The rumor that King Richard was still living had come once more to be circulated in Scotland and in the North of England, restoring a certain amount of courage to the malcontents. In vain had King Henry severely punished the fomenters of this news; Richard was expected with the Scottish army, when it entered into England in the spring of 1402. At the head of the English opposition was a Scotchman, George, Earl of March. The Duke of Rothsay was to have married his daughter, but he had rejected her, to unite himself with the family of the Earl of Douglas, the hereditary enemy of the Earls of March. The Earl of March had thereupon renounced his allegiance to the King of Scotland, and had allied himself with the Percies, all powerful in the county of Northumberland. It was with his assistance that the Scots were defeated and repulsed at Nesbit Moor, in June, 1402. Internal rancors soon brought forward a second army; the Earl of Douglas, furious at the success of his rival, solicited the assistance of the Duke of Albany, and, at the head of a considerable force, he soon overran the two banks of Tyne. Having advanced as far as Newcastle, he was falling back, loaded with booty, when the Earls of Northumberland and March cut off his road on the 14th of September. The Scots covered Homildon Hill, and the English were stationed opposite upon another elevation. Hotspur Percy had already commanded the charge of his men-at-arms, when the Earl of March restrained him by the arm. "Let your archers commence," he said; "the turn of your horsemen will soon come." Arrows rained down upon the Scots deployed upon the flank of the hill: Douglas did not stir; his men were falling in their ranks, when a Scottish baron, Fordun Swinton, at length cried, "Ah! my brave comrades, who restrains you to-day, that you should remain there, like deer or stags, to allow yourselves to be killed, instead of displaying your former valor by fighting man to man! Let us descend from here in the name of God!" {367} And the Scottish men-at-arms, thereupon moving, caused the English archers to fall back. The latter, however, continued to shoot, and Douglas received five wounds; he fell from his horse, and was made a prisoner. Disorder set in in the Scottish ranks; the flower of their chivalry had been decimated by the arrows or had surrendered without striking a blow. The son of the Duke of Albany, Murdoch Stewart, was among the number of the prisoners. The English knights had not raised their lances or drawn their swords; the battle had been won by the archers of old England. The Earl of Northumberland arrived on the 20th of October at the Parliament convoked at Westminister, gloriously accompanied by all his prisoners.