In all the early days of the life of the said King the Catholic Church of Christ flourished at its highest in the kingdom of Scotland, justice reigned, vice was withered up, virtue increased, and the State grew so much that prosperity and peace and abundance of wealth and the pouring in of money and fruitful plenty prevailed in Scotland during all his time. The King, moreover, was adorned with every virtue, beloved by all good men, hated by the wicked. A ruler is so called from ruling well; for where there is no rule, there is no ruler. That King, indeed, so behaved towards his enemies that they feared him with the utmost fear and loved him with hearty love; and in his country he maintained unshaken peace, law, and unbroken prosperity, so that the inhabitants thereof abode in the beauty of peace, in the tents of trustfulness and in plenteous ease; and he quelled all insolence, disturbances, rioting, and rebellion. Now he had this habit, that he was wont to travel every year through all the districts of his kingdom with a large retinue, to become acquainted with his people, to reprove shortcomings, to administer justice, to punish rebels, to cherish and reward the good, and, with the officers of each district, thoroughly to reform all abuses. He would not allow within his kingdom any idlers without a trade or means of livelihood. When the knights and officers of one district went away from him, the sheriff of another district, with a chosen train of knights, came to meet him. Moreover, he made it a statute of the realm that everyone should, in each working day, dig the length and breadth of his own body--that is, seven feet--considering that idleness is the foe of virtue. Likewise he would not allow very many licences for horses, save only those devoted to work, in the court of any lord, or in the houses of the rich; for too great a number of horses destroys the sustenance of the poor; for they were bred neither for necessary purposes nor for profit. The King also decreed that merchandise should not cross over by sea to any place without the kingdom; for so many ships were distressed, others taken by foes and enemies, that the kingdom was much impoverished in this particular; and therefore he decreed that up to a certain time no ship should pass out of the realm on pain of loss of goods. Thus, notwithstanding it was with great difficulty that this was enforced, yet many ships laden with all manner of merchandise would come in abundance and readily to the country in these days without danger, and barter all their merchandise, goods for goods, without the medium of cash. This King also forbade any but free burgesses to meddle in such trade at all. When these statutes had been in force for a time, the country in a few years so flourished in fruitfulness and abundance of all wealth, in handicrafts also, and in metals and moneys and all the other advantages of policy and good government, that numberless ships and merchants, hearing of the King's