The houses of Douglas and of March which it raised into supremacy only interrupted their strife with England to battle fiercely with one another or to coerce their king.

The power of the Crown sank in fact into insignificance under the earlier sovereigns of the line of Stuart which succeeded to the throne on the extinction of the male line of Bruce in 1371.

Invasions and civil feuds not only arrested but even rolled back the national industry and prosperity.

The country was a chaos of disorder and misrule, in which the peasant and the trader were the victims of feudal outrage.

The Border became a lawless land, where robbery and violence reigned utterly without check.