Frasers of Philorth > Volume 2

188 REMARKS ON BRUCE's CAMPAIGNS
riot time for Clifford to have come from England and to have repaired and
regarrisoned the castle, to say nothing of the subsequent surprise and death
of its new commandant by Douglas. The statement that the Earl of Pem-
broke (Sir Aymer de Valence) went to Carlisle between the encounter at
Cumnock and the battle of Loudoun Hill is also very doubtful, for Edward I.
was at Carlisle then, though Barbour was ignorant of the fact, evidently
misled by the idea that he died earlier in the year.
In Barbour's poem it is impossible to avoid being struck with the wonder-
ful exactness and minuteness of detail, and with the no less remarkable faults
in chronological arrangement, and this leads to the inference that the poet,
though he faithfully related each separate adventure or occurrence, as he
heard it from the lips of his informants, — often eye-witnesses, — was obliged
to trust to his own very imperfect knowledge in order to connect one event
with another, and that, in doing so, he often went wrong ; but the extreme
fidelity with which he told each story, as he heard it, enables his chrono-
logical errors to be corrected, in some degree, even from the internal evidence
of his own work.
Thus, in the present case, though he placed the events that occurred in
Glentruell before the battle of Loudoun Hill, on the 10th of May, yet his
accuracy in repeating what had been told him, obliged him to say that Bruce
went there to hunt, "for then deer were in season," 1 which at once fixes the
time of the sojourn in Glentruell later in the year, about the end of June or
July, and contradicts his statement that Bruce commenced his march to the
north immediately after his decisive victory on the 10th of May. Again,
although he makes that unchronological statement, yet the same accuracy in
relating only what he had heard prevented his recording any events, after
mentioning Bruce's movement to the north of Scotland, except the unopposed
march to "the Month," and thence straight to Inverury, with the further
retreat to the Slevach, by the end of November, 2 for all which there was
plenty of time, even if Bruce had not begun his march until four months
later in the year than the period he assigned for its commencement.
Hitherto the internal evidence of each account has been considered, and
it has been shown that no fault can be found with that of Fordun, if only
1 The Bruce, p. 16S. 2 Ibid. pp. 192-196.