to obtain licence to grant it ; therefore, a trace having been made between the king and the earls, so that they became unanimous, when the time of consultation had passed, as the aforesaid earls did not present themselves before the king, he, seeing that his friends in the parts beyond the sea, who were awaiting his arrival, were threatened with no slight danger, in consequence of his delay, on the vigil of Saint Bartholomew the Apostle, having prepared five hundred ships, with their proper complement of people, namely, nearly one thousand eight hundred knights, and a countless host of infantry, he set sail with a fair wind O'er the dark waters of the deep blue sea. On which day, the aforesaid earls and barons, coming to the exchequer of the lord the king at Westminster, forbade the barons of the exchequer to cause the viscounts to levy the eighth penny from the people of England, saying, that it had not proceeded from his conscience, and that without their consent no tax could be rightfully imposed or exacted. Therefore the earls and barons aforesaid, confederating together, and the majority of the people inclining to them, great alarm fell upon the inhabitants of the country ; and as the danger was imminent, Edward, the king's son, acting as his father's lieutenant during his absence, in compliance with the wishes and advice of the primates and nobles of England, renewed in London the charter about the liberties of the kingdom, and the rights of the forest, and also granted some alleviations of the yoke which his father had imposed, adopting the advice of his elders ; and his father confirmed what he had done at Ghent, on the ninth of November. At this time, the Scots were ravaging the borders of the kingdom of England, and burning the greater part of Northumberland, under the command of William Wallace, knight. The ninth penny was granted to the earls by the laity, and the tenth penny by the clergy, for the purpose of checking the obstinacy of the Scots above mentioned. But the king, after he had crossed the sea, landed at Helvoetsluys, and proceeded onwards to Bruges, a famous city ; and passing the night there, having been forewarned of the treachery of the. French, he on the morrow cautiously quitted the said city, and privily entered Ghent. And in the mean time the Welch who accompanied the king of England, having