490 a park. Stanhope Park, a hunting-ground of the Bishop of Durham, on the north bank of the Wear. “The Scots entered the park of Stanhope and there lodged; likewise also the English on the other side of a certain stream pitched camp and rested” (Gesta Edw., p. 96). The Scots moved to “within the park of Stanhope” (dedenz le park de Stanhope, Scala., p. 154). “The Scots betook themselves to the park of Stanhope” (Lanercost, p. 259). The Scottish army was “at Stanhope Park” (apud Stanhop park, Contin. Chron., Murimuth, p. 53; Chron., Knighton, i., p. 445; Baker, p. 97; Hemingburgh, ii., p. 298). And those who have rejected Barbour’s statement as to the northward position of the Scots, resting on a single citation from Bain (see on 316), would have found, a few pages farther on, an express reference to the time when the Scots were surrounded and beset (circumdati et obsessi) in the park of Stanhope by the King’s army (Bain, No. 957, June 29, 1328). Edward, being so near, could very well speak of himself as “at Stanhope.” Bain later admits the Scots were at Stanhope (Edwards in Scotland, p. 77).
492 full of treis. At Stanhope Park “they were lodged in a wood” (Le Bel, 65). “In the woddys of Stanhop park in dyverse busshementis” (Fabyan, p. 439).
495 Be nychtyrtale. I.e., by night-time, as in Chaucer:
“by nightertale
He sleep namore than doth a nightingale.”
(Prologue, 97, 98).
501 Upon the wattir. “On another mountain ... also on the river” (Le Bel, i. 65).
503 on the morn. Barbour gives the Scots only two days in the first position opposite the English, not saying how long they had been already “liand” there, which Le Bel says was eight days. Le Bel says, further, that they left on the third, not the second, night, and that their departure was discovered on the morning of the fourth day (p. 65). If the English arrived on July 31 (cf. on 402), and Edward was at Stanhope on August 3 (cf. on 316), this would be right. Gray says the Scots shifted camp on the fourth night (Scala., p. 154). Fordun suggests only one position, the second (Gesta Annalia, cxl.).
513 on othir half the wattir of Wer. Cf. Gesta Edwardi in note on 490. In Le Bel the river is still between the armies, (pp. 65, 66).
516 Aucht dayis. Maxwell affirms that, in saying this, Barbour “either draws on his imagination, or has been misled by his informants” (Robert the Bruce, p. 314); and the chronology of the various writers is hard to reconcile. Gray gives six days for the second position (p. 154); Le Bel (Froissart) eighteen (68); Knighton fifteen (Leycestrensis Chron., i. 445); Hemingburgh says the Scots were besieged for fifteen days in Stanhope Park (ii., p. 298). But the author of Gesta Edwardi agrees with Barbour in assigning eight days (octo diebus dicursis, p. 97), and so does the Lanercost writer (p. 259) and Fordun (Gesta Annalia, cxl.). Yet Mr. Brown accuses Barbour, in fixing that term, of “always lauding his own side,” though these English chroniclers support him (The Wallace and The Bruce, p. 145). One document suggests that Edward was at Durham on August 5 (Bain, iii., No. 930), but dates and places on legal documents do not always signify what they suggest. The order from Durham was issued in the King’s name. Edward was still at Stanhope on August 7 (Calendar of Patent Rolls, Edward III. s. d.).
520-1 ilk day justyng of Wer. And scrymming. “Every day skirmishing by those who wished to skirmish” (Le Bel, 67). Cf. throughout Froissart, ch. xviii.