After the battle lost (by the Scots) at Falkirk, the King of England did not for the nonce personally come north of the Firth of Forth; but he sent a very large force, which ravaged the whole land of Fife and all the adjacent lands of the town of Perth, and killed great numbers of the inhabitants of those lands; and when this force came back, the said King and his men went home again with immense booty. This, no doubt, was God's doing; for if then, or after the engagement at Dunbar and the capture of King John, he had tarried in the country, he would, as is believed, either have subdued to his sway the whole land of Scotland and its inhabitants, or have laid it waste, all but the water and the stones. As, however, he was very busy elsewhere, he could not attend to everything at one and the same time. So he and his men went back, after appointing administrators, officers, and wardens of the castles in Scotland, in the parts, namely, beyond the Forth, which part of the country was then fully under his dominion, with the exception of a few outlaws of the nation of the true Scots, who lived in the woods and were lurking in caves in rocks and glens, and who, on account of the slaughter and losses they had inflicted on both English and Anglicised Scots, durst not appear openly in the sight of the people. But at this time John Comyn, the Chief Warden of Scotland, and his son, and Simon Fraser, called Fresail, warlike men, stalwart, and endowed with every virtue, together with their partisans and followers, day and night lay in wait for the aforesaid officers, bailiffs, and wardens of castles of the King of England, and greatly harassed the aforesaid English, as also the Anglicised Scots, as above stated; and for four years or more they kept harrying one another with mutual slaughter and divers scourges and torments....