‘Stick to thy mass, thou Lord Bishop! We shall conduct the military operations of this day!’
The Bishop bridled – brandishing his sword, he cried:
‘On then, for this day we are all bound to do our duty as good soldiers!’
Spurring his horse, he led his column ponderously towards the enemy, to fall heavily on the Scots left whilst the remnants of the Earl Marshal’s column assailed their right. The Scottish pikemen stood firm, shoulder to shoulder; again came the milling, scuffling and plunging of injured horses as knights bumped and got into each other’s way but without forcing the position at any point. The English horsemen drew back, their horses breathing heavily. They gathered themselves and charged again … and again … and again … but they still had not broken through the levelled pikes when the King came up, leading the infantry and the remainder of the cavalry around the end of the marsh. He took in the situation at a glance; brought his archers forward so that they were within point-blank range of the Scots masses, a manoeuvre made possible because the Ettrick archers with their leader, the young Knight of Bonhill, had all been killed or had fled when ridden down by the English cavalry.
At the King’s orders, the archers concentrated their rain of arrows on particularly stubborn points of Scots resistance; a hail of clothyard shafts poured unceasingly into the unarmoured ranks of the Scots, mercilessly bringing them crashing to the ground. Very soon the ‘wood of spears’ began to waver, to become thinner and less threatening as man after man dropped to the ground with an arrow projecting from his unprotected body. Deserted by their cavalry and their own archers destroyed, the Scots infantry levelled their pikes over a breastwork of their own dead and dying as they made desperate attempts to hold their ground. But their numbers were thinning fast and they were becoming unsteady; their morale was wavering as they lost heart at the hopeless prospect of fighting against the hissing death that came at them from beyond their reach. Here and there a man crept away from the formations, soon the trickle became a stream and disorder became evident.
Seeing that the moment was ripe, Edward threw in the cavalry of his own division; they thundered across the torn ground in a sudden charge, to dash through the gaping ranks of Scots pikemen and to lumber through the scattered ranks laying about them with lance, sword and axe. Once inside the pikes, there was nothing to stop the knights; they wallowed in a dreadful slaughter of their lighter-armed enemy. Fighting bravely, wielding his great two-handed sword, Wallace slugged his way from the field accompanied by a handful of faithful followers. His army was shattered and of those who escaped the shambles many were drowned crossing the river Carron in headlong flight to the north.
To the defeated Scots there was the minute consolation that before being vanquished they had come within sight of victory; the monumental stubbornness of the schiltrons had proved a match for cavalry charges far more violent than anything seen in the Welsh wars. In spite of the fact that archers supplemented by cavalry had proved that they could beat such tactics, the formation tried out by the Welsh and perfected by Wallace was to be the basic method of infantry fighting up to the early nineteenth century at Waterloo, outlasting the heavy-armed cavalry and long surviving the introduction of firearms.
Falkirk was the first engagement of any real size or importance in which archers, properly supplemented by cavalry, played a leading part. So striking was the demonstration of the devastating effect of the longbow that no English commander could fail to be impressed or to see the tactical lesson that had been set out before him.
Chapter 8
Bannockburn – 1314
The Battle of Bannockburn has figured so much in legend and story that it is difficult to disentangle what actually took place; still more difficult to discover is where it took place. Many antiquarians have lost their tempers over its true acreage, but the actual site seems to have been within the angle of Bannockburn and the river Forth, just to the south-east of Stirling, in the parish of St. Ninians. The details of this – ’the most lamentable defeat which an English army ever suffered’ – are similarly blurred, but out of the confusion arises the claim that it is … ‘the only pitched battle in recorded mediaeval history in which infantry totally and overwhelmingly defeated cavalry’.
In the summer of 1314 King Edward II – the vacillating son of an inspiring father – invaded Scotland. Robert Bruce withdrew to the Forth, knowing that Edward would tire his troops and strain his commissariat in crossing the wasted lands to the south. Stirling Castle, commanding the only bridge over the river, was being besieged by the Scots and Edward was determined to relieve it. He had to move quickly because, by an arrangement common in mediaeval warfare, the defenders had agreed to surrender if no relief arrived by midsummer’s day.
Bruce gave a lot of thought to his selection of a position on which to give battle to the numerically superior English. He had to bear in mind his great deficiency of cavalry, those few he had, both in numbers and accoutrements, being totally unfitted to cope with the English men-at-arms. Both from his own experience and that of Wallace, he was aware that a body of Scots infantry, when armed with their lengthy pikes and judiciously posted, could effectively resist all charges of cavalry. The piece of ground that Bruce selected was then known as the New Park, partly open and partly encumbered with trees; on one side it was protected by a morass, the Newmiln Bog, the passage of which he knew to be difficult and dangerous. In his rear lay a little valley above which rose a long green ridge, now known as the Gillies Hill, for thereupon were all his camp-followers and baggage.
Bruce received tidings on the 22nd of June 1314 that the English were advancing from Edinburgh. He immediately marched his men, about 8,000 in all, from the Torwood to the positions that he had assigned to them less than two days before. He formed them in four columns of divisions, apart from each other yet near enough to keep in touch. The right column was commanded by his brother Edward; the left by Douglas and the young Steward of Scotland; the centre by Thomas Randolph, the veteran Earl of Moray; and the reserve or fourth column was commanded by Bruce himself. He had a small body of cavalry, under Sir Robert Keith, the Mareschal of Scotland; to them he assigned the important and specific duty of attacking and, if possible, dispersing the English archers.
The Scots dispositions had been made to meet an attack along the old Roman road which ran from Falkirk to Stirling; this meant that Bruce’s three columns were facing south-east, the direction by which he expected the English to approach. The Scots were in a line extending from the brook, or ‘burn’, called the Bannock, to the village of St. Ninian. The right wing was protected by means of pits dug where the ground was firm, about three feet deep with a stake in each, lightly covered with sods and branches. Iron calthrops – triangular metal pieces constructed in such a manner that a point sticks threateningly upwards whilst the other points rest on the ground – were strewn over areas where cavalry might be expected to charge, so that their horses would be lamed by the sharp points.
Edward’s army moved throughout the morning and early afternoon of 23rd June, being already weary when they came into the Scots’ sight as they debouched from the vast wood which then stretched away towards Falkirk. The June sunshine fell brightly on their burnished arms, innumerable white banners were fluttering in the slight breeze and the particoloured pennons of the knights floated above the glittering columns like a vivid sea. Edward obviously considered that his first objective was to contact Stirling Castle in force, so that he could release its commander, Sir Robert Mowbray, from his promise of surrender. That done, the garrison could then, without dishonour, make a sortie on the Scottish left wing. To accomplish the task, Edward sent forward a force of about 500 cavalry under Sir Robert Clifford; they made a great circuit by the low grounds bordering on the Forth and had actually passed the Scots’ left before Bruce detected the glitter of their spears and armour arising through the long line of dust that rolled northward in the direction of Stirling. It is not clear whether the English forc
e came up against the Scots defences or whether Bruce sent out a strong party to counter them; but it does seem apparent that the cavalry were repelled by the Scottish spearmen and sent reeling back in complete disorder, horses galloping in all directions with empty saddles.
Whilst this affair took place, the English vanguard were still steadily advancing, but yet so distant that Bruce, who had not mounted his battle-charger, was still riding along his line mounted on a small hackney, to see that all were in their places. He carried a battleaxe in his hand, and wore a golden crown upon his helmet thus showing to all that he was the King. From the English vanguard there came galloping ‘a wycht knicht and hardy’ named Sir Henry de Bohun, who bravely conceived the idea of terminating the strife at once and covering himself with honour. Couching his lance, he rode furiously at the King.
Armed at all points and more heavily mounted, the encounter was most unequal but Bruce did not decline it, and rode forward to meet him in full career. Just as they were about to close he swerved his hackney round, and as de Bohun’s lance passed harmlessly, he clove his head and helmet in twain with one blow of his battle-axe, and laid him dead at his feet. The weapon was shivered by the violence of the stroke; and to those who blamed him for his temerity, Bruce replied simply:
‘I have broken my good battle-axe.’
Easily discouraged, Edward now decided to try to outflank the Scots, turning their position under cover of darkness. So the English spent the night of 23rd/24th June following the course of the little river Bannock, which joins the Forth a few miles below Stirling, and crossing it in the marsh flats between Bannockburn village and Crookbridge. In the fourteenth century this area was extremely wet and marshy, making it a very difficult passage for heavy cavalry; the 20,000 heavily armed men of Edward’s army spent all night laboriously crossing the stream. The sun rises early on midsummer day in Scotland and daybreak found the English host a disorganised mass milling about on the marshy flats below St. Ninian’s Church. The main English body was across the stream but not yet formed up for battle; only the vanguard under the Duke of Gloucester had managed to get into any sort of order.
They were given no time to organise; Bruce saw that this was the one occasion in a thousand when his pikemen could, in attack, be more than a match for Edward’s cavalry. Rapidly facing his army to the new front, he launched them down the slight slope in echelon of schiltrons. In the white light of the early morning the still floundering English cavalry suddenly became aware of the phalanxes of pikes threateningly in motion and bearing down upon them. Before they could gather themselves, the footmen crashed heavily into the wallowing mass of men and horses; the great clash of men and arms at the first shock was said to have been heard over some distance. The attack had a devastating effect, many of the cavalry were immediately unhorsed to roll helplessly on the ground, while their horses, stabbed and maddened with wounds, plunged, reared and bolted, to spread confusion to the rear.
Warned by the noise, some of the English archers nimbly ran forward to a position on the right flank of the affray, getting their unarmoured persons out of trouble and also causing casualties in the massed Scots ranks. For a short time they fired unchecked, their arrows carving the usual deadly gaps in the hitherto steady Scots ranks. Sad experience had already warned the Scots that this might occur; the mounted force under Sir Robert Keith, that had been reserved for this very purpose by Bruce, came swiftly round the fringes of the morass and thundered into the lightly clad archers. Lacking spears or other long weapons and without any heavy support, the archers were immediately overthrown as they huddled together; soon they had been cut down or dispersed in all directions, further adding to the disorder that was now turning the English army into an undisciplined rabble. Seeing what had happened, other English archers feared to move to the flanks and tried to make their presence felt by firing from the rear, but their flights of arrows, discharged over the heads of their own troops against targets out of their sight, did little damage to the Scots and probably far more to the struggling English cavalry.
Battle of Bannockburn 24th June 1314
The battle developed into a confused mêlée between Bruce’s spearmen and the English men-at-arms; the huge masses of horse and foot stood locked together. The English cavalry tried desperately to extricate themselves but were quite unable to find sufficient space to draw out and charge back in. Fresh knights coming up from Edward’s main body could only make partial and ineffective charges in small bodies, efforts which failed utterly to break down the line of pikes, which caused dreadful casualties to the cavalry. The air was filled with the din of war, the clang of arms, the shouting of warcries; horses ran masterless, banners alternately rose and sank while the ground ran with blood amid the shreds of armour, broken spears, pennons and rich trappings torn and soiled with blood and muddy clay.
The Scots were pressing hard on the wavering masses of the English, whose rear ranks found it impossible to get up and into the fray; they stood helpless whilst their comrades were mown down. Then the English line began to give way, to falter; the gaps became larger as the exhausted and dispirited men looked wildly about them and wavered. Suddenly, like a dam before a tidal wave, it broke completely. The men who had not fallen on the pikes turned and fled in disorder. The panic was contagious, affecting those behind them who had not even had the opportunity of lifting their arm to make a warlike stroke; they stared hopelessly at the fleeing front ranks and then turned to fly with them, running for their lives until the defeat became a rout. Behind them lay the marshy banks of the Bannockburn and the broad reaches of the river Forth – they had no easy road to freedom. Soon, the narrow ravine of the burn was literally choked and bridged over by the slain; they piled up at the obstacle it presented until, coupled with the difficult nature of the ground, which held up the fugitive horsemen, the Scottish spearmen were upon them. Many, in terror, dashed their mounts into the river Forth where they drowned miserably.
Leaving the remnants of his army to their fate, Edward eluded capture by taking a circuitous route which led him past Stirling Castle; here he asked for shelter, but the Governor refused to admit him and shortly afterwards surrendered the castle as he had promised. The defeated King struggled on until he reached the castle of Dunbar, where he was hospitably received by the Earl of March. Compared with the slight losses of the Scots, the English army had lost an enormous number of men. The lesson standing out for all to learn was that cavalry, no matter how brave or determined, cannot defeat steady pikemen, unless the horsemen are supported by archers, who, in their turn, are worthless without the backing of heavy troops. Bannockburn was an exceptional reverse to the usual and fast developing successful methods of the English, but it was a battle lost by unskilful, almost insane, generalship rather than by failing to use the tactics that had brought victory at Falkirk.
Chapter 9
Halidon Hill – 1333
With the notable exception of Bannockburn, for the two centuries that followed the Battle of Falkirk, its characteristics were almost monotonously repeated whenever Scots and English met in battle. Only in smaller forays did the Scots leaders, in the same way as the Welsh before them, manage to evade and draw the enemy into their unknown and difficult country so that their unmounted spearmen could bring disaster to the heavily armoured English knight. With these almost insignificant exceptions, the battles of Halidon Hill, Neville’s Cross, Homildon and Flodden were all variations on the same theme. The steady but slow-moving masses of the Scottish infantry fell a sacrifice to their own persistent bravery as they staggered forward in vain attempts to reach the well-chosen position lined by archer-flanked men-at-arms. The English bowman might well boast that he carried twelve Scots lives at his girdle; he had but to launch his shaft into the easy target presented by the great surging mass of pikemen and it was certain to do dreadful execution.
In 1333 King Edward III of England decided to aid Edward Baliol in his attempt to wrest the Crown of Scotland from the young King David
II, a minor who ruled with the aid of a Regent. The capture and reduction of the town of Berwick was Edward’s first objective; with a powerful army he laid siege to the town, investing it by land and sea. Following the slaughter of a number of Scots hostages before the walls of the town, the Governor, Sir William Keith, gave one of the conditional surrender promises characteristic of the time. He agreed unconditionally to surrender before the hour of vespers on the 19th of July unless the Scots, in the meantime, could reinforce the garrison with 200 men-at-arms, or defeat the English in a pitched battle. To prevent the loss of this important frontier town, the Scottish army, under the Regent, crossed the Tweed on the 18th of July and encamped at Dunse Park, a few miles north of Berwick.
The Scots leader – Archibald Douglas, Lord of Galloway – was a brave man but an imprudent leader. He had heard but failed to observe the dying advice of King Robert: ‘… the fate of the kingdom should never, if possible, depend upon the doubtful issue of a general engagement.’ Douglas determined on just such a course of action, apparently confident that both he and his army would be victorious. He found the English strongly positioned on the crest of an eminence called Halidon Hill, situated to the westward of the town of Berwick. Little is known of the specific nature of the English position or their dispositions, save that Baliol commanded one of the wings and that a marshy hollow lay in front of their line.
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