The Battle of Bannockburn

Lindsay Webster

Task: “In the Manner of the Flemings” Why were the Scots able to score such a crushing victory at Bannockburn?

The hard facts about the battle of Bannockburn are best summed up by the Sandhurst lecturer Aryeh Nusbacher when he says “On Midsummer’s day, 1314, two groups of men met near Stirling Castle, and many people died.”[1] This is all we know to be true. The rest has had to be pieced together from various later sources. Unfortunately there are no sources written in the immediate aftermath of the battle surviving, the closest being Gray’s Scalacronica, a work written by the son of a knight captured at Bannockburn. Drawing on these writer’s works, this essay aims to explain why the Scottish army was able to achieve one of the most shocking victories of the mediaeval period against one of the largest feudal hosts ever assembled by the English.

There is currently some debate as to why the battle was fought. The traditional view from Barbour’s The Bruce is that Edward Bruce made an agreement with the keeper of Stirling Castle to surrender it if it were not relieved by midsummer’s day[2]. This view has been challenged recently with the idea that Edward II was in fact responding to Robert Bruce’s ultimatum that was issued in late 1313 giving all Scottish nobles one year to submit to his rule or go into exile. Which of these is true does not matter, what does matter is that by midsummer 1314, two armies were before Stirling castle.

            The events of the battle will now be examined. On June 23, the English army marched from Falkirk towards Stirling. The first encounter with the Scots came as the English force marched through the Tor Wood. Robert Bruce was spotted riding slightly ahead of his army, un-armoured and mounted on a small palfrey. This caused Henry de Bohun, a young and ambitious knight to charge the Scottish King. Bruce’s small, nimble horse sidestepped the English knight and Bruce slammed an axe into his head. This initial shedding of blood happened within full view of the majority of the Scottish army and parts of the English vanguard. The knights of the English vanguard, probably acting on their own initiative, then attempted to charge down the Scottish army who were formed into blocks known as schiltron’s. As they charged the cavalry blundered into pre-prepared pits dug in front of the Scottish position. Dug to the depth of a horse’s knee and with a sharpened stake at the bottom, these pits disrupted the English charge and maimed many horses, including that of the earl of Gloucester.[3] The knights that made it past these obstacles then found themselves faced with an impenetrable wall of Scottish spears, probably up to six ranks deep.[4] With no momentum left having picked their way through the pot-holes and with their horses shying away from the mass of spear-points, after a limited engagement, the English were forced into a humiliating withdrawal.

            Lord Clifford and a party of mounted men then rode around the Scottish flank towards Stirling Castle. If one chooses to believe Barbour then they were going to relieve the castle and thus fulfil the terms of the agreement. If not then they may simply have been reconnoitring the Scottish position. The Chronicle of Lanercost suggests that they were going to block the path of the Scots retreat.[5] Whatever the truth is, as they rode along the rode, a party of spearmen under Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, ran from the woods and formed up in front of them, effectively blocking the road. Clifford and his men charged the Scots but could not pierce the tightly packed formations and many, in their frustration flung their swords, axes and maces into the Scots in a vain effort to force an entry. The retreat of Clifford’s men brought to an end the first day of the battle and both forces made camp for the night. There is a popular tradition that the entire English army slept in a swamp that night[6] though Nusbacher disputes this, arguing that an area of dryer land nearby would have been a more likely site.[7]

            Having won the first day’s engagement, Bruce considered withdrawing his still intact army into Lennox and fighting a guerrilla campaign from there. However, a defector from the English camp, a Scottish knight by the name of Seton, is reputed to have convinced him that the English army was severely demoralised and so Bruce decided to attack the next day.[8]

            At the start of the second day, Barbour describes the English army to be all in a mass.[9] Nusbacher suggests that this was because Barbour was basing his account on a Scottish source and what they were really seeing was the flank of the  English army drawn up to march on Stirling Castle.[10] Whatever the truth, the fact remains that the English were caught with no space to manoeuvre by the advancing Scots. Unable to deploy effectively they were forced from the field, the Scots getting close enough to King Edward to pike his horse and Edward was forced to fight off soldiers who seized his bridle.[11] At some point, the much feared English bowmen may have got into a position to allow them to fire upon the Scots but they were rapidly chased from the field by the Scottish light cavalry under Keith the Marshall. Finally, the ‘small folk,’ a mixed band of camp followers and poorly armed highlanders charged from a concealed position. This seemed like a second Scottish army and the English were forced into a confused rout with many being caught and drowned in the river. Edward was led from the field and was chased all the way to Dunbar by James Douglas before catching a ship back to England. Many other English nobles were captured and paid heavy ransoms for their release.

            The Scots had achieved a stunning victory over their English adversaries. But why was this battle such a resounding success?

            Central to Bruce’s victory was the composition of his army. The Scottish host consisted almost entirely of infantry armed with long spears. Tradition has it that this was an army of peasants, taken from the fields to fight for their country. This may be partly true, however, King Robert had been on campaign almost constantly since his seizure of the throne in 1306 and so surely there were men in his army who had served with him throughout this period and would therefore be battle-hardened veterans, probably forming a hard core of the army around which the peasant levy could be formed. Evidence of this core can be found in an act of parliament shortly after the disastrous battle of Fauchart in 1318 when Edward Bruce and most of his army were killed. The act requires all Scotsmen with goods or land worth £10 per year or more to own certain military equipment. This included a helmet, armoured gloves, a padded aketon or a mail shirt and a sword. At the same time, any man with goods or land worth a cow was to own a bow or spear.[12] What this act may indicate is that at Fauchart, the Scots had the core units of their army wiped out and needed a replacement. It is very difficult to estimate the number of men in the Scottish army. Chroniclers will usually give some figure for the numbers present at a battle but they are prone to gross exaggeration and it is often helpful to divide their estimates by ten to arrive at something even close to the truth. Two of the more recent works on the battle place the Scottish army at somewhere between five and eight thousand strong.[13] Scattered amongst the Scottish spears would have been archers drawn from the Forest of Ettrick. The Scottish cavalry probably only numbered about 500 and were light cavalry rather than the heavy horse employed by the English. The majority of Scottish knights fought on foot alongside their men. If one wanted to be very cynical, it could be suggested that the nobles were forced to dismount in order to prevent them from running away as they had at Falkirk.

            The Scot’s primary weapon, the long spear has two distinct advantages. The first of these is that it is relatively easy to teach a large number of men how to use it effectively. To learn to use a sword or a bow can take years, however, a man can be taught how to move and fight with a spear in a matter of days. The second advantage of the spear is its length; it keeps the enemy at a distance and therefore prevents him being able to strike back. A horse will also not willingly charge headlong into a block of spearmen as unlike their riders, horses are not stupid creatures and have a well developed sense of self preservation.

            Bruce had assembled his army in the Tor Wood about a month before the battle and his men had spent the time training to use their spears effectively. One of the reasons for the Scots losing the battle of Falkirk in 1298 had been the inflexibility of their spear units or schiltrons. These rings of spearmen were wonderfully effective at keeping cavalry at bay but were unable to move once deployed which made them vulnerable to archery. Under Bruce, the schiltron developed the ability to move, turning it from a purely defensive formation into one that could also be used to attack. This allowed Randolph to quickly re-deploy to stop Clifford’s forces on day one and also allowed the Scottish attack on day two, both pivotal moments in the battle. The training they had received would also have instilled a discipline in the Scottish spearmen absent from the haughty English cavalry and they would have known that success depended on their cohesion as fighting units.

            Since Bruce had been in the Tor Wood for over a month, he knew the ground and had worked out how to use it to his greatest tactical advantage. This included setting traps for the English in the form pot-holes with sharpened stakes on the ground he knew the English would be forced to attack along. This “home-ground” advantage meant that Bruce would be fighting the battle that he wanted to fight on his own terms.

            At the time of Bannockburn, Scottish national morale was also at an all time high. Bruce had been campaigning for many years and had won victory after victory over both the English and his Scottish enemies. People who had fought alongside him for many years would know his ability while tales of his exploits must have travelled around the country. When Bruce defeated De Bohun on the first day of the battle, he did it within the sight of his men, demonstrating that he was not afraid to fight. This must have been a major boost to Scottish morale. This was further lifted by the two defeats of the English cavalry when the attacked Randolph’s division and the main Scottish force. At the same time, English morale was rather low. Edward II was never the most popular of kings and a succession of scandals had hardly enamoured him to his nobility, so much so that he has some difficulty in raising the army that he led to Bannockburn. Many nobles refused to muster and instead sent their minimum feudal obligation of men. The most notable of these was the Earl of Lancaster, the largest landowner in England who, annoyed at Gaveston, the King’s favourite, sent only four knights and four men at arms for all his estates.[14] The virtual absence of what should have been one of the largest contingents in the feudal host can not have helped the morale of the army. The defeat of the vanguard on day one would also have lowered morale as would the sight of De Bohun being slain by Bruce. The lowering of English morale and the boost to the Scots is supported by the Lanercost Chronicle which states that after Clifford had been repulsed ‘from that moment began a panic among the English and the Scots grew bolder.’[15]

            The English army had left its muster point at Wark on 17 June and for six days had marched through hostile territory where there would have been virtually no food that could be scavenged due to Bruce’s ‘scorched earth’ policies. It must be remembered that many men would have come even further from Southern England and Wales. This march would have fatigued the army and had a further effect on English morale.

            Because of Bruce’s cunning selection of the battlefield, the English army was still strung out in marching order when the vanguard encountered the Scots for the first time. The narrow road through the wood meant that the English were unable to deploy in a battle formation meaning that they would be unable to deploy the lethal combination of archers and cavalry that had won the day at Falkirk and instead the vanguard charged unsupported to humiliating defeat among the pot-holes and pikes. This brings up another important point, discipline. As has been shown, this was all important to the Scottish schiltrons but appears to have been absent from the English vanguard. The prime example is Henry De Bohun but the rest of the vanguard were just as guilty for their piecemeal assault on the Scottish position. This indiscipline was combined with an arrogant disdain for the Scottish army and an assumption that the Scots would break and run as soon as the heavy horse charged.

            On the second day of the battle, the English were once more unable to deploy effectively to face the Scots. The English infantry, who, on their own, outnumbered the Scottish army,[16] were never fully deployed and this could have made a huge difference to the outcome of the battle. A body of infantry armed with bills or other pole-arms could have carved its way into the Scottish formations as happened nearly 200 years later at the battle of Flodden.

            The English army was defeated because it was never allowed to fight upon its own terms and because of the sheer arrogance of the nobility, the wrong troops were deployed against the Scots. They were led into a trap by a far more able commander than their rather incompetent king and paid a harsh penalty for this mistake. According to Grey, the Scots had ‘taken a lesson from the Flemings, who before that had at Courtrai defeated on foot, the power of France.’[17] How true is it that the Scots were fighting ‘in the manner of the Flemings?’

            The battle of Courtrai sent shockwaves throughout Europe, an army of Flemish infantry had routed the cream of French nobility. There are a number of similarities between Courtrai and Bannockburn. For a start, both battles were fought on fields selected and pre-prepared by the defending infantry, the Flemish having dug a number of ditches in front of their position to impede cavalry.[18] Both battles also contain examples of knightly arrogance leading to disaster. At Courtrai, the French infantry had the Flemish virtually beaten but were withdrawn to allow the nobility the glory of breaking the Flemish.[19] This lead to disaster as the tightly packed infantry formations beat off the cavalry attacks and caused a general rout among the French. The sheer volume of notable knights killed or captured in the disaster led to it being known as the “Battle of the Golden Spurs.” Both battles are also examples of cunning preparations and good leadership defeating a superior force with poor leaders. It is very likely that Bruce would have heard about the Flemish victory and may have drawn some inspiration from it. However it is important to remember that spearmen had been an integral part of the Scottish military since before Courtrai. At Falkirk, Wallace’s spearmen had resisted the English cavalry until they were eventually decimated by archers. At Falkirk Wallace may also have experimented with preparing the battlefield in advance with stakes and chains protecting the Scottish position.[20] Bruce also made his infantry move while the Flemish fought a mostly stationary defensive action.

To draw a conclusion on the battle of Bannockburn; as the Corries song says, Proud Edward’s army was sent homeward to think again. Pride and overpowering arrogance was a major factor in the English defeat. The other contributing factors were the superb leadership of Bruce and his lieutenants, the ground upon which the battle was fought and the strength of the Scottish formations and morale. The battle can be said to have been in the manner of the Flemings but drew as much from previous Scottish military experiences as it did from the continental battle.

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Bibliography

Armstrong P. Bannockburn 1314 (Oxford 2002)

Barbour J. The Bruce translation by Duncan A.A.M. (Edinburgh 1997)

Barr N. Flodden 1513 (Stroud 2001)

DeVries K. Infantry Warfare in the Early Fourteenth Century (Woodbridge 1996)

Fordun J. Chronicle

Gray T. Scalacronica

McNamee C. The Wars of the Bruces (East Linton 1997)

Nusbacher A. The Battle of Bannockburn (Stroud 2000)

Sadler J. Scottish Battles (Edinburgh 1996)

Traquair P Freedom’s Sword (London 1998)

Various The Chronicle of Lanercost