Events

Battlefields Trust Online Talk: The Battle of Homildon Hill, 1402

Tuesday 16th September 2025

By the year 1402 King Henry IV was preoccupied by the revolt in Wales led by Owain Glyndwr. In Scotland the new men of influence, Robert, Duke of Albany and Archibald, Earl of Douglas, felt the moment ripe for an invasion of England. An early incursion into English territory was defeated by the English at Nisbet on 22nd June, but a second invasion happened in August when Douglas led a force of Scots into Northumberland and as far south as Newcastle. The Scots, loaded with massive booty which slowed their movements, aimed to return home, heading for a crossing of the Tweed at Coldstream.

The king had ordered the Earl of Northumberland’s son, Henry Percy, the famous “Hotspur”, to move north as fast as he could from Wales where he was dealing with the Glyndwr revolt. The forces of Percy and Northumberland united and together with the Scottish George Dunbar, Earl of the March, blocked Douglas’s northbound Scots near to Wooler and forced them to take up a north facing position of defence on the slopes of Homildon Hill. What followed was a battle dominated by the power of the English archers.

Geoffrey Carter has been a member of the Trust for fifteen years and has previously served as a Trustee and the founding Regional Chair of the North Region. His particular interest is the late medieval period and he holds an MA in Medieval History from Durham University. Together with Clive Hallam-Baker and with support and advice from the Trust's late President, Robert Hardy, he led a major project to re-evaluate the battle of Homildon Hill.

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