a bold principle that often decided the fight--like Bruce's principle of striking hard at the foremost line. After he slew Sir Robert de Neville, 'The dreid of the Lorde Dowglass, And his renoun swa scalit wass Throu-out the marchis of Yngland That all that war tharin duelland Thai dred him as the deuill of hell.' And Barbour had often heard tell that wives would frighten their wayward children into obedience by threatening to deliver them to the Black Douglas. The Leicester chronicler says 'the English feared him more than all other Scotsmen'; for 'every archer he could take, either his right hand he cut off or his right eye he plucked out,' and, for the sake of the archers, he always took his vengeance on an Englishman in the severest form he could devise. This view is not corroborated, however, and it may be a generalisation from some particular case. But, while terrible to the enemy--'a brave hammerer of the English,' as Fordun says--Douglas is represented as charming to his friends. 'But he wes nocht sa fayr that we Suld spek gretly off his beaute: In wysage[3] wes he sumdeill gray,[4] And had blak har,[5] as Ic hard say; Bot off lymmys[6] he wes weill maid, With banis[7] gret & schuldrys braid.[8] His body wes weyll maid and lenye,[9] As thai that saw hym said to me ... And in spek wlispyt[10] he sum deill; But that sat[11] him rycht wondre weill.' Scott's picture of the Knight of the Tomb, while based on Barbour's description, verges on caricature. * * * * * Was King Robert the Bruce a patriot? The question, startling as it may be, especially to trustful readers of uncritical laudations, may no longer be avoided. It is not necessary to repeat the outlines of his political attitude during the storm and stress of Wallace's memorable struggle. Can it be supposed, then, that a man may become patriotic after his thirty-first year? With his assumption of the kingly office, Bruce's baronial and royal interests coincided with the interests of Scotland, and it may be that some feeling of the nature of patriotism may have thus developed in his breast. The manifesto of the barons and other laymen in 1320, apart from its dramatic purpose, may be taken to indicate that the external reasons for the King's profession of patriotism were not less potent than his private reasons. Let us concede to him the benefit even of grievous doubt. For, be his motives what they may, the practical outcome was the decisive establishment of the independence of the realm of Scotland, and he remains for ever the greatest of the line of Scottish Kings. FOOTNOTES: