Edwakd I. AT Sweetheart Abbey". 173 



lale Mr M'Dowall, in his History of Dumfries, gives a full de- 

 scription of the sieg-e. Just as Edward was completing- the suIj- 

 jugation of the country, the Pope Boniface VIII. laid claim to 

 Scotland as a lief of Rome, and bade the King to cease molest- 

 ing the Scots. Neither Pope uor King had the slightest claim 

 to the country, but the latter determined to resist the Pope's 

 extraordinary assumption, which was made in a bull dated 

 at Auagni, 27 June, 129'J. The Pope sent the bull to Robert 

 Winchelsea, Archbishop of Canterbury, with a letter in which 

 he told him to deUver it to Edward with his own hand. The 

 Archbishop, accompanied by a papal envoy, Lumbardus, did 

 so at Carlaverock, 24 August, 1300, according- to the histories. 

 So says Burton and so says M'Dowall. This scene was an im- 

 portant event in the history of Scotland and a still more important 

 one in that of England. But in reading Bishop Stubbs's Consti- 

 tutional History I find that the date of the interview is given 27 

 August, 1300, and the scene Sweetheart Abbey. I find that 

 Edward was not at Carlaverock in August, 1300. After taking 

 the castle he marched through Galloway and advanced as far as 

 Irvine. He did not leave Galloway till the end of October. Mr 

 Hunt in his Life of Edward I., and Professor Tout in his Life of 

 Winchelsea in the Dictionary of Jvational Biography, agree with 

 Bishop Stubbs in the place and the date. There is no doubt of 

 the correctness of these facts, as they are derived from a letter 

 from Winchelsea himself to the Pope, dated Otford, 8 October, 

 1300, in which he relates in detail his long journey to Carlisle, the 

 difficulty he had in reaching the King, his perils frcni the sea and 

 the Scots, and lastly his interview with Edward at Sweetheart 

 Abbey on 27 August, 1300. See Chronicles of Edward I. and 

 Edward II. {Annales Londinenses, pages 104-108, Rolls Series). 

 Sweetheart Abbey was quite new when this celebiated event 

 occurred, having- been founded only twenty-five years before by 

 Devorgilla. The chronicler, Walsingham, tells us that Winchel- 

 sea added an exhortation of his own to the Pope's command ; and 

 spoke of the safety of the citizens of Jerusalem and how those 

 who trusted in God were as Mount Zion (Psalm 125, 1). "By 

 God's blood," shouted the King, " I will not hold my peace for 

 Zion, nor keep silence for Jerusalem (Isaiah 62, 1), while breath 

 is in my nostrils, but I will defend my right that is known to 

 all the world with all my might." In acknowledging the 



