and to have been constantly alienating the estates of the abbey as though he were still abbot. About the same time he appears to have been a prisoner in the hands of the English, and letters are still extant written by Bernard disclaiming all John's acts, and arranging to pay ransom for him as a simple monk, and not at an abbot's value (Liber Aberbr. i. 279, 287, 288). Under the new abbot's rule, Arbroath soon became a favourite place for the holding of councils. It was here, and probably by Bernard's own hand, that the whole Scotch nation drew up its famous letter to John XXII, claiming its right to choose its own king, and declaring that even if he failed them—the Robert who was at once their Joshua and Maccabæus—yet they would elect another king of their own race rather than be subject to strangers. Meanwhile Bernard had been busy regulating the financial and other matters connected with the monastic estates; arrears were claimed from feudatories whose duties were clearly prescribed, money was borrowed, fresh buildings erected where necessary, and their occupants bound to keep them in repair; for all the business arrangements of the brotherhood seem to have gone to ruin in the years of disorder. Above all there appears to have been a great lack of ready money; but in raising it Bernard was careful to make precise though suitable terms with those in whose favour he granted concessions (Lib. Aberbr, i. 309). Besides the affairs of the kingdom and of his own monastery he was occupied with those of the church at large, In 1326 he was summoned by the abbot of Dunfermline to be present at the next general meeting of the Benedictine order for the province of Scotland. At some time, probably previous to this, and possibly, as has been suggested by Mr. Gordon, in 1312, he seems to have been sent on a mission to Norway, for letters are extant in which Robert Bruce grants special protection to Arbroath Abbey during its abbot's absence. In 1324 Bernard was elected bishop of Sodor. In 1328 William de Lamberton granted him a seven years' pension, secured on the church of Abernethy, in recompense for his seventeen years' abbacy and his labour and expenses in repairing the monastery. The same year there appears among the items of Robert de Peebles, chamberlain of Scotland, a sum of 100l., the king's gift towards the expenses of Bernard's election. The date of his death appears to be 1333 (Le Neve, Fasti Eccles. Anglic. ed. Hardy, iii. 324). Besides the practical business of his life, Bernard was not without some pretensions to literature. He wrote a poem in Latin hexameters celebrating the victory of Bannockburn, and is appealed to by Bower in the 'Scotichronicon' as his authority for the story of the mass performed before that battle, and Robert Bruce's speech to his men before the engagement. The general tone of Bruce's speech as reported by Bernard is not dissimilar to the warlike lyric of Burns on the subject, which we doubtless owe indirectly to Bernard through Bower. In connection with Bernard's visit to Norway it is perhaps worth mentioning that a Bernard Cancellarius was in 1281 sent by Alexander III to the same country for the purpose of negotiating the marriage of the king's daughter, Margaret, with Eric. But though it seems not to be an unexampled thing for an ecclesiastic to hold the chancellorship twice, there appears to be no authority for identifying two Bernards separated by so many years (see Acta Pari. Scot. 179,. and cf. Beatson's Political Index, ii. 58, for Richard de Innerkeithing, chancellor of Scotland in 1231 and 1256).
[Crawfurd's Lives of Officers of Scottish Crown, 17; Liber de Aberbrothoc. vols. i. and ii.; Gordon's History of Church of Scotland, iii. 516, &c.; Spotiswoode (Bannatyne Club), i. 104; Acta Parl. Scot. i. 118, 122, &c.; Bower and Fordun's Scotichronicon, ii. 248, 249, 279; Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, i. 69, 114; and authorities cited above.]
BERNARD a Sancto Francisco. [See Eyston]
BERNARD, CHARLES (1650–1711), surgeon, was elected surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital 26 Aug. 1686, upon the special command of the king (MS. Journal St. Bartholomew's Hospital). He attained the chief surgical practice in London of his time, and became sergeant-surgeon to Queen Anne in the first year of her reign. He was famous for his skill in operating, and his desire never to operate unnecessarily. When other surgeons maintained that Hoadly, tutor of Catharine Hall, must lose his leg, Bernard undertook to save it and succeeded; so that delighted students of the Bangorian controversy owe whatever pleasure they feel in threading its mazes to the skill of Bernard who preserved Hoadly's leg in sufficiently canonical entirety to permit of his ordination the following year (Hoadly, Works, i. p. viii). Bernard has left no professional works behind him, but a contemporary essay (The Present State of Chyrurgery, London, 1703) shows that he had, in advance of his time, formed from observation a true opinion as to the frequency of a fatal recurrence after the removal of malignant growths. He was master of the Barber Surgeons' Company in 1703,
