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scenes. More than one Parliament met here, the sessions being 
perhaps held in the convent as they were at Westminster in the 
chapter-house of the abbey. In 1305, standing before the High 
Altar, the bishop (Halton) solemnly excommunicated Robert 
Bruce for the murder of his rival, Earl Cummin, in the church at 
Dumfries. The next year King Edward was at Carlisle, and 
again in his presence the Papal Legate, Cardinal D’Espagna, 
“accursed in terrible wise Robert Bruce, the usurper of the crown 
of Scotland.” In 1307 the aged King, dying but still dauntless, 
offered up in the cathedral the litter in which his failing limbs had 
been borne; and then—resolute old hero as he was—mounted 
his war horse at the Priory gates for his last march to Scotland. 
And here, a few days later, the dead body of England’s greatest 
warrior and wisest king was borne sadly back on its way to his last 
resting place at Westminster. It was only when his feeble son 
renounced the wise policy of his father that Cumberland felt the 
full brunt of the calamities in which the successful rebellion of 
Bruce had involved both countries. The weary border warfare 
that ensued dragged on for centuries. As they looked out from 
their walls over ravaged fields and burning homesteads, the burghers 
of Carlisle learnt what was meant—in the 14th century at least— 
by “Home Rule for Scotland!” Rapine and bloodshed, siege 
and foray varied with their changing fortunes the monotony of life 
in the “merrie citie!” Bands of mosstroopers, headed by a 
Musgrave or a Douglas, rode through the valleys ; and not unfre- 
quently on some fine day, when “the sun shone fair on Carlisle 
wa’,” a sheaf of them would hang dangling by the neck over the 
Scots gate!” Sometimes even the sturdy monks of the priory had 
to lenda hand for the defence of the city. Their convent was close 
up against the west walls, and at least on one occasion, in 1315, the 
canons amply justified their name by successfully defending the 
cathedral against the Scots; though three years afterwards they could 
not save it from the ravages of fire. So the story of the Priory 
passes on, uneventful, save when marauding Scots appeared 
beneath its walls, or a Lord Warden gathered troops there for a 
foray over the Border; one Prior and Bishop passing away after 
