their powerful neighbors, seem for a long time to have retained some
jealousy on that head, and, in doing homage, to have anxiously obviated
all such pretensions. When William, in 1200, did homage to John at
Lincoln, he was careful to insert a salvo for his royal dignity;[*] when
Alexander III. sent assistance to his father-in-law, Henry III., during
the wars of the barons, he previously procured an acknowledgment, that
this aid was granted only from friendship, not from any right claimed by
the English monarch;[**] and when that same prince was invited to assist
at the coronation of this very Edward, he declined attendance till he
received a like acknowledgment.[***] [1]

But as all these reasons (and stronger could not be produced) were but a
feeble rampart against the power of the sword, Edward, carrying with
him a great army, which was to enforce his proofs, advanced to the
frontiers, and invited the Scottish parliament, and all the competitors,
to attend him in the Castle of Norham, a place situated on the southern
banks of the Tweed, in order to determine the cause which had been
referred to his arbitration. But though this deference seemed due to so
great a monarch, and was no more than what his father and the English
barons had, in similar circumstances, paid to Lewis IX., the king,
careful not to give umbrage, and determined never to produce his claim
till it should be too late to think of opposition, sent the Scottish
barons an acknowledgment, that, though at that time they passed the
frontiers, this step should never be drawn into precedent, or afford the
English kings a pretence for exacting a like submission in any future
transaction.[****] When the whole Scottish nation had thus unwarily put
themselves in his power, Edward opened the conferences at Norham: he
informed the parliament, by the mouth of Roger le Brabancon, his chief
justiciary, that he was come thither to determine the right among the
competitors to their crown; that he was determined to do strict justice
to all parties; and that he was entitled to this authority, not in
virtue of the reference made to him, but in quality of superior and
liege lord of the kingdom.[*****] [2]

* Hoveden, p. 811.

** Rymer, vol. ii p 844.

*** See note A. at the end of the volume.

**** Rymer, vol. ii. p. 539, 845. Walsing. p. 58.

***** Rymer, vol. ii. p. 543. See note B, at the end of the
volume.

He then produced his pro