r/UKmonarchs • u/transemacabre Edward II • Aug 07 '25
On this day 6-7 August 1327: The Scots raid the English camp and cut the ropes to Edward III's tent
By summer 1327, the truce between England and Scotland had broken down. The Scots began raiding and plundering the north of England; the chronicler Jean le Bel, who fought in this campaign, says that they traveled extremely light, with no baggage train, living off a sack of oatmeal tied to their horses, and that being so light on their feet allowed the Scots to dart in, burn the countryside and steal cattle, and then dart back out again.
Roger Mortimer and Queen Isabella gathered their forces at York. The young Edward III was placed at the head, with his uncles Edmund and Thomas, and his cousin Henry of Lancaster advising him. In their haste to catch up to the Scots and pin them against the River Tyne, the English army charged pell-mell through the countryside, losing supplies along the way and arriving at camp on the bank of the Tyne exhausted and hungry. Then it began to rain down on them. They were unable to find the Scots, they were price-gouged for the little bit of food that began to trickle in, and it was so wet that they couldn't even light fires. When they finally found the Scots, the Scots held the high ground and had set themselves up nicely.
Edward III gave, as Le Bel tells us, a rousing speech before the men "commanding that discipline be kept". Apparently, a conflict had arisen between Henry of Lancaster, who wanted to go on the offensive, and Roger Mortimer, who did not. The Scots blasted horns and made such a racket all night that Le Bel says "they were the very devils of hell come to strangle us."
More futile attempts to provoke the Scots into open battle were made. On another night, Lord Douglas led a daring raid right into the English camp; the English awoke to cries of "Douglas! Douglas! You will all die, English lords!" as Douglas and his men cut their way through the camp. They made it as far as the young king's tent, where Lord Douglas himself cut the ropes, sending the tent collapsing to the ground.
The next morning, they found the Scots had simply slipped away in the dark of night through the marshland. The chronicler Henry Knighton remarked that Edward III was in "great desolation" at the utter failure of the whole mission. It was so bad the Brut chronicle even accused Mortimer of conspiring with the Scots.
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u/Accurate_Rooster6039 The House of Plantagenet | "Dieu et mon droit” Aug 08 '25
If Edward III with his uncles and cousin were at the front where was Mortimer?
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u/transemacabre Edward II Aug 08 '25
It seems that Mortimer was with them, the Charter rolls has him going with the army from York to Durham from 1-15 of July, then it seems he's attested at Haltwhistle, where the army went to ford the Tyne. Then he's back at Durham on August 8, then onto York by 14 August.
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u/Appropriate-Calm4822 Harold Harefoot Aug 08 '25
Jean Le Bel, or "Handsome Johnny" in English... I'd love to know more about this chronicler, or chroniclers in general. They wrote a lot, but never about themselves (?). At least to my knowledge none of them kept any diaries, until Pepys much much later?