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Royal Stuarts
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Royal Stuarts
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Battle of Otterburn, 1388
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The 1388 invasion of England was as carefully concealed from the king as from the enemy. A great assemblage was held at Aberdeen. Here, far from the place of warlike mustering, the whole project was planned. Those concerned then dispersed, as if their business bad been completed; and each brought the forces he could command to a place of muster, some two hundred miles from the place of council, on the edge of the English border. The force assembled was perhaps the largest Scotland had ever supplied. The best authority makes it fully fifty thousand. Such a gathering could not be made so quietly but that alarming rumours would pass to those in the north of England most nearly concerned. It was resolved to send a spy to the muster, near Jedburgh. An English gentleman undertook the duty, and got access to the church where the heads of the army were assembled, passing, as it appears, for one of their attendants. Returning to a spot where be bad staked his horse, he found it gone; a well-accoutred steed unmatched was too tempting a prize in such a motley assembly. He attempted to walk away, but the sight of a person booted and spurred for riding walking off contentedly, without making any inquiry concerning his lost steed, roused suspicion. He was seized and compelled to serve the Scots with information instead of his own people. He was told that his life depended on his telling the truth, and telling all; and those who dealt with him were sagacious in distinguishing true from false information about warlike affairs. It was ascertained that the English, feeling themselves this time the feebler force of the two, were to follow the policy of the Scots in the last affair-invade Scotland while their enemy invaded, England. Whichever were the direction in which the Scots passed southward-to the west by Cumberland, or to the east by Northumberland-the English were to take the opposite line northwards; and it was to enable them to decide between these alternatives that they had commissioned their hopeful spy.
This was valuable information. It helped the leaders of the Scots to a decided and distinctive tactic: they would invade England on both sides and puzzle the enemy. They had among them many who, from repeated invasions, were accurately acquainted with the country, and they believed that they could so adjust their movements that, if a battle became imminent, they could bring their divided army together. The particulars of their information decided them on sending the stronger division-in fact, the bulk of the army-by Carlisle and the west. It was commanded by Sir Archibald Douglas. The other division was to make a flying raid to divert attention, rather than an invasion; and Froissart says it was made up of but 300 picked lances, or mounted men-at-arms, and 2000 footmen. They bad the Earls of Douglas, Dunbar, and Moray for commanders. The policy of both divisions was to get speedily through the districts near the border, which had-been so often pillaged, and frighten England by entering on new ground. It was to the smaller division on the east line that the most memorable share of the invasion fell; and they had passed so rapidly and quietly, with abstinence from all plunder, that they were at the gates of Durham ere their presence in England was distinctly felt. Distant specks of fire, bursting out in successive ranges at night, and corresponding puffs of smoke in daylight, showed that they were at work, but their motions were too quick and devious to be otherwise traced. The country they were in had been long unpillaged, and they turned northwards heavy- handed with plunder.
There was a hasty consultation at Alnwick Castle. It was resolved that the Earl of Northumberland's two sons, Sir Henry, the renowned Hotspur, and Sir Ralph, should go to Newcastle, and gather round that strong place the chivalry of the north, while the earl himself abode at home with a smaller force ; thus it was hoped the invaders, on their return, might find themselves between two armies. The northern barons assembled at Newcastle in great force. The small party of Scots remained there for three days, and several passages at arms, tournaments, or outpost skirmishes, were held by the two forces. It fell out that in one of these Douglas secured Hotspurs pennon, a. signal triumph to the gainer-as great a mortification to the loser. Douglas aggravated this by crying out that he would raise it on the tower of his Castle of Dalkeith. Percy retorted with a vow that he should not carry it out of Northumberland. Douglas then, in the true spirit of the fashionable chivalry of the time, told him to come that night and take it; it would be found in front of the Douglas's tent.
The Scots were prepared for a night attack, but the English barons were against it, for they were yet ignorant whether the Scots were a separate force, or merely a detachment of a large army skirmishing to draw the English onwards to destruction, and Percy's impetuosity was restrained.
The Scots drew off by Rede eater, where they took the Tower of Pontelands. They then passed on to another tower, bearing the renowned name of Otterburn: this they attacked in vain. Tired with the hard and dispiriting work of an unsuccessful siege, the question was, what next should be done? The general feeling was to take advantage of the remissness of the enemy clear home with the booty; but Douglas and a few others were of another mind. It was in the proper of chivalry that the Percys should have their revenge; honor of carrying off the pennon was hardly complete if its loser were not offered all opportunity for its recovery. his was the generous and chivalrous view, and from the rumor the, Scots knights were in it carried the day. But the rules of chivalry did not demand that they should neglect those of self-defense. They entrenched themselves with much labor and diligence. The remains of their works may still be seen, so strong, as to carry the impression rather of a small fortress than a camp. Their scouts told Percy's party where the Scots were, and at the same time gave assurance that they were no detachment from a large force near at hand, but were in all but a small body not exceeding three thousand. On hearing this, Hotspur justified his impatient character by the vehemence with which he called to horse, and urged on his comrades and retainers to help him in the recovery of his pennon. The Bishop of Durham was coming up with a reinforcement, but Hotspur would not wait; he had already eight hundred mounted men and eight thousand footmen-more than enough for his purpose. They sped on to Otterburn as fast as the footmen could go, and instantly attacked the Scots position on a moonlit night, being the 19th August 1388.
It was not the purpose of the chivalrous assail make a furtive attack-the Percy war-cry loud claimed it to the whole camp. It appears that if the Scots knights, tired with their work at the siege tower, had relieved themselves of their armour, and it took some time to reincase them in the complicated mail covering- with which their friends of France had endowed them. The impatient Percys had, however, begun their attack on the quarters of the camp-followers, and these, assisted by a few spearmen from the ranks, held out while the harnessing went on. When the main body were ready for action, instead of pushing forward into the fray they adopted a tactic which Froissart says they had arranged beforehand on a careful inspection of the ground, "which," he says, "was the saving of them; for it is of the greatest advantage to men-at-arms when attacked in the night to have previously arranged their mode of defence." They crept out in the rear, and, sweeping round the camp, fell upon their assailants in flank. These were fighting the Scots in their camp, yet were assailed by a Scots force coming from without, a surprise likely to make them question the tale that there was no reserve at hand; but there was no panic, and as Froissart says, "Knights and squires were of good courage in both parties to fight valiantly; cowards there had no place, but hardiness reigned with goodly feats of arms, for knights and squires were so joined to-ether at hand-strokes that archers had no place at, neither party. There the Scots showed great hardiness, and fought merrily with great desire of honour. The English were three to one. Howbeit I say not but Englishmen did nobly acquit themselves, for ever the Englishmen had rather been slain or taken in the place than fly. At the beginning the English were so strong that they recoiled back their enemies. Then the Earl of Douglas, who was of great heart and high of enterprise, seeing his men recoil back, then to recover the place and show knightly valour, he took his axe in both his hands, and entered so into the press that he made himself way in such wise that none durst approach near him, and he was so well armed that he bore well of such strokes as he received." At length he was borne down mortally wounded, and trodden over in the fight. "The Englishmen well they had borne one down to the earth, but wist not who it was, for if they had known that it had been the Earl of Douglas they would have been thereof so joyful and so proud that the victory had been theirs. Nor also the Scots knew not of that adventure till the end of the battle, for if they had known it they should have been so sore despaired and discouraged that they would have fled away." Some of his immediate followers found him, rejoicing like the old Norsemen that his death, like that of many ancestors, was to be on a stricken field. With his latest strength he bade them display his banner and raise his battle cry; and this was done with such heart that the Scots charged and broke their enemy, who seem in the thick of the hand-to-hand fight to have lost sight of their leaders. The younger of these, Ralph, fell like Douglas sorely wounded, but, rendering himself, was carefully tended. . His elder brother, Hotspur, too, had to yield himself a prisoner, with many others of high degree, and consequently representing a great value in ransom money. Froissart says he was told that in this affair " there were taken or left dead on the field on the side of the English one thousand and forty men of all descriptions ; in the pursuit eight hundred and forty, and more than one thousand wounded. Of the Scots there were only about one hundred slain and two hundred made prisoners; "
That there was a memorable slaughter in this affair-a slaughter far beyond the usual proportion to the numbers engaged-cannot be doubted: nor was there ever bloodshed more useless for the practical ends of war. It all came of the capture of the Percy's pennon. The Scots might have got clear off with all their booty; the English forgot all the precautions of war when they made a midnight rush on a fortified camp without knowledge of the ground or the arrangements of their enemy. It was for these specialties that Froissart admired it so. He saw in it a fight for fighting's sake-a great passage at arms in which no bow was drawn, but each man fought band to hand; in fact, about the greatest and bloodiest tournament he had to record. Hence his narrative is ever interrupted with bursts of admiration as his fancy contemplates the delightful scene raised before it. He is eloquent, too, on the knightly generosity and chivalrous courtesy shown on both sides, and especially on - that which had the best opportunity of being generous-the victorious. To convince all who read his narrative that he is right in the eulogies be bestows, he gives some narratives of personal adventure among the combatants. These are very amusing as episodes and anecdotes, but would be spoilt by removal from their own proper place in Froissart's narative. The chivalrous nature of the battle had its charm for the popular minstrels of the day as well as for the courtly historian. It was commemorated in those old songs of Percy and Douglas, of which Sir Philip Sidney said that when he heard the singing of them by some poor "blind crowder " he was "moved more than with a trumpet." Besides the ballads which commemorate the battle of Otterburn by name, the still more popular and renowned ballads of the Chevy Chase bring out the same narrative of events, with only a little more of the minstrel's licence.
The battle of Otterburn has this much significance in history, that it marks the fading from the defenders of Scotland of the dread of immediate absolute conqust by England. It is like the inhabitants of a besiege taking to their natural courses when the immediate danger is over. The Scots could now afford to play at war with that enemy which had given them so much of its serious business.
The dangers of the small invading army were not at an end when Percy's force was driven back. These, in their retreat to Newcastle, met the Bishop of Durham advancing at the head of ten thousand men. When they thought the matter over afterwards, it became disagreeably clear that, had the bishop's party joined the fugitives in a new attack, the Scots would to a certainty have been beaten. But there was still the uncertainty about the possible presence of a large Scots force, and a general discouraging confusion. While the bishop was discussing the matter with some of the leaders, his following got gradually mixed up with the fugitives, and he resolved to join the retreating body.
Next day he marched against the Scots, but these had been busy in the mean time strengthening their position into a thoroughly fortified camp. The enemy, on coming within two bowshots of them, were received after a manner so strange that it must be told in the words of the great chronicler himself: "The Scots have a custom, when assembled in arms, for those who are on foot to be well dressed, each having a large born slung round his neck in the manner of hunters, and when they blow all together, the horns being of different sizes, the noise is so great it may be heard four miles off, to the great dismay of their enemies and their own delight. The Scots commanders ordered this sort of music now to be played. The Bishop of Durham, with his banner, under which were at least ten thousand men, had scarcely approached within a league of the Scots when they began to play such a concert that it seemed all the devils in hell had come thither to join in the noise, so that those of the English who had never heard such were much frightened."
Froissart mentions another peculiarity of the warlike resources shown in this incursion of the Scots-the use by the unmounted men of a long-shafted battle-axe wielded by both hands. It was similar in shape to the English bill, but much larger, and it was afterwards well dreaded as a formidable weapon in the hands of those trained to it; it became known in later times as the Lochaber axe, a long shaft, with a blade longer than an axe's and shorter than a sword's, with a hook behind, which might be used in climbing walls, or perhaps in catching a fugitive.