MATTHEW OP WESTMINSTER. Α.Ό . 1296. from the English, meantime, on the eve of Saint George's day. surrendered it to the Scots. . And when the king o f England heard this, the next day he sent forward two thousand cavalry in complete armour, with forty standards, and a strong body of infantry, to the aforesaid castle, to put an end to the successes of the Scots. And when the Scottish nobles, earls, and barons, saw this, they remained, but the rest, to the number of five thousand, returned back again. But on the twenty-seventh of April, the king of England himself left the aforesaid town with eight hundred cavalry, and hastened towards the castle of Dunbar. And the same day he invested it early in the morning ; and the aforesaid nobles, considering carefully how they might deliver themselves, entreated the lords the earls of Warren and Warwick, and Hugh le Despenser, and other chiefs of the king of England's army, to procure them permission to send the lord Robert de Ketingham before mentioned to the king of Scotland, to ask directions from him. In which they offered to put into the hands of our countrymen, as hostages, the lords the earl o f Menteith and John Comyn, son of the John Comyn who was slain, earl of Badenoch, provided they first obtained their request. And the lord Robert the same day, after dinner, returned with five hundred cavalry and forty thousand infantry. Of whom the lord Robert, and the lord Patrick de Graham, a gallant knight, and son of the lord William de Saint Clare, who bore the standard of the lord the king of Scotland, and others, to the number of at least ten thousand, fell in the battle, four-and-twenty horses having been taken, and the rest at once put to flight, with the exception of the lord John de Somerville, who was taken prisoner on that occasion. But the day after, when the king of England approached the abovementioned town of Dunbar, the aforesaid three earls, and at least thirty Scottish knights, with bitter lamentations, surrendered themselves and the castle before mentioned to the king and to his royal pleasure. After this, he secretly entered the island of Galway, all who guarded the outer courts of the different castles either fleeing before-hand or being defeated ; and in this way he bravely made himself master of all the castles. And advancing further on, he came to the Maiden's Castle, where, as looking upon it as impregnable, all the ladies of noble birth of the kingdom of Scotland are said to have been put for protection. So when the king approached it, he