"But, if the impediment arose during the lieutenancy of the Earl of Douglas, the legate of his Holiness will demand wherefore it has not been instantly removed, when the King resumed in his royal hands the reins of authority?
The Black Douglas can do much--more perhaps than a subject should have power to do in the kingdom of his sovereign; but he cannot stand betwixt your Grace and your own conscience, or release you from the duties to the Holy Church which your situation as a king imposes upon you." "Father," said Robert, somewhat impatiently, "you are over peremptory in this matter, and ought at least to wait a reasonable season, until we have time to consider of some remedy.

Such disputes have happened repeatedly in the reigns of our predecessors; and our royal and blessed ancestor, St.David, did not resign his privileges as a monarch without making a stand in their defence, even though he was involved in arguments with the Holy Father himself." "And therein was that great and good king neither holy nor saintly," said the prior "and therefore was he given to be a rout and a spoil to his enemies, when he raised his sword against the banners of St.Peter, and St.Paul, and St.John of Beverley, in the war, as it is still called, of the Standard.

Well was it for him that, like his namesake, the son of Jesse, his sin was punished upon earth, and not entered against him at the long and dire day of accounting." "Well, good prior--well--enough of this for the present.

The Holy See shall, God willing, have no reason to complain of me.

I take Our Lady to witness, I would not for the crown I wear take the burden of wronging our Mother Church.