A Child's History of England.66

Wales was now subdued. The Queen giving birth to a young prince in the Castle of Carnarvon, the King showed him to the Welsh people as their countryman, and called him Prince of Wales; a title that has ever since been borne by the heir-apparent to the English throne - which that little Prince soon became, by the death of his elder brother. The King did better things for the Welsh than that, by improving their laws and encouraging their trade. Disturbances still took place, chiefly occasioned by the avarice [贪婪] and pride of the English Lords, on whom Welsh lands and castles had been bestowed [赠与]; but they were subdued, and the country never rose again. There is a legend that to prevent the people from being incited [煽动] to rebellion by the songs of their bards [吟游诗人] and harpers, Edward had them all put to death. Some of them may have fallen [belong to] among other men who held out against the King; but this general slaughter is, I think, a fancy of the harpers themselves, who, I dare say, made a song about it many years afterwards, and sang it by the Welsh firesides until it came to be believed.

The heir apparent to a particular job or position is the person who is expected to have it after the person who has it now.
hold out - continue to successfully defend a place that is being attacked

The foreign war of the reign of Edward the First arose in this way. The crews of two vessels, one a Norman ship, and the other an English ship, happened to go to the same place in their boats to fill their casks [桶] with fresh water. Being rough angry fellows, they began to quarrel, and then to fight - the English with their fists; the Normans with their knives - and, in the fight, a Norman was killed. The Norman crew, instead of revenging themselves upon those English sailors with whom they had quarrelled (who were too strong for them, I suspect), took to their ship again in a great rage, attacked the first English ship they met, laid hold of [catch] an unoffending merchant who happened to be on board, and brutally hanged him in the rigging of their own vessel with a dog at his feet. This so enraged the English sailors that there was no restraining them; and whenever, and wherever, English sailors met Norman sailors, they fell upon each other tooth and nail. The Irish and Dutch sailors took part with the English; the French and Genoese [热那亚] sailors helped the Normans; and thus the greater part of the mariners sailing over the sea became, in their way, as violent and raging as the sea itself when it is disturbed.

cask - from Spanish casco 'broken piece of a pot, skull, helmet'. flask: Origin: Latin flasco.
rigging - the ropes which support the ship's masts and sails

King Edward's fame had been so high abroad that he had been chosen to decide a difference between France and another foreign power, and had lived upon the Continent three years. At first, neither he nor the French King Philip (the good Louis had been dead some time) interfered in these quarrels; but when a fleet of eighty English ships engaged and utterly defeated a Norman fleet of two hundred, in a pitched [一边倒的] battle fought round a ship at anchor [抛锚], in which no quarter was given, the matter became too serious to be passed over. King Edward, as Duke of Guienne, was summoned to present himself before the King of France, at Paris, and answer for the damage done by his sailor subjects. At first, he sent the Bishop of London as his representative, and then his brother Edmund, who was married to the French Queen's mother. I am afraid Edmund was an easy man, and allowed himself to be talked over by his charming relations, the French court ladies; at all events [in any case], he was induced to give up his brother's dukedom for forty days - as a mere form, the French King said, to satisfy his honour - and he was so very much astonished, when the time was out, to find that the French King had no idea of giving it up again, that I should not wonder if it hastened his death: which soon took place.

If sb gives no quarter, they do not show any pity or gentleness when dealing with sb else, especially an enemy.

King Edward was a King to win his foreign dukedom back again, if it could be won by energy and valour [勇武]. He raised a large army, renounced [摈弃] his allegiance as Duke of Guienne, and crossed the sea to carry war into France. Before any important battle was fought, however, a truce was agreed upon for two years; and in the course of that time, the Pope effected [cause to occur] a reconciliation. King Edward, who was now a widower, having lost his affectionate and good wife, Eleanor, married the French King's sister, Margaret; and the Prince of Wales was contracted to the French King's daughter Isabella.

六级/考研单词: princess, throne, elder, disturb, legend, uprising, slaughter, dare, heir, reign, crew, vessel, fellow, quarrel, fist, revenge, rage, merchant, brutal, rig, restrain, nail, thereby, sail, skull, helmet, fame, differentiate, continent, interfere, fleet, engage, anchor, summon, bishop, charm, induce, mere, astonish, pity, reconcile, affection