After waiting in the neighbourhood of Bamborough until the arrival of some expected reinforcements from Carlisle, Cumberland, and Galloway, David moved southward to effect a junction with William Fitz-Duncan. Their forces, when united, amounted to twenty-six thousand men, and as most of the historians of the period represent this army as “innumerable,” it affords some clue for estimating what was in those days looked upon as a countless host. David was well aware of the character of the army against which he was advancing, and with the concurrence of his most experienced officers, he determined upon opposing his own knights and men-at-arms to the mailed chivalry of England; rightly calculating, that, if he once broke through the rival phalanx, his light armed irregulars, of little real use in the first onset, would easily complete the victory. But the native warriors of Alban, elated with the victory at Clitheroe, and vainly imagining that the flower of England’s knights and men-at-arms would fly before their impetuous charge, like the undisciplined peasantry and townsmen of the district, loudly exclaimed against such tactics. “Of what use were their breastplates and their helmets at Clitheroe?” exclaimed the Scots. “Why trust you to these Normans?” added Malise Earl of Strathearn, when David still remained unmoved; “unprotected as I am, none shall be more forward in the fight.” “A great boast,” retorted Alan Percy, “which for your life you cannot make good.” Alarmed at the probable consequences of dissension at such a moment, David reluctantly yielded the point in dispute, and the post of honour in the approaching conflict was assigned to the men of Galloway. One course yet held out a fair hope of success--a surprise--and David determined to make the attempt.[243] He ranged his army in four divisions, the Galwegians marching in the van, with all who claimed to share with them the honour of the first attack. The contingent from Cumberland and Teviotdale composed the second division, with the knights, archers, and men-at-arms under Prince Henry and Eustace Fitz-John, by whom the battle ought to have been commenced. Then followed the men of the Lothians, Lennox[244] and the Isles; whilst the king in person brought up the rear with the Scots and Moraymen, and his own body-guard of English and Norman knights.