alone a
sufficient proof of their guilt; being above one hundred thousand marks,
an immense sum in those days, and sufficient to defray the charges of an
expensive war between two great kingdoms. The king afterwards made all
the new judges swear that they would take no bribes; but his expedient
of deposing and fining the old ones, was the more effectual remedy.

We now come to give an account of the state of affairs in Scotland,
which gave rise to the most interesting transactions of this reign, and
of some of the subsequent; though the intercourse of that kingdom with
England, either in peace or war, had hitherto produced so few events of
moment, that, to avoid tediousness, we have omitted many of them, and
have been very concise in relating the rest. If the Scots had, before
this period, any real history worthy of the name, except what they glean
from scattered passages in the English historians, those events, however
minute, yet being the only foreign transactions of the nation, might
deserve a place in it.

Though the government of Scotland had been continually exposed to those
factions and convulsions which are incident to all barbarous and to many
civilized nations; and though the successions of their kings, the
only part of their history which deserves any credit had often been
disordered by irregularities and usurpations; the true heir of the
royal family had still in the end prevailed, and Alexander III., who
had espoused the sister of Edward, probably inherited, after a period
of about eight hundred years, and through a succession of males, the
sceptre of all the Scottish princes who had governed the nation since
its first establishment in the island. This prince died in 1286, by a
fall from his horse at Kinghorn,[*] without leaving any male issue, and
without any descendant, except Margaret, born of Eric, king of Norway,
and of Margaret, daughter of the Scottish monarch. This princess,
commonly called the Maid of Norway, though a female, and an infant, and
a foreigner, yet being the lawful heir of the kingdom, had, through
her grandfather's care, been recognized successor by the states of
Scotland;[**] and on Alexander's death, the dispositions which had been
previously made against that event, appeared so just and prudent, that
no disorders, as might naturally be apprehended, ensued in the kingdom.

* Heming. vol. i. p. 29. Trivet, p. 267.

** Rymer, vol. ii. p. 266.

Margaret was acknowledged