Death of Comyn. 299 



agree to, lest I perfure myself.' Bruce persuades, Comyn 

 dissuades, Bruce threatens, Comyn is aghast, and Bruce having 

 drawn his sword, struck the unarmed soldier on the head, who 

 tried to wrest the sword from the hands of his assailant, and he 

 would have cast him down beneath himself (for he was a very 

 strong man), but the traitor's attendants ran up and stabbed 

 him with their swords, freeing their master. But the Lord John 

 escaped as well as he could to the altar. Robert followed him, 

 and as he refused to agree, the man, impious and cruel, sacrificed 

 a pious victim. This was done in the Church of the Minor 

 Friars at Dumfries." 



Sir Thomas Gray's Narrative. 



The Rev. John Leland was the earliest of British antiquaries. 

 He lived in the reign of Henry VHI. In his "Collectanea" 

 he translated certain portions of a MS. copy of Gray's " Scala- 

 cronica." On page 542 occurs the following translation: — 

 " Robert de Bruse, counte of Carrik, that bare himself very 

 bold of his kinsmen in Scotland, trusting to wynne his title of 

 the corone of Scotland, caussid John Comyn, by sending to hym 

 his 2 bretherne to meete with hym at the Gray Freres at Dunfres 

 to speke with hym. And wen he cam thyther, Bruse 

 told hym hys mynd and bad hym ' other take his en- 

 heritance of Carrik and help me to be King of Scotland, or let 

 me have thyme, and I wyl help the to be king.' But John 

 Comyn not consenting to this was slayn, and his uncle also, that 

 strake Bruse afore such a blow, that if he had not been harnessid, 

 he had slayn hym." Sir Thomas Gray of Heton was a leading 

 warrior in the English armies of Edward I. and H. He was 

 the ancestor of Earl Grey and Sir Edward Grey. Being taken 

 prisoner by the Scots, he was sent to Edinburgh, where he 

 employed his time in writing a history of the time, which he 

 called " Scalacronica," the Ladder of History. A ladder 

 was the device on his own coat-of-arms. The book is 

 composed in the Norman French of the period, and requires 

 considerable knowledge to understand. The only MS. existing 

 is in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. It 

 was edited by Joseph Stevenson, and printed and published by 

 him for the Maitland Club, Edinburgh. I have translated 

 Grav's account of the death of Comvn : 



