JL.D. 1306. SIMON EREYSEL TAKEN PRISONER. 580 of the battle between the English and Scots at Methuen, near Saint John's, he sent all his retainers armed to the assistance of the Scots. Bat he himself, in the meantime, cunningly surrendered himself to the English, in order that, if the Scots triumphed over the English, they might deliver him from their power, as having been taken by force for want of sufficient protection, but that, if the English triumphed, they might spare him, because he had been deserted by his family, as not consenting to their actions. Therefore, those perjured prelates were thrown into very close prisons, in the same garb and dress in which they had been taken, until it .should be decided by the Apostolic See what was to be done with them. Also, that impious conspiratress, the countess of Buchan, was taken prisoner, respecting whom the king was consulted, when he said, " Because she has not struck with the sword, she shall not die by the sword ; but, on account of the unlawful coronation which she performed, let her be closely confined in an abode of stone and iron, made in the shape of a crown, and let her be hung up out of doors in the open air at Berwick, that both in her life and after her death she may be a spectacle and eternal reproach to travellers." At that time too, Simon Freysel was taken prisoner, a man in whom the whole confidence of the Scots was placed, in so much that the Scotch nobles who were in prison asserted that he could not be subdued or taken, and while he was alive, they thought that the Scotch could not be subdued. And a certain Scotch knight, who was in chains in the Tower of London, presuming on his magnanimity to the glory of the English, but to his own loss, gave the king leave to cut off his head whenever Simon Freysel was taken prisoner ; and his name was Herebert of Norham, the most beautiful in person and the tallest in stature of all the Scots, but now, on account of the thrice-repeated treachery which he had committed against the king of England, having been twice released, the third time that he was taken, he, and his father, and his esquire, were bound with iron fetters in the Tower of London. After this, Simon Freysel was sent to the Tower of London, that the other Scot, when he saw him, might recollect the vow which he had taken. On the morrow, therefore, that is to say, on the vigil of the Nativity of the blessed Mary, Herebert and Thomas de Boys, his esquire, were led out of the Tower of London and beheaded. But Simon Freysel, on account of the