Page:Robert the Bruce and the struggle for Scottish independence - 1909.djvu/171

1306 A.D.] prepare for a campaign in the north. Sir Aymer de Valence was appointed his lieutenant and commander of the forces, with power to receive the "middling" men of Scotland to the King's peace. But none who were present at, or privy to, the slaying of the Comyns, nor any of the rebellious lords, were to be dealt with without first taking the King's pleasure. De Brus's castle of Lochmaben, as well as all his lands in Annandale, were forfeited and bestowed on King Edward's son-in-law, Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex; his Durham estate of Hert on Sir Robert de Clifford; his lands at Tottenham, in Middlesex, to Walter de Bedewynde, and the rest of de Brus's English possessions to other knights. Thus the King of Scots began his reign a landless adventurer. Even his title was taken from him by the King to whom he had done homage for it; for Henry de Percy was made Earl of Carrick in his stead. The earldom of Menteith was given to John and Edmund de Hastings, and that of Lennox to Sir John de Menteith, the captor of Wallace.

Age and increasing infirmity were telling sorely on King Edward's bodily power, but his fiery spirit burns as fiercely as ever in the numerous writs and letters which he directed in the spring of 1306. On May 24th, he wrote from Westminster to Aymer de Valence, telling him that he is sending Prince