the disastrous results of his inaction: "Whatsoever pleased the king,
the earl's servants strove to overthrow; and whatever pleased the earl,
was declared by the king's servants to be treasonable; and so, at the
suggestion of the evil one, the households of earl and king put
themselves in the way and would not allow their masters, by whom the
land should have been defended, to be of one accord". Even the implied
understanding with the King of Scots was not abandoned by the man on
whom the responsibility rested of defeating him. When Bruce devastated
the north of England he still spared the lands of the king's "chief
counsellor," as of old he had spared the lands of the opposition leader.
When, in 1316, Lancaster mustered his forces at Newcastle against the
Scots, Edward repaid him for his inaction in 1314 by declining to
accompany him over the border. "Thereupon," wrote the border
annalist,[1] "the earl at once went back; for neither trusted the
other." Edward, who forgot and forgave nothing, secretly negotiated with
the pope for absolution from his oath to the ordinances. He gradually
built up a court party, and soon restored Hugh Despenser to his position
in the household. As might be expected in such circumstances no
effective resistance was made to the Scots.

[1] _Lanercost Chronicle_, p. 233.

It was a time of severe distress in England. In 1315 a rainy summer
ruined the harvest. Great floods swept away the hay from the fields,
and drowned the sheep and cattle. In 1316 famine raged, especially in
the north. For a hundred years, we are told, such scarcity of corn had
not been known. A bushel of wheat was sold at London for forty pence,
and the Northumbrians were driven to feed on dogs, horses, and other
unwonted food. Pestilence followed in the train of famine. It was in
vain that parliament passed laws, limiting the repasts of the barons'