Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/676

 662 V. BENCH AND BAR against Fulk. The king was far wiser than his subjects when he attempted by his writs of quo warranto to destroy these local courts. The greatest lawsuit of this reign was not tried in any of the regular courts ; for the Kingdom of Scotland was at stake, and the litigants were the claimants of the throne. The contestants referred the matter to the arbitration of Edward I. But Edward at once set his lawyers at work to devise by means of this arbitration some method by which he could extend his sovereignty over Scotland. Burnel, the chancellor, and Roger le Brabazon, a skilled lawyer and one of the puisne judges of the King's Bench, prepared the case. Out of the records and the monkish chronicles, acts of fealty by former Scottish sovereigns were produced, especially that of William the Lion to Henry II. after his capture by Ranulf Glanville. They were careful to suppress Richard Coeur de Lion's can- cellation of his rights over Scotland for a large sum of money. Soon a parliament of English and Scotch was con- vened at Berwick. Brabazon opened the proceedings by a speech in which he adduced his proofs, and required, as a preliminary, that the contestants and all the Scotch swear fealty to Edward as their feudal suzerain. The contestants of course could not offend the court. The Scottish nobles murmured, but after seeing Brabazon's proofs acquiesced. The Scottish commons, however, refused. A trial was then had, and Burnel, for the King, correctly adjudged the throne to Balliol. Then the King tried to extend the jurisdiction of his courts over Scotland. But Wallace, and afterwards Robert the Bruce, kept alive the resistance, until under Edward II. the crushing defeat of the English at Bannock- burn ruined Edward I.'s dream of a kingdom of Great Britain. Brabazon, as Chief Justice of the King's Bench, lived to see the fugitives from Bannockburn. One of the results of the years of warfare was to scatter over England lawless characters called trailbaston men. To suppress these marauders special justices, fearless knights and barons, were sent throughout England. One of these justices in 33 Edward I. was John de By run, a lineal descend- ant of the Norman Ralph de Burun of the Domesday survey.