have made at least some indirect contribution to the victory at Stirling, though he was not personally present at the battle. Afterwards his career goes through a period of particular obscurity, few details having survived. It seems certain, though, that the death of Moray, either during or shortly after the battle, and the political ascendancy of William Wallace, who emerged as Guardian of Scotland by early 1298, had an effect on his general attitude towards the rising. It is important to remember that few if any of the major players at this time were either the selfless patriots or the dark villains depicted by later history. Personal advantage and self-interest were always significant factors. For Buchan, and many of his fellow nobles, Wallace was less of the great hero and more of the political parvenu, who by the normal order of things would have been a figure of little importance in a conservative feudal society. It would therefore have been particularly galling for Buchan to see the vacant bishopric of St Andrews filled, at Wallace's behest, by William Lamberton in place of the man he had expected to take the position, Master William Comyn, his own brother. Both John Fordun and John Barbour said in their chronicles, although their neutrality could be questioned, that the Comyns abandoned Wallace at the Battle of Falkirk. Their interpretation of events involves some intellectual acrobatics: Fordun condemns the Comyns for losing the battle for Wallace, while in the next breath he commends Robert Bruce, the future king, for winning it for the English. Yet, setting this interpretation of events aside, the evidence suggests Comyn hostility towards Wallace, magnified, perhaps, by Lamberton's known association with the Bruce family. Shortly after the defeat at Falkirk, Wallace resigned as Guardian. He was replaced by Robert Bruce the younger, who had now joined the patriots, and John Comyn of Badenoch, who had returned to Scotland. This uneasy match was obviously intended to balance the competing interests in Scotland; for though Bruce acted with the Red Comyn in the name of "the illustrious King John", his claim to the throne was openly known. In 1299 the whole delicate structure threatened to fall apart at a meeting of the baronial council at Peebles, a potentially murderous episode reported by an English spy. David Graham, an adherent of the Comyns, made a surprise intervention; At the council Sir David Graham demanded