822-3 it was nocht with battaill Reskewit. So, too, in Vita Edw. Sec., where the agreement is that Mowbray “would either procure the King of England to come to the defence of the castle, or, if he should not be able to induce the King to do this, that he would summarily (indilate) surrender the castle.” St. John’s day is fixed as the limiting date. The writer makes Robert Bruce himself conduct the siege (p. 200). So does Gray, who says that the castle was to be surrendered, “unless the English army came within three leagues of the said castle within eight days after St. John’s day in the summer next to come” (dedenz viii jours apres le Saint Johan en este adonques procheine avenir, p. 141). But cf. Bk. XI. 8-9.
BOOK XI.
32 outrageous a day. “Day” has here the meaning of “a space of time,” as in Berners’ Froissart. “The truce is not expired, but hath day to endure unto the first day of Maye next” (I. ccxiii., N.E.D.): a sense of the Latin dies. For “outrageous,” see on Bk. III. 162.
44 Akatane. Aquitaine, the ancient southern duchy of France, the hereditary possession of the Kings of England.
46 The Lanercost chronicler affirms (1311) that in the war the Scots were so divided that sometimes a father was with the Scots and his son with the English, or brothers were on opposite sides, or even the same person at one time on the Scottish side, at another on that of England; but that it was a pretence, either because the English seemed to get the better or to save their English lands, “for their hearts, if not their bodies, were always with their own people” (p. 217). Thus, at this time, there were still to be found among supporters of the English King such names as Stewart, Graham, Kirkpatrick, Maxwell, St. Clair, etc. (Bain, iii., Introd., pp. xvi, xvii). As many of these were Border lairds—some, indeed, are of Annandale—even their Scottish lands were specially exposed to English attack. Late in 1313 (October or November) we have a Petition to the King (of England) from the People of Scotland, by their envoys, Sir Patrick de Dunbar, Earl of March, and Sir Adam de Gordon, complaining of the great losses they have suffered “by their enemies”—i.e., the Bruce party—also of the brigandage of the English garrison in Berwick and Roxburgh (Bain, iii., No. 337). One of the results of Bannockburn was to bring many of these waverers over to the national side. Adam de Gordon, indeed, was already under suspicion, and apparently was a waverer. He had, in fact, a grant of the lands of Strathbogie in 1309, according to Robertson (Index, p. 2; 40). Cf. also 103-4.* For Gordon, see also Bk. IX. 720, etc.; XV. 333; and on March, Bk. XIX. 776, note.
79-82 Cf., as bearing out Barbour’s assertion, the comment by the author of the Vita Edwardi Secundi on the army when assembled at Berwick: “There were in that assemblage amply sufficient men (satis sufficientes) to traverse all Scotland, and, in the judgment of some, if the whole of Scotland had been brought together, it could not make a stand against the army of the King (cf. line 150). Indeed, it was confessed by the whole host that, in our time, such an army had not gone out of England” (Chronicles of Ed. I. and Ed. II., ii., pp. 201-2).
91 Erll of Hennaut. Count William of Hainault, Flanders. Cf. on Bk. XIX. 262.
93. Almanyhe: Germany. Friar Baston says four German knights came “gratis” (Eng. Hist. Rev., vol. xix., p. 507).
100 of Irlande ane gret menyhe. In Foedera we have the list of twenty-five Irish chiefs summoned to the campaign against the Scots—O’Donald, O’Neil, MacMahon, O’Bryn, O’Dymsy, etc. The Irish contingent was commanded by Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, Bruce’s father-in-law (III., pp. 476-478).