The Ordinance of Lanercost declared—1. “That all who were guilty or were abettors of the murder of John Comyn should be hanged, and that all who advised or assented to such murder should have the same punishment.” 2. “And that all who were aiding or assisting Robert Bruce, or were procuring or persuading the people to rise contrary to law, should be imprisoned during the king’s pleasure.”
Could queen Victoria, under like circumstances, be advised to pursue any less severe course? Yet, for this mere administration of justice, is the king charged by some writers with “cruelty!”
Doubtless he had now deliberately laid aside that singular lenity with which, for ten years past, he had treated the Scotch, and had become convinced that, with respect to some among them at least, mercy would be no longer consistent with a proper regard to justice. Yet, surely, the second of these provisos, which merely ordains for actual rebels “imprisonment during the king’s pleasure,” is one seldom equalled for its temperance and lenity. There was also perceptible, in some of his decisions, that notion of apportioning the punishment to the offence, which was observable in former actions of the king’s life. Thus, the countess of Buchan had, careless of Bruce’s perfidy and recklessness of crime in the murder of Comyn, rushed forward with zeal to take part in his coronation. She was now a prisoner. The king said, “Since she has not struck with the sword, let her not be stricken with the sword; but as a penalty for the treasonable coronation in which she took part, let her be shut up in a cage made in the form of a crown, that she may be a spectacle and a reproach.”[162] The wife of Bruce, being also a prisoner, was sent to England as a captive. These two instances of severity are fastened upon by some writers as showing “vindictiveness.” Yet the countess of Buchan was plainly guilty of treason; and to have allowed Bruce’s wife to return free into Scotland, would evidently have been an act of imprudence. But the censors of Edward’s conduct neglect to remark that the countess’s cage was ordered “to have all the conveniences of a handsome chamber and that Bruce’s wife was sent to the king’s manor of Bruntwick; with seven attendants, and liberty to ride out whenever she chose.[163]
But with the male prisoners the Ordinance of Lanercost was carried into effect. Nigel Bruce was brought to trial at Berwick, hanged, and beheaded. Christopher and Alexander Seton, both Englishmen, shared the same sentence. These had been all concerned, in various ways, in the murder. The earl of Athol had taken part in the coronation of Bruce, and had been in arms at the affair of Johnstown. He attempted to escape by sea, but was driven back by a storm, and captured. Sir Simon Fraser was the same person who had cruelly murdered Ralph the cofferer at the battle of Roslyn, in 1302. He had received pardon for the offences of that period, but was now found again in arms. These two were tried in Westminster Hall, and executed, and their heads placed on London Bridge. “If we consider these men,” says Lingard, “as champions of freedom, they may demand our pity; but their execution cannot substantiate the charge of cruelty against Edward. Some were murderers, all had repeatedly broken their oaths of fealty, and had repeatedly been admitted to pardon.”
The winter now reigned, and Bruce was hidden in the little isle of Rachrin. On the approach of spring he surprised the isle of Arran, and from thence sent spies into his own country of Annandale. The English in and near Turnberry Castle were cantoned in careless security, hearing nothing of any enemy; and it was not difficult to take them by surprise. Lord Henry Percy shut himself up in the castle; but he was soon relieved by the arrival of Sir Roger St. John with a thousand men. About this time two of Bruce’s brothers, Thomas and Alexander, having collected about seven hundred men in Ireland, landed in Galloway. But they were met on landing by Macdowal, a Scottish chief, who remained true to his oath. The Irish auxiliaries were routed and scattered, and both the Bruces, with Sir Reginald Crawford, were taken prisoners. They were sent to Carlisle, and, having been concerned in Comyn’s murder, were immediately brought to trial and executed. The whole of the executions on the scaffold, which took place in consequence of this rebellion, included about sixteen or eighteen persons. Most of these had been concerned in Comyn’s murder, either as actual parties, or as accessories. Yet is it insisted upon by some writers that these punishments partook of cruelty. These critics, however, have no censure to spare for such atrocities as “the Douglas larder,” which was perpetrated on Palm Sunday. Sir James Douglas, one of Bruce’s adherents, surprised the English garrison of Douglas while in church. He butchered them all, after Wallace’s manner, and as he had no strength wherewith to hold the castle, he raised a great pile of wood, threw the bodies of the English garrison upon it, and then setting it on fire, consumed the whole.[164] Such deeds as these were not calculated to soften the king’s disposition, or to dispose him to lenity when any of Bruce’s immediate accomplices fell into his hands. Yet, when was such a rebellion as this suppressed—as, during Edward’s lifetime, it was suppressed—with so small an amount of judicial punishment? Four centuries later, another Scottish rebellion was quelled, while England was guided by the councils of Pelham, Hardwicke, Stephen Fox, Granville, and the elder Pitt. And these statesmen did not shrink from exhibiting, in various places, eighty ghastly heads; or from beheading, on Tower Hill, lords Kilmarnock and Balmerino, and finally, lord Lovat, a man whose years were fourscore![165]
The spring of 1307 was now advancing, and Bruce, whose valour and personal prowess were of the highest order, found many opportunities of harassing the English, by surprises and sudden encounters. His success, however, was not unvaried. On one occasion he lost his banner, and was in the greatest peril of capture or death. In May he ventured to stand the assault of the earl of Pembroke, and by strongly posting his men, armed with long spears, he defeated the earl’s attempt to break his line, and drove back the English, who had only cavalry to oppose to his spears. Three days after, he encountered the earl of Gloucester, whose force he also routed, and who retreated into the castle of Ayr. But the king, hearing that Bruce was in the field, sent a force from Carlisle, before which the rebel chief retreated. “He then took refuge in the marshes and forests, where the English found it impossible to follow him.”[166] And thus stood matters at the opening of July, 1307.
But now drew near that great event for which, there can be no doubt, Bruce had long been eagerly looking, and which entirely changed the whole position of affairs. The king, as our readers will probably have observed, had never made his appearance in the field during the whole of the fifteen months which had elapsed since the first outbreak of the rebellion. He had found it possible to get as far as Carlisle and Dumfries, but Bruce knew full well that his active career as a military commander was for ever terminated. The last few months of his life presented merely a painful struggle between a still vigorous mind and a decaying body. During all the spring of 1307, a dysentery had detained and weakened him, and the natural ardour of his temperament must have conspired with the disease. His very longing for the active life to which he had been so long accustomed, supplied fuel to the inward fire which was already consuming him. Bruce’s reappearance in the field, and his occasional successes, made any longer delay appear intolerable. Persuading himself, at the beginning of July, that his disease was abating, he offered up the litter in which he had hitherto travelled, in the cathedral of Carlisle, and mounted his horse for a new expedition into Scotland; but the decaying body was unable to answer the call of that powerful spirit. The effort merely brought on at once that termination of his disease which might otherwise have been delayed for months. In the course of the next two or three days, he was unable to proceed more than some six or seven miles; reaching the village of Burgh on the Sands, where he probably halted at the close of the first or second day’s march, and where, on the seventh of that month, he died.
His last hours were spent in vainly endeavouring to impress upon his son some obvious lessons of prudence and firm resolve—lessons which were indeed greatly needed, but which the young prince seemed mentally incapable of receiving. He enjoined upon him never to permit the return of Gaveston. He urged him forthwith, and once for all, to put down the Scottish revolt, the means of which were all prepared and ready to his hand. So earnestly and enthusiastically did he dwell upon this point, that he desired his son to carry, after his death, his bones at the head of his army; so that he, before whose charge no Scottish army had been able to stand, might, even after death, be still in some sort present in the first shock of the battle.
But he spoke to ears which had already been closed, by luxury and dissipation, against all high and noble counsels. Not one of his commands was obeyed. The young king no sooner saw the opulence and splendour of royalty within his grasp, than he turned his back at once on the calls of honour and duty. The great and all‐important object of putting down the insurrection in Scotland was disregarded. The forward march was countermanded, the anticipations of Bruce were fully realized, and the union of the two kingdoms—the great object of Edward’s labours during the last ten years—was forgotten and practically abandoned. The remains of the greatest king that England had ever seen were, after some delay, removed to Westminster, and were placed near to his father Henry and to his beloved Eleanor. A simple tomb received that noble heart, with the brief inscription:—
Edvardus Primus: Scotorum Malleus:
Hic Est: mcccviii[167]
Pactum Serva.