With difficulty civil war was avoided, and in August Edward set sail for Flanders. No sooner was his back turned, than the barons and the Londoners made common cause in insisting upon a confirmation and amplification of their charters.(330) Prince Edward, the king’s son, who had been appointed regent in his father’s absence, granted all that was asked, and on the 10th October (1297), the _Confirmatio Cartarum_, as it was called, was issued in the king’s name.(331) Thenceforth, no customs duties were to be exacted without the consent of parliament. (M209) In view of the king’s return to England in March (1298), the warden of the city, Sir John Breton, the aldermen, and a deputation from the wards met together and resolved that every inhabitant of the city, citizen and stranger, should pay to the king’s collectors the sum of sixpence in the pound of all their goods up to £100.(332) In the following month Edward issued letters patent (11th April), restoring to the citizens their franchises and the right of again electing their mayor.(333) The choice of the citizens fell upon Henry le Waleys, who was duly admitted by the Barons of the Exchequer after presentation to the king.(334) (M210) In the summer Edward marched to Scotland for the purpose of putting down the rising under Wallace. An account of the battle of Falkirk, fought on the 22nd July, was conveyed to the mayor, aldermen, and "barons" of London, by letter from Walter Langton, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, or, as he was then styled, Bishop of Chester, who wrote as an eye-witness, if not indeed as a partaker in that day’s work.(335) It was the first battle of any consequence in which the English long-bow was brought into prominence. Edward’s victory was complete. The enemy’s loss was great, the number that perished, according to the bishop’s information, being two hundred men-at-arms and twenty thousand foot soldiers. Edward was unable, however, to follow up his success for want of supplies, and so retreated. In 1304, he again marched northward, notwithstanding the defection of many nobles. He had previously resorted once more to the questionable practice of talliaging the city of London,(336) levying from the citizens the fifteenth penny of their moveable goods and the tenth penny of their rents.(337) The campaign was eminently successful. Sterling surrendered after a siege of two months, and Wallace himself shortly afterwards fell into his hands, having refused the terms of an amnesty which Edward had generously offered. (M211)