Sir William Wallace. Alexander Falconer Murison
engaged not to abet each other's enemies, and not to invade each other's territories without just provocation. Nor, when Alexander III. succeeded to the throne in 1249, at the age of seven, did Henry put forward any claim of wardship—a fact especially significant of the relations between the kingdoms. It is no doubt true that Henry prayed Pope Innocent IV. to prohibit the anointing and crowning of the child King of Scots, on the ground that Alexander was his liege vassal; for so much appears from the Pope's letter of refusal, dated 1251. But Henry does not seem to have proceeded further in the matter. It is stated that, on the occasion of Alexander's marriage with his daughter Margaret in 1252 at York, Henry demanded homage for Scotland as a fief holden of England; and that the reply of the boy King, that he could not take such an important step without the knowledge and assent of his parliament, closed the question. The reply bears evident witness to the vigilance of Alexander's advisers. The like vigilance is to be remarked in the terms of the safe-conduct of Alexander and his queen to England in 1260. Neither the King nor his attendants should be required to treat of State affairs during the visit. In fact, Henry III., whatever his theoretical claims, never exercised the right of over-lordship. On the contrary, whenever he did interfere in the affairs of Alexander's kingdom, it was in the capacity of a friendly father-in-law, and under the style of 'Principal Councillor to the illustrious King of Scotland.'
The case of 1278 is strikingly illustrative. In that year Alexander did homage to Edward I. at Westminster, and the fact is recorded in a transcript of a Close Roll in absolute terms: 'I, Alexander, King of the Scots, become liege man of the Lord Edward, King of the English, against all nations.' Allen verified the entry, and found that the writing was upon an erasure. The suspicion aroused by the erasure is not lightened by the record of the proceedings preserved in the register of Dunfermline Abbey. There the scribe expressed the homage of Alexander very differently: 'I become your man for the lands which I hold of you in the kingdom of England, for which I owe you homage, saving my kingdom.' Furthermore, it is added: 'Then said the Bishop of Norwich, "And saving to the King of England, if he right have, your homage for your kingdom," to whom the King instantly replied, saying openly, "To homage for my kingdom of Scotland no man has right, except God alone, nor do I hold that kingdom otherwise than of God alone."' The vague and insidious use of such expressions as 'if he right have,' or 'whatever right he may have,' or 'whenever he chooses to exercise his right,' fostered the tendency to elevate a claim into a right. It indicates that there actually existed no right capable of definite formulation on firm grounds, or at any rate no right capable of assertion. The gross falsification of such records permits us to hold the Dunfermline scribe as at least an equal authority with the Westminster scribe. This convenient vagueness of suggestion of right reappears with like tameness in the tail of the treaty of Brigham.
Did King Edward honestly believe that he was entitled to the homage of the new King of Scots? The question may be least ungraciously answered by another question: Supposing the sides reversed, would Edward have submitted with intellectual conviction to the same claim advanced against himself on the same grounds? We decline to libel his intelligence. It is impossible to believe that he cared one atom for the chronicles he marshalled so industriously, except for indirect purposes. It is easy enough to understand that his conceptions of policy could readily justify a wrong as ministerial to what he conceived to be a higher right.
THE TRIUMPH OF AGGRESSION.
Uneasy lay the head that wore the crown of Scotland. The flatteries of King John's friends could not blind him to his isolation. The formal respect rendered to him often betrayed, not merely reluctance, but defiance and contempt. The leading men of the dissident factions soon proceeded to remove his friends from his side and to surround him with strangers, and even to take out of his control the direction of affairs. The St. Albans Annalist records that John dare not open his mouth, lest his people in their rage should starve him or throw him into a dungeon; 'he was like a lamb in the midst of wolves.'
John's uneasiness was not mitigated by the action of his suzerain. Edward mixed his early complaisances with disagreeable reminders. Thus, on December 31, 1292, he required John to attend at Newcastle on the appeal of Roger Bartholomew, a burgess of Berwick. It was in vain that John pointed Edward to the convention of Brigham, under which no Scotsman was to be required to plead in any legal proceeding out of the realm of Scotland; Edward insisted on the cancelment, not only of the convention, but of every document, known or unknown, calculated to restrict in any way the free exercise of his superiority. Again, on March 8, John was cited to answer in the English court for denial of justice to the indefatigable John Mazun, a merchant of Gascony, who had a big claim against the late Alexander III. In a fortnight's time, March 25, John was again cited to appear before the English parliament to answer an appeal of Macduff of Kilconquhar from a decision of the Scots parliament in February. John did not appear. He was again cited to appear on October 14. He did appear then, but the only answer to be extracted from him was that he dare not act without consultation with the Estates of his realm—an answer probably put in his mouth by his Stirling parliament in August. He was cast in heavy damages; and, on the principle that the wrongdoer should be curtailed in the means of wrongdoing, it was resolved that the three principal castles in Scotland, with their towns, should be delivered over to the Lord Superior till his vassal should have purged his contumacy. John humbled himself, however, before judgment was formally given, and Edward granted a further postponement. Meantime, in June and September, two more summonses had come; and two more followed in November. The English parliament had, indeed, passed certain standing orders, including one that admitted no excuse of absence from either party. John was bound to be constantly trotting up and down, on the most trivial matters. Edward was undoubtedly within his technical rights, and, as Lord Hailes says, he was bent on exercising them 'with the most provoking rigour.' 'It is easy to see,' as Burton remarks, 'that his immediate object was to subject his new vassal to deep humiliation.'
Meantime the King of France was preparing to mete out to Edward the same measure as Edward was meting out to John. He summoned Edward to answer before the Twelve Peers in December for certain acts of aggression of Englishmen upon French subjects in the preceding spring. Regarding the summons as a pretext for the annexation of his French dominions, Edward stayed at home and temporised; but in February Philip declared him contumacious, and in May pronounced forfeiture of his fiefs. Edward kept up negotiations, but prepared for war; and, as over-lord of Scotland, he summoned Balliol and twenty-one Scots magnates to join him with their forces at London on September 1, 1294. John attended the English parliament, and contributed three years' rental of his large English estates. But his magnates disregarded the summons, and, when pressed, alleged their inability.
Edward's difficulties between France and Wales, as well as at home, furnished both encouragement and opportunity to the discontent seething in Scotland. A parliament was held at Scone. The Estates dismissed all English court officials, and appointed a Council of Twelve, probably after the model of the Twelve Peers of the King of France, to conduct the government. John was formally reduced to a figure-head. Urged by his Council, and stung by the humiliations heaped upon him by Edward, he entered into a secret alliance, offensive and defensive, with Philip of France, under which his son and heir, Edward Balliol, was to marry Philip's niece, the eldest daughter of Charles, Count of Valois and Anjou. John accredited his envoys to Philip in July 1295; the treaty was signed by Philip in October; and John ratified it at Dunfermline on February 23, 1295–96, with the assent, not only of his prelates and nobles, but also of the chief burgh corporations and other public bodies of the kingdom. The scheme was carefully placed 'on a broad popular basis,' and it seems to have been arranged with as little publicity as was consistent with a wide representation of the nation. 'This was the starting of that great policy which had so much influence for centuries on both sides of the British Channel—the policy of France and Scotland taking common counsel against England.'
In the course of the early autumn of 1295, it is likely that Edward got wind of John's treasonable doings. He issued summonses for his memorable parliament of November. Perhaps as a feeler, he required John to expel all Frenchmen and Flemings, his enemies, from Scotland; otherwise, to put in his hands the three castles and towns of the eastern frontier—Berwick, Roxburgh, and Jedburgh.