was
reduced to four thousand pounds a year:[*] and though the king, during
the remainder of her life, paid her a decent visit once or twice a year,
she never was able to reinstate herself in any credit or authority.

Edward, having now taken the reins of government into his own hands,
applied himself, with industry and judgment, to redress all those
grievances which had proceeded either from want of authority in the
crown, or from the late abuses of it. He issued writs to the judges,
enjoining them to administer justice, without paying any regard to
arbitrary orders from the ministers: and as the robbers, thieves,
murderers, and criminals of all kinds, had, during the course of public
convulsions, multiplied to an enormous degree, and were openly protected
by the great barons, who made use of them against their enemies, the
king, after exacting from the peers a solemn promise in parliament,
that they would break off all connections with such malefactors,[**] set
himself in earnest to remedy the evil. Many of these gangs had become so
numerous as to require his own presence to disperse them; and he
exerted both courage and industry in executing this salutary office. The
ministers of justice, from his example, employed the utmost diligence
in discovering, pursuing, and punishing the criminals; and this disorder
was by degrees corrected, at least palliated; the utmost that could be
expected with regard to a disease hitherto inherent in the constitution.

* Cotton's Abridg. p. 10

** Cotton's Abridg. p. 10.

In proportion as the government acquired authority at home, it became
formidable to the neighboring nations; and the ambitious spirit of
Edward sought, and soon found, an opportunity of exerting itself.
The wise and valiant Robert Bruce, who had recovered by arms the
independence of his country, and had fixed it by the last treaty of
peace with England, soon after died, and left David his son, a minor,
under the guardianship of Randolph, earl of Murray, the companion of
all his victories. It had been stipulated in this treaty, that both the
Scottish nobility who, before the commencement of the wars enjoyed lands
in England, and the English who inherited estates in Scotland, should be
restored to their respective possessions:[*] but though this article
had been executed pretty regularly on the part of Edward, Robert, who
observed that the estates claimed by Englishmen were much more numerous
and valuable t