Nor upon his English conquerors was the lesson lost, for at Cressy, when attacked by vastly superior numbers, Edward III dismounted his army, and ordered them to fight on foot, and the result gave a death blow to that mailed chivalry which had come to be regarded as the only force worth reckoning in a battle.

The conduct of Edward to Wallace, and later to many other distinguished Scotchmen who fell into his hands, is a foul blot upon the memory of one of the greatest of the kings of England.
Edward might now well have believed that Scotland was crushed for ever.

In ten years no less than twelve great armies had marched across the Border, and twice the whole country had been ravaged from sea to sea, the last time so effectually, that Edward had good ground for his belief that the land would never again raise its head from beneath his foot.
He now proceeded, as William of Normandy after Hastings had done, to settle his conquest, and appointed thirty-one commissioners, of whom twenty-one were English and ten so called Scotch, among them Sir John Menteith, to carry out his ordinances.

All the places of strength were occupied by English garrisons.

The high officers and a large proportion of the justiciaries and sheriffs were English, and Edward ruled Scotland from Westminster as he did England.
Among the commissioners was Robert Bruce, now through the death of his father, Lord of Annandale and Carrick; and Edward addressed a proclamation to him, headed, "To our faithful and loyal Robert de Bruce, Earl of Carrick, and all others who are in his company, greeting;" and went on to say that he possessed the king's fullest confidence.