instinct which leads us to seize with avidity every means of escape, received the Scots as friends and joined them. These valleys, of difficult access and scarce subjected by the Normans, were in great measure peopled with Saxons whose fathers had been banished at the time of the Conquest.2 They came to the camp of the Scots in great numbers and without any order, upon little mountain horses, their only property. In general, with the exception of the cavalry of Norman or French origin, whom the king of Scotland brought with him, and who were clad in complete and uniform mail, the great body of the troops presented a most disorderly variety of arms and attire. The inhabitants of the eastern lowlands, men of Danish or Saxon descent, formed the heavy infantry, armed with cuirasses and strong pikes; the inhabitants of the west, and especially those of Galloway, who still retained a marked impress of their British descent, were, like the ancient Britons, without defensive arms, and carried long javelins, the points of which were sharp, and the wood slender and fragile; lastly, the genuine Scots, highlanders and islanders, wore caps ornamented with the feathers of wild fowl, and large mantles of striped wool, fastened round the waist with a leathern belt, whence hung a long broad-sword; they carried a round shield of light wood, covered with a thick leather, on the left arm; and some of the island tribes used two-handed axes, like the Scandinavians; the equipment of the chiefs was the same as that of the men of the clan; they were distinguished only by their longer feathers, lighter, and floating more gracefully. The numerous, and for the most part irregular, troops of the king of Scotland, occupied without resistance all the country between the Tweed and the northern limits of the province of York. The Norman kings had not as yet erected in this district the imposing fortresses which they afterwards raised there, and thus no obstacle stayed the progress of the 1 Coadunatus erat...iste exercitus de Normannis, Germanis, Anglis, de Northymbranis et Cumbris, de Teswetadale et Lodonea, de Pictis, qui vulgo Galleweienses dicuntur, et Scottis. (Ricardus Hagustaldensis, historia, sub ann. 1138. apud Hist. Angl. Script. (Selden) i. col. 316. 2 Walter Scott, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Introduction, p. ii. Scottish ants, as an old author calls them. It appears that this army committed many cruelties in the places through which it passed; the historians talk of women and priests massacred, of children thrown into the air and caught on the points of lances; but, as they talk with little precision, it is not known whether these excesses fell only upon men of Norman descent, and were the reprisals of the English by race, or whether the native aversion of the Gaelic population for the inhabitants of England was exercised indifferently on the serf and on the master, on the Saxon and on the Norman.2 The northern lords, and especially the archbishop of York, Toustain, 'profited by the report of these atrocities, spread vaguely, and, perhaps, in an exaggerated form, to counteract, in the minds of the Saxon inhabitants of the banks of the Humber, the interest they would naturally feel in the cause of the enemies of the Norman king.3 To induce their subjects to march with them against the king of Scotland, the Norman barons skilfully flattered old local superstitions; they invoked the names of the saints of English race, whom they themselves had once treated with such contempt; they adopted them, as it were, as generalissimos of their army, and archbishop Toustain raised the banners of St. Cuthbert of Durham, of St. John of Beverly, and of St. Wilfred of Ripon. These popular standards, which, since the Conquest, had scarce seen the day, were taken from the dust of the churches, and conveyed to Cuton Moor, near Elfer-tun, now North Allerton, thirty-two miles north of York, the place where the Norman chiefs resolved to await the enemy. William Piperel and Walter Espec, of Nottinghamshire, and Guilbert de Lacy and his brother Walter, of Yorkshire, assumed the command. The archbishop, who could not attend, on account of illness, sent in his place Raoul, bishop of Durham, probably driven from his diocese by the invasion of the Scots.^ 1 Formicis Scoticis (Matth. Paris, i. 130.) 2 Henric. Huntind. lib. viii. p. 388.-Matth. Paris, i. 76.-Chron. Normann. apud Script. rer. Norman. p. 977.-Joh. Hagustaldensis, apud Script. rer. Gallic. &c. xiii. 85. 3 Ailred. Rievall., De bello Standardii, apud hist. Angl. Script. (Selden) i. col. 341. 4 Matth. Paris. i. 76. Around the Saxon banners, raised by lords of foreign race in the camp of Allerton, a half religious, half patriotic instinct drew together a number of the English inhabitants of the surrounding towns and plains. These no longer bore the great battle-axe, the favourite weapon of their ancestors, but were armed with large bows and arrows a cloth yard long. The Conquest had worked this change in two different ways: first, those of the natives, who had stooped to serve the Norman king in battle, for food and pay, had necessarily applied themselves to Norman tactics; and next, those who, more independent, had adopted the life of partisans on the roads and of free-hunters in the forests, had also found it desirable to lay aside the weapons adapted for close combat, for others better fitted to reach, from a distance, the knights of Normandy and the king's stags. The sons of both these classes having been from their infancy exercised in drawing the bow, England had become, in less than a century, the land of good archers, as Scotland was the land of good lances. While the Scottish army was passing the Tees, the Norman barons actively prepared to meet its attack. They raised upon four wheels, a mast, having at its summit a small silver box, containing a consecrated host, and around the box floated the banners which were to excite the English to fight well.1 This standard, of a kind common enough in the middle ages, was in the centre of the army. The Anglo-Norman knights took up their post around it, after having sworn together by faith and oath, to remain united for the defence of the country, in life and death.2 The Saxon archers flanked the battle array, and formed the vanguard. On the news of the approach of the Scots, who were rapidly advancing, the Norman Raoul, bishop of Durham, ascended an eminence in the midst of the army, and delivered in French3 the following harangue: "Noble lords of Norman race, you who make France tremble, and have conquered England; the Scots, after having done you homage, seek to drive you from your lands. But if our fathers in so few numbers subjected a great part of Gaul, 1 Ib. Ailred Rievall De bello Stand. ut sup. col. 337. shall we not conquer these half-naked people, who oppose to our swords nothing but the skin of their bodies, or a leathern buckler? Their pikes are long, it is true, but the wood is fragile, and the iron of poor temper. These people of Galloway have been heard to say, in their vain boasting, that the sweetest drink to them were the blood of a Norman. Do ye so that not one of them shall return to his family to boast of having killed a Norman."2 The Scottish army, having for its standard a simple lance with a guidon, marched in several bodies. The young Henry, son of the king of Scotland, commanded the lowlanders and the English volunteers of Cumberland and Northumberland; the king himself was at the head of all the clans of the highlands and islands; and the knights of Norman origin, armed at all points, formed his guard.3 One of them, named Robert de Brus, a man of great age, who sided with the king of Scotland, by reason of his fief of Annandale,1 and had no personal enmity against his countrymen of England, approached the king, as he was about to give the signal of attack, and addressing him in a mournful tone, said: "O king, dost thou reflect against whom thou art about to fight? It is against the Normans and the English, who have ever served thee so well and promptly in council and in the field, and have subjected to thee thy people of Gaelic race. Thou thinkest thyself, then, sure of the submission of these tribes? Thou hopest, then, to hold them to their duty, with the sole aid of thy Scottish men at arms?5 remember that it was we who first placed them in thy hands, and that hence sprung the hatred which they bear our countrymen." This speech seemed to make a great impression on the king; but William, his nephew, exclaimed, impatiently: "these are the words of a traitor." The old Norman replied to this insult, by abjuring, in the formula of the period, his oath of faith and homage, and then galloped to the enemy's camp. The highlanders who surrounded the king of Scotland 1 Ailred. Rievall. ut sup. col. 340. 2 Ib. and col. 341. 3 Ib. col. 343.-Johan. Hagustald., ubi sup. p. 86. Dugdale, Monast. Anglic. ii. 148. 5 Nova tibi est in Walensibus ista securitas...quasi soli tibi sufficiant Scotti etiam contra Scottos. (lb.) • Ailred. Rievall, ubi sup. col. 344. 7 Ib. raised their voices, and shouted the ancient name of their country, "Albyn! Albyn!" This was the signal for combat. The men of Cumberland, of Liddesdale, and of Teviotdale, made a firm and rapid charge upon the centre of the Norman army, and, to adopt the expression of an ancient historian, broke it like a spider's web;2 but ill supported by the other bodies of Scots, they did not reach the standard of the AngloNormans. The latter recovered their ranks, and repulsed the assailants with great loss. At a second charge, the long javelins of the south-western Scots broke against the hauberks and shields of the Normans. The highlanders then drew their long swords to fight hand to hand; but the Saxon archers, deploying on the sides, assailed them with a shower of arrows, while the Norman horse charged them in front, in close ranks, and with lances low. "It was a noble sight," says a contemporary, "to see the stinging flies issue humming from the quivers of the southern men, and fall upon the foe thick as hail." 66 The Gael, brave and hardy men, but ill adapted for regular military evolutions, dispersed the moment they found they could not break the enemy's ranks.3 The whole Scottish army, compelled to retreat, fell back upon the Tyne. The conquerors did not pursue it beyond this river, and the district which had risen in insurrection upon the approach of the Scots, remained, notwithstanding their defeat, emancipated from Norman domination. For a long period after this battle, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Northumberland formed part of the kingdom of Scotland; and the new position of these three provinces prevented the Anglo-Saxon spirit and character from degenerating there so much as in the more southern portions of England. The national traditions and popular ballads survived and perpetuated themselves north of the Tyne, and it was thence that English poetry, annihilated in the districts inhabited by the Normans, returned once more at a later period, to the southern provinces. 4 1 Joh. Bromton, Chron. ib. col. 1027. 2 Ipsa globa australis parte instar cassis araneæ dissipata. (Ailred. Rievall, ut sup. col. 345). 3 Johan. Hagulstald., ut sup. p. 86. Jamieson's Popular Ballads, &c. ii. 97. |