rival John Comyn III of Badenoch, and declared himself King of the Scots. Edward I mobilised a fresh army, but decided that, this time, his son would be formally in charge of the expedition. Prince Edward was made the duke of Aquitaine and then, along with many other young men, he was knighted in a lavish ceremony at Westminster Abbey called the Feast of the Swans. Amid a huge feast in the neighbouring hall, reminiscent of Arthurian legends and crusading events, the assembly took a collective oath to defeat Bruce. It is unclear what role Prince Edward's forces played in the campaign that summer, which, under the orders of Edward I, saw a punitive, brutal retaliation against Bruce's faction in Scotland. Edward returned to England in September, where diplomatic negotiations to finalise a date for his wedding to Isabella continued. Piers Gaveston and sexuality During this time, Edward became close to Piers Gaveston. Gaveston was the son of one of the king's household knights whose lands lay adjacent to Gascony, and had himself joined Prince Edward's household in 1300, possibly on Edward I's instruction. The two got on well; Gaveston became a squire and was soon being referred to as a close companion of Edward, before being knighted by the king during the Feast of the Swans in 1306. The king then exiled Gaveston to Gascony in 1307 for reasons that remain unclear. According to one chronicler, Edward had asked his father to allow him to give Gaveston the County of Ponthieu, and the king responded furiously, pulling his son's hair out in great handfuls, before exiling Gaveston. The official court records, however, show Gaveston being only temporarily exiled, supported by a comfortable stipend; no reason is given for the order, suggesting that it may have been an act aimed at punishing the prince. The possibility that Edward had a sexual relationship with Gaveston or his later favourites has been extensively discussed by historians, complicated by the paucity of surviving evidence to determine for certain the details of their relationships. Homosexuality was fiercely condemned by the Church in 14th-century England, which equated it with heresy, but engaging in sex with another man did not necessarily define an individual's personal identity in the same way it might in the 21st century. Both men had sexual relationships with their wives, who bore them children; Edward also had an illegitimate son, and may