eming. vol. i. p. 36.

The sentiments of men were divided: all the nobility had taken part on
one side or the other: the people followed implicitly their leaders:
the two claimants themselves had great power and numerous retainers in
Scotland: and it is no wonder that, among a rude people, more accustomed
to arms than inured to laws, a controversy of this nature, which could
not be decided by any former precedent among them, and which is
capable of exciting commotions in the most legal and best established
governments, should threaten the state with the most fatal convulsions.

Each century has its peculiar mode in conducting business; and men,
guided more by custom than by reason, follow, without inquiry, the
manners which are prevalent in their own time. The practice of that
age in controversies between states and princes, seems to have been to
choose a foreign prince as an equal arbiter, by whom the question
was decided, and whose sentence prevented those dismal confusions and
disorders, inseparable at all times from war, but which were multiplied
a hundred fold, and dispersed into every corner, by the nature of the
feudal governments. It was thus that the English king and barons, in
the preceding reign, had endeavored to compose their dissensions by a
reference to the king of France; and the celebrated integrity of that
monarch had prevented all the bad effects which might naturally have
been dreaded from so perilous an expedient. It was thus that the kings
of France and Arragon, and afterwards other princes, had submitted their
controversies to Edward's judgment; and the remoteness of their states,
the great power of the princes, and the little interest which he had
on either side, had induced him to acquit himself with honor in his
decisions. The parliament of Scotland, therefore, threatened with a
furious civil war, and allured by the great reputation of the English
monarch, as well as by the present amicable correspondence between the
kingdoms, agreed in making a reference to Edward; and Fraser, bishop
of St. Andrews, with other deputies, was sent to notify to him their
resolution, and to claim his good offices in the present dangers to
which they were exposed.[*]

* Heming, vol. i. p. 31.

His inclination, they flattered themselves, led him to prevent their
dissensions, and to interpose with a power which none of the competitors
would dare to withstand: when this expedient was proposed by one party,
th