The Ballad of Chevy Chase

The Ballad of Chevy Chase is arguably the most famous poem to come out of Northumberland. It seems by its very nature to be based on an actual historical incident, yet like much that is churned and ploughed over by bards across the ages the source of reference of the work has become lost in myth and legend.

The poem has been reworked many times over the years – in both oral and written traditions – and survives in two generally accepted versions today. Many have linked the composition to the Battle of Otterburn of 1388, others to a scrap between the Scots and English resulting from a dispute over a day’s hunting upon ‘Cheviot Chase’ (‘chase’ being a tract of hunting land).

The Battle of Otterburn essentially amounted to a teasing out of Northumbrian forces (under Harry Hotspur) from Newcastle into the hills around Otterburn by a Scottish army under the Earl of Douglas. The resultant face-off led to the capture of the former, the death of the latter and a victory for the Scots. In the skirmish in the Cheviots a Northumbrian Percy led a large illegal hunting party across lands over which the Earl of Douglas had a protective eye – and in the fight that followed a disproportionately large number of men were slain with only 110 surviving.

There doesn’t seem to be a set date for the latter incident, and it is reckoned that there was already a ‘Ballad of the Battle of Otterburn’ in existence before either version of the Chevy Chase poem surfaced (the first was probably written around 1430 and the second as much as a couple of centuries later).  So what we have here with The Ballad of Chevy Chase is undoubtedly an amalgam of at least two, and probably more, historical events … suitably spiced up with a dash of poetic licence, too, of course.

So that’s that cleared up, then.

The Battle of Humbleton Hill (NT969294)

© Copyright Lisa Jarvis and licensed for reuse 

under this Creative Commons Licence.

The Battle of Humbleton (or Homildon) Hill took place on 14^th September 1402 on a site a couple of miles NW of Wooler. It pitched the Scots against the English, and was famously mentioned by William Shakespeare in his historical epic, Henry IV, Pt1. It resulted in a resounding victory for the English, but was not effectively followed up, suggesting that the loss of life was largely in vain.

The Scots were getting particularly ambitious at the time due to Henry IV’s preoccupation with the troublesome Welsh further south. An initial set-to at Nesbit Moor in Berwickshire in June 1402 had seen the Scots defeated, but they continued snapping away at the English heels. In August the Earl of Douglas led a 10,000-strong army south, devastating Northumberland as far as Newcastle. Turning back north laden with plunder, they set up camp at Milfield north of Wooler. The English, though, weren’t prepared to let them get away, and the Earl of Northumberland, assisted by his son, Harry Hotspur, cut them off and forced them into battle.

As the two armies circled one another, the Scots settled on the rising ground north of Humbleton Hill in the foot of the Cheviots. They moved into their ‘Schiltron’ formations – thus providing the deadly English archers with mightily easy targets. The victorious bowmen struck most probably from the high land around Harehope Hill, with most of the Scottish casualties finding their final resting places in the plain to the north and east as they sped for safety – and into the arms of the main body of their foe. Many thousands of Scots perished, with only a handful of English dead – and all in the space of an hour or so.

The English, though, didn’t push ahead with a full-scale invasion of Scotland, preferring instead to concentrate on their Welsh problem. The Percy family – Harry Hotspur and his father amongst them – wasn’t best pleased with the tame aftermath and eventually turned against Henry IV. Both father and son ultimately lost their lives in failed rebellions against the English monarch in the ensuing years.

The Bendor ‘Battle Stone’ has traditionally marked the spot of the 1402 conflict – though it is most likely a Bronze Age standing stone, ancient cists having been found thereabouts.