ions (indeed under
William the Lion they had treated an interdict as waste-paper) indicated
a kind of protestant tendency to independence of the Holy See.

Bruce's inclusion of representatives of the Burghs in the first regular
Scottish Parliament (at Cambuskenneth in 1326) was a great step forward
in the constitutional existence of the country. The king, in Scotland,
was expected to "live of his own," but in 1326 the expenses of the war
with England compelled Bruce to seek permission for taxation.

CHAPTER IX. DECADENCE AND DISASTERS--REIGN OF DAVID II.

The heroic generation of Scotland was passing off the stage. The King
was a child. The forfeiture by Bruce of the lands of hostile or
treacherous lords, and his bestowal of the estates on his partisans, had
made the disinherited nobles the enemies of Scotland, and had fed too
full the House of Douglas. As the star of Scotland was thus clouded--she
had no strong man for a King during the next ninety years--the sun of
England rose red and glorious under a warrior like Edward III. The
Scottish nobles in many cases ceased to be true to their proud boast that
they would never submit to England. A very brief summary of the wretched
reign of David II. must here suffice.

First, the son of John Balliol, Edward, went to the English Court, and
thither thronged the disinherited and forfeited lords, arranging a raid
to recover their lands. Edward III., of course, connived at their
preparations.

After Randolph's death (July 20, 1332), when Mar--a sister's son of
Bruce--was Regent, the disinherited lords, under Balliol, invaded
Scotland, and Mar, with young Randolph, Menteith, and a bastard of Bruce,
"Robert of Carrick," leading a very great host, fell under the shafts of
the English archers of Umfraville, Wake, the English Earl of Atholl,
Talbot, Ferrers, and Zouche, at Dupplin, on the Earn (August 12, 1332).
Rolled up by arrows loosed on the flanks of their charging columns, they
fell, and their dead bodies lay in heaps as tall as a lance.

On September 24, Edward Balliol was crowned King at Scone. Later, Andrew
Murray, perhaps a son of the Murray who had been Wallace's companion-in-
arms, was taken, and Balliol acknowledged Edward III. as his liege-lord
at Roxburgh. In December the second son of Randolph, with Archibald, the
new Regent, brother of the great Black Douglas, drove Balliol, flying in
his shirt, from Annan across the Border. He returned, and w