Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/83

 consequence of the failure of this negotiation, the cardinals resolved to proceed with their further instructions, and proclaim the papal truce in Scotland.

In an enterprise so hazardous the Roman legates were at some loss how to proceed; but at length they fell upon a devoted monk of the name of Adam Newton, who was willing to risk himself in the service. Newton being fully charged with his commission, and intrusted with letters to some of the Scottish clergy, proceeded forthwith upon his journey. He found the Scottish king encamped with his army in a wood near Old Cambus, busily engaged in making preparations for the assault of Berwick. He was denied admission to the presence, but ordered, at the same time, to deliver what letters or messages he might have to the king's seneschal or clerk. These were quickly returned to him, unopened, with the brief verbal answer, "I will listen to no bulls until I am treated as king of Scotland, and have made myself master of Berwick." The poor monk, environed, as he himself expresses it, with danger, and troubled how to preserve his papers and his own mortal life, earnestly entreated that he might have a safe conduct granted him to pass further into Scotland, or at least that he might return without peril to Berwick; but both requests were denied him, and he was ordered to leave the country without delay. On his road to Berwick, he was encountered by four armed ruffians, who stripped him of all his papers and effects, and even of the greater part of his clothes. Thus ended this memorable transaction with the papal court, in a manner very unusual for that age; but the weakness and injustice of Edward, and the injustice and servility of Rome were so obvious in it, that Robert secure, otherwise, in the affections of his subjects, both clerical and laical, could safely deride and defy the effects of both.

While Robert, for some reason or other which has not been explained, had given over the preparations he had been engaged in for the siege of Berwick, the treachery of one of the inhabitants, of the name of Spalding, who had been harshly treated by the governor, occurred to render the attainment of his object more easy and sure, than otherwise, in all likelihood, it would have proved. This person wrote a letter to the Earl of March, to whom he was distantly connected by marriage, in which he offered to betray, on a certain night, that post on the wall where he kept guard. The nobleman, not daring of himself to engage in such an enterprise, communicated the intelligence to the king. "You have done well," said Robert, "in making me your confidant; for, if you had told this to either Randolph or Douglas, you would have offended the one whom you did not trust. You shall now, however, have the aid of both." By the king's directions, the Earl of March assembled his troops at a certain place, where, on an appointed day and hour, he was joined by the forces of Randolph and Douglas. Thus cautiously assembled, the army by a night march approached the town. Having reached the appointed part of the walls, near to that place still known by the name of the Cowport, they, with the assistance of Spalding, scaled the walls, and were, in a few hours, masters of the town. The castle, after a brief siege, in which the king assisted in person, was forced to surrender. Scotland, by this event, was at length wholly regained to its ancient sovereignty; and, though the place was in an after reign retaken by the English, so pertinaciously was the old right to it maintained at the union of the two kingdoms, that, as a compromise of the difference, it was legislatively allowed to belong to neither kingdom, and it still forms a distinct and independent portion of the British dominions.

The Scottish army, after the reduction of Berwick, invaded England by Northumberland; took by siege the castles of Werk and Harbolth, and that of Mitford by surprise. These events occurred in the spring of 1318. In May of the same year, the .Scots penetrated into Yorkshire, and in their devastating pro-