1292. The submission respecting the succession to the crown of Scotland was now drawing near a close. There is reason to believe, that the knowledge of many of the humiliating circumstances, which had occurred during its progress, had been confined, in a great measure, to the parties engaged in it. Enough, however, had transpired to excite the jealousy of the poorer gentry, who, having no possessions out of Scotland, considered their honour as inseparably connected with its independence. When the edict, therefore, was proclaimed for a general homage to the King of England, the national degradation became apparent, and the servility of their more powerful representatives was regarded with undissembled mortification. The dangerous practice of allowing the influential barons to hold lands in England, might now be regretted; but the fatal effects were, for the present, beyond the power of remedy. Eager for the removal of the English garrisons, and desirous for the establishment of something like a regular government, the body of the Scottish nation, concealing their chagrin at the conduct of Edward, became anxious for the decision. The machinations of Frazer, and the influence of the Bishop of Durham, at last determined the English King to declare in favour of John Baliol, who received the crown with all humility, and swore fealty to the royal arbiter, as his liege-lord, at Norham, on the 20th November 1292. On the 30th of the same month, he was crowned at Scone; and, on the 26th December following, he again repeated his oath of allegiance at Newcastle. 1293. John, though he had not made a greater sacrifice of the national dignity than the other candidates were prepared to agree to, soon found, on his return to Scotland, that the station he had been so desirous to attain, was surrounded by cares and difficulties of no ordinary description. The conduct of Edward, too, in continually harassing Baliol with summonses to attend complaints instituted against him in the English courts, on very trifling occasions, was a source of unceasing annoyance; and while the latter reflected on the indignities he had already submitted to, he was conscious of having forfeited every claim to the sympathy or respect of his people, by the sacrifice he had made of their independence. It seemed evident, indeed, that the only chance which remained of recovering their favour, was to renounce the fealty he had sworn, and to afford them an opportunity of effacing, by force of arms, the stigma that had been affixed to their national character.