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 the earl after destroying the fortress, found it necessary to retire. Displeased as the English king had reason to be with the vacillating conduct of Bruce at this juncture, he did not chastise it otherwise than by taking temporary possession of Lochmaben castle, the fortified patrimonial inheritance of the family. Among the confiscations of property which followed, Annandale and Carrick remained unalienated, a favour which the younger Bruce probably owed to the fidelity and services of his father in the English cause.

In the year 1299, not long after the fatal issue of the battle of Falkirk, we find the earl of Carrick associated with John Comyn, the younger of Badenoch, in the regency of Scotland. The motives which actuated Bruce in thus leaguing himself with a rival, with whom he never hitherto had acted in concert, have been variously represented, and the fact itself has even been called in question. The consciousness of having lost the confidence of the English king, and a desire, mutually entertained, to humble and destroy the authority of Wallace, which but too well succeeded, could not but influence powerfully the conduct of both parties. This baleful object accomplished, Bruce seems to have once more resumed the inactive course of policy which he saw fit to maintain in the late struggle; relinquishing to the, perhaps, less wary Comyn, the direction of the hazardous power which he seemed so willing to wield. In the following year, Edward again invaded Scotland, laid waste the districts of Annandale and Carrick, and once more possessed himself of the castle of Lochmaben. Bruce, though, on this occasion, he was almost the only sufferer in the cause which he had espoused, cautiously avoided, by any act of retaliation or effective co-operation with Comyn to widen irremediably the breach with Edward; and we find, that prior to the advantage gained by his coadjutor at Rosslyn, he had returned once more to the interests of the English party. The victorious campaign of Edward, which in 1304 ended in a more complete subjugation of Scotland than his arms and policy had hitherto been able to effect, justified the prudent foresight, though it tarnished the patriotic fame of the earl of Carrick. His lukewarmness in the cause of the regency, and timely defalcation from it, procured his pardon upon easy terms, and seemed to restore to him, in a great measure, the confidence of Edward, with which he had so repeatedly dared to trifle. His father, the lord of Annandale, dying at this critical time, the young Bruce was allowed to inherit the whole extensive estates of his family in both kingdoms; and so unequivocally, indeed, had he recovered the favour of the English monarch, that he was held worthy of advising and aiding in the settlement of Scotland as a province under the rule of England. Comyn, who had acted throughout with sincerity and constancy, in the trust reposed in him, and whose submission had been a matter of necessity, was subjected to a heavy fine, and fell, in proportion to his rival's elevation, in the confidence and estimation of the king.

The versatility of Bruce's conduct, during the various changes and reverses which we have noticed, has been variously commented upon by historians, as they have been led to consider it in a moral or political point of view; and, indeed, in whatever way it may be explained, it forms a singular contrast to the honourable, bold, and undeviating career of his after life. In extenuation of such obvious derelictions from principle and consistency, we must not leave out of consideration the effects which peculiar circumstances will sometimes powerfully operate on the conduct, where the mind has been irresistibly devoted to the attainment of some great and engrossing object. That natural irresoluteness, too, by which the boldest spirit may be beset, while meditating the actual and decisive plunge into a hazardous enterprise, may cause a seeming vacillation of purpose, arising more from a deep sense of the importance of the venture, than from fear of the consequences attending it. That Bruce should early entertain a per-