Hugh de Courtenay, 1st/9th Earl of Devon to surrender his absolute authority and ownership of what became community forests. In 1306, the Prince of Wales was despatched into Scotland; the vanguard was led by Aymer de Valence, the King's half-uncle. On 22 May, Courtenay was knighted by the Prince, presumably for his efforts against the Scots. In June, the English occupied Perth. On 19 June, Valence, who had cut a swathe through the Lowlands, fell on the Scots army at Methven in the early dawn. The Scottish king, Robert Bruce, fled into the hills. King Edward I was merciless, as many prisoners were punished. That autumn, the
History of the Scots language Scots had diverged significantly from its sister south of the border and had become the vehicle for an extensive and diverse national literature. Free variation was a prominent and important feature of the Middle Scots spelling system, however, all writers displayed some greater or lesser degree of consistency in their spelling habits. A literary standard applied but it was less than uniform. From 1610 to the 1690s during the Plantation of Ulster some 200,000 Scots settled in the north of Ireland taking what were to become Ulster Scots dialects with them. From the middle of the 16th century Scots began