He
reiterated his arguments for the expediency of speedily putting Robert
Bruce to death; he represented the danger that there was in delay, lest
a man so royally descended and so popular as he had become (since it
was now publicly understood that he had already fought his country's
battles under the name of Sir Thomas de Longueville) should find means
of replacing himself at the head of so many zealots in his favor.
These circumstances so propitious to ambition, and now adding person
revenge to his former boldness and policy, would at this juncture
(should he arrive in Scotland) turn its growing commotions to the most
decisive uses against the English power. The regent concluded with
saying, "that the Lords Loch-awe, Douglas, and Ruthven were come down
from the Highlands with a multitudinous army, to drive out the Southron
garrisons, and to repossess themselves of the fortresses of Stirling
and Edinburgh. That Lord Bothwell had returned from France with the
real Sir Thomas de Longueville, a knight of great valiancy. And that
Sir Roger Kirkpatrick, after having massacred half the English
castellans in the border counties, was now lying at Torthorald ready to
commence his murderous reprisals through the coasts of Galloway.
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