l had been established.

The seal of the regency was broken: Edward handed over the seisin of
Scotland to John Balliol, who three days later took the oath of fealty
as King of Scots, promising that he would perform all the service due to
Edward from his kingdom, Balliol hurried to his kingdom, and was crowned
at Scone on St. Andrew's day. He then returned to England, and kept
Christmas with his overlord at Newcastle, where, on December 26, he did
homage to Edward in the castle hall. But within a few days a difficulty
arose. John resented Edward's retaining the jurisdiction over a law-suit
in which a Berwick merchant, a Scotsman, was a party. He was reassured
by Edward that he only did so, because the case had arisen during the
vacancy, when Edward was admittedly ruling Scotland. But Edward
significantly added a reservation of his right of hearing appeals, even
in England; and when the King of Scots went back to his realm, early in
January, he must have already foreseen that there was trouble to come.

Edward never lost sight of his own interests, and it is clear that he
took full advantage of the needs of the Scots to establish a close
supremacy over the northern kingdom. Making allowance for this sinister
element, his general policy in dealing with the great suit had been
singularly prudent and correct. He was anxious to ascertain the right
heir; he gave the Scots a preponderating voice in the tribunal; he
rejected the temptation which Bruce and Hastings dangled before him of
splitting up the realm into three parts, and he restored the land and
its castles as soon as the suit was settled. There is nothing to show
that up to this point his action had produced any resentment in
Scotland, and little evidence that there was any strong national feeling
involved. Scottish chroniclers, who wrote after the war of independence,
have given a colour to Edward's policy which contemporary evidence does
not justify. From the point of his generation, his action was just and
legal. He had, in fact, performed a signal service to Scotland in
vindicating its unity; and by maintaining the rigid doctrines of
Anglo-Norman jurisprudence, he rescued it from the vague philosophy
which Bruce called natural law, and the recrudescence of Celtic custom
that gave even bastards a hope of the succession. The real temptation
came when, after his triumph, Edward sought to extract from the
submission of the Scots consequences which had no warranty in cu