without bread, and drink the river water without wine.  They have therefore no occasion for pots or pans, for they dress the flesh of the cattle in their skins after they have flayed them, and being sure to find plenty of them in the country which they invade they carry none with them.  Under the flaps of his saddle each man carries a broad piece of metal, behind him a little bag of oatmeal:  when they have eaten too much of the sodden flesh and their stomach appears weak and empty, they set this plate over the fire, knead the meal with water, and when the plate is hot put a little of the paste upon it in a thin cake like a biscuit, which they eat to warm their stomachs.  It is therefore no wonder that they perform a longer day’s march than other soldiers.”  Though twenty thousand horsemen and forty thousand foot marched under their boy-king to protect the border, the English troops were utterly helpless against such a foe as this.  At one time the whole army lost its way in the border wastes:  at another all traces of the enemy disappeared, and an offer of knighthood and a hundred marks was made to any who could tell where the Scots were encamped.  But when they were found their position behind the Wear proved unassailable, and after a bold sally on the English camp Douglas foiled an attempt at intercepting him by a clever retreat.  The English levies broke hopelessly up, and a fresh foray into Northumberland forced the English Court in 1328 to submit to peace.  By the treaty of Northampton which was solemnly confirmed by Parliament in September the independence of Scotland was recognized, and Robert Bruce owned as its king.  Edward formally abandoned his claim of feudal superiority over Scotland; while Bruce promised to make compensation for the damage done in the North, to marry his son David to Edward’s sister Joan, and to restore their forfeited estates to those nobles who had sided with the English king.

[Sidenote:  Fall of Mortimer]

But the pride of England had been too much roused by the struggle with the Scots to bear this defeat easily, and the first result of the treaty of Northampton was the overthrow of the government which concluded it.  This result was hastened by the pride of Roger Mortimer, who was now created Earl of March, and who had made himself supreme through his influence over Isabella and his exclusion of the rest of the nobles from all practical share in the administration of the realm.  The first efforts to shake Roger’s power were unsuccessful.  The Earl of Lancaster stood, like his brother, at the head of the baronage; the parliamentary settlement at Edward’s accession had placed him first in the royal Council; and it was to him that the task of defying Mortimer naturally fell.  At the close of 1328 therefore Earl Henry formed a league with the Archbishop of Canterbury and with the young king’s uncles, the Earls of Norfolk and Kent, to bring Mortimer to account for the peace with Scotland and the usurpation of the government