Page:History of Sir William Wallace (1).pdf/74

 ( 74 ) Vesce; Patrick Galythly; Nicholas de Soulis; Roger de Mandeville; John Cumming, Lord of Badenoch: John Baliol. Lord of Galloway: Robert Bruce, Lord of Annondale; and John de Hastings. Some of the competitors were descended from more remote branches of the royal family and others were even descended from illegitimate branches. To use the language of an eminent historian, “such century has its peculiar mode in Cod- ducting business; and men, guided more by custom than by reason, follow, without enquir- ing the manners which are prevalent in their own time. The practice of that age, in con- troversies between states and princes, seems to have been, to choose a foreign prince as an equal arbiter; by whom the question was decided and those sentence prevented those dismal confu- sions and disorders, inseparable at all times from war, but which were multiplied an hundred foid, and dispersed into every corner, by the nature of the feudal government " It was thus that the English king an: barons, in the preceding reign, had endeavoured to com- pose their dissentions, by a reference to the King of France: and the celebrated integrity of that monarel had prevented all the bad effects which naturally have been dreaded from so perilous an expedient: " It-was thus, that the 'kings of France and Arragon and afterwards other princes. had sub- mitted their controversies. to Edward's judge- ment and the remoteness of their states, the great