International intrigue brings battle to Durham

2:21pm Friday 29th August 2008

THE Battle of Neville's Cross was rooted in a long-running economic and military struggle between England and France that came to be known as the Hundred Years War.

The war began in 1336 and a major turning point came in August 1346 when the English king, Edward III and his son, Edward the Black Prince, resoundingly defeated the French at Crecy.

It was a victory against the odds. The English were heavily outnumbered in the battle and victory was largely due to the skill and astonishing range of the English longbowmen.

Following the victory, King Edward besieged the French port of Calais with the intention of capturing it for the English.

It was a siege involving many English ships, including 17 from Newcastle, five from Hartlepool and one from Bamburgh that together carried a total of 460 North-Eastern men.

Also in France were knights and soldiers from County Durham, serving in the army of Thomas Hatfield, the war-hungry Prince Bishop who had fought alongside the king at Crecy.

Calais was eventually taken in August the following year, but not before King Philip of France called on his ally, David, King of the Scots, to invade England.

Philip and David believed England was not adequately defended in Edward's absence.

It proved a fatal error of judgement - as Edward had left many capable soldiers behind including at least 10,000 longbowmen.

In October 1346, King David II, the son of Robert the Bruce, confidently began the invasion of England with 15,000 men.

Entering England through Cumberland, in the West, he sacked Lanercost Priory, before moving to Northumberland where Hexham Priory suffered a similar fate.

Hexham itself escaped the ravages, because the Scots intended to use the town as a storehouse for their plunder.

After crossing the River Derwent, the Scots entered Durham at Ebchester and headed south to the Prior of Durham's park at Beau Repaire on the banks of the River Browney.

Here they encamped for the night, destroyed the prior's manor house and plundered the game and livestock for which the park was renowned.

Meanwhile, the English gathered an army of 10,000 men at Barnard Castle. They consisted mostly of skilled longbow archers, 1,000 from Lancashire alone.

They were strong, stocky men capable of shooting deadly arrows to a range of 300 yards at an astonishing rate. If the Scots were expecting to meet the raw and undisciplined elements of a standby English army, they were in for a terrible shock.

According to most sources, William de la Zouche, the Archbishop of York, was in overall English command, but there were units commanded by Ralph Neville, Henry Percy, Lord Mowbray and Thomas Rokeby.

From Barnard Castle, they proceeded to Auckland Castle Park and camped for the night on October 16.

The following morning, the English set out for the prominent hill at Merrington, near Spennymoor, where they surveyed the surrounding land and observed the Scottish movements in the hills west of Durham.

Advancing east to Ferryhill, they encountered a rather surprised party of foraging Scots under Sir William Douglas, revealed by the sudden lifting of a dense fog.

These Scots were pursued north as far as Sunderland Bridge, near Croxdale, and a skirmish ensued in which perhaps half of the Douglas men were slain.

The skirmish is thought to have taken place at a site near Hett Village called Butcher Race that lies close to the A167.

Those who escaped this slaughter retreated north to join the main body of Scots at Beau Repaire, but some no doubt fled.

Perhaps they were wise, as this skirmish was nothing more than a prelude to the battle that would take place later that morning.

It is well known that the Battle of Neville's Cross was fought on land now occupied by the western suburbs of Durham City and, if we head south through this area on the A167, we reach Neville's Cross.

A sign helpfully informs the motorist that this was the site of the battle and, with a stretch of imagination, we can picture the bumps and braes of the open countryside that existed in 1346.

However, if truth is to be known, we are in the wrong place. To find the real battle site we need to head north, because historians agree that it was the northern part of Crossgate Moor, and not Neville's Cross, that formed the true site of the battle.

Originally called the Battle of Redhills, and still occasionally known by this name in the 19th century, it became the Battle of Neville's Cross through a long-term association with the medieval cross that stands to the south.

In fact, the cross in question was located here long before the battle, but Lord Ralph Neville erected a new one after 1346 to commemorate the encounter.

The higher ground of Crossgate Moor west of Redhills Lane formed the most southerly section of the battlefield close to where Durham Johnston School now stands.

From here, the battlefield stretched about half a mile north to just beyond the prominent farmhouse called Arbour House that overlooks the valley of the River Browney.

It was in this area that the Scottish forces amassed.

The whole battlefield consisted of a narrow ridge of raised but broken ground, little more than half-a-mile wide, with valleys to the east and west.

On the west were the slopes of the Browney and to the east the steep and boggybottomed Flass Vale from which Redhills Lane ascends.

The valleys effectively hemmed in the warring parties on both sides and the topography would help determine the outcome of the battle, as we will discover in next week's Past Times.

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