y corn in
the barns and herds were in the pastures. The petty baron was almost
invariably a robber--sometimes on his own account, often in some
combined adventure of plunder. The spirit of rapine, always too
prevalent under the strongest government of those times, was now
universal when the government was fighting for its own existence. Bands
of marauders sallied forth from the great towns, especially from
Bristol; and of their proceedings the author of the _Gesta Stephani_
speaks with the precision of an eye-witness. The Bristolians, under the
instigation of the Earl of Gloucester, were partisans of the ex-empress
Matilda; and wherever the King or his adherents had estates they came to
seize their oxen and sheep, and carried men of substance into Bristol as
captives, with bandaged eyes and bits in their mouths. From other towns
as well as Bristol came forth plunderers, with humble gait and courteous
discourse; who, when they met with a lonely man having the appearance of
being wealthy, would bear him off to starvation and torture, till they
had mulcted him to the last farthing. These and other indications of an
unsettled government took place before the landing of Matilda to assert
her claims. An invasion of England, by the Scottish King, without regard
to the previous pacification, was made in 1138. But this attempt,
although grounded upon the oath which David had sworn to Henry, was
regarded by the Northumbrians as a national hostility which demanded a
national resistance. The course of this invasion has been minutely
described by contemporary chroniclers.

The author of the _Gesta Stephani_ says: "Scotland, also called Albany,
is a country overspread by extensive moors, but containing flourishing
woods and pastures, which feed large herds of cows and oxen." Of the
mountainous regions he says nothing. Describing the natives as savage,
swift of foot, and lightly armed, he adds, "A confused multitude of this
people being assembled from the lowlands of Scotland, they were formed
into an irregular army and marched for England." From the period of the
Conquest, a large number of Anglo-Saxons had been settled in the
lowlands; and the border countries of Westmoreland and Cumberland were
also occupied, to a considerable extent, by the same race. The people of
Galloway were chiefly of the original British stock. The historians
describe "the confused multitude" as exercising great cruelties in their
advance through the country