Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/71

 on both sides of the Forth; and had the warlike power of the north of England placed at his disposal. It was early in the same year that the clergy of Scotland assembled in a provincial council, and issued a declaration to all the faithful, bearing, that the Scottish nation, seeing the kingdom betrayed and enslaved, had assumed Robert Bruce for their king, and that the clergy had willingly done homage to him in that character.

During these negotiations, hostilities were never entirely laid aside by either party. The advantages of the warfare, however, were invariably on the side of Bruce, who now seemed preparing to attack Perth, at that time an important fortress, and esteemed the capital of Scotland. Roused to activity by this danger, Edward made preparations for the immediate defence and succour of that place. He also appointed the Earl of Ulster to the command of a body of Irish troops who were to assemble at Dublin, and from thence invade Scotland; and the whole military array of England was ordered to meet the king at Berwick; but the English nobles, disgusted with the government of Edward, and detesting his favourite Gaveston, repaired unwillingly and slowly to the royal standard. Before his preparations could be brought to bear, the season for putting to sea had passed, and Edward was obliged to countermand the forces under the Earl of Ulster; still resolving, however, to invade Scotland in person, with the large army which he had collected upon the border. Towards the end of autumn the English commenced their march, and directing their course through the forest of Selkirk to Biggar, thence are said to have penetrated as far as Renfrew. Not finding the enemy, in any body, to oppose their progress, and unable from the season of the year, aggravated, as it was, by a severe famine which at that very time afflicted the land, to procure forage and provisions, the army making no abode in those parts, retreated by the way of Linlithgow and the Lothians to Berwick; where Edward, after this ill-concerted and fruitless expedition, remained inactive for eight months. Bruce, during this invasion, cautiously avoided coming to an open engagement with the greatly superior forces of the enemy; contenting himself with sending detached parties to hang upon their rear, who, as opportunity offered, might harass or cut off the marauding and foraging parties of the English. In one of these sudden assaults the Scots put to the sword a body of three hundred of the enemy before any sufficient force could be brought up for their rescue.

About this time the castle of Linlithgow, a place of great utility to the English, as being situated midway between Stirling and Edinburgh, was surprised by the stratagem of a poor peasant named William Binnock. This man, having been employed to lead hay into the fort, placed a party of armed friends in ambush as near as possible to the gate; and concealing under his seeming load of hay, eight armed men, advanced to the castle, himself walking carelessly by the side of the wain, while a servant led the cattle in front. When the carriage was fairly in the gateway, so that neither the gates of the castle could be closed nor the portcullis let down, the person in front who had charge of the oxen cut the soam or withy rope by which the animals were attached to the wain, which thus, instantly, became stationary. Binnock, making a concerted signal, his armed friends leaped from under the hay, and mastered the sentinels; and being immediately joined by the other party in ambush, the garrison, almost without resistance, were put to the sword, and the place taken. Binnock was well rewarded by the king for this daring and successful exploit; and the castle was ordered to be demolished.

Robert, finding that his authority was now well established at home, and that Edward was almost entirely engrossed by the dissensions which had sprung up among his own subjects, resolved, by an invasion of England, to retaliate in