The Battle of the Standard, sometimes called the Battle of Northallerton, took place on 22 August 1138 on Cowton Moor near Northallerton in Yorkshire, England. English forces under William of Aumale repelled a Scottish army led by King David I of Scotland.

King Stephen of England, fighting rebel barons in the south, had sent a small force (largely mercenaries), but the English army was mainly local militia and baronial retinues from Yorkshire and the north Midlands. Archbishop Thurstan of York had exerted himself greatly to raise the army, preaching that to withstand the Scots was to do God's work. The centre of the English position was therefore marked by a mast (mounted upon a cart) bearing a pyx carrying the consecrated host and from which were flown the consecrated banners of the minsters of York, Beverley and Ripon: hence the name of the battle. This cart-mounted standard was a very northerly example of a type of standard common in contemporary Italy, where it was known as a carroccio.

King David had entered England for two declared reasons:

  • To support his niece Matilda's claim to the English throne against that of King Stephen (married to another niece)
  • To enlarge his kingdom beyond his previous gains.

David's forces had already taken much of Northumberland apart from castles at Wark and Bamburgh.

Advancing beyond the Tees towards York, early on 22 August the Scots found the English army drawn up on open fields north of Northallerton; they formed up in four 'lines' to attack it. The first attack, by unarmoured spearmen against armoured men (including dismounted knights) supported by telling fire from archers, failed. Within three hours, the Scots army disintegrated, apart from small bodies of knights and men-at-arms around David and his son Henry. At this point, Henry led a spirited attack with mounted knights; he and David then withdrew separately with their immediate companions in relatively good order. Heavy Scots losses are claimed, in battle and in flight.

The English did not pursue far; David fell back to Carlisle and reassembled an army. Within a month, a truce was negotiated which left the Scots free to continue the siege of Wark castle, which eventually fell. Despite losing the battle, David was subsequently given most of the territorial concessions he had been seeking (which the chronicles say he had been offered before he crossed the Tees). David held these throughout the Anarchy, but on the death of David, his successor Malcolm IV of Scotland was soon forced to surrender David's gains to Henry II of England.

Some chronicle accounts of the battle include an invented pre-battle speech on the glorious deeds of the Normans, occasionally quoted as good contemporary evidence of the high opinion the Normans held of themselves.

Background

thumb|150px|Scottish atrocities depicted in the 14th-century [[Luttrell Psalter]]

David had gained the Scottish throne largely because of the support of his brother-in-law Henry I of England, and he had attempted to remodel Scotland to be more like Henry's England. He had carried out peaceful changes in the areas of Scotland over which he had effective control and had conducted military campaigns against semi-autonomous regional rulers to reassert his authority; in administration, in warfare, and in the settling of regained territory, he had drawn on the talent and resources of the Anglo-Norman lands. The death of Henry I in 1135, weakening England, made David more reliant on his native subjects, and allowed him to contemplate winning control over substantial areas of northern England.

Henry I had wished his inheritance to pass to his daughter Matilda, and in 1127 made his notables swear an oath to uphold the succession of Matilda (David was the first layman to do so). Many of the English and Norman magnates and barons were against Matilda because she was married to Geoffrey V, count of Anjou. On Henry's death, Stephen, younger brother of Theobald, count of Blois, seized the throne instead.

When Stephen was crowned on 22 December, David went to war. After two months of campaigning in northern England, a peace treaty ceding Cumberland to David was agreed. Additionally, David's son Henry was made Earl of Huntingdon. David declined to swear the required oath of loyalty to Stephen, since he had already sworn allegiance to Matilda.

Campaigning in 1138 before the battle

David invades Northumberland

David first moved against English castles on the Tweed frontier. Norham Castle belonged to the Bishop of Durham and its garrison was under-strength; it quickly fell. Having failed to rapidly seize the castle at Wark on Tweed, David detached forces to besiege it and moved deeper into Northumberland, demanding contributions from settlements and religious establishments to be spared plunder and burning.

Scots slave-raiding and Anglo-Norman alarm

The actions of the army that invaded England in early 1138 shocked the English chroniclers. Richard of Hexham but some Scots forces were going beyond normal Norman 'harrying' by systematically carrying off women and children as slaves.

In contemporary Britain, this was regarded as a useful source of revenue, like (and not significantly more reprehensible than) cattle-raiding.