Scottish Independence: The Battle of Bannockburn Pt 1

England's Edward I had styled himself the Hammer of the Scots with good reason. The intervening decades had brought Scottish morale to an all time low. There was as much a psychological war to fight, as any on the battlefield.

Many ordinary Scots just wanted to give up. Accepting their vassal status in return for peace.

Edward I was now dead. But his son Edward II could call upon the same nobles and their armies; aged veterans of his father's campaigns, riding alongside sons eager to match their sires in valor and glory.

Robert the Bruce could not command the numbers, nor rely upon the resources, of his battle-hardened overlords in the south. The English would outnumber the Scots, at least three to one (maybe more), on the Battlefield of Bannockburn.

Then too was a personal level, whose pressures cannot be understated. Imagine a man, any man, whose wife, daughter and sisters had all been held hostage by the enemy for seven long years. Their lives and continuing good treatment rely upon his submission. Their execution and torture could easily result from his lack of compliance; a punishment for his rebellion.

Nor were these idle threats. Three of Robert's brothers had been captured by the English, during earlier bids for Scottish independence. Neil, Thomas and Alexander Bruce had all been hanged, drawn and quartered. It was only a veneer of chivalry which had saved the women.

As a husband, father and brother, Robert's instincts must have been to race into England and rescue them all. He had to have day-dreamed of such heroics. But as a statesman, he had a responsibility for his country's freedom. Even if much of the population sneered or feared such attempts.

The example of his brothers taught him quite eloquently his own Fate, if he should be captured too.

Robert Bruce was a human being, and that was what made him a hero.

Stirling Castle was (and presumably still is) notoriously difficult to storm with Medieval warfare. This was the scene of William Wallace's famous victory - depicted quite romantically in the movie Braveheart - and that had been less than two decades before.

The narrow approach meant that a small fighting band could hold off a huge army, as the invaders were forced to enter practically in single-file.

However, Wallace's campaign had ultimately failed. It was the English who held Stirling Castle now. Robert the Bruce faced precisely the same challenge, which had undone Edward I there in 1297. But unlike the English, Bruce had no intention of storming the castle. He was much too clever for that, opting always for intelligence over brute force.

By March 1314, Bruce had captured every other major fortress in Scotland largely by stealth. His men had swam across the moat under cover of darkness to take Perth Castle, silently climbing rope ladders to gain entrance. In Linlithgow, eight Scottish warriors had hidden inside the hay piled onto a wagon. Once inside the castle, they'd emerged fighting and opened the doors to the rest.

The greatest prize of all, Edinburgh Castle, had been seized after Bruce's nephew had engaged a local peasant in conversation. He'd learned of a secret passageway hidden in the craggy rock-face upon which the capital's fortress was perched.

While Bruce's main force created a diversion at the main gate, thirty men had been led quietly up the track. They had the gates open and the main defenses destroyed, before the English even knew they were there.

So now it was the turn of Stirling. Bruce sent his brother, Edward Bruce, to see what could be done. If all else failed, then the Scots would initiate a siege. 

They would starve out the garrison, until its English commander, Sir Philip Mowbray, surrendered. Then the hierarchy and knights within would be ransomed for Scottish prisoners held in England.

Only Robert the Bruce had miscalculated on one key point. His little brother Edward really hated sieges. He much preferred the adrenaline and action of a battlefield to sitting twiddling his thumbs on a hillside for weeks on end.

Edward the Bruce found no cunning tactic to take Stirling Castle, so it was all looking dangerously like him initiating a siege. Instead he called Mowbray to parley with him, and a deal was struck. 

The Scots wouldn't interfere with supplies coming in and out of the garrison. But if, in two months' time, no English force had come to relieve the castle, then Mowbray would surrender it without bloodshed to the Bruce.

It seemed fair enough to Mowbray, who swore an oath on his honor that he'd uphold his end of the bargain; while promptly sending a messenger south to Edward II of England. 

Edward Bruce got to relax without the tedium of watching a castle, but his elder brother was livid. Robert Bruce had reached this far avoiding a pitched battle where possible, now one seemed utterly inevitable.

Edward II would answer that call. All the Bruce could do was gather in the scant resources to hand, issue an ultimatum to every Scot sitting on the fence in a bid to boost his troops and pick out a battle site.

It was a landscape which could be exploited by highly disciplined infantry. Marching troops armed with spears and pikes, charging into the melee. Edward II could potentially call upon tens of thousands of them. Robert the Bruce had just 6,000 men on the day, and that after two months of hard persuasion.

Even if he could attract the Highlanders to his banner, this was no battleground for them. They preferred the mountains, which was much more conducive to their fearsome highland charge. This was a battle site for Lowland militia. Bruce just didn't have the numbers.

It's quite telling that his first concern, when placing his army of Scottish freedom fighters, was concealing their movements and facilitating their retreat.

Robert the Bruce positioned his own people amongst the ancient woodland, creating a camp in Tor Wood from as early as May 1314 to ensure he held onto that ground. The trees provided cover to frustrate English scouts, as well as a sheltered escape route should the battle not go their way.

Bruce had no reason to believe that it would. Bannockburn had all the hallmarks of a disaster for the Scots, until they actually fought it.

Having carefully positioned his own people, Bruce then turned his attention to what advantages could be wrought from controlling the movements of the English side.

He correctly guessed that Edward II's forces would arrive via the Roman road, which had been built by much earlier erstwhile invaders. Those looking for terrible omens might note that the road left behind by the Roman legions cut straight through Bannockburn. But they may also take heart in the fact that Rome had not been able to rule Scotland. Hadrian's Wall was testimony to that.

Yet that road remained the most direct route from the south to Stirling, sturdy enough still to transport an army. Edward did take it.

Robert Bruce's surveillance also noted that the burn wasn't the only water source around. Small tributaries fed into it, which the large English army would wish to avoid for fear of quite literally coming bogged down.

Bruce ordered ranks of pits to be dug, each three feet deep and lined with brush. They would work in the same way as a modern day minefield, hobbling horses and disrupting infantry which were foolish enough to traverse over them.

Those 'pots' were used in two ways. The first defensively, protecting the Scottish flank, and the second to force the English to march onto the 'carse' - the boggiest part of the field around Bannockburn.

The Scots might be out-numbered and without an arsenal fit to take on such an army, but they could now only be attacked from one direction, and that way saw a battle site effectively booby-trapped in the Scottish favor.