Of the military events in the short war following the arrival of the French, an outline will be found in the ordinary histories; but it was attended by some conditions which curiously bring out the specialties of the two nations so oddly allied. One propitiatory gift the strangers had brought with them, which was far more highly appreciated than their own presence; this was a thousand stand of accoutrements for men-at-arms. They were of the highest excellence, being selected out of the store kept in the Castle of Beauté for the use of the Parisians. When these were distributed among the Scots knights, who were but poorly equipped, the chronicler, as if he had been speaking of the prizes at a Christmas-tree, tells how those who were successful and got them were greatly delighted. The Scots did their part in their own way: they brought together thirty thousand men, a force that drained the country of its available manhood. But England had at that time nothing to divert her arms elsewhere, and the policy adopted was to send northwards a force sufficient to crush Scotland for ever. It consisted of seven thousand mounted men-at-arms, and sixty thousand bow and bill men—a force from three to four times as large as the armies that gained the memorable English victories in France. Of these, Agincourt was still to come off, but Crecy and Poictiers were over, along with many other affairs that might have taught the French a lesson. The Scots, too, had suffered two great defeats—Neville’s Cross and Halidon Hill—since their great national triumph. The impression made on each country by their experiences brought out their distinct national characteristics. The French knights were all ardour and impatience; they clamoured to be at the enemy without ascertaining the amount or character of his force. The wretched internal wars of their own country had taught them to look on the battle-field as the arena of reason in personal conflict, rather than the great tribunal in which the fate of nations was to be decided, and communities come forth freed or enslaved.