into an intimate alliance with Bishop Lamberton of St. Andrews, the old partisan of Wallace.  Lamberton was then, like Bruce, on Edward’s side, and as John of Brittany had not yet personally taken up his new charge, the blind confidence of Edward entrusted him with the foremost place among the commissioners who acted as wardens of Scotland during the king’s lieutenant’s absence.  Bruce, still remembering his grandfather’s claim on the throne, welcomed the definitive setting aside of Balliol.  While Edward believed that Scotland was quietening down under its new constitution, Bruce was secretly conspiring with the Scottish magnates, with a view to making himself king.  His chief difficulty was with the late regent, John Comyn the Red, lord of Badenoch.  The Bruces and the Comyns had long been at variance, and the Red Comyn, who was the nephew of the deposed King John, regarded himself as the representative of the Balliol claim to the throne, and was not unmindful how his father had withdrawn his pretensions in 1291 rather than divide the Balliol interest.  Meanwhile the antagonism of the two houses was the best safeguard for the continuance of Edward’s rule.

Bruce was violent as well as able and ambitious.  He invited Comyn to a conference for January 10, 1306, in the Franciscan friary at Dumfries.  On that day the king’s justices were holding the assizes in the castle, and Brace and Comyn, with a few followers, met in the cloister of the convent.  Hot words were exchanged, and Bruce drew his sword and wounded Comyn.  The lord of Badenoch took refuge in the church, and some of Bruce’s friends followed him and slew him on the steps of the high altar.  This cruel murder involved a violent breach between Bruce and the king.  The earl took to the hills, declared himself the champion of national independence, and renewed his claim to the crown.  He was joined by a great multitude of the people and by a certain number of the magnates.  Conspicuous among the latter was Bishop Wishart of Glasgow, who broke his sixth oath of fealty, using the timber given him by Edward for building the steeple of his cathedral in constructing military engines to besiege the castles which were still held for the English king.  Before long Bishop Lamberton, the chief of the Edwardian government, also went over.  The support of the two bishops enabled Bruce to be crowned on March 25 at Scone.  All Scotland was soon in revolt, and only the garrisons and a few magnates remained faithful to Edward.

News of the death of Comyn and the revolt of Bruce reached Edward, while engaged in hunting in Dorset and Wiltshire.  He at once called upon Church and State to unite against the sacreligious murderer and traitor.  Clement V. excommunicated the Earl of Carrick, and deprived Lamberton and Wishart of their bishoprics.  The warlike zeal of the English barons was stimulated by liberal grants of the forfeited estates of Bruce and his partisans.  Feeling the infirmities of age coming upon him, Edward saw that