Such was the nature of the military service of the church during the pre-conquest period, and similar service was not infrequently rendered after the Normans came in, when sudden storms of invasion swept across the Scottish borders, to burst on the dark and bloody battle-ground of Northumbria.
With the memorable battle of Northallerton, or the Standard, A.D. 1138, the church was in a very special degree connected, and indeed the priesthood had suffered severely from the barbarous Scotch. Thus Wendover, “they slew priests upon the altars, cut off the heads of the crucifixes, and placed them on the decapitated corpses, putting in their places the bloody heads of their victims; wherever they went, it was one scene of cruelty and terror; women shrieking, old men lamenting, and every living being in despair.” The evil grew so intolerable that the aged Thurston, Archbishop of York, incited the northern barons to unite against the enemy, exerting himself with almost superhuman energy to organise the movement, appealing to the religious feelings of the people by processions of the clergy, by sermons and exhortations, and when the army arrayed itself for battle, its serried ranks surrounded the famous standard, “consisting of the mast of a ship securely lashed to a four-wheeled car or wain. On the summit of this mast was placed a large crucifix, having in its centre a silver box containing the consecrated host, and below it waved the banners of the three patron saints:—Peter of York, Wilfred of Ripon, and John of Beverley.” Thurston, incapacitated from being present by the infirmities of age, had delegated Ralph Nowel, the titulary Bishop of Orkney, to act for him, and he it was, according to the old writers, who exhorted the army to make a brave defence when the Scots bore down upon them, and the dreadful conflict commenced. The battle resulted in a glorious victory for the Anglo-Norman men-at-arms and the peasant archers of Northumbria, but the name of Archbishop Thurston is always primarily and honourably associated with this memorable event.
Under somewhat similar circumstances, A.D. 1319, William de Melton, Archbishop of York, seconded by the Mayor, Nicholas Fleming, hastily raised a tumultuary army of 10,000 men, burghers and peasants, necessarily undisciplined and ill-armed, and utterly unfitted to dispute the field with a powerful and veteran army, marching under Bruce’s most experienced and fortunate captains, Randolph and Douglas. The armies struck at Myton Meadows, near the confluence of the Swale and Ure, on September the 13th. With everything in their favour the Scots resorted to ambuscade, and, sweeping down upon the startled enemy, in an instant covered the field with dead and wounded men, driving before them a wild rout of fugitives. Sir Nicholas Fleming, then in the seventh year of his mayoralty, was slain; it was with the utmost difficulty that the Archbishop effected his escape, for the Scots spared none, and night alone covered the remnant of the army from the exterminating sword. Nearly 4,000 of the Englishmen were destroyed, including 300 priests, attired in full canonicals, from which tragic circumstance the rude Scots jestingly referred to the battle as the “Chapter of Mitton.”
The bearer of the Archbishop’s cross secreted it on the field, and it fell into the hands of a peasant, who, for some days, concealed it in his hut, no doubt tempted by its value, but conscience operated so powerfully that the good fellow was constrained to restore it to the Archbishop.
A dour revenge the English Bishops took upon their Scottish adversaries in 1346, when King Edward was encamped before Calais, and luckless David Bruce came over the border with 50,000 men at his back, in the month of October. Queen Philippa bestirred herself with heroic energy on this occasion, and marched with the army to the north. It was largely swollen by the vassals of the church. The Bishop of Durham commanded in the first division; William de la Zouche, Archbishop of York, and the Bishop of Carlisle, led the second division; the Bishop of Lincoln the third; and the Archbishop of Canterbury the fourth. Edward Baliol and the principal nobles of Northumbria shared the command with the prelates.
During the furious struggle that ensued the monks of Durham assembled on the rising ground known as the Maiden’s Bower, and knelt in prayer around the banner-cloth of St. Cuthbert, or occupied themselves in manufacturing a fair wooden cross, as a memorial of the event.
The battle terminated in a signal triumph to the English army, despite the distinguished valour of the Scottish host, and the closing scene was one of peculiar interest. Almost alone amid the wreck of the field, David Bruce disdained to surrender, although “he had two spears hanging in his body, his leg almost incurably wounded, and his sword beaten out of his hand,” and John Copeland, a sturdy Northumbrian squire, was bent upon his capture, and ultimately succeeded in carrying him off in triumph to his castle of Ogle, but not until the fiery Scot had dashed out two of his teeth by a buffet of his gauntleted fist.
Most unsaintly, perhaps, of all the English bishops who loved the music of twanging bow-strings and clashing steel, was “Weymundus or Reymundus,” first Bishop of Sodar and Man. When a monk of Furness Abbey he was famous as an illuminator and transcriber of MSS.; but accompanying several of the brethren on a mission to the Isle of Man, the rude Manxmen were so deeply impressed by his eloquence, dignity, and commanding stature, that they procured his elevation to the Bishopric.
Wymund the Saxon, as the Bishop is generally called, was incited by an unworthy ambition to claim the crown of Scotland, then worn by David I. Assuming the name of Malcolm Macbeth, he gave out that he was the son of Angus, Earl of Moray, recently slain at the battle of Strickathrow, and who was the heir of Macbeth’s son and successor, Leelach. Obtaining a number of large boats, he repeatedly attacked the neighbouring islands, finding numerous intrepid and desperate adventurers ready to follow him for love of adventure and plunder. He soon made his name widely known and feared, and Somerled, Lord of the Isles, was induced to bestow upon him the hand of his daughter, who bore him a son, Donald Macbeth. Knights and men-at-arms were despatched to foil his invasions of the mainland, but by availing himself of forest and mountain fastnesses, he avoided his more powerful enemies, escaping by his boats when hard pressed. Many of the bishops paid him black-mail, but one tough old prelate, a man after his own heart, met him in open field, axe in hand, and smote him to the earth, and defeated and scattered his following. Wymund escaped, however, and soon took the field again.
Ultimately David pacified the claimant by a grant of lands, and Wymund returned to the Isle of Man, or, according to William of Newbridge, to the Abbey of Furness, where his severities so enraged the monks that they fell on him, bound him, and destroyed his sight and virility. He was then handed over to King David, who shut him up in Roxburgh Castle, but, after some years, transferred him to Byland Abbey, where his stories of adventure by land and sea long delighted the good fathers.