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    Bannockburn 1314: Robert Bruce’s great victory
    Bannockburn 1314: Robert Bruce’s great victory
    Bannockburn 1314: Robert Bruce’s great victory
    Ebook210 pages1 hour

    Bannockburn 1314: Robert Bruce’s great victory

    By Peter Armstrong and Graham Turner

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    About this ebook

    Pete Armstrong's illustrated account of the Battle of Bannockburn, a pivotal campaign in the First War of Scottish Independence.

    Bannockburn was the climax of the career of King Robert the Bruce. In 1307 King Edward I of England, 'The Hammer of the Scots' and nemesis of William Wallace, died and his son, Edward II, was not from the same mould.

    Idle and apathetic, he allowed the Scots the chance to recover from the grievous punishment inflicted upon them. By 1314 Bruce had captured every major English-held castle bar Stirling and Edward II took an army north to subdue the Scots.

    Pete Armstrong's account of this battle culminates at the decisive battle of Bannockburn that finally won Scotland her independence.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateSep 20, 2012
    ISBN9781782004196
    Bannockburn 1314: Robert Bruce’s great victory
    Author

    Peter Armstrong

    Peter Armstrong was born in Blaydon on Tyne in 1957. He trained as a psychiatric nurse and, more recently, has worked as a cognitive therapist. He lives in Northumberland with his wife and two children.

    Read more from Peter Armstrong

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      Book preview

      Bannockburn 1314 - Peter Armstrong

      Campaign • 102

      Bannockburn 1314

      Robert Bruce’s great victory

      Pete Armstrong • Illustrated by Graham Turner

      Series editor Lee Johnson • Consultant editor David G Chandler

      CONTENTS

      ORIGINS OF THE CAMPAIGN

      Robert Bruce Recovers his Kingdom, 1307–1314

      CHRONOLOGY

      OPPOSING COMMANDERS

      The English Commanders • The Scottish Commanders

      OPPOSING ARMIES

      The English Army of 1314 • The Scottish Army of 1314

      OPPOSING PLANS

      English Plans • Scottish Plans

      THE CAMPAIGN

      The Siege of Stirling Castle • Edward II marches North, 17–22 June 1314

      ORDERS OF BATTLE

      The English Army • The Scottish Army

      THE BATTLE OF BANNOCKBURN

      Sunday 23 June 1314 – First Moves • The Site of the Battle

      Dawn, Monday 24 June 1314 – The Scots Attack

      Midmorning – The English defeated

      AFTERMATH

      The Reckoning – captives and casualties • Reasons for the English defeat

      Results of the Battle – The long war continues 1314–28

      Military Tactics after Bannockburn

      APPENDIX

      Effigies, tombs and monuments of those who fought at Bannockburn

      SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

      ORIGINS OF THE CAMPAIGN

      On a stormy night in 1286, Alexander III of Scotland set out to ride to his manor of Kinghorn to be with his new wife, the beautiful Yolande de Dreux. In the darkness his horse stumbled on a cliff-top path and at dawn he was found with a broken neck at the foot of the cliffs. Scotland was without a king and the golden age of peace and prosperity that Scotland had enjoyed under Alexander was drawing to a close. Alexander’s first wife Margaret, daughter of Henry III of England, died in 1275 having borne three children, two sons and a daughter, who were all dead by 1284, leaving the succession in jeopardy. It had been hoped that Alexander’s marriage to the young French woman would produce a male heir to rectify the situation, instead, his sudden death left his sickly three-year-old granddaughter Margaret as heir. The child’s mother, the queen of Eric II of Norway, died in 1283 giving birth to Margaret, ‘The Maid of Norway’, last of the royal house of Canmore. A council of regency consisting of six guardians of the realm was appointed to administer Scotland in the name of little Queen Margaret in far away Norway.

      The lion rampant of Scotland (see flag above) was first adopted by William I, known as ‘The Lion’ (1143–1214). A lion rampant within a bordure of fleurs-de-lis appears during the reign of his son, Alexander II (1214–1249). The lion rampant within a double tressure flory counter-flory was first used in the Great Seal of Alexander III in 1251. (author’s drawing)

      In England, King Edward I, as strong and able a king as ever ruled Scotland’s powerful southern neighbour, pondered the implications of the death of his brother-in-law. He realised that the possibility of controlling Scotland, as he did Wales and Ireland, was within his grasp and that would make him ruler of the British Isles. He proposed a marriage between his two-year-old son, Edward of Caernarvon, and the Maid of Norway. The Scots assented warily, but insisted, through the terms of the treaty of Birgham, that though there was to be a union of the two crowns, the realm of Scotland was to continue as an entirely separate and independent kingdom. The Maid of Norway set sail for Scotland but became ill on the voyage and died soon after landing in Orkney, leaving the question of the Scottish succession open again.

      There was no shortage of claimants to the Crown of Scotland. Two of them – John Balliol and Robert Bruce, 5th Lord of Annandale, known as the ‘Competitor’ – were descended from the Scottish King David I’s grandson, David, Earl of Huntingdon. The Scots asked Edward I to arbitrate between the 14 ‘competitors’ for the vacant throne. At Berwick in November 1292 he decided in favour of John Balliol, who was connected to the powerful Comyn family, bitter rivals of the Bruces. King John rendered homage to Edward I for his kingdom and was subsequently repeatedly humiliated by him as he sought to underline his dominance over the Scots. By 1295 the exasperated Scots lords had had enough, and they persuaded Balliol to renounce his allegiance to the English King and sign a treaty with the French that initiated the auld alliance. Predictably, Edward invaded Scotland the following year and crushed the ineptly led Scots at the battle of Dunbar. John Balliol surrendered his kingdom and as a final indignity Edward tore the Royal Arms from his surcoat before despatching him to the Tower of London; thus the unfortunate Balliol earned the nickname ‘Toom Tabard’ (empty coat).

      Statue of William Wallace, made for the Earl of Buchan by John Smith in 1814. It stands in the Scottish Borders not far from the Kirk o’ the Forest in Selkirk where Wallace was elected Guardian of Scotland.

      Wallace’s Rebellion

      At the end of 1296 Edward returned south, taking the Stone of Destiny from Scone with him to Westminster and leaving his well-garrisoned northern conquest in the hands of the Earl of Surrey. Disturbances broke out almost immediately, and in May 1297 William Wallace murdered the English Sheriff of Lanark, an act that propelled Wallace into the spotlight of Scottish history and sparked open rebellion in the land. In September, at Stirling Bridge, Wallace defeated an English force under Surrey and further fanned the flames of revolt in Scotland. His victory resulted in his elevation to the guardianship of the realm and he became effectively, with the support of the people and consent of the church, ruler of Scotland. In 1298 Edward, in vengeful mood, invaded Scotland with a powerful army to hammer the Scots into submission and decisively defeated Wallace at the battle of Falkirk. He resigned the guardianship and disappeared from the pages of history until 1305, when he was betrayed and captured. After a show trial in London he was convicted of treason and dragged to Smithfield, where he was publicly hanged, drawn and quartered.

      ‘King Hobbe’

      Robert Bruce could trace his ancestry back beyond Adam Bruce, who came to England with William the Conqueror, to Lodver, the 10th-century Norse Earl of Orkney. Adam’s eldest son was the first to be named Robert Bruce and he became one of the great magnates of northern England, with widespread lands in Yorkshire. In 1124 David I, who was his feudal overlord in England, succeeded to the Scottish throne. He wanted to transform Scotland from a backward Celtic society into a modern European state and encouraged Anglo-Norman settlement north of the Border. One of his first acts in pursuance of this policy was to grant his vassal, Robert Bruce, the vast estates of the lordship of Annandale. Thus the Bruces became one of the most powerful families in Scotland.

      An early 14th-century knight armed in his finery for the joust. Such extravagant clothing would have been replaced with more practical garb for a campaign in Scotland. (author’s drawing)

      Early 14th-century Helmets. 1. Reconstruction of the helm from the brass of Sir R. de Trumpington c.1289. 2a, 2b. Helm c.1300, probably German, in the Castel San Angelo, Rome. Early 14th-century armour was similar throughout Europe, and Scotland relied heavily on imported arms. (author’s drawing)

      The loyalties and allegiances of Robert Bruce in the years up to 1306 were shifting and uncertain. In company with many other Scots, he supported Edward I on the outbreak of war in 1296. Bruce’s stance was determined partly because the patriotic resistance to Edward was led by the Comyns, bitter rivals of the Bruces for power in Scotland, and because Bruce saw in Edward his best hope of securing the kingship, which he believed to be his by right. Yet in 1298 Bruce, perhaps not entirely for patriotic motives, became joint Guardian of Scotland together with John the ‘Red Comyn’ when Wallace resigned the guardianship after the disaster of Falkirk. After a violent quarrel with Comyn, Bruce reverted to his English allegiance and was

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