Lancaster failed in his proposed operations, and was obliged to beat a hasty retreat to secure himself from the advancing royalists. On the 16th March he approached Boroughbridge, to find it defended by the Warden of the Western Marches, Sir Andrew Harcla, and the Sheriff of Yorkshire, Sir Simon Ward. The crisis had come: but the conflict was not to win a sceptre, or a protectorship, but to escape from the axe and block wherewith traitors were requited for their misdeeds in the days of the Plantagenets. In happier and more fortunate times Earl Lancaster had bestowed the accolade of knighthood upon Andrew Harcla, and he now endeavoured to induce the loyal knight to make common cause with him against King Edward. Harcla was too prudent a man to take so rash and ruinous a step, and Lancaster drew up his soldiers to attempt to force the old wooden bridge, which spanned the river Ure. The hasty levies which Harcla and Ward had called to arms consisted largely of northern archers, famous for their skill with the bow, and they were strongly posted at the head of the bridge. To ford the river was impossible, it being sixty yards wide at that part; to follow the course of the river and seek to cross at some other point, with Ward and Harcla marching _en rapport_ on the opposite side of the river, and with the royal troops nigh at hand, closing in upon their rear, was to risk an almost inevitable and irremediable disaster. Lancaster's one path to freedom was by the storming of the bridge, and they accordingly prepared for their last passage-at-arms.