Battle of Homildon, 1402        from History of Scotland John Hill Burton Historiographer-Royal for Scotland Vol II pages 378-380

James I

In September of 1402 a considerable army was raised, and sent into England under Douglas to imitate the great exploit of his father. He succeeded so far as to reach Durham, and was returning to Scotland in great confidence, with a rich harvest of plunder. When the reevers had got as far as Wooler they heard that Hotspur and the apostate March were coming to meet them with a large force.

They took up their position on a piece of strong ground called Homildon, Hill. It is said that Hotspur was for an instantaneous charge, as at Otterburn, but that he was stopped by March, who better knew both the strength and the weakness of a Scots force. Formed as hey were in a compact mass on the hill, the bowmen were set to play on them, and did so with deadly effect. The tactic of Douglas should have been, after Bruce's at Bannockburn, to charge the archers with cavalry. Though this arm existed in abundance, however, it was not used till too late. The Scots leader, indeed, seems to have lost head, for he allowed his troops to be butchered around him. So splendid was the English archery, that Douglas himself, though he wore a coat of mail of notable excellence, had five arrow-wounds, though none of them was mortal. A young knight, Sir John Swinton, gained fame by exhorting his countrymen to charge the enemy, and at all events die fighting-and he gave example by a dash on them with a few followers; but these were insufficient for the purpose, and were all speedily killed. It was a complete victory for England, remarkable for the number of eminent Scots taken or killed. It was entirely the reverse of Otterburn, both in the result and the method of attaining it; for, as Froissart says, there had been no bow drawn here-at Homildon all the work was done with the bow, and there was no hand-to-hand fighting.

It is among things not easily accounted for, that a people so keenly and practically alive to everything warlike as the Scots were, should not ere this time have taken from the repeated punishments they suffered a lesson as to the strength of that great arm of English armies-the bowmen. The strength of a Scots army lay in the spearmen and the axemen. These were, terrible in hand-to-hand conflict, but their enemies had a weapon which cut them off froth their opportunity. It is difficult now to realize the power of the English bow and cloth-yard shaft. Much faith was given to the cross-bow, because it was bent up to its check by placing the foot on the bow and drag-ing the string with the hands, so that the strength of both arms and legs was given to the drawing of it; but it prove a paltry weapon beside the bows drawn by strong yeomen-bows so large that the fitting length was that which allowed the feathering of the arrow to touch the ear. Gunpowder had now been for some years in use. Barbour is supposed to speak of a gun of some kind when he says the English used " crackys of weir," or cracks of war, in the affair with the Scots reevers in Weirdale, before the death of Robert the Bruce. But hitherto in the home wars the long shaft shot from the upright bow was still the prevailing missile.

At the time of this unfortunate battle the mind of the people was excited by a scandalous tragedy. - The Duke of Rothesay, the heir of the crown, had been committed to a dungeon, which he never left alive, and the rumor began and gathered force that his dark uncle had murdered him there. It appears that the young man's escapades had become more transcendent and troublesome since his marriage. He and Prince Henry of England were, curiously enough, following the same course. Whether or not one took of the other, each was, as Falstaff says, "a mad wag with quips and quiddities" some of which were of a serious nature, since they touched the administration of justice. There was a good case for restraint, and plans were laid for effecting this, if not something further. For some ground or other of offense, the poor prince's brother-in-law, Douglas, joined Albany in the plot against him, and they were assisted by a Sir John Ramorny, said to have been a minister of the prince's pleasures, whom also he had made an enemy. On the death of the Bishop of St Andrews, the prince was going to seize and occupy his castle-whether in pursuance of one of his mad pranks, or with some serious purpose legal or illegal. He had got as near his object as Strathtyrum, a mile or so from the castle, when he was seized, and carried to the castle or palace of Falkland. Thence his body was some time afterwards removed for burial in the monastery of Lindores, and it was given out that he had died from an attack in the stomach. Public rumor, however, loudly proclaimed that he had been murdered; and when it was insisted that no one had laid hands on him or done him any violence, it was said, that might be true, yet had he been murdered by the cruelest of all methods-starvation. There was a parliamentary inquiry into the affair. This was not in the shape of a trial for a crime, but of an inquiry for the sake of clearing up doubts and rumors. The conclusion is set forth in an equivocal form tending to strengthen suspicion. It is declared that the young prince died by the visitation of Providence, and not otherwise.' For his capture and detention, and for his death in the manner so described-that is, by the visitation of Providence-Albany, Douglas, and their assistants are indemnified, and all persons are. forbidden to circulate false and calumnious rumors against them. By Rothesay's death Albany regained his old office of governor. To clear to him the way to the throne, however, would have required more crimes or calamities; for the king had yet a son-afterwards James I.-and three daughters.