"Three months have hardly elapsed since the fatal battle of Dunbar,
where, indignant at the accumulated outrages committed on their passive
monarch, our irritated nobles at last rose, but too late, to assert
their rights. Alas! one defeat drove them to despair. Baliol was
taken, and themselves obliged to again swear fealty to their enemy.
Then came the seizure of the treasures of our monasteries, the burning
of the national records, the sequestration of our property, the
banishment of our chiefs, the violation of our women, and the slavery
or murder of the poor people yoked to the land. 'The storm of
desolation, thus raging over our country; how,' cried the young warrior
to me, 'can any of her sons shrink from the glory of again attempting
her restoration?' He then informed me that Earl de Warenne (whom
Edward had left lord warden of Scotland), was taken ill, and retired to
London, leaving Aymer de Valence to be his deputy. To this new tyrant,
De Warenne has lately sent a host of mercenaries, to hold the south of
Scotland in subjection; and to reinforce Cressingham and Ormsby, two
noted plunderers, who command northward, from Stirling to the shores of
Sutherland.
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