The Pope claims Scotland as belonging to the Church of Rome
The king was induced, by another important event, to grant this truce to the Scots. This was no less than an extraordinary interposition upon the part of the pope, commanding him, as he reverenced his sacred authority, to desist from all hostilities; and asserting that the kingddm of Scotland now belonged to the Holy See, and from the most remote antiquity had done so. The arguments by which the Roman church supported this singular claim, were, no doubt, suggested by certain Scottish Commissioners whom Soulis the regent, in a former part of this year, had sent on a mission to Rome, to complain of the grievous injuries inflicted by Edward upon Scotland, and to request the pope's interposition in behalf of their afflicted country.Boniface, accordingly, influenced, as is asserted, by Scottish gold,! directed an admonitory bull to Edward, and commanded Winchelsea archbishop of Canterbury to deliver it to the king, who was then with his army in the wilds of Galloway. This prelate, with much personal risk, owing to the unlicensed state of the country, and the danger of being seized by the bands of Scottish robbers, who roamed about, thirsting, as he tells us, for the blood of the English, travelled witfi his suite of clerks and learned dignitaries as far as Kirkcudbright; and having passed the dangerous sands of the Solway with his chariots and horses, found the king encamped near the castle of Caerlaverock, and delivered to him the papal bull. Its arguments, as far as concerned the right of the King of England to the feudal superiority of Scotland, were sufficiently sound and judicious; but, as was to be expected, the grounds on which he could rest his own claim far less satisfactory. "Your royal highness," he observed, "may have heard, and we doubt not but the truth is locked in the book of your memory, that of old the kingdom of Scotland did and doth still belong in full right to the Church of Rome, and that neither your ancestors, kings of England, nor yourself, enjoyed over it any feudal superiority. Your father Henry, king of England, of glorious memory, when, in the wars between him and Simon de Montfort, he requested the assistance of Alexander III. king of Scotland, did, by his letters-patent, acknowledge that he received such assistance, not as due to him, but as a special favour. When you yourself requested the presence of the same King Alexander at the solemnity of your coronation, you, in like manner, by your letters-patent, entreated it as a matter of favour and not of right. Moreover, when the King of Scotland did homage to you for his lands in Tynedale and Penrith, he publicly protested that hia homage was paid, not for his kingdom of Scotland, but for his lands in England;—that as King of Scotland he was independent, and owed no fealty; which homage, so restricted, you did accordingly receive. Again, when Alexander III. died, leaving as heiress to the crown a grand-daughter in her minority, the wardship of this infant was not conferred upon you,, which it would have been had you been lord superior, but was given to certain nobles of the kingdom chosen for that office." The bull proceeded to notice the projected marriage between the Prince of Wales and the Maiden of Norway; the acknowledgment of the freedom and independence of Scotland contained in the preliminary negotiations; the confusions which followed the death of the young queen; the fatal choice of Edward as arbiter in the contest for the crown; the express declaration of the King of England to the Scottish nobility, who repaired to his court during the controversy, that he received this attendance as a matter of favour, not as having any right to command it; and, lastly, it asserted, that if, after all this, any innovations had been made upon the ancient rights and liberties of Scotland, with consent of a divided nobility, who wanted their kingly head; or of that person to whom Edward had committed the charge of the kingdom, these ought not in justice to subsist, as having been violently extorted by force and fear.
After such arguments, the pope went on to exhort the king in the name of God, to discharge out of prison and restore to their former liberty all bishops, clerks, and other ecclesiastical persons whom he had incarcerated, and to remove all officers, whom by force and fear he had appointed to govern the nation under him; and he concluded by directing him, if he still pretended any right to the kingdom of Scotland, or to any part thereof, not to omit the sending commissioners to him fully instructed, and that within six months after the receipt of these letters, he being ever ready to do him justice as his beloved son, and inviolably to preserve his right.