In the following year Robert II. died. His feeble son John, ‘Robert III.,’ was anxious to keep the peace with England, and in this was backed by his brother and co-regent, Robert, Duke of Albany. In 1398 the heir-apparent, David, Duke of Rothesay, supplanted his uncle for a while, and inaugurated a vigorous anti-English policy. He alienated the powerful Earl of March by breaking off his betrothal to his daughter, and March fled to England. Henry IV. was anxious for peace, but the Scots appear to have been determined on war, and he made a brief expedition into Scotland in 1399. In 1402, after much desultory skirmishing, the Scots, taking advantage of Henry’s preoccupations, invaded England with a considerable army under Murdoch, Earl of Fife, son of Albany (who had overthrown and murdered Rothesay), and Archibald, Earl of Douglas, grandson of the hero of Otterburn. They advanced, ravaging in the usual manner, as far as the Tyne, and then turned homeward, pursued by a force under ‘Hotspur’ and the fugitive Earl of March. They were overtaken while encamped on Homildon, or Humbledon, Hill, near Wooler. Percy and March, adopting tactics curiously similar to those employed a century later almost at the same spot by Surrey, moved round the Scots’ position, and, by placing themselves on their line of retreat, forced them to abandon their booty and disperse, or fight. The battle presents few features of interest; it was a mere counterpart in tactics of Halidon Hill and Neville’s Cross. The Scots were tormented in the old fashion by the archers, and Fife and Douglas failed to attempt the only possible, if forlorn, expedient to stay them--a determined charge of cavalry. Seeing the increasing disorder, Sir John Swinton, one of the bravest knights in the army, begged permission to advance, though only with his following of 100 lances. Sir Adam Gordon, his personal enemy, thereupon sought reconciliation with him, and the erstwhile foes, embracing on the field, placed themselves at the head of the band, which rode downhill among the archers, and perished to the last man. Driven to desperation by the murderous discharge, the Scottish masses at last lumbered clumsily down the hill, only to be massacred by the pitiless arrow flight, until in despair they broke and fled. The English men-at-arms hardly struck a blow. Fife and Douglas were both taken; the latter had received five wounds, and owed his life solely to his well-tempered armour.