[93] Hist. of Scotland, vol. i., p. 142.
[94] A recent writer, Mr. Pearson, expresses a doubt whether these acts of unusual cruelty are sufficiently established by evidence. This incredulity is hardly reasonable. Several English writers who lived at the time assert the facts; all Scottish historians, Fordun, Wyntoun, Boece, and Blind Harry, confirm the statement,—some in general, others in specific terms; and the charges deliberately read to the prisoner in Westminster Hall, with the sentence passed, surely may be regarded as leaving no room for doubt.
[95] Tytler, Hist. Scotl., vol. i., p. 143.
[96] Ibid, p. 146.
[97] Selkirkshire, at the present, has about 9,800 people in the whole county. In 1298 it probably had not 2,000.
[98] Cronykyl, viii. 13.
[99] Tytler, vol. i., p. 142–147.
[100] Tytler, vol. i., p. 163.
[101] Hume, chap. xiii.
[102] All the claimants at the great arbitration of 1292 derived their title from David, earl of Huntingdon, the grandson of David I. His descendants were these—