mely, that the king
sent him back with a reward of 500_l._ a year in lands, where he
himself should choose it, near his own dwelling, and made him a knight
banneret."[9]

Hume states Philippa to have assembled a body of little more than 12,000
men, and to have rode through the ranks of her army, exhorting every man
to do his duty, and to take revenge on these barbarous ravagers. "Nor
could she be persuaded to leave the field till the armies were on the
point of engaging. The Scots have often been unfortunate in the great
pitched battles which they have fought with the English: even though
they commonly declined such engagements where the superiority of numbers
was not on their side; but never did they receive a more fatal blow than
the present. They were broken and chased off the field: fifteen thousand
of them, some historians say twenty thousand, were slain; among whom
were Edward Keith, Earl Mareschal, and Sir Thomas Charteris, Chancellor:
and the king himself was taken prisoner, with the Earls of Sutherland,
Fife, Monteith, Carrick, Lord Douglas, and many other noblemen." The
captive king was conveyed to London, and afterwards in solemn procession
to the Tower, attended by a guard of 20,000 men, and all the city
companies in complete pageantry; while "Philippa crossed the sea at
Dover, and was received in the English camp before Calais, with all the
triumph due to her rank, her merit, and her success." These indeed were
bright days of chivalry and gallantry.

"The ground whereon the battle was fought," say the topographers of the
county,[10] "is about one mile west from Durham; it is hilly, and in some
parts very steep, particularly towards the river. Near it, in a deep
vale, is a small mount, or hillock, called the _Maiden's Bower_, on
which the holy Corporex Cloth, wherewith St. Cuthbert covered the
chalice when he used to say mass, was displayed on the point of a spear,
by the monks of Durham, who, when the victory was obtained, gave notice
by signal to their brethren stationed on the great tower of the
Cathedral, who immediately proclaimed it to the inhabitants of the city,
by singing Te Deum. From that period the victory was annually
commemorated in a similar manner by the choristers, till the occurrence
of the Civil Wars, when the custom was discontinued; but again revived
on the Restoration," and observed till nearly the close of the last
century.

The site of the Cross is by the road-side: it was defaced