The postillion was struck by lightning

Edward Longshanks was NO PRIZE. He imprisoned Isabel MacDuff, Countess of Buchan, and her sister-in-law, Mary Bruce, in cages on the exterior walls of the castles of Berwick and Roxburgh respectively. He considered orders to confine ten-year-old Marjorie of Mar in a cage in the Tower of London, but decided that was too cruel-- only because of her age. Isabel was guilty of exercising the ancient right of the MacDuffs to crown the King of Scotland, when she crowned Robert Bruce King. And Mary's crime? She was his sister.

And that is only a small part of what he did in Scotland during the Wars of Independence...