Page:Robert the Bruce and the struggle for Scottish independence - 1909.djvu/62

32 the disaffection of its people continued, for more than a century, to be a source of insecurity to the unity of Scotland.

Scottish statesmen still held that Northumberland and Cumberland were rightfully part of their kingdom. It was in faith of a promise that these earldoms should be restored to him that William the Lion, King of Scots, fought in the army of Henry II. against France, as his vassal for the earldom of Huntingdon; and it was because of the failure of Henry to fulfil this promise that King William took the first step in the long alliance between Scotland and France, by making overtures to Louis VII. William the Lion was taken prisoner at Alnwick in 1174, and, in order to obtain his release, consented to a condition which gave fresh ground for the controversy about the suzerainty of the Kings of England over Scotland. He bound himself to do homage for his own kingdom to the English monarch. Fifteen years later, Richard Cœur de Lion, being in straits for ready money, remitted this humiliating obligation for a payment of ten thousand marks. In view of the subsequent course of events, it is of moment to remember the terms of King Richard's resignation:

"We have rendered up to William, by the grace of God King of Scots, his castles of Roxburgh and Berwick, to be possessed by him and his heirs for ever as their own proper inheritance.

"Moreover, we have granted to him an acquittance of all obligations which our good father, Henry King of England, extorted (extorsit) from him by new instruments in consequence of his captivity; under this condition only, that he shall completely and fully