At this moment the Abbot of Inchaffray, barefooted and holding a crucifix aloft in his hand, walked slowly along the Scottish line; and as he passed, the whole army knelt down, and prayed for a moment with the solemnity of men who felt it might be their last act of devotion. "See," cried Edward, "they are kneeling, they ask mercy !" "They do, my liege," replied Umfraville, " but it is from God, not from us. Trust me, yon men will win the day, or die upon the field." "Be it so, then," said Edward, and immediately commanded the charge to be sounded. The English van, led by Gloucester and Hereford, now spurred forward their horses, and at full gallop charged the right wing of the Scots, commanded by Edward Bruce; but a dispute between the two.English barons as to precedency, caused the charge, though rapid, to be broken and irregular. Gloucester, who had been irritated the day before by some galling remarks of the king, insisted on leading the van, a post which of right belonged to Hereford, as Constable of England.
To this Hereford would not agree; and Gloucester, as they disputed, seeing the Scottish right advancing, sprung forward at the head of his own division, and, without being supported by the rest of the van, attacked the enemy, who received them with a shock, which caused the noise of the meeting of their spears to be heard a great way off, and threw many knights from their saddles, whose horses were stabbed and rendered furious by their wounds. While the right wing was thus engaged, Randolph, who commanded the centre division, advanced at a steady pace to meet the main body of the English, whom he confronted and attacked with great intrepidity, although the enemy outnumbered him by ten to one. His square, to use an expression of Barbour's, was soon surrounded and lost amidst the English, as if it had plunged into the sea; upon which Sir James Douglas and Walter the Steward brought up the left wing; so that the whole line, composed of the three battles, was now engaged, and the battle raged with great fury.+ The English cavalry attempting, by repeated charges, to break the line of the Scottish spearmen, and they standing firm in their array, and presenting on every side a serried front of steel, caused a shock and melee, which is not easily described; and the slaughter was increased, by the remembrance of many years of grievous injury and oppression, producing, on the part of the Scots, an exasperation of feeling, and an eager desire of revenge. At every successive charge, the English cavalry lost more men, and fell into greater confusion than before; and this confusion was infinitely increased by the confined nature of the ground, and the immense mass of their army. The Scottish squares, on the other hand, were light and compact, though firm; they moved easily, altered their front at pleasure, and suited themselves to every emergency of the battle. They were, however, dreadfully galled by the English bowmen; and Bruce, dreading the effect of the constant and deadly showers of arrows, which fell like hail upon them, directed Sir Robert Keith, the marshal, to make a circuit, with the five hundred horse which were in the reserve, round the morass' called Miltown Bog, and to charge the archers in flank. This movement was executed with great decision and rapidity; and such was its effect, that the whole body of the archers who had neither spears nor other weapons to defend themselves against cavalry, were in a short time overthrown and dispersed, without any prolonged attempt at resistance. Part of them fled to the main army, and the rest did not again attempt to rally or make head during the continuance of the battle.
Although such was the success of this judicious attack, the English still kept fighting with great determination; but they had already lost some of their bravest commanders, and Bruce could discern symptoms of exhaustion and impatience. He saw, too, that his own infantry were still fresh and well-breathed; and he assured his leaders that the attack, continued but for a short time, and pushed with vigour, must make the day their own. It was at this moment that he brought up his whole reserve, and the four battles of the Scots were now completely engaged in one line. The Scottish archers, unlike the English, carried short battleaxes; and with these, after they had exhausted their arrows, they rushed upon the enemy, and made great havoc. The Scottish commanders, too, the king, Edward Bruce, Douglas, Randolph, and the Steward, were fighting in the near presence of each other, and animated with a generous rivalry. At this time, Barbour, whose account of the battle is evidently taken from eye-witnesses, describes the field as exhibiting a terrific spectacle. "It was awful," says he, "to hear the noise of these four battles fighting in a line, the clang of arms, the shouts of the knights as they raised their war-cry; to see the flight of the arrows, which maddened the horses, the alternate sinking and rising of the banners, and the ground slippery with gore, and covered with shreds of armour, broken spears, pennons, and rich scarfs, torn and soiled with blood and clay; and to listen to the groans of the wounded and the dying." The wavering of the English lines was now discernible by the Scottish soldiers themselves, who shouted when they saw it, and calling out, "On them, on them, they fail!" pressed forward with renewed vigour, gaining ground upon their enemy. At this critical moment, there appeared over the little hill, which lay between the field and the baggage of the Scottish army, a large body of troops marching apparently in firm array towards the field. This spectacle, which was instantly believed to be a reinforcement proceeding to join the Scots, although it was nothing more than the sutlers and camp-boys hastening to see the battle, spread dismay amidst the ranks of the English; and King Robert, whose eye was everywhere, to perceive and take advantage of the slightest movement in his favour, put himself at the head of his reserve, and raising his emenye, or war-cry, furiously pressed on the enemy.
It was this last charge, which was followed up by the advance of the whole line, that decided the day; the English, who hitherto, although wavering, had preserved their array, now broke into disjointed squadrons; part began to quit the field, and no efforts of their leaders could restore order. The Earl of Gloucester, who was mounted on a spirited war-horse, which had lately been presented to him by the king, in one of his attempts to rally his men, rode desperately upon the division of Edward Bruce; he was instantly unhorsed, and fell pierced by numerous wounds of the Scottish lances. The flight now became general, and the slaughter great. The banners of twenty-seven barons were laid in the dust, and their masters slain. Amongst these were Sir Robert Clifford, a veteran and experienced commander, and Sir Edmund Mauley, the Seneschal of England. On seeing the entire rout of his army, Edward reluctantly allowed the Earl of Pembroke to seize his bridle, and force him off the field, guarded by five hundred heavyarmed horse. Sir Giles de Argentine accompanied him a short way, till ho saw the king in safety. He then reined up, and bade him farewell. "It has never been my custom," said he, "to fly; and here I must take my fortune." Saying this, he put spurs to his horse, and crying out, "An Argentine!" charged the squadron of Edward Bruce, and, like Gloucester, was soon borne down by the force of the Scottish spears, and cut to pieces. Multitudes of the English were drowned when attempting to cross the river Forth. Many, in their flight, got entangled in the pits, which they seem to have avoided in their first attack, and were there suffocated or slain; others, who vainly endeavoured to pass the rugged banks of the Bannockburn, were slain in that quarter; so completely was this little river heaped up with the dead bodies of men and horses, that the pursuers passed dry over the
mass as if it were a bridge. Thirty thousand of the English were left dead upon the field, and amongst these two hundred knights and seven hundred esquires. A large body of Welsh fled, under the command of Sir Maurice Berkclay, but the greater part of them were slain, or taken prisoners, before they reached England.
Such also might have been the fate of the King of England himself, had Bruce been able to spare a sufficient body of cavalry to follow up the chase. BuT when Edward left the field, with his five hundred horse, many straggling parties of the enemy still lingered about the low grounds, and numbers had taken refuge under the walls, and in the hollow recesses of the rock, on which Stirling castle is built, f These, had they rallied, might have still created much annoyance, a part of the Scottish army being occupied in plundering the camp; and it thus became absolutely necessary for Bruce to keep the more efficient part of his troops together. When Douglas, therefore, proposed to pursue the king, he could obtain no more than sixty horsemen, In passing the Torwood, he was met by Sir Laurence Ahernethy, hastening with a small body of cavalry to join the English. This knight immediately deserted a falling cause, and assisted in the chase, They made up to the fugitive monarch at Lithgow, but Douglas deemed it imprudent to hazard an attack with so inferior a force. He pressed so hard upon him, however, as not to suffer the English to have a moment's rest; and it is a strong proof of the panic which had seized them, that a body of five hundred heavy horse, armed to the teeth, fled before eighty Scottish cavalry, without attempting to make a stand. But it is probable they believed Douglas to be the advance of the army. Edward at last gained the castle of Dunbar, where he was hospitably received by the Earl of March, and from which he passed by sea to Berwick. In the meantime, Bruce sent a party to attack the fugitives who clustered round the rock of Stirling. These were immediately made prisoners, and having ascertained that no enemy remained, the king permitted his soldiers to pursue the fugitives, and give themselves up to plunder. The unfortunate stragglers were slaughtered by the peasantry, as they were dispersed over the country; and many of them, casting away their arms and accoutrements, hid themselves in the woods, or fled almost naked from the field. Some idea of the extent and variety of the booty which was divided by the Scottish soldiers, may be formed from the circumstance mentioned by an English historian, "That the chariots, waggons, and wheeled carriages, which were loaded with the baggage and military stores, would, if drawn up in a line, have extended for twenty leagues."!
These, along with numerous herds of cattle, and flocks of sheep and swine; store of hay, corn and wine; the vessels of gold and silver belonging to the king and his nobility; the money-chests holding the treasure for the payment of .the troops; a large assemblage of splendid arms, rich wearing apparel, horse and tent furniture, from the royal wardrobe and private repositories of the knights and noblemen who were in the field; and a great booty in valuable horses, fell into the hands of the conquerors, and were distributed by Bruce amongst his soldiers with a generosity and im partiality which rendered him highly popular.
Print
Email
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.
Print
Email
In addition to the miseries of foreign war and intestine commotion, England was now visited with a grievous famine, which increased to an excessive degree the prices of provisions, and, combined with the destructive inroads of the Scots, reduced the kingdom to a miserable condition. A parliament, which assembled at London in January, (1314-15,) endeavoured, with short-sighted policy, to provide some remedy in lowering the market price of the various necessaries of life; and making it imperative upon the seller, either to dispose of his live stock at certain fixed rates, or to forfeit them to the crown —a measure which a subsequent parliament found it necessary to repeal.
The same assembly granted to the king a twentieth of their goods, upon the credit of which, he requested a loan from the abbots and priors of the various convents in his dominions, for the purpose of raising an army against the Scots.§ But the king's credit was too low, the clergy too cautious, and the barons of the crown too discontented, to give efficiency to this intended muster, and no army appeared. The famine, which had begun in England, now extended to Scotland; and as that country became dependent upon foreign importation, the merchants of England, Ireland, and Wales, were rigorously interdicted from supplying it with grain, cattle, arms, or any other commodities. Small squadrons of ships were employed to cruise round the island, so as to intercept all foreign supplies; and letters were directed to the Earl of Flanders, and to the Counts of Holland, Lunenburgh, and Brabant, requesting them to put a stop to all commercial intercourse between their dominions and Scotland—a request with which these sagacious and wealthy little states peremptorily refused to comply.
Print
Email
