=Source.=--Richard of Hexham, _De gestis regis Stephani_, ed. Hewlett,
vol. iii., p. 159. (Rolls Series, Chronicles of Stephen, Henry II., and
Richard I.)
The king (of Scotland) passing by Durham with his army wasted the crops
as far as the river Tees, and after his custom broke into, plundered
and burned the towns and churches which he had earlier left untouched;
and crossing the Tees also, he began to work the same havoc. But the
pity of God, stirred by the tears of innumerable widows, orphans and
wretched men, suffered him no longer to practise impiety so great
without punishment. The preparations of him and his men for such
wickedness, all his stores, and what he intended to do and whither to
go, did not escape the men of Yorkshire. So the barons of that county,
to wit, archbishop Thurstan, who, as will appear later, was a prime
mover in this business, and William de Aumâle, Walter de Ghent, Robert
de Bruce, Roger de Mowbray, Walter Spec, Ilbert de Lacy, William de
Percy, Richard de Courcy, William Fossard, Robert de Stutevill, and the
other mighty and learned men, assembled at York and discussed eagerly
among themselves what plan to adopt in this crisis. And since many
hesitated, suspecting the treason of others and mutually distrustful,
and since they had no commander and leader in war, for king Stephen
their lord was overwhelmed at that season with equal difficulties in
the south of England and could not come to them at present, and since
they feared to oppose their slight forces to numbers so superior,
it seemed as if they would altogether abandon the attempt to defend
themselves and their country; but Thurstan, their archbishop, a man
of great persistence and worth, encouraged them with his speech and
counsel. For he was the pastor of their souls, and unlike the hireling,
regarded not his own safety by flight from the ravaging wolf, but
rather was torn by the keenest compassionate grief at the scattering
and undoing of his flock and the destruction of his country, and
left no step untried, no stone unturned, to find a remedy for such
monstrous evils. Wherefore, both by the divine authority entrusted to
him and by the royal power then committed to him in this matter, and
by their fealty and honour, he faithfully admonished them not to allow
themselves through cowardice to be overthrown in a single day by the
worst sort of barbarism.... He also promised them that he would cause
the priests of his diocese to march together with them to battle,
with their crosses and their parishioners, and purposed himself, God
willing, to be present at the fight. At the same troubled season
Bernard de Balliol, one of the chief men of that district, came to them
from the king with a large body of knights, and both on the king’s
and his own behalf inflamed their hearts to the same purpose. Urged
therefore by the commands both of their king and of their archbishop,
they were all with one accord confirmed in one same purpose, and each
returned to his home. Soon after they all reassembled at York with
their munitions and arms ready for war. So when they had done penance
privately, the archbishop enjoined on them a three-days’ fast with
alms, and thereafter solemnly gave them absolution and God’s and his
own blessing, and though by reason of great infirmity and the weakness
of old age he was carried in a litter wherever he was needed, yet to
arouse their courage he determined to go with them. But they forced
him to remain, beseeching him to be content to intercede for them by
prayer and alms, watching and fasting and by other godly works; they
would gladly fight the enemy for God’s church and for His minister, as
He should deign to help them, and as their order demanded. Thereupon
he delivered to them his cross and the banner of St. Peter and his
own men; and they went to the town of Thirsk. Thence they sent Robert
de Brus and Bernard de Balliol to the king of Scotland, who was now
wasting the land of St. Cuthbert, as was said above; they begged him,
with the greatest deference and friendliness, to desist thenceforth
from his cruel measures, and promise faithfully to ask the king of
England to confer on Henry, son of the king of Scotland, the county
of Northumberland, which that king had demanded. But he and his men
hardened their hearts, rejected their overtures, and treated them with
scornful contempt. So Robert abjured the homage he had done to him, and
Bernard the fealty which he had once sworn, when captured by him, and
both returned to their fellows. Thereupon all the chief men of that
county, and William Peverel and Geoffrey Halsalin from Nottinghamshire,
and Robert de Ferers from Derbyshire, and other weighty and wise men,
bound and fortified themselves in turn with oaths, that none of them
would desert the others in this business, so long as they could each
render mutual aid, and so all would either die or conquer together. At
the same time the archbishop sent to them Ralph Novellus, bishop of
Orkney, with one of his own archdeacons and other clerks, who in his
stead should enjoin penance and give absolution to the bands of people
daily flocking thither from all quarters. He also sent to them the
priests with their parishioners, as he had promised them.
While, then, they were looking for the coming of the Scots, the scouts,
whom they had sent in advance, returned, reporting that the king had
already crossed the river Tees with his army, and after his custom
was now devastating their district. So they went to meet him with the
utmost haste, and passing through the town of Northallerton, reached
at break of day a field two miles distant therefrom. Forthwith some of
them set up the mast of a ship in the middle of a scaffold which they
had brought, and called it the Standard.... On the top thereof they
hung a silver box containing the body of Christ, and the banners of St.
Peter the Apostle, and St. John of Beverley and St. Wilfred of Ripon,
confessors and bishops. This they did that Jesus Christ our Lord, by
the presence of His body, might be their leader in the war which they
had undertaken for the defence of His church and their country, at the
same time providing hereby that, if any of them should be by chance
separated from their fellows and scattered, they would have a sure
signal by which to return to them and there find assistance. They had
hardly equipped themselves with arms for the fight, when the king of
Scotland was reported to be at hand with the whole of his army ready
and arrayed for battle. Therefore a great part of the knights left
their horses and became footmen, and the choicest of them were arrayed
with archers and set in the front rank, the rest, except the ordainers
and directors of the battle, being packed about the Standard in the
centre of the position, while the remainder of the troops were massed
around them on every side in a dense rampart. The band of horsemen and
the horses of the knights were withdrawn a little farther, that they
might not take fright at the noise and clamour of the Scots. In like
manner among the enemy the king himself and almost all his men became
footmen and their horses were kept farther back. In the forefront of
the battle were the Picts, in the middle the king with his knights
and Englishmen; and the rest of the barbarous horde pressed around on
all sides. While they marched to battle in such order, the Standard
with its banners was seen not far away, and at once the hearts of the
king and his followers were struck with a mighty fear and terror. But
hardened in their malice, they yet strove to fulfil the evil work begun
by them. So on the octave of the Assumption of St. Mary, 22 August,
between the first and third hours, the strife of this battle began
and ended. For straightway at the first onset innumerable Picts were
slain, and the rest threw down their arms and basely took to flight.
The field was choked with corpses, large numbers were captured, and
the king and all the residue fled. Of that great army, all were either
killed or captured or scattered like sheep whose shepherd is smitten
down, and in wonderful wise, as if deprived of their sense, they fled
as much away from their own land into the neighbouring parts of their
enemies’ country, as towards their native land. But wherever they
were found, they were killed like sheep for slaughter; and so by the
righteous judgment of God, those who had woefully slain and left the
dead unburied were themselves more woefully cut to pieces, and found
no burial after the fashion of their own or the foreigners’ land, but
were exposed to dogs, birds and wild beasts, or torn and dismembered,
or left to decay and putrefy under the open sky. The king also, who a
short time before in his excessive pride of heart and in the magnitude
of his army seemed to have raised his head among the stars of heaven,
and therefore threatened to destroy utterly the whole or the greatest
part of England, was now shorn of his glory, and accompanied by but a
few, and covered with the utmost shame and disgrace, scarcely escaped
alive.
The degree of the divine vengeance appeared most clearly in the fact
that the army of the vanquished was beyond estimation larger than that
of the conquerors; nor could the number of the slain be counted by any
man. For, as many bear witness, of the army which left Scotland alone,
more than ten thousand are reckoned to have been missing from the ranks
of those who returned, for throughout divers parts of Deira, Bernicia,
Northumberland, Cumberland and other districts, many more were cut off
after the battle than were slain in the battle. The English army, on
the other hand, lost few of its numbers, speedily gaining a victory
by God’s aid; and dividing the booty which was found there in great
quantities, in a short while almost wholly broke up, and every man
returned to his own home, restoring to the churches with joy and
thanksgiving the banners of the saints which they had received. Verily
they had marched to this battle in their finest array and all their
wealth, as it had been to a royal marriage feast.