The Battle of Brannockburn

The First Day

Gang string your Ettrick bows,
Gang warn the spears o' Liddesdale,
That Edward leads the foe.
    There is a legend that in the days when he was a fugitive king harried from one hiding place to another, when all his friends and family seemed to be either dead or rotting in English gaols, the Bruce found himself completely alone and hiding in a cave somewhere in the west of Scotland. So many times he had raised armies only to see them destroyed or scattered and as he lay on the damp floor of the cave he must have been dispirited beyond imagination, the bitter taste of despair welling up in his throat and onto his tongue. It was then that he saw a spider. Foolish creature, it seemed intent on spinning its web across an impossibly wide space and as the Bruce watched the spider leapt and failed, again and again. Six times it jumped and six times it failed but on the seventh attempt it succeeded. The Bruce took heart from this example of arachnid perseverance and rose once more determined to see his quest for the throne fulfilled. The quest led him directly to the banks of the Bannock Burn and the battle that would decide his throne's, his country's, his family's  and his own fate

    Imagine if you will a great castle, standing a few miles distant, perched on a rocky outcrop 400 feet above the plain. There is an old Roman road in front of you and it runs northward to the castle through an open area called the New Park. The western edge of the New Park is heavily wooded to the left of the road and on the east, sometimes a thousand yards from the road sometimes only two hundred an escarpment drops down about a hundred feet. A path, known as the the Way, roughly parallels the base of the escarpment and runs on to join the Roman road about a mile from the castle. Directly in front of you a stream, the Bannock Burn, flows from west to east across the road and then turns to meander in a general north-easterly direction across a plain of soft at times marshy land to a confluence with the River Forth about four miles east of the castle. This is approximately what Edward II saw when his army arrived after a five day march from its assembly point at Wark. They had reached Falkirk and camped there on the night of the July 22nd and by the rules of Mowbray and Edward Bruce's agreement there were still two days in which to relieve the castle. With such a powerful army and two days to spare Edward II must have felt confident indeed. If so the confidence was misplaced. Robert the Bruce, King Robert I of Scotland had become a skilled general in his years of struggle against numerically superior forces and he had a sharp eye for the advantages a well chosen piece of ground could bestow. The position he had selected was one of great strength. His spearmen had been formed into four divisions and his own division he placed on the right of his army, north of the Bannock Burn and to the west of the Roman road. Edward Bruce's division came next, to the east of the road. The Scottish formation then bent backwards and followed the line of the escarpment, with Douglas' division almost behind Edward Bruce's. Finally, by St. Ninian's Church near where the Roman road and the Way came together stood Randolph and the men from Ross and Moray. Forest and scrub covered the right flank of Bruce's division. The Bannock Burn and patches of bog protected the front of both his and his brother's divisions. To give this position even greater strength, the King had ordered that hundreds of small pits, three feet deep and a foot wide, be dug and camouflaged with brush in front of the Scottish line. These plus hundreds of calthrops, spiked tetrahedronal shaped pieces of iron, made his front greatly hazardous to advancing cavalry. Douglas' and Randolph's divisions had the escarpment in front of them and below that the low ground, known as the Carse to the Scots and the Pools to the English, was soft and difficult for cavalry to use. Edward had only two choices, to frontally assault the two divisions standing behind the Bannock Burn or try to outflank the Scots by crossing the unsuitable ground of the Carse, with Scottish spearmen on the high ground above him.

    Edward I confident in his power did both. As the Great Van of the English host moved forward toward the two Scots divisions behind the Bannock Burn, Edward despatched around 700 horse under the command of Clifford along the Way in the direction of Stirling castle. It seems likely that Edward wished to position Clifford in between the Scots and the castle so as to be able to turn a Scottish retreat into a complete rout. There was no doubt in Edward's mind that a Scottish retreat was inevitable. As the Great Van came on led by the Earls of Hereford and Pembroke, the Scots skirmishers withdrew to the trees behind them. The English knights saw them pull back and pushed their horses forward into a charge. Earlier, Bruce had ridden out from his line to get a better view of his advancing foes. He was not fully armoured yet and wore a simple steel cap with a circlet of gold on his head. He was mounted not on his warhorse but on a small pony. His only weapon was a light battleaxe. Riding alone between the two armies, he was recognized by one of the leading English knights, Henry de Bohun, son of the Earl of Hereford. De Bohun spurred his great warhorse onward, lowered his iron-tipped lance and charged the Bruce. In full few of the Scottish and English troops he thundered towards the king. The horror of the Scots, seeing the man who embodied all their hopes of liberty and whose efforts had brought them to the field that day standing alone and almost unarmed against such an opponent, was great indeed. They needed have no fear, however, for as the armoured power of de Bohun came up on the Bruce, the king drew his pony to the side, stood high in his saddle and as de Bohun swept past cleft his helm and skull to the chin with a single blow of such power the haft of the battleaxe shattered. Imagine the cheer that went up from the Scottish line and the anguish their English foes must have felt. It was the stuff of which legends are born and it neatly symbolized the clash of arms that was to follow: the brute armoured power of the English host against the skill and nimble determination of the Scots. The king was chided by his men for exposing himself to danger so but he seemed unperturbed by the incident, only lamenting the loss of his good battleaxe. The English charge came on, now determined to avenge their so expertly slain comrade. When they hit the hidden pits and the caltrops their horses began to stumble, rear up in pain and throw their riders. The integrity of the charge was broken and the men of Bruce's division and that of his brother's advanced with spears lowered on the disordered cavalry. English trumpets sounded the retreat and soon those knights who could were falling back across the Bannock Burn to the main body of the English army. 

    Clifford, meanwhile, had crossed the Bannock Burn and with his body of horse was riding up the Way and across the Carse towards Stirling castle. The Bruce saw them go and pass by the Scottish left unhindered. Perhaps they were trying to outflank the Scots or penetrate their rear, perhaps they were simply escorting Mowbray, who had come out of Stirling castle to confer with Edward, back to his keep. Bruce was angered by the fact that Randolph had apparently not seen their progress and upbraided him with the words, "Ane rose from thy chaplet has falden." (a rose has fallen from your chaplet). Randolph immediately led his division down onto the low ground to challenge Clifford. Clifford saw their approach and ordered his men to charge their effrontery. Randolph's line quickly drew in on itself and the men formed their schilltron for defence. They stood there calmy, secure in their training, their experience and the justice of their cause as the English horse galloped en masse towards them. The first horses to make contact with the rows and rows of steadfast Scottish spears pulled away from the points or were impaled on them. The English cavalry, unable to break through the schilltron, flowed around it desperately trying to find some weak point which could be exploited. There was none and the English knights were reduced to throwing their battleaxes and maces at the schilltron in the vain hope of creating an opening. On the high ground Douglas begged Bruce's permission to advance to Randolph's aid. Bruce refused, then relented but by that time it was unnecessary for the schilltron had started to move forward and drive the remaining knights from the field. Many lay where they had been slain, including the body of Clifford himself. Randolph, it is said, had lost only one man and though this is scarcely credible it reflected the completeness of his triumph. The fallen rose had been restored to the chaplet.

    It was the middle of the afternoon and there was to be no more fighting that day. Edward I called a council of war and the shock of the repulse of heavy horse not once but twice must have had an effect on the morale of both his troops and their commanders. A frontal attack across the Bannock Burn against Bruce's and his brother's divisions seemed folly. Outflanking seemed equally difficult in the light of Clifford's failure. The counsel given was for the army to stay where it was and rest after its long march from the south. It needed water though, lots and lots of it. The great host and its thousands of accompanying animals was thirsty and Edward chose to move forward and slightly to the east of Clifford's footsteps and camp somewhere in the confluence of the Bannock Burn and the Forth. It was a difficult progress with many ditches and rivulets to cross and there must have been little left of the night when finally the English settled in for whatever rest they were able to grasp. To the west, on the fringes of the forest in the New Park, the Scots' campfires were comfortably burning. Somewhere amongst them Bruce held his council of war. There were those who still believed that a battle against such a mighty force as Edward's could not be won and they counselled retreat to the west and a continuation of the wasting guerilla war that had hitherto brought them their success. Perhaps the Bruce agreed with them, more likely not. His schilltrons had acquitted themselves well twice that day and he himself had despatched de Bohun with a precision that seemed almost portentious.

    It was then that Sir Alexander Seton, a Scottish knight in the service of Edward I, chose to desert to his countrymen and alleviate the shame of his coming with useful intelligence. The English were demoralised he said and an attack the next day would surely bring the Scots victory. He promised his own head as forfeit if this were not so, as firm a guarantee as any man can give. We know not what influence the deserter's words had on Bruce. Most probably they simply reinforced his decision to stay and settle the matter on the morn. Late that night the word was passed through the Scots army that the morrow would see them advance.

Information obtained from Alex Chirnside and used by permission