Immediately on the return of the Scots from Weardale, King Robert passed into Northumberland. He sent Randolph and Douglas to besiege Alnwick Castle; set down another division before Norham Castle; and, with a third body, himself overran the neighbourhood. He even granted away the English lands to his chief followers. The attempt on Alnwick was unsuccessful, and, the open country having bought a truce, the leaders concentrated on Norham. On October 1, while Bruce still lay before Norham, Edward appointed commissioners to treat with him for final peace. After negotiations at Newcastle and York, the treaty was signed by Robert at Edinburgh on March 17; confirmed by the English Parliament on April 24; and finally, on May 4, signed by Edward at Northampton. Edward conceded in the fullest terms the absolute independence of Scotland as the marches stood in the days of Alexander III., and agreed to deliver up all extant documents relating to the overlordship, and in any case to annul them; and he consented to aid Robert to obtain the revocation of the papal processes. Robert agreed to pay £20,000 sterling in three years. And the peace was to be cemented by the marriage of David, the Scots heir-apparent, a boy of four, with Joan, King Edward's sister, a girl of six. In England, the peace was freely stigmatised as 'shameful,' and the marriage as 'base'; partly on patriotic grounds, partly from dislike of Queen Isabella and Mortimer, who guided the policy of the King. The news of the death of the King of France no doubt gave an impulse to the English decision, for it would be necessary for Edward to have his hands free to assert his claim to the succession. The conditions were alike 'honourable for the Scots and necessary for England.' CHAPTER XIII THE HEART OF THE BRUCE King Robert the Bruce died at Cardross on the Clyde, on June 7, 1329, a little more than a month before the completion of his fifty-fifth year. The cause of his death is said to have been leprosy. Barbour says it was the development of a severe cold, a benumbment contracted in the hardships of his early wanderings. Apart from specific disease, the strain of his laborious reign of nearly a quarter of a century would have shaken the strongest constitution of man. In the last three years he had been struck by two severe bereavements: the death of his son-in-law, Sir Walter the Steward, a knight of great promise, on April 9, 1326; and the death of the queen, at Cullen, on October 26, 1327. In the latter year, indeed, in spite of increasing illness, he had taken the field in Ireland and in Northumberland. But he had been unable to attend the marriage of David and Joan at Berwick in July 1328. Still he continued to move about quietly. When, however, Douglas brought him back from a visit to Galloway in the end of March 1329, it was not to be concealed that 'there was no way for him but death.' And, accordingly, he set his house in order.