Exasperated by their first defeat, the demi-lances and the men-at-arms of Boulogne, were especially severe in their actions.
"Remember Paniershaugh!" was their cry; and others shouted,—
"Shelly, Shelly! remember Ned Shelly!" for, says Master Patten, "On the field we found that worthy gentleman and gallant officer, pitifully disfigured, mangled, and discernible only by his beard."
In their haste to escape, many of the Scots cast aside their shoes and doublets, and fled in their shirts and breeches. Many concealed themselves in the furrows of the fields, and were passed unseen by the English cavalry, who swept on after others. In short, it was one of those routs or panics to which undisciplined troops are at all times liable.
To Edinburgh the din of the distant battle had come by fits upon the autumnal breeze; and when the English infantry reached Edmondstone Edge, and found themselves among the plunder of the Scottish tents and camp-equipage, the shout they raised was distinctly heard in the streets of the capital, where that day's slaughter made three hundred and sixty widows. Among those who fell was the merchant John Hamilton, mentioned in the thirty-first chapter of our story.
Thousands of the Scots threw themselves into the Esk, and perished miserably under the cannon from the ships, the shot of the Spaniards, or the swords of the English horsemen, when they scrambled ashore. On the narrow Roman bridge, the press of fugitives was frightful, as the Lord Clinton's great ship was pouring her broadsides upon it, and on the defiling masses. Here were slain the good Lord Fleming of Cumbernauld; the Masters of Livingstone, Buchan, Ogilvy, and Erskine, all sons of earls; the Lairds of Lochinvar, Merchiston, Craigcrook, Priestfield, Lee, and many others, with their friends and followers, till the barricade of mail-clad dead impeded the passage of the living; and so little did their consecrated banner avail the band of armed monks, that they nearly perished to a man, and the symbol of "the afflicted Church" was found on the field, soaked in their blood, torn and trampled under foot. The Esk was literally crimsoned with blood, for nearly half the Scottish army perished along its banks, the English having made a vow before the battle, "that if victorious, they would kill many and spare few."
The aspect of the field, says Master Patten, was frightful; the bodies lay so thick and close.
"Some without legs, some houghed and half-dead, others the arms cut off, divers their necks half asunder, many their heads cloven, the brains of sundry dashed out, others their heads quite off, with a thousand kinds of killing. In the chase," continues this minute reporter, who writes of the affair with great gusto, "all, for the most part, were killed either in the head or in the neck; for our horsemen could not well reach them lower with their swords. And thus, with blood and slaughter, the chase continued five miles westward from the place of their standing, which was in the fallow-fields of Inveresk, unto Edinburgh Park (about the base of Arthur's Seat), and well-nigh to the gates of the town itself, and unto Leith; and in breadth, from the shore of the Firth up to Dalkeith southward; in all of which space the dead bodies lay as thick as cattle grazing in a full-replenished pasture. The river Esk was red with blood, so that in the same chase were counted, as well by some of our men who diligently observed it, as by several of the prisoners, who greatly lamented the result, upwards of fourteen thousand slain. It was a wonder to see how soon the dead bodies of the slain were stripped quite naked, whereby the persons of the enemy might be easily viewed. For tallness of stature, cleanness of skin, largeness of bone, and due proportion, I could not have believed there were so many in all their country."
The Lord Chancellor, the Earl of Huntly, with fifteen hundred men, were captured, and, with thirty thousand suits of mail found in the camp and on the field, sent on board the fleet.
Previous to all this, Florence collected a few horsemen by the force of example, and made three desperate charges, which kept Gamboa's fiery Spaniards and the Lord Fitzwalter's demi-lances in check until the regent and his train had passed the Esk. On achieving this, Arran, whose helmet was now completely cloven, and the housings of whose horse were covered with blood, exclaimed,—