resting-place for England's illustrious dead. The invention of
gunpowder, which was to make iron-clad knights a romantic tradition,
also belongs to this period, which saw too, the conquest of Scotland;
and the magic stone supposed to have been Jacob's pillow at Bethel, and
which was the Scottish talisman, was carried to Westminster Abbey and
built into a coronation-chair, which has been used at the crowning of
every English sovereign since that time.

Scottish liberties were not so sacrificed by this conquest as had been
the Irish. The Scots would not be slaves, nor would they stay conquered
without many a struggle.

[Sidenote: Robert Bruce, Bannockburn, 1314. Edward II., King 1307-1327.
Edward III., 1327-1377.]

Robert Bruce led a great rebellion, which extended into the succeeding
reign, and Bruce's name was covered with glory by his great victory at
Bannockburn (1314).

We need not linger over the twenty years during which Edward II., by
his private infamies, so exasperated his wife and son that they brought
about his deposition, which was followed soon after by his murder; and
then by a disgraceful regency, during which the Queen's favorite,
Mortimer, was virtually king. But King Edward III. commenced to rule
with a strong hand. As soon as he was eighteen years old he summoned
the Parliament. Mortimer was hanged at Tyburn, and his queen-mother was
immured for life.

We have turned our backs upon Old England. The England of a
representative Parliament and a House of Commons, of ideals derived