In every age civilised war is governed by certain rules: one must play the game according to these rules. One of them is that when the King has accepted peace, there shall be peace. Wallace might be supposed to have broken that rule. His country had submitted formally: he alone stood out. Patriot he was, no doubt. So was Andreas Hofer; but irregular warfare everywhere is treated as treason or rebellion. And therefore the King, who might well have shown a magnanimous clemency, was justified in his own eyes in putting Sir William Wallace to a shameful end. The opinion of the English people upon Wallace may be understood from that of Matthew of Westminster, who pours a shower of abuse upon his head. William Wallace is “an outcast from pity, a robber, a sacrilegious man, an incendiary, a homicide, a man more cruel than the cruelty of Herod, more insane than the fury of Nero.” He made men and women in the North of England dance naked before him; he murdered infants; burnt boys in schools “in great numbers,” and at last ran away and deserted his people. It remains to be added that Wallace’s head was the first of many which decorated London Bridge. The remarkable robbery of the King’s Treasury by Podelicote took place in 1305. In the same year the King offered an excellent example of obedience to the laws by sending his son, Prince Edward, to prison for riotously breaking into the park of Walter Langton, Bishop of Chester, and at the same time banished from the realm the Prince’s companion and unworthy friend, Piers Gaveston. On July 7, 1307, King Edward died while on his way to carry out his vow of vengeance against Bruce. CHAPTER VI EDWARD II The least worthy, or the most worthless, of all the English sovereigns, was the first who sat upon the sacred stone of Scone, brought into England by Edward I. The coronation was held on February 25, 1308, the Queen being crowned with the King. The Mayor and Aldermen took part in the function and in the banquet afterwards. [Illustration: HEAD OF EDWARD II. From effigy in Gloucester Cathedral.]