So ended this great transaction, and even Hume is obliged to admit, that “the conduct of Edward, both in the deliberate solemnity of the proceedings, and in the justice of the award, was so far unexceptionable.” Other Scotch writers, however, have endeavoured to impeach Edward’s honour in this affair on two grounds: They have alleged that he would have decided in Bruce’s favour if Bruce would have consented to acknowledge his feudal superiority; and they have surmised, that he gave the preference to Baliol as being mentally the weaker of the two candidates, and therefore the fitter for his purpose.
The first of these fictions is sufficiently refuted by Hume’s own statement, that “Bruce was the first that acknowledged Edward’s right of superiority over Scotland; for even in his petition, in which he set forth his claim to the crown, he applied to him as liege lord of the kingdom, a step which was not taken by any other of the competitors.” So far, then, as submission to Edward’s claims could merit his favour, Bruce had gone farther than Baliol or any of his other rivals. And the supposition that Edward’s preference for Baliol was dictated by selfish motives, is equally opposed to the known facts of the case. Bruce and Baliol were both English barons, as well as lords in Scotland; but Bruce was the more English of the two. He, the competitor, had for many years sat as a judge in Westminster Hall. His son, the earl of Carrick, had accompanied Edward in his expedition to Palestine; and in Rymer, under the date of 1281, we find the following letter:—
“The king, to Bonrunonio de Luk,[56] et sancto Merc´ de Luk, greeting: Whereas our beloved Robert de Brus, earl of Carrick, is in present need of money, we request you that you will cause to be advanced or lent to the said earl or his attorney, for his occasion, forty pounds, and we will cause them to be repaid to you. And when you have lent to him the aforesaid money, you shall take from him his letters patent, testifying his receipt of the same. Witness our hand. Windsor, 10th September, 1281.”[57]
So far, therefore, as we can judge at this distance of time, we should be inclined to think that the king’s preference was for Bruce, but that his sense of justice compelled him to give judgment in Baliol’s favour. No mental weakness, supposed to exist in Baliol, could be more favourable to Edward’s views than the personal friendship of Bruce and his son.
Our English king, then, had preserved his integrity throughout this whole transaction. If any sinister or concealed purposes had been entertained by him, opportunities of furthering them had not been wanting. If the subjugation and annexation of Scotland had been then in his mind, the unwise proposal of some of the competitors—to divide the kingdom into three—offered him a signal opportunity of advancing his plans. Hume admits that “his interests seemed to require the partition of Scotland.” Yet he promptly rejected the proposal. Rapin, another historian, who is by no means partial to Edward, admits his purity in these transactions. He says, “It appears from Edward’s whole conduct, that his intent at first was not to become master of Scotland, but only to render that kingdom dependent on England, in which he did but follow the steps of most of his predecessors,” “If he had designed a conquest, he might have found pretences to place English governors and garrisons in the fortresses that were put into his hands; or by acceding to the demand for the partition of the kingdom, he might have so weakened it as to render its wretchedness and ultimate fall inevitable.”
The judgment of Mr. Sharon Turner, who is a severe critic of Edward’s whole life, is thus given on the transaction which we have just been describing:—
“In justice to one of the greatest sovereigns that has swayed the English sceptre, it is important to remark that, although the incorporation of Scotland with England became at last his determination, there are not sufficient grounds to impeach his probity with this plan before the conduct of the Scotch led him to adopt it. All that he claimed at the outset was the feudal sovereignty of Scotland. But so had the king of France been the feudal sovereign of Normandy and Gascony; and yet the kings of England, who did homage for these possessions, had enjoyed the government of those countries with sufficient independence. There is no evidence that when Baliol was crowned, the king of England projected to abolish the Scottish royalty or parliament. To be the lord paramount, the feudal sovereign of the whole island, as the king of France had been of Normandy, Bretagne, Flanders, and Aquitaine, while these provinces were enjoying their independent hereditary governments, was the honour to which Edward aspired; and the great political object which he would have attained by it would have been, a termination of the predatory wars, which had always desolated the borders of the two kingdoms. It was a species of impiety and perjury for the liegeman to make war on his feudal lord; and it exposed him to the loss of life and territory. Scotland becoming a royal fief of the English crown, a new and sacred bond of amity was established between the countries. The facts, that for four years Edward did nothing incompatible with the continuance of the Scottish royalty, and that it was the wilful hostility of Scotland itself which forced him into the field against it, afford reasonable evidence that the line which we have drawn was the limitation of his ambition.”[58]
More recently, Sir Edward Creasy has justly said, that “throughout this memorable transaction there is not the slightest trace of unfairness or rapacity on the part of the king.”[59]
We leave Edward, then, at this important crisis of his history, blameless. No charge can be advanced against him, even by the most vehement of his Scottish assailants, except that of having embraced an opportunity which came without his seeking, to assert what he deemed to be “the rights of the crown of England.” This Hume terms “iniquitous.” But let it be remembered, that this measure, if successful, involved consequences of the most beneficial kind, alike to both kingdoms. Chiefly, it would have terminated “those predatory wars which had so often desolated the borders of the two kingdoms.” And the opportunity offered to Edward of accomplishing this great work, must have seemed one which it would be criminal to neglect. Long before he had approached Scotland, its chief men directed to him many applications, in which they treated him as their superior lord. He was sensible of the prodigious advantages which would result from any scheme which rendered this state of things permanent. He therefore accepted that which the Scotch seemed eager to offer. At their request he assumed the place and the functions which they tendered. Meeting the assembled barons of Scotland, he frankly and explicitly stated his views. Allowing them an abundant space for deliberation, he again proposed the question. And then, without a dissentient voice, Scotland accepted him as her superior lord. That she, or that some of her barons, afterwards repented of their deed, and wished to retract it, occasioned many calamities to both countries. In fact, this unfaithfulness threw the two realms back into that condition of enmity, from which it had been Edward’s aim to rescue them. It led to the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of lives, and to the long postponement of that union which, after all, was inevitable. But, for all this, it remains indisputable that Edward’s aim was a noble and patriotic one; and that the means he employed were direct, straightforward, and suitable to the occasion.