family held the hereditary right of crowning the monarch and on 26 December, in his capacity as invested king, he once more rendered homage to his lord superior: as complete a vassal king as the documents of English jurists could make him.26
John Balliol was King of Scotland but this unfortunate man, pilloried to posterity as Toom Tabard, the Empty Jacket, derived few benefits from his royal status.
There was little of Scots about him. He was a native of Picardy with vast possessions in France. He was married to the daughter of John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, one of King Edward’s leading military commanders, and had substantial landed interests in England. His only direct link with Scotland was his recent inheritance of the wild and unruly domain of Galloway and the fact that his sister was married to a former guardian, John Comyn of Badenoch, head of the ‘Red’ Comyns, the senior branch of a baronial family which vied with the Bruces as the most powerful influence in Scotland. A savage little vignette appears in the contemporary Rishanger Chronicle:
John [Balliol] hurried to Scotland glittering in his crown. But the Scots consenting or not received him with extreme annoyance. They dismissed his attendants, familiar to him and of his own race, and deputed strangers to act as his administrators … But he, simple and stupid, almost mute and speechless … did not open his mouth … Thus he dwelt among them for a whole year, as a lamb among wolves.27
Within a week of his enthronement this meek lamb experienced both the perfidy and pressure of his superior lord. A burgess of Berwick who had lost his triple law suit in the court of the Scottish guardians appealed to the King of England against their decision. There is suspicion of prearrangement about this action, for contrary to the usual law’s delays, Edward had called in the record of the proceedings to his own court within the next fortnight and reversed one of the judgements.
Immediately Fraser, Bishop of St Andrews, John Comyn, Earl of Buchan, Patrick Graham and other supporters of Balliol lodged a petition in the name of King John that Edward should keep to the promise he had made in Northampton in August 1290 and reiterated at Norham in June 1291 that he would preserve the laws and customs of Scotland and should abide by the solemn agreement he had signed in the Treaty of Birgham that no Scottish lawsuit should be dealt with outside the kingdom.
To this Edward roundly replied that any promises, concessions or ratifications made during the interregnum, when the throne of Scotland was vacant, were ‘for the time being’ only and that henceforward nothing ever placed on parchment should keep him from hearing appeals from Scotland and that he would cite King John himself to appear before him if he so thought fit.28 So much for the integrity of a monarch who, on his gravestone, had engraved by a piece of prodigious irony pactum servo – I keep my word. He followed up his outburst by extracting from the Scottish King on 2 January 1293 two instruments, one in Latin, one in French, by which the Treaty of Birgham was declared ‘null and void’ and Edward was released from ‘every article, concession or promise’ therein contained.29
Nothing could more clearly demonstrate to the Scots what Edward understood by homage and the rights that appertained and they writhed in impotence.
But worse humiliation was to follow. King Edward had a set of standing orders drawn up by his lawyers for the hearing of Scottish appeals of a character unheard of in the history of appellate justice. By these rules the King of Scotland in person was required to attend in England the hearings of every appeal against him and if the English court adjudged a miscarriage of justice, he was to be held personally liable for damages, both to the appellant and to his lord superior.
The climax of this measured harassment was reached in October 1293 when King John was summoned to appear in person before the English parliament to hear an appeal against him by John Macduff, younger son of Malcolm, Earl of Fife. On presenting himself as requested, he was treated with deliberate discourtesy and made to stand at the bar like a private malefactor. Stiffened before the ordeal by his councillors, he showed at first a commendable firmness. He refused to answer to the charge on the grounds that he was King of Scotland and dared not nor was able to act in any matter affecting his kingdom without the advice of the good men of his realm, nor could he ask for any adjournment for that would imply that he recognized the jurisdiction of those before whom he was cited.30
The court thereupon declared that he was guilty of extreme contempt in that it was directed against the sovereign who had conferred upon him the dignity of the Crown, and that for this contumacy he should not only pay damages to the appellant but should also hand over to the King of England the three principal castles in his realm together with their attendant towns until he had purged his contempt. At this King John’s nerve failed him. Browbeaten by Edward and insulted by Parliament, he stood firm no longer. Before the court’s resolution could be passed into a decree, he submitted a humble petition to his lord superior, craving that time should be given him to consult his subjects and promising to report the result to the first Parliament after Easter. King Edward thereupon adjourned the next hearing to 14 June 1294. But as in the inexorable progress of a Greek tragedy, pride is followed by retribution, so now it happened to Edward.
Philip the Fair of France had observed the arbitrary manner in which Edward had treated the Scots as a prerogative of his overlordship. With ironic malice he decided to follow his example. Edward, in his capacity of Duke of Aquitaine, owed him fealty. Claiming that English seamen had attacked French ships without provocation, he cited Edward to appear in person before the parliament in Paris and there submit to the judgement of his lord superior. When Edward failed to attend, King Philip came down into the parliament, pronounced him contumacious and on 19 May 1294 seized his lands in Gascony as forfeit. On 24 June Edward retaliated by renouncing his homage as duke and despatched a formal declaration of war.
The opportunity had now come for those smarting under his subjection to regain their independence. In September 1294, on the very eve of the Edward’s departure from Portsmouth with his assembled forces for Gascony, the Welsh rose in revolt and compelled him to turn away from the expedition on which he had based his hopes of recovering his duchy.
By May 1295 he had crushed the Welsh rebellion but in the meantime the Scots, having lost all confidence in King John, had elected four bishops, four earls and four barons to manage the government of the country in his name,31 and had sent commissioners to negotiate an alliance with France. On 23 October 1295 an offensive and defensive league was concluded between the two countries and this was ratified by the Scottish parliament in February 1296.32
But before this Edward had got wind of the affair. He made an immediate decision that the conquest of Scotland had priority over that of Gascony and with his accustomed energy had summoned his feudal host to meet him at Newcastle on 1 March 1296 and a fleet of ships to be assembled in East Anglia and to sail along the east coast to join him on the same date.33 The Scottish Council in the name of King John issued a national call to arms for all free men to rendezvous at Caddonlee, four miles north of Selkirk.34
During all the time since the rebuttal of their claims, the Bruces had played no part in the affairs of Scotland. Robert the Competitor retired from public life and remained quietly on his estates until his death on 1 April 1295; but not before he had signified his contempt for the new king by rigging, in the previous year, the election of his own nominee to the bishopric of Galloway in the face of royal objection.
