een
spared by men flushed with victory and exasperated with a long strife.
There were some circumstances to palliate David's treachery, if, as is
probable, his charges against the English justiciary have any truth.
We may well acquit Edward of that vilest infirmity of weak minds,
which confounds strength with ferocity and thinks that the foundations
of law can be laid in blood. He probably received David's execution as
a measure demanded by justice and statesmanship, and in which the
whole nation was to be associated with its king. Never was court of
justice more formally constituted; but it was a fatal precedent for
himself, and the weaker, worse men who succeeded him. From that time,
till within the last century, the axe of the executioner has never
been absent from English history.

Edward was resolved to incorporate Wales with England. The children of
Llewelyn and David were honorably and safely disposed of in
monasteries, from which they never seem to have emerged. The great
Welsh lords who had joined the rebellion were punished with
deprivation of all their lands. Out of the conquered territory Denbigh
and Ruthyn seem to have been made into march lordships under powerful
Englishmen. Anglesey and the land of Snowdon, Llewelyn's territories
of Carnarvon and Merionethshire, with Flint, Cardigan, and
Carmarthenshire, were kept in the hands of the Crown. The Welsh
divisions of commotes were retained, and several of these constituted
a sheriffdom, which bore pretty much the same relation to an English
shire that a Territory bears to a State in the American Union. The new
districts were also brought more completely under English law than the
marches, which retained their privileges and customs.

The changes, where we can trace them, seem to have been for the
better. The blood-feud was abolished; widows obtained a dower;
bastards were no longer to inherit; and in default of heirs male in
the direct line, daughters were allowed to inherit. On the other hand,
fines were to be assessed according to local custom; compurgation was
retained for unimportant cases and inheritances were to remain
divisible among all heirs male.

The ordinance that contains these dispositions is no parliamentary
statute, but seems to have been drawn up by the King in council, March
24, 1284. It was based on the report of a commission which examined
one hundred and seventy-two witnesses. Soon afterward an inquest was
ordered to ascertain the los