he fell by the way, and died at Burgh-on-Sands, just inside the English border, on the 7th of July 1307. Character of Edward I.'s rule. Despite the chequered fortunes of his later years the reign of Edward had been a time of progress and prosperity for England. He had given his realm good and strong governance; according to his lights he had striven to keep faith and to observe his coronation oath. He had on more than one occasion quarrelled with his subjects, but matters had never been pushed to an open rupture. The king knew how to yield, and even opponents like Winchelsea and the earls of Norfolk and Hereford respected him too much to drive him to an extremity. The nation, however much it might murmur, would never have been willing to rebel against a sovereign whose only fault was that he occasionally pressed his prerogative too far. Edward's rule was seldom or never oppressive, the seizure of the merchants' wool in 1297 was the only one of his acts which caused really fierce and widespread indignation. For his other arbitrary proceedings he had some show of legal justification in every case. It would have been absurd to declare that his rule was tyrannical or his policy disastrous. The realm was on the whole contented and even flourishing. Population was steadily increasing, and with it commerce; the intellectual activity which had marked the reign of Henry III. was still alive; architecture, religious and military, was in its prime. He was himself a great builder, and many of the perfected castles of that concentric style, which later ages have called the "Edwardian type," were of his own planning. In ecclesiastical architecture his reign represents the early flower of the "Decorated" order, perhaps the most beautiful of all the developments of English art. In many respects the reign may be regarded as the culmination and crowning point of the middle ages. It certainly gave a promise of greatness and steady progress which the 14th century was far from justifying. Edward II. With the great king's death a sudden change for the worse was at once visible. The individual character of the reigning king was still the main factor in political history, and Edward II. was in every respect a contrast to his father. He was incorrigibly frivolous, idle and apathetic; his father had given him much stern schooling, but this seems only to have inspired him with a deeply rooted dislike for official work of any kind. He has been well described as "the first king since the Conquest who was not a man of business." Even Stephen and Henry III. had been active and bustling princes, though their actions were misguided and inconsequent. But Edward II. hated all kingly duties; he detested war, but he detested even more the routine work of administration. He was most at his ease in low company, his favourite diversion was gambling, his best trait a love for farming and the mechanical arts of the smith and the gardener. Piers Gaveston.