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 112 SOLDIERS AND SAILORS ject to Enghsn influences, but though the reigning family was itself of Celtic origin, its authority hardly extended effectively beyond the region inhabited by men of English blood. Undoubtedly the Scottish king in 921 chose Edward the Elder " to father and to lord," and the right then acknowledged was claimed successively by William the Conqueror, Rufus, and other English kings. More- over, from the twelfth century it had been customary for the Scottish kings or their sons to receive English earldoms, and do homage for them, but it continued to remain somewhat vague whether such homage was understood to be extended beyond these earldoms, so as to include the Lowland provinces and the whole Scottish kingdom. William the Lion, taken prisoner at Alnwick in 1 1 74, for his freedom acknowledged the supremacy of Henry II. in the treaty concluded at Felaise on December 7 ; but on his return found his subjects ill-disposed to ac- cede to his cowardly submission ; and fifteen years later the claim founded on this special act of submission was formally renounced for a sum of 10,000 merks by Richard I., who was eager to raise money for his Crusade. Such was the ill- defined position of this ancient controversy, when fate seemed to fling into Ed- ward's hands the opportunity of defining it anew with all the clearness dear to his legal mind. It was easy for him to secure a recognition of his superiority from the selfish and eager candidates for the crown, and meantime he secured the Scot- tish castles, and after a deliberate examination of the rival claims, decided in favor cf John Baliol, who, on his accession, paid homage distinctly for the whole king- dom of Scotland. He soon found his position as a vassal-king intolerable, be- twixt the unruly turbulence of his subjects and the imperious demands of his over-lord, who allowed appeals to be led from Baliol's subjects to himself. Meantime the ambitious projects of the new King of France, Philip IV., in- volved Edward in anxieties for the safety of Guienne and his other possessions in France. Ere long the high-handed conduct of the French king made war neces- sary, and Edward, with characteristic energy, at once began his preparations, and summoned in 1295 an assembly of the estates of the realm, which was practically the beginning of the modern parliaments. The ever-increasing exasperation of the Scots at length broke out into open warfare in 1296. Edward at once marched northward, captured Berwick, and carried his victorious arms as far north as Aberdeen, Banff, and Elgin, taking the great castles on the way, formally accepted Baliol's surrender of the crown at Montrose, and returned to Berwick (August 22), carrying with him the famous coronation-stone from Scone, after having subdued the whole kingdom in about five months. Here, six days later, he received the fealty of the clergy, barons, and gentry of Scotland, whose names fill the thirty-five skins of parchment known as the " Ragman Roll." At length he was at liberty to turn to France, but the great cost of his late expenditure had already driven him to make such heavy demands upon the rev- enues of the Church, that the clergy now refused fresh subsidies, headed by Arch- bishop Winchelsea and supported by the bull " Clericis Laicos " of Pope Boni- face VIII. The king retaliated by placing the clergy of the kingdom in