At last a gentleman named Sir William Wallace could not bear to have the Scots so ill treated as they were by the English governors that Edward sent into the country. So he went himself, or sent messengers to all the barons and gentlemen he knew to beg them to join him, and drive the English out of Scotland; and they did so, and might have made their own country free, if Sir William Wallace had not been taken prisoner and carried to London, where King Edward ordered his head to be cut off; which was as wicked and cruel as his cutting off the heads of the two Welsh princes. This did not end the war in Scotland; for another Robert Bruce, who had come to be king after Baliol, determined to do what Sir William Wallace had begun; I mean, to drive the English out of Scotland; and he made ready for a long and troublesome war, and King Edward did the same; but when Edward had got to the border of Scotland with his great army, to fight King Robert, he died. If King Edward I. had been content to rule over his own subjects, and to mend their laws, and encourage them to trade and to study, he would have made them happier; and we who live now should have said he deserved better to be loved. Indeed, he did so much that was right and wise, that I am sorry we cannot praise him in everything. His greatest fault was ambition,—I mean, a wish to be above everybody else, by any means. Now, ambition is good when it only makes us try to be wiser and better than other people, by taking pains with ourselves, and being good to the very persons we should wish to get the better of. But when ambition makes us try to get things that belong to others, by all means, bad or good, it is wrong. Ambition caused wise King Edward to forget himself, after conquering the Prince of Wales, and to take Wales as if it were his own country, that there might never be greater men in Wales than the kings of England. The ambition to be King of Scotland made Edward go to war with the Scots, and made him so cruel as to cut off the head of Sir William Wallace, because he wanted to save his country from being conquered by Edward. So you see ambition led Edward to do the two most cruel actions he was ever guilty of. CHAPTER XXV. EDWARD II.—1307 to 1327. Why Edward the Second was called Prince of Wales; how his idleness and evil companions caused a civil war; how he was beaten by Robert Bruce at Bannockburn; how the Queen fought against the King and took him prisoner, and how her favorite, Mortimer, had King Edward murdered. Edward the Second was made king after his father’s death. He is often called Edward of Caernarvon, because he was born at a town of that name in Wales. He was the first English prince who was called Prince of Wales. Since his reign the eldest son of the King of England has almost always been called so. Edward of Caernarvon was the most unhappy man that ever was King of England. And this was in great part his own fault.