On the morning of the 17th the English army was strongly posted on the hills north of Bishop Auckland. The ground in its front was broken and intersected by hedges. The Archbishop of York was on the field, and the banners of the northern saints, suspended to a great cross, were carried into action, as they had been at Northallerton two centuries before. The centre was commanded by Ralph Neville, the right by Henry Percy and the northern barons, the left, of Lancashire men, by Thomas of Rokeby. The Scots advanced in three divisions, the centre under the King, the right under the Earl of Moray, the left under Robert, the High Steward of Scotland, afterwards the first Stuart King. From the first everything went ill with the Scots. Entangled among the enclosures and ditches, their heavy, cumbrous columns, as at Halidon Hill, were tormented and disordered by a rain of arrows, to which they could make no reply. Sir John Graham in vain charged with a body of horsemen in the endeavour to ride down the bowmen. He and his band were all shot down. Seeing the disorder among their adversaries, the English army came on to a counter-attack, with the sacred banners waving in their van. The Scots’ right, striving vainly to form in order amid the hedges and obstacles, was charged by the men-at-arms, broken and driven back in utter rout, with the loss of its leader; the Steward’s division was forced away, and cut off from the King, and the whole English force closed upon the centre. For some three hours the Scots fought desperately, but their mass was finally pierced through and shattered, and David himself wounded and taken prisoner by John of Coupland, a Northumbrian squire. Robert the Steward appears to have been accused of having made no effort to save the King. David certainly seems to have suspected him; but it must be said that had he brought up his division again, he would probably have only added to the greatness of the disaster. He retreated in tolerable order, drawing to him as many as possible of the survivors from the other divisions, and the English were too weary to pursue. With David were taken the Archbishop of St. Andrews and several nobles, while the death-roll included more than thirty barons, including the Lord Marischal Keith and the Constable Hay.