Frasers of Philorth > Volume 1

102 THE FKASERS OF COWIE, DURRIS, AJSTD PHILOETH.
In the meantime the Archbishop of York, with Lord Percy and other
nobles, had assembled the power of the country north of the river Trent,
and had so well concealed their measures that the Scottish army had no
notice of their approach until they surprised and defeated Douglas when on
a foraging excursion ; he, however, escaped and brought the intelligence to
the King, who immediately set his troops in battle array, divided into
three "escheles" or large divisions, of which he himself commanded one,
the Earl of Moray and Sir William de Douglas another, and Eobert Stewart
of Scotland the third, which was considerably the largest.
It is a proof of how little the experience of one generation benefits the
next, that the advice and offer of the gallant Sir John de Grahame to charge
the English archers with cavalry, a plan that Eobert I. had so successfully
adopted at Bannockburn, was altogether rejected, and this mistake, combined
with a faulty choice of ground, resulted in the complete defeat of the royal
army after a long and desperate battle, in which David II. was taken prisoner
with many of his nobles and followers ; and Sir William Eraser, with the
Earl of Moray, Sir David de Hay the Constable, Sir Eobert de Keith the
Marischal of Scotland, Sir David de Lindesay, and many more, were slain. 1
Crauford thinks it probable that Sir William Fraser was not killed at the
battle of Durham, but taken prisoner, and bases his opinion upon the fact of
a William Fraser afterwards getting a safe-conduct to pass through England
on his way beyond sea, 2 but investigation shows that this is not a good
foundation for his conjecture. A person of the name did get a safe-conduct
in 1365, and again in 1374, 3 but in the latter of these he is styled Armiger,
or Squire, and could not be the same as William Fraser, Miles, mentioned
in the Scotichronicon, or the deceased William Fraser, Miles, whose name is
found in a charter to his son John Fraser, from Eobert n., in 1373.
Crauford also says that Margaret Moray was his second wife, and that
he had been previously married to a lady of the house of Douglas, and, as
authority for this, notices a charter of a fourscore merk land in Aberdour,
given as a marriage portion with that lady, which he had seen in the inventory
of the writs of the Saltoun family, but he is totally in error in this state-
1 Scotichronicon, lib. xiv. cap. iii. 2 Lives of Officers of State, p. 277.
3 Eotuli Scotise, vol. i. pp. 893, 966.