The suspicions which King Edward had conceived, and which had kept him in England, while he sent his brother into Guienne, were soon justified. The Scotch invaded the county of Cumberland with a large army, but were easily repulsed. Edward soon advanced towards the frontier, marching first of all against Berwick. He attacked the town by land and sea, and all resistance was useless. The king, mounted upon his horse Bayard, was the first to spring across the dyke which protected the town. A fearful massacre took place; neither age nor sex excited any pity. It was on the 30th of March, 1296. On the 5th of April, the abbot of Arbroath presented himself at the English camp; he brought Baliol's renunciation of all homage towards the King of England. Edward had a short time before addressed a similar communication to Philip, king of France; but this coincidence did not appease his anger. "Ah! then the scoundrel has dared to defy me!" he cried; "if he will not come to us, we will go to him." And he marched forward, taking possession on his way of the castles which resisted him. Dunbar, Roxburgh, Dunbarton, Jedburgh, Edinburgh, Stirling, had already fallen into Edward's hands, when a fresh message from Baliol was brought to him. He humbly begged for peace. The king did not do his revolted vassal the honor of treating him as a sovereign and of negotiating personally with him; he ordered Baliol to proceed to the castle of Brechin, to which place he despatched the Bishop of Durham. {251} A few days later, on the 7th of June, 1296, Baliol, deprived of all his regal insignia, with a white rod in his hand, presented himself at the cemetery of Strathkathro, in the county of Angus, acknowledging that he had violated all his obligations towards his liege lord, who had very justly invaded his fief. After this act of self-abasement and renunciation, tired, he said, of the malice and ingratitude of men, he was sent to the Tower in honorable captivity, and subsequently ended his life in his domains of Normandy, forgotten or despised by all.