Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Battle of Neville's Cross


 * The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article promoted by Kges1901 (talk) via MilHistBot (talk) 11:20, 23 October 2018 (UTC) &laquo; Return to A-Class review list

Battle of Neville&
Instructions for nominators and reviewers
 * Nominator(s): 

I am nominating this article for A-Class review because the battle was a moderately important event in the history of both Scotland and England. I believe that the article is in about as good a shape as I can get it, and that this meets the A class criteria. Only my third A class nomination, and the first which I didn't write from scratch, so I am probably wrong on that last point and all input is welcomed. Gog the Mild (talk) 10:55, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Image review


 * File:BNMsFr2643FroissartFol97vBatNevilleCross.jpg needs a US PD tag. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:16, 29 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi Nikkimaria. I think that I have done this, but I would appreciate it if you could check - this is a new experience for me. Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:16, 17 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Yep, looks fine. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:02, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

 Comments Support from CPA-5

Greetings the page looks good but (I think) I see some issues. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 11:14, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for looking at this review, and for going through the article so thoroughly. I appreciate it. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:42, 1 October 2018 (UTC)


 * "on 17 October 1346, half a mile to the west of Durham, England" how much is a half mile in metric units?
 * Oops! Done.
 * There is an other half mile you forgot in the intro. After "on 17 October 1346, half a mile to the west of Durham, England," Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 18:13, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Grr. Missed it. Thank you.


 * "in south west France" --> "in south-west France"
 * Done.


 * "David led a six day raid" --> "David led a six-day raid"
 * Done.


 * "paid over a ten year span on 24 June" --> "paid over a ten-year span on 24 June,"
 * Done.


 * 2 note has an cite error
 * Done.


 * "the childless David II for £40,000" how much is £40,000 in 2018
 * Apologies, I thought that I had responded to this before. I deliberately hadn't converted this. There is no requirement to convert any historical value and it is not usual. I already had three conversions and I was wary of showering the reader with numbers - the article could become Battle of Neville's Cross as told by an accountant. It would be easy enough to add a conversion, but as the deal this relates to never happened it seemed appropriate to skip it this time. I am happy to debate the pros and cons and could probably be readily persuaded. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:21, 2 October 2018 (UTC)


 * "by 1349" --> "by 1349,"
 * I do not use the convention of always putting a comma after dates, unless otherwise required by the construction of the sentence. This applies to a number of your comments below.


 * in the infobox the "•Capture of the Scottish King" should be --> "• Capture of the Scottish King"
 * Well spotted! Done.


 * "In January 1343" --> "In January 1343,"
 * "In 1346" --> "In 1346,"
 * "In January 1343" --> "In January 1343,"
 * "since 1332" --> "since 1332,"
 * "In June" --> "In June,"
 * "On 7 October" --> "On 7 October,"
 * "on 16 October" --> "on 16 October,"
 * "north east to Durham" --> "north-east to Durham"
 * says "Compound compass points are usually fully compounded in American English, for example northwest, while in British English they are sometimes written as separate words or hyphenated". I use British English and write compound compass points as separate words. Hopefully consistently so.


 * "marched north west" --> "marched north-west"
 * See above


 * "the French king." --> "the French King."
 * Done.


 * "In early 1346" --> " In early 1346,"
 * "the Scottish king" --> "the Scottish King"
 * Done.

Greetings Gog I think the page is (in my view) okey, good luck with your nomination. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 19:57, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

 Comments Support by Zawed

Thanks for the assessment. All done and awaiting the second installment. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:42, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Background: link their names on first mention of David and Edward (presently linked on second mention) and also recite their names in full as well. Then adjust the second and following mentions as appropriate.
 * Done.


 * Background: "Hostilities continued..." given the context of the previous sentence, it almost seems necessary to point out the contrast here. i.e. "However, hostilities..." or "Despite this, hostilities..."
 * Done.


 * Aftermath: "King Edward III ordered Coupland to hand over David II, rewarding Coupland..." : Coupland's name is repeated twice in close, see if you can rephrase to avoid this.
 * Done.


 * The caption to the map in the infobox needs place name.
 * Done. (Sort of.)


 * You have cites in the infobox for the Scottish/English casualties, this isn't necessary since they should be cited in main body of article.
 * Done.


 * I'm getting a cite error in respect of note 2; "Cite error: Invalid tag; name "inflation-UK" defined multiple times with different content"
 * Done.

More comments to follow. Zawed (talk) 08:38, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
 * To my mind, the campaign boxes under the infobox are out of order; the Scottish Independence Wars should be first, since the Second War of Independence is a subset of that.
 * Done


 * Background: this is one large paragraph, I suggest breaking it into two for ease of reading.
 * Done


 * Background: I think note 1 should follow cite 11, not be ahead of it.
 * Done


 * Prelude: I just want to check, note 12 also applies to the comment about the chroniclers of the time as well as the quote?
 * Yes. Let me know if you would like more detail.


 * Prelude: note 2 should start after the bracket, not before it (it is my understanding that cites and notes follow punctuation).
 * MOS:REFPUNCT would suggest otherwise. Where a footnote applies only to material within parentheses, the ref tags belong just before the closing parenthesis. which is the case here.


 * Battle: "stood-to-arms"; should the hyphens be there? If so, perhaps see if this phrase could be linked.
 * Well, it is, on exploration, usually hyphenated when used as a noun, and often when used as a verb. A surprisingly lack of consistency across reliable dictionaries. (I did check this before nominating, but only in one.) So I can reasonably unhyphenate it. Done.


 * Battle: "to the high ground at Neville's Cross"; link Neville's Cross. I also notice that you haven't explicitly referred to Neville's Cross in the lede, and suggest you do so since it forms part of the article's title.
 * Done


 * Battle: "within sight of the Cathedral": I would name and link the cathedral (presumably Durham?)
 * Linked but not named. It seems clear to me to from the text ("to the west of Durham and within sight of the Cathedral") and would cause "Durham" to appear twice in seven words.


 * Battle: you refer to groups or battles initially, then switch to units, then back to battles (and later on there is a reference to formation). Perhaps this was to differentiate between the Scots and English? I wonder if you should use groups for Scots and battles for the English.
 * It was (to differentiate). Considering, if you don't like "unit", how about formations for the Scots and battles for the English? "Groups" seems to imply a disorganised mass.


 * Battle: are we aware of any reason for Dunbar's refusal to command the first unit; wouldn't he have been defying his king?
 * I have taken it out. It comes a bit from nowhere. The Scottish high command had 'issues', I could write an entire article on them. Note that Dunbar's formation, the Scot's largest, left the field without engaging, taking its second in command, Robert Stewart (nephew to the King, heir-apparent, and future king of Scotland), with it. I either need to include all of the internal politics from the start, to, IMO, the considerable confusion of the reader, or just state the facts.


 * Aftermath: "childless David II for £40,000"; no conversion for this amount?
 * And I've just noticed the comment about it above. FWIW, I think it better to have the conversion for sake of consistency.
 * Done.


 * Aftermath: "a ransom of 100,000 marks"; why the change in currency?
 * Because that's what the actual or proposed agreements, and the sources I have access to said/say. I can convert if you prefer. (It would be £66,666 13/- 8p.)


 * References: A few of the references used are quite old; is it not possible to use more recent ones for the material cited by these? For example, Tate & Longstaff is used for William Zouche in the infobox, but presumably is mentioned in Sumption as well (see cite which supports William Zouche first mention in the article body).
 * Infobox: I have taken it out. It wasn't added by me. It is covered in the text and is inconsistent as we don't load the infobox down with everyone else's full titles. So Tate & Longstaff has gone. Dalrymple (1776) and Fraser (1878) are only used to support the list of Scottish prisoners. Older sources are fonder of listing noble involvement than more modern ones and I consider them reliable for this, limited, purpose. I have swapped Paul (1904–1914) for Sumption.


 * References: for the Given-Robin reference, what does the 116 refer to?
 * Volume. That's how it comes out when I put  into the standard template.

That's my remaining comments done. Cheers, Zawed (talk) 00:38, 6 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Many thanks for ploughing through this and picking up all the bits I missed. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:02, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
 * This is looking really good. I've just noticed one last thing, which is the Tanner ref. It caught my eye since it lacks a page number despite being a book. I suspect that "Franco-Scottish Alliance" is an article within the book; can you confirm? If so, you can add |chapter=Franco-Scottish Alliance into the reference template and then it can be removed from the title= field. If Tanner is the editor rather than author, then the author's name will need to be added, and use editor-first=, editor-last= for Tanner. Cheers, Zawed (talk) 08:44, 9 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Well spotted. Thank you. Yes, it is an article within what is effectively an encyclopedia. There is a new edition, with different authors and a different take on the content. I have tweaked the article to match this latest scholarship. The ref should be ok now, and I have added an url leading direct to the article. Gog the Mild (talk) 14:20, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
 * All good, have added my support now. Zawed (talk) 08:02, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

 Comments Support from Constantine

A well-written article, I am not terribly familiar with the events but could not find any major omissions or problems with it. A couple of minor points:
 * I would link terms like ransom or annuity
 * I am always wary of MOS:OVERLINKing, which probably means that I underlink. It seems to me that an reasonably literate reader should understand "ransom", especially in the context. A good point about "annuity", IMO; done. Also parole and hanged, drawn and quartered
 * Yes, I wanted to add these too but forgot. Good call. Constantine  ✍  08:42, 18 October 2018 (UTC)


 * I am fond of regnal dates for the monarchs, they are handy for the uninitiated reader as well
 * So am I. I can't think why I missed them. Thank you. Done.


 * The sums given in modern terms are very handy, but better context would IMO be provided by providing a contemporary comparison, e.g. a labourer's annual income, or, even better, the revenue of the Scottish fisc, for comparison. For instance, it would not be difficult for a modern monarch to raise £34,000,000, but it would be presumably very difficult to raise  £40,000 in 1350 due to much lower monetization of the economy and other factors.
 * I do take your point, but as noted above, the article could become Battle of Neville's Cross as told by an accountant. I have added a wage comparison to the first example . What do you think?
 * Looks good. FWIW, I would have no problem with removing all conversions to modern sums after the first reference; anyone interested can simply do the math, and since the first example happens to be a nice round number, it is fairly easy to do so. Up to you. Constantine  ✍  08:42, 18 October 2018 (UTC)


 * "A number of French knights" Is there is no indication of at least the approximate size of that contingent?
 * The source says "a handful". I have changed my text to "A small number of..."

Otherwise this reads very well, and the points are really minor. I'll have another read-through tomorrow but don't expect to add much. Well done Gog the Mild, Constantine  ✍  12:31, 17 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi Constantine. Thank you for looking at this, I appreciate it. Responses above. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:52, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Your changes are more than satisfactory, and on a second pass I couldn't find anything else. As usual, good work. Constantine  ✍  08:42, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Source review All of the sources appear to be of good quality. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 10:35, 19 October 2018 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.