e other deemed it dangerous to object to it: indifferent persons
thought that the imminent perils of a civil war would thereby be
prevented; and no one reflected on the ambitious character of Edward,
and the almost certain ruin which must attend a small state divided
by faction, when it thus implicitly submits itself to the will of so
powerful and encroaching a neighbor.

The temptation was too strong for the virtue of the English monarch to
resist. He purposed to lay hold of the present favorable opportunity,
and if not to create, at least to revive, his claim of a feudal
superiority over Scotland; a claim which had hitherto lain in the
deepest obscurity, and which, if ever it had been an object of
attention, or had been so much as suspected, would have effectually
prevented the Scottish barons from choosing him for an umpire. He well
knew that, if this pretension were once submitted to, as it seemed
difficult in the present situation of Scotland to oppose it, the
absolute sovereignty of that kingdom (which had been the case with
Wales) would soon follow; and that one great vassal, cooped up in
an island with his liege lord, without resource from foreign powers,
without aid from any fellow-vassals, could not long maintain his
dominions against the efforts of a mighty kingdom, assisted by all
the cavils which the feudal law afforded his superior against him. In
pursuit of this great object, very advantageous to England, perhaps
in the end no less beneficial to Scotland, but extremely unjust and
iniquitous in itself, Edward busied himself in searching for proofs
of his pretended superiority; and, instead of looking into his own
archives, which, if his claim had been real, must have afforded him
numerous records of the homages done by the Scottish princes, and could
alone yield him any authentic testimony, he made all the monasteries be
ransacked for old chronicles and histories written by Englishmen, and
he collected all the passages which seemed anywise to favor his
pretensions.[*] Yet even in this method of proceeding, which must have
discovered to himself the injustice of his claim, he was far from being
fortunate. He began his proofs from the time of Edward the Elder, and
continued them through all the subsequent Saxon and Norman times; but
produced nothing to his purpose.[**]

* Walsing. p. 55.

** Rymer, vol. ii. p, 559.

The whole amount of his authorities during the Saxon period, when
stripped of t