220.  Confirmation of the Charters, 1297.

Edward next prepared to attack France.  In great need of money, he demanded a large sum from the clergy, and seized a quantity of wool in the hands of the merchants.  The barons, alarmed at these arbitrary measures, insisted on the King’s confirming all previous charters of liberties, including the Great Charter (SS135, 160, 199).  This confirmation expressly forbade that the Crown should take the people’s money or goods except by the consent of Parliament.  Thus out of the war England gained the one thing it needed to give the finishing touch to the building up of Parliamentary power (SS213, 217); namely, a solemn acknowledgement by the King that the nation alone had the right to levy taxes.[1] (See Summary of Constitutional History in the Appendix, p. xi, S12.)

[1] Professor Stubbs says in his works (i.e.  “Constitutional History of England,” and “Select Charters"), that the Confirmation of the Charters “established the principle that for all taxation, direct and indirect, the consent of the nation must be asked, and made it clear that all transgressions of that principle, whether within the latter of the law or beyond it, were evasions of the spirit of the Constitution.”  See also J. Rowley’s “Rise of the English People.”

221.  Revolt and Death of Wallace (1303).

A new revolt now broke out in Scotland (S219).  The patriot, William Wallace, rose and led his countrymen against the English,—­led them with that impetuous valor which breathes in Burns’s lines: 

“Scots, wha hae wi’ Wallace bled.”

Fate, however, was against him.  After eight years of desperate fighting, the valiant soldier was captured, executed on Tower Hill in London as a traitor, and his head, crowned in mockery with a wreath of laurel, was set on a pike on London Bridge.

But though the hero who perished on the scaffold could not prevent his country from becoming one day a part of England, he did hinder its becoming so on unfair and tyrannical terms.  “Scotland,” says Carlyle, “is not Ireland.  No; because brave men arose there, and said, `Behold, ye must not tread us down like slaves,—­and ye shall not,—­and ye cannot!’” But Ireland failed, not for any lack of brave men, but for lack of unity among them.

222.  Expulsion of the Jews, 1290.

The darkest stain on Edward’s reign was his treatment of the Jews (S119).  Up to this period that unfortunate race had been protected by the Kings of England as men protect the cattle which they fatten for slaughter.  So long as they accumulated money, and so long as the sovereign could extort from them whatever portion of their accumulations he saw fit to demand, they were worth guarding.  A time had now come when the populace clamored for their expulsion from the island, on the ground that their usury and rapacity was ruining the country.