By these means Edward succeeded at last in collecting a considerable army, and sailed for Flanders at the end of August. But he was hardly gone when dreadful news reached him from Scotland. An insurrection, to which no great importance was attached at first, had broken out in the summer. Its first leader was none of the great barons, but a Renfrewshire knight, Sir William Wallace; but ere long more important persons, including Robert Bruce, earl of Carrick (grandson of Robert Bruce of Annandale, one of the competitors for the crown of Scotland), and the bishop of Glasgow, were found to be in communication with the rebels. Earl Warenne, the king's lieutenant in Scotland, mustered his forces to put down the rising. On the 11th of September 1297 he attempted to force the passage of the Forth at Stirling Bridge, and was completely beaten by Wallace, who allowed half the English army to pass the river and then descended upon it and annihilated it, while Warenne looked on helplessly from the other bank. Almost the whole of Scotland rose in arms on hearing of this victory, but the barons showed less zeal than the commons, owing to their jealousy of Wallace. Warenne retired to Berwick and besought his master for aid. The "Confirmatio Cartarum." Edward, who was just commencing an autumn campaign in Flanders which was to lead to no results, sent home orders to summon a parliament, which should raise men and money for the Scottish war. It was called, and made a liberal grant for that purpose, but Archbishop Winchelsea and the earls of Norfolk and Hereford took advantage of their master's needs, and of his absence, to assert themselves. Taking up the position of defenders of the constitution, they induced the parliament to couple its grants of money with the condition that the king should not only confirm Magna Carta--as had been so often done before--but give a specific promise that no "maltolts," or other taxes not legally granted him, should be raised for the future. Edward received the petition at Ghent, and made the required oath. The document to which he gave his assent, the _Confirmatio Cartarum_ (less accurately called the statute _De Tallagio non concedendo_) marked a distinct advance beyond the theories of Magna Carta; for the latter had been drawn up before England possessed a parliament, and had placed the control of taxation in the hands of the old feudal council of tenants-in-chief, while the _Confirmatio_ gave it to the assembly, far more national and representative, which had now superseded the Great Council as the mouthpiece of the whole people of the realm.