[41] The English were the first who took the field, and the last to quit it. They brought only 1500 to the battle; and the Scotch 2000. The English kept the field with 53; the Scotch retiring with 55.
[42] The battle of Hombyll-down, or Humbledon, (a village near Wooler, in Northumberland) was fought September 14th, 1402, (anno 3, Hen. IV.) where the English, under the command of the Earl of Northumberland, and his son Hotspur, gained a complete victory over the Scots.
THE HUNTING IN CHEVY CHASE.
This favourite old ballad is founded on the celebrated battle of Otterbourne, as there never was a Percy engaged with a Douglas, but at that time; though the Percy, who commanded at that battle, was not earl of Northumberland, yet he was heir to that title, though he did not live to enjoy it. Ben Johnson used to say, he had rather have been the author of this ballad than of all his works. Sir Philip Sydney says, (in his Discourse of Poetry) “I never heard the old song of Piercy and Douglas, that I found not my heart more moved than with a trumpet; and yet it is sung by some blind crouder, with no rougher voice than rude style; which being so evil apparelled in the dust and cobweb of that uncivil age, what would it work trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence of Pindar?” Addison eulogizes it highly in Nos. 70 and 74 of the Spectator. And in the second volume of Dryden’s Miscellanies, there may be found a translation of Chevy Chase into Latin Rhymes, by Henry Bold, of New College.
God prosper long our noble king,
Our lives and safeties all;
A woeful hunting once there did
In Chevy Chase befall.