was not the only trouble besetting England. The two years' truce with
Scotland had expired, and Robert Bruce was once more devastating the
northern counties. But neither Edward nor Lancaster cared anything for
this. Andrew Harclay, the governor of Carlisle, strongly urged the king
to defend his subjects from the Scots rather than make war against
them. Edward answered that rebels must be put down before foreign
enemies could be encountered, and pressed northwards with his
victorious troops.

Lancaster was then besieging Tickhill, a royal castle in southern
Yorkshire. After wasting three weeks before its walls, he led his force
south to Burton-on-Trent, which he occupied on March 10. Edward soon
approached the Trent on his northward march. The barons thereupon lost
courage, and, abandoning the defence of the passage over the river, fled
northwards to Pontefract, the centre of Lancaster's power in Yorkshire.
Edward advanced against them, taking on his road Lancaster's castle of
Tutbury, where Roger of Amory was captured, mortally wounded. The
Lancastrians were panic-stricken. They fled from Pontefract as they had
fled from Burton, retreating northwards, probably simply to avoid the
king, possibly to join hands with Robert Bruce. On March 16 the
fugitives reached Boroughbridge, on the south bank of the Ure, where a
long narrow bridge, hardly wide enough for horsemen in martial array,
crossed the stream. The north bank of the river, and the approaches to
the bridge, were held in force by the levies of Cumberland and
Westmoreland which Barclay had summoned at the king's request, in order
to prevent a junction between the Lancastrians and the Scots. Barclay
was a brave and capable commander and had well learnt the lessons of
Scottish warfare.[1] He dismounted all his knights and men-at-arms, and
arranged them on the northern side of the river, along with some of his
pikemen. The rest of the pikemen he ordered to form a "schiltron" after