His army marched upon Berwick.

The town was a rich and well-peopled one, and although a wooden stockade furnished its only rampart the serried ranks of citizens behind it gave little hope of an easy conquest.

Their taunts indeed stung the king to the quick.

As his engineers threw up rough entrenchments for the besieging army the burghers bade him wait till he won the town before he began digging round it.

"Kynge Edward," they shouted, "waune thou havest Berwick, pike thee; waune thou havest geten, dike thee." But the stockade was stormed with the loss of a single knight, nearly eight thousand of the citizens were mown down in a ruthless carnage, and a handful of Flemish traders who held the town-hall stoutly against all assailants were burned alive in it.