(20,000 strong in his account) without waiting for reinforcements from Scotland, a view which finds some support in the Annals of Clonmacnoise, where it is recorded that "anxious to obtain the victory for himself, he did not wait for his [Sir John Stewart's] brother." He took up position on the rising ground at Faughart, not far from Dundalk, on 14 October. When his Irish allies objected to facing a stronger enemy force in battle Bruce responded by placing them in the rear, close to the top of the hill, leaving some 2000 Scots troops to face the enemy onslaught. In contrast to Barbour, the Lanercost Chronicle, the chief English source, says that Bruce approached Dundalk "with a great army of Scots which had already arrived in Ireland." It would seem that the three English commanders—John de Bermingham, Edmund, Lord Carrick, and Roland Joyce, Archbishop of Armagh—were themselves attacked, though in a somewhat impetuous and haphazard fashion. Lanercost gives by far the clearest description of the action that followed: The Scots were in three columns at such a distance from each other that the first was done with before the second came up, and then the second before the third, with which Edward was marching could render any aid. Thus the third column was routed just as the two preceding ones had been. Edward fell at the same time and was beheaded after death; his body being divided into four quarters, which were sent to the four chief quarters of Ireland We have no precise figures for the number slain, though it is known that thirty Scottish knights and more than eighty men-at-arms died. The dead included a Mac Ruaidhrí ("King of the Hebrides") and a Mac Domhnaill ("King of Argyll"). This would suggest that most, if not all, of the Scottish force was drawn from the Gaels of the Western Isles and from Bruce's own earldom of Carrick in Ayrshire. Defeat was followed by the almost complete collapse of the Scottish position in Ulster: Carrickfergus castle was recaptured on 2 December. John de Bermingham received most of the credit for the victory, and was created Earl of Louth by a grateful King of England. It was not to be the end of Scottish involvement in Ireland; but there were to be no more high kings. While in some ways a failure, the Scottish adventure in Ireland did serve the purpose