The intelligence came upon the king as a surprise; and it awakened in him feelings of the greatest indignation. As a knight and a soldier, accustomed to the laws of honour, an act of premeditated assassination—the assault of several armed men upon a single nobleman, whom they had induced to come without arms to an amicable meeting, would naturally fill his mind with horror and detestation. As a sincerely religious man, who, in 1289, had abstained from violating the sanctity of a church, even to take a notorious criminal from its protection, the ruthless murder of a nobleman on the steps of the altar must increase, if it were possible, his just indignation. But evidently, that feature of the case which most exasperated him, was the perfidy and treachery which had marked the whole transaction. The two chief actors in this tragedy had been Bruce and Wishart; and it had been to these two men, above all others, that he had looked for the quiet settlement of Scotland. They had come from Scotland professedly to assist him. They had sat at his council‐table for weeks together, and, doubtless, had often taken their places at his festive board, and shared with him in the summer enjoyments of his Richmond retirement. And now, it was not merely that they had fallen off from him, but that they had proved, by the desperate course which they adopted immediately on their return, that all their pretended zeal and loyalty in the October preceding, had been utterly false and treacherous. Edward was well versed in the language of the Psalms, and he would naturally be inclined to cry out, with David, “Yea! even mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lift up his heel against me.”
This perfidy is made the especial charge against both the bishops, in an accusation laid by Edward before the pope. In this document the king recounts a long list of perjuries. Thus, of Wishart, bishop of Glasgow, the king alleges—
That when he, the king, was first called into Scotland, about the matter of the succession, he, the bishop, took the oath to the king, as superior lord, and was appointed by him as one of the guardians of the realm; yet, when Baliol was put into possession of the kingdom, he, the bishop, aided and advised him in making war upon England.
Next, that, upon Baliol’s submission, the bishop came to the king at Elgin, and prayed forgiveness; and took an oath on the consecrated host, on the gospels, and upon the black rood of Scotland, that he would be faithful and true to the king, and would never counsel anything to his hurt or damage. And that, at the parliament held at Berwick, he took the oath of fealty for the third time. Yet when the king was gone to Flanders, the bishop abetted Wallace, and came forth into the field against the king.
Again, when the rebellion seemed to decline, the bishop once more submitted himself to the king, at Irvine, in July, 1297. Yet, in less than a month afterwards, he had again confederated himself with Wallace and the rebels, encouraging them as heretofore.
Next, the king having returned from Flanders, the bishop came before him at Holme Cultram, and prayed the king’s grace and mercy, and did then, for the fourth time, take the oath of fealty upon the host, gospels, rood, etc., etc. Yet, while this oath was yet fresh, the bishop assembled all his strength, and marched against the king’s army.
Again, the rebellion being suppressed, the bishop came before the king at Cambuskenneth, and prayed grace and mercy, and forswore himself a fifth time, upon the host, gospels, etc., etc. And at the parliament at St. Andrew’s, he took the same oath a sixth time. And yet, after all this, within eight days after the murder of Comyn, he gave Bruce plenary absolution—thus showing his approval of the sacrilege and the murder. He also in every way promoted and encouraged the rebellion, in violation of the oath which he had, on six different occasions, taken.
Similar are the complaints made by the king of the perjuries of the bishop of St. Andrew’s, and the bishop of Elgin or Moray. To this general faithlessness on the part of the leaders in the rebellion, Wyntoun, in his “Cronykyl,” published in the next century, pleads guilty, saying of Wallace’s day—
“For in his time, I heard well say,
That fickle they were, all time, of fay” (faith).