HOW THE EARL JAMES DOUGLAS BY HIS VALIANTNESS
ENCOURAGED
HIS MEN, WHO WERE RECULED AND IN A
MANNER DISCOMFITED, AND IN HIS SO DOING
HE WAS WOUNDED TO DEATH
KNIGHTS and squires were of good courage on both parties
to fight valiantly: cowards there had no place, but hardiness
reigned with goodly feats of arms, for knights and
squires were so joined together at hand strokes, that archers
had no place of nother party. There the Scots shewed
great hardiness and fought merrily with great desire of
honour: the Englishmen were three to one: howbeit, I say
not but Englishmen did nobly acquit themselves, for ever
the Englishmen had rather been slain or taken in the place
than to fly. Thus, as I have said, the banners of Douglas
and Percy and their men were met each against other,
envious who should win the honour of that journey. At the
beginning the Englishmen were so strong that they reculed
back their enemies: then the earl Douglas, who was of
great heart and high of enterprise, seeing his men recule
back, then to recover the place and to shew knightly valour
he took his axe in both his hands, and entered so into the
press that he made himself way in such wise, that none durst
approach near him, and he was so well armed that he
bare well off such strokes as he received. Thus he went
ever forward like a hardy Hector, willing alone to conquer
the field and to discomfit his enemies: but at last he was encountered
with three spears all at once, the one strake him on
the shoulder, the other on the breast and the stroke glinted
down to his belly, and the third strake him in the thigh, and
sore hurt with all three strokes, so that he was borne perforce
to the earth and after that he could not be again
relieved. Some of his knights and squires followed him,
but not all, for it was night, and no light but by the shining
of the moon. The Englishmen knew well they had borne one
down to the earth, but they wist not who it was; for if
they had known that it had been the earl Douglas, they
had been thereof so joyful and so proud that the victory
had been theirs. Nor also the Scots knew not of that adventure
till the end of the battle; for if they had known it,
they should have been so sore despaired and discouraged
that they would have fled away. Thus as the earl Douglas
was felled to the earth, he was stricken into the head with
an axe, and another stroke through the thigh: the Englishmen
passed forth and took no heed of him: they thought none
otherwise but that they had slain a man of arms. On the
other part the earl George de la March and of Dunbar fought
right valiantly and gave the Englishmen much ado, and
cried, 'Follow Douglas,' and set on the sons of Percy: also
earl John of Moray with his banner and men fought valiantly
and set fiercely on the Englishmen, and gave them so
much to do that they wist not to whom to attend.