Though victorious in Ireland, the English under Lancaster's rule were unable to keep their own borders safe. Bruce took Berwick, ravaged Durham, and cut the whole shire-levy of Yorkshire to pieces at Mytton bridge. In despair, Lancaster asked for a truce, and obtained it (1320). But the temporary cessation of the Scottish war only gave the opportunity for the English to come to blows in civil strife. Thomas of Lancaster had by this time made so many enemies, that the king was able to gather together a party against him: though slow and idle, Edward was unforgiving, and well remembered that he had Gaveston's blood to avenge. He found his chief supporters in the two Despensers, West-country barons, the son and grandson of that Despenser who had been Simon de Montfort's Justiciar, and had fallen at Evesham. Taking advantage of the times, Edward assembled an army under the plea that he must chastise a baron named Baddlesmere, who had rudely excluded Queen Isabella from Leeds Castle, in Kent, when she wished to enter. Having taken Leeds and hung its garrison, the king with a most unexpected show of energy suddenly turned on Lancaster. Earl Thomas called out his friends, and the Earl of Hereford, Lord Mortimer, and many of the barons of the Welsh Marches rose in his favour. He was forced, however, to fly north when the king pursued him, and had made his way as far as Boroughbridge, in Yorkshire, when he found himself intercepted by the shire-levies of the north, headed by Harclay, the Governor of Carlisle. A battle followed, in which Hereford was slain and Lancaster taken prisoner. [Sidenote: =Vengeance of Edward. 1322.=] The king was now able to wreak his long-delayed vengeance for Gaveston's murder. He sent Earl Thomas to the block, and hung or beheaded eight barons and thirty knights of his party. Lord Mortimer and the rest were stripped of their lands and banished. These wholesale executions and confiscations not only provoked the baronage, but caused the nation to look on Earl Thomas as a martyr, though he was in fact nothing better than a selfish and turbulent adventurer. [Sidenote: =Rule of the Despensers, 1322-26.=] Edward, having taken his revenge, subsided into his former listlessness and sloth, handing over the whole conduct of affairs to his new ministers, the two Despensers. Father and son alike were unwise, greedy, and arrogant; they used the king's name for their own ends, and soon made themselves as well hated as Gaveston had been ten years before. Yet for four years they maintained themselves in power, even after they had advised the king to take the necessary but unpopular step of acknowledging Bruce as King of Scotland, and concluding a truce for thirteen years with him. [Sidenote: =Queen Isabella and Mortimer.--Fall of the Despensers.=]