(From the book ‘Robert the Bruce, King of Scots’ by Ronald McNair Scott)
Torwood was a vast forest with rocky outcrops lying across the ancient Roman road from Edinburgh to Stirling some five miles north of Falkirk. Here by the end of April 1314 Bruce had made his headquarters and began to assemble his army.
He called a halt to all subsidiary expeditions and to him came Edward Bruce and his men fresh from their invasion of Cumberland, and Douglas and Randolf with theirs from Lothian, elated by the captures of Roxburgh and Edinburgh.
Summonses for military service had been sent throughout the kingdom, and as the days lengthened and the weather became milder, groups of men under their knights, lairds or chiefs or on their own made their way at fitful intervals to the Scottish camp from the farthest reaches of the country.
As they came in they were welcomed by the King, Robert the Bruce, and allotted for their training to one of four divisions into which he had ordered his battle array.
Of these the vanguard was commanded by Thomas Randolf, Earl of Moray. At the end of its training period it consisted of about 500 men from his earldom of Moray, from Ross and the far north and burghers from towns of Inverness, Elgin, Nairn and Forres
The second division, led by Edward Bruce, drew on the men of Buchan, Mar, Angus, the Mearns, Menteith, Strathern and Lennox, with a small contingent from Galloway to make up a roll call of 1000.
The third division of a similar size was under the nominal command of the High Steward, Walter the son of Bruce’s old friend James Stewart who had died in 1309, but as Walter Stewart was a minor the control was actually in the hands of his cousin, James Douglas. Their men came from Lanark, Renfrew and the Borders.
The fourth division had the double strength of 2000 and was commanded by the King himself. Here under his banner were gathered from western Scotland Highlanders from a score of different clans, muting their feuds beneath his chastening eye and in the face of a common enemy. Bruce’s own men from Carrick, Kyle and Cunningham were there and Angus MacDonald with his liegemen from the western isles.
Lastly there were 500 light horse under the Marischal Sir Robert Keith and a small company of Archers from the Etterick forest.
Altogether the Scottish army amounted to between 5000 and 6000, little more than a quarter of the English host.
During the two months he had in hand, Bruce’s main preoccupation was the training and discipline of his disparate forces. He knew that he had neither the horses, equipment nor numbers to fight the English cavalry with his own.
His army must fight on foot and be based on the schiltron: the hedgehop of spears. But he realized, and this was his brilliance as a tactician, that the schiltron must not be merely static and defensive but be able to act on the offensive as a mobile battering ram.
Considering the majority of his troops were Highlanders accustomed rather to the wild charge or the ambuscade, the astonishing coherence and control shown in the movement of the schiltrons on the battlefield of Bannockburn argues not only how thorough must have been their training but how remarkable the personal ascendancy of the King for chiefs and people so independent to accept the discipline entailed.
He was helped in this by the different relationship form England existing between master and man in Scotland. The gradations of wealth were less steep. Whereas in England the natural leaders were high on their horses remote from the humble foot soldiers, in Scotland the chiefs, burghers and landowners, with leaner purses, were accustomed to fight side by side with their own men on foot.
When they did so they wore lighter armor than when on horseback, and their followers steel helmets and steel gloves and either back and breast pieces or padded leather jackets. All were armed with twelve-foot spears and swords or axes.
Like many of the great commanders who followed him in history, Bruce took pains to make himself known to all his men, ‘ever, as he met them, he greeted them cheerfully, speaking an encouraging word to one or another and they, seeing their King welcome them in so forthright a manner, were greatly heartened and were ready to fight and die to uphold his honour.’
During this period he selected the site of the battlefield on which he would oppose the English. That which he chose was ‘almost the copybook military position for the strategic defense of Stirling castle.
About two miles north of Torwood, the Roman road dipped down to the valley of Bannockburn. Rising in the hills to the west the burn descended through the wooded slopes and meadows to the ford which served the road and then plunged into a deep gully by the hamlet of Bannock and cut its way through the bog lands in an arc to the northeast to debouch into the Firth of Fourth.
North of this natural obstacle there was to the left of the road the New Park, a moderate area of undulating grassland backed by thick woods which had been enclosed by Alexander III as a royal forest. To the right of the road a narrow stretch of meadow which ended abruptly at its eastern edge in a steep bank, dropping down into the Carse of Balquiderock, a flat plateau of clay land embraced by the arms of the Pelstream and the Bannock burn. Beyond these, marshlands, intersected by streams, extended to the Firth of Fourth.
No advance by the English could be made from the east across this spongy area; nor could they make a detour to the west where the Torwood and New Park stretched into unbroken forest. Their only means of approach towards Stirling were along the Roman road and through the New Park or somewhat to the east of the gully were by fording the Bannock Burn where its banks were lower and taking the public track, they could pass outside the New Park under the lea of the escarpment at the Carse’s edge.
Bruce must have reconnoitered the ground on many occasions with his lieutenants for when time came to take up their positions there the move was made with great smoothness.
In the meantime, to prevent the English cavalry deploying onto the open ground on either side of the Roman road, if they crossed the ford, he honeycombed the area with pits dug a foot in breadth and knee deep camouflaged with brushwood and grass and felled trees and placed barricades across any tracks through the forest which might be accessible to horsemen.
While the work was being carried out he sent James Douglas and Sir Robert Keith with a small mounted patrol to monitor the progress of the English army.
On June 22nd they returned with the news, which they reported to the King in private, that the English were on the move from Edinburgh in immense numbers, for the whole landscape was covered by mounted men with waving banners, columns of foot soldiers and archers and lines of wagons stretching into the distance.
Never before had they seen such a multitude and splendor. Bruce told them to keep this knowledge to themselves but to spread it abroad that the English were advancing in great disorder so that the men might not be discouraged.
He now gave orders that the camp followers, grooms, ‘small folk’ and others too Ill-armed to be included in his schiltrons should retire with the wagon train of food and equipment to a valley hidden behind Gillies Hill and that the straggling bands who, though adequately armed, had arrived too late for enrollment in his trained formations should accompany them and wait there until summoned.
Next he dispatched the vanguard and the other two divisions to their prepared positions north of the Bannock burn: the vanguard, under Thomas Randolf, to St Ninnian’s kirk to watch the track along the Carse, with the divisions of Douglas and Edward Bruce echeloned to his right in that order while he, with his division, remained as rearguard in Torwood to cover their withdrawal.
When this had been completed he brought his men across the burn and took his place to the right of his brother’s division. The whole army was now in line facing southeast down a gradual slope which gave them observation both of the entry to the New Park and the Carse.
And there, after placing sentries, they slept.
Next morning, 23 June, soon after sunrise, the army heard Mass and prayed to God for their cause, and since it was the vigil of St John the Baptist they observed it as a fast, taking only bread and water.
And when they armed and had taken their stations the King had it proclaimed to each division that if any where of faint heart let him depart at once, at which a great shout arose from the assembled troops that all would conquer or die.
Meanwhile the English army where approaching from Falkirk and about midday had reached Torwood, where they halted.
Here they were met by Sir Philip Mowbray, the Governor of Stirling Castle, who had made a wide detour to join them.
He pointed out that there was no need for a battle to take place, for under the laws of chivalry the English had fulfilled their obligation by arriving within three leagues of their objective and therefore the Castle must remain in their hands.
But Edward II had not brought his mighty army so many miles to let his enemies once more elude him, but to overwhelm them and march in triumph through the gates of Stirling Castle which he could see in the distance high on its up thrust of rock against a cloudless sky.
A consultation was held among the leaders at which Sir Philip, who had been able to observe the preparations of the Scots from the battlements of the castle, warned that the English could not attack from the western flank as the bridle ways throughout the forest had been barricaded and that elsewhere the growth was too thick, and that to the immediate front the Scottish forces were drawn up in the New Park.
It was decided then that the vanguard should advance along the Roman road under the King’s nephew, the Earl of Gloucester, with the expectation that the power of his army would cause the Scots to retire. If not Gloucester would sweep them away with a charge of heavy cavalry.
At the same time, Sir Robert Clifford and Sir Henry Beaumont should take a hand picked body of 600 knights along the public way at the edge of the Carse and get behind the Scots to cut off their anticipated retreat.
Some delay was caused by the intervention of the Earl of Hereford, who claimed that as High Constable it was his hereditary right to lead the army, but this was shortly resolved by making him joint commander of the van with Gloucester.
As the English Cavalry emerged from Torwood onto the green meadow which sloped down to the Bannock burn, their many colored banners and armor glittering in the sun could be seen clearly from across the valley by the Scots who stood to arms.
The English vanguard came down across the meadow and their line gradually contracted into a column as they approached the ford over the burn with the Earls of Hereford and Gloucester in the lead.
The Earl of Hereford’s nephew, Sir Henry de Bohun, rode some fifty yards in front, clad in full armor on a powerful horse with his spear in his hand. As he came through the belt of trees on the north bank of the burn he saw on the open ground before him a single rider inspecting the serried ranks of Scotsmen half-hidden in the woodland.
He was on a gray palfrey with an axe in his hand and a golden circlet around his helmet. Recognizing the King of Scots, de Bohun without more ado couched his lance and spurred towards him.
Who knows what thoughts passed through the Bruce’s mind? The prudent course was to fall back within the ranks of his soldiers, but perhaps he was influenced by seeing the crest of the de Bohuns on the sir coat of his assailant.
For it was to the de Bohuns that, when he was a fugitive, his lands in Annandale and Carick had been handed over by Edward I, and it was to the de Bohuns that Edward II had given the Bruce domains in Essex.
And then again, how could he, the victor in a hundred tournaments, retreat from such a challenge before the eyes of Scotsmen prepared to lay down their lives on his behalf?
So he turned his horse and cantered towards de Bohun, and as the thunderous charge came near swerved to one side and rising in his stirrups brought down his axe with such force on his opponent’s head that he cut through helmet, skull and brain and his axe handle shivered in two.
For a minute there was a stunned silence on both sides, and then with a wild cry the Highlanders of the King’s division climbed over their fieldworks and charged on the English cavalry who were trying to line up on the open ground below, confused by the hidden pits into which many of them had fallen.
The Earl of Gloucester was flung from his stumbling horse and only rescued by his squires and the took flight. Bruce stopped the pursuit at once, an eloquent tribute to his training and brought his Highlanders back to their lines.
His brother and his commanders crowded round him and, as far as they dared, upbraided him for so rash an act which might have been the ruin of them all, but he made no answer, only looked sadly at his broken axe handle.
Then turning aside from them he scanned the surroundings and almost at once saw the body of horse led by Clifford and Beaumont, which had been riding under cover of the bank along the Carse, appear in sight towards St Ninians kirk.
Roughly he called to Thomas Randolf as he pointed out the horsemen, ‘A rose has fallen from your chaplet, ‘ at which Randolf, in consternation, galloped to his division and, marshalling them in a schiltron, took them into the open ground over which the English would have to pass.
When Sir Henry Beaumont saw the Scots approach he cried, ‘Let us halt a little; let them come on; give them room.’ Meaning that he wished to have space to maneuver around them.
Sir Thomas Gray, as his son wrote later, replied, ‘Whatever you give them I doubt not that they will have soon enough.’
‘Very well,’ exclaimed Sir Henry, ‘if you are afraid, be off.’
‘Sir,’ answered Sir Thomas, ‘it is not from fear that I shall fly this day.’ So saying he spurred in between Sir William Deyncourt and Sir Henry and charged into the thick of the enemy.
Sir William was killed. Sir Thomas Gray was taken prisoner as his horse, speared by the pikes, fell headlong and hurtled him to the ground.
Observing this, the rest of the squadron approached more cautiously, and surrounding the schiltron attacked it from all sides. But they had been without their hail of arrows, which had been so devastating at Falkirk, they could not break the hedge of spearmen.
Every now and then one of these would lunge forward from the ranks and stab a horse so that it fell to the ground leaving its heavily armed rider flat and helpless at his comrade’s feet. In frustration the cavalry, circling the schiltron, threw at their assailants battle axes, swords and maces so that a great mound of weapons arose in the hollow center of the formation.
Still the battle went on with the defenders hard pressed, the sun blazing down on them so that they were drenched with sweat and the air thick with dust.
When James Douglas saw how Randolph was surrounded and hidden from sight by the superior numbers of the mailed knights, he went to Bruce and asked if he might not go to his aid; but Bruce, uncertain whether or not the English would renew their frontal attack, forbade him to leave his post.
A little later Douglas, with increasing anxiety for the fate of his comrade, came again with his plea to Bruce and this time was given leave to go to Randolph’s rescue.
So he marched his men to the fray but as he came closer he saw that the English were beginning to waver and, calling his men to a halt, exclaimed, “The Earl of Moray has gained the day and since we were not there to help him in the battle let us leave to him the credit of the victory.”
And indeed Randolph had taken advantage of an opening between the cavalry to drive his schiltron forward so that it split the enemy in half, some flying north to Stirling and some south to join the main host.
When the enemy had fled, Randolph’s men sat on the ground and took off their helmets to fan themselves, for they were weary and soaked in sweat; and after a little while they followed their commander to Bruce’s headquarters, and there the men of the other divisions crowded round them with their congratulations.
When Bruce saw them all assembled there in so confident a mood, induced by his own exploit and Randolph’s victory, he was silent for a little and then spoke to them briefly of the dismay that would be caused among the English by the double defeat of powerful knights by men on foot, but that nevertheless, if they felt they had shown mettle enough and wished to retire, the decision was in their hands.
To which they replied, “Good King, order us to battle tomorrow as soon as it is light for we shall not fail you for fear of death but persevere until our land is free.” So he dismissed them to their stations with the words, “Sirs, since you will it so, make ready in the morning.”
That evening he held a conference with his chief commanders, whose experience of warfare enabled them to assess the enormous disparity between the two forces, to consider whether he should not, like Kutosov in Russia five centuries later, make it his main objective to preserve the only Scottish army in being by retiring to the wild country of Lennox and beyond and leave starvation and the scorched earth to fight for him rather than risk annihilation of Scotland’s manhood.
But while they were debating, Sir Alexander Seton, who was serving in the English army, came secretly to him through the night and said to Bruce, “Sir, if you ever intend to re-conquer Scotland now is the time. The English have lost heart and are discouraged.” And he pledged his life on pain of being hanged and drawn that if Bruce attacked them on the morrow he would surely win.
His description of the English was very accurate. Edward II and his army had be so confident that the mere weight of his heavy cavalry would cow the Scots into submission that, when the news spread that a seasoned campaigner like Sir Robert Clifford had been driven from the field by a parcel of footmen, and a champion in the lists had been slain by a man on a pony, the reaction of the rank and file, already dispirited by two forced marches under the blazing sun on successive days, was as inordinate as had been their previous assurance.
“From that moment,” according to the Lanercost Chronicle, “began a panic among the English and the Scots grew bolder.” And in the vivid words of Barbour, “In five hundred places and more the English could be seen whispering together and saying Our Lords will always use their might against the right and when they wage war un-righteously God is offended and brings misfortune an so it may happen now.”
So widespread was the defeatism that Edward II ordered heralds to go to and fro throughout the army to explain that the events of the day had been mere skirmishes and that in the major battle to come victory was certain and rewards great.
Sir Robert Clifford had returned to the English headquarters with news of his defeat late in the afternoon, and it was clear that no further action could take place that day.
The main problem now facing the English command was were to bivouac for the night, and in particular to water the innumerable chargers, draught horses and oxen as well as their manpower and yet be in a position the next day to deploy their cavalry in the open ground against the Scots.
Many of their commanders knew the terrain from previous campaigns, and in the decision to move to Torwood to the middle reaches of the Bannock burn was a practical one.
The foot soldiers and the supply column laagered on the south bank while the cavalry crossed over the burn onto the level carse with open country between them and the Scottish positions.
Both the Bannock burn and the Pelstream are tidal rivers, and in the early evening of 23 June the tide was right out so that, with the help of doors and beams from the barns and houses of Bannock, all the cavalry found their way from the boggy areas along the south and east of the burn to the hard clay of the carse.
By the time the movement of men and horses had been completed, the short summer night was almost over: there was no time to rest and the knights to arms with their horses bitted.
The disposition of the English army was based on the assumption that the Scots would remain behind their fieldworks to receive the cavalry attack.
But when Bruce learnt from his scouts the sighting of his enemies he made the daring and momentous decision to take the offensive himself.
Never before had foot soldiers marched forward to meet the might of chivalry, but it was to this end that he had directed the training of his men and in miniature it had proved its worth under Thomas Randolph a few hours earlier.
The English cavalry were enclosed on three sides by the Pelstream and Bannock burn, within, as it were, the arc of a bended bow.
These streams in the early hours of 24 June would be at half tide and impassable. He would advance his army so that it formed the taut string between the two ends of the bow and would thus confine the cavalry in so cramped a space that they would be unable to maneuver.
Accordingly, he called the officers of his divisions together and explained to them the action he was going to take and gave them their order of battle. When he had finished, according to Barbour, he addressed them with the following words:
“Sirs,” he said “we have every reason to be confident of success for we have right on our side. Our enemies are moved only by desire for dominion but we are fighting for our lives, our children, our wives and the freedom of our country."
"And so I ask and pray that with all your strength, without cowardice or alarm, you meet the foes who you will first encounter so boldly that those behind them will tremble. See that your ranks are not broken so that, when the enemy come charging on horseback, you meet them steadfastly with your spears; and do not let any seek for booty or prisoners until the field is surely ours.'
"Think on your manhood and your deeds of valor and the joy that awaits you if you are victorious. In your hands you carry honor, praise, riches, freedom and felicity if you bear yourselves bravely, but altogether the contrary if your hearts fail you."
"You could have lived quietly as slaves, but because you longed to be free you are with me here, and to gain that end you must be valiant, strong and undismayed. I know not what more to say. You know what honor is."
"Bear yourself in such a fashion as to keep your honor. And I promise you by virtue of my royal power that for those who fight manfully I will pardon all offenses against the Crown and for those who die I will remit all feudal dues upon their heirs.”
The officers then returned to their men to tell them what the King had said and to prepare for the morrow.
On Midsummer day, 24 June 1314, dawn broke at 3:45 a.m. to usher in a bright sunny day. Its first rays touched the plumes and trappings of the English cavalry on the carse and brought a slight warmth to the footsore and sodden infantry who were scattered on whatever firm patches they could find in the marches beyond the Bannock burn. Westwards it picked out the dark mass of trees in the New Park where the Scots were already astir.
It was the feast of St John the Baptist.
The Scottish priests in each division had celebrated Mass, reading in high tones for all to hear the lesson of the day: “Comfort ye, comfort ye…Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished.”
The men had eaten a slight meal and begun to range themselves in their divisions, carrying many banners as the King had bidden. When they were all assembled he called forth and Knighted in the field, as was the custom of the day before a battle, all those who had been chosen for that honor, among them Walter Stewart as knight and Sir James Douglas as knight bannerette.
The new knights and the whole host were then blessed by the Abbot of Inchaffray, who held in one hand a casket containing the most sacred relics of the kingdom.
When the ceremonies had been concluded, Bruce gave the order to advance. Three divisions moved off in echelon: first Edward Bruce with his right flank protected by the Bannock burn, then, a little back to his left, Thomas Randolf, and then, in the same manner, Sir James Douglas: all in schiltron formation. The fourth division and the cavalry remained in reserve on the lower slope of the New Park.
When Edward II saw the Scots coming forward on foot over open ground he cried in amazement, “What, will yonder Scots fight?”
To which Sir Ingram de Umfraville replied, “Surely sir: but indeed this is the strangest sight I ever saw for the Scotsmen to take on the whole might of England by giving battle on hard ground.”
And when he spoke the Scots, who were now some hundred yards away, knelt down and made a short prayer to God to help them in the fight; at which the English King exclaimed triumphantly, “They kneel for mercy.”
Again Sir Ingram replied, “For mercy yes, but not from you: from God for their sins. These men will win or die.”
“So be it” said the King and ordered the trumpets to sound assembly.
The Earl of Gloucester, the previous evening had urged Edward II to rest his army for twenty-four hours before engaging in battle and, in a heated argument, had been accused by him of disloyalty.
Now, still smarting from the unjust attack on his honor, he mounted his horse so perceptibly, when he heard the summons, that neither his squires had time to put his surcoat over his armor nor his vanguard to saddle and range behind him before he charged headlong at Edward Bruce’s schiltron.
Unrecognized, he was slain on their spears far in advance of his van who, following him piecemeal as fast as they could, lost many of their bravest knights, among them the veteran Sir John Clifford, Sir John Comyn, son of the murdered ‘Red’ Comyn, Sir Edmund Manly, steward of the English King’s household, and Sir Pain Tptoft.
Vainly the vanguard tried to break the hedgerow of spears but were no more successful than their comrades the previous day.
Many of the horses were stabbed and threw their riders who were trampled in the melee, and when Randolph came up on the left of Edward Bruce and attacked from the flank those who were engaged against him, the whole van broke and wheeled to join the main body of cavalry who were trying to form up for action, setting off a stampede of wounded rider less horses into the thick of the mustering squadrons.
Douglas now came up on Randolph’s left so that the three Scottish divisions covered the whole of the front between the Pelstream and Bannock burn, penning the English cavalry in so narrow an area that there were no better than a seething mass of men and horses effectively blocking any access for the infantry behind them to take part in the battle.
Now linked together in serried ranks of spearmen, the Scots pushed forward and became so locked in combat with their foes that the English archers in the rear could not loose their arrows without hitting their own countrymen.
At last someone in command on the English side got the archers over to the north of the Pelstream and there, taking their stance twelve paces apart, they began to pour arrows into the left of Douglas’s division. Bruce, from his vantage point on the slope of the New Park, saw what was happening and ordered Sir Robert Keith with his 500 light horse to disperse them, which he did with such effect that those who were not cut down fled back among the infantry causing them in turn to begin to flee.
But in the loop of the carse the English knights were fighting desperately against the pressure of the Scottish ranks.
The battle there was fiercest and so great was the spilling of blood that is stood in pools on the ground. There might be heard weapons striking armor and knights and horses be seen tumbling on the ground and many a rich and splendid garment fouled underfoot.
For a long while the struggle continued in silence, broken only by the clashing of steel upon steel, the snapping of spear shafts, the groans of the wounded and the screams of disemboweled horses.
But gradually the English began to give ground and Bruce, seeing them waver, sent his reserve division into the fight.
Turning to Angus Macdonald he exclaimed, “My hope is constant in thee.” And the Isleman rushed forward to join the ranks on the left of Douglas’s division which had been much thinned by the English archers.
Now the cry was “Press on, press on, they fail!” for behind the forward spearmen with their twelve-foot pikes came the added weight from the increased rear ranks, each man leaning on the man in front so that the whole mass formed an immense human steamroller.
The Earl of Pembroke and Sir Giles d’Argentan, who were riding either side of Edward II, realizing that the day was lost and that at all costs the King must not be captured, seized each reign of his horse and, in spite of his expostulations, for he had been fighting with great courage, dragged him away, and with some five hundred knights of his bodyguard pushed and barged through the hurly burly to the ebbing Pelstream and there crossed towards Stirling Castle.
As they fought their way through the press, Edward’s shield bearer was captured and with the royal shield and seal Many Scotsman tried to seize the King’s bridal and the trappings of his horse, but were kept at bay by his flailing mace.
His horse was piked but lasted until he was clear of the throng, when another was found for him. It was then that Sir Giles d’Argentan turned to him and said, “Sire your protection was committed to me, but since you are safely on your way, I will bid you farewell for never yet have I fled from a battle, nor will I now.” He turned his horse and spurring desperately into the Scottish ranks was over born and slain.
Edward II continued to the castle but was refused entry by the governor, Sir Philip Mowbray, on the sensible grounds that under the terms of the agreement he would have to surrender the castle and the King would become a prisoner; but he deputed him a local knight to guide him by detour round the west of the New Park so that he could bypass the battle area on his way to England.
When the royal standard was seen to leave the field, the whole English army began to give way. It was at this juncture that Bruce produced that unexpected intervention by which commanders have so often won victory.
A signal was given to the watchers on Gillies Hill and over its crest appeared all of the camp followers, servants and those who had arrived too late for Bruce to incorporate into his formations, rank upon rank in massed array, with broad sheets for banners upon poles and spears.
As they came down the hill and saw the battle below them and the English beginning to falter, they gave a great shout of “Upon them, upon them!”
When the English saw this vast host approaching, they believed it to be a second Scottish army and all hope left them.
There slow retreat disintegrated into panic-stricken rout and each man thought only how to flee. Never in the history of her wars had England suffered such a humiliation or exhibited such helplessness in defeat.
She had men and material enough to make many an honorable stand. The infantry had not even been engaged and many of her archers were among them: but not a leader emerged to rally them.
Every armored knight who had not been unhorsed or killed put spurs to his steed. The Earl of Hereford, High Constable of England, with some of the foremost barons, fled, to their shame, along the route which their King had taken and made for Bothwell.
Others less fortunate, penned in by the Scots, attempted to cross the Bannock burn but got bogged in its muddy depths and were rolled over and crushed by those who were crowding after them. Between the banks the burn became so choked by struggling men and horses that the latest comers could pass dry shod over a causeway of drowned and drowning bodies.
One nobleman alone in this hour of panic preserved his calm and courage. The Earl of Pembroke, after conducting his monarch to Stirling, threaded his way back through the chaos to where thousands of Welsh levies were stationed.
These were men from the territories of his vast Earldom and were conspicuous from their custom of going to war half-naked. Marshalling them into columns, he set out to guide them over a hundred miles of wild country to Carlisle.
All along the route, they were harried by the natives through whose districts they passed, and many who fell out or straggled were killed but the greater part he brought safely across the Solway to the English headquarters at Carlisle.
But the other infantry had little guidance. Bewildered by the disappearance of the cavalry, they dispersed in all directions. Many of them tried to cross the Forth but were swept away in its swirling currents or sucked into the treacherous swamps with its loops. The majority made for Stiling and took refuge on the crags beneath the castle.
It was this that enabled the English King to escape, for when news was brought that he had been seen riding south, Bruce dared not release his cavalry in pursuit for it seemed to him beyond belief that so powerful an army as the English, with so many seasoned veterans, would fail to rally and renew the conflict.
However, at Douglas's request he allowed him to take sixty horsemen with which to stalk the King.
This was an enterprise for which Douglas’s long experience of guerrilla warfare made him peculiarly fitted.
As he passed through Torwood he met, riding the moor beyond, Sir Laurence Abernethy with four score of men come to join the English, but when he heard from Douglas of the day’s work he promptly changed his allegiance and accompanied him in the chase.
They caught up with the King’s troop beyond Linlithgow, 500 armed men riding in close order, and decided that they were too many to attack in a pitched battle, but from that moment they shadowed them like hyenas a herd of wildebeest so that if any fell behind for however short a space he was killed or taken.
They harried them so closely and unceasingly that is was said that not one Englishman could stop even to make water and that when they reached Dunbar, whose earl was ready to receive the King, they flung themselves off their saddles and rushed through the gates leaving their horses outside.
With these, Douglas returned to Bruce. Edward II was placed on a boat sailing for Bamburgh and from there made his way to Berwick, and in due course his knights reached him one by one by land.
Meanwhile Bruce had moved his army before the walls of Sterling in readiness to attack, but at his approach the fugitives clustered there laid down their arms without a struggle and the governor, in formal surrender, handed the keys of the castle to Bruce and pledged to him his future allegiance: a pledge which, unlike the Earl of Atholl, he fulfilled unto his death.
The Earl of Atholl, marching south apparently to the aid of Bruce, had suddenly attacked, on the eve of the main battle, the Scottish base camp at Cambus Kenneth Abbey and slain its unsuspecting commander, Sir John Airth.
This treacherous behavior was the culmination of the resentment he felt for Edward Bruce who, after seducing the earl’s sister, Isabel, and getting her with child, deserted her in favor of the daughter of the Earl of Ross, of whom he became so enamored that his affection spread to the whole family.
It is recorded that when he heard the death of her brother, Sir Walter Ross, at Bannock burn, this hard and passionate man, for the first time in his life, wept for sorrow.
But he had little leisure for grief. His royal brother, now that organized resistance had ceased, sent him in pursuit of the English who had been seen streaming towards Bothwell, the order that if they had already arrived there he should lay siege to the castle. Then Bruce turned his attention to tidying up the aftereffects of his victory.
On that midsummer day he had established without question his brilliance as a general and an authority as a leader, but beyond these gifts he now displayed in the aftermath of his success a consideration and courtesy towards the defeated which they did not easily forget.
The fame of his humanity spread abroad and the harshest of English chroniclers paid an ungrudging tribute to the magnanimity of his behavior.
His cousin, Gilbert Clare, Earl of Gloucester, was carried to a neighboring church and Bruce himself, for part of the night, kept vigil beside his corpse in honor of the family with whom his own had so many close links.
The earl’s body and that of Sir Robert Clifford were afterwards dispatched to their families at the Scottish King’s expense.
Thirty-four barons and several hundred knights and squires who had fallen in the fray were given an honorable burial in sanctified ground. The remainder of the dead were heaped in communal pits.
Nearly a hundred barons, baronets, and knights had been taken prisoner and these were treated as his guests while their ransoms were being arranged.
Among them was Ralph de Montermer who, in the days when he was styled Earl of Gloucester during his stepson’s minority, had given to Bruce the vital warning in 1306 which had enabled him to escape the vengeance of Edward I.
Now with great gladness Bruce repaid his debt of gratitude by entertaining him at his table and then releasing him without ransom.
A second prisoner whom he granted the same favor, as one brave soldier to another, was Sir Marmaduke Tweng who, seventeen years before in the same area, had fought his way through the men of Wallace across the bridge they were about to destroy to find refuge in Sterling castle. Unhorsed at Bannock burn, he had crawled into the undergrowth.
The next day, having hidden his armor in a coppice, he came out to look for Bruce, clad only in his shirt.
Surprisingly, none took any notice as he wandered hither and thither in this simple raiment. At last, espying the Scottish King, he fell on his knees before him. “Welcome, Sir Marmaduke.” Said Bruce, “to what man art thou a prisoner?” “To none would I yield but you.” Replied Sir Marmaduke. At which Bruce raised him in his arms and took him to the royal tent.
A more bizarre captive was a Carmelite friar called Baston who had been enrolled in the train of Edward II to immortalize in verse the expected triumph of his master. On being taken and brought before Bruce, the Scottish King with gentle humor promised him his freedom if he revised, in favor of the Scots, the epic that, as a practical journalist, he had already written beforehand. With a few adroit transpositions of names he accomplished this task to the satisfaction of his host and was speeded to the land of his fathers by the ironic cheers of his audience.
But the greatest catch of all was brought back by Edward Bruce from Bothwell. Sir Walter FitzGilbert, the constable of the castle, had for some time been sitting gingerly on the fence but, up to the Bannock burn battle, with one foot in the English camp.
He received therefore into his halls, at their request, the Earl of Hereford, the Earl of Angus, Sir Ingram de Umfraville, Maurice, Lord of Berkely, John Lord of Segrave, Antony Lucy and fifty of their followers.
The remainder of the party, for whom he had not room, continued towards Carlisle and were almost all destroyed in the course of their journey.
When Sir Walter heard from his distinguished guests the reason for their presence, his duty immediately became clear. His men removed their arms and made them prisoners, and on the arrival of Edward Bruce at the castle gates, Sir Walter handed them over to his keeping with protestations of loyalty to his brother.
The Earl of Hereford was a prize so great that in return for his release his wife empowered by her brother Edward II to offer fifteen Scottish captives. Among those who were demanded and received by Bruce were his wife, Elizabeth, his daughter Marjorie, his sister Christina, and Robert Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow, now blind and ailing.
His nephew Donald, the young Earl of Mar, was also given the opportunity to return, but a close personal friendship with Edward II decided him to remain in England.
Mary Bruce, who had been captured in 1306, had been released from her cage in 1310 and removed to Newcastle and from there in 1312 exchanged for the brother of Sir Philip Mowbray. The Countess of Buchan had been less fortunate.
From her cage in Berwick she had been removed in 1312 to the House of the Carmelite nuns in that town, and in 1313 handed from there into the custody of Sir Henry Beaumont. After that there is silence. As she was not included among those reclaimed by Bruce, it must be assumed, knowing his loyalty to his friends, that by then she had died.
To uplift the morale of the Scots at the presence of so many renowned prisoners from a people who assumed they were a master race was further increased by the prodigious spoil that had been left behind.
The whole English baggage train which, according to the Monk of Malmesbury, stretched for twenty miles and was worth 200,000 pounds, an astronomical sum in modern currency, was captured intact.
Among the contents listed were gold and silver vessels belonging to the English King and his nobility, money chests for the payment of troops, siege weapons, arms, hangings, tents, silk, linen apparel, wine, corn, hay, herds of cattle, flocks of sheep and swine and numerous warhorses and their saddlery.
There was scarcely a family in Scotland which did not benefit from the generous distribution of these goods which Bruce made among his men.
A fantastic victory that gives Us our King, Robert the Bruce today