The armies which carried out the invasions of England during this heyday of Scotland’s renown were well adapted for their purpose. They included a force of mail-clad men-at-arms strong enough to overcome any local resistance which might be offered, and a much larger contingent of light-armed men mounted on rough, hardy, country ponies. Each man carried a bag of oatmeal on his horse, and an iron plate whereon to bake it. Otherwise men and beasts lived on the country through which they passed. The hardy, frugal Scots were quite at home in this rough-and-ready campaigning, and for several years they rode at will over northern England. There is generally a lack of interest about the invasions themselves, which all bore almost the same image and superscription. Once the Border was crossed, the Scots rode far and wide over the northern counties, ravaging, plundering, or ransoming villages, towns, and castles, much as the Vikings had done four centuries before. There was little fighting as a rule. England was at war with herself. And when once or twice English armies did assemble, the Scots simply avoided an action until they were starved into dispersion. In 1314 Edward Bruce and the ‘Good Lord’ James Douglas wasted the English Border. In 1315 Bruce himself attacked Carlisle, but it repulsed him. For the next two years the main energy of Scotland was devoted to Edward Bruce’s attempted conquest of Ireland, but Douglas was busy on the Border; and such was the dread of him in the North that his name was used to frighten disobedient children, and the humiliation of the times is depicted in the lullaby: ‘Hush thee, baby, do not fret thee; The Black Douglas shall not get thee!’ In 1318 Berwick was taken, and a large English army was driven in ruinous retreat from an attempted counter-invasion of Scotland in the following year. In 1320 the best of Robert’s captains, the famous Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, assisted by Douglas, retaliated. They pressed on across Northumberland and Durham into Yorkshire, and at Myton-on-Swale encountered the local levies under the Archbishop of York. Perhaps the Primate hoped to repeat the famous day of the ‘Standards.’ But the results were far otherwise. The Yorkshiremen were totally routed; 3,000 men were slain and so many of the ecclesiastics, who were present to encourage the peasants, that the fray was called ‘Myton Chapter’ by the victors.