Series 1 > History of Greater Britain, as well England as Scotland

chap. VII.] OF GREATER BRITAIN
261
the Scots meditated on that night too a repetition. of the
attack. Great fires also they kept up the whole night through,
that they might more surely detect any movement of the
enemy. It was toward dawn that two Scots trumpeters were
taken by the English patrols, and these men, when they were
brought into the presence of English Edward, declared to him
that the Scots had turned their steps homeward, ‘and weThe return of
they said, ‘were commanded to tell you so much as soon as Jheifownt0
day began to break, and of intent it is that we were taken country-
prisoners, to the end you may follow them if you have a wish
to fight’. Thereafter the English king takes counsel with his
chief men ; and to this conclusion they came, that it would no
way advantage the English king to make haste after the Scots,
for there would be risk of no small loss were his army, all
weary with its march, to come to battle with the Scots. It
was wiser, they judged, to let the Scots army depart with
impunity than to expose the whole English army to the hazard
of such a conflict. When the English arrived at the camping- The baggage of
ground of the Scots, they found the carcases of five hundred behinTwith*
wild animals, such as deer and the like; for the Scots had killed intent-
them lest they should fall, a living booty, into the hands of
the English. Besides these, they found three hundred stewing- Stewing-pans
pans, made from the hairy hide of animals, in which the Scots raade of hide>
were used to cook their flesh food. They found too a thou¬
sand spits in use for roasting meat, and ten thousand shoes
made from undressed leather with the hair on, which the Scots
had taken to use when their own shoes had been worn out.
Further, they found five naked Englishmen, bound to trees,
with their legs broken. These they unbound. Following the
counsel of those about him, Edward disbanded his whole army
and returned to London. This narrative I have taken to the
letter from Froissart1.
1 Major must have founded this long narrative upon another recension of
Froissart than that used by Buchon (Liv. I. ptie. i. chh. 29-44; vol. i. pp. 20-
32). In that text, e.g., the English find 400—not 300—‘ chaudieres faites de
cuir, atout le poil’: and the same text speaks of ‘cinq povres prisonniers anglois
que les Escots avoient lies tous nuds aux arbres, par depit, et deux qui avoient
les jambes brisees : si les delierent et laisserent aller ’.