Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 07.djvu/124

 giance to Edward at Carlisle on the host and the sword of Thomas à Becket, joined for a brief space the army of the popular leader. Urgent letters had been sent to him to aid the Earl of Warenne, Edward's commander, then advancing towards Scotland, with as many men as he could muster, and at least a thousand foot from Kyle, Cunningham, Cumsettlenock, and Carrick. Instead of complying, in June 1297, along with Wishart, bishop of Glasgow, James the Steward of Scotland, and Sir William Douglas, he laid waste the country of the adherents of Edward. Warenne, an inactive general, sent in advance Henry de Percy and Robert, de Clifford, who succeeded on 9 July 1297 in making terms with Bruce and his friends by the treaty called the capitulation of Irvine. The Scottish barons were not to be called to serve beyond the sea against their will, and were to be pardoned for their recent violence, while they in turn came into the peace, or, in other words, acknowledged their allegiance to Edward. The Bishop of Glasgow, the Steward, and Alexander de Lindesay became sureties for Bruce until he should deliver his daughter Marjory as hostage for his fidelity, which mignt well be doubted. The treaty appears to have been confirmed by Bruce at Berwick early in August. Wallace was at this time in the forest of Selkirk, nlonp with Sir Andrew Murray of Bothwell, giithering together the Scottish commons, who, with less division of interest than the nobles, were determined to deliver their country from the English. On 11 Sept. he defeated Earl Warenne and Cressingham the treasurer at Stirling Bridge. Dundee and other castles surrendered in consequence of this victory, and the English evacuated Berwick. Wallace and Sir Andrew Murray, son of the elder Sir Andrew, assuming the title of leaders of the Scottish army in the name of John (i.e. Baliol), by God's grace illustrious king of Scotland, with consent of the community carried the war into Northumberland and Cumberland. At this time Baliol, and not Bruce, was the name under which the standard of Scottish indendence was borne, but its Ix^arer was Wallace, and its defenders the Scottish commons. In 1298, Edwanl returning from Flanders conducted in person the Scottish war with larger forces and better generalship, and his defeat of Wallace at Falkirk ' in 22 July wrested from the Scotch the fruits of the victory of Stirling Bridge. At this time Bruce again sided with his countrymen. Annandale was wasted and Lochmaben Castle taken by Clifford, and Bruce himself, to use the words of the contemporary Hemingford, 'when he heard of the king's coming fled from his face and burnt the castle of Ayr, which he held.' Edward's campaign was a single victory, not a conquest. Pressing affairs, especially the contest with his own subjects, whose desire for the confirmation of the charters he was reluctant to concede, recalled him to England, and he was obliged to trust the ment of Scotland to the nobles, to whom he assigned earldoms and baronies, or, as the chronicler expresses it, the hope of them. Annandale and Galloway and certain earldoms, a term which includes Carrick, he assigned to no one, that he might not irritate those earls who had only recently seceded and had not finally cast in their lot with their countrymen. As regards Bruce this conciliatory policy, so characteristic of Edward until the time for conciliation was past, had its effect, and from 1298 to 1304 he was at least not actively engaged against the English king, A truce was effected by the mediation of Philip IV of France in 1298. Baliol being now the pensioned prisoner of Edward, and Wallace an exile, a regency was appointed, which consisted of William of Lamberton, bishop of St. Andrews, John Comyn the younger, and Robert Bruce earl of Carrick, with whom for a time John de Soulis was conjoined. The only document which names Bruce is a letter of 13 Nov. 1299, by which the regents propose to Edward a suspension of hostilities on both sides. Comyn was the active regent representing the interest of Baliol and his own, as heir through his mother Ada, Baliol's sister. In 1300 the truce was renewed till Whitsunday 1301, and though Edward made an abortive attempt to resume the war on 26 Jan. 1302, the truce was again, at the instance of the French king, prolonged till November. It was during this period of intermittent war and truce, for in l300 Edward took Caerlaverock, and in 1301 wintered at Linlithgow, that Pope Boniface VIII intervened in the dispute as to the succession to the Scottish crown, and claimed a right to decide it as lord paramount. On 27 June 1300 he despatched a bull to Edward demanding the withdrawal of his troops and the release of the Scotch ecclesiastics in his custody, which was presented bv Archbishop Winchelsey to Edward at New Abbey in Galloway in October. Edward immediately summoned a parliament at Lincoln on 20 Jan. 1301, when the memorable answer denying the pope's claim to interfere in the temporal affairs of England, and asserting the feudal dependence of Scotland, was drawn up and confirmed by the seals of seven earls and ninety-seven barons for themelves and the whole community. Langtoft