travelling for this purpose over the whole country; and while his sentences
were severe, and often measured by the mere purpose of the criminal, whether
it had succeeded or not, prompt execution was certain to follow. Thus, at a
justice court which he held at Wigton, a man complained at his tribunal that
an ambush was placed in a neighbouring wood for the purpose of murdering
him, but that happily he escaped it, and now claimed protection. Randolph
immediately sent to the place, where the men in ambush were arrested, and had
them forthwith executed, as if they had committed the murder. On another
occasion, he showed an instance of boldness in vindicating the claims of natural
justice, in defiance of ecclesiastical immunities, upon which few in England, or
even in Europe, whether magistrate or king, would have dared to venture. A
man having slain a priest, had subsequently passed over to Rome, where, after
confession of his offence, and full performance of penance, he received clerical
absolution. Being thus, as he thought, rectus in curia, he ventured back to
Scotland, as if every penalty had been liquidated, and, in an evil hour for himself,
ventured into the presence of Randolph, while the latter was holding a justice-court at Inverness. The quick eye of the earl detected the culprit, who was
immediately arrested, and placed on trial for the murder. The man pleaded
that the person he had slain was a priest, not a layman; and that for this he
had received the absolution of the church, whose subject the priest was. But
this was not enough for Randolph; the priest, he said, was a Scottish subject
and king's liege-man, irrespective of his clerical office ; and, therefore, as the
murderer of a Scottish subject, the culprit was adjudged to suffer the full penalty of the law.
Although a perpetual peace had been ratified between Scotland and England, the injuries each country had received were too recent, and the claims for compensation were too numerous and unreasonable, to give hope that it would be lasting. Scarcely, therefore, had Randolph held the regency for three years, when certain English nobles, who were disappointed in the recovery of their Scottish estates, adopted the cause of Baliol as their pretext for breaking the treaty of Northampton, and made formidable preparations to invade Scotland by sea. In consequence of this intelligence, Randolph assembled an army, and marched to Colbrandspath, expecting the invasion would be made by land; but as soon as he learned that the enemy had embarked at Ravenshire in Holderness, he turned his course northwards, to be ready for the assailants at what- ever point they might land in the Forth. But on reaching Musselburgh, his last march was ended. For some time past he had been afflicted with that excruciating disease, the stone, and he suddenly died on the 20th of July, 1332, in the midst of his political anxieties and warlike preparations. Never, indeed, has Scotland so often harassed with minority and interregnum possessed, either before or afterwards, such a deputy-sovereign, with the single exception of his noble namesake of after centuries, that Earl of Moray who was called "the good regent." Randolph's death was the commencement of heavy woes for Scotland. From the suddenness of his departure, and its disastrous consequences, it was suspected that the invaders, who had no hope of success as long as he lived, had caused him to be removed by poison; but the incurable nature of the malady under which he died sufficiently accounts for his decease.
REID, John, M.D., Chandos Professor of Anatomy and Medicine in the University of St. Andrews.—This talented anatomist and physiologist, who was so unexpectedly removed from us when his value was just beginning to be
