James Douglas, the darling of Scottish story, was the first of the Lowland Barons to rally to the Bruce, and his daring gave heart to the king's cause.

Once he surprised his own house, which had been given to an Englishman, ate the dinner which was prepared for its new owner, slew his captives, and tossed their bodies on to a pile of wood at the castle gate.

Then he staved in the wine-vats that the wine might mingle with their blood, and set house and wood-pile on fire.
[Sidenote: Edward the Second] A ferocity like this degraded everywhere the work of freedom; but the revival of the country went steadily on.

Pembroke and the English forces were in fact paralyzed by a strife which had broken out in England between the new king and his baronage.

The moral purpose which had raised his father to grandeur was wholly wanting in Edward the Second; he was showy, idle, and stubborn in temper; but he was far from being destitute of the intellectual quickness which seemed inborn in the Plantagenets.