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

322
JOHN MAJOR’S HISTORY
[book VI.
are made belted knights in reward of their valour, lands are
given them in perpetuity, that they may get from these an
Warrior priests honourable livelihood. Now that presbyter, who, after he
in England1 had so skilfully used his halbert, received himself live mortal
wounds, was archdeacon of Aberdeen. This priest received the
highest praise as a warrior. You must not marvel that I have
to relate such things of priests; for Britain can show forty
thousand priests who could be matched as fighting men against
a like number of men from any nation. For every small laird
has one chaplain, who is no despicable soldier, and the great
nobles have as many as five or six who will gird on their sword
and shield and go with their lords to the field. Yet this is a
Whether priests fashion that I no way approve. For inasmuch as their clerical
part in war. office is of the Lord, they should spend their time in divine
worship and not in warfare. Yet I do not deny that for their
country, or to defend their own lives, they may take up arms.
Death of Douglas thereafter received at the hands of the English, and
Douglas. all at once, three wounds from large and sharp-pointed spears:
the one in the thigh, another in the lower part of the breast,
the third in the leg; and thus they bore him down, and the
mortal wound was given on his bare head. And this agrees
with the narrative of our own chroniclers, where they tell that
his helmet was loosely fastened. Some persons, yet with less
of probability, hold that by reason of the so sudden onslaught
of the English he had even forgotten to don his helmet. The
English, however, did not know him for who he was ; and by
good luck, to the end of the combat, his death remained hidden
from the Scots ; for the fighting lasted still throughout near
the whole night. The actual place of conflict was varied from
time to time on account of the numbers of the slain. While
the battle was at the hottest, sir James Lindesay2, who was
cousin to the earl, and his brother, came up and asked the earl
how he did, and he answered them saying that he had not an
hour to live ; but he added that in this he gloried, seeing that
after the fashion of his ancestors he should meet his end in
battle and not in his bed; and he took them bound before
God to avenge his death, but to reveal naught of what he had
1 presbyteri seu sacerdotes bellatores. 2 Froissart says ‘Jean de Saint-Clar