retreating northwards, probably simply to avoid the king, possibly to join hands with Robert Bruce.  On March 16 the fugitives reached Boroughbridge, on the south bank of the Ure, where a long narrow bridge, hardly wide enough for horsemen in martial array, crossed the stream.  The north bank of the river, and the approaches to the bridge, were held in force by the levies of Cumberland and Westmoreland which Barclay had summoned at the king’s request, in order to prevent a junction between the Lancastrians and the Scots.  Barclay was a brave and capable commander and had well learnt the lessons of Scottish warfare.[1] He dismounted all his knights and men-at-arms, and arranged them on the northern side of the river, along with some of his pikemen.  The rest of the pikemen he ordered to form a “schiltron” after the Scottish fashion, so that their close formation might resist the cavalry of which the Lancastrian force consisted.  He bade his archers shoot swiftly and continually at the enemy.

    [1] For the tactics of Boroughbridge see Engl.  Hist.  Review,
    xix. (1904), 711-13.

Seeing this disposition of the hostile force, the Lancastrian army divided.  One band, under Hereford and Roger Clifford, dismounted and made for the bridge, which was defended by the schiltron of pikemen.  The rest of the men-at-arms remained on horseback and followed Lancaster, to a ford near the bridge, whence, by crossing the water, they could take the schiltron in flank.  Neither movement succeeded.  Hereford and Clifford advanced, each with one attendant, to the bridge.  No sooner had the earl entered upon the wooden structure than he was slain by a Welsh spearman, who had hidden himself under it, and aimed a blow at Humphrey through the planking.  Clifford was severely wounded, and escaped with difficulty.  Discouraged by the loss of their leaders, the rest of the troops made only a feeble effort to force the passage.  The same evil fortune attended the division that followed Lancaster.  The archers of Harclay obeyed his orders so well that the Lancastrian cavalry scarcely dared enter the water.  Lancaster lost his nerve, and besought Harclay for a truce until the next morning.  His request was granted, but during the night all the followers of Hereford dispersed, thinking that there was no need for them to remain after the death of their lord.  Lancaster’s own troops were likewise thinned by desertions.  The sheriff of York came up early in the morning with an armed force from the south, joined Harclay, and cut off the last hope of retreat.  Further resistance being useless, Lancaster, Audley, Clifford, Mowbray, and the other leaders surrendered in a body.