William of Worcester's Chronicle of England
William of Worcester, born around 1415, and died around 1482 was secretary to John Fastolf, the renowned soldier of the Hundred Years War, during which time he collected documents, letters, and wrote a record of events. Following their return to England in 1440 William was witness to major events. Twice in his chronicle he uses the first person: 1. when writing about the murder of Thomas, 7th Baron Scales, in 1460, he writes '… and I saw him lying naked in the cemetery near the porch of the church of St. Mary Overie in Southwark …' and 2. describing King Edward IV's entry into London in 1461 he writes '… proclaimed that all the people themselves were to recognize and acknowledge Edward as king. I was present and heard this, and immediately went down with them into the city'. William’s Chronicle is rich in detail. It is the source of much information about the Wars of the Roses, including the term 'Diabolical Marriage' to describe the marriage of Queen Elizabeth Woodville’s brother John’s marriage to Katherine, Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, he aged twenty, she sixty-five or more, and the story about a paper crown being placed in mockery on the severed head of Richard, 3rd Duke of York.
Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback format.
Scalacronica is in Early Medieval Books.
At this time seven earls of Scotland, Buchan, Menteith, Strathearn, Lennox, Ross, Athol and Mar, with John Comyn and many other barons, invaded England in force, spared nothing, burnt the suburbs of Carlisle and laid siege to that place.
King Edward, hearing of this, took up a position before Berwick,1 and the first day he was there, when the King sat eating in his tent, one of his provision ships, by a blunder of her crew, went aground upon the Scottish shore close to the town, which at this time was not walled but enclosed by a high embankment. The townspeople rushed down to the ship, set her on fire and cut to pieces the crew. At the cry 'All to arms!' in the King's host, the fierce young fellows, spurring forth mounted the banks on horseback. Then, where the townsfolk had made a path along the fosse, they [the English] entered pellmell with those on horseback, whoever could get in first. Inside a great number of people of Fife and Forfar2, who were in garrison of the town, were killed. That same night the said King Edward wholly captured the town and the castle [on 30th March 1296], where he made his abode, and whither came to him a Minorite friar, warden of the friars of Roxburgh, by authority of King John of Scotland bringing him letters renouncing the homage of the King of Scotland by letters patent from the King and the Community of Scotland, which letters the King received and caused them to be notarially registered.
Note 1. On 28th March 1296.
Note 2. De Fyffe et de Forltherik. Fife and Fothreve formed one of the seven territorial divisions of Scotland, comprising the modern counties of Fife and Kinross. This is a very mild description of the ferocious sack of Berwick perpetrated by Edward, 30th March, 1296.
11th September 1297. And the following winter, the said William Wallace burnt all Northumberland. The Earl of Warenne [aged 66], who was Keeper of Scotland for the King of England, being in the south1, turned towards Scotland; where at the bridge of Stirling he was defeated by William Wallace, who, being at hand in order of battle2, allowed so many of the English as he pleased to cross over the said bridge, and, at the right moment3, attacked them, caused the bridge to be broken, where many of the English perished, with Hugh de Cressingham, the King's Treasurer; and it was said that the Scots caused him to be flayed, and in token of hatred made girths of his skin. The Earl of Warenne took flight to Berwick. William Wallace, to whom the Scots adhered, immediately after this discomfiture, followed4 the said Earl of Warenne in great force, and skirting Berwick, arrived on Hutton Moor in order of battle; but perceiving the English arrayed to oppose him, he came no nearer to Berwick, but retired and bivouacked in Duns Park5.
Note 1. Warenne, or Surrey, which was his principal title, had been recalled on 18th August for service with King Edward on the Continent, and Sir Brian Fitz Alan was appointed Keeper of Scotland in his place. But Sir Brian having raised a difficulty about his salary (£1128 8s.), the Prince of Wales wrote on 7th Sept., 1298, requiring Surrey to remain at his post. (See Stevenson's Documents illustrative of the History of Scotland, ii. 230.)
Note 2. En batailA soun point. i.e., in force or in order of battle; used in both senses.
Note 3. A soun point. i.e.
Note 4. Suyst, misprinted fuyst in Maitland Club Ed.
Note 5. Not Duns Park on Whitadder, but in a place which then bore that name a little to the north of Berwick.
22nd July 1298. The said English lords recovered the said town of Berwick, and held it until the arrival of the King, who, returning from Gascony, approached Scotland in great force, entered it by Roxburgh, advanced to Templeliston and Linlithgow, and so towards Stirling, where William Wallace, who had mustered all the power of Scotland, lay in wait and undertook to give battle to the said King of England. They fought on this side of Falkirk on the day of the Magdalene in the year of grace 1298, when the Scots were defeated. Wherefore it was said long after that William Wallace had brought them to the revel if they would have danced.
Walter, brother of the Steward of Scotland, who had dismounted [to fight] on foot among the commons, was slain with more than ten thousand of the commons.1 William Wallace, who was on horseback, fled with the other Scottish lords who were present. At this battle, Antony de Bek, Bishop of Durham, who was with King Edward of England, had such abundance of retinue that in his column there were thirty-two banners and a trio of earls — the Earl of Warwick [aged 26], the Earl of Oxford [aged 41], and the Earl of Angus [aged 53].
Note 1. It was Sir John Stewart of Bonkill [aged 52] who was thus slain, at the head of his Selkirk bowmen. Gray's estimate of the slain is more reasonable than that of clerical writers. Walsingham puts the number at 60,000, probably three times as much as Wallace's whole force: 
Hemingburgh reduces it to 56,000.
[19th October 1330]. The council having been dissolved, the said William [aged 29] said to the King that it were better to eat the dog than that the dog [should eat] them; so he advised him to speak to the constable of the castle, charging him upon his oath and allegiance to keep the plan secret, and [directing] him to leave a postern open to the park that very night, and [warning him] that if he would not do so, he [the King] would cause him to be hanged so soon as he [the King] should have the upper hand. The said William arranged with his comrades to assemble by night at a certain thicket in the park to which all should come; but they missed the trysting place, except the said William de Montacute and John de Nevill with four-and-twenty men, who kept their appointment well.
They were afraid that their comrades might miss them, and they durst not sound a call because of the sentries in the castle; and so, as bold and enterprising men, they declared that, as the matter had gone so far, they would risk the adventure by themselves. They went forward, and found the postern open, as the King had commanded. They entered the castle and mounted the stairs of the second court without meeting anybody, for it was mirk night, and the followers of the [gentle] folk had left the castle for their lodgings. The Queen [aged 35], Mortimer [aged 43], and their confidential adherents were holding a council to take measures against this plot which had been discovered to them. They [the conspirators] entered the hall where the Queen was sitting in council. The usher cried out at their entry. Hugh de Turpington, who was steward of the King's household, [but] was of the Queen's party, rushed out of the council and met them in the middle of the hall, crying 'Down with the traitors!' and made to strike the first [of them] with a dagger, when John de Nevill ran him through the body and slew him, and an esquire [also] who offered resistance.
Then they passed forward into the chamber, and seized Mortimer and those whom they wished to have; so that before dawn none remained in the town save those who were of the King's party, who had armed themselves when the conspirators entered the castle.
[29th November 1330]. He [the King] gave directions for the custody of his mother, and took the said Mortimer [aged 43] with him to Leicester, where he intended to put him to death; but he took other advice, causing a Parliament to be summoned to London, where Mortimer was drawn and hanged, upon a charge of having been party to the death of the King, the father [King Edward II], and because of the death of the Earl of Kent, and for the renunciation of the right to Scotland, and for the dissipation of the King's treasure which had been entrusted to him by his [Edward's] father, and upon other counts with which he was charged.
The lords who had been banished were restored. For a long time after this the King acted upon the advice of William de Montacute [aged 29], who always encouraged him to excellence and honour and love of arms; and so they led their young lives in pleasant fashion, until there came a more serious time with serious matters.