ofs of this superiority, which he pretended to
be unquestionable, and he required of them an acknowledgment of it; a
demand which was superfluous if the fact were already known and avowed,
and which plainly betrays Edward's consciousness of his lame and
defective title. The Scottish parliament was astonished at so new a
pretension, and answered only by their silence. But the king, in order
to maintain the appearance of free and regular proceedings, desired
them to remove into their own country, to deliberate upon his claim, to
examine his proofs, to propose all their objections, and to inform him
of their resolution; and he appointed a plain at Upsettleton, on the
northern banks of the Tweed, for that purpose.

When the Scottish barons assembled in this place, though moved with
indignation at the injustice of this unexpected claim, and at the fraud
with which it had been conducted, they found themselves betrayed into
a situation in which it was impossible for them to make any defence
for the ancient liberty and independence of their country. The king of
England, a martial and politic prince, at the head of a powerful army,
lay at a very small distance, and was only separated from them by a
river fordable in many places. Though, by a sudden flight, some of them
might themselves be, able to make their escape, what hopes could they
entertain of securing the kingdom against his future enterprises?
Without a head, without union among themselves, attached all of them
to different competitors, whose title they had rashly submitted to the
decision of this foreign usurper, and who were thereby reduced to an
absolute dependence upon him, they could only expect by resistance
to entail on themselves and their posterity a more grievous and more
destructive servitude. Yet even in this desperate state of their affairs
the Scottish barons, as we learn from Walsingham,[*] one of the best
historians of that period, had the courage to reply that, till they
had a king, they could take no resolution on so momentous a point: the
journal of King Edward says, that they made no answer at all;[**] that
is, perhaps, no particular answer or objection to Edward's claim: and
by this solution it is possible to reconcile the journal with the
historian. The king, therefore, interpreting their silence as consent,
addressed himself to the several competitors.

* Page 56. M. West. p. 436. It is said by Hemingford, vol.
i, p. 33, that the king m