In a time of almost perpetual conflict, from border raids and skirmishes to fullblown battle, feelings between England and Scotland ran high. This highly coloured piece of invective is typical of accusations between mortal enemies, and was designed as much to incite violence towards the Scots as to offer useful facts.
So that execrable army, savager than any race of heathen, yielding honour to neither God nor man, harried the whole province and slaughtered everywhere folk of either sex, of every age and condition, destroying, pillaging and burning the vills, churches and houses. For they slaughtered by the edge of the sword or transfixed with their spears the sick on their pallets, women pregnant and in labour; the babes in their cradles, and other innocents at the breast or in the bosom of their mothers, with the mothers themselves; and worn-out old men and feeble old women, and the others who were for any reason disabled, wherever they found them. And the more pitiable a form of death they could destroy them by, the more did they rejoice …
It is even reported that in one place they slew many little children gathered together, and draining their blood collected it in a stream which they had previously dammed up, and thus drank that bloody water, – nay, now for the most part blood …