laity? Lord Jesus! either take away the pope from our midst or lessen
the power which he presumes to have over the people." Such lamentations
bore no fruit, and the simoniacal nomination of Reynolds was but the
first of a series of appointments which robbed the episcopate of
dignity and moral worth.

While Church and State in England were thus distressed, the cause of
Robert Bruce was making steady progress in Scotland. It is some measure
of the difficulties against which Bruce had to contend that, after six
years, he was still by no means master of all that land. But least of
all among the causes which retarded his advance can be placed the armed
forces of England. During six years Edward II.'s one personal
expedition had been a complete failure. A more formidable obstacle in
Bruce's way was the stubborn resistance offered to him by the valour
and skill of the small but highly trained garrisons which the wisdom of
Edward I. had established in the fortresses of southern and central
Scotland. Each castle took a long time to subdue, and demanded
engineering resources and a persistency of effort, which were difficult
to obtain from a popular army. The garrisons co-operated with the
Scottish nobles who still adhered to Edward through jealousy of the
upstart Bruces and love of feudal independence, rather than by reason
of any sympathy with the English cause. Additional obstacles to
Robert's progress were the hostility of the Church, to which he was
still the excommunicated murderer of Comyn; the captivity of so many
Scottish prelates and barons in England; the efforts of the pope and
the King of France to bring about suspensions of hostilities, and the
grievous famines which desolated Scotland no less than southern
Britain. But during these years the King of Scots gradually overcame
these difficulties. His hardest fighting in the field was with rival
Scots rather than with the English intruders. In 1308 he defeated the