The Chronicle
Even in its own century, the story was secondhand.
Chronicles were the news-keeping of the Middle Ages — year-by-year notices of kings, battles, and wonders, often kept in religious houses and later known by their place of origin. This one was written at Rufford, a Cistercian abbey in Sherwood country south of Mansfield, in a hand of the later fourteenth century; its compiler is unknown, and the passage stands without attribution among notices of the Scottish wars.
In this same year, on the vigil of the Nativity of St. John, was the great confusion at Stirling, where the host of England was broken in the marsh and the king put to flight, and many good men perished not by the sword but in the water, being drowned in their armour.
And it is told that at one of the fords over the little burn there stood a knight of the shire of Nottingham, Edward of Mannesfeld, with certain of his men, and they held the bank so that others might pass over. Of his men three were slain there and are not buried. He himself was borne away insensible and came at length into England.
Of the manner of his standing there, many spoke afterward, though none could say his name, for they had seen only his shield, on the which was a golden lion. Wherefore he was called the Lion of Mansfield from that day, and is so called still.
He bore afterward upon his arms three stars of red, and would not say wherefore.
