David II.,
King of Scotland, was now lying a prisoner in the Tower of London.
Louis of Bavaria had just been killed by a fall from his horse, the
Imperial throne was vacant, and the electors in eager haste
proclaimed that they had chosen the King of England to succeed. To
their discomfiture the King of England declined the proffered crown.
He "had other views." Intoxicated by the splendour of their sovereign
and his martial renown, and the Success which seemed to attend him
wherever he showed himself, the English people had gone mad with
exultation--all except the merchant princes, the monied men, who are
not often given to lose their heads. They took a much more sober view
of the outlook than the populace did--they had an eye to their own
interests and the interests of the trade and commerce in which they
were engaged. They were very much in earnest in asserting their
rights and protesting against their wrongs, and they presented their
petitions to the King after the fashion of the time--petitions which
must have seemed rather startling protests in the fourteenth century,
betraying, as they did, some advanced opinions for which the world at
large was hardly then prepared.
Students of the manual, compendium, and popular handbook style of
literature may possibly be hardly aware that the war of protection
_versus_ free trade, and the other war concerned with the
incidence of taxation upon property, real and personal, had already
begun.
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