The Guardians had mustered their field army much further south, in the region of Lochmaben and Galloway. They seem to have kept a smaller force in Lanarkshire, sent to harass the English king’s army on his march towards Glasgow. On 28 July, the day on which Edward arrived at Peebles, one of his small squad of twenty crossbowmen was captured by the Scots. His name was Basculus - probably a Gascon - and the Scots took his bay horse, later valued at £12. It appears Basculus himself was released, since he later submitted the claim for compensation.
Edward slowly bulldozed his way through the central Lowlands, with the Scots hanging off him like a bunch of determined backs off a gnarly old prop forward. Unlike the Anglo-Celtic smorgasbord of his son’s army in the west, the majority of his men were English. In contrast to the previous summer in Galloway, they didn’t desert in large numbers. Or at least not at first: the number of 6800 infantry remained fairly consistent throughout July and August, and only started to drop off in September.
The king arrived at Glasgow on 21 August. Shortly after this date, while still at Glasgow, Edward sent men to garrison the castles of Carstairs and Kirkintilloch. These had probably been left empty, but now he wanted to strengthen his hold on southern Scotland. He appointed Sir Walter Burghdon, a Scot who held lands in Roxburghshire, as keeper of Carstairs.
Burghdon had the following men in garrison:
30 men-at-arms
2 knights
80 archers
A daily rate of pay for these men was calculated at £2 6 shillings. Kirkintilloch had been a private castle in the hands of John Comyn of Badenoch until 1296. At some point between 1296-1301 Edward granted it to Hugh Despenser, who showed little interest in the place. In the autumn of 1301 Sir William Francis was installed there with:
27 men-at-arms
2 smiths
1 nightwatchman
1 artillery maker
19 crossbowmen
20 archers
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