We turn to the authentic, but scarce less tragic or romantic, history to present three pictures from Carlisle's past. Edward I. in his last Scots expedition halted here. The country on whose conquest he had lavished blood and treasure for twenty years, which he had ground under his heel again and again, had revolted yet again with a purpose as fell as his own. When knighting the Prince of Wales, he had given a great banquet, wherein two swans were introduced, "richly adorned with gold network." On these he had made his son swear that fantastic yet terrible vow to God and the swans (in accordance with the etiquette of chivalry), that if he died leaving Scotland unconquered, his son would boil his flesh from his bones and carry these with him to war against the rebels. The king, though stricken with mortal sickness, was carried north as far as Carlisle in a horse-litter. Here he pretended himself recovered, hung his litter in the cathedral as an offering, and, with terrible resolve, mounting his horse, moved onwards for a few miles. Near where the Eden loses itself in the sands of the Solway, at the little village of Burgh-on-the Sands, his strength completely gave way. His dying eyes looked across the waters of the Solway on the land which he had conquered so often in vain, and here the fierce old man made his son renew his solemn oath, and soon all was over. The new monarch was a man of softer mould. Turning with a shudder from the task, he hurried back to the pleasures of London. Go to-day to Westminster Abbey, and read the inscription on the old king's tomb: "_Eduardus Primus Scotorum malleus hic est 1308 pactum serva_." Dean Stanley thinks the last two words merely a moral maxim; others have more reasonably taken it as a reminder to the son to keep his promise. Moreover, it was provided that "once every two years the tomb was to be opened, and the wax of the king's cerecloth renewed"; as if Edward even in death had some work to do. The son, no doubt, meant some day or other to fulfil his promise; but the day never dawned, and the voice from the grave spoke in vain.