Battle of the Standard 1138
Outline: officially registered battlefield boundary. Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Year | 1138 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
|---|---|---|
| Era | Medieval (500–1499) | derived from year |
| Location | England | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | The Anarchy | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | Kingdom of England, Kingdom of Scotland | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 54.3667, -1.4500 | Wikidata P625 |
| Official record | Historic England list entry 1000027 | OGL v3 |
| Registered area | 78.1 ha | OGL v3 |
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:
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; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
Battlefield boundary © Historic England 2026. Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. See also this battlefield on Battlefields of Britain.
Nearby battles
- Battle of Catraeth 600 · 12 km
- Battle of Old Byland · 16 km
- Battle of Piercebridge 1642 · 24 km
- Battle of Old Byland 1322 · 24 km
- Siege of Helmsley Castle 1644 · 28 km
- Battle of Boroughbridge 1322 · 30 km
Other battles of the The Anarchy
- Battle of Clitheroe 1138
- Battle of Lincoln (1141) 1141
- Rout of Winchester 1141
- Siege of Oxford (1142) 1142
- Battle of Wilton 1143
All 6 battles of the The Anarchy →
Browse more: battles in England · Europe · Medieval battles