hants, whether procured by royal pressure
or no, to purchase by stated payments certain privileges of trading. In
this "New Custom" lay the origin of our import duties. A formal absolution
from his promises which he obtained from Pope Clement the Fifth in 1305
showed that he looked on his triumph in the North as enabling him to reopen
the questions which he had yielded. But again Scotland stayed his hand.
Only four months had passed since its submission, and he was preparing for
a joint Parliament of the two nations at Carlisle, when the conquered
country suddenly sprang again to arms. Its new leader was Robert Bruce, a
grandson of one of the original claimants of the crown. The Norman house of
Bruce formed a part of the Yorkshire baronage, but it had acquired through
intermarriages the Earldom of Carrick and the Lordship of Annandale. Both
the claimant and his son had been pretty steadily on the English side in
the contest with Balliol and Wallace, and Robert had himself been trained
in the English court and stood high in the king's favour. But the
withdrawal of Balliol gave a new force to his claims upon the crown, and
the discovery of an intrigue which he had set on foot with the Bishop of
St. Andrews so roused Edward's jealousy that Bruce fled for his life across
the border. Early in 1306 he met Comyn, the Lord of Badenoch, to whose
treachery he attributed the disclosure of his plans, in the church of the
Grey Friars at Dumfries, and after the interchange of a few hot words
struck him with his dagger to the ground. It was an outrage that admitted
of no forgiveness, and Bruce for very safety was forced to assume the crown
six weeks after in the Abbey of Scone. The news roused Scotland again to
arms, and summoned Edward to a fresh contest with his unconquerable foe.
But the murder of Comyn had changed the king's mood to a terrible
pitilessness. He threatened death against all concerned in the outrage, and
exposed the Countess of Buchan, who had set the crown on Bruce's head, in a
cage or open chamber built for the purpose in one of the towers of Berwick.
At the solemn feast which celebrated his son's knighthood Edward vowed on
the swan which formed the chief dish at the banquet to devote the rest of
his days to exact vengeance from the murderer himself. But even at the
moment of the vow Bruce was already flying for his life to the western
islands. "Henceforth" he said to his wife at their coronation "thou art
Queen of Sc