The Scottish king did not long survive these events. He was seized with a severe complaint, then supposed to have been leprosy, which at length proved fatal. When upon his death-bed he called around him his earls and barons, and commended to their care his young son David; and the prince was thereupon crowned king of Scotland. Robert Bruce, having settled the affairs of his kingdom and throne, summoned to his bedside his brave and faithful friend and gallant knight, Sir James Douglas, and entreated him to take his heart from his body after death, and have it embalmed, and carry it to the Holy Land, and leave it there in the Holy Sepulchre, in obedience to a vow he had made. “When I was hard beset,” said the dying king, “I vowed to God that if I should live to see an end of my wars and Scotland free, I would raise the sacred standard against the enemies of my Lord and Saviour. But as I cannot myself accomplish this vow, I know no knight more worthy for the mission of bearing the heart of King Robert of Scotland to the Holy Land.” To this affecting request Lord Douglas replied, with tears in his eyes, “Ah, most gentle and noble king! A thousand times I thank you for the great honor you have done me in making me the bearer of so great and precious a treasure. Most faithfully and willingly, to the best of my power, shall I obey your commands.” Then the dying king answered,— “Now praised be God! for I shall die in peace, since I am assured, by the faith you owe to your God and the order of knighthood, that the best and most valiant knight of my kingdom has promised to achieve for me that which I myself could never accomplish.” Thus died Robert Bruce, king of Scotland, in the fifty-fifth year of his age and the twenty-fourth of his reign. His remains were deposited in the church of Dumfermline, where he was enshrined under a rich marble monument from Paris. The censures of excommunication pronounced by the Pope having been removed some time before, the religious services at his burial were performed by many prelates and bishops.