For educational purposes
In a mighty attempt to crush the Scots, King Edward II placed himself at the head of the invasion of Scotland.
In their desperate hour of need came Scotland's greatest medieval king, Robert, known simply as "The Bruce".
The two forces would meet at a small stream within sight of Stirling Castle - the Bannockburn. The thunderous battle fought there would decide the fate of a nation.
In a mighty attempt to crush the Scots, King Edward II placed himself at the head of the invasion of Scotland.
In their desperate hour of need came Scotland's greatest medieval king, Robert, known simply as "The Bruce".
The two forces would meet at a small stream within sight of Stirling Castle - the Bannockburn. The thunderous battle fought there would decide the fate of a nation.
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LearningTranscript
00:00This is the story of one of British history's most crucial battles and how it was influenced
00:17by the terrain over which it was fought. The program uses the latest animation techniques
00:22to explain how the line of fire affected the outcome of the battle which won the freedom
00:28of a nation.
00:58The
01:22Battle of Bannockburn is a rare example of a single decisive action which not only decided
01:28the outcome of a campaign but of a whole war. With his crushing victory over King Edward
01:35II's English army, the Scottish King, Robert the Bruce, won not just the field of Bannockburn
01:41but the freedom of his country.
01:48It's impossible to overstate the significance of the Battle of Bannockburn to Scottish history.
01:55It's one of these rare events where the outcome of not just a battle but also of a campaign
02:00and effectively a nation is decided in a single day.
02:08It proved that Robert Bruce was not just a good guerrilla warrior but he was able to
02:15speak the military language of the time. He was able to win a battle on a field.
02:25It represents the greatest defeat of English arms by a Scottish army throughout the Middle
02:31Ages. But more importantly it was the one conventional battle which Robert the Bruce
02:38had to win. And really if the Scots had lost Bannockburn then any chance for independence
02:45would probably have been lost.
02:49Legend has it that Robert the Bruce drew inspiration from the determined efforts of a single spider.
02:56Such colourful folklore has endured, at least in part, because there are few surviving records
03:01from the time of Bannockburn. However, of those which do survive, two in particular
03:07are significant.
03:11The first, the Llanacost Chronicle, which was written by an Augustine friar at the Llanacost
03:16Priory near Carlisle, tells the story very vividly from the English point of view. The
03:23monk himself saw many of the events that day. On the Scots side, the most important source
03:29is The Bruce, a long poem by an Aberdonian monk called Barber, which also draws extensively
03:36on eyewitness accounts of the battle.
03:41The subject of the poem is the man who was then a claimant to the vacant throne of Scotland,
03:47the future king, Robert Bruce.
03:52Robert the Bruce was one of 13 claimants for the throne of Scotland. At that time the throne
03:58was in the gift of Edward I, and he was certainly in no hurry to appoint a successor. But the
04:05Bruce was one of those individuals who was not going to be thwarted, and he decided that
04:10he personally was going to fight his way through the throne of competitors by whatever means
04:14were necessary, and he was going to seize the throne of Scotland.
04:19At first, Robert Bruce's loyalties were, to say the least, uncertain.
04:26Robert the Bruce himself was a much more ambivalent figure than Scottish patriotic
04:31myth suggests. As a young 20-year-old noble, he was actually fighting on the English side.
04:38He joined the Scottish Rebellion under William Wallace, and fought for a while, but then
04:42deserted it. Indeed, his wife, Elizabeth de Bourgh, was his prize for deserting the Scottish cause.
04:50Robert the Bruce, therefore, was not, like William Wallace, committed to Scotland's independence
04:57from the very start. Robert the Bruce's family, the Bruce family, was very powerful in Galloway,
05:07the south-western part of Scotland.
05:10And they were closely tied to the English crown. Robert himself was born in England,
05:17and his personal wealth depended very much on the tradition of balancing his English
05:23commitments against his Scottish commitments, in an effort to get as much power as possible
05:30in Scotland, without offending the English crown and endangering his estates in England.
05:39In fact, Bruce was still fighting with the English when they took Stirling Castle in
05:431305, but even as he fought for his English overlords, he was already plotting to overthrow them.
05:51Edward I is one of the greatest kings ever to come from these islands. He was a warrior,
05:57he was a statesman, he was a very astute politician. He'd been on a crusade to the Holy Land,
06:04he had dealt with civil strife very firmly in England, and he subdued the Welsh. He was
06:09an all-round king at a time when a king needed to be personally, physically strong and decisive.
06:15He was from the Plantagenet family, and people said that the Plantagenets were descended
06:20from the devil, and it was based on their having a fiery temper.
06:24With the tragic death of Alexander III, Scotland was left without a clear heir to the throne,
06:32and the Scottish nobles actually invited, they asked Edward I to adjudicate as to who
06:42had the best claim. This was really like inviting the fox into the chicken coop.
06:48He took advantage of Scotland's period of weakness caused by the death of the king and
06:54the lack of an obvious heir to impose himself on Scotland as a superior overlord. There's
07:01no doubt he was a pretty ruthless medieval king, but also effective.
07:10At the beginning of the year 1306, Bruce changed sides for the last time. His overriding ambition
07:17was to claim the vacant throne of Scotland, and to achieve this goal, he ruthlessly murdered
07:23John Comyn, his nearest remaining rival, in the chapel of Dumfries Abbey.
07:29The deal was the two individuals, Bruce and Comyn, had been joint guardians. They hated
07:35one another's guts. There are accounts of them being at one another's throats. They
07:38never got on very well, and when Bruce decided to make his bid for the throne, we think inspired
07:45by the terrible death of William Wallace, because Wallace was executed in 1305, Bruce
07:50makes his bid in 1306, but what Bruce has to do is to buy off the possible opposition
07:58to his own bid in Scotland, otherwise he's going to face civil war. So Comyn's one of
08:03the major players, he's a big noise in the Highlands of Scotland, so they decide to meet
08:08at Greyfriars Church. I think they were just meant to try and negotiate some kind of compromise,
08:13and they lost their tempers. And Bruce, in the heat of the moment, stabbed the Comyn,
08:18near unto death, as they say, and the story is that he staggers out of the church and
08:23says to his faithful retainer, Kilpatrick, I think I've slain Comyn, and Kilpatrick says,
08:30I'll make sure he goes back in and finishes him off. It's the worst possible scenario for Bruce.
08:36He's automatically excommunicated because he's defiled the sanctuary, the worst thing you can
08:41do. He's also generated civil war with the support of John Comyn, the very thing he wanted to avoid,
08:48and worst of all, he's taken on the might of Edward I.
08:51Although he was excommunicated for his crime, Bruce still had himself crowned King of Scots
08:58on Palm Sunday 1306. Edward I received news of the events north of the border with anger
09:07and resolved to deal with the threat posed by the Bruce. But at 68, he was far too old and exhausted
09:14by long years of campaigning. Much against the advice of his household, Edward raised his army
09:20and once again marched north. However, his strength finally deserted him and he died at
09:27Bur-on-Sands, three miles short of the border with Scotland. With the king dead, the invasion
09:34of Scotland was abandoned. Edward I would be a hard act to follow. Not only was the aptly named
09:43Hammer of the Scots a very experienced soldier, he was also a great statesman.
09:49His son, Edward II, was clearly a very different man to his father.
09:55Edward II was entirely different to his father. Edward I was an extremely experienced soldier.
10:03He had campaigned in many different countries, France, Wales and Scotland. He was a tough old
10:09veteran who knew his business. His son, Edward II, was not interested in military campaigns.
10:17He was much more interested in the good life and really did not want to be troubled by such
10:23affairs. He showed very poor judgment in who he favoured and of course his favours were sometimes
10:29handed out on a sexual basis. His homosexuality was notorious and his male favourites reaped
10:38many of the rewards his barons believed they should have. Edward II certainly wasn't the man
10:45that his father was. But having said that, the modern view that he was an ineffective homosexual
10:52doesn't really seem, in my view, to be completely supported by the evidence. The king was a lover
10:59of art and literature. He was certainly a cultured man in an age where physical qualities were
11:05probably more important. But if you actually examine the historical record, the real facts
11:10are fairly scant to label a charge like that against him. Robert the Bruce lost no time in
11:17capitalising on the weaknesses of the new English king and slowly but surely he tightened his grip
11:24on Scotland. By the summer of 1314, he was undeniably king of Scots. The famous legend
11:34of the spider may well have played its part. The legend of the spider is very famous in Scotland.
11:42Essentially after the battle of Methven in 1305, Bruce and his band of followers had been
11:49beaten comprehensively and scattered. When he entered a cave, hiding from the English,
11:57he brushed against a spider's web and sat down entirely despondent. But he noticed that the
12:04spider began to build his web again. Robert the Bruce, probably out of malice or spite, brushed
12:13the spider again and then sat back down despondently. But the spider simply started to rebuild
12:19its web once again. And it is said that from this moment of entire despondency and gloom,
12:26Robert the Bruce took the message that he must try and try again. That as long as he had the
12:32willpower to continue the struggle against England, then he would eventually be successful.
12:39The first reference to Bruce and the spider comes in Sir Walter Scott's Tales of a Grandfather,
12:451830. There's not a trace of it before that. There is a legend from the 17th century which
12:52associated a spider with the Black Douglas, Robert Bruce's famous sidekick, but no association between
12:59Bruce and the spider. What we have here is a great example of instant legend or the invention of
13:05tradition. I don't think it's really important any longer whether there was an actual spider or
13:10whether it's an apocryphal story. It's a very inspiring and uplifting image that's quite
13:16universal of a man who, despite all the adversity, tries and tries again. And in real life, Bruce,
13:22despite having tremendous adversity in his personal life and in his political life, kept trying and
13:28trying and trying until he won in the end. So it's a very fitting legend. One by one, the towns and
13:36castles of Scotland had been stormed by the Bruce. Now only one remained in English hands,
13:43Stirling Castle, the key to the kingdom. Although not as large as Edinburgh Castle,
13:51Stirling was strategically far more important. It dominated the central plain in the middle of
13:57Scotland, where most of the wealth and population was concentrated. Today, it is still a majestic
14:04and awe-inspiring sight. In the Middle Ages, it was a daunting fortress. For the Scots,
14:12the capture of Stirling Castle was of vital symbolic and strategic importance. Unlike his
14:19warrior father, Edward II was no soldier, but even he recognised that if Stirling Castle fell
14:25back into the hands of the Scots, the war and the country was effectively lost. Castles in general
14:34were very important strongholds for dominating an area militarily. It gave you a place where you
14:41could rest, requisition your forces, build up your strength and sally out to attack the enemy.
14:49And it really meant that unless you'd captured all of the castles, as well as the land around it,
14:54you really didn't have control of a captured country. Determined to relieve the beleaguered
15:02English garrison, King Edward gathered an army about him and marched north. He was spurred on by
15:09the disturbing news that the governor of the castle, Sir Philip Mowbray, had agreed to surrender
15:15to the Scots if the garrison was not relieved by midsummer's day. Edward's march, therefore,
15:22became not only a show of military strength, but a race against time. Both sides were only
15:29too well aware of the importance of the coming encounter. The long, drawn-out struggle was about
15:34to be decided one way or another in a final, thunderous battle. At the heart of King Edward's
15:42army at Bannockburn were his household knights, a contingent of armoured cavalrymen permanently
15:48employed by him. In all, Edward mustered something approaching 3,000 heavy cavalrymen.
15:58Not all of them were knights, of course. Some were ordinary men-at-arms, but by comparison to the
16:04Scots, they were very well equipped. The mounted knights were the heaviest component of the army.
16:11They were the equivalent, in medieval terms, of the panzer division. They were massively strong,
16:16where all the strength was concentrated, and they were intended as the shock troops. They relied
16:21upon their weight and the force of their impact. More often than not, a charge of heavy chivalry
16:28will make infantry in front of it run away. That meant that they were often used for the decisive
16:34blow on the battlefield, and even though they were sometimes unruly, their charge often decided
16:41the fate or outcome of a battle. Accompanying the new king on his march north were 20,000
16:48infantrymen. Many of these were raised from the Welsh marches, but the Irish Prince of Connacht
16:55was also requested to provide Irish spearmen to serve in the army. While cavalry can mount a
17:03decisive blow, can shock an opponent and hopefully pursue him from the battlefield,
17:09infantry is and always has been the only arm of an army which can hold ground. Infantry provided
17:17the flexible all-arms dimensions to break down the sorts of formations that might block heavy
17:24cavalry. Once they'd been mustered for service, the foot soldiers were organised into units of
17:3020 men, led by an officer called a vantena, from the French word meaning 20. Five of these units,
17:38or vantaines, were grouped together into a company, led by a centenaire. He rode on horseback,
17:45wearing full armour, and was often a professional soldier.
17:49There was no formal organisation of the army above the level of the company.
17:55Come the day of a battle, it was customary practice to organise the various companies
18:00into three great divisions or battles.
18:07The vanward, the mainward, and the rearward.
18:13It was the job of the marshal, the medieval equivalent of a chief of staff, to allocate
18:17the different companies to each division, taking care to ensure that all three had an even
18:23proportion of archers and spearmen. The infantry were, of course, much less heavily armed and
18:30equipped than the cavalry. Over their basic clothing of shirt, hose, and doublet, foot
18:37soldiers commonly wore padded quilted jackets of canvas or leather, perhaps a mail, together
18:44with simple iron helmets. If they belonged to a lord's retinue, or in the direct pay of the king,
18:50they wore livery coats displaying their master's badge.
18:55Often the red cross of St George was added to the coats of the infantry.
19:01You can imagine when two armies finally became locked together in hand-to-hand combat,
19:06and this was in the days before uniforms had widely been accepted, it was very difficult to
19:12identify who was on your side and who wasn't. For that reason, a lord would issue liveried
19:17coats to his army. That helped to identify who was on your side and who was on the opposition's side.
19:27The Scots army could not have been more different from the English.
19:31The most important element of the Scots army was not the mounted knights, but the infantry,
19:36who were mainly armed with spears known as long pikes. The Scots combined their companies
19:44into much larger bodies of pikemen called skiltrons, a Scots term which quite literally
19:50means moving thickets. Each of these moving hedgehogs of pikes was about 3,000 strong.
19:58The men were densely packed, shoulder to shoulder, forming a forest of spear points which posed a
20:04formidable obstacle to charging cavalry. One man in a spear on a flat field against a man
20:10on a horse is going to die, but a group of men in a formation carrying spears is a much more
20:17formidable task. Indeed, horses will not actually go into such a formation, they will shy away from it.
20:23Now of course, such weapons were not new. Alexander's Macedonians had used very long
20:30pikes, as long as 20 foot long back in ancient times. By Robert the Bruce's day, the Scottish
20:37spear or pike tended to be about 12 foot long, which made it a bit handier for individual combat,
20:45but still long enough to be used collectively. The skiltron, the idea of a skiltron,
20:50was more defensive, I think. It's been compared to a hedgehog with a kind of semicircle and spears
20:57sticking out, close ranks and archers between the spears. The idea was the spears would protect
21:03the defending troops against the cavalry charge, the archers would do the damage as well. But it
21:09clearly didn't work at Falkirk. So in terms of effectiveness, I'm afraid the skiltron perhaps
21:16is not that impressive at this particular juncture anyway. They are not effective against archers.
21:22Archers can stand 16, 18, 20 feet from you even, further than you can hit with your pike,
21:30and they can shoot you with the bow. Despite this, the Scots nobles shared these dangers
21:36with their men. While the English leaders rode with the cavalry, the Scots knights dismounted.
21:42and fought in the front ranks of the skiltrons, shoulder to shoulder with their men.
21:49King Edward assembled his army at Berwick on the 10th of June 1314, and, traveling north by way of
21:56Edinburgh, reached Falkirk, barely 10 miles from Stirling, on the evening of the 22nd.
22:03The King of Scots was waiting for him. Unlike the English, the Scots were not
22:11Unlike William Wallace at Stirling Bridge, 17 years earlier, Bruce had chosen his battlefield
22:17with considerable care. The Scots army had chosen some very favourable positions indeed
22:25for the Battle of Bannockburn, and it's quite rare in medieval warfare that they had actually had
22:31the time to choose their site and prepare for the battle. The English army needed to
22:37approach Stirling Castle itself to relieve the siege that had been going on, as per their
22:43agreement. And the closer you get to Stirling and the valley of the River Forth, the worse the
22:49countryside gets for an army like the English. Stirling was surrounded by a low flood plain
22:55known as a cas, a wet marshy area quite unsuitable for cavalrymen. The old Roman road, however,
23:02followed a spine of slightly higher dry ground. A couple of miles south of Stirling, the road
23:08crossed a narrow stream called the Bannockburn, and then ran over a low plateau with patches of
23:15woodland. This area had been reserved by the Scottish kings as a hunting ground, and was
23:21called the New Park. It was obvious that King Edward's strategy would be to advance on Stirling
23:28along the Roman road. He had with him a huge baggage train which could not be dragged across
23:33open country.
23:50Bruce therefore deployed his army among the trees of the New Park,
23:54just north of the ford over the Bannockburn. Pots or pitfalls were dug across the front of
24:01this position so that if the English cavalry tried to force their way up the road, they'd have not
24:07one but two difficult obstacles to negotiate before coming into contact with the Scots'
24:12infantry. On the other hand, the flat cas to the east of the New Park was left invitingly empty.
24:19On Sunday the 23rd of June, the English army cautiously felt its way forward to the Bannockburn,
24:29halting about half a mile to the south. At this point, Sir Philip Mowbray, the Governor of Stirling,
24:36is said to have slipped out of the castle to advise King Edward that large bodies of
24:40Scots' infantry had been seen moving amongst the trees of the New Park. Bruce had in fact
24:47taken up a position of all-round defence in the park.
24:52As Edward advanced along the road from the south, he would soon discover the elaborate
24:57and perhaps rather obvious obstacles placed in his path.
25:02But there was still the danger that while he held and protected the main high road to Stirling
25:08Castle, there was still the danger that the English might outflank him either to the left
25:14or the right. On the left, the King's Park made it less likely and that meant that in some respects
25:21Bruce almost was anticipating or forcing the English to move to their right and into the
25:29much more boggy ground of the Bannockburn and Pelstreamburn. King Edward began by sending
25:37two squadrons of cavalry forward to inspect the New Park before committing himself.
25:45The first English reconnaissance party, led by the impetuous nephew of the Earl of Hereford,
25:50Sir Henry de Boone, advanced straight up the road, splashed across the ford over the Bannockburn
25:56and began taking note of the Scots' defences. To his complete shock, he came face to face with
26:02the Bruce himself. He was quite alone. For young de Boone, this was an opportunity too good to miss
26:10and taking up his lance, he rode straight at the Bruce. Think of this from the point of view of
26:15Robert Bruce. You've gone out for a bit of a reconnaissance. You're not on a big expensive war
26:20horse, you're on a small horse. You're not wearing your heavy armour and coming towards you, you see
26:28Henry de Boone. Huge guy, huge horse, a lot of armour, a lot of stuff on top of his helmet to
26:34make him look even bigger than he was and he's thundering towards you at a hand gallop as fast
26:39as he can make his horse go and still keep it under control. Tremendous momentum. He's got a
26:44lance and it's pointed right at you and Robert the Bruce sidesteps his pony and he cuts Henry
26:50de Boone's head in half. It certainly shows that Bruce was a veteran soldier, well able to defend
26:57himself and of great physical strength. He wasn't going to have any stripling of an English knight
27:03see him off at this most critical phase of the engagement. Having said that, for a commander in
27:11the field to risk his person in such a way certainly is quite a rash move because if Bruce
27:18had had the worst of the fight against de Boone, the battle would have been over and the chances
27:24of Scottish independence would have been squashed there and then. The episode ended when some Scots
27:29cavalry rather belatedly appeared at the Bruce's side to chase off de Boone's startled followers.
27:35The Bruce's only comment was to complain about the perfectly good battle axe which had been broken
27:41in the act of dispatching de Boone.
27:46Meanwhile the second English reconnaissance party led by Sir Robert de Clifford and Sir Henry de
27:51Beaumont had run into real trouble. Crossing the Bannockburn further to the east they had kept to
27:57open ground and were working their way around what appeared to be the open flank of the Scots
28:02position when a skiltron of pikemen suddenly rolled out of the woods towards them. As his pikemen came
28:10clear of the trees their leader, the Earl of Moray, halted for a moment in order to give them time to
28:15close up their ranks. It was then that a furious argument broke out between the leaders of the
28:21English cavalry. A Yorkshire knight, Sir Thomas Grey, was in favour of charging the Scots immediately.
28:28While they were still in some disorder but de Beaumont wanted to wait, confident that the more
28:33Scots who were allowed to come out of the trees the more would be slain. Neither of the Englishmen
28:40had any doubts at all that they could overcome what appeared to be a rabble of unarmoured pikemen.
28:48Stung by de Beaumont's sneering, Grey lost his composure and rushed straight at the Scots and
28:54was killed at once by the pikemen. Other English knights soon followed him. Try as they might,
29:01the English knights could not break into the serrid mass of pikes pressing towards them.
29:07In their frustration, some even flung their lances at the Scots like javelins. As the Scots resumed
29:14their advance from the woods, the English cavalry broke and fled in disorder, some to Stirling,
29:20others back to King Edward's camp. Having made their point in no uncertain terms,
29:26Moray's pikemen calmly marched back into the shade of the trees.
29:38The first round of the battle had undoubtedly gone to the Scots but King Edward now knew that
29:44while a frontal assault straight up the Roman road would be fraught with danger, it might be
29:49possible to outflank the Scots' position by following Robert de Clifford's route. And so,
29:55that night, the entire English army ponderously swung around to its right, struggling across
30:01the Bannockburn to the east of the new park and then waited uncomfortably for dawn.
30:08The English army was exhausted, the horses needed water, they basically needed space
30:15to spread out into and it seemed logical to the English to spread out into the triangle made by
30:23the Bannockburn and some of the minor streams where there was enough flat ground to bivouac
30:29for the night and to water the horses. What the English did not realise during that evening and
30:37then into the night was that they were essentially placing themselves in a trap where the streams and
30:44burns and indeed the River Forth would constrain their deployment the next day and give the Scots
30:50a great advantage to hem them into a position from which they would find it difficult to get out.
30:56The Bruce seized his opportunity and while the English army floundered in the mud and
31:01stagnant ponds, he swung his own army around, forming three of his skiltrons into a line
31:07ready to face the English at dawn. The skiltron on the right was commanded by the Bruce's brother,
31:15while the central skiltron came under the Earl of Moray. Sir James Douglas commanded the skiltron
31:21on the left. Meanwhile the King's own skiltron formed a reserve.
31:30Unlike the English, the Scots had very few cavalry at Bannockburn. Most of the Scottish
31:35knights who were present fought on foot in the front rank of the pikemen. Bruce had at his
31:41disposal only 500 light horsemen led by Sir Robert Keith. These he placed well out on the
31:48left flank of the army where they could guard against any sortie by the garrison of Stirling Castle.
31:56Scotland had virtually nothing to match the the heavy mounted English chivalry. Now that's partly
32:03a comment on the the number of wealthy Scottish nobles who actually were fighting with the English
32:08rather than the Scottish. What was used at Bannockburn seems to be roughly 500 much lighter
32:15horsemen who would have been equipped without the heavy plate metal armour that films like
32:22Braveheart have made so famous. More mobile, in many ways more flexible, but if forced to
32:30actually face a charge of English heavy cavalry, totally incapable of doing so. There was one other
32:37element in the Scots army which was to play a crucial role. Hidden from the view of the English
32:44forces on nearby Cockstead Hill were the camp followers and highland auxiliary forces who had
32:50come to lend the Scots army help. They watched the proceedings intently and would later play a vital
32:57role as the events of the day unfolded. In stark contrast to the carefully laid plans of the Scots
33:06army, confusion now reigned among the English forces. There were, for instance, no recognisable
33:12divisions of the army, just two long lines, one drawn up behind the other. The front line was
33:19composed of nine squadrons of cavalry, each one about 250 strong, while on the left of the line
33:27stood a much larger division of some 800 cavalrymen, which was rather optimistically
33:32called the vanguard. Behind this colourful array of cavalrymen, the English infantry were drawn up
33:38in a single disorderly mass, hemmed in between the Bannockburn and the River Forth.
33:48At Falkirk in 1298, the wily old King Edward I had defeated the Scots under William Wallace
33:55by attacking and defeating each sciltron in turn. But the son was not the master tactician
34:02his father had been, and Edward II was now faced with a far more cunning adversary.
34:09Robert the Bruce's tactics at Bannockburn were very different from those adopted by Wallace.
34:15He would not wait to be attacked. The Scots would strike first.
34:19Before the attack, the Scots army fell to its knees in prayer for safe deliverance in the coming battle.
34:31Edward is said to have mistaken the Scots prayer for a plea for mercy.
34:37Any doubts he may have had were about to be unceremoniously removed,
34:42as Bruce formed his sciltrons into columns and advanced down the gentle steps of Bannockburn.
34:49He would follow the slope from St Ninian's Kirk and the New Park,
34:52down towards the disorderly rabble which was the English army.
35:05He knew how important it was to keep the English force penned into this small area and not allow
35:11them to deploy and spread out, so by attacking with his sciltrons, he certainly put the cat among the pigeons.
35:17The decision that Bruce took to actually enact that offensive move quite clearly stunned the
35:23English. The idea that what they considered half-trained Scots peasants would actually
35:30take the battle to them was not in their minds. Now you could only give English knights one order.
35:39You couldn't tell them to wheel right and wheel left. You couldn't give them anything complicated.
35:44The one thing they knew how to do was charge, and when the Scottish army comes down out of the woods,
35:50down the hill and out onto the flat of Stirling Carse, the English knights did the only thing they
35:57were trained to do. They charged. Time and time again they hurled themselves at the Scots' pikes.
36:04None could break through. The Scots stood resolutely, concentrating on killing the horses,
36:10and as each mailed knight fell or kicked himself clear of his dying horse,
36:15he was quickly dispatched with swords or axes. By advancing against the knights with his spearmen,
36:22Bruce had drawn the sting from the English army. That was their main tactic, and once that
36:28advantage to charge home had gone, really Edward was on the back foot from then on.
36:34Bannockburn was no elegant chivalrous encounter. It was a muddy, brutal killing match in which
36:40no prisoners were taken, and fine gentlemen were ruthlessly butchered by common soldiers.
36:46This isn't the modern world. This was fought under completely different rules,
36:50with a completely different set of values. Those who were injured or wounded in battle
36:55would be dispatched without any form of compassion. Your chances of survival were
37:02nil. The mass of dead horses and dead men began to pile up. That made it more difficult for the
37:09second ranks of the English cavalry, and the Scots' infantry during the battle, their cry was
37:16push on, push on, to constantly constrain the English. And again, the image is really quite
37:23horrific. A struggling mass of men and horses being thrown from their horses by the English
37:30being thrown from their horses by the Scottish infantry, and then speared once they're on the
37:34ground. Behind the embattled knights, the English infantry stood in frustration, unable to intervene
37:42in the struggle. From time to time, the archers amongst them tried to provide some assistance
37:47by shooting over the knights' heads in the hope of hitting the closely packed ranks of Scots' pikemen
37:53on the other side of the melee. Unfortunately, they also succeeded in shooting many of their
37:59own men in the back, and they were soon ordered to stop. However, some archers managed to work
38:05their way around to the right of the English line, well clear of the fighting. From this position,
38:11they were able to shoot into the exposed flank of the Bruce's own sciltron, without fear of hitting
38:17their own men. As casualties among the pikemen mounted, Bruce called his own cavalry into battle.
38:25Archers at that time would normally protect their position by digging in stakes into the ground that
38:30would protect them against cavalry, but because the archers had moved into position, there was the
38:34prospect of being able to disperse them with a quick cavalry charge, and the Bruce saw that
38:40opportunity and unleashed his cavalry at exactly the right moment. The cavalry would be exposed to
38:46archery fire for a few minutes as they charged, but once they got in close, the English archers
38:51would not be able to defend themselves. The archers were quickly scattered and cut down.
38:57The threat to the Scots flank had been averted. The battle had now been raging for an hour,
39:04and all around it was going badly for the English. Even King Edward had to defend himself with his
39:10mace, as hands pulled and tugged at his harness. The battle was at a crucial stage, and it was now
39:17that Bruce unleashed a tactical masterstroke. He called forward his last reserve. Legend has it
39:26that the men who now suddenly appeared with their makeshift banners on the top of Coxted Hill in
39:31the new park were just camp followers, a motley collection of grooms, cooks and settlers. As
39:38English knights struggled to overcome the Scots pikemen, the Bruce chose the moment perfectly to
39:44call the poor folk forward. The legend of the camp followers is another one of these tremendous
39:52romantic stories that surround the Battle of Bannockburn. We'll never know for sure were they
39:57the camp followers or was this the Highland army which the Bruce had kept in reserve till the last
40:04moment. Some historians come down firmly on the side, they were the Highland what were known as
40:09the Gillies, the men who were warriors in their own right but not sufficiently disciplined to
40:15take their place in the skilltrons. The other school of thought argues it was the cooks, the
40:20camp followers, the families, the ordinary people of Scotland who'd gathered together to watch this
40:25battle and who made makeshift banners when they could see the tide turning against them and used
40:32these to give the impression to the English that a new army had joined in the battle. It's certainly
40:38a colourful and a powerful legend and it's one really you can believe if you like because we'll
40:43never have the evidence, we don't know and we won't ever know were they Highlanders, were they
40:48camp followers, was it a mix of the two? You know it's possible it could be any of those things.
40:52And to be quite frank the English army had already had enough and all it took was the arrival of this
40:59supposedly fresh force for the English to decide that now was the time to seek safety.
41:05Their dismay turned to horror as they realised that they were being driven backwards deeper into
41:11the bog. The Llanicost chronicle graphically recalled the carnage. In the leading division
41:18were killed the Earl of Gloucester, Sir John Cumming, Sir Pagan de Tiptoft, Sir Edmund de Morley
41:24and many other nobles besides foot soldiers who fell in great numbers. Another calamity which
41:33befell the English was that whereas they'd earlier crossed a great ditch called the Bannockburn
41:38into which the tide flows and now wanted to recross it in confusion, many nobles and others fell into
41:45it with their horses in the crush while others escaped with great difficulty and many were never
41:51able to extricate themselves from the ditch. Thus Bannockburn was spoken about for many years
41:57in English throats. Not all of the English knights turned to flee. In an act of futile courage Sir
42:06Giles d'Argentine, an old crusader, fought his way through to King Edward's side, led him safely from
42:13the battlefield and then declaring, I have never been accustomed to run, return to the fight and
42:20certain death.
42:32Robert the Bruce, King of Scots, had won his battle.
42:36Although many Scots pikemen were killed, mainly by English arrows,
42:40only two Scottish knights, Sir William de Vipond and Sir Walter Ross were slain.
42:46As for the defeated English, so many of them were killed in trying to flee across the Bannockburn
42:51that it was said to be possible to walk dry shot over their corpses.
42:57The relentless pursuit and ruthless killing went on into the midsummer night.
43:04Of course there was no Geneva Convention in those days and the ordinary infantry certainly couldn't
43:10expect any mercy. And don't forget the English army's now stranded, miles from home in the midst
43:16of very hostile country. The mounted men have some prospect of escape but for the men on foot
43:22and for the camp followers with their baggage, there's absolutely no prospect in reality of being
43:28able to flee back to England.
43:33Many factors had contributed to the Scots victory at Bannockburn.
43:37The Bruce had chosen his ground wisely. While his pikemen were able to operate effectively on the
43:42muddy castling, it was totally unsuitable for the heavy English cavalry. Although his army was
43:49greatly outnumbered by the English, it was much better trained. King Edward's knights were brave
43:56but undisciplined and as a result their superior numbers became a handicap, not an advantage.
44:02Put simply, they got in each other's way. Worse still, there was no effective chain of command on
44:08the English side. King Edward himself fought bravely as an ordinary knight while his officers
44:14wrangled and argued amongst themselves. Not only was Bruce able to control his army, he was also
44:21able to judge when best to commit his reserves to the fighting. In short, King Robert and his
44:28army won the Battle of Bannockburn because they deserved to.
44:34Bannockburn was undoubtedly a colossal victory. There's no question about it. Probably the most
44:40spectacular victory in Scottish history. As such, it's never been forgotten by certain sections of
44:45the Scottish community. The Scottish National Party, for example, still holds annual rallies
44:51at Bannockburn. I suppose it's seen as a kind of a shrine of Scottish independence or whatever.
44:59But much more important in the longer term was Bruce's propaganda department. They wished above
45:07all to get Bruce's title recognised. So what the Scots did, the nobles, barons, freeholders and the
45:13community of the realm of Scotland, is to organise a campaign to get Bruce's title recognised.
45:19In 1320, they sent a letter to the Pope of the day,
45:25really asking the Pope to put pressure on the English King to recognise Bruce's title.
45:31In the famous Declaration of our Broth, the Bruce's part in the struggle is fulsomely
45:37acknowledged. But the declaration clearly states that if he had failed his people,
45:42they would instantly strive to expel him as our enemy and the betrayer of his own rights and ours.
45:50And we would choose another king to rule over us who would be equal to the task of defence.
45:56That is the earliest statement of the contractual theory of monarchy in European history.
46:01They're saying the king is answerable to his subjects. The king is answerable to the laws in
46:05exactly the same way that the subjects are answerable to the laws. And what you have there
46:10is a massive breakthrough in constitutional terms. We all take these matters for granted now.
46:15The next section of the Declaration of our Broth goes on to say, and this is quoted all over the
46:21place, but it's still good. It's very moving. For so long as a hundred of us remain alive,
46:26we shall never surrender. It is not for riches, nor for glory, nor for honours that we fight,
46:31but for freedom alone, which no honest man will lose, but with life itself.
46:36And if people later on say that Edward was the hammer of the Scots, I'm sorry, I can't accept it.
46:43I think the Scots responded to Edward, there's no question about that,
46:48but I think they hammered themselves into a nation.
46:53450 years later, the great Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote his famous ballad Scots Wahey
47:00in honour of the victory at Bannockburn. It is still sung today.
47:31Woh for Scotland's king and law, freedom's sword will strongly draw,
47:51free man stand or free man fall, let him follow me.