generations." With this final Act
the Scottish Parliament passed out of existence.

The wisdom of this measure has been abundantly justified by the
results--a growth in all that makes for material prosperity, a richer
intellectual life, and peace. After centuries of anarchy and misrule
and {297} aimless upheavals, Scotland had reached a haven. Her triumph
has been a moral and an intellectual triumph, not political. In
intellectual splendor her people may challenge the world, and in moral
elevation and in righteousness they will find few peers. But candor
compels the admission that Scotland has no more than Ireland proved
herself capable of maintaining a separate nationality. Without the
excuse of her sister island, never the victim of a foreign conquest,
left to herself, with her own kings and government for nearly a
thousand years, what do we see? A brave, spirited, warlike race with a
passion for liberty dominated and actually effaced by vicious kings,
intriguing regents, and a corrupt nobility; only once, under Wallace
and Bruce, rising to heroic proportions, and then to throw off a
foreign yoke and under leaders who were both of Norman extraction.

Never once were her native oppressors checked or awed; never once did
an outraged people unite under a great political leader; and only one
sovereign after Bruce (James I.) can be said to have had great kingly
qualities. What are we to conclude? {298} Are we not compelled to
believe that Scotland reached her highest destiny when she was joined
to England, and when she bestowed her leaven of righteousness and her
moral strength and the genius of her sons, and received in exchange the
political protection of her great neighbor?

{299}

SOVEREIGNS AND RULERS OF ENGLAND.

ANGLO-SAXON LINE Reign began
A.D.

Egbert ........................................... 800
Ethelwulf ........................................ 836
Ethelbald ........................................ 857
Ethelbert ........................................ 860
Ethelred ......................................... 866
Alfred ........................................... 871
Edward the Elder ................................. 901
Athelstan ........................................ 925
Edmund ........................................... 940
Edred .................................