The wretched inefficiency of Edward had by this time rendered the position of his adherents in Scotland all but insupportable. In November they despatched the Earl of March and Sir Adam de Gordon to lay their grievances before him. Their petition recounts their heavy losses at the hands of the enemy during the past three years; their costly purchase of truce; and especially their intolerable sufferings from the lawless outrages committed upon them by the garrisons of Berwick and Roxburgh, who are alleged to have plundered, killed, and held them to ransom at will, as if they had been enemies. Here is a substantial repetition of the memorandum of 1307-10. Sir Adam de Gordon could tell how he had himself been arrested by the constable of Roxburgh Castle and required to find security for his good behaviour. The King, replying on November 28, could only give them the cold comfort of an assurance of his intention to march to their relief at next midsummer. It is quite natural that such slackness of the central authority should have given head to such marauding scoundrels on the Border as Sir Gilbert de Middleton and Thomas de Pencaitland. That notorious knight of the road, Sir Gilbert, will cross our path again. It could not have been earlier than autumn 1313 that Bruce recovered the Peel of Linlithgow, which was held by Sir Archibald de Livingstone, under the orders of Sir Peter Lubaud, warden and sheriff of Edinburgh. Barbour makes it harvest time. The peel garrison had cut their hay, and engaged William Bunnock, a neighbouring farmer, who hated them patriotically, to 'lead' it for them. Bunnock conceived the notion of elevating the familiar harvesting process to an operation of war, and arranged the strategic details with his friends. He planted an ambush in the early morning, and let the hay lie till the peel men had gone out to cut their crop. Loading the hay, with eight men hid in it, he set a hardy yeoman, with a hatchet under his belt, to drive the waggon, himself walking idly beside. When the waggon was half-way through the gate, Bunnock shouted the signal, 'Thief! Call all! Call all!' The driver instantly severed the traces, stopping the waggon; Bunnock slew the porter; the eight men leapt down from the midst of the hay, and the ambush swarmed up. They slew the men they found in garrison, and pursued those that were in the fields towards Edinburgh and Stirling, killing some in their flight. For this exploit Bruce rewarded Bunnock worthily. The peel he at once demolished. The story of Bunnock rests on the sole authority of Barbour.