medieval-atlas/administration/164

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Place-dates ofroyal charters to 1296 The committee of guardianship which ruled Scotland from 1286 until 1292 had no easy task. To keep the wheels of government turning, whilst refraining from jeopardising the rights of the Crown which they represented cannot have been simple. Their unique and spectacular seal ofgovernment is perhaps symbolic of their constitutional difficulty: they had the authority ofthe nation -a conceptual entity -which was impressive in tenns of national identity, but was hardly a strong legal basis for the authority oftheir dictate. Their acts were thus limited to the strictly necessary. 0 grants ofland survive, and the vast majority of their acts are brieves regarding overdue payments, settlement ofdisputed and other legal matters, or concern the negotiations aimed at settling Scotland's constitutional problems. As for the distribution of the acts, half of those which bear place-dates were made in Edinburgh. A few acts specify that only some of the guardians were present, which may indicate that normally the whole group, or at least a majority, met to conduct the business of government in committee on a fairly regular basis, nonnally in Edinburgh. The group ofacts place-dated on the border with England were all made during either the period of negotiation leading to the treaty of Birgham (1290) or the 'Great Cause' (129192). ? ® H"'''''''"~ • 3 KeIS~. Roxburgh ...//..~/" \.l kms o 25 50 75 100 ,, ,, I , , , Places where acts were issued • One act 20 30 40 50 60 ® Number of acts where more than one 0 10 miles Place-dates: the Guardians 1286 to 1292 NHR 164

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