Defeat of Edward II.at Biland Abbey
But Edward was destined to experience still more unhappy reverses. Having collected the scattered remains of his army, and strengthened it by fresh levies, he encamped at Biland Abbey, near Malton, in Yorkshire; and when there, was met by the intelligence that King Robert, having sat down before Norham castle with a powerful force, after some time fruitlessly spent in the siege, had been compelled to retire. Scarce, however, had this good news arrived, when the advanced parties of the Scottish army were descried; and the English had only time to secure a strong position on the ridge of a hill, before the king was seen marching through the plain with his whole forces, and it became manifest that he meant to attack the English. This, however, from the nature of the ground, was no easy matter. Their soldiers were drawn up along the ridge of a rugged and steep declivity, assailable only by a single narrow pass, which led to Biland Abbey. This pass, Sir James Douglas, with a chosen body of men, undertook to force; and as he advanced his banner, and the pennons of his knights and squires were marshalling and waving round him, Randolph, his friend and brother in arms, with four squires, came up, and joined the enterprise as a volunteer.The Scottish soldiers attacked the enemy with the utmost resolution, but they were received with equal bravery by Sir Thomas Ughtred and Sir Ralph Cobham, who fought in advance of the column which defended the pass, and encouraged their men to a desperate resistance. Meanwhile, stones and other missiles were poured down upon the Scots from the high ground; and this double attack, with the narrowness of the pass, caused the battle to be exceeding obstinate and bloody. Bruce, whose eye intently watched every circumstance, determined now to repeat the manoeuvre, by which, many years before, he entirely defeated the army of the Lord of Lorn, when it occupied ground similar to the present position of the English. He commanded the men of Argyle and the Isles to climb the rocky ridge, at some distance from the pass, and to attack and turn the flank of the force which held the summit. These orders the mountaineers, trained in their own countrv to this species of warfare, found no difficulty in obeying; and the enemy were driven from the heights with great slaughter, whilst Douglas and Randolph carried the pass, and made way for the main body of the Scottish army.
So rapid had been the succession of these events, that the English king, confident in the strength of his position, could scarcely trust his eyes, when he saw his army entirely routed, and flying in all directions; himself compelled to abandon his camp equipage, baggage, and treasure, and to consult his safety by a precipitate flight, pursued by the young Steward of Scotland, at the head of five hundred horse. It was with difficulty he escaped to Bridlington, having lost the privy seal in the confusion of the day.f This was the second time during this weak and inglorious reign, that the privy seal of England had been lost amid the precipitancy of the king's flight from the face of his enemies. First, in the disastrous flight from Bannockburn, and now in the equally rapid decampment from the Abbey of Biland.J In this battle John of Bretagne earl of Richmond, Henry de Sully grand butler of France, and many other prisoners of note, fell into the hands of the enemy. Richmond was treated by the king with unusual severity, commanded into strict confinement, and only liberated after a long captivity, and at the expense of an enormous ransom. The cause of this is said to have been the terms of slight and opprobrium with which he had been heard to express himself against Bruce.§ To Sully and other French knights, who had been taken at the same time, the king demeaned himself with that chivalrous and polished courtesy for which he was so distinguished; assuring them that he was well aware they had been present in the battle, not from personal enmity to him, but from the honourable ambition that good knights, in a strange land, must ever have, to show their prowess ; wherefore he entreated them, as well for their own sake, as out of compliment to his friend, the King of France, to remain at head-quarters. They did so accordingly; and after some time, on setting out for France, were dismissed, not only free of ransom, but enriched with presents.