THE RECORD OFFICE

Northern Advocate, 24 May 1929, Page 3

THE RECORD OFFICE

A BRI-BF SURVEY. (By A. Hornet.) (Continued.) It docs seem a pity that the “League of Nations," the poor little foundling left by America -on the steps of Europe, docs not put its veto on the uncanny methods of warfare as practised today by Christian nations. Bombs, torpedoes, high explosives, asphyxiating gas issuing forth out of cylinders, and sometimes out of the “Press" in the form of propaganda. Horrible! Why write misery on the bosom of mother earth? If nations are bent on lighting, can there be better sport than drawing the long tbow! In addition, what a delightful w’hack one could give a man with the curdal-axe, poke with a spear a man in the ribs through the crevice of his liaubeck, or jostle a heavily armoured knight off his dray, horse with a long pole! So fought they, in the days of yore, and a battle -was a battle then —no bombs, no shells, nor powder-puffs; now men fight with poison gas, and, like earthquakes, kill without a blow. Still worse, golf is played instead of archery.

The following letter, to be; found among ancient correspondence No. LVII-122 in the Record Office, ■will not, I trust, cause Scotchmen to lose their beauty slpcp. In a letter written ip French from Henry IV. to his council, he informs them that the Earl of Northumberland, with his son Henry de Percy, and the Earl of March, of Scotland, and others defeated the Scots at Homeldon, near Wollore, in Northumberland, on the day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Then were taken the Earl Douglas, Mordik, eldest son of the Earl of Pyfe, the Earls of Murrif, Angus and Orkney, several lords and bannerets and others both Scots and French, to the number of about a thousand. The Lord of Gordon and John Swynton, knight, were killed, but only “five men were killed on the English side.” The Chancellor is to issue writs under the Great Seal to the persons named in the schedule enclose, forbidding them to put any Scotch prisoner to ransom without the King’s order. Dated under seal at Da ventre, 20 September, 1402. Homeldon, called by some ‘ ‘ Humbleden, ” is said to have lasted only an hour. Yot in that hour what ' mild ferocity took place. “Five men only were killed on the English side.” Nevertheless, they succeeded in taking about a thousand prisoners. Really, it sounds quite incredible—a tale told bjJ Baron Munchausen. In the pla> Henry IV., written by Shakespeare, he, just as I did, must have visited the record office to do some cribbing. He makes the King say in Act I: “Betwixt that Homeldon and this asat of ours, And he hath brought us smooth <fcd welcome news. The Earl of Douglas is discomfited. Ton thousand bold Scots, two and twenty knights, Balk’d (piled in a heap) in their own

blood did Sir Walter see On Holmcdon’s plains: of prisoners. Hotspur- took Mordake Earl of Fife and eldest sop To sweatee Douglas and the E'arl of Athol, Murray, Angus, and Mentekh. And is not this an honourable spoil, A gallant prize? ha, cousin, is it not? ’ ’

A sportsman would call it a “record bag.” The “Maes’’ might say something else, better left to imagination! A great man once said of another great man that he was inebriated by the exuberance of his own verbosity. Now Henry IV’s account of Homeldon ibatile is terse and to the point. Shakespeare is poetical, but if Gibbon, who wrote the Bise and Fall of the B.E, were to describe the Homoldon event, one might find a gem of pompous verbosity after this style:—

On the 14th September, a day which has deserved to be marked among the most auspicious of the Christian calender, it being the Exaltation of the Holy Gross, at this time the King Henry IV, resting at Daventry, sent the pride and dower of his army under the command of the intrepid Henry de Percy, who was known as Hotspur, from his assiduous practice of all the exercises of war, to march and attack the Scottish barbarians who were encamped on the plains .lose to the Hill of Homoldon under their renowned chief Douglas. 'Die Master-General de Percy, whose valour was not quickened by the rashness of youth, nor chilled by recollection of a defeat indicted upon him by the Douglas at Otter; bunie, displayed a shrning example of* boldness. After the English archers, assisted by the targeteers, had sent their winged messengers of death into the bodies of the barbarian host, de Percy and his mail-coated knights, wdiose courage appears to have been enhanced by the prodigious dight of arrows, charged the position held by the enemy. Like a whirlwind sweeping across a plain the horsemen descended upon the retreating hordes of Scots and French, who immediately abandoned the deld as the cavalry advanced, leaving in the hands of the victors a thousand and more prisoners, including the great Douglas and two and twenty knights, the .spoils of this stupendous engagement. Authorities regard the translation, of the Bible as by far the purest English in modern literature, most of the words being of native-English origin. Shakespeare, although he uses many | foreign wmrds, comes next, and the !

two historians, Hume and Gibbon, honour the bottom of the list of great writers. In the play quoted from, Shakespeare several times uses the wprd “artillery.” This word is also tp be found in the Bible —“and Jonathan gave his artillery unto his son” (1 Sam, 20-40). By “artillery” is meant bows and arrows, not Gatling gun,.?, or naval six-inches. At Home!don the Scots were so peppered by the arrows from bold Briton bowmen that their army, under Douglas, the, gallant chief of Otteuburnp, had the appearance of a gigantic pin-cushion, the arrows, like big pins, sticking in their undaunted breasts. Having given a quiver full of Scotland, I must desist, as I haye something to say about the “Bulls” that are kept in the R.O. (To be continued.)