A. D. 1327.

"The Scots are brave and hardy, exceed15 July. ingly dilligent in warfare, and expert in arms:

:

insomuch that, when they invade England, they often march their troops twenty, or even twenty-four leagues during one day and night. All are on horseback, except only the rabble of followers, who are afoot. The knights and squires are well mounted on large coursers, or war horses; but the commons and country people have only small hackneys or ponies *.

"Owing to the mountainous nature of the county of Northumberland, through which they have to pass, they use no carriages to attend their army, and consequently carry no provision of bread and wine along with them. Such is their hardihood and sobriety in war, that they content themselves for a long time with half cooked flesh without bread, and with water unmixed with wine. They have no occasion for pots or kettles, as they contrive to dress their victuals after a manner peculiar to themselves, knowing that they shall always find abundance of cattle in their enemies country †.

"When they have slain and skinned the cattle, which they always find in plenty, they

make a kind of kettles of the raw hides with the hair on, which they suspend on four stakes over fires, with the hair side outmost, and in these they boil part of the flesh in water, and they roast the remainder of the flesh by means of wooden spits hung upon wooden spit-racks, and disposed around the same fires. Besides, they make for themselves a species of shoes or brogues of the same raw hides, with the hair still on them.

"Each person carries, attached to his saddle, a large flat plate of iron, and has a bag of meal fixed on horseback behind him. When, by eating flesh cooked as before described, and without salt, they find their stomachs weakened and uneasy, they mix up some of the meal with water into a paste; and, having heated the flat iron plate in the fire, they knead out the paste into thin cakes, which they bake or fire on these heated plates. These cakes they eat to strengthen their stomachs. Faring in this hardy manner, it is not wonderful that the Scots should be able to make longer marches than any other troops, being altogether unincumbered with baggage and provisions *."

A. D. 1327. 15 July. A. D. 1327. 15 July.

The expression used by Froissart in the above passage, that the flat piece of iron was carried between the saddle and the penon, was even unintelligible to his French editor and annotator, Sauvage. Lord Hailes thought it might mean the crupper: But it most probably is the same ancient French word, whatever that may be, from which the Scots have borrowed or corrupted the term pillion, which signifies the small saddle, bolster, or cushion, that is fixed behind the riding saddle, for protecting the loins of the horse from the portmantua or luggage, or for carrying a woman behind a man. In his account of the use of the flat iron plate, and the employment of the meal which each horseman carried, Froissart very accurately describes the still existing practice in Scotland, of preparing and baking oaten cakes upon a girdle. In another part of his relation of this war, he mentions, that certain of the English were accustomed to the same mode of baking cakes of meal and water, when engaged in inroads into Scotland; and we know that oaten cakes, baked after an exactly similar manner, are still used in the north of England, and as far south as into Lancashire and the west-riding of Yorkshire.

1

It does not seem irrelevant to the present subject to enumerate the still customary uses of oatmeal in Scotland and the north of England, as applicable to war and long journies; and which, probably, were all made use of by the Scots army, in the present campaign. Oaten meal, seasoned with.salt, and boiled with water, into a kind of pudding or flummery, called porridge, is a standing breakfast among the commons, and is eaten along with milk, butter, or beer. Mixed up, without boiling, with the soup or liquor in which meat has been boiled, and seasoned with the melted fat skimmed off, it is much used in Scotland under the name of brose, and in the north of England, where it is called crowdie. On long journies, the hardy Scots Highlanders still content themselves with a thin paste of oatmeal and cold water stirred together, which they call drammoch. All of these modes might have been used by the Scots troops in the present invasion of England. With the abundant supply of beef, which we are assured they found in all quarters, a peck of oatmeal, or eight avoirdupoise pounds and three quarters, may easily have sufficed to each man for ten or twelve days: And, as

A. D. 1327. 15 July. A. D. 1327. 15 July.

each person may possibly have carried three or even four pecks of meal behind him, these hardy invaders would surely be in no want of provisions during a forty days forray. They might likewise procure occasional supplies in the course of their ravages, by plundering the open towns, villages, and grist mills; which last they might even set to work in the rear of their army.

Leaving the Scots army to ravage the north of England, the particulars of which are no where related, only that they plundered and burnt all the villages and open towns, and seem not to have assailed any place of strength, we now return to follow the motions of the English army; of which we have a most miinute account in Froissart.