Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/86

 "Should you, however, give a too credulous ear to the reports of our enemies, distrust the sincerity of our professions, and persist in favouring the English, to our destruction, we hold you guilty in the sight of the most high God, of the loss of lives, the perdition of souls, and all the other miserable consequences which may ensue from war between the two contending nations." The pope, however much he may have been incensed at the boldness of this address, appears also to have been alarmed. In a bull which he shortly afterwards sent to Edward, he strongly recommends pacific measures, and bestows upon Bruce the ambiguous title of "Regent of the kingdom of Scotland."

The parliament which distinguished itself by this spirited and honourable measure was, in the course of its sitting, engaged in one of a more unpleasing character. This was the investigation of a conspiracy in which some of the highest men in the kingdom were implicated. The affair is now, from the loss of records, but indistinctly understood. After a trial of the conspirators, Soulis, and the countess of Strathern were condemned to perpetual imprisonment. Gilbert de Malerb, and John de Logie, both knights, and Richard Brown, an esquire, were found guilty of treason and suffered accordingly. Roger de Moubray died before sentence; yet, according to a practice long retained in Scottish law in cases of treason, judgment was pronounced upon the dead body. The king, however, was pleased to mitigate this rigour, and he was allowed the honours of sepulture. The fate of David de Brechin, the king's nephew, who suffered on this occasion, excited universal and deep compassion. His crime alone lay in the concealing of the treason, which was communicated to him under an oath of secrecy. He had neither approved of, nor participated in it; yet notwithstanding these alleviations, and his near relationship to the king, he was made an example of rigorous, though impartial justice. This parliament was, in reference to this transaction, long remembered popularly under the appellation of the black parliament.

During the inactive period of the truce, various methods were used towards effecting a peace between England and Scotland, but without effect. The pope as well as the French king offered their services for this purpose; but the exultation in which Edward then was, from having successfully crushed the Lancasterian faction which had so long disturbed his personal peace and government, permitted him not to give ear to any moderate counsels whatever. "Give yourself," says he to the pope, "no further solicitude about a truce with the Scots. The exigencies of my affairs inclined me formerly to listen to such proposals; but now I am resolved to establish peace by force of arms." While he was engaged in these preparations, the Scots penetrated by the western marches into Lancashire, committing their wonted devastations, and returned home loaded with spoil. The king of Scots, who, at this time found no occasion for a general engagement with his greatly superior enemy, fell upon a simple and effectual expedient to render such an event unlikely, if not impossible. All the cattle and provisions of the Merse, Tiviotdale, and the Lothians, he ordered to be removed into inaccessible or secure places; an order which was so exactly executed, that according to tradition, the only prey which fell into the hands of the English was one solitary bull at Tranent, which, from lameness, had been unable to travel along with the other cattle. "Is that all ye have got?" said the earl Warenne to the spoilers as they returned to the camp; "I never saw so dear a beast." Edward advanced without opposition to the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, where having in vain waited for some time for supplies from his fleet, he was necessitated, from absolute famine, to retire. In their countermarch into England, the soldiers committed whatever outrages were possible in so desolate a rout. Thei [sic] license even got the better of their superstition. Monks, who believed that the