open warfare in 1296. Edward at once marched northward, captured
Berwick, and carried his victorious arms as far north as Aberdeen,
Banff, and Elgin, taking the great castles on the way, formally
accepted Baliol's surrender of the crown at Montrose, and returned to
Berwick (August 22), carrying with him the famous coronation-stone
from Scone, after having subdued the whole kingdom in about five
months. Here, six days later, he received the fealty of the clergy,
barons, and gentry of Scotland, whose names fill the thirty-five skins
of parchment known as the "Ragman Roll."

At length he was at liberty to turn to France, but the great cost of
his late expenditure had already driven him to make such heavy demands
upon the revenues of the Church, that the clergy now refused fresh
subsidies, headed by Archbishop Winchelsea and supported by the bull
"Clericis Laicos" of Pope Boniface VIII. The king retaliated by
placing the clergy of the kingdom in outlawry. At the Salisbury
parliament in February, 1297, the great barons also refused to take
part in foreign war, while the merchants were exasperated because
their wool had been seized. A compromise was soon effected with the
clergy, and a temporary illegal grant for the immediate purposes of
the war was procured from the nobles and commons who were with him.
Edward sailed for Flanders, and at Ghent confirmed the Charter with
such supplementary clauses as were demanded by his refractory nobles,
thus finally establishing the right of the people themselves to
determine taxation.

This is only second in importance to Magna Charta itself as a landmark
in the history of England. The suspicious fears of his people
compelled Edward to repeat the confirmation at London in 1300, and
again at Lincoln in 1301--an insult to his honesty which the king
never forgave, and to which his subsequent banishment of Winchelsea
was due. In 1303, and again the year after, Edward, in desperate
straits for money, levied, by agreement with the foreign merchants,
some new customs--the beginning of import duties, without consent of
the estates, and collected a _tallage_ from the royal demesne; and
again, in 1305, he obtained from Clement V. a formal absolution from
the obligations of 1297. It is true that the first two measures were
contrary to the spirit rather than the letter of his promise, and that
he never sought to avail himself of the dangerous power granted him by
the papal absolution, yet these