[1363-1369 A.D.] acy was to be renounced, and the independence of Scotland, in church and state, was carefully provided for, together with an obligation on Edward, when he should succeed to the throne, binding him to use Scottish counsellors in all the national concerns of the kingdom, and to employ native Scotsmen in all offices of trust.

But the same schedule of articles contains a clause for giving the English king the command of the Scottish national and feudal levies; a condition which alone must have had the consequence of placing the country at Edward's unlimited disposal. The minutes of this conference open with a provision of strict secrecy, and a declaration that what follows is not to be considered as anything finally resolved upon or determined, but merely as the heads of a plan to be hereafter examined more maturely, and adopted, altered, or altogether thrown aside at pleasure. By the last article the king of Scotland undertook to sound the inclinations of his people respecting this scheme, and report the result to the English king within fifteen days after Easter. It is probable that David, on his return to Scotland, found the scheme totally impracticable.

A circumstance of personal imprudence now added to the difficulties by which King David was surrounded. With a violence unbecoming his high rank and mature age he fell in love with a beautiful young woman, called Margaret Logie, daughter of Sir John Logie, executed for accession to that plot against Robert Bruce which was prosecuted and punished in the times of the Black Parliament. The young lady was eminently beautiful; and the king, finding he could not satisfy his passion otherwise, gave her his hand in marriage, 1364. This unequal alliance scandalised his haughty nobles, and seems to have caused an open rupture betwixt David and his kinsman the Stewart, whose views to the crown were placed in danger of being disappointed, if the fair lady should bear a son to her royal husband. It was probably on account of some quarrel arising out of this subject of discord that King David seems to have thrown the Stewart with his son, the lord of Badenoch, into prison, where both were long detained.

The accomplishment of a general and enduring peace betwixt the two kingdoms was now the occupation of commissioners. The payment of the ransom of David was the principal obstacle. The first instalments had been discharged with tolerable regularity. For this effect the Scottish parliament had made great sacrifices. The whole wool of the kingdom, apparently its most productive subject of export, was directed to be delivered up to the king at a low rate [four marks a sack], and the surplus produced over prime cost in disposing of the commodity to the foreign merchants in Flanders was to be applied in discharge of the ransom. A property tax upon men of every degree was also imposed and levied. From these funds the sum of 20,000 marks had been raised and paid to England. But since these payments the destined sources had fallen short. The Scots had applied to the pope, who having already granted to the king a tenth of the ecclesiastical benefices for the term of three years, refused to authorise any further tax upon the clergy. They solicited France, who, as her own king was unransomed and in captivity in England, had a fair apology for declining further assistance, unless under condition that the Scots would resume the war with England, in which case they promised a contribution of 50,000 marks towards the ransom of King David.

Scotland being thus straitened and without resources, the stipulated instalments of the ransom necessarily fell into arrear, and heavy penalties were, according to the terms of the treaty, incurred for default of payment. Ed

[1365-1371 A.D.]

ward acted the part of a lenient creditor. He was less intent on payment of the ransom than to place the Scottish nation in so insolvent a condition that the estates might be glad, in one way or other, to compromise that debt by a sacrifice of their independence. The penalties and arrears were now computed to amount to 100,000 pounds, to be paid by instalments of 6,000 marks yearly. The truce was prolonged for about three years. These payments, though most severe on the nation of Scotland, seem to have been made good with regularity by means of the taxes which the Scottish parliament had imposed for defraying them: so that in 1369 the truce between the nations was continued for fourteen years, and the English conceded that the balance of the ransom, amounting still to 56,000 marks, should be cleared by annual payments of 4,000 marks. In this manner the ransom of David was completely discharged, and a receipt in full was granted by Richard II in the seventh year of his reign. These heavy but necessary exactions were not made without internal struggles and insurrections.

DAVID DIVORCES HIS WIFE; HIS DEATH (1371 A.D.)

Family discord broke out in the royal family. Margaret Logie, the young and beautiful queen, was expensive, like persons who are suddenly removed from narrow to opulent circumstances. David's passion was satiated, and he was desirous of dissolving the unequal marriage which he had so imprudently formed. The bishops of Scotland pronounced a sentence of divorce, but upon what grounds we are left ignorant by historians. Margaret Logie appealed to the pope from the sentence of the Scottish church, and went to Avignon to prosecute the cause by means of such wealth as she had amassed during her continuance in power, which is said to have been considerable. Her appeal was heard with favour by the pope in 1369; but she did not live to bring it to an issue, as she died abroad. After the divorce of this lady by the Scottish prelates the Stewart and his son were released from prison and restored to the king's favour, which plainly showed by what influence they had incurred disgrace and captivity.

Little more remains to be said of David II. He became affected with a mortal illness, and died in the castle of Edinburgh, February 22nd, 1371, at the early age of forty-seven, and in the forty-fifth year of his reign. He had courage, affability, and the external graces which become a prince. But his life was an uniform contrast to the patriotic devotion of his father. He exacted and received the most painful sacrifices at the hands of his subjects, and never curbed himself in a single caprice, or denied himself a single indulgence, in requital of their loyalty and affection. In the latter years of his life he acted as the dishonourable tool of England, and was sufficiently willing to have exchanged, for paltry and personal advantages, the independence of Scotland, bought by his heroic father at the expense of so many sufferings, which terminated in ruined health and premature death.

PROGRESS OF THE COUNTRY AT THIS PERIOD

The reign of David II was as melancholy a contrast to that of his father as that of Robert I had been brilliant when contrasted with his predecessors. Yet we recognise in it a nearer approach to civil polity, and a more absolute commixture of the different tribes by which Scotland was peopled into one general nation, obedient to a single government. Even the chiefs of the Isles and Highlands were so much subdued as to own the allegiance of the Scottish

[1368-1371 A.D.] king, to hold seats in his parliaments, and resign, though reluctantly, much of that rude and tumultuous independence which they had formerly made their boast. Still the separation of the Highlands from the Lowlands was that betwixt two separate races. A few great families can trace their descent from the period of Robert Bruce; but a far greater number are first distinguished in the reign of his son, where the lists of the battle of Durham contain the names of the principal nobility and gentry in modern Scotland, and are the frequent resource of the genealogists. The spirit of commerce advanced in the time of David I against all the disadvantages of foreign and domestic warfare.

In the parliaments of 1368 and 1369 a practice was introduced, for the first time apparently, of empowering committees of parliament to prepare and arrange, in previous and secret meetings, the affairs of delicacy and importance which were afterwards to come before the body at large. As this led to investing a small cabal of the representatives with the exclusive power of garbling and selecting the subjects for parliamentary debate, it necessarily tended to limit the free discussion so essential to the constitution of that body, and finally assumed the form of that very obnoxious institution called Lords of the Articles, who, claiming the preliminary right of examining and rejecting at their pleasure such measures as were to be brought before parliament, became a severe restraint on national freedom.

Amidst pestilence and famine, which made repeated ravages in Scotland during this unhappy reign, the Scottish national spirit never showed itself more energetically determined on resisting the English domination to the last. Particular chiefs and nobles were no doubt seduced from their allegiance, but there was no general or undisturbed pause of submission and apathy. The nation was strong in its very weakness; for as the Scots became unequal to the task of assembling national armies, they were saved from the consequences of such general actions as Dunbar, Halidon, and Berwick, and obliged to limit themselves to the defensive species of war, best suited to the character of the country, and that which its inhabitants were so well qualified to wage.

The Scottish parliament seems never to have failed in perceiving the evils which afflicted the state, or in making sound and sagacious regulations to repress them; but unhappily the executive power' seldom or never possessed the authority necessary to enforce the laws; and thus the nation continued in the condition of a froward patient, who cannot be cured because there is no prevailing upon him to take the prescriptions ordered by the physicians.

d

['Nevertheless, as Hume Brown & emphasises, parliament considerably encroached on the king's prerogative, regulating coinage treaties, and even the king's privy purse.]

A permanent English conquest of Scotland has always proved impossible, because the Scots as a people have ever shown themselves, even when vanquished in the field, worthy of freedom. In this sense their long history has demonstrated that they belong to the elect among the nations, the stream of whose national life is fed from the deep fount of strong character and ardent sentiment.JAMES MACKINNON.

THE death of David II had threatened for a moment to involve the kingdom in a civil war. The earl of Douglas, who was at that time at Linlithgow, suddenly proclaimed his own title to the throne, and announced his intention of opposing the claim of the acknowledged heir, the Stewart of Scotland. This powerful and turbulent baron pretended to unite in his own person the claims of Comyn and Baliol, and some offence which had been given him by the party of the Stewart seems to have driven him into this hasty demonstration. But Sir Robert Erskine, who had the command of the castles of Edinburgh, Stirling, and Dumbarton, marched against him without delay, and was joined on his way by the earls of March and Moray; and their united force was too great to allow the pretender any hope of success from an appeal to arms. Douglas met his opponents in a peaceful conference, and he declared himself satisfied by their arguments of the emptiness of his own title and of the justice of that of the Stewart. In reward for his prompt submission the Stewart's daughter, Isabella, was promised in marriage to Douglas's son, with an annual pension. Douglas himself was appointed king's justiciar on the south of the Forth and warden of the east marches.

A few well-applied gifts to those who had come forward so zealously to support the Stewart's title to the throne cleared away all further opposition, and he was crowned in the abbey of Scone, in great pomp and splendour,

[1371 A.D.] on March 26th, 1371, and proclaimed as King Robert II. After the usual oaths of homage had been taken, the new king stood up and declared his eldest son, John, earl of Carrick and Stewart of Scotland, heir to the throne in the event of his own death, and this nomination was approved by the whole assembled multitude, clergy and laity.

Thus did the crown of Scotland pass into a new race, for Robert derived royal blood only through his mother, the daughter of Robert Bruce. He was descended in the direct line from a branch of the Anglo-Norman family of the Fitz-Alans, who had left England to settle in Scotland in the twelfth century. Walter Fitz-Alan held the high office of Stewart of the king's household in the reign of David I, and the dignity having been made hereditary in the family, the title was at length converted into a surname, and thus originated the family of Stewart, or, as the name of the royal race is more usually spelled, Stuart.

The power of this house had been strengthened by numerous and powerful alliances. Robert Stuart who now ascended the throne had been twice married. By his first wife he had four sons, John, earl of Carrick; Walter, earl of Fife; Robert, earl of Menteith, and Alexander, earl of Buchan; and six daughters, all married into the most powerful families in Scotland. By his second wife he had two sons, David, earl of Strathearn, and Walter, earl of Athol, and four daughters, the eldest of whom was subsequently married to James, earl of Douglas, and the other three were wedded into houses little less powerful. He had also eight natural sons, who also ranked among the nobility of the land, and lent their support to his throne.

Robert II thus succeeded to a kingdom involved in great embarrassments, at an age (fifty-five) when he was already approaching the decline of life, and when the energy of his youth had given place to a love of peace and inactivity. This disadvantage, however, was balanced by his long experience in Scottish state affairs, and by the support of a numerous family; and his gentle and affable manners rendered him generally popular among his subjects, though he had not always the strength or influence to repress their turbulence. Fortunately, however, neither England nor Scotland was at this moment in a condition to wish for war. The former was gradually losing the possessions in France which had been secured by Edward's victories during the earlier part of his reign; and the heavy taxes which the wars in which he was already engaged required, joined with his own feeble health, made it necessary to avoid any measures that would call for new exertions. In addition to the other disadvantages of her position Scotland was suffering from a famine of such a severe character that its population was supported entirely on grain imported from England and Ireland.

Still it was difficult to keep the turbulent borders on either side in peace, and events occurred, in spite of all the precautions of the respective governments, which ended in a war between the two kingdoms, and soon open acts of the governments themselves showed but too clearly the feeling of national hostility which lurked beneath their peaceful professions. October 28th, 1371, a new treaty of amity was entered into between Scotland and France, in which the two powers engaged to support each other against their common enemy, England. About the same time great offence was given to the Scots by the omission of the title of king in the usual receipt for the payment of the ransom-money, which was looked upon as a proof that Edward still harboured designs against the national independence of Scotland.

In spite of these occurrences, the two countries remained at peace during several years, which were employed by King Robert in strengthening his