Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/55

 kingdom as opposed to each other. John Baliol, supposing his title to have been well founded, had repeatedly renounced all pretensions to the crown of Scotland; and had for several years remained a voluntary exile in France, without taking any steps towards the recovery of those rights, of which, it might have been urged, the violence of the king of England had deprived him. He was to be considered, therefore, as having not only formally, but virtually, forfeited all claim to the kingdom. His son, Edward, was at that time a minor and a captive. John Comyn, commonly called the lied Comyn, was the son of Marjory, the sister of Baliol, and, setting Baliol aside, was the heir of the pretensions of their common ancestor. As regent of Scotland and leader of her armies, Comyn had maintained for many years the unequal contest with Edward; and he had been the last to lay down his arms and accept conditions of peace from that prince. Though the terms of his submission had been rigorous, he was yet left in possession of large estates, a numerous vassalage, and, what in that warlike age was of consequence, an approved character for courage and conduct in the field.

Plausible as were the grounds upon which Comyn might have founded his claim to the crown, and powerfully as these might have been supported against the usurped sovereignty of England, there was little likelihood that in a competition with Bruce they could ever finally have prevailed. That family, according to the ancient usage of the kingdom, ought to have been preferred originally to that of Baliol; and this fact, generally known and acknowledged, as it could not fail to be, would, had they chosen to take advantage of it, have rendered their cause, at any time, a popular one. The award of Edward from the consequences which followed upon it, had become odious to the nation; and the pusillanimity and misfortunes of the abdicated and despised king, would leave, however undeservedly, their stigma upon his race. It was a curious enough illustration of the deep rooted existence of such a feeling, that, nearly a century afterwards, a king of Scotland who happened to possess the same unfortunate name of John, saw fit upon his coronation to change it for another, less ominous of evil in the recollections of his subjects. What might have been the fate of the contest, had it taken place, between two such rivals, it is now needless to inquire. We have seen that Bruce, at the crisis at which we have arrived, was possessed of those advantages unimpaired, of which the other, in the late struggle, had been, in a great measure, deprived; and, there is reason to believe, that Comyn, whose conduct had been consistent and honourable, felt himself injured and indignant at a preference which he might suppose his rival had unworthily earned. Thus under impressions of wrong and filled with jealous apprehensions, for which there was much apparent and real cause, the lied Comyn might be presumed willing, upon any inviting occasion, to treat Bruce as an enemy whom, by every means in his power, it was his interest to circumvent or destroy.

The league into which Bruce had entered with Lamberton, and perhaps other transactions of a similar nature, were not so secretly managed, but that suspicions were awakened; and this is said to have led to an important conference between these rivals on the subject of their mutual pretensions. At this meeting, Bruce, after describing in strong terms the miserable effects of the enmity which had so long subsisted between their different families, by which they themselves were not only deprived of station, but their country of freedom, proposed, as the best means, both of averting future calamity and for restoring their own privileges and the people's rights, that they should henceforward enter into a good understanding and bond of amity with each other. "Support my title to the crown," he is represented to have said, "and I will give you my lands; or, give me your lands and I will support your claim." Comyn agreed to wave his