answered Edward's summons by reminding him that the ordinances
prescribed that war should only be undertaken with the approval of
parliament, and by declining to follow him to a campaign undertaken on
his own responsibility. They would send quotas, but begged to be
excused from personal attendance. Yet even without them, a gallant
array slowly gathered together at Berwick, and one at least of the
opposition earls, Humphrey of Hereford, was there, with Gilbert of
Gloucester and Aymer of Pembroke and 2,000 men-at-arms. An enormous
baggage train enabled the knights and barons to appear in the field in
great magnificence, though it destroyed the mobility of the force. "The
multitude of waggons," wrote the monk of Malmesbury, "if they had been
extended in a single line would have occupied the space of twenty
leagues." The splendour and number of the army inspired the king and
his friends with the utmost confidence. Though the host started from
Berwick less than a week before the appointed day, the king moved, says
the Malmesbury monk, not as if he were about to lead an army to battle,
but rather as if he were going on a pilgrimage to Compostella. "There
was but short delay for sleep, and a shorter delay for taking food.
Hence horses, horsemen, and infantry were worn out with fatigue and
hunger." There was no order or method in the proceedings of the host.
The presence of the king meant that there was no effective general, and
Hereford and Gloucester quarrelled for the second place.

It was not until Sunday, June 23, that Edward at last took up his
quarters a few miles south of Stirling, with a worn-out and dispirited
army. Yet, if Stirling were to be saved, immediate action was
necessary. Gloucester and Hereford made a vigorous but unsuccessful
effort to penetrate at once into the castle, and Bruce came down just
in time to throw himself between them and the walls. Henry Bohun, who
had forced his way forward at the head of a force of Welsh infantry,