374 WILD WHITE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



themselves no dates ; but the charters confirming them are — one by- 

 David II., King of Scots, the 1st of April, 1354, and the two last 

 by Edward III. of England, dated the 1st of May, " Anno Regni 

 nostri, Anglise 24, et Francise 15 : " that is, about the year 1351. 



We have not even yet done with this famous knight (for knighted 

 it is said he was), Sir William Turnbull. Scottish traditions say that 

 he fell at the battle of Halidon Hill, fighting against the English, in 

 1333. The English historian, Stowe, thus relates the circumstance : 

 " Whereuppon at length the two arrnies appoynted to fight, and 

 setting out uppon Halidowne Hill, there coram eth foorth of the Scots 

 campe a certain stoute champion of great stature, who, for a fact by 

 him done, was called Turnebulle ; hee, standing in the midst betwixt 

 the 2 armies, challenged all the Englishmen, any one of them, to 

 fight with him a combat. At length one Robert Venale, knight, a 

 Norfolke man, requesting license of the king, being armed, with his 

 sword drawne, marcheth toward the champion, meeting by y e way a 

 certain blacke mastiffe dogge, which waited on the champion, whom 

 with his sword he sodainely strake, and cut him off at his loynes ; 

 at the sight whereof the maister of the dogge slain was much abashed, 

 and in his battell more warie and fearefull : whose left hand and 

 head also afterward this worthy knight cut off." * 



Baker, in his " Chronicles," mentions the same circumstance, 

 and calls the knight " Venile." And Barnes, in his " History of 

 Edward III.," t gives a much fuller account of this single combat, 

 and says that the name of the English knight was Sir Robert 

 Benhale, who in the Parliament of 1331 (only two years previously) 

 had been fined for a riot. It seems, therefore, probable that as he 

 was then under a cloud he might be all the more anxious to wipe 

 out the memory of his disgrace by engaging in this chivalric and 

 dangerous undertaking. Barnes also expressly identifies Turnbull 

 with the man who saved Robert Bruce from the wild bull. 



* Stowe's " Annales," continued by Edward Howes, 1615, p. 231. 

 t 1688, chap, vi., p. 77. 



