Page:Robert the Bruce and the struggle for Scottish independence - 1909.djvu/97

1296 A.D.] defence recommended by Hailes was not open for de Balliol to take. So far from Alexander's words having been "cursorily" uttered or heard, they were spoken in and ratified by the National Assembly.

One cannot but suspect that, had the Lord of Annandale been less heavily stricken in years—"superannuated," to use Lord Hailes's expression,—this part of his claim would have been more stoutly supported. The fact that he had received the fealty of certain barons of Scotland then living, is quite enough to account for the rising in his favour on the death of the Maid of Norway, and certainly puts that transaction, hitherto so obscure, in a less ambiguous light. Nor can it have been absent from the thoughts of Annandale's grandson,