Battle of Humbleton Hill
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| Battle of Humbleton Hill | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| Scots | English | ||||||
| Commanders | |||||||
| Archibald Douglas, 4th Earl of Douglas | Earl of Northumberland Harry "Hotspur" Percy Earl of Dunbar & March |
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On September 14, 1402, a Scottish army returning from a pillaging expedition in the English county of Northumberland, suffered complete defeat at the Battle of Humbleton Hill (or Homildon Hill). The Scots, led by Archibald, Earl of Douglas, had invaded in part to avenge the killing and capture of prominent Scottish nobles in the battle of Nesbit Moor.
The battle was famously recounted in Shakespeare’s Henry IV. Although Humbleton Hill is the modern name of the site, over the centuries it has been variously named Homildon, Hameldun, Holmedon, and Homilheugh.
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[edit] Black Douglas
Angered by the setback at Nesbit, Douglas appealed to Robert Stewart, 1st Duke of Albany, the Regent of Scotland. By early September troops were beginning to concentrate on the east march. A party of French knights were also in attendance, having recently arrived in the country. Douglas was additionally joined by forces led by Murdoch Stewart, Albany's eldest son, his kinsman George Douglas, 1st Earl of Angus, Thomas de Dunbar, Earl of Moray, and a party of Gallwegians, led by Fergus Macdouall. Other contingents were headed by the chiefs of the houses of Erskine, Grahame, Montgomery, Seton, Sinclair, Lesley and the Stewarts of Lorn and Durisdeer. This was a national rather than a border army, comprising some 10000 men in all.
By early August Henry IV was aware of the build-up of hostile forces on the border. He ordered the sheriff of Lincoln to hold his troops in readiness to assist Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland if necessary; but beyond that he was content to leave matters to the northern levies.
[edit] Storm Let Loose
The storm finally broke at harvest time. Dense columns of Scots crossed the border, in all probability following the same route that the second earl of Douglas had in 1388; but this was no surprise attack: the whole countryside was alerted to the presence of the enemy. Moving eastwards without interruption Douglas marched through Northumberland onwards into County Durham, ravaging and plundering all the way. On the advice of George, Earl of Dunbar and March but now an ally of the English, the Percies decided to let them come on, with the intention of intercepting them on the return, when their progress would be slowed by plundered livestock. The whole countryside gave way before the invaders. It is estimated that over 1000 people left Northumberland, fleeing south in pursuit of refuge. Panic spread to Newcastle, where 100 armed men were detailed to watch the walls every night for the duration of the emergency, and armed vessels stood ready on the Tyne.
Archibald Douglas, who clearly was attempting to cast himself in the role of the heroic second earl, appears to have been blind to the dangers into which the army was being drawn. English troops were concentrating at Alnwick and Dunstanburgh Castle to the north of his position, poised to cut off his retreat. Douglas also seems to have been blinded to reality by the comforting illusion that the victory at Otterburn had given the Scots a decisive edge over their opponents-failing to appreciate how close they had been to disaster on that occasion. He also appears to have taken comfort from the strength of his force, perhaps believing that most of the English army was with King Henry IV on the Welsh Marches. Loaded down with booty he began a leisurely retreat through the valley of the River Till back towards the border at Coldstream, ready to reaquaint his countrymen with the power of the longbow.
[edit] Homildon Hill
When he reached Wooler on 14 September Douglas learned that the enemy were ranged across his line of retreat at Millfield, just over five miles to the north-west. Appreciating the extreme danger of his situation he ordered the Scottish army, booty and all, to deploy in a dense phalanx on the nearby height of Homildon Hill (today Humbleton Hill). This was a good position, rising in successive tiers to an elevation of nearly 1000 feet above sea level, with a flat top upon which there were some ancient fortifications; but it was also twined with another eminence, the nearby Harehope Hill, separated from Homildon by a ravine, but within longbow range. Douglas was well enough situated to repel a cavalry attack; but the very denseness of his army, and his eventual failure to secure Harehope, made him extremely vulnerable to archery; and it was archers who made up the bulk of the approaching English army.
From Millfield the English army advanced down the Till valley, under the leadership of Northumberland, his eldest son Harry Hotspur, previously taken captive at Otterburn, and the earl of March. On finding the enemy at Homildon they took up their own battle positions. The exact distribution of the English troops is not altogether clear, so a recreation of the Battle of Homildon Hill has to involve a degree of guesswork. It would certainly appear that a party of longbowmen was allowed to occupy Harehope, without interruption from Douglas. Here they were comfortably out of range of the Scottish shortbow, and protected by the deep ravine that runs between Harehope and Homildon. The rest of the army, including the remaining archers and men-at-arms, seemed to have been deployed on the lower ground, slightly to the north-west of the Scots in a field, subsequently known as Red Riggs, where a stone still stands said to commemorate the battle.
[edit] Hail of Death
Hotspur, true to his name and nature, wanted to begin the battle by ordering an immediate charge on the Scots. He was restrained by March, whose knowledge of the fighting strengths of both armies was invaluable: as a Scot he was well aware that his people fought best at close quarters, whereas the English had the greatest advantage in dealing death from a distance with the mighty longbow. Each of the bowmen was armed with twenty-four arrows, and it was said of old that they carried twenty-four Scots under their belt. Never was this truer than at Homildon, perhaps the most complete victory for the longbow in English history.
From Harehope and the lower reaches of Homildon the arrows began to whistle into the packed Scottish ranks. The lightly protected Gallwegians suffered most, but even the latest plate armour failed to deflect the punch of the arrows, which cut through helmets with ease. The Scots were so badly deployed that they had scarcely any room to manoeuvre or use their weapons. The horror of the situation was made worse by the screams of the horses and the plundered livestock, maddened by the rush of arrows. Walter Bower, the Scottish chronicler depicts the scene thus;
- ...the English bowmen, advancing towards the Scots, smothered them with arrows and made them bristle like hedgehogs, transfixing the arms and hands of the Scots to their own lances. By means of this very harsh rain of arrows, they wounded others and they killed many.
Even the bravest soldier could only take so much of this. It was not a question of fighting: the only test of courage was to stand and die without turning their backs on an enemy they could not reach. The advancing English archers were unsupported by other infantrymen and could conceivably have been dispersed by a cavalry charge, as their ancestors had been by Robert Keith at Bannockburn. No such attack was ordered by Douglas, who seems to have frozen in indecision. Finally, two knights, Sir John Swinton and Sir Adam Gordon, could take no more, and ordered their own retainers, some 100 men in all, to follow them on a downhill charge. Unsupported by the main army, both men were killed, and their attack destroyed. The survivors of Swinton and Gordon's men were streaming back only to be met by their comrades coming down from the heights, which caused some confusion, made worse when the whole army came across a sudden precipice.
The English archers remained calm, simply giving way, more rapidly in the centre than on the flanks, firing all the time. Before reaching the enemy the Scottish army finally broke, fleeing in all directions, with riderless horses charging wildly across the Till Valley. The English men-at-arms, who had not been engaged at all until now, joined the pursuit, which continued all the way to the River Tweed, thirteen miles to the north, where a further 500 Scots were drowned in a desperate attempt to escape, their bodies borne rapidly downstream by the strong current.
[edit] Black September
An unknown number of men died on the slopes of Homildon Hill; perhaps thousands. There was also a rich hoard in prisoners, numbering among them Murdoch of Fife, the earls of Moray, Angus and Orkney; Lords Montgomery, Erskine, Seton and Abernethy; Sir Robert Logan, Sir William Graham, Sir Adam Forester, Sir David Fleming and Pierre des Essarts with a number of French knights. The chief captive was Archibald Douglas himself who, despite his costly armour, had been wounded in five places, losing one of his eyes. Only five Englishmen are said to have been killed; and while one is normally suspicious of claims of this kind, in the circumstances of the battle this is, perhaps, not improbable.
Homildon was a serious blow to Scottish morale, showing what Otterburn might have been if Hotspur had kept his head. It was a reminder of the massed power of the longbow, which prevailed against the Scots at the past battles of Dupplin Moor, Halidon Hill and Neville's Cross, but which seems to have been forgotten in the intervening years. It was also Archibald Douglas' first major battle and he never did more to justify the title he was subsequently given-the 'Tyneman' (the Loser). His ill-fated raid was the last major invasion of England until another Scots army campaigned in the valley of the Till in the late summer of 1513.
[edit] As recounted by Shakespeare
Here is a dear, a true industrious friend,
Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse.
Stain’d with the variation of each soil
Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours;
And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news.
The Earl of Douglas is discomfited:
Ten thousand bold Scots, two and twenty knights,
Balk’d in their own blood did Sir Walter see
On Holmedon’s plains. Of prisoners, Hotspur took
Mordake the Earl of Fife, and eldest son
To beaten Douglas; and the Earl of Athol,
Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith:
And is not this an honourable spoil?
A gallant prize? ha, cousin, is it not?
---Shakespeare, Henry IV, part 1, act 1, scene 1.
[edit] Battle site
The site of the battle is now located within the Northumberland National Park. The hill contains the remains of an Iron Age hillfort at the summit. This was built 1500 years before the battle. During the medieval period the sides of the ruined fort were apparently used for summer settlements and sheep shelters.
According to Keys to the Past, the Battle Stone at grid reference NT968295 was traditionally thought to commemorate the 1402 battle, but is actually a standing stone dating to the Bronze Age.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Bower, W. (1987), Scotichronicon Vol 8: 1390-1430. Edited by D.E.R. Watt, from the Latin manuscript authored by Bower in the 1440s. Edinburgh: The Mercat Press.
- Cavendish, R. (2002). The Battle of Homildon Hill. History Today, 52(9), 54-55.
- Robson, J., Border Battles and Battlefields, 1897.
- Swinton, G. S. C. John of Swinton: a Border Fighter of the Middle Ages, in the Scottish Historical Review, vol 16, 1919.
- Wylie, J. H. (1969). History of England under Henry the Fourth, reprinted from an 1884 London edition. New York: AMS.
