[100] Near Elgin.
[101] Probably in about seven quarts.
ROBERT THE BRUCE CROWNED KING OF SCOTLAND (1306).
Source.—Nicholas Trivet's Annals, pp. 407-408. (English Historical Society Publications.)
In the same year, on the twenty-ninth day of January, Robert the Bruce, aspiring to the kingdom of Scotland, sacrilegiously slew the noble John Comyn, who had refused to abet his treacherous rebellion, in the church of the Minorite Brethren at Dumfries, in the castle of which town the King's justices were then sitting. Thereafter, on the Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin, he had himself solemnly crowned King in the abbey of Canons Regular at Scone. The wife of the Earl of Buchan secretly departed from her husband, taking all his war-horses with her, and hastened to Scone to place the diadem on the head of the new King; for her brother, the Earl of Fife, on whom devolved the duty by hereditary right, was then absent in England. This Countess was captured in the same year by the English, but, when some of them wished to put her to death, the King interfered; instead, he confined her in a wooden cage on the wall of the Castle of Berwick, so that she might be seen by the passers-by.
DEATH OF EDWARD THE FIRST (1307).
Source.—Walter of Hemingburgh's Chronicle, vol. ii., pp. 266-267. (English Historical Society Publications.)
When the evil intents of the new King (Robert the Bruce) became known, our King sent to the nobles of the land ordering them to come to Carlisle, ready for war, a fortnight after the blessed John the Baptist's day. In the interval, because the King was afflicted with severe dysentery, and none had speech with him save with his attendants, it was noised abroad among the people that the King was dead. Edward, hearing this, ordered everything to be prepared for his journey to Scotland, and moved his camp almost two miles from Carlisle on the third day of July—a Monday; on the Tuesday he rode almost two miles; on the fourth day of the week he rested, but on the Thursday he proceeded to Burgh-on-Sands, and there he proposed to remain over the following day. It was his habit and custom almost every day to remain in bed until the ninth hour; but on the Friday, when he was being raised up by his attendants to partake of food, he expired in their arms. The King departed from this world on the day of the translation of S. Thomas, Archbishop and martyr; his servants concealed the death of the King until his son and the nobles of the kingdom should come, and many were imprisoned for proclaiming it. When the Prince his son and the other nobles arrived, they decreed that the King's body should be removed with all honour to the south by his Treasurer, the Bishop of Chester, and all his household, and should remain in the church of the monks of Waltham until some definite policy should be adopted regarding Scotland, and there should be leisure to arrange for sepulture; and this was done.
EPITAPH OF EDWARD I.
HIC JACET EDWARDUS PRIMUS, MALLEUS SCOTORUM. PACTUM SERVA.