was suspected of betraying the kingdom to England; in October 1363 he and the Earl of Douglas visited London and made a treaty adopting a son of Edward as king on David’s demise, and on his ransom being remitted, but in March 1364 his Estates rejected the proposal, to which Douglas had assented.  Till 1369 all was poverty and internal disunion; the feud, to be so often renewed, of the Douglas and the Steward raged.  David was made contemptible by a second marriage with Margaret Logie, but the war with France drove Edward III. to accept a fourteen years’ truce with Scotland.  On February 22, 1371, David died in Edinburgh Castle, being succeeded, without opposition, by the Steward, Robert II., son of Walter, and of Marjorie, daughter of Robert Bruce.  This Robert II., somewhat outworn by many years of honourable war in his country’s cause, and the father of a family, by Elizabeth Mure of Rowallan, which could hardly be rendered legitimate by any number of Papal dispensations, was the first of the Royal Stewart line.  In him a cadet branch of the English FitzAlans, themselves of a very ancient Breton stock, blossomed into Royalty.

PARLIAMENT AND THE CROWN.

With the coming of a dynasty which endured for three centuries, we must sketch the relations, in Scotland, of Crown and Parliament till the days of the Covenant and the Revolution of 1688.  Scotland had but little of the constitutional evolution so conspicuous in the history of England.  The reason is that while the English kings, with their fiefs and wars in France, had constantly to be asking their parliaments for money, and while Parliament first exacted the redress of grievances, in Scotland the king was expected “to live of his own” on the revenue of crown-lands, rents, feudal aids, fines exacted in Courts of Law, and duties on merchandise.  No “tenths” or “fifteenths” were exacted from clergy and people.  There could be no “constitutional resistance” when the Crown made no unconstitutional demands.

In Scotland the germ of Parliament is the King’s court of vassals of the Crown.  To the assemblies, held now in one place, now in another, would usually come the vassals of the district, with such officers of state as the Chancellor, the Chamberlain, the Steward, the Constable or Commander-in-Chief, the Justiciar, and the Marischal, and such Bishops, Abbots, Priors, Earls, Barons, and tenants-in-chief as chose to attend.  At these meetings public business was done, charters were granted, and statutes were passed; assent was made to such feudal aids as money for the king’s ransom in the case of William the Lion.  In 1295 the seals of six Royal burghs are appended to the record of a negotiation; in 1326 burgesses, as we saw, were consulted by Bruce on questions of finance.

The misfortunes and extravagance of David II. had to be paid for, and Parliament interfered with the Royal prerogative in coinage and currency, directed the administration of justice, dictated terms of peace with England, called to account even hereditary officers of the Crown (such as the Steward, Constable, and Marischal), controlled the King’s expenditure (or tried to do so), and denounced the execution of Royal warrants against the Statutes and common form of law.  They summarily rejected David’s attempt to alter the succession of the Crown.