KING ROBERT BRUCE.
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charge, and drove the English to their ships with considerable loss. For this exploit, Robert eonferred the title of the King's Bishop on Sinclair; and he was long venerated by his countrymen on this account.
In 1318, King Robert proceeded in his enterprise against Berwick. A citizen of that town, named Spalding, having been ill used by the governor, resolved to revenge himself, and, therefore, wrote a letter to a Scottish lord, whose relation he had married, offering, on a certain night, to betray the post when he kept guard. The nobleman communicated this important intelligenee to the king, who commanded him to repair to a certain plaee with a body of troops, to which plaee he also gave separate orders to Douglas and Randolph to repair at the same hour, each with a body of troops under his command. The forees thus cautiously assembled marehed to Berwick, and, assisted by Spalding, sealed the walls, making themselves masters of the town in a few hours. The garrison of the castle, pereeiving that the number of Seots was but small, made a desperate sally with the men who had fled into the eastle from the town; but, after an obstinate eonflict, they were defeated and driven back, chiefly by the extraordinary valour of a young knight, named Sir William Keith of Galston, March 28, 1318. King Robert no sooner heard of the sucess of his forces against the town than he hastened to lay siege to the castle of Berwick, which was soon obliged to capitulate; after which the Scots entered Northumberland, and took the castles of Wark, Harbottle; and Mitford.
In May 1318, they again invaded England, and penetrated into Yorkshire. In their progress, they burnt the towns of Northallerton, Boroughbridge, Scarborough, and Skipton in Craven, forcing the inhabitants of Ripon to redeem them selves by paying 1000 merks: after which they returned to Seotland with much booty; and, as an English historian expresses it; " driving their prisoners before them like flocks of sheep.
In 1319, Edward, having obtained the interposition of the Pope, made similar attempts with other' powers to the prejudiee of the Seottish nation. Aecordingly, he requested the Earl of Flanders to prohibit the Scots from entering his country; but to this request he received the following remarkable reply: "Flanders is the common country of all men: I eannot prohibit any merchants from trafficking thither, for such prohibition would prove the ruin of my people." On this, Edward onee more determined to have recourse to war; and with this view commanded his army to assemble at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, July 24, 1319. Every
