And here, perhaps, it may be well to say a few words as to the real nature of King Robert's sentiments towards Isabella of Buchan, as from the anxiety her detention occasioned they may be so easily misunderstood.
We have performed our task but ill if our readers have imagined aught but the most purely noble, most chivalric sentiments actuated the heart of the king.

Whatever might have been the nature of those sentiments in earlier days, since his marriage with the daughter of the Earl of Mar they had never entered his soul.
He had always believed the Lady Isabella's union with Lord John Comyn was one of choice, not of necessity, nor did his visit to her after the battle of Falkirk recall any former feeling.

His mind had been under the heavy pressure of that self-reproach which the impressive words of Wallace had first awakened; the wretched state of his country, the tyranny of Edward, occupied the mind of the man in which the emotions of the boy had merged.

He was, too, a husband and a father; and he was, as his fond wife so trustingly believed, too nobly honorable to entertain one thought to her dishonor.

He looked on Isabella of Buchan as one indeed demanding his utmost esteem and gratitude, his most faithful friendship, and he secretly vowed that she should have it; but these emotions took not their coloring from the past, they were excited simply by her high-minded devotion to the cause of her country, her unshrinking patriotism, her noble qualities, alike as a mother, subject, friend.