When Robert de Bruce, King of Scotland, we are told, heard how that the old king, Edward the Second, was taken and deposed down from his regality and his crown, and certain of his counsellors beheaded and put to destruction, then, although he was himself become very old and ancient, and sick (as it was said) of the great evil and malady, he bethought him that he would defy the young king, Edward the Third, because he was young, and that the barons of the realm were not all of one accord, as it was said. So about Easter, 1327, he sent his defiance to the young Edward and to all the realm, sending them word how that he would enter into the realm of England, and bren before him, as he had done before time. When the King of England and his council perceived that they were defied, they caused it to be known all over the realm; and commanded that all the nobles, and all other, should be ready apparelled, every man after his estate; and that they should be, by Ascension-day next after, at the town of York, standing northward. An embassy was sent to Sir John of Hainault, lord of Beamond, by which his assistance was obtained with a body of foreigners for the sum of fourteen thousand pounds. This was a brother of the Earl of Hainault, who had the preceding year accompanied Queen Isabella on her expedition to England, and had only recently returned to his own country. He and his men of war now landed at Dover, whence they rode straight to the town of York, where the king, and the queen his mother, and all his lords, with a great host, were tarrying their coming. They arrived at York within three days of Pentecost. The English were lodged two or three leagues off, all about in the country; the foreigners in the suburbs of the city, an abbey of monks being assigned to Sir John for himself and his household. Then the narrative proceeds:--"The gentle King of England, the better to feast these strange lords and all their company, held a great court on Trinity Sunday in the Friars, where he and the queen his mother were lodged, keeping their house each of them apart. All this feast the king had well five hundred knights, and fifteen were new made. And the queen had well in her court sixty ladies and damozelles, who were there ready to make feast and cheer to Sir John of Hainault and to his company. There might have been seen great nobles, plenty of all manner of strange victual. There were ladies and damoselles, freshly apparelled, ready to have danced if they might have leave. But incontinent after dinner there began a great fray between some of the grooms and pages of the strangers and of the archers of England, who were lodged among them in the same suburbs; and anon all the archers assembled them together with their bows, and drove the strangers home to their lodging; and the most part of the knights and masters of them were as yet in the king's court, but, as soon as they heard tidings of the fray, each of them drew to their own lodging, in