Ayrshire > Volume 1

104 HISTORY OF AYRSHIRE
Sir Philip de Mowbray taken him prisoner, that he
cried, " I have the new made King." Sir Philip was
reckoning without his host. for. hardly had he given
voice to his vaunting, than Sir Christopher felled him
to the ground. He was with Bruce in the Minorite
convent at Dumfries, when the King, in the heat of
controversy and of passion, slew the Red Comyn ; and
he was there also, at Scone, when Bruce was crowned
King of Scotland. These were all unforgivable sins in
the sight of Edward. He might conceivably have
pardoned Seton for his share in the fight of Methven,
had that stood alone, and had it been subsequently
atoned for by submission and loyalty, but the English
monarch had no forgiveness to extend to those who were
by when the Red Comyn was slain. That was an outrage
doubly dyed, accursed in the slaughter, and accursed in
the holy place where Comyn was stretched lifeless upon
the ground, and Edward had doomed all those who
shared in the abounding guilt to certain death. When,
therefore. Bruce was compelled to flee the country and
to take refuge in the Isle of Rathlin, off the coast of
Ireland, Sir Christopher sought shelter in the castle of
Loch Doon.
The castle of Loch Doon is one of a group of ancient
keeps, or fortalices, round which a great deal of the
history of the shire is entwined. In its day it was a
stronghold for troublous times. Its ruins testify to its
strength, it was surrounded by the waters of the inland
loch, it was in the heart of a mountainous country
difficult of access and scant of supplies for an invading
force, and there was no " artillery," even of the by no
means despicable kind that existed at the period, that
could be effectively brought to bear against it. Its
danger to Sir Christopher lay in other directions than
. those pertaining to the siege ; in the changing conditions
and fortunes of the times, in the danger that pertained
to every man of rank and circumstance who championed
the national cause, in the desire of all, save those
irretrievably committed to the cause of Bruce, to stand