Considering the importance of Berwick, and the care and expense with which it had been fortified by the king, it was natural that any attempt against it should be viewed with much interest; and when it was known that the son-in-law of Bruce,—­a young warrior, whose high rank was rendered more conspicuous by the services he had already rendered to the country,—­had been selected as its governor, and that the whole army of England, headed by king Edward, and under the command of the flower of the nobility, had invested it by sea and land, the intense interest with which the siege was watched by both countries may be easily imagined.  It concluded, however, in the complete triumph of the steward, and the repulse of the English army; yet not before every device then known in the rude engineering of the times had been essayed by the besiegers, and effectually baffled by the ingenuity and persevering courage of the enemy.  After their earthen mounds had been completed, the English, on St. Mary’s eve, made a simultaneous assault both by land and by sea.  Whilst their force, led by the bravest of their captains, and carrying with them, besides their usual offensive arms, the ladders, crows, pick-axes, and other assistances for an escalade, rushed onwards to the walls with the sound of their trumpets, and the display of innumerable banners, a large vessel, prepared for the purpose, was towed towards the town from the mouth of the river.  She was filled with armed soldiers, a party of whom were placed in her boat drawn up mid-mast high; whilst to the bow of the boat was fixed a species of drawbridge, which it was intended to drop upon the wall, and thus afford a passage from the vessel into the town.  Yet these complicated preparations failed of success, although seconded by the greatest gallantry; and the English, after being baffled in every attempt to fix their ladders and maintain themselves upon the walls, were compelled to retire, leaving their vessel to be burnt by the Scots, who slew many of her crew, and made prisoner the engineer who superintended and directed the attack.

This unsuccessful attack was, after five days’ active preparation, followed by another still more desperate, in which the besiegers made use of a huge machine moving upon wheels, and including several platforms or stages, which held various parties of armed soldiers, who were defended by a strong roofing of boards and hides, beneath which they could work their battering-rams with impunity.  To co-operate with this unwieldy and bulky instrument, which, from its shape and covering, they called a “sow,” movable scaffolds had been constructed, of such a height as to overtop the walls, from which they proposed to storm the town; and, instead of a single vessel, as on the former occasion, a squadron of ships, with their top castles manned by picked bodies of archers, and their armed boats slung mast high, were ready to sail in with the tide, and anchor beneath the walls.