Page:Robert the Bruce and the struggle for Scottish independence - 1909.djvu/292

236 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. 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.