Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/271

Rh barons to whom he had not confirmed certain privileges as he had promised refused to go farther, urging the inclemency of the season, and the danger of a winter campaign. He was, therefore, obliged to abandon his design, and to allow the English, who were beleaguered in Stirling, to capitulate

In the course of the following year, (1300.) Edward, by confirming the charters of the barons, was enabled, once more, to prosecute his great object the invasion and subjugation of Scotland. At the head of a great army, he entered the country by the western marches, and penetrated into Galloway. He was here met by a petition from the governors and community of Scotland, requesting that John Baliol, their lawful king, should be permitted to reign peaceably over them; but he rejected it with disdain. The Scottish army, now profiting by experience, confined itself to cutting off the supplies of the enemy; and Edward, after spending five months in the southern part of the country, without effecting anything material, found himself compelled, by the approach of winter, and the scarcity of provisions, to return to England. Before leaving Scotland, when no other alternative remained, he affected to listen to the mediation of France, and concluded a truce with the Scots, at Dumfries, 30th October, 1300, to endure till Whitsunday, 1301.

Meanwhile a new competitor to the crown of Scotland arose in the person of his holiness, pope Boniface VIII. This singular claim had been suggested to the Roman see by certain Scottish commissioners, who wished his holiness to interpose in behalf of their distracted country. The arguments upon which it was founded, were altogether absurd, (such as, "that Scotland has been miraculously converted to the Christian faith, by the relics of St Andrew," &c.); but Edward's own pretensions were clearly and justly refuted. As it was dangerous for the English monarch to break with the pope at this time, owing to several continental arrangements, Edward laid the affair before his barons, who protested, with much spirit, that they would not allow the rights of their sovereign to be interfered with by any foreign potentate; and, to soothe his holiness, he sent him a long letter in his own name, "not in the form (as he says) of an answer to a plea, but altogether extrajudicially;" wherein he enumerated all his claims to the superiority of Scotland, from the days of his "famous predecessor, Brutus, the Trojan," to his own.

In the ensuing summer, as soon as the truce had expired, Edward, accompanied by his son, the prince of Wales, and a great army, marched again into Scotland, and spent the winter at Linlithgow, where he ratified another truce with the Scots, to endure until Saint Andrew's day, 1302, and soon afterwards returned to London. On the expiry of this second truce, having gained Pope Boniface over to his interest, he sent Sir John de Segrave, a celebrated warrior into Scotland, with an army of 20,000 men, chiefly consisting of cavalry. Segrave, when near Roslin, on his march to Edinburgh, separated his army into three divisions; the first led by himself, the second by Ralph de Manton, called from his office of pay-master the Cofferer, and the third by Robert de Neville. These divisions, having no communication established between them, were successively attacked and defeated at Roslin, on the 24th February, 1303, by a small body of 8000 horse, under the command of Sir John Comyn and Sir Simon Fraser. Ralph the Cofferer and Neville were slain. Segrave escaped, and fled, with the remains of his army, to England, leaving behind an immense booty.

But while the Scots thus persevered in defence of their country, Philip le Bel, king of France, upon whose alliance they had confided, concluded a treaty of peace with Edward, (20th May, 1303,) in which, they were not included; and the English monarch, being now freed from foreign wars,