The battles of the world

by J. Douglas Borthwick

A brave knight, Sir Marmaduke de Twenge, led the advance at the head of a squadron of cavalry, heavily sheathed in steel, both horse and man. Cressingham with his division followed. The Scots, posted on high ground, kept their ranks and allowed the English to defile over the bridge. Wait! they know what they are about. Twenge has got his division of heavy cavalry over to the opposite shore. Cressingham’s division are eagerly crowding along the bridge. Twenge forms his cavalry and leads them up the hill against the main body of the Scots. Nearly half the English army has crossed without interruption. But see that strong force of Scottish spearmen who, fetching a circuit, and keeping near the river, make swiftly for the head of the bridge. They dash across the line of English as it issues from the bridge, and cut it in two. Forming in a solid mass bristling with spears, they occupy the bridgehead, and bar the bridge against all passage. Surrey looks on over the water. In three minutes the old General shall see a sight to make his white hair stand up!

The moment Wallace has waited for has come. Up then, and at them! The Scots charge furiously down the hill on Twenge and his cavalry, and hurl them back in disorder on the squadrons of Cressingham, great part of which have not had time to form since they passed the bridge. The English are mingled, horse and foot, in desperate confusion. Hundreds of them go down before the fierce charge of the Scots. The long spears plough the thick, disordered mass. Vast numbers are driven back into the river. The deep, still-flowing river swallows horse and man with splash and gurgle. Multitudes madly plunge in, vainly hoping to struggle to the other side, and the water is lashed into a foam by the drowning struggles of thousands of men and horses. This is the sight which old Surrey sees, sitting his warhorse on the safe side of the Forth.

He did what he could to send help to his reeling squadrons. The royal standard of England, with its three gold leopards set on red, was advanced to the cry of “For God and St. George!” A strong body of knights attended it. Then came Surrey’s own banner, of chequered blue and gold, followed by a numerous force of his vassals. It was in vain. They forced their way over the bridge, but finding no room to form, they only served to increase the confusion and swell the slaughter made by the Scottish spearmen. Of all who crossed that fatal bridge there returned but three. Sir Marmaduke Twenge with his nephew and armour-bearer, spurring their steads, rushed into the midst of the Scots at the bridgehead, cut their way through, and escaped unharmed. The haughty churchman, Cressingham, lay dead on the field. A Scottish spear had pierced his mail like silk, and run him through the body, till the point stood out on the other side. It was said that Wallace’s own hand drove that spear home.

Surrey saw that the safe side of the Forth was safe no longer, for the Scots were preparing to cross. He turned his horse, and fled without drawing bridle to Berwick. His troops broke and scattered in all directions. The face of the country was covered with a confused mass of terrified fugitives, who threw away their arms and standards as they fled. Keen and fierce the Scots pressed the chase, and their thirsty swords drank much blood. The powerful host which a few hours before had marshalled so proudly beside Stirling Bridge was beaten small and scattered like chaff.”

STONY CREEK.—Canada.—Fought, June 5th, 1813. Between the Canadians and Americans, the latter commanded by Generals Chandler and Winder. The Americans had advanced as far as Stony Creek with the intention of dislodging him, when Lieutenant Colonel Harvey, now Sir John Harvey, conceived and executed a plan of surprising them in the night. Before day he entered their camp, consisting of 3000 men, with only 704 soldiers, killed and wounded a great number, and captured two Generals and 120 prisoners. This affair so disconcerted the Americans that they returned hastily to Fort George, leaving the communication with part of Niagara frontier open to the British, and perhaps eventually saving the whole of the Province.

STRATTON HILL, BATTLE OF.—Between the Royal army and the forces of the Parliament, headed by the Poet Waller. The Parliamentarians lost the battle, with numbers of killed and wounded, and Waller was obliged to flee to Bristol. Fought, May 16th, 1643. Waller was nephew to the great Hampden.

T.

TALAVERA.—Fought, July, 27th and 28th, 1809, between the English and French and Spanish armies.—“After the campaigns of Marlborough, the English army acquired little distinction in the field for more than a century. The battles of Dettingen (1743), Fontenoy (1745), and Minden (1759), were affairs in which England was involved by her Hanoverian alliances, and in which small bodies of English troops were engaged, with little glory, and with but trifling results. It was not until the next century had opened, and the talent and ambition of one of the world’s greatest conquerors had almost reached the climax of universal dominion, that England, for her own preservation, and for the rescue of the Spanish peninsula from his grasp, was compelled to send an army into Spain; which, under the guidance of one of the most consummate Generals that the world has ever seen, chased the armies of France over province after province, from Lisbon to Biscay, and ultimately drove them over the Pyrenees.

The peninsular campaigns of the Duke of Wellington commenced with the brilliant affair of Vimiera; but we cannot dignify that engagement with the name of a great battle, in which the forces on either side, did not exceed thirteen or fourteen thousand men; and the fruits of which were snatched from the victor’s hands by the sudden arrival of a superior in command. It was on Sir Arthur Wellesley’s second appearance in Portugal, in the year following the battle of Vimiera, that the contest really began; and the three great battles which distinguished its successive stages, were those of Talavera, Salamanca, and Vittoria. The first exhibited the power of Napoleon in Spain fairly grappled with; the second showed that power defeated; the third closed the struggle by its absolute downfall and expulsion.