Page:Essays and studies; by members of the English Association, volume 1.djvu/114

 parliament at Pomfret is explained by the residence of Edward II there in 1322, and by his holding there the great council which sentenced to death Thomas, earl of Lancaster, defeated and taken at Borough Bridge. Edward was long at York, which was certainly in danger, though never actually besieged. As for the Scottish poetical head-quarters at Northallerton, we have the fact recorded by Fabyan that in 1322 'the Scots in thayr returning homeward wan the castell of Norham and robbyd the towne of Northallerton'. While the intervention of the queen is not paralleled by any fact, it is alleged by some Scottish historians that the English at this very time sued for peace, and, whichever side first sought it, certainly a treaty was made, which Harry, however confusedly, must have had in view. Made in May, 1323, not exactly at Northallerton but at Thorpe, not far away in Yorkshire, it was a truce for thirteen years. In the negotiations which led to it there was trouble about the terms of recognition of Bruce himself, and early in the following year there was keen discussion at the papal court with Edward II over the title of king which had at first been refused to Bruce—an element which convincingly accounts for the curious and otherwise unintelligible tale of the crown and title of king to be borne by Wallace in the poem. It is the final touch which makes obvious how completely the history of Bruce in 1322–3 is the key to Harry's story of Wallace in England. What is clear, once more, is that Harry's Wallace derives another large section of his spinal column from the vertebrae of Robert the Bruce.