May 1303. Buchan joined with the other ambassadors in writing words of encouragement to his cousin: In the end Edward's invasion in 1303, by far the strongest since 1296, proved too strong to resist. As the English army punched north of the Forth, the first time it had done so since 1296, threatening the Comyn estates in Buchan and Badenoch, the Guardian took the pragmatic step, entering into peace negotiations with King Edward, concluded at Strathord near Perth in February 1304. Paradoxically the Comyns did not fare too badly, still figuring in the government of Scotland even after the conquest. Edward I, despite his fierce reputation, and his implacable hatred for men like Wallace, was by political and economic necessity forced to compromise. In Scotland he could not afford the ruinous cost in men, money and materials that it had taken to secure his earlier conquest of Wales, so time and again he was forced to enter into bonds and alliances with his former enemies. Buchan's lands confiscated at one minute were returned at the next, and he was made a member of the council of regency under the new English governor, John of Brittany, Earl of Richmond; and in September 1305 he was one of the commissioners who attended the union Parliament at Westminster to accept Edward's Ordinances for the government of Scotland. Murder and blood feud By 1306 it was plain to all that John Balliol, now in retirement on his French estates, would never return to Scotland. His kingship was dead but the Balliol claim was not. It was best represented by Edward Balliol, the former king's son, but he was still in English captivity and would be for some time to come. The next best candidate was the Red Comyn, King John's nephew. His greatest competitor was, of course, Robert Bruce, who had submitted to the English as long ago as 1302, but had never fully abandoned his own royal ambitions. Since 1286 the threat of civil war between the houses of Bruce and Balliol had haunted and shaped Scottish politics. On 10 February 1306 Bruce and his associates murdered Comyn and his uncle in Dumfries; the threat now became a reality. We will never know for certain the reasons behind the killing of the Red Comyn: for the Scottish sources it was the justified fate of a traitor and a spy; for the English it