hood and self-reliance of the Scottish
character is distinctly to be traced to those years of struggle
against a powerful neighbour. England, too, was the better for being
balked of its prey. No nation can suppress the liberty of another
without endangering its own.

[Illustration: Lincoln Cathedral--the central tower; built about
1310.]

23. =Lancaster's Government. 1314--1322.=--Edward was thrown by his
defeat entirely under the power of Lancaster, who took the whole
authority into his hands and placed and displaced ministers at his
pleasure. Lancaster, however, was a selfish and incompetent ruler. He
allowed the Scots to ravage the north of England without venturing to
oppose them, and as he could not even keep order at home, private wars
broke out amongst the barons. In =1318= Bruce took Berwick, the great
border fortress against Scotland. It was rather by good luck than by
good management that Edward was at last able to resist Lancaster.
Edward could not exist without a personal favourite, and he found one
in Hugh le Despenser. Despenser was at least an Englishman, which
Gaveston had not been, and his father, Hugh le Despenser the elder,
did his best to raise up a party to support the king. In =1321=,
however, Parliament, under Lancaster's influence, declared against
them and sentenced them to exile. Edward took arms for his favourites,
and in =1322= defeated Lancaster at Boroughbridge, and then had him
tried and beheaded at Pontefract.

24. =A Constitutional Settlement. 1322.=--Favourites as they were, the
Despensers had at least the merit of seeing that the king could not
overpower the barons by the mere assertion of his personal authority.
At a Parliament held at York in =1322=, the king obtained the
revocation of the ordinances, and a declaration that 'matters to be
established for the estate of our lord the king and of his heirs, and
for the estate of the realm and of the people, shall be treated,
accorded, and established in Parliaments by our lord the king, and by
the consent of the prelates, earls and barons, and commonalty of the
realm, according as hath been hitherto accustomed.' Edward I. had in
=1295= gathered a full Parliament, including the commons. But there
was no law to prevent him or his successors excluding the commons on
some future occasion. Edward II. by this declaration, issued with
consent of Parliament, confirmed his father's practice by a
legislative act. Unless the law were broken or