He mingled
occasionally among the common people in disguise; visited their
firesides; entered into their cares, their pursuits, and their
amusements; informed himself of the mechanical arts, and how they
could best be patronized and improved; and was thus an
all-pervading spirit, watching with a benevolent eye over the
meanest of his subjects. Having in this generous manner made
himself strong in the hearts of the common people, he turned
himself to curb the power of the factious nobility; to strip them
of those dangerous immunities which they had usurped; to punish
such as had been guilty of flagrant offences; and to bring the
whole into proper obedience to the Crown. For some time they bore
this with outward submission, but with secret impatience and
brooding resentment. A conspiracy was at length formed against
his life, at the head of which was his own uncle, Robert Stewart,
Earl of Athol, who, being too old himself for the perpetration of
the deed of blood, instigated his grandson, Sir Robert Stewart,
together with Sir Robert Graham, and others of less note, to
commit the deed. They broke into his bedchamber at the Dominican
convent near Perth, where he was residing, and barbarously
murdered him by oft-repeated wounds.
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