Edward, swearing terrible oaths, had taken his huge force north and crossed the border, sacking the priory of Coldstream and everything else in his way until he came to Berwick. He hated that town on the Scottish eastern march, full of fat burgesses who looked after their own concerns, revelling in its nickname of the Alexandria of the West.

Its citizens had seen Edward's fleet at sea and the huge force of English, Welsh and Irish: the lines of bowmen, the serried ranks of men-at-arms, the colour and panoply of his cavalry. Yet those same burgesses of Berwick had refused him entry, saying that their fealty was to John Balliol, the rebellious king. Edward had immediately ordered an all-out assault, screaming in rage when he heard how his fleet had been driven back and his soldiers were dying in their hundreds in the ditches under the walls of this rebellious city. Finally, his own nephew had received his death wound, a huge quarrel from a crossbow smashing into his unprotected face and turning it into a screaming bloody pulp. That had been the last straw for Edward. He had mounted his great warhorse Bayard and personally led the charge across the narrow ditch of Berwick and stormed the gate. In the face of such fury the Scots had given way. Once the English had seized the gates, the terrible slaughter had begun. Edward, furious with the rebellious citizens, ordered his soldiers to show no quarter and the day had been given over to sacking the city. Men, women and children were cut down in their hundreds; the wells choked with corpses; the bodies littered the streets like leaves on a windy autumn day. Churches had been sacked and horses stabled there, precious ornaments looted, silken hangings torn down. Children had not been spared; they were knifed, beheaded and impaled on lances. Women in their hundreds were raped before their throats were cut, and then the entire city was put to the torch.