Malcolm’s hopes were rudely checked by the events of 1066. William’s introduction of a highly centralized rule ensured that for the future Northumbria would not be left to fight her own battles unaided, or, at least, unavenged. Yet for a time Malcolm’s marriage to Margaret, sister of Eadgar the Aetheling, and the considerable immigration into Scotland of fugitive Englishmen, seemed to promise otherwise. Cumberland, it must be remembered, was at present a part of Scotland, having been granted by Eadmund I., after his conquest of it, as a fief to Malcolm I., and Carlisle was an excellent base of operations. In 1070 Malcolm, starting thence, made another savage raid into Northumberland. William thereupon proceeded northward next year, with a great army and a fleet, and penetrated to the Tay. Malcolm made a vague submission, but in 1079, during William’s absence in Normandy, he made a third raid, which was replied to by a counter raid under Prince Robert. A fortress was then constructed on the Tyne to defend southern Bernicia, called the ‘New Castle.’ The result was immediate. Malcolm made no further attack for twelve years, and was then checked by the garrison of Newcastle. He made some kind of submission, but Cumberland was conquered by a treacherous attack of William Rufus, and the English king’s insults drove him to madness. He once more invaded Northumberland, and near Alnwick was defeated and slain.
For many years after the famous king’s death there were no Scottish invasions. Scotland was much troubled with civil war, and afterwards divided between two sons of Malcolm. It was not until 1124 that David I. reunited the country under his rule. For eleven years his relations with England were peaceful, but when Stephen of Blois usurped the English throne, the Scottish king invaded Northumberland, nominally to support his niece, the Empress Matilda, really, of course, to make his profit out of the situation. Northumberland and Durham readily submitted to him as the representative of Matilda, and Stephen, pressed by many difficulties, was glad to purchase his withdrawal by the retrocession of Carlisle, nominally to David’s son Henry, who also received Doncaster and the Earldom of Huntingdon. But the great English magnates were bitterly indignant, and in 1138 war again broke out.
David invaded Northumberland at the very beginning of the year. Already castles were arising, and he failed to take Wark, but wasted the open country, his hordes of wild mountaineers committing terrible atrocities. Stephen hastened northward, and David retreated; but the English king, with rebellion in the south, could only waste Lothian and withdraw. David thereupon reassembled his forces and again advanced. Norham Castle was taken, Wark again besieged, the levies of Lancashire defeated by the King’s nephew William at Clitheroe, and the Scottish host poured over Tees into Yorkshire. There it encountered solid resistance. Its barbarities had exasperated the country-folk, and they rallied en masse to oppose the invaders. The nominal commander-in-chief was the young William of Albemarle, but Thurstan, Archbishop of York, and Sir Walter Espec, the High Sheriff, were the real leaders.
The men of Yorkshire, with reinforcements from Durham, Derby, and Nottingham, assembled at Northallerton, and took up a position on Cowton Moor some distance to the northward. On August 22 they were attacked by the Scots.
David had with him a heterogeneous host from all parts of his dominions—said, with considerable probability, to have been 26,000 strong. But it was very unstable. The Picts of Alban were jealous of the ‘Saxons’ of Lothian, and neither were inclined to work well with the Britons of Strathclyde. The Niduarian Picts of Galloway were uncontrollable, and all the old elements of the realm disliked the new Norman-Teutonic immigrants, although their small force of about 500 mailed horsemen was to show itself the one thoroughly reliable arm of the host.
The English army was, without any doubt, greatly inferior in number, as is shown by the fact that it maintained a passive defensive—the last plan of action likely to be adopted by the fiery Norman-English knights unless there had been compelling reason for it. The bulk of the force consisted of the country levies, but the whole knighthood of Yorkshire were there, and there was a strong contingent of archers. Albemarle and Espec formed their army into one solid mass, probably with the mail-clad knights and their followers dismounted as a front rank. In the centre of the line was a waggon with a tall mast stepped in it, from which flew the sacred banners of St. Peter of York, St. Cuthbert of Durham, St. Wilfrid of Ripon, and St. John of Beverley; and beneath their shadow old Walter Espec and Albemarle took their stand, with a band of chosen warriors as a guard. The horses were sent to the rear, and the barons and knights promised to stand and die with the country-folk.
There was a hot and unfriendly debate in the Scottish host, which shows how incoherent it was. David, according to Aelred of Rievaulx, had intended to attack in one huge column, with the mailed cavalry in front; but the Picts violently objected. Malise, Earl of Strathearn, declared that the ‘Saxons’ were no better than cowards, and that he himself, though he wore no mail, would outstrip the best of them in the charge. Alan Percy hotly replied, and the King was obliged to part the two. The Galwegians, who had distinguished themselves at Clitheroe, were equally furious and insubordinate, and eventually David had to consent to deliver his attack in territorial divisions. On the right, under the King’s gallant son Henry, were the Strathclydians with two hundred knights at their head. On the left were the men of Lothian, with some Argyll and Isles men; and in the centre, in advance of the wings, were the Galwegians with, probably, other Pictish contingents. Behind the centre King David led a reserve consisting of the men of Moray and other Highland regions, with all the knights not on the wings.
As the Scottish masses moved forward they were assailed with showers of arrows, and the wild Galwegians raced to handgrips just as, for centuries thereafter, the Highland clans were to charge, brandishing their swords and yelling ‘Albanach! Albanach!’ as they dashed through the deadly hail. The English line gave back for a moment before the impact of the rush, but rallied at once and stood firm—a wall of steel upon which the Celtic billows beat fiercely, but without avail. On the left the men of Lothian and Lorn did badly. They had never agreed together. Perhaps the Lowlanders had little heart in the fight against their Northumbrian kinsmen. Their leader was killed in the advance, and the whole wing gave back after the first charge, taking no further part in the battle.
On the Scottish right matters went differently. The Strathclydians charged gallantly, and the knights in front burst right through the English line, penetrating to the baggage and horses in the rear. But so fine was the spirit of the Yorkshire men, that they rallied and re-formed in the very face of the enemy, and cut off the Strathclydian infantry from Henry’s squadron. The fight raged fiercely along the line, the Scots rallying again and again, and hurling themselves in repeated charges against the close English ranks. The hardest and best fighting seems to have been done by the Galwegians in the centre. They held on to the English line for two hours, and made three furious assaults. Not until the third had been repelled, and their chiefs Donald and Ulgarich slain, did they sullenly give back, many of them, as Aelred says, ‘looking like hedgehogs with the arrows sticking in them.’ The Strathclyde men also were in retreat, and Prince Henry, cut off with the remnant of his gallant band, was vainly endeavouring to rejoin the main body. The King’s reserve was demoralized by the sight of the retreat of the left and the repeated repulse of the Picts and Strathclydians, refused to advance, and broke up. David was left among his dissolving host with only his few hundred horsemen. He fell back some way, and raised his banner on a hill. Around it the ruins of the right and centre, with the disgraced left and reserve, gradually rallied, unmolested by the English, who knew that only half the Scottish host had been seriously engaged, and were unaware of the dissensions that had rendered it ineffective. Then David began his retreat to Carlisle, cautiously pursued by Espec and Albemarle. At Carlisle Prince Henry at last rejoined, having given away his encumbering mail to a peasant, and with only nineteen of his two hundred horsemen still with him.
The result of the ‘Battle of the Standards’ was highly honourable to the English Northerners, but it is easy to see that the hopeless lack of cordial co-operation between the various sections of the Scottish host ensured its defeat. In a modified form this want of cohesion continued to the last to affect the efficiency of Scottish armies of invasion. David continued to fish in the agitated waters of English politics, and during his reign retained practical possession of Northumberland and Durham, save for a few castles; but he made no more invasions in force, and after his death Henry II. recovered the northern counties.