay power, and took up his cause with such energy that he effected his liberation, only to find that Langton made peace with the king and turned his back on the ordainers. The after-swell of the storms, excited by the petition of Lincoln and the statute of Carlisle, still continued troublous during Winchelsea's later years. The pope complained of the violated privileges of the Church and of the accumulated arrears of King John's tribute; and Winchelsea was anxious to promote the papal cause. But the barons in Edward's early parliaments still used the bold language of the magnates of 1301, and the letter of 1309, drawn up by the parliament of Stamford, is no unworthy pendant of the Lincoln letter. As time went on, the disorders of the government and the weakness of the king surrendered everything to the pope. It was soon as it had been in the days of Henry III., when pope and king combined to despoil the English Church. The suppression of the order of the Temple shows how absolutely England was forced to follow in the wake of the papacy and the King of France. There was no spontaneous movement against the society as in France; there was not even the fierce malice and insatiable greed which could find their only satisfaction in the ruin of the brethren; and there is not much evidence that the Templars were unpopular. The whole attack was the result of commands given from without. It was at the repeated request of Philip of France and Clement V. that Edward reluctantly ordered the apprehension of all the Templars within England, Scotland, and Ireland on January 8, 1308. Their property was taken into the king's hands, and their persons were confined in the royal prisons under the custody of the sheriffs. For their trial, Clement appointed a mixed commission including Winchelsea, Archbishop Greenfield of York, several English bishops, one French bishop, and certain papal inquisitors specially assigned for the purpose, the chief of whom were the Abbot of Lagny and Sicard de Lavaur, Canon of Narbonne, who came to England in 1309. At last the victims were collected at London and York, where the trials were to be conducted for the southern and northern provinces. There was much hesitation among the English bishops. The foes of the Templars lamented the prelates' lack of zeal and their scruples in collecting evidence, and suggested that the torture, which had so freely been used in France, would soon extract confessions. But the northern bishops declared that torture was unknown in England, and asked, if it were to be adopted, whether it was to be applied by clerks or laymen, and whether torturers should be imported from beyond sea. In the end, torture was used, but not to any great extent. A great mass of depositions, mostly vague and worthless, or derived from the suspicious confessions of apostates and weaklings, was gathered together, and in 1311 laid before provincial councils, but neither province came to any fixed decision. "Inasmuch," says Hemingburgh, "as the Templars were not found altogether guilty or altogether innocent, they referred the dubious matter to the pope." They sent the evidence they had collected to swell the mass of testimony from all Christendom, which was laid before the council of Vienne. When the pope suppressed the order in April, 1312, and transferred its lands to the Knights of St. John, the papal decrees were quietly carried out in England. One or two Templars died in prison, but none were executed; and the majority were dismissed with pensions or secluded in monasteries. Edward and his nobles took good care to make a large profit out of the transaction. The resources of the Temple alone kept the king from destitution during the period between the death of Gaveston and his reconciliation with the earls. Many barons laid violent hands on estates belonging to the order, and long held on to them despite papal expostulation. The Hospitallers found that the lands of their rivals came to them so slowly, and encumbered with so many charges, that their new property became burdensome rather than helpful to their society. Thus it was that they never made any use of the New Temple in London, and, before long, let it out to the common-lawyers. In the fall of the Templars, the pope and the Church set the first great example of the suppression of a religious order to kings, who before long bettered the precedent given them. The sordid story is mainly important to our history as an example of the completeness of the influence of the papal autocracy, and of the submissiveness of clergy and laity to its behests. It was a lurid commentary on the practical working of the ecclesiastical system that the business of condemning an innocent order first brought into England the papal inquisitor and the use of torture. Yet the whole process was but so pale a reflection of the horrors wrought in France that the conclusion arises that England owed more to the weakness of Edward II than France to the strength of Philip IV. Winchelsea's death removed a real check on Edward, especially as the king was on such good terms with the papacy that he had little difficulty in obtaining a successor amenable to his will. Undeterred by Clement's bull reserving to himself the appointment, the monks of Christ Church at once proceeded to elect Thomas of Cobham, a theologian and a canonist of distinction, a man of high birth, great sanctity, and unblemished character, and in every way worthy of the primacy. But his merits did not weigh for a moment with Clement against the wishes of the king. He rejected Cobham and conferred the primacy on Edwards favourite, Walter Reynolds, who had already obtained the bishopric of Worcester through the king's influence. A good deal of money, it was believed, found its way to the coffers of the _curia_; and the indignation of the English Church found voice in the impassioned protests of the chroniclers. "Lady Money rules everything in the pope's court," lamented the monk of Malmesbury. "For eight years Pope Clement has ruled the Universal Church: but what good he has done escapes memory. England, alone of all countries, feels the burden of papal domination. Out of the fulness of his power, the pope presumes to do many things, and neither prince nor people dare contradict him. He reserves all the fat benefices for himself, and excommunicates all who resist him: his legates come and spoil the land: those armed with his bulls come and demand prebends. He has given all the deaneries to foreigners, and cut down the number of resident canons. Why does the pope exercise greater power over the clergy than the emperor over the laity? Lord Jesus! either take away the pope from our midst or lessen the power which he presumes to have over the people." Such lamentations bore no fruit, and the simoniacal nomination of Reynolds was but the first of a series of appointments which robbed the episcopate of dignity and moral worth. While Church and State in England were thus distressed, the cause of Robert Bruce was making steady progress in Scotland. It is some measure of the difficulties against which Bruce had to contend that, after six years, he was still by no means master of all that land. But least of all among the causes which retarded his advance can be placed the armed forces of England. During six years Edward II.'s one personal expedition had been a complete failure. A more formidable obstacle in Bruce's way was the stubborn resistance offered to him by the valour and skill of the small but highly trained garrisons which the wisdom of Edward I. had established in the fortresses of southern and central Scotland. Each castle took a long time to subdue, and demanded engineering resources and a persistency of effort, which were difficult to obtain from a popular army. The garrisons co-operated with the Scottish nobles who still adhered to Edward through jealousy of the upstart Bruces and love of feudal independence, rather than by reason of any sympathy with the English cause. Additional obstacles to Robert's progress were the hostility of the Church, to which he was still the excommunicated murderer of Comyn; the captivity of so many Scottish prelates and barons in England; the efforts of the pope and the King of France to bring about suspensions of hostilities, and the grievous famines which desolated Scotland no less than southern Britain. But during these years the King of Scots gradually overcame these difficulties. His hardest fighting in the field was with rival Scots rather than with the English intruders. In 1308 he defeated the Comyns of Buchan, and established himself on the ruins of that house in the north-east. In the same year his brother, Edward Bruce, conquered Galloway, where the Balliol tradition long prevented the domination of the rival family. Secure from retaliation so long as domestic troubles lasted, the Scots devastated the northern counties of England, whose inhabitants were forced to purchase relief from further attacks by paying large sums of money to the invaders. Formal truces were more than once made, but they were ill observed, and each violation of an armistice involved some loss to Edward and some gain to Robert. Meanwhile the garrisons were carefully isolated, and one by one signalled out for attack. In 1312 Berwick itself was only saved from surprise by the opportune barking of a dog. In January, 1313, Perth was captured by assault. Next day Robert slew the leading native burgesses who had adhered to the English, while he permitted the English inhabitants to return freely to their own country. The whole town was destroyed, since walled towns, like castles, had given the English their chief hold upon the country. Such was the state of Scotland when the reconciliation between Edward and the earls restored England to the appearance of unity. As if conscious that no time was to be lost in strengthening his position, Bruce redoubled his efforts to make himself master of the fortresses which still remained in the enemy's hands. Regardless of the rigour of the season, he set actively to work in the early weeks of 1314, and remarkable success attended his efforts. In February, the border stronghold of Roxburgh was taken by a night attack. "And all that fair castle, like the other castles which he had acquired, they pulled down to the ground, lest the English should afterwards by holding the castle bear rule over the land."[1] In March, Edinburgh castle was secured by some Scots who climbed up the precipitous northern face of the castle rock, overpowered the garrison, and opened the gates to their comrades outside. Flushed with this great success, Bruce began the siege of Stirling, the only important English garrison then held by the English in the heart of Scotland. He pressed the besieged so hard that they agreed to surrender to the enemy, if they were not relieved before Midsummer day, the feast of St. John the Baptist. While Robert was watching Stirling, his brother Edward devastated the country round Carlisle, lording it for three days at the bishop's castle of Rose, and levying heavy blackmail on the men of Cumberland. [1] _Lanercost Chronicle_, p. 223. If Stirling were lost, all Scotland would be at Bruce's mercy. Even Edward was stirred by the disgrace involved in the utter abandonment of his father's conquest; and from March onwards he began to make spasmodic efforts to collect men and ships to enable him to advance to the relief of the beleaguered garrison. At first it seemed sufficient to raise the feudal levies and a small infantry force from the northern shires, but as time went on the necessity of meeting the Scottish pikemen by corresponding levies of foot soldiers became evident, and over 20,000 infantry were summoned from the northern counties and Wales.[1] But the notice given was far too short, and June was well advanced before anything was ready. [1] For the numbers at Bannockburn, see _Foedera_, ii., 248, and Round, _Commune_ of London, pp. 289-301. Even the Scottish peril could not quicken the sluggish patriotism of the ordainers. Four earls, Lancaster, Warenne, Warwick, and Arundel, answered Edward's summons by reminding him that the ordinances prescribed that war should only be undertaken with the approval of parliament, and by declining to follow him to a campaign undertaken on his own responsibility. They would send quotas, but begged to be excused from personal attendance. Yet even without them, a gallant array slowly gathered together at Berwick, and one at least of the opposition earls, Humphrey of Hereford, was there, with Gilbert of Gloucester and Aymer of Pembroke and 2,000 men-at-arms. An enormous baggage train enabled the knights and barons to appear in the field in great magnificence, though it destroyed the mobility of the force. "The multitude of waggons," wrote the monk of Malmesbury, "if they had been extended in a single line would have occupied the space of twenty leagues." The splendour and number of the army inspired the king and his friends with the utmost confidence. Though the host started from Berwick less than a week before the appointed day, the king moved, says the Malmesbury monk, not as if he were about to lead an army to battle, but rather as if he were going on a pilgrimage to Compostella. "There was but short delay for sleep, and a shorter delay for taking food. Hence horses, horsemen, and infantry were worn out with fatigue and hunger." There was no order or method in the proceedings of the host. The presence of the king meant that there was no effective general, and Hereford and Gloucester quarrelled for the second place. It was not until Sunday, June 23, that Edward at last took up his quarters a few miles south of Stirling, with a worn-out and dispirited army. Yet, if Stirling were to be saved, immediate action was necessary. Gloucester and Hereford made a vigorous but unsuccessful effort to penetrate at once into the castle, and Bruce came down just in time to throw himself between them and the walls. Henry Bohun, who had forced his way forward at the head of a force of Welsh infantry, was slain, and his troops dispersed. Gloucester was unhorsed, and thereupon the English retreated to their camp. Fearing an attack under cover of darkness, they had little sleep that night, and many of the watchers consoled themselves with revelry and drunkenness. When St. John's day dawned, they were too weary to fight effectively. Bruce advanced from the woods and stationed his troops on the low ridge bounding the northern slope of the little brook, called the Bannockburn, which runs about two miles south of Stirling on its course towards the Forth. Of the three divisions, or battles, into which the Scots were divided, two stood on the same front, side by side, while King Robert commanded the rear battle, which was to serve as a reserve. He marshalled his forces much in the same way that Wallace had adopted at Falkirk. There was the same close array of infantry, protected by a wall of shields and a thick hedge of pikes. Each man wore light but adequate armour, and, besides the pike, bore an axe at his side for work at close quarters. Pits were dug before the Scots lines, and covered over with hurdles so light that they would not bear the weight of a mail-clad warrior and his horse. Save for a small cavalry force kept in reserve in the rear, the men-at-arms were ordered to dismount and take their place in the dense array, lest, like their comrades at Falkirk, they should ride off in alarm when they saw the preponderance of the enemy's horse. The Scots were less numerous than the English, but they were an army and not a mob; their commander was a man of rare military insight, and their tactics were those which, twelve years before, had defeated the chivalry of France at Courtrai. The English had feared that the Scots would not fight a pitched battle, and were astonished to see them at daybreak prepared to receive an attack. Their contempt for their enemy made them eager to accept the challenge, but Gloucester, who, though only twenty-three, had more of the soldier's eye than most of the magnates, urged Edward to postpone the encounter for a day, that the army might recover from its fatigue, and the clergy advised delay out of respect to St. John the Baptist. Unmoved by prudence or piety, Edward denounced his nephew as a coward, and ordered an immediate advance. The English, forgetting the lessons of the Welsh wars, sent on the archers in front of the cavalry. Bruce, seeing that their missiles were playing havoc on his dense ranks, directed his small cavalry force to charge the archers on their left flank. The unsupported bowmen at once fell back in confusion, leaving the cavalry to do its work. Meanwhile the English men-at-arms were advancing in three "battles," the first of which then came into action. Many of the English fell into the pits prepared for them, and the Scottish shields and pikes broke the attack of those who evaded these obstacles. Gloucester fought with rare gallantry, but was badly seconded by his followers. At last his horse was slain under him, and he was knocked down and killed. The troop which he led fled panic-stricken from the field. The Scots then advanced with such vigour that the English never recovered from the disorder into which their first disaster had thrown them. While these things were going on, the second and third English "battles" had been making feeble efforts to take their part in the fight. But the first line cut them off from direct access to the foe, and the archers of the second battle did more harm to their friends than to their enemies by shooting wildly, straight in front of them. There was no single directing force, nor, after Gloucester's fall, even one conspicuous leader who would set an example of blind valour. Hundreds of English knights, who had not drawn their swords, were soon fleeing in terror before the enemy. Edward, who had taken up his station in the rear battle, rode off the field and never dismounted until he reached Dunbar, whence he fled by sea to Berwick. Abandoned by their leaders, the English retreated as best they could. Many of their best knights lay dead on the field, and more were drowned in the Forth or Bannock, or swallowed up in the bogs, than were slain in the fight. The Scots, whose losses were slight, showed a prudent tendency to capture rather than slay the knights and barons, in order that they might hold them up to ransom, and though many desisted from the pursuit to plunder the baggage train, those who followed the English fugitives reaped an abundant harvest of captives. Hereford was chased into Bothwell castle, which was still held for the English. But next day the Scottish official who commanded there for Edward opened the gates to Bruce, and the earl became a prisoner. Pembroke escaped with difficulty on foot, along with a contingent of Welsh infantry. The mighty English army had ceased to exist; and with the surrender of Stirling, next day, Bruce's career attained its culminating point. His long years of trial were at last over, and the clever adventurer could henceforth enjoy in security the crown which he had so gallantly won. The military results of Bannockburn were of extreme importance. The ablest of contemporary annalists aptly compared Bruce's victory to the battle of Courtrai. An even nearer analogy was the fight at Morgarten where, within two years, the pikemen of the Forest Cantons were to scatter the chivalry of the Hapsburgers as effectively as the Flemings won the day at Courtrai or the Scots at Bannockburn. The English had forgotten the military lessons of Edward I., as completely as they had forgotten his political lessons, and their reliance on the obsolete and unsupported cavalry charge was their undoing. Bruce, on the other hand, had improved upon the teaching of Wallace and Edward I. His use of his men-at-arms on foot anticipates the English tactics of the Hundred Years' War. The presence of these heavily armed troopers in his ranks gave him a strength in defence, and an impetuosity in attack, which made it a simple matter to break up the undisciplined squadrons opposed to him. Bannockburn rang the death-knell of the tactics which since Hastings had been regarded as the perfection of military art. The political lessons of the victory were of not less importance. It is almost too much to say that Bannockburn won for Scotland its independence, for Scottish independence had already been vindicated. But the easy victory brought home to men's minds the full measure of the Scottish triumph. It was already clear that so long as Edward lived, England would never make the continued effort which, as Edward I.'s wars both in Wales and Scotland had shown, could alone systematically conquer a nation. Bruce's difficulties were not so much with the English as with the Scots. It was no small task to unite the English of the Lothians, the Welsh of the south-west, the Norsemen of the extreme north, and the Celts of the hills into a single Scottish nation. He had against him the separatist local feeling which Scottish history and ethnology made inevitable, and it took time for him to obtain that prestige, which should hedge a king, and raise him above the crowd of feudal earls and clan chieftains, who thought themselves as good as the sometime Earl of Carrick. Such dignity and distinction Bannockburn supplied, and such measure of national unity and strong monarchical authority as Scotland ever enjoyed, came from the triumph of him who became, even more than Wallace, the hero of the new nation. For the next few years the Scots took the aggressive. They induced the French kings to renew the alliance which Philip IV. had made with them in the early years of the contest. They obtained papal recognition for their king and the withdrawal of the ban of the Church on Comyn's murderer; they plundered northern England from end to end, and broke down Anglo-Norman rule in Ireland; they plotted for the resurrection of the Welsh principality; and, worse than all, they made common cause with the baronial opposition. Hence it followed that the political results of the victory were as important to England as they were to Scotland itself. The troubled history of the next eight years reveals in detail the effects of Bannockburn on England. Edward's defeat threw him into the power of the ordainers. The ordainers, when called upon to govern, showed themselves as incapable as ever Edward or his favourites had been. The results were misrule, aristocratic faction, popular distress, and mob violence. Ineffective as are the first seven years of the reign of Edward of Carnarvon, the eight years which followed Bruce's victory plunged England deeper into the pit of degradation, from which neither the king nor the king's foes were strong, wise, or honest enough to release her.