You can read this book here in pdf - Electric Scotland

FROM ENGLISH CHRONICLERS 197
noitre and ; they learned that the king had already crossed
the river Tees with his army, and was already destroying their
province after his wont.
Therefore they went with the greatest haste to meet them,
and passing the vill which is called Northallerton came in the
earliest morning 1 to the plain which is two miles distant from
that place. 2
AlLRED OF RlEVATJLX, DE STANDARDO, IN CHRONICLES OF
STEPHEN, ETC., VOL. Ill, PP. 185-187.
. . .
(From the speech of Walter Espec. )
" For why should we despair of victory, when victory
has been given to our race [the Normans] as if in fee by the most
4
High?
. . .
" Who then would not laugh, rather than fear, when to
fight against such men runs the worthless Scot with half-bare
buttocks ? They are those, they are only those who of yore
thought not to oppose us, but to yield, when William conqueror
of England penetrated Lothian, Calatria and Scotland as far as
Abernethy, where the warlike Malcolm was made ours by his
surrender ; and now they challenge to war their conquerors,
their masters ; -they oppose their naked hide to our lances, our
swords and our arrows, using a calf-skin 5 for a shield, inspired
by irrational contempt of death rather than by strength. 6
1 I.e. of the 22nd August ; so J. of W., supra.
"
J. of H., in S. of D., ii, 293 : On the octave, therefore, of the Assumption
of St. Mary, on the eleventh before the Kalends of September, the second
day of the week, the whole army gathered round the Standard." Cf. R. of
H., in Chr. of Ste., etc., iii, 164. Cf. A. of R., addition in MS. C, ibid., iii,
181, n. W. of N., ibid., i, 34, gives the date as the fourth year of king Stephen.
2 " In a certain plain of the vassalage of St. Cuthbert," J. of H., in
S. of D., ii, 293. Cf . the additions in the Cotton. MS. of A. of R., " namely
upon Cowton Moor, near Northallerton," Chr. of Ste., etc., iii, 182, n ; and
again, " This battle was fought ... on Cowton Moor," ibid., iii, 199, n.
" At Allerton in Cowton Moor," Hoved., i, 193.
3 A. of R. ascribes to Walter Espec a long rhetorical exhortation of the
English before the battle (u.s., 185-189.) The allegation of sacrilege plays
a large part both in this speech and in that attributed to Ralph Nowel by
H. of H.
4 He goes on to profess victories achieved throughout France and Italy.
5
Calf-skins stretched on hoops were used as carrying-trays until quite
recently in Scotland. The lightness and roundness of the Scottish shield
suggests the sarcasm.
6 Cf. H. of H., pp. 262-263, speech of Ralph Nowel, bishop of Orkney :
"... And now Scotland, subject to you by right, strives to- repulse you,
displaying unarmed rashness fitter for a brawl than for the fight : while in
them is no knowledge of the art of war, no skill in strategy, no tolerance of
discipline. There is therefore no ground for fear but rather for shame, because
these whom we have always sought and conquered in their own laud
3