n was in
effect subdued by a handful of men: each nobleman who found himself most
exposed to danger, successively submitted to Baliol: that prince was
crowned at Scone: David, his competitor, was sent over to France with
his betrothed wife Jane, sister to Edward: and the heads of his party
sued to Baliol for a truce, which he granted them, in order to assemble
a parliament in tranquillity, and have his title recognized by the whole
Scottish nation.

* Heming p. 273. Knyghton, p. 2561.

{1333.} But Baliol's imprudence, or his necessities, making him dismiss
the greater part of his English followers, he was, notwithstanding the
truce, attacked of a sudden near Annan, by Sir Archibald Douglas and
other chieftains of that party; he was routed; his brother, John Baliol,
was slain; he himself was chased into England in a miserable condition;
and thus lost his kingdom by a revolution as sudden as that by which he
had acquired it.

While Baliol enjoyed his short-lived and precarious royalty, he had been
sensible that, without the protection of England, it would be impossible
for him to maintain possession of the throne; and he had secretly sent a
message to Edward, offering to acknowledge his superiority, to renew the
homage for his crown, and to espouse the princess Jane, if the pope's
consent could be obtained for dissolving her former marriage, which
was not yet consummated. Edward, ambitious of recovering that important
concession, made by Mortimer during his minority, threw off all
scruples, and willingly accepted the offer; but as the dethroning of
Baliol had rendered this stipulation of no effect, the king prepared to
reinstate him in possession of the crown; an enterprise which appeared
from late experience so easy and so little hazardous. As he possessed
many popular arts, he consulted his parliament on the occasion; but
that assembly, finding the resolution already taken, declined giving any
opinion, and only granted him, in order to support the enterprise, an
aid of a fifteenth from the personal estates of the nobility and gentry,
and a tenth of the movables of boroughs. And they added a petition, that
the king would thenceforth live on his own revenue, without grieving his
subjects by illegal taxes, or by the outrageous seizure of their goods
in the shape of purveyance.[*]

As the Scots expected that the chief brunt of the war would fall upon
Berwick, Douglas, the regent, threw a strong garrison into that p