Though the utmost diligence was used by Edward and his officers, morning was pretty far advanced before the immense concourse of warriors could be put in motion. The distant stations which an army so numerous must necessarily have occupied, rendered an instant removal altogether impossible; and a whole summer’s day was therefore consumed, in enabling them to reach an extensive heath to the east of Linlithgow; where, for that night, they rested in their armour. In the mid-watch, however, an alarm spread, that the enemy were at hand, and considerable confusion ensued. It originated in an uproar, occasioned by an accident which happened to the King:--His war-horse, which stood beside him, had it seems become restive, and trampled on him as he lay on the heath; and his domestics having raised the cry, that the King was wounded, every man grasped his weapon, and stood on his defence. Philip de Belvey, the King’s surgeon, however, soon quieted their apprehensions, and they again betook themselves to rest. CHAPTER III. THE ENGLISH ARMY ADVANCE TO LINLITHGOW.--BATTLE OF FALKIRK, FROM THE ACCOUNTS GIVEN BY ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH WRITERS.--MISCELLANEOUS TRANSACTIONS. Day broke on the army of England moving onward to Linlithgow in one long and variegated column. To those whom sanctity of character, or local situation, enabled to await its approach, the spectacle, which was now at hand, must have been fearfully interesting. Since the days of the Romans, the present army was perhaps the largest that had traversed the plains of Scotland. Many alterations had been introduced about this time into Europe by the crusaders; and Edward, who was no inapt scholar in the military art, had, during his residence in Palestine, and his expeditions to France, availed himself of every invention that came under his observation. His army, therefore, might justly be considered as the most perfect in discipline, equipment, and feudal splendour, that Christendom could boast of at the time. As it approached, it seemed to lengthen,--the interminable array issuing, as it were, from some inexhaustible source on the verge of the horizon: Its glittering mazes occasionally appearing and disappearing among the inequalities of the road, might be aptly compared to the undulating movements of one of those enormous serpents that figure in the pages of romance, some of whose coils are at times seen while its extremities are concealed amid the darkness of the den from whence it is represented as issuing forth. Most of the inhabitants fled before the unwelcome intruders, except a few Carmelite friars, who stopped to gaze on the warlike pageant.