Robert had been suffering from a serious illness from at least 1327. The "Lanercost Chronicle" and "Scalacronica" state that the king was said to have contracted and died of leprosy. Jean Le Bel also stated that in 1327 the king was a victim of 'la grosse maladie', which is usually taken to mean leprosy. However, the ignorant use of the term 'leprosy' by fourteenth-century writers meant that almost any major skin disease might be called leprosy. The earliest mention of this illness is to be found in an original letter written by an eye-witness in Ulster at the time the king made a truce with Sir Henry Mandeville on 12 July 1327. The writer of this letter reported that Robert was so feeble and struck down by illness that he would not live, 'for he can scarcely move anything but his tongue'. Barbour writes of the king's illness that 'it began through a benumbing brought on by his cold lying', during the months of wandering from 1306 to 1309. It has been proposed that, alternatively, he may have suffered from eczema, tuberculosis, syphilis, motor neuron disease, cancer or a series of strokes. There does not seem to be any evidence as to what the king himself or his physicians believed his illness to be. Nor is there any evidence of an attempt in his last years to segregate the king in any way from the company of friends, family, courtiers, or foreign diplomats.