History of the house and race of Douglas and Angus

HOUSE OF DOUGLAS. 209
<d such as were his to contain themselves within his regality,
to answer to his courts, and to no other; professing pUiuly
that he would keep his privileges, and that if any man should
usurp or encroach upan them, he should be made sensible of
his error.
This was a bit cast into the teeth of the new governors,
and did curb them very short on the south -side of Forth, he
having large lands and lordships in those parts. And here
their foolishness was quickiy seen, in that they would take
upon them such authority, and the unadvisedness of those
who had given it them who were not able to execute it, but
by the permission of another. Hereupon also fell out great
inconveniences; for the men of Annandale, accustomed to
theft and robbery, seeing the Earl Douglas discontented, and
retired, (who was the only man they stood in awe of, and was
only able to restrain them) they began to slight and contemn
the authority of these governors, and to molest and vex their
neighbouring* shires with driving away preys and booty by o-
pen force or violence, as if it had been from the enemy. This
the governors not being able to repress, the evil increased
daily, as a canker, so that it overspread the whole region, al-
most on that side of Forth.
In the mean while these jolly governors were so careful of
the common good of the country, and the charge committed
to them, that instead of thinking how to pacify and restrain
those Annandians, they fall at variance each with the other,
sending out contrary edicts and proclamations: the governor
commanding, that none should acknowledge the chancellor,
and the chancellor, that none should obey the governor; so that
when any came to the one to lament his estate, and seek re-
dress, he was used by the other as an enemy; and both pre-
tended the King's authority. For the chancellor had the
King in his custody in the castle of Edinburgh, and the gov-
ernor had-the name of authority, and was in Stirling with the
Queen-mother; at last she, under colour to visit her son, found
means to convey him out of the castle in a chest to Stirling.
And now the governor having got the King's person to couu -
JJd