Thus closed the portion of Scottish history which is known as the War of Independence. The condemnation of the policy of Edward I lies simply in its results. He found the two nations at peace and living together in amity; he left them at war and each inspired with a bitter hatred of the other. A policy which aimed at the unification of the island and at preventing Scotland from proving a source of danger to England, and which resulted in a warfare covering, almost continuously, more than two hundred and fifty years, and which, after the lapse of four centuries, left the policy of Scotland a serious difficulty to English ministers, can scarcely receive credit for practical sagacity, however wise its aim. It created for England a relentless and irritating (if not always a dangerous) enemy, invariably ready to take advantage of English difficulties. England had to fight Scotland in France and in Ireland, and Edward IV and Henry VII found the King of Scots the ally of the House of Lancaster, and the protector of Perkin Warbeck. Only the accident of the Reformation rendered it possible to disengage Scotland from its alliance with France, and to bring about a union with England. Till the emergence of the religious question the English party in Scotland consisted of traitors and mercenaries, and their efforts to strengthen English influence form the most discreditable pages of Scottish history. We are not here dealing with the domestic history of Scotland; but it is impossible to avoid a reference to the subject of the influence of the Scottish victory upon the Scots themselves. It has been argued that Bannockburn was, for Scotland, a national misfortune, and that Bruce's defeat would have been for the real welfare of the country. There are, of course, two stand-points from which we may approach the question. The apologist of Bannockburn might lay stress on the different effects of conquest and a hard-won independence upon the national character, and might fairly point to various national characteristics which have been, perhaps, of some value to civilization, and which could hardly have been fostered in a condition of servitude. On the other hand, there arises a question as to material prosperity. It must be remembered that we are not here discussing the effect of a peaceful and amicable union, such as Edward first proposed, but of a successful war of conquest; and in this connection it is only with thankfulness and gratitude to Wallace and to Bruce that the Scotsman can regard the parallel case of Ireland, which, from a century before the time of Edward I, had been annexed by conquest. The story we have just related goes to create a reasonable probability that the fate of Scotland could not have been different; but, further, leaving all such problems of the "might have been", we may submit that the misery of Scotland in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries has been much exaggerated. It is true that the