In this dilemma the Steward and the Earl of Lennox sought permission of Warren to open a communication with the leader of the Scots, under pretext of bringing him over to the interests of Edward. In consequence of this arrangement, these chiefs ventured to visit the Scottish army, which, by this time, had reached the neighbourhood of Stirling, and taken up a strong position near the bridge, where it appeared determined to wait the approach of the English. The retiring population had left little behind them that could be useful to the enemy; all their cattle and provisions being now secured in the rear of the protecting columns of their countrymen. This rendered the position of Wallace still more valuable, prepared, as he was, in the event of a defeat, to fall back to certain supplies, while his opponents would be still farther removed from their resources. But if feuds had rendered the Scots inert and submissive to the enemy at Irvine, the councils of the English were now, in their turn, distracted from the same cause. The mind of Warren appeared more occupied in brooding over his late disgrace, than in attending to the details of the campaign; while Cressingham,[114] a haughty, ambitious, and imperious churchman, assumed additional importance on learning that his colleague had incurred the royal displeasure. Conflicting measures, supported by querulous and acrimonious language, engendered a dangerous spirit of animosity between them. Cressingham, on the plea of economy, ordered the disbanding of a body of eight thousand foot and three hundred cavalry, commanded by Lord Henry Percy, a force which Warren wished to retain as a reserve; and during the altercations which this occasioned, the communications of the Steward and the Earl of Lennox with the Scottish camp were injudiciously allowed to continue. On the arrival, however, of the English in front of the position occupied by the Scots, those noblemen returned. With well feigned displeasure they announced their inability to make any pacific impression on Wallace and his followers; and then took their leave, for the alleged purpose of bringing up a number of their mounted vassals to join the English, who were to defile along the bridge in the morning. Five thousand foot and a body of Welsh archers had passed the bridge before Warren had left his bed.[115] Whether this sluggishness on the part of the English general arose from indisposition or chagrin, is not explicitly stated. The troops, however, on finding that they were not supported by the rest of the army, returned to their station. Warren, who arose about an hour after,--feeling, perhaps, reluctant to attack the Scots in their present position, and not deeming it prudent to calculate on the recurrence of the same mistake which had given him so easy a victory at Dunbar,--despatched two friars to make a last attempt at pacification.