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when their captain and their leader was dead. Come, then," said Simon, "and let us die like men; for we have fasted here, and we shall breakfast in heaven." Simon and his faithful band knelt down to ask forgiveness of their sins, and, in God's name, the bishop of Worcester declared them to be absolved. Then Simon rose, and with his whole force dashed forward to meet the foe. "By the arm of St. James!" he said, as he saw the orderly advance of the enemy, "they come on well; they learned that not of themselves, but of me."

The battle, if indeed it deserves the name, could not be of long duration. Prince Edward bore down upon Simon's little army in front, Gloucester charged upon its flank, a third force which had been sent to watch the bridge charged it in the rear. Simon's band of heroes was surrounded and outnumbered. Henry de Montfort, Simon's eldest son, was one of the first to be struck down. "Is it so?" said the father, when the news was brought to him. "Then, indeed, it is time for me to die." He rushed into the thickest ranks of the enemy, slashing, as he went, with his sword. Prince Edward's men pressed round him, and one, coming behind him, lifted his coat of mail, and stabbed him in the back with a mortal wound.

The noblest heart in England had ceased to beat. Edward, barbarous in his triumph, allowed the body of the great leader to be brutally mutilated in scorn, and his comrades to be pitilessly slaughtered. The common people indeed reverenced him as a martyr and a saint, and believed that miracles were wrought at his tomb. Poets sang how the precious flower of warriors had faded away, and how the land wept for the loss of him who had been victorious even in death.

It seems a strange thing to speak of him whose torn and bleeding corpse had lain upon the field at Evesham as victorious in his death. Yet no words could be more true. In the pages of history, as in our own experience, we sometimes meet with men who accomplish some great work which they

have undertaken, and who die full of years and honors amid the grateful thanks of those who have enjoyed the fruit of their labors. But there are others who specially call for our gratitude, whose whole life seems at the time to have been thrown away, who have aimed at that which they could not win, and who have struggled always against the stream, to be swept away in the end in some dark day of storm. These are, indeed, the heroes of the earth. It is not what a man accomplishes, but what he aims at, which is the measure of his greatness, for it is the noble aim which makes him great and good.

"That low man seeks a little thing to do,

Sees it and does it;

This high man, with a great thing to pursue,

Dies ere he knows it."

Simon had sought to accomplish no less a thing than to make England self-governing, that it might no longer be the prey of a spendthrift king, and of his foreign hangers-on who flocked across the Channel, like vultures to the carcass. When he died he left the country in the hands of that king who had done the wrong, and who seemed likely to return to his evil ways. Yet it was not so. By the side of Henry was now his son Edward, firm of will, and victorious in war. Edward had learned other things from Simon than the military art. He had learned to do justice, and to seek for justice by seeking to know the opinions of every class of the people. During the remainder of Henry's reign, Edward took care that wise laws should be made, and that Englishmen should have the mastery in England. When he himself came to be king, he upheld the principle that what was for the good of all should be consulted on by all. He gathered round him Parliaments even more complete than that which Simon had summoned, and there he strove to do justice to all. The spirit of the slain leader seemed to have passed into his conqueror.

It is given to no man, not even to Simon or to Edward, to make a free country. England is free, because for centuries before Simon was born Englishmen had been in the habit of discussing their own concerns, at least in their local assemblies, in meetings in town and country. But Simon is none the less worthy to be held in remembrance because he found followers ready to support him. His immediate failure may, in part indeed, be attributed to his own faults, his quick temper, and his contempt of men who were less in earnest than himself; but it was far more to be attributed to the jealousies of the great men, and to the unpreparedness of the middle class to combine permanently in his support. He needs no monument of marble to be remembered by. Wherever a free Parliament meets and gives laws in the English tongue, there is Earl Simon's monument.

XX.

WALLACE, THE SCOTCH PATRIOT.-PEARSON.

[Edward I., son of Henry III., had profited by the troubles of his father's reign. He realized the needs of his people, and sought to meet them by enacting wise and just laws. His maxim was, 44 What concerns all should be approved by all." He was brave and prudent, and, above all, faithful to his word. He completed the parliamentary system, re-organized the courts of law, improved the system of police, and developed the resources of the country. In many ways he was really a great king.

His kingly pride and love of order led him to wish to extend the supremacy of England over the entire island. He, no doubt, honestly believed that the action of the Scottish nobles, in inviting him to decide between the different claimants to the Scottish crown, gave him the right to exercise a paramount authority over Scotland. This explains his policy toward that country; it also explains, though it does not justify, his savage treatment of the patriot leader, William Wallace.]

IN the spring of 1303 Edward at last saw all difficulties removed. The treaty with France only awaited signature;

the pope was occupied with troubles in Italy; the English estates were thoroughly reconciled to the crown. Edward summoned an overpowering army to Roxburgh, and, disregarding the Scotch borderers, who ravaged Cumberland behind him, he carried fire and sword through the whole country, penetrating even to Caithness. Debarred of all hope of foreign assistance, the Scotch nobles lost heart, and were only anxious to make terms. Two years before they had demanded that their lands in England should be restored, and the king had indignantly refused the request. They now stipulated only for the recovery of their Scotch estates, on the payment of reasonable fines, and Edward admitted them, by a general amnesty, to his peace. Probably the English earls, who had received grants of Scotch forfeitures, were bought off, or easily consented to renounce dangerous titles of doubtful value. John de Soulis, with a noble constancy, refused these terms, and retired to die, beggared and free, in France; but there was only one exception to the king's clemency. William Wallace, who had taken part in the earlier negotiations, applied, like others, for the king's grace and for permission to hold the lands he had acquired. The expression points to transactions, now unknown, by which his services had been rewarded with manors, so that he was, nominally at least, an estated gentleman. But Edward would not recognize the titles derived from war against himself, or could not bring himself to pardon the adventurer who had held all the force of England at bay. He would only agree that Wallace should come in and make his peace, that is to say, should make unconditional submission, with the understanding that he should be tenderly handled. Wallace refused these terms, and was proclaimed an outlaw, with a price set upon his head.

By

Unhappily for Edward and England, the measures taken to apprehend Wallace were crowned with a fatal success. the late peace Wallace was debarred his old refuge in France.

After a long vagrancy in the moors and fens, where he supported himself by plunder, he incautiously ventured to Glasgow, and was taken in the house of his mistress, through the treachery of his servant, Jack Short, who bore a grudge against him for the death of a brother. The earl of Monteith, then governor of Dunbarton, and one of the few Scotch nobles who had served Edward with fidelity, shares with his brother, Sir John Monteith, the discredit of a service to his country's enemy against his country's defender. The large rewards showered upon the captors, and the strong escort under which Wallace was hurried through the lowlands, attest the importance which Edward attached to his capture. Faithful to his maxim, that he would not see any one to whom he would not show grace, the king sent his great antagonist to London (August 22, 1305), where he was taken. through the streets in a mock procession, with a crown of laurel on his head, and tried by a special commission, consisting of three judges, the lord mayor, and John de Segrave, the beaten general of Roslyn. By strict law, as soon as the fact of Wallace's outlawry was proved against him by record of the coroner's 'roll, he was to be hanged, and his property forfeited to the crown; but this summary process would not have suited the English policy, which desired, before it slew its victim, to brand him as a felon. Accordingly the forms of trial were observed, and Wallace was indicted for treason, for murders and robberies, for sacrilege in churches, and for not having come to the king's peace. It is said that Wallace answered to the first count, denying that he was a traitor, as he had never sworn allegiance to the king of England. By the ideas of that time the defense was valid, for allegiance was a personal tie rendered in return for certain advantages, and which gentlemen at least might withhold at pleasure, so that Wallace was not necessarily bound by the acts of his countrymen. His refusal exposed him to forfeiture of his land, and might put him out of the king's peace, but did not