"The army he [Edward I] mustered in the early summer of 1298 was immense by medieval standards, numbering some 3000 horsemen and over 25,000 footsoldiers. This was a testament to how miraculously the previous year's troubles had evaporated in the aftermath of Stirling Bridge and Edward's tacit acknowledgement - through the reissuing of Magna Carta - that he had treated his people badly. The king was absolutely determined to make 1298 a much better year than 1297."
Short of being hit in the face by a comet, it is difficult to see how 1298 could have gone much worse for Edward than the previous year. The defeats of his armies at Bellegarde and Stirling Bridge, the fiasco of the Flanders campaign, the domestic chaos in England, all combined to make 1297 one massive anus horribilus for the English king.
Edward seems to have finally cracked at the wedding of his daughter, Elizabeth of Rhuddlan, where the king got rotten drunk and threw Elizabeth's coronet into the fire. For good measure he also beat the crap out of a defenceless squire with a stick: possibly in a fit of hungover guilt, Edward later paid the boy the hefty compensation of £13 8 shillings and 6 pence.
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