Page:Robert the Bruce and the struggle for Scottish independence - 1909.djvu/440

368 had warmly espoused the cause of Queen Isabella and Mortimer, took part in the conspiracy to effect Mortimer's downfall.

Mortimer was executed on November 29, 1330. De Beaumont then put forward a claim, not only for the restoration of his own lands in Scotland, but for that of the lands of all the other dispossessed barons—les querelleurs, as they came to be termed.

On December 1st, King Edward demanded the fulfilment of the treaty by the restoration of their lands to de Beaumont and Wake. Moray still delayed compliance. He could not be deaf to the reports that while the King was urging the fulfilment of a single clause in the treaty, de Beaumont was fomenting an agitation against the whole of it, on the ground of its injustice to all the disinherited lords. Revolutions had followed each other so swiftly in England that nothing was more likely than that de Beaumont and his party should get the upper hand. It boded no good that Edward de Balliol, son of the ex-King John, had been taken under the protection of the English court on October 10, 1330.

Edward III. desired peace, for on March 24, 1332, he issued a proclamation against certain men of his kingdom and others (et alii, meaning Edward Balliol and his following) who, as many persons had told him, were conspiring to break the peace made with Robert de Brus, late King of Scots, and preparing an invasion of the Scottish Marches. But Edward was young and weak in the hands of these powerful lords. Within a month he signed a demand on the Scottish Regent for the restoration of the lands of