Series 1 > History of Greater Britain, as well England as Scotland

287
< HAP. XVII.] OF GREATER BRITAIN
ceremony of marriage was performed at Berwick in presence of
the queen, the mother of Joanna.
In after times Caxton vented his abuse against Robert and
David Bruce, in language that held as many lies as it did words,
for he asserts, forsooth, that from the days of Brutus the Scots
had been vassals, and that Albanactus, the first king of the Scots,
was son to Brutus. Now in a measure, if not altogether, we may
make allowance for an unlettered man: he followed simply the
fashion of speech that was common amongst the English about
their enemies the Scots. But let any impartial person, one,
that is, who is neither Englishman nor Scot, and who has
borne no part in the matters at issue between them, let any
such, I say, compare the life of Robert Bruce with that of any The praise of
one of the English kings, and it may be said that from the days Robert Bruce,
of Arthur, if that Be true which is narrated of him, no more
illustrious king shall be found to have sat upon the throne.
Again, as we have said at the very beginning of our book, it is
not true that the Scots traced their origin to Brutus. And The indepen-
disallowing thus their premiss, I deny that the Scots have been °f SC°t"
subject to the English, or to whom else you will, from the time
that they came first into Britain. Let Caxton, I say, read and
read again his own Venerable Bede, an Englishman too, and
he will find that not only were the Scots at no time subject to
the Britons, but that many times they boldly attacked the
Britons, even when these had the support of the Romans, and
nowhere in Bede will he find any mention of this superiority
that he claims. And though John Baliol made submission to
Edward Longshanks, that is, to the first king of that name after
, the Normans, this will not help him much: inasmuch as, in the
first place, John had denuded himself of his own lawful claim, if
indeed he ever possessed such a thing; and secondly, because he
was not in a condition of independence ; and thirdly, because a
free king has no power at his own arbitrary pleasure to make his
people subject to another1. And by the same reasoning, the
fact that Edward Baliol made submission to the third Edward,
if such thing were proved, is worthless as an argument. It was
acting on the advice of his own most prudent counsellors who
Cf. ante, pp. 158, 216, and footnotes.