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annockburn, June 23-24, 1314
v.1.0 March 31, 2002 Sources: various, including: http://www.stir.ac.uk/theuni/recruitment/Stirling/1314.htm (a short summary)http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Alley/5443/bann3.htm (detailed account) http://www.royal-stuarts.org/bannock.htm The Battle of Bannockburn decisively established Scottish independence after centuries of war with England. Ironically, just 250 years later, England and Scotland peacefully became part of the same kingdom - but Scotland took over England. The never-married Elizabeth Tudor died without an heir. Her cousin James, then King VI of Scotland, was her nominee as successor. Her will was respected, and James united the two thrones as James I of England and James VI of Scotland. England being the more powerful state, it was natural that even as the Stuarts succeeded the Tudors in England, the Stuart line - and therefore the line of Scottish kings - was terminated in Scotland. The peaceful union was the antithesis of the many centuries of the most brutal warfare imaginable between England and Scotland. A clue to the calculated and systematic manner in which the Scottish victors of Bannockburn slew the defeated English may lie in the context of previous horrors the English had inflicted on the Scots, though Scottish hands were themselves hardly clean. King Robert the Bruce’s army numbered perhaps a quarter that of Edward II’s. The young Edward, however, was not the general his illustrious father Edward I had been, though he seems to have inherited the hatred of the Scots his father nourished. The elder Edward regarded the Scots as sub-human, a particularly noxious breed of vermin to be eliminated. Conversely, from a military viewpoint, not only was Robert - as one source puts it - heir to a thousand guerilla battles fought by the Scots against the English, he was a brilliant trainer and a tactical genius. His Scottish infantry was considered among the best in the almost two millennia between the Roman Legions and the Spanish Tercios, solidly drilled to fight in massive hedgehogs of spearmen armed with 12-foot long weapons. The Scottish infantry could maintain formation while under cavalry attack, executing maneuvers over broken ground. By comparison, English infantry, as was the norm in those days, was much inferior because the highborn and the able went into the cavalry, whereas Robert’s best leaders fought as infantry. The power of the English army lay in its heavy cavalry. The massed shock delivered by several thousand of these horsemen riding girth to girth against infantry must have been akin in some ways to standing riflemen facing massed tanks. Robert, however, defeated English cavalry in two ways, and in the process neutralized another English strength that could have defeated him. One, his hedgehogs were trained to hold against the charge. We think of people of bygone ages as being smaller than us, but for those men to have stood fast against the half-ton projectiles coming at them at 8 meters a second must have required enormous physical strength - quite apart from mental strength. Particularly so for the men in the first ranks, whose life expectancy was low: even if they killed horse and rider, the onrushing momentum of the cavalry charge would crush them. The 12-foot pike was designed to prevent horse or rider from getting within striking range of the cavalry’s weapon’s - hooves, swords, and maces. The Scots, however, faced another danger also. This was the legendary Welsh longbowman. His ability to rapid-fire his 24-arrow quiver at extended ranges gave the English armies a machinegun-like firepower - remember, everyone in those days fought without cover. Robert Bruce solved this problem by choosing his battlefield in such a way that the English army could deploy only part of its strength. Since the cavalry attacked, the foot remained behind. The constricted battlefield made it difficult for the archers to even see the Scottish infantry, and if at all they were to fire, they risked killing their own cavalry as much as the enemy. The constricted battlefield was also Robert Bruce’s second solution to the cavalry problem. He brought the English to battle in a rough, broken, hilly marshy area between the Forth and the Bannock Burn, and contrived to prepare the battlefield with traps for the heavy cavalry, while reserving the high, firm terrain for his position. The traps mainly consisted of holes dug in the ground and caltrops. The inertia of the English charge was absorbed and lessened by the marshy ground and the traps, enabling the Scottish infantry to hold. When the Scots advanced after taking the charge – slowly and still in formation – they compressed the English cavalry against one of the streams. Men and horses died in the hundreds as they fell into the waters and drowned. Now why someone would allow himself to be trapped in this manner may seem baffling. The size of Edward’s army, 20,000+ men, required open, firm ground. In the constricted area, neither could they maneuver, nor could they bring more than part of their strength at one time against the Scottish lines. The answer lies in several circumstances. The young king was inexperienced and determined to close with the Scots at the earliest opportunity. His lords were experienced fighters, but they too seemed not to have bothered about reconnaissance, preferring to charge as soon as possible. In fact, the Lords Hereford and Pembroke quarreled about who was to lead the charge and both seem to have attempted to outdo the other in this matter. Clearly, contempt of the Scots must have played its part. As the Scots knelt en masse to pray just before battle was joined, Edward jeered that they were begging his mercy. At least one noble corrected the King, saying the prayer meant the Scots intended to prevail or to die trying. Unfortunately for the English, other leaders seem not to have taken the enemy as seriously. Before proceeding to list the slim order of battle, two notes. One, the record from the time is fragmentary. Later scholars consider the vast armies imputed to both sides fictitious. The reader feeding “Bannockburn 1314” into her/his search engine will find many estimates; for no particular reason of scholarship, I have chosen the lowest. Two, the reader must remember that the cavalry charge of the day was an all-or-nothing affair. You simply put your head down and crashed into the enemy line. There was no reforming for a second charge, and cavalrymen each fought their individual battle. There was no question of your troop fighting as a unit with the troop leader calling out commands in communication and consonance with the wishes and commands of squadron and regimental leaders. This was a big, vicious, nasty, and highly lethal close quarters brawl. The cavalryman tried to ride down the infantryman, either crushing him under his horse or slashing at him with sword or mace – one blow of which was quite sufficient to gut a man or smash his head or chest. The Scottish spearmen tried to kill the horses or spear the rider, in either case throwing him to the ground, allowing them to grab his helmet, force his head back and slash the exposed throat. Cromwell was the first to impart tactical maneuver to English cavalry tactics – that was three hundred years in the future. Conversely, since the infantry too fought man-to-man, each fight a battle in itself, Robert Bruce’s advantage in possessing infantry that fought as units – and on the move at that – was priceless. At Bannockburn, the Earl of Gloucester, one of three earls at the battle, 34 barons, 200 knights, and 700 highborn esquires were killed. With the cavalry numbering perhaps 2,000, the casualty rate must have run close to 100%. That the number of killed was not greater was purely because a nobleman could be ransomed, so if at all you could, you tried to capture one rather than kill him in cold blood. Yet, it’s also likely that the death toll was so high because, unlike what we might think from reading the popular literature about those times, chivalry was conspicuous by its absence at Bannockburn. The hatred between the two peoples was too great, and the English view of the Scots as inferior beings did not lend itself to chivalry as it might between the French and the English. Chivalry in any case was a code of nobles, between nobles. Even at the height of the age of chivalry, the infantry, composed as it was of peasantry, was considered something to be slaughtered in leisurely fashion and at little risk to the heavily armored nobles. A last point. Whatever the faults of the English, a lack of courage was not one of them. The English displayed a reckless, unlimited courage, and paid for it. Nothing better illuminates this than Sir Giles Argentine. With the battle lost, he helped escort King Edward to safety. Then, saying he had never fled a battle, he returned to the field and to his certain death. English Order of Battle20,000 troops, of which 2,000 heavy horse; perhaps 500 light horse; rest foot soldiers, spearmen, and archers, with the spearmen in the majority, and perhaps 2,000 archers. The English forces included freebooting knights from England, Ireland, Wales, France, Germany, Holland, and Burgundy. It also included Scots, including the clans Comyns, Minabs, and MacDougals. These clans had a greater enmity with Robert Bruce than with the English, and in any case, nationalism then was not as strong a force as now. The cavalry fought organized in ten battles, or battalions, but the broken ground prevented any concentration. The King had a personal guard of about 500 cavalry. Senior CommandersEdward II, King of England Lord Hereford, leader of the Great Van Lord Pembroke, leader of the Great Van Lord Gloucester Scottish Order of Battle5000 to 5500 troops, including 4000-4500 spearmen, 500 light cavalry, a few hundred archers from Ettrick Forest; plus 2,000 Small Folk. These last were locals and peasants too ill trained to fight in an organized battle. Their job was to mop up if the battle went the Scots’ way. Conversely, if the Scots lost, the Small Folk could look forward to being slaughtered. At least one account says, however, that they too were soldiers. In either case, we must not think of them as gaunt, undernourished, and pathetic villagers. Though armed with a motley of weapons, they were very tough individual fighters who, once closed with the enemy, gave no quarter. At Bannockburn, their appearance on the battlefield served to convince the hard-pressed English that a fresh Scots army was about to fall on them, and led to the rout. A division could be divided into two schiltrons, the Scots term for the spearmen hedgehogs. There is a legend that a body of Knights Templar participated on the Scots’ side, and were decisive in breaking the English. See http://www.sinclair.quartermaster.org - though its not clear with a quick perusal that the writer believes it was a legend Commanders and formationsRobert I, the Bruce, King of the Scots The Scots infantry was organized in four divisions – the numbers are not to be taken as formation designations. First division, Center:
Randolph, Earl of Moray Second division, Right Wing: Sir Edward Bruce, last surviving brother of
the Scottish king Third division, Left Wing: Walter, the High Steward. As he
was a minor, the real leader was Sir James Douglas, also called Black Douglas. Fourth division, ?Reserve?: Robert I, King of the Scots Horse, Right Rear: Sir Robert Keith Baggage: Sir John Airth Small Folk, Rear Back to 500-1699 Table of Contents All content © 2003-2013 Ravi Rikhye. Reproduction in any form prohibited without express permission.
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