Series 3 > Miscellany of the Scottish History Society (Sixth volume)

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means contained all the items contained in the inventory of
1282, but did contain many of them. The question presented
itself—what had become of those contained in the inventory
of 1282 but not contained in the inventory of 1291 P Had
they disappeared by some mischance between 1282 and 1291 ?
Or did Edward’s Commissioners leave them in the Treasury
at the Castle ; and, if so, did they perish of neglect there ?
The only certain thing about them was that they had vanished
into thin air. There was no reason to suppose that they had
been deliberately destroyed. There was a minute contemp¬
oraneous with the inventory of 1291, which recorded the
deposit of the documents collected by the Commissioners in
a box which was locked and sealed in the presence of eminent
witnesses in the Castle of Berwick, to which they had been
removed from Edinburgh. Late in 1292 the documents were
taken to Roxburgh and a third inventory was made up. A
copy of this was still in the Register House, with the Great
Seal of Scotland attached. They were next heard of in 1296
after John Baliol had finally surrendered to the King of
England all claim to the Scottish crown. Edward’s triumphant
progress had carried him as far as Elgin, and when he returned
he took back with him an abundant harvest of homage from
Scottish laymen and churchmen alike. He carried away the
Stone of Destiny, the Holy Rood, and, last but not least, the
title-deeds of our independence which had lain in the Castle
of Roxburgh since 1291. They were carried first to Berwick
and thence to London. There they still were in 1323, for
Bishop Stapleton examined them there at that time. They
were no doubt extant in 1327 when the signatories of the
Treaty of Northampton made provision for their return to
Scotland. But their history during the six centuries which
had elapsed since then was a blank. Enveloped in the gloom
of oblivion they had continued a prey to the moth and rust