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THE HISTORY OF KING ROBERT BRUCE.
two kingdoms, on the following conditions :—1. The stone on which the kings of Scotland were wont to sit at the time of their coronation, shall be restored to the Seots. 2. The king of England engages to employ his good offices at the Papal court for obtaining a revocation of all spiritual processes depending before the Holy See against the king of Scots, or against his kingdom or subjeets. 3. For these eauses, and to make reparation for the ravages committed in England by the Scots, shall pay 30,000 merks to the king of England. 4. Restitution shall be made of the possessions belonging to ecclesiastics in either kingdom, whereof they may have been deprived during the war. 5. But there shall not be any restitution made of inheritances which have fallen into the hands of the king of England, or of the king of Scots, by reason of the war between the two nations, or through the forfeiture of former possessions. 6. Johanna, sister of the king of England, shall be given in marriage to David, son and heir to the king of Scots. 7. The king of Seots shall provide the Princess Johanna in a jointure of £2000 yearly, secured on lands and rents, according to a reasonable estimation. 8. If either of the parties shall fail in performing these conditions, he shall pay 2000 pounds of silver to the Papal treasury.
But good King Robert did not long survive this joyful event. Finding that he was dying, he requested to see his counsellors and friends whom he most trusted. He told them that he sorely repented of all his misdeeds, especially of having slain the Red Comyn before the holy altar; and that, if he had lived, it was his intention, in expiation of this offence, to have gone to the Holy Land, and made war against the enemies of the Cross. He requested his dearest friend and greatest warrior, good Lord James Douglas, that he should carry his heart to Jerusalem, to be deposited in the Saviour's sepulehre. On the 7th of June 1329 King Robert died, aged 55, unquestionably the greatest of all the Seottish monarehs. His death seems to have been occasioned by the excessive fatigues of military service; and his disease, called by historians of those times a leprosy, was probably an inveterate scurvy, occasioned by his way of living. His heart was taken out, embalmed, and put into a silver case.
Douglas set out with his precious charge, but he never got to the end of his journey, having been slain in a battle with the Moors in Spain. His body, which was found lying on the field of battle, with Bruce's heart under him, were brought home; the former was buried in the church of Douglas, and the latter deposited in Melrose Abbey.
James Brydone, Printer, 17 South Hanover Street, Edinburgh.
