If, however, your Holiness, yielding too credulous an ear to the reports of our English enemies, do not give sincere credit to what we now say, or do not cease from showing them favour to our confusion, it is on you, we believe, that in the sight of the Most High, must be charged the loss of lives, the perdition of souls, and all the other miseries that they will inflict on us and we on them.
This memorable declaration was not without effect. On August 13, the Pope earnestly impressed Edward with the duty of keeping on good terms with Bruce. And on August 18, he wrote that, on the prayer of Bruce by his envoys, Sir Edward de Mambuisson and Sir Adam de Gordon, he had granted suspension of the personal citation and of the publication of the sentences till the 1st of April next year.
[CHAPTER XII]
PEACE AT THE SWORD'S POINT
The Scots manifesto of April 6, 1320, presented a united and firm front to English pretensions and Papal intrigues. Yet there were traitors in the camp. Little more than four months had elapsed when the Black Parliament, held at Scone on August 20, was investigating a conspiracy to kill King Robert and elevate to the throne Sir William de Soulis. Sir William was a brother of Sir John, and a grandson of Sir Nicholas, one of the Competitors in 1292. Edward's emissaries had been tampering with the fidelity of King Robert's barons.
The plot still remains involved in obscurity. It was discovered to the King, Barbour heard, by a lady. Gray, however, as well as John of Tynmouth, states that the informant was Sir Murdoch de Menteith, who had come over to Bruce in 1316–17, and remained on the Scots side till his death some sixteen years later; but, apart from his name, there seems no reason to suppose that he was in Edward's pay. Sir William was arrested at Berwick, with 360 squires in his livery (says Barbour), to say nothing of 'joly' knights. He openly confessed his guilt, and was interned for life in Dumbarton Castle. The Countess of Strathearn was also imprisoned for life. Sir David de Brechin, Sir John de Logie, and Richard Brown a squire, were drawn, hanged, and beheaded. Sir Roger de Mowbray opportunely died; but his body was brought up and condemned to be drawn, hanged, and beheaded—a ghastly sentence considerately remitted by the King. Sir Eustace de Maxwell, Sir Walter de Barclay, Sheriff of Aberdeen, Sir Patrick de Graham, and two squires, Hamelin de Troupe and Eustace de Rattray, were fully acquitted. Soulis, Brechin, Mowbray, Maxwell, and Graham had all attended the Arbroath parliament, and put their seals to the loyal manifesto.
It is far from evident why Soulis escaped with imprisonment while Brechin and others were sent to the gallows. Robert may have judged that Soulis was a tool rather than prime mover of the plot; he may have regarded the long service of the culprit; he may have softened at the recollection of his brother Sir John's death by his own brother Edward's side. Brechin, no doubt, had considerable services to his credit. But his record shows grievous instability, and Robert probably had sound reasons for putting a period to his dubieties. His fate aroused painful regrets. Barbour narrates that Sir Ingram de Umfraville openly censured the sight-seers at his friend's execution, obtained leave to give the body honourable burial, and prepared to quit Scotland, telling the King he had no heart to remain after seeing so good a knight meet with such a fate. This story of Barbour's has been too hastily discredited.
The position of Bruce remained unshaken. On November 17, Edward instructed various high officers to receive to his peace, 'as secretly as they could,' such Scots as felt their consciences troubled by the papal excommunication; and, on December 11, the Archbishop of York was empowered to release all such renegades from the censure of the Church. Sir Ingram de Umfraville was re-established in his Northumberland estates (January 26), and Sir Alexander de Mowbray (February 18) and Sir William de Mohaut (May 20) obtained Edward's pardon. But Bruce was practically unaffected by Edward's subterranean diplomacy.
Openly, Edward maintained due observance of the truce, and by the middle of September 1320, had taken steps towards a final peace. The negotiations begun at Carlisle at Michaelmas were resumed at Newcastle on February 2, and continued for nine weeks; papal commissioners being present, and French envoys fostering the cause of peace. But the deliberations were fruitless. The Earl of Richmond's production of a mass of old parchments to demonstrate Edward's overlordship of Scotland indicates how little the English King and commissioners realised the facts of the situation.