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284 Sir Herbert Maxwell, Bart.
so insolent as to despise all the nobles of the land ; among whom
he called the Earl of Warwick (a man of equal wisdom and
integrity) '
the Black Dog of Arden.' When this was reported
'
to the earl, he is said to have replied with calmness : If he call
me a dog,
be sure that I will bite him so soon as I shall perceive
my opportunity.'
But let us have done with him till
[Piers] another time and
return to Robert de Brus to see what he has been about mean-
while. The said Robert, then, taking note that the king and all
the nobles of the realm were in such distant parts, and in such
discord about the said accursed individual [Piers], having collected
a large army invaded England by the Solway on Thursday before
the feast of the Assumption of the Glorious Virgin, 1 and burnt all
the land of the Lord of Gillesland and the town of Haltwhistle
and a
great part of Tynedale, and after
eight days returned into
Scotland, taking with him a very large booty in cattle. But he
had killed few men besides those who offered resistance.
About the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, 2 Robert
returned with an army into England, directing his march towards
Northumberland, and, passing by Harbottle and Holystone and
Redesdale, he burnt the district about Corbridge, destroying
everything
former occasion. And so he turned into the valleys of North and
South Tyne, laying waste those parts which he had previously
spared, and returned into Scotland after fifteen days ; nor could the
wardens whom the King of England had stationed on the marches
oppose so great a force of Scots as he brought with him. Howbeit,
like the Scots, they destroyed all the goods in the land, with
this exception, that they neither burnt houses nor killed men.
Meanwhile the Northumbrians, still dreading lest Robert should
return, sent envoys to him to negotiate a temporary truce, and
; also he caused more men to be killed than on the
they agreed with him that they would pay two thousand pounds
for an exceedingly short truce to wit, until the Purification of the
Glorious Virgin. 3 Also those of the county of Dunbar, next to
Berwick, in Scotland, who were still in the King of England's
peace, were very heavily taxed for a truce until the said date.
In all these aforesaid campaigns the Scots were so divided
themselves that sometimes the father was on the Scottish
among
side and the son on the English, and vice versa ;
might be with the Scots and another with the English ; yea, even
the same individual be first with one party and then with the
1 1 2th August
2 8th September.
also one brother
8 2nd Feb., 1311-12.