ce submitted to his rival this
alternative: "Give me your land, and I shall bind myself to support your
title to the kingdom, and, when we have expelled our enemies, to place
the crown upon your head; or, if thou dost not choose to assume the
state of the kingdom, here am I ready to resign to you my estates, on
condition that you second me in my efforts to regain the throne of my
fathers." Comyn accepted the latter alternative, but immediately
betrayed the design to Edward, and sent him the letter, or indenture, by
which Bruce had bound himself. But the latter, when suddenly charged
with it, denied his hand and seal with a coolness that could only belong
to one long practised in the arts of dissimulation, and demanded time to
prove his innocence. Arch-deceiver as the English king himself was, he
yet allowed himself to be duped by this specious effrontery, and Bruce
escaping into Scotland, murdered Comyn in the church of the Grey Friars,
at Dumfries. Soon afterward he was crowned at Scone, and the revolution
spread far and wide; upon hearing which, Edward sent an invading army
into Scotland. Superiority of force and military skill soon compelled
Bruce to retreat to the mountain fastnesses, that offered a better place
of security than the strongest castle, for castles might be stormed; but
here, if danger threatened him at one point, he had only to retreat to
one more remote and more rugged, and thus at any time was enabled to
baffle his pursuers when he found them too powerful to be resisted. A
series of fights--battles they could hardly be called--and adventures
now ensued which have all the coloring of romance, but which entailed so
much of hardness and privation upon his followers, that after a while it
became evident he would not be able much longer to keep them from
abandoning a cause so desperate. Then, again, a spark of hope was
kindled by the disaffection growing out of the severity which Edward
exercised upon all who had been in arms to resist him. Numbers in
consequence flocked to Bruce, and fresh adventures succeeded of a yet
more romantic nature than those already mentioned; the fortunes of the
wanderer seeming now to be at the lowest ebb, and then again rising into
a prosperous flood, which as rapidly subsided, making it a matter of
some difficulty for him to escape being stranded by the falling waters.
It was during this season that Douglas disgraced himself and the
Scottish name by barbarities that have neve