ard, shortly after this, he discovered that the King had
learned of this compromising paper. There was nothing left but flight.
He mounted his horse and swiftly returned to Scotland. Now the die was
cast. His only competitor for the throne was Comyn. They met to
confer over some plan of combination, and in a dispute which arose,
Bruce slew his rival. Whether it was premeditated, or in the heat of
passion, who could say? But Comyn was the one obstacle to his purpose,
and he had slain him, had slain the highest noble in the state! All of
England, and now much of Scotland, would be against him; but he could
not go back. He resolved upon a bold course. He went immediately to
Scone, ascended the throne, and surrounded by a small band of
followers, was crowned King of Scotland, March 27, 1306. He soon
learned {267} the desperate nature of the enterprise upon which he had
embarked. There was nothing in his past to inspire the confidence of
the patriots at the North, and at the South he was pursued with
vindictive fury by the friends of the slain Comyn. Edward, stirred as
never before, was preparing for an invasion, issuing proclamations; no
mercy to be shown to the rebels. Bruce's English estates, inherited
from his mother, were confiscated, and an outlaw and a fugitive, he was
excommunicated by the Pope! Unable to meet the forces sent by Edward,
he placed his Queen in the care of a relative and then disappeared,
wandering in the Highlands, hiding for one whole winter on the coast of
Ireland and supposed to be dead. His Queen and her ladies were torn
from their refuge and his cousin hanged.

Had Robert Bruce died at this time he would have been remembered not as
a patriot, but as an ambitious noble who perished in a desperate
attempt to make himself king. But his undaunted soul was working out a
different ending to the story. In the spring of 1307 he returned
undismayed. With a small band of followers he met an English {268}
army, defeated the Earl of Pembroke at Ayr, and with this success the
tide turned. The people caught the contagion of his intrepid spirit,
and in the seven years which followed, he shines out as one of the
great captains of history. By the year 1313 every castle save Berwick
and Stirling had surrendered to him. Vast preparations were made in
England for the defence of this latter stronghold.

It was on the burn (stream) two miles from Stirling that Bruce
assembled his 30,000 men, and