David the Prince - Scotland 03 (60 page)

David perceived that Henry's cavalry were at least holding their own if not pressing back the enemy horse - for which he thanked God. But on the left, Cospatrick's and MacEth's folk were partially held up by the spearmen, their formation in dire danger of being fragmented. The reserve was divided into eight units of five hundred. The King ordered Ranulph de Soulis and Walter fitz Alan, his new Steward, to take two units and hurry to the left's aid.

Some of David's lieutenants were comparatively cheerful as to the situadon so far. But the King himself knew that the real test was still to come. Hitherto the fighting had been only around the hill-skirts. The main mass of the English armour, solidly ranked and packed on the hill itself, was not yet engaged.

It was at this dire mount of steel that the Lord William and Malise of Strathearn sought to hurl their strength - and swiftly it became evident how desperate a business it was. Wave after wave of their people were repulsed, flung back like breakers against a cliff. Swords and maces and axes and short sta
bbing-spears could make but littl
e impression on the massed mail above them. It was appalling to watch the repeated assaults, each falling back in bloody ruin, nothing gained.

Mainly for something to do, to at last seem to be more than idle watchers at this slaughter, David ordered his reserve to move, with him, nearer to the battle. At least there they would see the details more clearly and be able to react more swiftly where necessary.

What they did see from the new position, and all too clearly, was that Henry and Fife had indeed won their cavalry engagement but, having put the enemy to flight, had now gone in pursuit. Both very young men, in their triumph no doubt they had forgotten both orders and the ever-present danger of any cavalry victory on a wing — following up the fleeing foe and leaving the main battle, leaving that flank exposed. If the enemy had any reserve behind there, the main Scots front could be outflanked and possibly rolled up.

David detached another thousand men and most of his Normans to hurry over to hold that flank.

The remnant of the Galwegians had now reformed and hurled themselves back into the struggle, still under the lion banner - so presumably Fergus was still leading. But neither they nor the main centre force appeared to be making any real impression on the mail-clad steep. The hill was now obviously slippery with blood, to add to the difficulty.

David began to consider the advisability of ordering a retiral - if that was possible.

Stalemate appeared to have been reached on the left, the east, as a result presumably of de Soulis's and the Steward's reinforcement, something like a mere slogging-match developing. The King sent another five hundred to help, reluctantly. Now he had a mere fifteen hundred left in reserve. If there was to be a retiral, as seemed almost inevitable now, all of these would be needed to cover it. He said as much to Hugo. And he was worried about Henry and his force.

"We cannot retire." That was Hervey, at his other side. "It would be to admit defeat. Besides, how could you enforce it? How many would obey? Break off?"

"I care not about admitting defeat, man. I care about extracting my people from this attempt in which they cannot prevail. As for obeying, men are falling there by the hundred. Every minute. They are gaining nothing. Think you they do not know it? They must see it is hopeless. They will retire."

"Will the enemy
allow
us to retire, Sire?" Hugo demanded. "Would they not sweep down on us, slaughter us as we sought to withdraw?"

"I think not. They are fighting a defensive battle. To change to offence would not be easy. They have no horses - Henry has at least seen to that! Their flanks are in disorder. In that state, in the state of the field, to come down off that hill and marshal themselves to attack our retiral would be difficult. Take much time. And if Henry's cavalry came back, they could be overwhelmed." He paused. "Hervey - go tell de Soulis to return here with his mounted men. Forthwith."

David forced himself not to think of the fearful, continuing slaughter going on just out of bowshot before them; nor of his son and the cavalry wing, what might be happening to them, what
would
happen if they did not get back here before a withdrawal of the main array; instead to concentrate on how best to extricate his battered forces from
this bloody coil. To order reti
ral was one thing - to effect it successfully was quite another, he realised well. It was not easy to visualise, plan and marshal such a complex manoeuvre in his mind, with the wounded to consider also, with all that desperate, yelling, screaming butchery riveting the attention.

When Hervey returned with the mounted bodyguard, David ordered the trumpeter to sound the recall. But, well aware that men engaged in life-and-death, hand-to-hand fighting might not all either hear or heed such summons, he sent forward many messengers to carry the word to the commanders and all whom they could reach. It was to be a fighting retiral, not any hurried flight.

To describe what followed as any sort of orderly exercise would be ridiculous. It was indeed a dire and horrible confusion. But then so was the entire battle which they were breaking off. Battle is seldom anything else but multiple confusion, with purpose, tactics and strategy mere underlying influences, often quite non-apparent to the actual battlers. Disengagement is always more difficult than assault. Men fighting for their lives, or in process of killing someone else, are, to say the least, preoccupied. Some may be glad to desist, others furious, others again unable to do so, and large numbers utterly oblivious of all but the blood-red haze of war. So David's retiral was not effected quickly or coherently nor without grievous mistakes and losses. But it might have been worse, a deal worse. The physical formadon of the battlefield helped, in that the central hill was like some rocky stack or islet from which the tide could naturally ebb. Also the disintegration of the enemy left wing meant that there was little danger of any outflanking move on that side. So the Scots cavalry screen, thin as it was, could be used to throw between the disengaging Cospatrick and the English right, with good effect.

But undoubtedly the main feature in their favour was, as David had foreseen, the mental attitude of the main enemy armoured mass on the hill itself. The English strategy had been defensive from the start - and successfully so. They had survived, with little of casualties. To change that now, after some two hours of fierce fighting, into any disciplined offensive posture would have been very difficult and asking almost too much of flesh and blood - especially as almost certainly the Scots still outnumbered their foes. Moreover these mail-clad knights and their men-at-arms were used to fighting on horseback. The very armour which had protected them would be a serious handicap in any chase on foot. So, as the Scots tide ebbed, however raggedly and reluctantly, the English, by and large remained where they were, most of them probably well enough content to claim victory without further effort and danger. Some, to be sure, did seek to continue the fight and pursue — but these quickly paid for their temerity, with David's fifteen hundred rearguard still fresh and playing their first acdve role- confirming the more sensible majority in their wisdom.

The withdrawal proceeded then, and, as it became clear that there was to be no immediate English surge forward, and that the low-level right wing perceived the fact and prudently did not seek to thrust themselves into the role of martyrs, David was able to call in his two hundred horsemen and use them like sheep-dogs to round up, marshal and divide the exhausted, excited and unruly survivors and send them marching off northwards in some sort of ordered columns. The wounded were the greatest problem, and many advised abandoning them, as standard military practice. But the King would not hear of it, would not consider leaving the field before all who could be moved were aided and borne on their way. At the back of his mind, of course, was the hope that Henry and the cavalry wing would turn up, making him almost reluctant to quit the scene.

And all the time the English ranks watched from their hill. They stood all but silent, neither cheering nor jeering. It could well be that they considered that this might be merely a temporary withdrawal, to regroup and return to the attack, a mere pause in the battle. They too, no doubt, were anxious about the missing cavalry, and what it might do when it returned. At any rate, they stayed grouped tightly around their peculiar standard, waiting, while slowly the Scots drew off.

Back at their former marshalling-point, David reined up and turned to look back. "God forgive me!" he said. "I drew the sword in vain! And leave behind those who had to pay the price. God in Heaven forgive me!"

Unable to say more, he turned to point northwards, for the Tees.

31

W
hat became known
as the Battle of the Standard was surely one of the most unusual engagements in the history of warfare. Not only on account of the peculiar strategies employed and the aura of piety with which the English invested it, a personal intervention of the Almighty, but because of the results. For although a victory and a defeat, in one sense clear-cut enough, there was little of that about it in another. The English were left in possession of the field; but the Scots made an orderly retiral therefrom, and although they left many dead behind, they by no means considered themselves a defeated army. There was no actual retreat, indeed, for they moved back only as far as their original final objective, the River Tees, six miles away, there to reorganise and take up major defensive positions protected by the river-line, summoning their wide-scattered units from all over Northumbria to join them. They may have lost as many as six thousand men, dead and wounded, in those two hours, a large percentage of them Galwegians - whom many of the rest considered to be expendable anyway - but there were still some twenty thousand, with more coming in all the time. Henry and his cavalry did rejoin them there, safe and sound and, oddly, much elated, considering themselves victors. They had utterly routed the enemy horse, driven them far away, dispersing them thoroughly - and then of course had difficulty in reassembling. When they had at last got back to the main battlefield, they had been able to make a further impact on the enemy foot, and so ridden off northwards, triumphant. If Henry and Duncan of Fife expected plaudits, they were sadly disillusioned, and left in no doubts as to what their inexperienced
elan
had cost the main army. But the cavalry's victory undoubtedly had a large effect on the English morale, and left them without any great sense of ultimate gain. So, the Scots stood, one hundred and twenty miles inside England, with nothing of the defeated about them.

In fact, as reports came in, David began to perceive that, far from being in a position of defeat, it was almost as though he had been a victor. His opponents made no move against him, and appeared to accept the Scots occ
upation of Northumbria
and Cumbria. The force at Northallerton actually retired to York, where it had come from. It was, of course, Archbishop Thurstan's force, not Stephen's; and many of its important nobles had very divided loyalties. Stephen's cause was in very low water behind them. News came to the Scots that there was wholesale revolt against the usurper all over the South. Even Hugo Bigod, hitherto his most active supporter, he who had announced the false death-bed change-of-heart of the late King Henry in favour of Stephen, had switched allegiance again and seized the castles of Norwich and Badington, proclaiming for the Empress and calling for all Normans to do likewise. Robert of Gloucester was reputed to bo back in England with much Plantagenet gold, to rally support. And the Archbishop of Canterbury was wavering.

David, considering it all, recognised that he might be in a stronger position than he had ever anticipated, not only militarily, despite the sorry business of Northallerton. With the English in such disarray, now was the time to bargain. Why wait for Maud to triumph? Better to deal with Stephen, in his extremity, and in due course present Maud with a
fait accompli.
With the Scots army drawn up and forming a dire threat from the Irish to the Norse Seas, and the Northern English in ever growing doubt as to where their allegiance lay, Stephen was in no position to take any strong line. So David sent off deputations, one to London, offering to treat with Stephen face-to-face, if he would come north, say to Durham- but it would have to be swiftly done; the other to Thurstan at York, in reproachful terms, complaining that he should have sent armed force to deny him access to the archiepiscopal presence, and requesting assurance that he and his forces were in fact loyal and strong in their support of the King of Scots' favoured niece, the Empress Maud, true Queen of England, who was undoubtedly now about to take over her throne. He also added, in conciliatory fashion, that he had decided not to forfeit the Scots properties of de Brus and de Baliol, whom he hoped would now behave in friendly style.

This done, David left his army under the command of Henry, assisted by older and more experienced leaders, gave orders for the administration of the two great provinces he had occupied, and hurried northwards. He re-instituted the siege of that old sore, Wark Castle, and then proceeded back into Scotland, from which he had been absent much too long for his comfort. Not that comfort, physical or mental, was a state with which David mac Malcolm had much acquaintance, these days. Particularly he was unhappy over that Battle of the Standard, it tending to come between him and his sleep of nights. Others might not blame him for that slaughter - Fergus, wounded but far from deflated, was now actually hailing it as a victory for Galloway - but he blamed himself, grievously, whatever the ultimate outcome.