Respecting this avaricious and time-serving minion, few particulars are known. The historians of his country appear to have left his memory in a state between obloquy and oblivion, and the odium he drew upon himself, during his short administration in Scotland, remains unrelieved by the relation of any redeeming circumstances on the part of those who may be supposed intimately acquainted with his character. Sir Walter Scott, in his Border Antiquities, mentions, that he was Rector of Ruddely, Chief Justiciary of York Assizes, and Prebendary of many churches.
But his numerous ecclesiastical duties were totally neglected, for the more congenial pursuits afforded by the cabinet and the camp; and it is stated, that though in the possession of so many lucrative benefices, he never assumed the garb peculiar to his sacred profession. In his character of Treasurer, he incurred a degree of detestation, which does not appear to have been attached to any of the other officers appointed by Edward to the management of affairs in Scotland. Among his own countrymen, his peculation occasioneddisgust, and in many instances desertion; while his short-sighted rapacity chafed the impatient and angry feelings of a people smarting under the infliction of a yoke to which they had been hitherto unaccustomed, and greatly contributed in raising that spirit of insurrection in which his aggressions met with the vengeance they had provoked.
END OF VOLUME FIRST.
PRINTED BY J. HUTCHISON,FOR THE HEIRS OF D. WILLISON.