sounded when, in the treaty of Newcastle, June 12, 1334, Edward, King of Scots, granted Edward, King of England, lands worth two thousand pounds a year in the marches of Scotland, and in part payment thereof yielded up to him, besides Berwick and its shire, the castle, town, and county of Roxburgh, the forests of Jedburgh Selkirk, and Ettrick, the town and county of Selkirk, and the towns, castles, and counties of Peebles, Dumfries, and Edinburgh.  Of these Dumfries then included the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, while the shire of Edinburgh took in the constabularies, the modern shires, of Haddington and Linlithgow.  Thus the whole of Lothian, the whole of the central upland region, and Balliol’s own inheritance of Galloway east of the Cree were directly transferred to the English crown, and were divided into sheriffdoms, and officered after the English fashion.  On June 18 Balliol personally performed homage for so much of Scotland as Edward chose to leave him.  The wrongs of the disinherited had been the means of re-opening the whole Scottish question, and Edward III. seemed assured of a position as supreme as that which had once been held by Edward I.

It was always easier in the Middle Ages to conquer a country than to keep it.  And the experience of forty years might well have convinced Englishmen that no land was more difficult to hold than the stubborn and impenetrable northern kingdom, with its strenuous population, ever willing to cry a truce between local feuds when there was an opportunity of uniting against the southerners.  Edward overshot his mark in grasping too eagerly the fairest portions of Balliol’s realm.  He needed for his policy a Scottish king, strong enough to maintain himself against his subjects, and loyal enough to remain true to the English connexion.  Any faint chance of Balliol occupying such a position was completely destroyed by his studied humiliation.  Henceforward the King of Scots, who had fought so well at Dupplin and Halidon, was but a pawn in Edward’s game.  Hated by the Scots as the betrayer of his country, distrusted by the English who henceforth spied his actions and commanded his armies in his name, the gallant victor of Dupplin lost faith in himself and in his cause.  After all, he was his father’s son, and in no wise capable of bearing adversity and indignity with equanimity.  His helplessness soon proved the worst obstacle in the way of the success of Edward’s plans.  Even with the aid of a large Scottish party, Edward I. had failed to bring about the subjection of Scotland.  It was clearly impossible for his grandson to succeed in the same task when all Scotland was united against him, and braced to action by a series of glorious memories.