ll, the support the Scotch
received from the King of France brought about complications which
filled all Western Europe with trouble and war; but it was in the home
politics of England that their effect was destined to be greatest.

Compelled to make incessant efforts, which exhausted the resources of
the crown, Edward appealed to the voluntary assistance of his
subjects. He laid down to them the principle, that their common perils
should be met with their united strength, that what concerns all must
also be borne by all. In the war against Wales he had gathered
together the representatives of the counties and the towns, to hear
his demands and to act accordingly; chiefly to vote him subsidies.
After the victory he had called an assembly of nobles, knights, and
towns, to take counsel with them about the treatment of the captives
and the country. Similarly he drew together the representatives of the
towns in order to decide the affairs of Scotland. With especial
emphasis did he call for their united help against Philip the Fair of
France, who thought to destroy the English tongue from off the earth:
knights and towns were pledged to help in carrying out the resolutions
thus adopted by common consent.

In spite of all this appealing to free participation in public
matters, Edward I did not refrain from the arbitrary imposition of
taxes, and those the most oppressive: the eighth, even the fifth part
of men's income. For the campaign in Flanders he summoned the
under-tenants as well as the tenants in chief. We find instances of
arbitrary seizure of whatever was necessary for the war.

King Edward excused this by his maxim that the interests of the land
must be defended with the resources of the land,[42] but we can
conceive how, on the boundary line between two different systems,
acts of violence, which combined the arbitrariness of the one with the
principles of the other, caused a general agitation. In the year 1297
the spiritual lords under their archbishop, as well as the temporal
ones (who denied the obligation to serve beyond the sea) under the
Constable and Marshal, set themselves energetically to oppose the
King. The people, which had the most to suffer from the arbitrary
exactions, took their side with cordial approval. They set forth all
the grievances of the country, and insisted on their immediate and
final redress.

To avoid the pressure, the King had already quitted England, to carry
on his campaign in Fl