76 Wallace'?} afe. 



that the heavy cloud which had begun to settle on her 

 mountains, and threatened to deluge her plains with 

 wretchedness, would yet pass away. 



Men often possess a high character for virtue, because 

 they have no temptation to act wrong. In the case of 

 France and Arragon, the remoteness of the states, the great 

 power of their respective princes, and the little interest which 

 Edward had on either side, induced him to acquit himself 

 with strict impartiality in his decisions. It was not so in the 

 present case, and the temptation was too strong for the 

 English monarch to resist. He secretly purposed to lay 

 hold of the present favourable opportunity, and if not to 

 create, at least to revive, his claim of a feudal supremacy 

 over Scotland ; a claim which had hitherto lain in the 

 deepest obscurity, and which, if it had ever been an object 

 of attention, or had been so much as suspected, would 

 have prevented the Scottish barons from choosing him 

 as umpire. Passing by the archives of the empire, 

 which, had his claim been real, must have afforded nu- 

 merous records of homage done by the Scottish princes, he 

 caused the monasteries to be ransacked for old chronicles 

 and histories of bygone days, and from these every 

 passage was transcribed which seemed to favour his 

 pretensions. The amount of all such transcripts, when 

 taken collectively, merely went to show that the Scots 

 had occasionally been defeated by the English, and had 

 concluded peace on disadvantageous terms. It was proved, 

 indeed, that when the King of Scotland, William, was 



