The Percy family, led by the Earl …
Years: 1402 - 1402
The Percy family, led by the Earl of Northumberland, had supported Bolingbroke’s usurpation of the English throne.
A pillaging expedition led by Archibald, Earl of Douglas, had invaded the English county of Northumberland as far south as the River Wear, in part to avenge the killing and capture of prominent Scottish nobles in the battle of Nesbit Moor.
On their return, the Scottish force engages English forces led by Northumberland’s thirty-six-year-old son, Sir Henry “Hotspur” Percy, suffering complete defeat on September 14, 1402, at the Battle of Humbleton Hill (or Homildon Hill), where an unknown number of men die; perhaps thousands.
There is also a rich hoard in prisoners, numbering among them the Scottish Regent’s son Murdoch of Fife; the earls of Moray, Angus and Orkney; Lords Montgomery, Erskine, Seton and Abernethy; Sir Robert Logan, Sir William Graham, Sir Adam Forester, Sir David Fleming and Pierre des Essarts with a number of French knights.
The chief captive is Archibald Douglas himself who, despite his costly armor, has been wounded in five places, losing one of his eyes.
Only five Englishmen are said to have been killed; and while one is normally suspicious of claims of this kind, in the circumstances of the battle this is, perhaps, not improbable.
It had also been Archibald Douglas' first major battle and he is never to do more to justify the title he will subsequently be given-: the 'Tyneman' (the Loser).
His ill-fated raid is to be the last major invasion of England until another Scots army in the late summer of 1513 campaigns in the valley of the Till.
Locations
People
- Archibald Douglas
- Henry IV of England
- Henry Percy (Hotspur)
- Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland
- Murdoch Stewart
- Robert Stewart
