d all possibility of further
resistance was again in arms, is said for a time to have driven
him almost out of his mind with rage.

Not a moment was lost. Aylmer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, was at
once commissioned to proceed to Scotland, to "put down rebellion
and punish the rebels," the whole military array of the northern
counties was placed under his orders, and Clifford and Percy were
associated with him in the commission. Edward also applied to the
pope to aid him in punishing the sacrilegious rebels who had violated
the sanctuary of Dumfries. As Clement V was a native of Guienne,
and kept his court at Bordeaux within Edward's dominions, his
request was, of course, promptly complied with, and a bull issued,
instructing the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Carlisle to
excommunicate Bruce and his friends, and to place them and their
possessions under an interdict. It was now that the adhesion of
the Scottish prelates was of such vital consequence to Bruce. Had
the interdict been obeyed, the churches would have been closed,
all religious ceremonies suspended, the rites of the church would
have been refused even to dying men, and the dead would have been
buried without service in unconsecrated ground. So terrible a weapon
as this was almost always found irresistible, and its terrors had
compelled even the most powerful monarchs to yield obedience to
the pope's orders; but the Scotch prelates set the needs of their
country above the commands of the pope, and in spite of repeated bulls
the native clergy continued to perform their functions throughout
the whole struggle, and thus nullified the effect of the popish
anathema.

King Edward was unable himself to lead his army against the Scots,
for he was now sixty-seven years old, and the vast fatigues and
exertions which he had undergone in the course of a life spent almost
continually in war had told upon him. He had partially lost the
use of his limbs, and was forced to travel in a carriage or litter;
but when he reached London from Winchester a grand ceremony was
held, at which the order of knighthood was conferred by the king
upon the Prince of Wales, and three hundred aspirants belonging to
the principal families of the country, and orders were given that
the whole military array of the kingdom should, in the following
spring, gather at Carlisle, where Edward himself would meet them
and accompany them to Scotland. The Earl of Pembroke, with Clifford
and P