Source.—The Book of Pluscarden in Historians of Scotland, x. 182.
In the year 1311, after having routed and vanquished all his foes everywhere he went, and, for the most part, taken and levelled to the ground the castles and forts which offered him resistance, King Robert Bruce twice invaded and ravaged England, making great havoc with fire and sword, and bringing untold plunder back to Scotland. And thus, by the power of God, that faithless English nation, which had again and again unjustly tortured many a man, was now by God's righteous judgment made to undergo scourgings; and whereas it had once been victorious over other kingdoms, it now sank vanquished and groaning and became a gazing stock to others. The following year, in 1312, the then very strong walled town of Perth was taken, and all in it were put to the sword, some drawn, some beheaded, some slain in the fight, and the rest hanged on the gallows. But the King was moved to compassion for the guiltless rabble, and forgave them and received their submission. And thus:
"Did England drink the gall itself had brewed."
And the same year Edward, called of Windsor, the eldest son of the King of England, was born at Windsor, of the daughter of Philip, King of France; and he was the source of many wars. Through this Edward, that most cruel and most heinous war with France broke out.
PETER GAVESTON AND THE FRIARS PREACHERS (1312).
Source.—Adam Murimuth, Continuatio Chronicarum (Rolls Series), 17-18.
This year, about the feast of St. John the Baptist [June 24], the King desired Peter Gaveston for his safety's sake to be brought to him by Adomar de Valence, Earl of Pembroke. When they were at Danyntone (Deddington), near Banbury, the said Earl left him in the night and went on to another place, for no apparent reason. And on the morrow at dawn came Guy, Earl of Warwick, with a small, noisy following, and surprised the said Peter, and carried him off with him to his Castle of Warwick. There, having held counsel with the chief men of the kingdom, especially with Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, he finally dismissed him from prison to go where he would. And when he had gone out of the town of Warwick and had come to a place called, as though prophetically, Gaveressich (Gaversike), he found there many men raising hue and cry after him with voices and horns, as they would after one of the enemies of the King and kingdom lawfully outlawed or exiled; and finally they beheaded him, as though he were one of these, on the 19th day of June. And one of the Friars Preachers carried away Gaveston's head in his hood (and brought it to the King). Afterwards the friars of the same order found the body[1] and kept it at Oxford with solemn vigils for a year and more. But finally it was buried at Langley, where the King founded a religious house of Friars Preachers for the salvation of his own soul; and there establishing a large number of student friars, he provided for their sufficient sustenance from his treasury in London.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] According to the Annales Londonienses in Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I. and Edward II. (Rolls Series), i. 207, the body was carried to Warwick by four shoemakers, but the Earl of Warwick sent it back to the place where the beheading had taken place, outside his fief, and "the Jacobin Friars carried the body to Oxford, and guarded it with much honour; wherefore they were held in great odium by the aforesaid earl."