The Bishop’s Army—Sorrow for the Fate of the Heroic Douglas.
The two brothers, the Earls of Dunbar and Moray, were now left to
command the Scottish army after the afflicting death of the Earl of
Douglas. Deeply as they grieved for him, they had but little leisure
for mourning, since every succeeding moment brought them in harassing
rumours that the Bishop of Durham was coming against them with a great
army. During the whole of the day succeeding the battle, and of the
night which followed it, they were so kept on the alert that they could
even do but little to succour the wounded or bury the dead. The
prisoners, however, among whom were many renowned knights, besides the
two Piersies, were treated with all that chivalric courtesy and
hospitality for which the age was so remarkable. Sir Rafe was
immediately despatched in a litter to Alnwick, that he might have the
benefit of such careful treatment as might be most likely to cure the
many and severe wounds he had received.
After various false alarms, the second morning after the battle brought
back the scouts, who had been sent to follow the flying enemy, and to
gather what intelligence they might in the neighbourhood of Newcastle.
By these men they were informed of the proclamation which had been made
in the town, and of the proposed march of the Bishop of Durham’s large
army. A council of war was immediately held, and the opinion was
unanimous that they should remain where they were to receive the Bishop
in their present position, which they had already proved to be so
favourable for successful defence against superior numbers, rather than
march harassed as they were with a number of wounded and prisoners, and
with the risk of being overtaken in unfavourable ground. They
accordingly hastened to strengthen themselves in the best way they
could; and, as they had but little time for a choice of plans, they
piled up an abattis, formed of the dead bodies of the slain, on the top
of the broken rampart that stretched across between the flanking
marches, and defended the entrance to their position.
Before the enemy appeared, a very serious question arose for the
consideration of the leaders. Their prisoners amounted to above a
thousand, and what was to be done with them? To have put them to death
would have been so barbarous that such an idea could not be entertained
for a moment in such times; yet, as their number was nearly equal to
half their little army, the danger they ran from their breaking loose
upon them during the fight, and even turning the tide of battle against
them, was sufficiently apparent to every one. At length, after much
debate and deliberation, it was generally resolved to trust them. They
were accordingly drawn up in the centre of the camp, and an oath
administered to them that they should not stir from the spot during the
ensuing battle, and that, be the result what it might, they should
still consider themselves as prisoners to Scotland. After this
solemnity, they left them slenderly guarded by some of the varlets and
wainmen, with perfect confidence that they would keep their oath.
Then it was that the Earl of Dunbar thus encouraged his soldiers, after
having drawn them up behind their lines.
“My brave Scots,” said he, “ye who have hardly yet well breathed sith
that ye did conquer the renowned Piersies of Northumberland, can have
little fear, I trow, to encounter a mitred priest. Verily, though his
host be great, it will be but two strokes when both shepherd and sheep
will be dispersed, and we shall teach this pastoral knight that it were
better for him to be a scourger of schoolboy urchins with birchen rods
than to essay thus, with the sword, to do battle against bearded
soldiers.”
This speech was received with shouts by the little army to which it was
addressed, and, “Douglas, Douglas! revenge our brave, our beloved
Douglas!” was heard to break from every part of the line. The two Earls
had hardly completed their preparations, when the approach of the
Bishop of Durham’s army was announced. Orders were immediately issued
for each soldier to blow the horn he carried, and the loud and
discordant sound of these rude and variously-toned instruments being
re-echoed and multiplied from the hills, was distinctly audible at
several miles’ distance. It rung in the ears of the Bishop, and very
much appalled him. Had it not been for a spice of shame he felt, he
would have been disposed to have gone no farther; but the knights and
esquires who were with him were still sanguine in their hopes of
successfully attacking, with so large a force, the small army of the
Scots, wasted as it was by the recent bloody engagement.
“Verily, it is a sinful thing to trust in the arm of flesh,” said the
Bishop, growing paler and paler. “Who knoweth what may be the issue of
the battle? Trust not in numbers. Non salvatur rex per multam virtutem;
even the bravery of a Bishop shall not always win the fight. Gigas non
salvabitur in multitudine virtutis suæ; even the courage of the
greatest of Churchmen shall not always prevail. Fallax equus ad
salutem; a horse is counted but a vain thing to save a man. St.
Cuthbert grant,” ejaculated he in a lower tone—“St. Cuthbert grant that
our steeds may be preserved.”
The Bishop, however, dissembling his feelings as well as he could,
continued to advance in good order until he came within sight of the
Scots; when, beholding the strength of their position, and the horrible
bulwark of defence they had constructed with the heaps of the dead
bodies of the English whom they had already sacrificed, and listening
to their wild shrieks of defiance, mingled with the increased sound of
their horns, his blood froze within him, and he halted to reason with
those who had been so prone to attack the foe. But opinions had been
mightily changed in the course of a mile’s march. The knights and
esquires, who had been lately so bold, now listened with becoming
patience to the prudent arguments of their reverend leader; and when,
after a considerable halt, and holding a communication with the Castle
of Otterbourne, the Bishop did at last give the word for his army to
retreat, there was not a single voice lifted in condemnation of the
movement.
When it was fully ascertained in the Scottish army that the retrograde
march of the English was no manœuvre, but a genuine retreat, a strong
guard of observation was planted, and orders were given to proceed with
the sad duty, already too long neglected, of collecting such of the
wounded as had lain miserably on the plain, without food or attention,
ever since they had fallen. Parties were also appointed to bury the
dead.
The body of the heroic Douglas had never been deserted by the
affectionate Lundie, who, though himself grievously wounded, sat
watching it by the thicket where he died, until the termination of the
battle and the break of day enabled the Saintclaires, the Earl of
Moray, and the Hepbornes, to come to his aid. Then was his honoured
corpse carried to the camp; but it was not till after the departure of
the Bishop of Durham, that the Earls of Moray and Dunbar, accompanied
by the whole chivalry of the Scottish army, met together at night in
the pavilion of the Douglas. There—sad contrast to the happy night
which they had so lately spent in the same place, under the cheering
influence of his large, mild, and benignant eye!—they came to behold
his body laid out in state. It was attended, even in death, by those
who had never abandoned him in life. By the side of his bier lay his
brave son Archibald, who had so well fulfilled his last injunctions. At
his feet were stretched his two faithful esquires, who had so nobly
perished with their master. Near them stood Robert Hop Pringle, leaning
on the Douglas’s shield, who, having been separated from him in the
thickest press, had fought like a lion, vainly searching for him
through the field, and who now looked with an eye of mingled grief and
envy on his comrades. Richard Lundie too was there, wounded as he was,
to perform a solemn service for that soul with which he had long held
the closest and dearest converse. The place was dimly illuminated by
the red glare of numerous torches, held by some hardy soldiers, who,
though formed of the coarsest human clay, were yet unable to look
towards the bier where lay the body of their brave commander, whose
fearless heart had so often led them on to glory, without the big tears
running down the furrows of their weather-beaten cheeks. Those who were
tempered of finer mould, and whose rank had brought them into closer
contact with the Douglas, and, above all, those whom strict friendship
had bound to him, though they struggled hard to bear up like men, were
forced to yield to the feelings that oppressed them. So overpowering
indeed was the scene that Harry Piersie himself, who had craved
permission to be present, wept tears of unfeigned sorrow over the
remains of him who had been so lately his noble rival in the field of
fame. “Douglas,” said he with a quivering lip that marked the intensity
of his feelings, “what would I not give to see that lofty brow of thine
again illumined with the radiant sunshine of thy godlike soul? Accursed
be my folly—accursed be my foolish pride! Would that the curtailment of
half the future life of Hotspur could be given to restore and eke out
thine! God wot how joyously he would now make the willing sacrifice.
Thou hast not left thy peer in chivalry, and even Hotspur’s glory must
wane for lack of thee to contend with.”
This generous speech of the noble Piersie deeply affected all present.
Sir Patrick Hepborne stole silently out of the tent to give way to his
emotions in private, and to breathe the invigorating breeze of the
evening, that sported among the dewy furze and the wild thyme that grew
on the side of the hill. The moon was by this time up. Hepborne looked
over the lower ground, that was now widely lighted up by her beams,
where the furious and deadly strife had so lately raged, and where all
was now comparatively still. The only signs of human life—and they
spoke volumes for its folly, its frailty, and its insignificance—were
the few torches that were here and there seen straggling about, carried
by those who were creeping silently to and fro, over the field of the
dead, looking for the bodies of their friends.
Hepborne’s heart was already sufficiently attuned to sadness; and it
led him to descend the slope before him, that he might be a spectator
of the melancholy scene. As he wandered about from one busy group to
another, he met his esquire, Mortimer Sang, who, so actively engaged at
the beginning of the battle, had fortunately escaped, covered indeed
with wounds of little importance in themselves. His friend Roger
Riddel, who had been a good deal hurt, but who had been also fortunate
enough to survive an attack where it appeared almost impossible that a
mouse could have escaped with life, was with him. They were employed in
the pious duty of looking for some of their friends who had not
appeared. After they had turned over many an unknown and nameless
corpse, and many a body whose face had been familiar to them, on each
of whom Roger Riddel had some short and pithy remark to bestow, they at
last discovered the well-set form of Ralpho Proudfoot.
“Good fellow, thy pride is laid low, I well wot,” cried Roger Riddel,
as he held up the head of the dead man to the light of the torch, and
discovered who he was.
The same haughty expression that always characterised him still sat
upon his forehead in death; his eyebrows were fiercely knit and his lip
curled. His battle-axe was firmly grasped with both his hands, and a
heap of English dead lay around him. He had fallen across the body of a
Scottish man-at-arms, and on turning him up, Hepborne was shocked to
behold the features of Robert Lindsay.
“Ah me!” cried Roger Riddel; “what will become of thine ould father,
Robin.”
“Robert Lindsay!” said Sang—“Blessed Virgin!—no—it cannot be—ay—there
is indeed that open countenance of truth the which was never moved with
human wrath or wickedness. This is indeed a bitter blow to us all; and
as for his poor father, as thou sayest, Roger, Heaven indeed knows how
the old man may stand it, for poor Robert here was the only hope and
comfort of his life. Let me but clip a lock of his hair, and take from
his person such little trinkets as may peraunter prove soothing, though
sad memorials, to the afflicted Gabriel.”
“Alas, poor Robert Lindsay!—alas for poor Gabriel!” was all that
Hepborne’s full heart could utter, as recollections of home, and of his
boyish days, crowded upon him until his eyes ran over.
The position in which their bodies were found sufficiently explained
that Lindsay and Proudfoot had been fighting side by side in the midst
of a cloud of foes. Lindsay had fallen first, and Proudfoot had stood
over him, defending his dying friend, until, overpowered by numbers, he
had been stretched across him, covered with mortal wounds. Near him lay
the body of an English knight, and some of those who knew him declared
him to be Sir Miers de Willoughby.
Hepborne saw that a grave was dug to contain the bodies of Lindsay and
Proudfoot, and he himself assisted the esquires in depositing them in
the earth, locked in each other’s embrace.