Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/69

PREFACE. Ixi been interwoven by Forclun into his own account of these reigns, and the obliterated words can be supplied from his text with every presumption of accuracy. 34. Description of Scotland. — This short de- Description scrip tion of Scotland is contained in one of the Cottonian MSS. (Nero, D. 11). It was printed for the Maitland Club by Mr. Joseph Stevenson, and is rightly placed by him between the years 1292 and 1296. It has again been collated with the original MS., and is here printed to complete the early topographical tracts relating to Scotland. 35. Tracts relating to the English Claims. Tracts relating -f , -, -,. . to the English — In the years 1300 and 1301, a discussion arose claims. between the Pope, the king of England, and the Scottish Government with regard to the indepen- dence of Scotland. It commenced in the year 1300, by a bull directed by Pope Boniface the Eighth to Edward, king of England, which was replied to by the English Parliament, and after- wards by the king himself The Pope then directed a buU to the bishops of Scotland, while the Govern- ment of Scotland sent instinictions to their com- missioners in Eome, and this was followed by an argument written by Baldred Bisset, rector of Kinghorn, in the diocese of St. Andrews, who was one of these commissioners. The discussion is valuable, because each party founded their argument upon premises deduced from facts in the early history of the country. They thus show the