been granted him, we may probably assume that he claimed powers inconsistent with English sovereignty. After foiling the Earl of Cornwall in a costly campaign, Rees, finding himself outlawed, fled, by the Earl of Gloucester's complicity, into Ireland. Some years later he returned to resume his war with Robert de Tiptoft, but this time was taken prisoner and executed at York by Edward's orders, 1292.

More dangerous by far was the insurrection of two years later, 1294, when the Welsh, irritated by a tax, and believing that Edward had sailed for France, rose up throughout the crown lands and slew one of the collectors, Roger de Pulesdon. Madoc, a kinsman of Llewelyn, was put forward as king, and his troops burned Carnarvon castle and inflicted a severe defeat on the English forces sent to relieve Denbigh, November 10th. Edward now took the field in person, and resumed his old policy of cutting down the forests as he forced his way into the interior. The Welsh fought well, and between disease and fighting the English lost many hundred men. Once the King was surrounded at Conway, his provisions intercepted, and his road barred by a flood; but his men could not prevail on him to drink out of the one cask of wine that had been saved. "We will all share alike," he said, "and I, who have brought you into this strait, will have no advantage of you in food." The flood soon abated, and, reënforcements coming up, the Welsh were dispersed. Faithful to his policy of mercy, the King spared the people everywhere, but hanged three of their captains who were taken prisoners. Madoc lost heart, made submission, and was admitted to terms. Meanwhile, Morgan, another Welshman of princely blood, had headed a war in the marches against the Earl of Gloucester, who was personally unpopular with his vassals. Two years before the earldom had been confiscated into the King's hands, and it is some evidence that Edward's rule was not oppressive, by comparison with that of his lords, that the marchmen now desired to be made vassals of the crown. Morgan is said to have been hunted down by his old confederate, Madoc, but it seems more probable that he was the first to sue for peace. He was pardoned without re

serve.

As there was then war with Scotland, hostages were taken

from the Welsh chiefs, and were kept in English castles for several years. But the last lesson had proved effectual. The Welsh settled down peaceably on their lands and generally adopted the English customs. Except a few great lords, their gentry were still the representatives of their old families. Only five men in all had received the last punishment of the law for sanguinary rebellions extending over eighteen years of the King's reign. Of any massacre of the bards, or any measures taken to repress them, history knows nothing.

Never was conquest more merciful than Edward's, and the fault lies with his officers, not with the King, if many years still passed before the old quarrel between Wales and England was obliterated from the hearts of the conquered people.

JAPANESE REPEL THE TARTARS

A.D. 1281

E. H. PARKER

MARCO POLO

Kublai Khan, the first of the Mongol emperors who reigned at Peking, and Kameyama, the ninetieth emperor--as reputed-of Japan, are supposed to have come to their respective thrones in the same year, 1260. At this period the Japanese rulers (mikados) were mere puppets in the hands of their shoguns-hereditary commanders-in-chief of the army— and the shoguns themselves were tools of the regents of the Hojo dynasty.

Corea had lately been made tributary to the Tartar or Mongol power, when some of the Coreans in the service of Kublai Khan suggested to him that his way was now open to Japan, 1265. Next year Kublai selected a chief envoy whose name, as Parker says, appears in Chinese characters precisely the same as that of Sir Robert Hart,' and whom the author of the narrative immediately following, in order to avoid uncouth names, designates as "Hart." By this envoy Kublai sent a letter to Japan, and this act was the beginning of the execution of his designs against that country, formed upon the advice of the Coreans. In this letter the Mongol Emperor called upon Japan to return to the vassal duty which for centuries, he claimed, she had formerly owned to China.

THE

EDWARD HARPER PARKER

HE King of Corea, who had meanwhile been instructed to show the road to the Mongol mission, provided it with two high officers as escort. In 1267, however, Hart and his staff returned to Peking from their wanderings, re infecta, faithfully accompanied by their Corean guides, whose explanations as to why the goal had not been reached were by no means satisfactory to Kublai. The whole party was despatched once more to Corea, carrying with them to the King positive instructions "to succeed better this time."

The wily King of Corea now adopted another tack. He

1 A British diplomat who has been for many years director of the imperial maritime customs of China.

pleaded that the sea-route was beset with dangers to which it would be unseemly to expose the person of an imperial envoy, but he accommodatingly sent the Emperor's letter on to Japan by an envoy of his own. This Corean envoy was detained half a year by the Japanese, but he had also to return empty-handed. Meanwhile the King of Corea sent his own brother on a special mission to Kublai, to endeavor to mollify his Tartar majesty.

In the autumn of 1268 Hart and his former assistant colleague were sent a third time. As a surveying party had meanwhile been examining the sea-route by way of Quelpaert Island, the mission was enabled to reach the Tsushima Islands this time; but the local authority would not suffer them to land, or at least to stay, nor were the letters accepted, as, in the opinion of the Japanese, "the phraseology was not considered sufficiently modest." Once more the unsuccessful mission returned to Peking, but on this occasion it was with two Japanese "captives "-probably spies; for there is plenty of evidence that even then the art was well understood in Japan. In the summer of 1269 it was resolved to utilize these captives as a peg whereon to hang the conciliatory and virtuous act of returning them. Coreans were intrusted with this mission; but even this letter the Japanese declined to receive, and the envoys were detained a considerable time in the official prisons at Dazai Fu (in Chikuzen).

Early in the year 1270 a Manchu Tartar in Kublai's employ, named Djuyaoka, who had already been employed as a kind of resident or adviser at the court of the King of Corea, was despatched on a solemn mission to Japan, having earnestly volunteered for his new service in spite of his gray hairs. The King of Corea was again ordered to assist, and a Corean in Chinese employ, named Hung Ts'a-k'iu (Marco Polo's VonSanichin), was told to demonstrate with a fleet around the Liao-Tung and Corean peninsulas. The envoy is usually called by his adopted Chinese name of Chao Liang-Pih. The mission landed in the spring of 1271 at an island called Golden Ford, which, according to the Chinese characters, ought, I suppose, to be pronounced Kananari in Japanese. Here the strangers met with a very rough reception. The Tartar, however, kept his head well during the various attempts which were made