Robert the Bruce and the struggle for Scottish independence/Invasion of England and Ireland by the Scots

by Herbert Maxwell

Sir Humphrey de Bohun.	Sir Philip de Moubray.

CHAPTER X.

INVASION OF ENGLAND AND IRELAND BY THE SCOTS.

A.D. 1314-1317.

SIR PHILIP DE MOUBRAY delivered up his command of Stirling Castle, according to stipulation, and entered the service of the King of Scots.

The English historian, Walsingham, will not be suspected of partiality for the victors of Bannockburn; the greater weight therefore is carried by his testimony to the merciful treatment of the prisoners by King Robert, who thereby won the affection of many who had fought against him. According to the custom of war, a proportion of the prisoners taken in a general action were credited to the commander-in-chief, to whom their ransom should be payable. Among those thus allotted to the King's share were his relative, Sir Marmaduke de Twenge, and his old friend, Sir Ralph de Monthermer, both of whom he released unconditionally. Sir

BOTHWELL CASTLE, THE QUADRANGLE.

(From a photograph by Valentine Bros., Dundee.)

Marmaduke, seeing no chance of escape from the field, lay hidden all night in the woods. Next day when King Robert went forth to survey the scene of the battle, the knight came forward and knelt before him. The King greeted him kindly and asked to whom he yielded himself prisoner. "To none save your Majesty," answered Sir Marmaduke. "Then I receive you," said Bruce, and afterwards entertained him hospitably, and sent him back to England with a handsome present. Sir Ralph had carried King Edward's shield or scale in the battle, and accompanied him in his flight from the field, but, falling behind, was captured by Douglas's men. Bruce allowed him to carry Edward's shield back to England. The bodies of Gloucester and de Clifford he sent to England for honourable burial.

The Earl of Hereford, the Earl of Angus, Sir John de Segrave, Sir Ingelram de Umfraville, and Sir Antony de Lucy found their way to Bothwell Castle on the Clyde,^[1] almost the only Scottish fortress still flying the English flag. Soon afterwards they were besieged by Edward de Brus and capitulated. Three months later, on October 2d, Hereford obtained his release in exchange for the Queen of Scots and her two daughters, the Bishop of Glasgow and the young Earl of Mar.^[2] King Robert had been parted from his wife and daughters for eight years.

Fordun exults over the vast sums obtained for the ransom of other nobles and knights taken prisoners.

"The whole land of Scotland," he says, "overflowed with boundless wealth."

His crushing defeat, the loss of all his stores, the capture or death of many of his best generals, and, above all, the terrible loss of English prestige, might have disposed Edward, had he been a wiser monarch or surrounded by wiser counsellers, to begin negotiations for peace as soon as he was safe at York. But there is nothing to show that he entertained the idea. His borders were left without defence, and King Robert, having at command such active lieutenants as his brother Edward, on whom he had bestowed his own earldom of Carrick, and the Black Douglas, was not likely to neglect his opportunity. He sent Carrick, Douglas, and de Soulis to invade Northumberland in the beginning of August. They wasted the whole of that county; the unhappy farmers being doomed to see their ripening crops trodden to mire or burned, and all their live-stock driven away. The ecclesiastical registers of Carlisle, Durham, and York contain letters presenting a piteous memorial of the terrors of this and the succeeding years. The bishoprick of Durham bought immunity from fire, at least, by paying a heavy indemnity; but the Scots penetrated Yorkshire as far as Teesdale, and returned by Appleby and Coupland, which they burnt.

On September 9th, King Edward assembled his Parliament at York. The Earl of Pembroke was appointed Guardian of the country between Trent and Tweed. Letters were considered, brought by Ralph Chilton, a friar, from the King of Scots, expressing his earnest desire for a lasting peace between the two nations, and asking for a safe-conduct for the following commissioners to treat for the same Sir Nigel Campbell, Sir Roger de Kirkpatrick, Sir Robert de Keith, and Sir Gilbert de la Haye. The required passports were made out, and commissioners were appointed to represent England; but although a conference between the two parties actually took place at Dumfries, the proceedings came to nought, probably owing to the refusal of the English commissioners to pay royal honours to the name of King Robert. On November 26th, and again on December 26th, the Archbishop of York wrote to various knights and ecclesiastics, bidding them prepare for fresh invasion, as the negotiations for truce had failed.^[3] His prediction was immediately fulfilled, for the Scots once more poured across the Border, and forced the sorely harassed people of Tynedale to do homage to King Robert. No assistance from the central government could be hoped for, because Edward was involved again in strife with his barons, so the English dalesmen were left to organise such resistance as they could under the direction of the warlike Archbishop, and the bishops of Carlisle and Durham. It was not very effective; many were made captives and held to ransom. The county of Cumberland paid 800 marks for a truce to last from Christmas, 1314, to Midsummer Day, 1315.^[4] Among the papers in the register of Durham is the record of a pathetic incident. It is the inquest on the body of an unhappy countryman who, having climbed the church tower of Houghton-le-Spring in order to have a better view of the Scots passing over the plain below, fell down from under the bells and was killed. To the verdict of accidental death was added a rider, which must have been very consolatory to the parishioners who had lost all their possessions, to the effect that, although the floor of the tower had undoubtedly been polluted by the blood of the deceased, the jury did not consider that there was any reason to interrupt the ordinary services in the church.^[5]

All these ransoms and indemnities had made the King of Scots strong in the sinews of war, and he prepared to extend the area of operations. The O'Neills of Ulster had been making overtures to him, complaining of the exactions of their English rulers, and offering the crown of Ireland to Edward, Earl of Carrick. In consequence of this an expedition was resolved on, which seems to one looking back on those distant days the sole blunder committed by Robert the Bruce from the day he finally took up the cause of Scottish independence. There was fighting and rapine enough in Britain, God knows, to satisfy a nature far more ferocious than that of the King of Scots, without seeking more in other lands. Yet, before committing himself to what proved such a disastrous enterprise, Robert must have weighed the advantage of dividing the English forces against the prudence of dividing his own. Besides, a crown was a crown in those days. Great must have been the temptation to provide so fitting a reward for his brother's priceless services. Bruce had accomplished already, in securing the Scottish crown, a far heavier piece of work than seemed to lie between him and the conquest of Ireland; while, from a strategic point of view, it would be no trifling advantage thus to plant on the flank of England a power friendly to Scotland.

The expedition went forward. The Earl of Carrick landed at Carrickfergus on May 25, 1315, with 6000 men and some of the best knights in Scotland. Among these were the King's two nephews, Randolph, Earl of Moray, and John, son of Sir Nigel Campbell of Lochow, Sir Philip de Moubray, lately King Edward's governor at Stirling, Sir John de Soulis, and Sir John de Menteith.

Before they started King Robert assembled a Parliament at Ayr on Sunday, April 25, 1315. The chief business before it was urgent enough, being the settlement of the succession to the throne, for the King had at this time only one child, the Princess Marjorie, and his own mode of life during the last nine years had been the reverse of conducive to longevity.

It was enacted that, should the King die without heirs male, the succession should devolve on Edward, Earl of Carrick, and his heirs male; whom failing, on Princess Marjorie. In the event of a minor succeeding under this disposition, the Earl of Moray was to be guardian of the heir and the kingdom. Should all these heirs fail, then Moray was to be guardian of the realm, till the prelates and magnates of Scotland should determine the succession.

The choice made by King Robert of a husband for his daughter was a momentous one, affecting, as it afterwards turned out, the dynasties of both the Scottish and English thrones to a very remote posterity. Walter, High Steward of Scotland, was the knight selected as a consort for the Princess; but their married life was brief indeed, for Marjorie died in her first confinement, on March 2, 1316, leaving a son, afterwards Robert II. of Scotland.

On the return of the ships which conveyed the army to Ireland, King Robert fitted them out for a fresh expedition to the western islands, which he visited in company with his son-in-law the Steward. As Barbour is the only authority for this excursion, and as his statement that John of Lorn was made prisoner in the course of it is now known to be contrary to fact, importance need not be attached to his account of the events of these early summer months. But it is probably true that about this time the King received the submission of the islanders without much difficulty. While passing through Dunbarton in April, he granted the privilege of garth or sanctuary to Malcolm, Earl of Lennox, in reward for his timely help in bygone days of adversity.^[6]

The various truces purchased by the English bishopricks expired on the first anniversary of Bannockburn—St. John's Day, June 24, 1315. The Archbishop of York had held a council of war at Doncaster on the Monday after Ascension Day, to devise means to put the Border in a state of defence^[7]; but it does not seem that it profited much, for on June 29th Douglas led a raid through the county of Durham, and occupied the town of Hartlepool, the inhabitants seeking safety in their shipping. There was no burning,^[8] but such booty as had escaped former forays was secured.

On July 22d, the King of Scots in person began the siege of Carlisle, a town against which he cherished a stern purpose of revenge, as the scene of the ignominious death of his brothers Thomas and Alexander, in 1306. The castle was held by a knight of great renown, Sir Andrew de Harcla. The Franciscan chronicler of Lanercost has left a minute account of the siege, of which he must have been an involuntary witness. It lasted eleven days, on each of which assaults were made on one of the three gates, or all three simultaneously. But the citizens worked gallantly with the garrison in defence, keeping the assailants at bay with showers of stones and flights of arrows. The Scots made a huge machine wherewith to hurl stones against the gates; the defenders made seven or eight similar ones. The garrison had also springalds for firing darts, and with these and other devices they wrought great mischief among the besiegers. Then the Scots built a great wooden tower on wheels, tall enough to overtop the walls; whereupon the English built a taller one. But the Scottish engine never came into play, sticking fast in the mud of the moat. Wheeled bridges, too, which they attempted to throw across the ditches, fell into the water and sank; and attempts to fill the ditches with green corn cut in the neighbourhood failed also.

At last all mechanical siege appliances having broken down, King Robert resolved to carry the place by sheer force of muscle and cold iron. On the ninth and tenth days a general attack was delivered, chiefly against the eastern side of the citadel. On the tenth day, the attention of the garrison being, it was hoped, concentrated on this part, Douglas took an escalading party to the west side, opposite the house of the Minorite friars, where a sally port may still be seen. Here the Scots actually got over the walls, but encountered more resistance than they had reckoned on. The ladders, crowded with men, were flung down; many were killed, and Douglas had to beat a retreat, leaving some prisoners in the hands of the English.

The siege was suddenly raised on August 1st, when the Scots, alarmed, it would seem, by the approach of an English force, decamped, leaving all their rude siege appliances behind them. Brave Sir Andrew de Harcla then sallied from his fortress, hung on the flanks of the retreating Scots, and made two very important prisoners, to wit, John de Moray and Sir Robert Bardolf, "a man," observes the friar, "of the worst possible disposition to Englishmen." John de Moray was a valuable prize; he had distinguished himself at Bannockburn, and received as his share a number of the prisoners taken there, whom he held to ransom. For the capture of these two warriors, Sir Andrew received a guerdon of 1000 marks from his King, but it will be seen presently that this was not the last move in the game.

The only satisfaction gained by the Scots in this campaign was such as they might derive from having thoroughly burnt and wasted Allerdale, Coupland, and Westmorland, and plundered the churches of Egremont and St. Bees.

On January 10, 1316, the King of Scots and Douglas, made a night attack on Berwick.^[9] There was at that time no wall between the Brighouse and the castle, and the Scots, attacking simultaneously by land and sea, came very near capturing the town. But the moon was bright that night; the assailants were detected and repulsed, with the loss of Sir John de Landells, Douglas himself escaping with difficulty in a small boat.

Nevertheless, the position of Berwick was becoming desperate. The successful defence of Carlisle had been owing as much to the foresight and activity of the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Durham in providing supplies, as to the gallantry of its commander and garrison. Without stores the bravest soldiers must succumb, and the indifference shown by Edward to reiterated complaints of the shocking scarcity in Berwick, can only be accounted for by the increasing confusion of his own affairs. For Berwick was not only a fortress of the first importance, but it was one into which supplies could easily be thrown from the sea. Perhaps the blame should rest chiefly with Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, who continued guardian of the northern English counties till August, 1315, and was responsible for the defences of the Border. His performance throughout the Scottish war, from the moment that he allowed Bruce to slip through his fingers in Glentrool, and suffered defeat at London Hill, had dimmed the lustre of this celebrated knight's earlier renown. He had been, at all events, almost uniformly unsuccessful.^[10]

In February and March, 1316, Sir Maurice de Berkeley, Governor of Berwick, wrote to King Edward to say that his soldiers were actually dying of starvation on the walls. Whenever a horse died, the men-at-arms boiled and ate it, not allowing the foot-soldiers a mouthful till they themselves had eaten all they wanted. He assured the King that the town must be lost unless relief speedily came.^[11] On February 14th the garrison mutinied, and a party of Gascons, setting the Governor's orders at defiance, for they vowed it was better to die fighting than to starve, rode on a foray in Tweeddale.

Sir Adam de Gordon, who had joined the Scottish service after Bannockburn, detected them on their return march, driving a lot of cattle before them. He reported the circumstance to Douglas, who took the field at once with Sir William de Soulis, Sir Henry de Balliol, and a small troop of horse, and rode to intercept the raiders at Scaithmoor, in the parish of Coldstream. The Gascons seeing the Scots approach, sent forward the cattle in charge of some countrymen, and at once formed the "schiltrome."^[12] But the Scots charged them with such fury that their formation gave way, and they were scattered with the loss of 20 men-at-arms and 60 foot. Contemporary letters, preserved in the Tower collection, confirm in a remarkable way Barbour's accuracy in recording this affair. The only mistake he makes is in calling Raimond Caillu, a Gascon who was killed, Ewmond de Caliou, and in styling him governor of Berwick instead of King's sergeant-at-arms. He says that this was the hardest bit of fighting Douglas ever had to do, and perhaps he was right, for the starving Gascons would stand stoutly and strike shrewdly for their half-won dinners.

Midsummer, 1316, saw the Scots once more over the Border. It was a season of great famine and scarcity, and no wonder, so long had the energies of both countries been diverted from peaceful occupation. The Scots, under a leader whose name has not been preserved, penetrated as far as Richmond in Yorkshire, while King Edward held his court at York. The town of Richmond bought off the invaders, who marched thence 60 miles to the west, destroying and burning everything in their way, till they came to Furness, hitherto unvisited by any raiders, where they made great spoil. They were especially delighted at the abundance of iron there, a commodity of which Scotland produced very little at that time.

Edward de Brus, Earl of Carrick, had by this time been campaigning in Ireland for more than a year. The horrors of that warfare lie beyond the limits of this narrative, but those who have a mind to realise the sufferings of the unhappy inhabitants, alternately inflicted by the English under the Earl of Ulster, brother of the Queen of Scotland, and by the Scots under the Earl of Carrick, brother of the King of Scotland, may gratify their curiosity by consulting the Annals of Clonmacnoise. The sequence of the chief events was as follows: Carrick, who received the support of the native chiefs of Ulster, having wasted the lands of all English settlers in the north, stormed and burnt Dundalk, on June 29, 1315. The Earl of Ulster, allied with the native King of Connaught, marched against the invaders, destroying the lands of all who supported the Scots. The two armies met at Conyers, on September 10th: the English were defeated, and de Brus laid siege to Carrickfergus. On December 6th the siege was raised, and the Scots marched south through Meath into Kildare, defeating a superior force at Kenlis under Roger, Lord Mortimer.^[13] On January 20, 1316, de Brus encountered Edmund Butler, the justiciar of Ireland, at Arscoll in Kildare, and again put the English to flight, though on this occasion also the Scots were far inferior in numbers. Two Scottish knights of distinction, Fergus of Ardrossan and Walter de Moray, fell in this action.

Twice during this campaign, in September, 1315, and March, 1316, the Earl of Moray had occasion to return to Scotland for reinforcements, and twice he returned to the bloody work of conquest. It is astonishing how so poor and small a country as Scotland could meet such a prolonged strain on its fighting power as had been involved already in the War of Independence, and yet find a surplus to sacrifice beyond its shores.

After his victory at Arscoll, the Earl of Carrick returned to Ulster. The whole of Ireland, during these years of misery, was afflicted by a direful famine, always the unfailing complement of mediæval warfare. So great was the scarcity that the Irish annalists declare that "men were wont to devour one another."^[14] For that unhappy land was the theatre of war, not only between English and Scots, and the Irish allies on each side, but independently, between the MacDermotts and the O'Conors, the royal tribe of Connaught; so that the best that can be said for Edward de Brus's enterprise is that he did not inflict any greater suffering on the Irish people than they were in the habit of inflicting on each other. The war was conducted on the same barbarous lines by all the combatants, and the description given in the Annals of Clonmacnoise of the Earl of Ulster's operations, apply to each of them in proportion to his strength. The English are described in that chronicle as—

"holding on their course of spoyleing and destroying all places where they came, not spearing Church or Chapel, insomuch that they did not leave neither field of Corne undestroyed, nor towne unransacked, nor unfrequented place (were it never so desert) unsearched and unburnt, and consumed to meere ashes the very churches that lay in their way into the bear stones."^[15]

The proceedings of the MacDermott party are painted in even blacker colours—

"They pursued Felym (O'Conor) and Mullrony to Letterlong, and to the borders of the mount of Sliew-Gawe, and also to the valley called Gleanfahrowe, where infinite numbers of Cowes, Gerans,^[16] and sheep were killed by them. They strip'd Gentlemen,^[17] that could make no resistance, of their cloaths to their naked skinns; destroyed and killed without remorse children and little ones of that Journey. There was not seen so much hurt done in those parts before in any man's memory, without proffit to the doers of the harm."^[18]

The Earl of Carrick hastened back to the siege of Carrickfergus, and arranged a truce with the garrison till April 13th. But Lord Mandeville, coming to its relief, refused to be bound by this treaty, and a bloody encounter took place in the town, wherein Lord Mandeville was slain on the English side, and Niel Fleming on the Scottish. The garrison agreed to surrender unless relieved before May 31st.

On May 2, 1316, Edward de Brus was crowned King of Ireland.

The day appointed for the capitulation of Carrickfergus having arrived, a party of Scots was sent to take possession. These, however, were treacherously seized and imprisoned, the English commander vowing he meant to defend his castle to the last. In the end, some time during the summer, he was compelled to surrender, after the garrison had suffered indescribable hardships through famine.

The chief object of the Earl of Moray's second voyage to Scotland was to convey an earnest entreaty from the new King of Ireland for the personal assistance of the King of Scots, with Edward de Brus's assurance that they would prove irresistible if united in the field. King Robert, therefore, leaving his realm under the guardianship of Douglas and Walter the Steward, sailed from Loch Ryan early in the autumn of 1316, and joined Edward at Carrickfergus. It was probably before this date that the national party in Scotland received a very important accession in the person of Patrick, Earl of March, the same who had given shelter to King Edward in his flight from Bannockburn.^[19] Of course this greatly lightened the King's anxiety about the security of the East Marches, though Berwick was still held by the English.

King Robert's first encounter on Irish soil was unfortunate. He met the enemy on October 25th,^[20] under Lord Bisset of Antrim and an Irish chief called Cogan or Logan, who defeated him, and took Alan the Steward prisoner. During the winter the King of Scots remained in Ulster: then he and his brother pushed southward through Louth, arriving at Slane on February 16, 1317. Everything connected with this extraordinary expedition is vague and uncertain, except its main outlines, for the Irish annalists are very contradictory, and the minute details given by Barbour are not to be received without reserve. But, under that reserve, two incidents described by the poet will bear repetition.

The English army was encamped on the borders of Leinster, to resist the entrance of the two kings into that province. The King of Scots, who seems to have assumed the chief command, succeeded in outmanœuvring the enemy, and continued to advance upon Dublin. But while the Scots were passing through a wood, their rear division, under the immediate command of King Robert, were attacked by a party of English, who galled them with a destructive discharge of arrows. Edward, in command of the vanguard, continued to advance, unaware of the presence of the enemy. The King of Scots, suspecting that the archers were the advance party of the English army, would not allow any attempt to be made to disperse them, but continued to move forward in "schiltrome." Sir Colin Campbell, irritated by the daring of a couple of sharpshooters who pressed nearer than their comrades, turned his horse, galloped after them, and slew one with his spear. But the other bowman let fly a shaft which killed Sir Colin's horse. King Robert then rode up, and dealt Sir Colin such a blow with his truncheon that it felled the knight to the ground.

Disobedience—"the breking of bidding"—might not be overlooked at such a time, for it might have turned to their undoing.^[21] The scene perhaps has been faithfully drawn, and is not likely to have been the bard's invention; but when Barbour proceeds to point the moral, by asserting that when the Scots had cleared the wood, they found 40,000 English drawn up in battle array under Richard de Clare, whom forthwith they attacked and vanquished, he is making an almost incredible statement, of which there is no corroboration elsewhere. Moreover, one is asked to believe that this was accomplished by the single division under the King of Scots. It seems impossible that Edward de Brus, as Barbour affirms, can have led his vanguard so carelessly through an enemy's country, as to have passed 40,000 men without becoming aware of their presence, besides maintaining no communication with the rear division. This is an instance of the disadvantage of having to rely on the poetical labours of an ecclesiastic for an account of military operations.

As the Scottish host approached Dublin, the seat of English rule in Ireland, the spirit of its citizens rose to the occasion. They burned their suburbs and pulled down a church to strengthen their defences; they even went so far as to imprison the Earl of Ulster—the "Red Earl"—because they suspected him, most unjustly, of complicity with his brother-in-law, the King of Scots. Dublin proved too strong to be attacked, though Castle Knock,^[22] belonging to the Tyrrels, fell into the hands of the Scots.

The invaders remained four days at Leixlip on the Liffey, whence they marched to Naas, and so to Cullen, on the borders of Tipperary. Ultimately they penetrated as far as Limerick, wasting and burning all as they went. It is in the neighbourhood of this town that Barbour lays the scene of the other incident above referred to. The troops had fallen in, ready to start on their homeward march, and were awaiting the King's command to move, when the wail of a woman in pain was heard. King Robert asked what it meant, and was informed that it was an Irish washerwoman among the campfollowers, who had been seized with the pains of childbirth, and whom it would be necessary to leave behind. Touched with pity, the King caused the whole army to remain still, while a tent was unpacked and pitched for the poor woman's reception; "for," said he,

"Certis I trow thar is na man
That he will rew ne^[23] a woman than.
This was ane full gret curtasy,
That sic ane king and sa michty
Gert his men duell^[24] on this maner
Bot for ane full pouer lavender."^[25]

Well may one pause at this point to ask if this is the same Robert, King of Scots, who showed himself so wary and so much averse to unnecessary bloodshed in the winning of his own realm. For what goal can he be straining in roaming so far from his proper sphere? what strategy is he pursuing, in allowing an enemy so powerful to occupy all the ground between him and his base of operations? Above all—if, as cannot be doubted, he loved his own people who had suffered so sorely in his cause—if he had any concern for the future of the kingdom it had cost so much to win—how could he suffer himself to be severed for so long from all communication with Scotland, and from all intelligence of how things were faring at home? To answer these questions, one is reduced to almost sheer conjecture. Perhaps it was the bare necessity of subsistence that had led the invading army further and further in search of supplies with the illusory prospect of winning the support of native tribes in the south and west. Some picture is traced in the sorrowful annals of these times of the straits to which the Scots were reduced in that famine-stricken land. Many of them were starved to death, and the survivors were reduced to living on the flesh of their horses.^[26] The Irish annalists mention with horror that the natives who marched with the Scots did not scruple to eat meat in Lent, and were punished next year for that deadly offence by being reduced, first to eat human flesh, and then to die of starvation.

If the Kings of Scotland and Ireland had been led so far afield in the expectation of a general rising in their favour under the native chiefs, the illusion was very completely dispelled. To the Irish Celts the de Brus seemed as much Norman as de Burgh or de Bermingham—more so in fact, for the de Burghs at least had acquired by marriage a standing among the royal O'Conors of Connaught. All that Robert and Edward de Brus had any reason to expect, and all that they received from the moment they left Ulster, was temporary and precarious alliance with those septs who saw in them instruments whereby to carry on their private feuds.

In the month of March the English were in force at Kilkenny under Edmund Butler and Richard de Clare. Lord Hailes and others have commented on their inactivity, and blamed them for want of vigilance in allowing the Scots to escape from their wretched plight with impunity. But in truth the difficulties that pressed so hardly on the invaders lay with even greater weight on the defenders. The English had a far larger army to feed than the Scots, though the figure of 30,000 given in the Irish annals is probably far beyond their actual strength; doubtless scarcity of supplies was the chief cause of their allowing the dilapidated remains of Bruce's army to retrace their steps almost without resistance. Another and subsidiary reason was that Roger Mortimer was on his way back to Ireland as Viceroy, and the opening of the summer campaign was postponed till his arrival. He landed on April 7, 1317, but by that time the Scots were far on their way to Ulster.

In May the King of Scots returned to his own dominions, to find that Douglas and Walter the Steward had faithfully discharged their duty as guardians.

1. Lanercost, 228.
2. Bain, iii., 74. The Queen had been removed in March from Barking Abbey to Rochester Castle, where she was allowed 20s. a week for her expenses.
3. Raine, 233, 237.
4. Lanercost, 230.
5. Raine, 249.
6. The Lennox, by William Fraser, i., 236.
7. Raine, 246.
8. Lanercost, 230.
9. Lanercost.
10. Born in 1280, Pembroke at this period was just at his prime as a soldier. Piers Gaveston, with whom he was no favourite, had nicknamed him Joseph the Jew, because of his sallow complexion.
11. Bain, iii., 89.
12. The Brus, cxviii., 42.
13. Lord Hailes, with some hesitation, assigns a later date to this battle, but a letter from Sir John de Hothum to Edward II., written from Dublin on February 15, 1316, sets the true date beyond dispute.—Bain, iii., Introduction, xxiv., and p. 89.
14. Annals of the Four Masters, vol. iii., p. 521.
15. Mageoghegan's translation.
16. Ponies.
17. Gentlewomen also, according to the Annals of Connaught.
18. Annals of Clonmacnoise.
19. Bain., iii, 103.
20. Barbour says it was in May, but this cannot be reconciled with the dates given by Irish annalists.
21. The Brus, cxx.
22. In what is now the Phœnix Park.
23. Who will not pity.
24. Made his men wait.
25. For a poor washerwoman.
26. Fordun, cxxxii.