with such speed and panache that any resistance by unwilling Scots had no time to consolidate.
The great court case was to become a showpiece trial by which not only Scotland and England but all Europe were to be made aware with what detailed care and respect for legal opinion the matter was conducted. It was indeed a splendid façade.
The court was composed of 104 auditors: twenty-four from Edward’s council, forty nominated by Robert the Competitor, and forty nominated by John Balliol. By the very nature of these appointments it was clear that attention would be concentrated on the pleas of the two principal rivals and that the claims of the other candidates were regarded as unsubstantial. Nevertheless, on 3 August all the competitors appeared before the King and lodged their petitions, each tracing his descent in detail from the royal ancestor through whom he made his claim. These petitions were sewn up in a leather bag, sealed with the seals of the Bishops of Glasgow and St Andrews and the Earls of Buchan and Mar, and then deposited in Berwick castle.14 Thereupon King Edward, who had urgent business in England, adjourned the hearing until 2 June 1292. On that date the court reassembled and was adjourned once more until 14 October. Meanwhile copies of the pedigrees had been sent to France to be considered by some of the greatest law scholars in Europe.
The auditors began by debating the pleas of Bruce and Balliol before entering on the claims at large. Both were descended from David, Earl of Huntingdon, brother of King William I the Lion, whose stock had ended with the Maid of Norway. David had left no sons behind him. His heirs were three daughters whose living representatives were: a grandson of the eldest daughter, John Balliol, a son of the second daughter, Robert the Competitor, and a grandson of the third daughter, John Hastings, Lord of Abergavenny.
John Balliol claimed the throne as representative of the senior branch, Robert the Competitor as being the nearer descendant with the further arguments that he had been nominated as heir by Alexander II when that king was childless and that he had the support of the seven earls who, by ancient right and tradition, had the power to elect a king.
The scales of justice could be weighted either way by adequate precedents. The Frenchman Bonet, the supreme authority at that time of canon law, gave as his opinion that the succession ought to go to the claimant who was born first even though he was descended from the younger line,15 and the Master General of the Franciscans came to the same conclusion not on this ground but as nearer in degree, citing from the Bible the unexpected precedent of the daughters of Zelophehad.16
On the other hand, the principle of primogeniture, although not yet established, was gradually gaining acceptance. King Edward at first inclined to Bruce and said so in private. But Antony Bek, the shrewd Bishop of Durham, as Fordun reports, posed him his question: ‘If Robert of Bruce were King of Scotland, where would Edward King of England be? For this Robert is of the noblest stock of all England and together with him the kingdom of Scotland is very strong in itself and in times gone by a great deal of mischief has been wrought to the Kings of England by those of Scotland.’ At this the King, patting him on the head – as it were – answered in the French tongue, ‘Par le sank Dieu vous avez bun chanté’, which is to say, ‘By Christ’s blood thou hast sung well. Things shall go otherwise than I arranged at first.’17
The Scottish auditors, being unable to agree by what laws and customs the right of succession should be determined, referred the matter to those auditors appointed by the King. Each of these auditors in turn was interrogated by none less than the King himself. Aware by now of his wishes and that as recently as April 1290 he had defined the rules of succession for the kingdom of England by seniority, they gave him the agreeable answer that judgement should be given by the laws and customs of England, and that as between the nearer descendant of the younger daughter and the more remote descendant of the elder daughter, the progeny of the elder daughter must be exhausted before that of the younger had any claim.
On 6 November Bruce was informed that on the pleadings presented he had failed to make out his case. On 7 November, by a document now in the British Museum, sealed by Bruce and Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, he delegated his claim to the throne to his son, the Earl of Carrick, and his heirs. Two days later the Earl of Carrick, whose wife had died earlier in the year, resigned his earldom to his own son and heir, the eighteen-year-old Robert Bruce, the future king.18 Whatever the outcome of the court case, the Bruces were determined that their claim should remain on record.
They made two further attempts to prevent the elevation of John Balliol. On 14 June 1292 Bruce the Competitor had entered into an agreement with the Count of Holland that if either should win the Crown he would hand over to the other as his fief a third part of the kingdom. The Count of Holland now came forward with the unlikely story that David, Earl of Huntingdon, on behalf of himself and his heirs, had resigned the rights to the Scottish throne in exchange for a grant of land at Garioch in northeast Scotland and that in consequence his stock was disbarred, whereas the Count was in direct descent from Ada, the sister of King William the Lion, and entitled to the throne.19 However, whether bribed by Balliol, as his fellow Dutchmen believed, or not, after a short debate he withdrew his plea. Finally, the Bruces threw their weight behind the claim of John Hastings that Scotland was held of the king as any other fief under common law and was therefore divisible between the three descendants of Earl David and that in consequence they were entitled to a third share of the income and land.20
But the court had come to its decision. On 17 November 1292, in the great hall at Berwick, the King’s judgement was read to the crowded assembly by his chief justice, Roger le Brabazon. Of the thirteen competitors seven had withdrawn their claims and three had been dismissed for want of prosecution. In regard to the remaining three, the King pronounced that the kingdom of Scotland was indivisible, which cut out John Hastings, that the senior branch of Earl David’s stock had precedence over the junior, which cut out the heirs of Robert the Competitor, and that John Balliol was heir at law to the vacant throne.21
It was at this stage that, according to Fordun:
The Earl of Gloucester, holding Robert the Bruce by the hand, in the sight of all, spoke thus to the King: ‘Recollect Ο King what kind of judgement thou hast given today and know that thou must be judged at the last’, and straightaway at the Earl’s bidding the aforesaid Robert Bruce withdrew, nor did he ever tender homage or fealty to John of Balliol.22
The great court case was over; but on the mind of the young Robert Bruce, now Earl of Carrick, who had listened to the many family conclaves during the years which had followed the death of Alexander III, was deeply imprinted the conviction that an injustice had been done and that his grandfather was the rightful king of Scots.
Formalities now followed each other pell-mell. On 19 November the constables of those Scottish castles previously placed in Edward’s hands were ordered to surrender them to John Balliol, and the guardians of Scotland to hand over the realm. The great seal they had used was broken in four and the fragments sent to the English treasury and a fresh seal was cut for the new king.23
On 20 November John Balliol swore fealty for his kingdom as held of his superior lord.24 On 30 November he was crowned at Scone by John St John as deputy for the infant Earl of Fife,25
