In August 1299 the Scottish army was camped in Selkirk Forest, poised to swoop down on the English garrison at Roxburgh. Then news arrived that the castle's defences were too strong to attack, despite the bishop of Glasgow's best efforts to undermine the walls from within.
Nonplussed by this information, the Scots remained at Selkirk until 19 August. Then they moved onto Peebles, where they fell to arguing. The bone of contention was Sir William Wallace, even though the big man himself was sixty miles away, harassing the English garrison at Stirling.
The row started when Sir David Graham, an ally of John Comyn, demanded the seizure of Wallace's lands and goods. This, he said, was because Wallace proposed to leave the kingdom without the permission or approval of the Guardians. Wallace's brother, Sir Malcolm, retorted that nothing should be taken because Wallace was leaving to work for the good of the kingdom. Both men called each other a liar and whipped out their daggers.
Someone rushed off to inform the earl of Buchan and John Comyn that a fight had started. Comyn ran to the scene and took a flying leap at Robert de Bruce, seizing him by the throat. Buchan turned to the bishop of St Andrews and declared that treason and lesémajestie (a crime against the state or sovereign ruler) was being plotted.
The root cause of this unseemly brawl was probably John Balliol's recent transfer into papal custody. Wallace's proposed trip abroad must have looked suspicious to the Comyns: they suspected he meant to gather support among the courts of Europe for placing Bruce on the vacant Scottish throne.
In fact they were wrong. Despite his early alignment with Bruce, Wallace spent his time abroad in the company of Balliol supporters, and even visited Balliol himself. It seems Wallace had little time for aristocratic infighting, he just wanted to secure Scotland's independence. Whether that meant a Bruce or a Balliol on the throne (but maybe not a Comyn) didn't really matter.
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