The king (of Scotland) passing by Durham with his army wasted the crops as far as the river Tees, and after his custom broke into, plundered and burned the towns and churches which he had earlier left untouched; and crossing the Tees also, he began to work the same havoc. But the pity of God, stirred by the tears of innumerable widows, orphans and wretched men, suffered him no longer to practise impiety so great without punishment. The preparations of him and his men for such wickedness, all his stores, and what he intended to do and whither to go, did not escape the men of Yorkshire. So the barons of that county, to wit, archbishop Thurstan, who, as will appear later, was a prime mover in this business, and William de Aumâle, Walter de Ghent, Robert de Bruce, Roger de Mowbray, Walter Spec, Ilbert de Lacy, William de Percy, Richard de Courcy, William Fossard, Robert de Stutevill, and the other mighty and learned men, assembled at York and discussed eagerly among themselves what plan to adopt in this crisis. And since many hesitated, suspecting the treason of others and mutually distrustful, and since they had no commander and leader in war, for king Stephen their lord was overwhelmed at that season with equal difficulties in the south of England and could not come to them at present, and since they feared to oppose their slight forces to numbers so superior, it seemed as if they would altogether abandon the attempt to defend themselves and their country; but Thurstan, their archbishop, a man of great persistence and worth, encouraged them with his speech and counsel. For he was the pastor of their souls, and unlike the hireling, regarded not his own safety by flight from the ravaging wolf, but rather was torn by the keenest compassionate grief at the scattering and undoing of his flock and the destruction of his country, and left no step untried, no stone unturned, to find a remedy for such monstrous evils. Wherefore, both by the divine authority entrusted to him and by the royal power then committed to him in this matter, and by their fealty and honour, he faithfully admonished them not to allow themselves through cowardice to be overthrown in a single day by the worst sort of barbarism.... He also promised them that he would cause the priests of his diocese to march together with them to battle, with their crosses and their parishioners, and purposed himself, God willing, to be present at the fight. At the same troubled season Bernard de Balliol, one of the chief men of that district, came to them from the king with a large body of knights, and both on the king’s and his own behalf inflamed their hearts to the same purpose. Urged therefore by the commands both of their king and of their archbishop, they were all with one accord confirmed in one same purpose, and each returned to his home. Soon after they all reassembled at York with their munitions and arms ready for war. So when they had done penance