tell you, that you may understand some things you must read about in your History.

TAXES are the money which subjects pay to the king, or to those persons who govern his kingdom for him.

I must now tell you why taxes are paid. Every man likes to live safely in his own house; he likes to know that he and his wife, and his children, may stay there without being disturbed, and that they may go to sleep safely, and not be afraid that wild beasts, or wicked men, or enemies like the old Danes, may come and kill them while they are asleep. Next to his life and the lives of his wife and children, a man likes to know that his money and his furniture are safe in his house, and that his horses and cows, and his trees and his corn-fields, are safe out of doors.

Now he could never have time to watch all these things himself, and perhaps he might not be strong enough to fight and drive away the wicked men who might try to rob or to kill him: so he gives money, which he calls taxes, to the king, who pays soldiers and sailors to keep foreign enemies away; and policemen to watch the streets and houses, to keep away thieves and robbers: besides, he pays the judges to punish men who are found doing anything wrong.

So you see that whoever wishes to live safely and comfortably, ought to pay some taxes.

Sometimes it happens that a king spends his money foolishly, instead of putting it to the good uses I have mentioned, and then wishes to get more, even by unjust means. And this is what King Henry and his father, King John, were always trying to do. And they were so wicked as to rob their subjects, many of whom they put into prison, or threatened to kill, if they did not give them all they asked for, and that

was the beginning of the miserable civil wars in the time of Henry III.

The whole story of these wars would be too long for us now. So I will only tell you that one of the bravest men that fought against the king was Simon de Montfort, who was a very wise man; and although he was killed in a great battle, he had forced the king and parliament, before he died, to make a law which is most useful even to us who live now.

It is this -No king can make his subjects pay a tax without the consent of the parliament. Now, though several kings tried, after this time, to get money without the consent of the parliament, the people would never allow them to do so, and their only trying to do it always did themselves a great deal of mischief, as you will read by and by.

What I have told you about the taxes is the only thing worth remembering in this reign. I am afraid it is a very dull chapter, but you see it is very short.

CHAPTER XXIII.

EDWARD I.-1272 to 1307.

How Edward the First learnt many good things abroad, and did many more to make the people happy; how he caused the burgesses to come to parliament; how he made good laws; why he was called Longshanks.

WHEN the unhappy King Henry III. died, his eldest son Edward was abroad, fighting in the same country where I told you William the Conqueror's eldest son Robert went, and where Richard of the Lion's heart

spent the greatest part of his reign. When he heard his father was dead he came home, and brought with him his very good wife, Eleanor of Castile, who had saved his life in Syria, by taking great care of him when he was wounded.

Edward was made king as soon as he came to England; he was as wise as Henry II., and as brave as King Richard of the Lion's heart.

His wisdom was shown in the manner in which he governed his people. His bravery everybody had seen before he was king, and he showed it afterwards in fighting against the Welsh and the Scotch, which I will tell you about by and by.

While Edward was a young man, he travelled a great deal into different countries, and whenever he saw anything done that he thought good and right he remembered it, that he might have the same thing done in England when he was king.

;

When he was in Spain he married his good wife Eleanor; and as her father and brother were wise kings, he learned a great many useful things from them. One thing was, how to take care of cows and horses much better than the English had done before and another thing was, to improve the gardens and fields with many kinds of vegetables for eating, and with new sorts of grass for the cattle; in return for what he learned in Spain he sent some good sheep from England to that country, because the sheep they had before were small, and had not such fine wool as our sheep; but since the English sheep went to feed among the Spanish hills their wool has been the best in the world.

When King Edward came home to England he determined to do everything he could to make the people happy: he knew they could not be happy if

the laws were not obeyed; so that no wicked person should escape without punishment, and that all good people might live quietly, and do what they liked best.

I told you before that wise Simon de Montfort, who was killed in Henry the Third's reign, had got the king and parliament to make a law to prevent the kings of England from taking money from the people without the consent of the parliament. This law King Edward improved very much, and he improved the parliament too.

In one of our chapters about the Saxons we read that a parliament was a meeting of different persons to talk about making laws, and to settle what was best for all the country; and the persons who used to meet at first were the king and the great lords, sometimes called earls and barons, and the bishops, and some of the people, sent by the rest to answer for them, when the king desired to know if the people chose to have the laws he wished to make, or if they would give him money.

After the Saxon times, however, the people often forgot to send men to answer for them; and so the king, and the lords, and the bishops, did almost all they liked, and that was one cause of the civil wars; for the people did not always choose to obey laws made without their consent.

Edward, who, as I told you, was very wise, thought that, as there were a great many more towns than there used to be in the Saxon times, and a great many more people in all the towns, it would be a good thing if some of the best men belonging to the largest towns came to the parliament. The largest towns in England were then called burghs, and the richest men who lived in them were called burgesses, and King Edward settled that one or two burgesses out of almost every

burgh should come along with the great noblemen, and the bishops, and the gentlemen, to the parliament.

These burgesses made the parliament complete. In the first place, there was the king to answer for himself; in the second place, the great lords and bishops to answer for themselves and the soldiers and the clergymen; and, thirdly, the gentlemen and burgesses to answer for themselves and the farmers and the merchants and the shopkeepers.

So King Edward the First made good rules about the parliament, which were not much changed for a very long time. Besides that, he improved the laws, so as to punish the wicked more certainly, and to protect the lives and goods of everybody. And in these things Edward was one of the best kings that ever reigned in England.

We will end this chapter here, while we can praise King Edward the First-who was, as I told you, wise and brave, and very handsome; but people used to call him Longshanks, because his legs were rather too long.

CHAPTER XXIV.

EDWARD I.-continued.

How King Edward went to war with the Welsh; how Prince Llewellyn and his brother David were put to death for defending their country; how he made war upon Scotland, and put Sir William Wallace to death; and how ambition was the cause of his cruelty.

I AM afraid I must not praise King Edward so much, now we are come to his wars, for he was twice very cruel indeed, as you must hear.