A.D. 1305. BRUCE DEFIES THE KING OF ENGLAND. 583 having slain one, they immediately departed. And with them went that Judas, who was fated to be soon hung in a halter. After all these events had taken place, fresh disturbances and wars broke out in Scotland. For Robert Bruce, earl of Carrick, conferred at first secretly, and afterwards openly, with some of the great nobles of Scotland, saying to them, " Ye know that by the right of hereditary relationship this kingdom belongs to me, and how this nation intended to have crowned my father king, but the cunning of the king of England disappointed him of his desire. If, therefore, you will crown me king, I will fight your battles, and deliver this kingdom and this people from its slavery to the English." This he said, and presently he received the consent of many perjured men. And when he asked of John Comyn, a very noble and powerful knight, whether he also agreed to this, he steadily replied, that he did not. And he said, " All the nations know that the king of England has four times subdued our nation and country, and that we all, both knights and clergy, have sworn fealty and homage to him for the present and all future generations. Far be it from me to do this ; I will never consent to this measure, that I may be free from perjury." Bruce persuades, Comyn dissuades; the one threatens, the other is perplexed ; at last, Bruce, drawing his sword, strikes the unarmed Comyn on the head. And when he had thrown him down, as he was striving to wrest the sword from the hands of bis assassin (for he was a man of great personal strength), the servants of the traitor ran up, and stabbed him with their swords, and released their master. But the lord John escaped as well as he could to the altar ; and Robert pursued him, and, as he would not agree to his proposals, the wicked and inhuman man there sacrificed the pious victim. These things were done in the church of the Minor Brothers, at Dumfries, on the twenty-ninth of January, in the year subsequent to this one. Behold the beginning of the homicide, aspiring to the kingdom by the shedding of the blood of Abel. After this, Bruce appointed chariots and horsemen to go before him, and repaired many castles, and compelled many persons to defy the king of England ; and of those who refused, he slew all that he could. But the English keepers of the king's peace being alarmed and terrified, fled to the town of Berwick, reporting all these matters fully to their king.