It looks as if Edward had learnt wisdom from his father's folly. He did not attempt expensive foreign adventures, except as he was compelled to them by his difficulties with his feudal lords in Aquitaine and Gascony. He had the King of France as his own feudal overlord in respect of those lands. But he did undertake, and successfully, an enterprise against a foe nearer home--Wales, whose prince refused him the homage due. He conquered Wales and, although it rebelled against him about ten years after, and again against a later king, he really had conquered it once for all. From that time forward the eldest son of the King of England has had the title of Prince of Wales. He was not nearly so fortunate in his attempt to settle the affairs of Scotland. He was called in as an umpire over the question of who was the rightful heir to the Scottish throne, and trouble quickly arose because he claimed that he had given this decision as the overlord of Scotland, whereas the Scottish view was that he had merely been invited, as an independent party, to arbitrate in a case of difficulty. {184} Hence came war, and repeated war, with Scotland--repeated, because after more than one conquering invasion Scotland appeared to be defeated, and at the conqueror's mercy, but always its spirit revived, first under the leadership of William Wallace, then under that of Robert Bruce; and Bruce was the effective ruler of Scotland when Edward I. died, in 1307. Seven years later, in Edward II.'s reign in England, Bruce won the decisive battle of Bannockburn, which made Scotland secure in her independence during all the years of Bruce's life, and left her a constant menace to England until the happy union of the nations was accomplished by the succession of the Scottish king--James, the first Stuart King of England--to the English throne. But that was not for many a long year beyond the date that this book tells of. Of the three Edwards who succeeded each other at this time as kings of England, the first was the best and most statesmanlike, the second the least worth, and the third, bold and chivalrous, committed many of the sins of the father of Edward I. and wasted the country's strength and resources in foreign war. In his reign began that of which history speaks of as the Hundred Years' War: and indeed it lasted for more than a hundred years, seeing that it had its commencement before the middle of the fourteenth century and did not end until just after the middle of the fifteenth. That long-drawn-out war was of course with France, and France had Scotland ever ready to help with a stab from the north of England when England was in trouble.