His first acts on coming to the throne caused patriotic Englishmen to despair. His father, on his death-bed, had made him swear to conduct the Scottish expedition to its end. But he marched no further than Dumfries, and then turned back, on the vain pretext that he must conduct his parent's funeral in person. Leaving Bruce to gather fresh strength and to commence the tedious process of reducing the numerous English garrisons in Scotland, he betook himself to London, and was not seen on the border again for more than three years. He then dismissed all his father's old ministers, and replaced them by creatures of his own, for the most part persons of complete incompetence. But his most offensive act was to promote to the position of chief councillor of the crown, and disperser of the royal favours, a clever but vain and ostentatious Gascon knight, one Piers Gaveston, who had been the companion of his boyhood, and had been banished by Edward I. for encouraging him in his follies and frivolity. Piers was given the royal title of earl of Cornwall, and married to the king's niece; when Edward went over to France to do homage for Gascony, he even made his friend regent during his absence, in preference to any of his kinsmen. It was his regular habit to refer those who came to him on matters of state to "his good brother Piers," and to refuse to discuss them in person. Baronial opposition. It was of course impossible that the nation or the baronage should accept such a preposterous régime, and Edward was soon involved in a lively struggle with his subjects. Of the leaders of opposition in his father's reign both Hereford and Norfolk were now dead. But Archbishop Winchelsea had returned from exile in a belligerent mood, and the place of Norfolk and Hereford was taken by an ambitious prince of the royal house, Thomas, earl of Lancaster, the son of the younger brother of Edward I. Thomas was selfish and incompetent, but violent and self-assertive, and for some years was able to pose successfully as a patriot simply because he set himself to oppose every act of the unpopular king. He had several powerful baronial allies--the earls of Warwick, Pembroke and Warenne, with Humphrey Bohun of Hereford, who had succeeded to his father's politics, though he had married the king's own sister. Progress of Bruce in Scotland. The "Lords Ordainers."