Lastly, on that all-important point, the disposition of the English archers, we are shown in the first ground plan the “English archers considerably in advance of the main body,” and, indeed, almost all on the Scottish side of the burn. In his second they are still in front of the host, but no longer across the burn. In his third there are no “archers” shown, and the English ‘battles’ themselves are depicted as close up to the burn. But to realize the completeness of the contradiction, one must place side by side these two passages: His [Edward II.’s] most fatal The worst point of all was mistake, however, was to place that in each corps the archers all his archers _in the front had been placed _behind_[603] the line_,[602] without any horsemen ... condemned from the protecting body of horsemen first to almost entire (‘Art of War in the Middle uselessness (‘History of the Art Ages,’ p. 101). of War,’ p. 575). Poor Edward! He is first made to place his archers in front of his horsemen, and blamed for his folly in doing so; and then he is made to place them behind, and again blamed for his folly. It is the same with the battle of Creçy (1346). Let any one compare the four narratives given in succession by Mr. Oman,[604] together with the three ground plans, and he will be fairly bewildered. The only thing of which we can be sure is that when Mr. Oman has adopted a view, he will himself afterwards abandon it. It is the same, again, with the numbers also. Mr. Oman, in his second narrative (as apparently in his first), reckons the English host at some 9,300 men (6,000 archers, 2,300 men-at-arms, 1,000 Welsh). In his fourth they exceed 20,000 (11,000 archers, 3,900 men-at-arms, 5,000 or 5,500 Welsh). Need I pursue further this endless contradiction? It has been my object to warn the reader of Mr. Oman’s works on the Art of War to compare his successive views before adopting a single one of them. Whether on the field of Bannockburn or of Hastings we need a guide who knows, at least, his own mind, and whose “cocksureness” is not proportionate to the mutability of his views. XV The Marshalship of England In his valuable essay on a document of which the origin has long been discussed, the ‘Modus tenendi Parliamentum,’[605] M. Bémont has drawn attention to the close association of this treatise, in the MSS. which contain it, with the coronation of Richard II. and with a treatise on the Marshal’s office. So close, indeed, is this association that Coke affirme avoir vu de ce traité [the _Modus_] un exemplaire “écrit au temps de Henri II. qui contient la manière, la forme et l’usage de Gilbert de Scrogel, maréchal d’Angleterre, et qui indique comment il s’acquittait alors de son office.”