Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/373

A.D. 1327.] sum of money to discharge her debts, and a jointure of £20,000 a year—a sum quite equal in value to £100,000 now. This last enactment, in fact, established the supremacy of the queen and her paramour Mortimer: the council became, as they meant it to be, a mere empty figure of state policy; Mortimer, who had taken care not even to have his name placed on the council, as affecting the modesty of a private man, now all appeared secure, assumed the state and establishment of a king.

Boy, however, as the king was, his spirit was too active and inquiring to leave him with safety unemployed about the court: he would be sure there to be soon making observations, which, ere long, might bring trouble to the usurpers. Mortimer tried to keep him entertained by various frivolous amusements; but there needed something more active and engrossing, and which would lead him to a distance from the court; and this was speedily furnished by the Scots. Their successes over Edward II., and especially their grand triumph at Bannockburn, had greatly elated them; and the present crisis, when there was a deposed king, and a mere boy on the throne, appeared too tempting to omit a profitable incursion into England. Robert Bruce was now growing, if not old, yet infirm; but he was as full as ever of martial daring.

At this distance of time it appears equally impolitic and ungenerous in the Scots to make this attack. There was a truce existing between the kingdoms, and it might seem as if it would have been more prudent every way for the Scots to strengthen and consolidate their internal forces than thus wantonly to provoke their old and potent enemies. But the state of rancour between the two countries no doubt impelled them to this course. Probably, too, the hope of regaining at such a period the northern provinces of England, which had formerly belonged to Scotland, was an actuating cause. Bruce appointed to this service his two great generals, the good Lord James Douglas and his nephew Thomas Randolph, now Earl of Moray, some of whose daring exploits we have had already to record. They were to lay waste the counties of Durham and Northumberland, and do all the injury to England that they could. They made an attempt on the castle of Norham, but were repulsed with heavy loss. They then increased their army to 25,000, summoning the vassals of the crown from every quarter, Highlands, Lowlands, and isles.

This army of Scots has been most graphically described by Froissart. He represents them as lightly armed, nimble, and hardy, and, from their simple mode of living, capable of making rapid marches or retreats, being totally unencumbered with baggage. There were 4,000 cavalry, well-mounted and well-armed; the rest were mounted on ponies, active, but strong, which could pick up a subsistence anywhere. The men carried no provisions, except a small bag of oatmeal, and, says the chronicler, "they had no need of pots or pans, for they cooked the beasts, when they had skinned them, in a simple manner." That is, they killed the cattle of the English, of which they found plenty on their march, and roasted the flesh on wooden spits, or boiled it in the skins of the animals themselves, putting on a little water with the beef to prevent the hides being burnt. They also cut up the hides for their shoes, fitting them to their feet and ankles while raw, with the hair outwards; so that from this cause the English called them the rough-footed Scots, and red-shanks, from the colour of the hides.

Every man carried at his saddle an iron plate called a girdle, on which, whenever they halted, they could bake cakes of thin oatmeal. Thus armed, and thus provisioned, the Scots could speed from mountain to mountain, and from glen to glen, with amazing rapidity, advancing to pillage, or disappearing at the approach of an enemy, as if they were nowhere at hand. With such forces Douglas and Randolph crossed the Tweed, ravaged Durham and Northumberland, and advanced into the county of York.

To oppose these invaders, the English raised rapidly an army said to amount to 60,000 men. They had recalled John of Hainault and some cavalry which they had dismissed; and the young king of fourteen, burning with impatience to chastise the Scots, marched hastily towards the north. His progress, however, suffered some delay at York, from a violent quarrel which broke out between the English archers and the foreign troops under John of Hainault. The archers, and especially those of Lincolnshire, who probably had an old feud with the natives of Flanders, displayed a dogged dislike to those troops, and in the streets of York they came actually to downright battle, and many men were killed on both sides. This difference quelled, if not settled, the English army moved on. Very soon they came in sight of burning farms and villages, which marked the track of the Scots. These Scots, however, themselves were nowhere visible, for they retreated with double the celerity with which the English, heavily loaded with baggage, could follow them. The Scots did not retreat directly north, but took, according to Froissart, their way westward, amongst the savage deserts and bad mountains and valleys, as he calls them, of Cumberland and Westmoreland. The English crossed the Tyne, trusting to cut off the homeward route of the enemy; but the utterly desolated condition of the country compelled them to recross that river, for no sustenance could be procured for the troops. After thus vainly pursuing this light-footed foe for some time, Edward, excessively chagrined in not being able to come up with them, or even to find them, offered a freehold worth £100 a year and the honours of knighthood to any one who would bring him intelligence of the enemy. After severe hardships, and enormous fatigue to the soldiers, wading through waters and swamps, a man, one Thomas of Rokeby, came riding hard to the camp, and claimed the reward offered by the king. He said he had been made prisoner by the Scots, and that they had said they should be as glad to see the English king as he would to see them. This was not very probable, as they might have waited for the king, which they had taken care not to do. There, however, they lay, at not more than three leagues distant.

The reason of the Scots now halting was visible enough when the English came up. They found them posted on the right bank of the Weir, where the river was deep and rapid, and there was no possibility of getting at them. Even could they cross the river, they must climb a steep hill in face of the enemy to attack them. Under these circumstances, Edward sent a challenge to the Scottish generals to meet him on a fair and open field, either by drawing back and allowing him to cross the