The Earl of
Annandale refused to acknowledge this assumption. Baliol bowed to it;
and for such obedience, the unrighteous judge gave him the crown.
Bruce absolutely refused to acknowledge the justice of this decision;
and so to avoid the power of the king who had betrayed his rights, and
the jealousy of the other who had usurped them, he immediately left the
scene of action, going over seas, to join his son, who had been cajoled
away to Paris. But, alas! he died on the road of a broken heart.
"When his son Robert (who was Earl of Carrick in right of his wife)
returned to Britain, he, like his father, disdained to acknowledge
Baliol as king. But being more incensed at his successful rival, than
at the treachery of his false friend Edward, he believed his glossing
speeches; and-by what infatuation I cannot tell-established his
residence at the monarch's court. This forgetfulness of his royal
blood, and of the independence of Scotland, has nearly obliterated him
from every Scottish heart; for, when we look at Bruce the courtier, we
cease to remember Bruce the descendant of St. David-Bruce the valiant
knight of the Cross, who bled for true liberty before the walls of
Jerusalem.
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