We might reasonably then expect to find these wars carried on “à outrance;” to find no mercy in their battles, no gentleness or generosity in their intercourse. But the account of Froissart is very different. “Englysshmen on the one partye, and scottes on the other partye, are goode men of warre, for when they mete there is a hard fight, without sparynge; there is no troo bytwene them as long as speares, swordes, axes, or dagers wyll endure, but lay on eche upon other; and whan they be well beaten, and that the one parte hath optaygned the victory, they then glorifye so in their dedes of armes, and are so ioyfull, that such as be taken, they shall be raunsomed or they go out of the felde, so that shortely eche of them is so content with other, that at their departynge curtoysly they will saye, Gode thank you, but in fyghtynge one with another there is no playe, nor sparynge; and this is trewe, and that shall well apere by this sayde rencounter (of Otterbourn), for it was as valyauntly foughten as coulde be devysed.... This batayle was fierse and cruell, tyll it came to the end of the discomfiture; but whan the scottes saw the englysshmen recule, and yelde themselves, than the scottes were curtes, and sette them to their raunsom, and every manne sayde to his prisoner, Sirs, go and unarm you and take your ease, I am your mayster; and so made their prisoners as goode chere as though they had been brethern, without doyng them any damage.”[121] Another anecdote of the same battle, from the same graphic and delightful historian, will serve to illustrate more than one of the points to which the reader’s attention has been drawn. Sir Matthew Reedman, the governor of Berwick, fought under Percy at Otterbourn and endeavoured to escape when fortune declared against the English.