Reflections upon the battle

Two hundred thousand pounds of money in those times, amounts to about six hundred thousand pounds weight of silver, or nearly three millions of our present money. It is remarkable that Sir William Vipont, and Sir Walter Ross, the bosom friend of Edward Bruce, were the only persons of note who were slain on the side of the Scots, whose loss, even in common men, was small; proving how effectually their squares had repelled the English cavalry.

Such was the great battle of Bannockburn, interesting above all others which have been fought between the then rival nations, if we consider the issue which hung upon it; and glorious to Scotland, both in the determined courage with which it was disputed by the troops, the high military talents displayed by the king and his leaders, and the amazing disparity between the numbers of the combatants. Its consequences were in the highest degree important. It put an end for ever to all hopes upon the part of England of accomplishing the conquest of her sister country.

The plan, of which we can discern the foundations as far back as the reign of Alexander III., and for the furtherance of which the first Edward was content to throw away so much of treasure and blood, was put down in the way in which all such schemes ought to be defeated— by the strong hand of free-born men, who were determined to remain so; and the spirit of indignant resistance to foreign power, which had been awakened by Wallace, but crashed for a season by the dissensions of a jealous nobility, was concentrated by the masterspirit of Bruce, and found fully adequate to overwhelm the united military energies of a kingdom, far superior to Scotland in all that constituted military strength. Nor have the consequences of this victory been partial or confined. Their duration throughout succeeding centuries of Scottish history and Scottish liberty, down to the hour in which this is written, cannot be questioned; and without launching out into any inappropriate field of historical speculation, we have only to think of the most obvious consequences which must have resulted from Scotland becoming a conquered province of England; and if we wish for proof, to fix our eyes on the present condition of Ireland, in order to feel the reality of all that we owe to the victory at Bannockburn, and to the memory of such men as Bruce, Randolph, and Douglas.