Battle of Northallerton 1138
Outline: officially registered battlefield boundary.
Key facts
| Date (year) | 1138 | Historic England NHLE name |
|---|---|---|
| Century | 12th century | derived |
| Period | Norman & medieval | derived |
| Country | England | derived |
| War / conflict | The Anarchy | Wikidata |
| Participants | Kingdom of England, Kingdom of Scotland | Wikidata |
| Registered area | 78.1 ha | Historic England |
| Grid reference | SE 36202 98054 | Historic England |
| Historic England list entry | 1000027 | Historic England |
| Designated | 1995-06-06 | Historic England |
About the battle
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:
Visiting the battlefield
Moving south from the Tees David's army would have had the high ground of the North Yorkshire Moors on its left, and the River Swale on its right. Nearing Northallerton, the distance between hills and river is about 8 miles (13 km), much of it low-lying and (then) poorly drained. The road to Northallerton from the Tees (the Great North Road) therefore approaches the town along a ridge of slightly higher ground running north–south. Minor ups and downs break the line of sight along the ridge, but the 'ups' are hills only in relation to the low ground on either side of the ridge.
Location
- OS grid reference: SE 36202 98054
- Approximate centre of registered area: 54.3763, -1.4442
- Registered area: 78.1 hectares
Battlefields are often on private farmland: please keep to public rights of way and respect landowners.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of the Standard (revision 1375997614), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “Battlefield and English dispositions”; condensed by selecting paragraphs and trimming at sentence boundaries; citations removed. No text added.
Battlefield data © Historic England 2026. Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Nearby battlefields
- Battle of Catraeth 600 · 12 km
- Battle of Piercebridge 1642 · 23 km
- Battle of Old Byland 1322 · 25 km
- Battle of Boroughbridge 1322 · 31 km
- Battle of Myton 1319 · 31 km
- Battle of Neville's Cross 1346 · 46 km
Other battles of the The Anarchy
- Battle of Clitheroe 1138
- Battle of Lincoln 1141
- Rout of Winchester 1141
- Battle of Wilton 1143
All battles of the The Anarchy →
Browse more: battles in England · Norman & medieval · 12th century battles