Scottish Spearmen,1298–1314: An Answer to Cavalry

I. Background

Prior to the Wars of Independence the Scottish army included two main elements. The first performed ‘free service’ for a maximum period of 40 days a year as an obligation tied to particular grants of land, as was also the case in contemporary England. In many cases this service was ‘knight service’, the provision of a specified number of heavily armed horsemen, often only one. In some cases only a fraction, for instance a half or a third, of the service of a knight was required, probably meaning in practice that the service was provided free for the appropriate fraction of 40 days. ² Sometimes the service was for a serjeant, or mounted man less well armed than a knight, or else for an archer. Only a small fraction of the total number of charters of infeftment that would have been issued in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries can be traced, and it is therefore difficult to come up with a reliable figure for the number of mounted warriors available at any one time to fight in a national army. Matthew Paris reckoned that there were 1000 in Alexander II’s army in 1244, which may not be too far off the mark, though we have to doubt his figure of 100,000 accompanying footmen. ³

Secondly, there were those who provided service in the common army, or Scottish service, as it was known north of the Forth. This was an age-old military requirement on the able-bodied (defined at a later date as those between 16 and 60 years of age), like the fyrd in England. ⁴ This service was really just for defensive purposes, though that concept was already being stretched prior to the Wars of Independence, for example in 1244 when Alexander II took his army to Ponteland in Northumberland when involved in a dispute with Henry III of England. The mustering of the common army appears to have involved a quota system in which agreed numbers of men could be called out from units of land such as davochs and ouncelands. ⁵

While the Scottish nobility would no doubt have seen proficiency in riding and handling weapons as a requirement, and undertaken appropriate training and exercises, there is no information on training for those who fought on foot, and there was no apparent provision for drilling men in their units prior to their appearance on the field of battle. ⁶

There is little information prior to the fourteenth century on how the Scottish foot were armed and deployed. English accounts of the battle of the Standard, fought in 1138 near Northallerton in Yorkshire between David I and northern English forces, provides the information that the Scottish army included armed men, knights and archers, just as the English forces. The knights on both sides mostly dismounted and fought on foot. King David also had a sizeable contingent of Galwegians who insisted on making the first attack on the enemy, one that failed, and largely contributed to the Scottish defeat. The Galwegians are described as being ‘unarmed’, that is lacking in armour, and it was probably specifically their weapons that were contemptuously dismissed as calf-skin shields and spears of fragile wood with blunted iron heads. ⁷

We have to move forward to 1263 to get another detailed picture of the Scottish foot in action, in a pitched battle on the coast of Ayrshire at Largs against men from King Hakon of Norway’s invasion fleet. A Scandinavian source describes a great Scottish army of foot-soldiers, well equipped with weapons, mostly bows and Irish axes. The Scots attacked hard and threw stones. It is probable that this was a spontaneous adaptation to local circumstances, there being a copious supply of shingle on the beach. They would have been lobbed by hand rather than from slings. The ineffectiveness of the knightly contribution is suggested by the story of the one Scottish knight charging through the Norwegian lines and being cut down. ⁸

The first pitched battle of the Wars of Independence took place near Dunbar on 27 April 1296. The Scots would have been well aware of the nature of the forces that the English could deploy against them, including footmen drawn from England, Wales, and Ireland, mostly armed with bows. ⁹ The main strength of English armies, however, was their heavy cavalry – men in armour with spears and swords mounted on large ‘covered’ or armoured horses. ¹⁰ What is more, many of the men that came to Scotland to fight had considerable experience in Edward I’s wars in Wales.

The English chronicler Walter of Guisborough described the Scottish army at Dunbar as consisting of 1500 horse and 40,000 foot. ¹¹ The figure for the foot, as we will show below, is an obvious exaggeration, the number of horse probably so. This army, however, must have represented the full power of the kingdom and have been mustered as a result of summoning all those required to do free service and Scottish service. The foot contingents had an essential role in raiding Cumbria that March, no doubt spreading out over the countryside to maximize the looting and burning that was intended to distract Edward I from besieging Berwick-upon-Tweed. This strategy failed, and the Scottish commanders eventually decided to opt for more direct action against the English who had now moved on to besiege Dunbar Castle.

When it came to the pitched battle, the noble commanders were quick to deploy their horse but do not seem to have had any adequate plans for the foot, or strategy for coordinating the two. The battle was essentially a cavalry engagement, with the Scottish horse opposed by an English advance guard under the Earl Warenne. The Scots, having committed themselves to an attack, were easily dispersed and driven off, and some of the leaders, ironically, sought shelter in Dunbar Castle. The fate of the foot, thus abandoned, is not known, but the English boast that 10,000 Scots died on the battlefield suggests it was severely handled. ¹² This figure represents a quarter of the Scottish force on the basis of Walter of Guisborough’s figures. It is in line with a modern historian’s assessment that the defeated side in a medieval battle generally lost between 20% and 50% of its total force. ¹³

Dunbar was clearly not an auspicious start in a long and bloody struggle. In hindsight, it was an ending as well. Since the reign of David I (1124–53) the creation and maintenance of a strong force of knights had been a key military imperative. ¹⁴ The knights throughout European society were the military elite that won battles. We are not aware of many opportunities in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries for Scottish knights to build up extensive experience on campaign and in set-piece battles, and hard evidence for their effectiveness on any occasion in this period is lacking. Perhaps we should not be surprised that their performance at Dunbar was feeble. It was this final failure of a military system and the tactics associated with it that provided an opportunity for new leaders to think of alternative ways of creating a fighting force that could win battles.

II. Failure under William Wallace

The leader that came to the fore after the disaster at Dunbar was, remarkably, not a great nobleman but William Wallace, the younger son of a minor landholder. To him must go the credit of first creating large units of spearmen. Such units are first recorded at the battle of Falkirk in 1298. We do not know if the men were all, or exclusively, armed with spears. The important point is that there were enough spears for enemy forces to perceive that they were the challenge that they had to overcome. Well-disciplined spearmen in formation offered a much greater threat to an attacking force than a mixed horde wielding a variety of axes, swords, bows, and spears.

Falkirk was a Scottish disaster (of which more below), and military historians have as a result failed to give due attention to Wallace’s innovation. Instead interest has focused on the battle of Courtrai (in modern-day Belgium) in 1302, at which an army of Flemings on foot, armed with spears and other weapons, famously routed the mounted knights of France. ¹⁵ The battle of Falkirk would probably have been known to some of the Flemings, but could hardly have been viewed as an inspiration. Both the Scots and the Flemings perceived that they had to find an effective way of defeating elite forces of heavily armed horsemen, and the idea that large formations of footmen armed with spears could do this had probably been discussed in European circles for years prior to 1298. The Scots had trading links with northern Europe, links which Wallace was keen to open up again in the aftermath of his victory at Stirling Bridge on 11 September 1297, as exemplified by the letter sent to Lübeck requesting a resumption of trade. ¹⁶ Such contacts might have provided the opportunity for the transmission of ideas on how to fight cavalry.

In ascribing Wallace’s innovatory deployment of spearmen in battle to 1298 we are deliberately dismissing any assumption that the army led by Wallace and Andrew Murray to a famous victory at Stirling Bridge on 11 September in the preceding year also consisted of units of spearmen. The English army could have been as strong as 300 cavalry and 10,000 footmen. ¹⁷ There are no reliable numbers for the Scots or contemporary accounts of how they were armed at Stirling Bridge, ¹⁸ but the tactics adopted by Wallace and Murray would not seem to have been possible with large formations of spearmen. The main considerations in understanding the development of that battle are, first, that the English commanders must have perceived that there was space and time to get their army across Stirling Bridge to deal with an enemy force some distance from them, and, second, that the Scottish army must have been mobile and quick enough to move in and attack the English before they could array all their forces on the other bank of the Forth. Timing and speed were everything in order to catch the English after they were fully committed to the crossing but before they could deploy all their forces properly. Units of spearmen have to maintain their formation to be effective and therefore have to move slowly and deliberately. Wallace’s and Murray’s tactics might have been effective only because their forces could run and fight as individuals armed with axes, swords, and bows. ¹⁹

If this interpretation is right, Wallace may only have created a new type of fighting force in the aftermath of success at Stirling Bridge when – and this may be a key point – Murray (presumed dead) was no longer around. Wallace could, of course, have been developing his ideas before he joined his force with Murray’s. The tactics employed at Stirling Bridge may largely have been those of Murray, the senior partner in terms of status if not in age, with a record of military campaigning which was probably more impressive than Wallace’s. ²⁰ Little is known for sure of Wallace’s military career prior to Stirling Bridge except that in July 1297 he was holding out against English authority in the forest of Selkirk with a large company. ²¹

A comprehensive command structure would have been essential to control and manoeuvre large units of spearmen, and an account of what Wallace devised has come down to us, though only in an early fifteenth-century source, Bower’s Scotichronicon. It describes how Wallace had one man in every group of five chosen as commander over the other four. Similarly there were commanders of units of 10, 20, and so on up to 1000 and beyond, creating a unified command structure with Wallace himself at the apex of the pyramid. ²² There is no evidence for subunits and officers like this prior to Wallace, and no reason to think that contemporaries would have perceived any need for such a complex system. Bower may well have been aware of discussions in his own day identifying a need for junior officers – vinteners, leaders of 20 men. This is reflected in an act of parliament of 1430. ²³ He may simply have been projecting this requirement back in time to Wallace, and have embroidered its complexity in the process. Or, if he really was reporting, no matter how inaccurately, an innovation made by Wallace, then we might consider that he copied it from the English.

The armies of Edward I are known to have been grouped into units of 100 and smaller units of 20, ²⁴ and many Scots had served in these armies, including a group of nobles forced to go and serve in Flanders against the King of France in 1297. They would have been home in time to join their compatriots at Falkirk. ²⁵ Wallace himself may have been familiar with the English command structure, especially if he was the thief of that name accused of having been in the company of Matthew of York, a clerk serving in the English army, when the latter made off with beer from a house in Perth on 14 June 1296. ²⁶ However this record is interpreted, the Wallace in question was consorting with English army personnel.

If we have the right Wallace here, he might also have picked up information on the English campaigns in Wales in the preceding few years, particularly how Madog ap Llewelyn with a force of spearmen had been trapped at Maes Moydog in Powys in 1295 and had had his army destroyed by English cavalry in combination with crossbowmen and archers. Wallace would at least have known what to expect. ²⁷

It was incumbent on each fighting man to provide his own weapons. If there were not enough spears available at relatively short notice, quantities could have been acquired abroad as a result of the opening up of links with trading partners on the Continent. Were spears stockpiled and dished out to the men when they mustered prior to the battle of Falkirk? There are no clues in contemporary documents.

There is a particular problem with the terminology for spears. Spears might be for throwing (javelins), and used on foot or by cavalry (lances). The word normally used in Latin sources is lancea, which could be either a lance or a spear and might therefore only relate to the deployment of cavalry rather than foot-soldiers. In recent times lancea has sometimes been rendered in English as pike, and lancearius as pikeman. ²⁸ This is an unfortunate anachronism since pikes did not appear in Scotland until the late fifteenth century. They were a type of spear of great length, defined at the time as at least five and a half or six ells in length (c.5.2 m or 5.6 m). ²⁹

No complete spears survive from the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century anywhere in Europe, but weapons experts have tended to assume that those used by foot-soldiers would have been about one and a quarter times the height of a man. ³⁰ This hardly seems a fitting length for opposing heavy horse with any confidence. Walter of Guisborough’s account of the battle of Falkirk seems to indicate that the Scots had their spears sloping outwards to form a protective barrier like a dense wood (‘cum lanceis obliquatis et in modum silue condense’). ³¹ Although not explicitly stated, it can reasonably be assumed that this arrangement would have been effective only if the spear butts were on, or in, the ground. That is how the Welsh deployed their spears in 1295 at Maes Moydog against English cavalry, and the Flemings against French cavalry at Courtrai. ³² This might suggest that the spears were at least 3 m to 4 m in overall length. A useful comparison can also be made with a scene from the battle of Courtrai carved on the ‘Courtrai Chest’ in New College, Oxford, showing the front rank of the Flemish footmen with spears, butt on the ground, sloping out to fend off the French knights. ³³ The only detailed description of Scottish medieval spears is included in The Brut, an English chronicle first printed in 1480. It describes how there were 500 spears in store in Dunfermline Abbey in 1332 – great staffs of fine oak with long ‘pikes’ (heads or tips) of iron and steel. ³⁴

It is supposed by weapons experts that the lances used at this time by cavalry were as much as 5 m in length, with relatively thick shafts to provide a better grip. ³⁵ It is an intriguing possibility that Wallace, and later Robert Bruce, actually encouraged the foot to fight with such lances. Some, more used to fighting on horse, would have had them anyway, and a dual-purpose spear for use on foot and horseback would have made sense.

The army that fought at Falkirk was a national one raised by Wallace as guardian of the realm. Whatever systems had been in place beforehand for calling men out to fight must still have remained reasonably intact. The army that materialized had relatively small forces of horse and archers, and four units of spearmen. Its overall size is difficult to gauge. G.W.S. Barrow has suggested that each unit of foot may have contained as many as 1000 men, hardly more than 2000 men, ³⁶ but why not 5000, which must have been the minimum size of the units similarly armed with pikes at Pinkie in 1547? At Falkirk the Scots were opposed by a large English army. Edward I had raised almost 26,000 men plus 3,000 cavalry, ³⁷ and early apologists for the Scottish defeat did not put it down to any disparity in size between the armies, but, primarily, the precipitate flight of the party of the nobles led by the Comyns. ³⁸

Wallace drew his army out on a piece of rising ground at Falkirk, fronted by a boggy area (Figure 1a). There has been no consensus in recent times as to the location of the battlefield, with two sites, one to the north of Falkirk and the other to the south at Callander, being particularly favoured. ³⁹ Guisborough describes how his spearmen were placed in four circular formations, their spears thrusting out obliquely in all directions. These formations are normally now called schiltrums, although the term often used in contemporary Latin sources is turma. ⁴⁰ According to the Annales Angliae et Scotiae, possibly the work of William Rishanger, Wallace constructed a fence between his army and the English. It was of long stakes fixed in the ground and bound together with ropes and cords. ⁴¹ The sense of both of these sources is that these were stationary, fortified units that were not going to take the offensive. The archers were placed in the spaces between the formations, with the cavalry positioned behind.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Diagrams, not to scale, of the battles of (a) Falkirk, 1298; (b) Courtrai, 1302; (c) Loudoun Hill, 1307; and (d) Bannockburn, 1314, as Bruce intended.

Wallace’s lack of confidence in the readiness of his army for battle is all too clear. Since he could not trust his formations of spearmen to manoeuvre successfully on the battlefield without disintegrating, he was obliged to resort to the expedient of forming them as stationary units hemmed in by a fence of spears. ⁴² Although the spearmen withstood the attacks of the English cavalry for some time, they got little support from their own horse and archers, the former having precipitately fled, and the archers having been mowed down. This left the field free for King Edward to bring up his archers and crossbowmen to rain missiles onto the Scottish foot. It was only a matter of time before there were not enough men in the formations to fill the gaps, and the English cavalry could ride in and wreak a terrible slaughter. ⁴³

III. Success under King Robert Bruce

Our focus on Bruce is deliberately narrow and excludes a consideration of his overall, very successful, strategy for war, and ultimately peace.

Wallace was discredited as a leader after Falkirk, but the Scots did not give up their struggle. Much was made of an engagement at Roslin on 24 February 1303 in which John Comyn and Simon Fraser defeated an English force led by Sir John Segrave in a surprise attack. Both armies appear to have been quite small and composed of mounted troops. ⁴⁴ By 1305, however, the independence of Scotland had been lost, and Robert Bruce’s rising the following year seemed a rash adventure with little support and even less hope of success. Bruce had himself made king at Scone on 25 March and within weeks had to defend his title.

Bruce’s early experiences as a royal general were disastrous. At Methven, in Perthshire, on 19 June he was almost taken by surprise by a cavalry force led by Aymer de Valence. Some of Bruce’s army was mounted, and according to Barbour fought boldly and effectively. It was only when the ‘lesser folk’ gave ground that defeat overtook the whole army and Bruce ordered a general retreat. ⁴⁵ At Dalry in Argyll, shortly afterwards, Bruce’s force, perhaps now a much smaller one and mostly mounted, was opposed by the forces of John MacDougall, Lord of Lorn, fighting on foot with axes. The king was obliged to make a tactical retreat. ⁴⁶

With military disasters behind him and only limited support, Bruce could either have given up or bided his time until the political circumstances turned in his favour. Since he did neither, but tried again on the field of battle, we must believe that he was inspired by a vision or understanding of how he could succeed. An attempt at ambushing an English force in Glentrool in April was apparently not a great success. ⁴⁷ In the following May, with an army of spearmen, he fought Aymer de Valence at Loudoun Hill in Ayrshire. English sources are not particularly helpful for this event. Guisborough merely records that Valence was put to flight but suffered few casualties. ⁴⁸ The Scalacronica of Sir Thomas Gray locates the battle at Loudoun Hill and adds that the defeated Valence was pursued by Bruce to the castle of Ayr. ⁴⁹

The main account of the battle, including the information about spearmen, comes from John Barbour’s epic poem about King Robert, written in the 1370s. Barbour was only born about 1330 but seems to have used a collection of tales for Bruce’s adventures in the years from 1306 to 1308. ⁵⁰ Two recent authorities, largely because there was no obvious shift in the balance of power in its aftermath, and because Bruce remained vulnerable to attack, have dismissed Loudoun Hill as lacking in importance. ⁵¹ As a demonstration, however, that Bruce could win pitched battles against the English it was a crucial turning point for Bruce himself and his supporters, and a sign for enemies and potential friends elsewhere in Scotland. The news of how a force of footmen had defeated a force of English cavalry would have spread like wildfire and encouraged those who wished Bruce well but had not believed that effective resistance to the English was possible. Without this success the king would in all probability have lost the support of even Sir James Douglas, remembered as one of his most loyal supporters but even then putting out feelers to the English about changing sides. ⁵²

Barbour has Bruce, in true chivalric fashion, respond to a challenge from Valence to await him at Loudoun Hill for a battle on 10 May. That we may happily dismiss as a literary embellishment, but that Bruce visited Loudoun Hill days beforehand and selected exactly where he intended to fight is believable. There is a myth still current that he always avoided battle and that even Bannockburn was a mistake forced upon him by the rashness of his brother Edward in making an agreement with the commander of Stirling Castle to submit unless relieved by an English army, a challenge that could not be ignored by the English king. ⁵³ Other examples of King Robert seeking a fight can be found before and after Bannockburn. At Ben Cruachan in Argyll in 1308 he saw how he could circumvent a poorly prepared ambush and turn the tables on John of Lorn. ⁵⁴ At Byland, Yorkshire, in 1322 he launched a frontal attack up a hill against a considerable force led by the Earl of Richmond. ⁵⁵

Bruce was well aware that Sir Aymer was the most obvious threat and could reasonably have anticipated his approach from Bothwell Castle on a route approximating to the line of the present-day A728 and A71, approaching Loudoun Hill from the east. The hill, 1036 feet (316 m) high, is a prominent landmark, adjacent to the road, a good viewpoint from which to spy the approach of an enemy force. ⁵⁶

A.A.M. Duncan, however, has recently argued that Valence approached the battle from the west. He bases his hypothesis on Barbour’s description of how Bruce watched the approach of Valence’s army from Little Loudoun, which he identified as being about 5 miles or 9 kilometres west of Loudoun Hill. Such a scenario suits Duncan’s hypothesis that Valence must have started from Ayr rather than Bothwell, largely since Gray’s Scalacronica has Bruce chase the defeated Valence to Ayr, and he can construct a plausible hypothesis to explain why Valence should have wished to make this journey – to accompany the bishop of Lichfield, treasurer of England, and provide protection for his money. ⁵⁷ Whether the English came from east or west may not actually matter very much in terms of the development of the battle and the tactics used by both sides.

Duncan appears mistaken in his identification and location of Little Loudoun, a property no longer extant. Blaeu’s map of Ayrshire, based on the survey by Timothy Pont about 1604, places it adjacent and to the west of Loudoun Hill, and it is located by the late nineteenth-century editor of Pont’s topography of Cunningham between Yondercroft and the farm of Loudoun Hill, that is, approximately National Grid reference NS600383. ⁵⁸ Local topography has changed considerably since 1307 as a result of agricultural activity and quarrying, but it seems likely that Bruce could have been able from Little Loudoun to spy Valence’s force approaching from the west, but not the east. The main point of Barbour’s narrative at this stage in the story is to tell how the king took his forces, fighting men as well as considerable numbers of non-combatants, away the evening before the engagement from his prepared battlefield. ⁵⁹ Little Loudoun was close enough to the field for the fighting men to get there quickly when the enemy was seen to be approaching, but also offered the opportunity for the baggage train and followers to remain undetected, or make good their escape, if things went wrong. ⁶⁰

In terms of pinpointing the exact location of the battle, all we have to go on is Barbour’s description of a dry, level field, flanked by great mosses. The road passed through this field with the mosses distant about an arrowshot on each side. A site answering to this description is not too difficult to locate, in the general vicinity of the farmstead of Allanton Plains. The battlefield symbol that appears on more recent Ordnance Survey maps at NS60883728 is arguably about half a mile too far to the west. Indeed a cairn said to mark a battle between Wallace and an English force in 1296, which used to be visible at NS61043712, might well be the right place. Wallace’s battle is known only from the late and unreliable The Wallace by Blind Harry, and seems to be an invention based on knowledge of Bruce’s victory. ⁶¹

Bruce must have been well aware that Valence’s force consisted solely of cavalry. Barbour describes how he prepared the battlefield prior to Valence’s approach by digging three lines of ditches at right angles to the road, an arrowshot apart and stretching all the way to the boggy ground on each side (Figure 1c). Gaps were left in the ditches, wide enough for 500 horsemen to ride through side by side. Bruce intended to make his stand there with his force of 600 men. There were three ditches, the second and third in case the enemy could not be held off at the first. Duncan observes that the upcast from the ditches would form a rampart. This may be what Barbour had in mind when he described the ditches as deep and high (‘holl and hey’). The most economical interpretation of the gaps is that there was one in each ditch. ⁶²

Barbour is clear it was his hero’s intention to restrict the breadth of the English attack. Immediately prior to the battle Bruce drew up his men in the gap in the foremost ditch, ready to oppose the English cavalry that rode towards them in close array, heads down and spears levelled. ⁶³ The Scottish army was thus protected from attack from back or sides by the ditches and mosses. There is no apparent basis for the reconstruction by the military historian Kelly DeVries with the Scots positioned behind all three ditches. ⁶⁴ Since Barbour believed the English force consisted of almost 3000 horsemen, his assessment that the gap in the ditches was wide enough for 500 implies that the horses would be so bunched together as to impede the force of their charge. If we, as we surely must, suppose that the Scottish line, even if only of one rank, stretched across the whole width of the gap, we must be suspicious of Barbour’s arithmetic. A gap wide enough for 500 horses sounds too wide, and we may doubt that Valence had nearly 3000 horsemen. That would have been a large force for an English army led by the king in person, never mind the force of one of the three English guardians. Perhaps 500 in total would be nearer the mark. ⁶⁵

Valence’s force was divided into two squadrons. He committed one to a frontal assault but it was driven off by the Scots, who used their spears to impale both the horses and riders. Spears are the only weapons mentioned. As the English attack faltered and turned, the Scots advanced. This must have been a well-disciplined, steady advance, aimed at preventing the English from regrouping, but not pursued out of reach of the safety provided by the ditches. It had the desired effect, and indeed the second English squadron was so unnerved that Valence could not prevent it from fleeing the field without striking a blow. ⁶⁶

In the years after Loudoun Hill, Bruce and his cause prospered greatly as he reduced English-held strongpoints and brought his countrymen to recognize his kingship. There were battles at Slioch, Inverurie (Old Meldrum or Barra Hill), and Ben Cruachan (or the Pass of Brander), but none of these is known to have developed into a major engagement with the sustained deployment of large units of spearmen. ⁶⁷

At the battle of Bannockburn on 23–4 June 1314, Bruce faced an English army led by Edward II in person. It is one of the best-documented battles of the medieval period and has been written about more than any other in Scotland. It is difficult to exaggerate its importance as a turning point in the Wars of Independence and as the key event all successive generations of Scots have looked back to with pride. ⁶⁸ It was a big battle in many ways, fought by two large armies over two days.

There has been a tendency among modern historians to minimize the size of the Scottish army at Bannockburn, perhaps to maximize its achievement in winning a famous victory. Professor Barrow has suggested in his influential and authoritative account that a force of between 7000 and 10,000 men would not be a bad guess. ⁶⁹ The English king had requested an army of over 20,000 foot, although it is supposed that rather fewer than that, perhaps about 15,000, opposed the Scots, along with 2500 cavalry. ⁷⁰

Medieval armies manifestly always included considerably fewer men than those available from the population at large, which in the case of Scotland in 1314 may have numbered in the region of 1 million. ⁷¹ The popularity and justice of the cause and the effectiveness of recruiting methods would often be factors that could make a significant difference to an army’s strength. Perhaps what determined size more than anything else were logistical matters such as the supply of food, the manoeuvrability of the units, and maintaining communications from one end of the army to the other. It would have been no easy matter, especially with an army composed of amateurs, for a general to give orders, for immediate effect, to carry out even such simple moves as stopping, turning, and setting off in a different direction. These armies, augmented on the march by large numbers of non-combatants, would have been strung out over long distances on even the better roads, and would have taken a long time to start and to arrive. Many commanders would have known from experience that armies became hopelessly unwieldy if they had more than a certain number of fighting men. The relevant number, I suggest, was about 20,000, on the basis of what we know about Scottish armies in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They were no more mechanized than those of Bruce, and the roads were probably no better. ⁷²

We have already suggested that Wallace’s army at Falkirk could have been 20,000 or more strong, and logistically the Scottish army at Bannockburn could have been of the same size. Barbour claims that the fighting men who mustered at the Torwood, about 6 miles south-south-east of Stirling, just prior to the battle, numbered 30,000 or more, apart from the porters, servants, and so on. ⁷³ An exaggeration this certainly appears to be, but perhaps not by as much as has been previously supposed.

We are more concerned here with the battle Bruce prepared to fight against the English, rather than the one that materialized. He was obviously well aware that the English would have cavalry as well as large forces of archers, and that he would have to prevent the latter destroying his spearmen. The first thing to note is the thoroughness of his preparations. Although it was probably then clear to him that an English army could not reach Stirling to relieve the castle much before the agreed date of 24 June, it would appear that he not only selected the battleground well in advance but gave himself plenty of time to train his men on how they would fight there. This is what may be deduced from a report to Edward II in late May that a large force of Scottish foot-soldiers was already positioning itself in strong places and bogs where it would be difficult to use cavalry, on the approaches to the castle. ⁷⁴ Trokelowe, perhaps with an understanding of how Bruce created his army, noted that the Scots who fought in the forthcoming battle were picked men. ⁷⁵

Barbour describes how the English encountered Bruce himself and his unit of men, consisting of the men from Carrick, Argyll, Kintyre, and the Isles, on Sunday 23 June in an open field in the New Park, beside the road to the castle. This was the route he expected his enemy to take. ⁷⁶ An English source adds the information that Bruce’s unit was at the entrance to a wood. ⁷⁷ Barbour indicates that there were three other units of foot, led by the Earl of Moray, Edward Bruce, and Walter Stewart, with James Douglas positioned elsewhere to cover against other eventualities and provide support where most needed. ⁷⁸ Bruce’s large following of non-combatants was sent to safety in a nearby valley.

The positions of all these units on the Sunday has been the subject of much debate among historians, though there is general agreement on the location of the New Park, a hunting reserve to the south of Stirling, and hence the approximate situation of Bruce’s unit. ⁷⁹ This would allow for it being placed at the ‘Borestone’, about 2 and a half miles to the south of Stirling Castle, where the National Trust for Scotland has erected a striking equestrian statue of the king. Bruce may have positioned himself to oppose the advance of the English here, near where the predecessor of the A872 crossed the Bannockburn. The line of the A872 was probably the only viable route northwards to Stirling for a large army, since it was on relatively high and dry ground. Edward II could be expected to join it after taking an old Roman road through the Torwood.

According to Barbour, Bruce had many holes, arranged like a honeycomb, dug on the Saturday evening in the open ground by the road his unit guarded (Figure 1d). Each pit was a foot in diameter, as deep as a man’s knee, and concealed by sticks and grass. This is backed up by the contemporary poem of the English Carmelite Robert Baston, who describes ‘concava cum palis’ (pits with stakes). ⁸⁰ The confused account by Geoffrey le Baker, which rolls events from the two days of battle into one, has the Scots dig ditches, 3 feet deep and 3 feet wide, covered with sticks and turf, in front of their battle lines. Many of the English horse fell into these ditches. ⁸¹ The well-informed Thomas Gray has the constable of Stirling Castle report to King Edward that the Scots had dug up the narrow paths through the woods. ⁸²

There are no sources relating specifically to the arming of Bruce’s unit, but it can be assumed that it did not include archers and cavalry, since early sources consistently identify these as separate forces. The same sources in describing the next day’s fighting mostly focus on the Scottish use of spears. ⁸³ The author of A Life of King Edward II notes how the Scots not only had spears in their hands but also axes by their sides. ⁸⁴ Trokelowe’s chronicle reports how the Scottish foot used their spears to devastating effect, but also describes them as being armed with sharp axes and shields. ⁸⁵

What all this demonstrates is that Bruce intended a reprise of his winning tactics at Loudoun Hill with men from the same regions, including, undoubtedly, many who had actually been with him in 1307. The pits were an updated version of the trenches, presumably arranged to protect his unit’s flanks and prevent a forceful cavalry attack on a broad front. Duncan suggests they may have been dug well in advance of Bruce’s position, but they would only have made sense if the road immediately beyond them was defended. ⁸⁶ Bruce must have hoped that the adjacent wood would provide shelter should he be attacked by archers.

The Loudoun Hill battle mark 2 never developed because King Edward was warned by the constable of Stirling Castle of what Bruce had in store. ⁸⁷ The English vanguard under the Earl of Gloucester did attempt to probe Bruce’s position but showed no heart to mount a serious challenge after Bruce famously killed Sir Henry de Boun in single combat. ⁸⁸ Meanwhile, another English unit under Lord Clifford made a circuit round the wood, keeping to ‘beaux chaumps’ (open fields or good ground), wrote Gray, beneath the kirk (not named) and to ‘the plane’, according to Barbour. ⁸⁹ The author’s preferred interpretation of this is that Clifford headed round the east side of the woods in the New Park towards St Ninian’s Church, and his progress was stopped by the appearance of a Scottish force under the Earl of Moray. ⁹⁰

Now something quite remarkable developed. Moray’s force on open ground, surrounded by a force of English horse, maintained its position for a considerable period of time, and eventually saw the English off. The English are known to have had losses, killed and captured. ⁹¹ Perhaps this was the turning point in persuading Bruce that his men were well enough trained and equipped to fight the English the next day on a field with no natural defences or ready escape routes. The Scottish units of spearmen did indeed go on to take the brunt of the English attack on Monday 24 June, and push their horsemen back in an increasingly demoralized and packed grouping, hemmed in by boggy ground and water courses.

The battle of Bannockburn was a resounding victory for the Scots and a shameful defeat for the English that resulted in a massive shift of power for several years. It took eight years after Bannockburn for the English again to send a large-scale invasion under the command of their king, Edward II, into Scotland. This time King Robert chose to avoid battle on his own territory but pursued the retreating English deep into England, and won a notable victory at Byland in Yorkshire on 20 October 1322. The Scots’ confidence was such that they attacked the English, who were dismounted, up a rocky escarpment. ⁹² This was the last major battle of Bruce’s reign in which he was present as the commander.

IV. How King Robert Won

Bruce was well aware that the main strength of the English was heavy cavalry, and to a lesser extent archers. He could hope to neutralize the latter by retaining a force of horse to chase them away from the battlefield, as on day two at Bannockburn. ⁹³ He had no sufficient force of cavalry to oppose the English horse and therefore had to find a way of doing so with his main resource, men who fought on foot. Several elements can be recognized as coalescing to form Bruce’s battle-winning strategy at Loudoun Hill and the first day of fighting at Bannockburn. They include selection and training of his men, attention to arming, and choice and preparation of the field of battle. Bruce’s qualities as a leader – he was innovative, prepared to learn, brave, and capable of inspiring others to follow him – must also be recognized as a key component of his success.

The prelude to Loudoun Hill saw Bruce spending the winter of 1306–7 as a fugitive with only a few loyal followers. He then returned to his own earldom of Carrick in Ayrshire to resume his campaign to be recognized as king. He had passed much or all of the winter in the Western Isles (including Rathlin Island, now reckoned as part of Ireland), and returned to the mainland with contingents of Isles men as well as some Irish. Walter of Guisborough saw these forces as foreigners – ‘multis forinsec[i]s’ ⁹⁴ – a view that would probably have been shared by many Scots. Scottish sources specifically mention the help provided by Christina MacRuairi, Lady of Garmoran. ⁹⁵ Christina was married to Duncan, the brother of Robert’s first wife, but she was also niece of King Dugald of the Isles and head of one of the most important kindreds there. ⁹⁶

It is probable that some or all of these Irish and Hebridean forces were mercenaries, men inured to war. The Isles were already providing hereditary families of warriors for the wars in Ireland. ⁹⁷ In 1306 Bruce acquired the castle of Dunaverty, strategically placed near the Mull of Kintyre, by exchange with Malcolm MacCulian, and, as pointed out by Professor Duncan, this can be seen to make sense only if Bruce was already intending to recruit Irish or Hebridean mercenaries to his cause. ⁹⁸ It was to Dunaverty that the king headed with his depleted band of followers in the aftermath of his disasters at Methven and Dalry. The deal with Malcolm MacCulian may have borne more fruits than just possession of the castle, for when Bruce’s two brothers Thomas and Alexander, along with Sir Reginald de Crawford, invaded Galloway early in 1307, their force included the Lord of Kintyre and a certain kinglet of Ireland. ⁹⁹ This Lord of Kintyre was Malcolm MacCulian, ¹⁰⁰ along with the unnamed kinglet the provider of the 18 ships and galleys and presumably most of the men. A sizeable force, several hundred men strong, could be contained in 18 ships, ¹⁰¹ and there is other evidence that Robert Bruce had at this time sought support from the native Irish, appealing to them on the basis of the shared ancestry, language, and customs of the Scots and Irish. ¹⁰² Two years later Edward Bruce and Donald of Islay commanded a force of Isles men that killed many of the gentry of Galloway and subdued much of the region. Both commanders presumably felt they had a score to settle for the events of 1307, which saw the defeat of their kinsmen by the Galwegians and the execution of the Bruce brothers and other leaders by the English. ¹⁰³

Between his arrival in Carrick and the battle of Loudoun Hill a few weeks later, Bruce must have added local men to his force of Isles men, Irishmen, and loyal supporters, and others would have come in with his brother Edward from Galloway and with James Douglas from Douglasdale. A letter written by Bruce to Melrose Abbey in 1302 illustrates the authority an earl had in his own land to raise fighting men. At a time when he was set on relinquishing his role as a leader in the Scottish cause, he promised the monks that

Whereas I have often vexed the abbey’s tenants on their grange of Maybole by leading them all over the country in my army of Carrick although there was no summons of the common army of the realm, troubled in conscience I shall never again demand such army service, neither of many nor of few, unless the common army of the whole realm is raised for its defence, when all inhabitants are bound to serve. ¹⁰⁴

No doubt Bruce reneged on this promise in 1307, and immediately prior to the battle he progressed through Kyle and Cunningham, which with Carrick made up the shire of Ayr. Here he gained even more support.

Although Bruce needed to put together a large fighting force as soon as possible, another key element in his approach to battle emerges in the account of Loudoun Hill by Barbour. He mentions the rabble, or carriage men and poor folk, that were as great in numbers as the fighting men. ¹⁰⁵ Perhaps this ratio of non-combatants to fighting men was no exaggeration. Presumably this rabble had been participating fully in the harrying operations in the south-west. Perhaps it was possible to be promoted from it to the army on the basis of merit, but what must have been of the utmost importance to Bruce was an army that was effective. His contingents from the Isles and Ireland probably included some very experienced men, and unlike Wallace prior to Falkirk, he may have had ample time to train and drill his army.

One of the most famous incidents in the Wars of Independence concerns the camp-followers on the second day of fighting at Bannockburn. They were desperate to take part in the battle, and as they appeared in the distance were disastrously mistaken by the English, already beginning to teeter, as a fresh battalion of troops. Barbour describes them as yeomen, boys and carters who had been left to guard the provisions. ¹⁰⁶ They had clearly not been regarded by Bruce as experienced enough or well enough armed to join the ranks in the main battles or units.

So for these battles at Loudoun Hill and Bannockburn, where Bruce made a decision well in advance to fight and was able to make careful preparations, he did not commit every last man but fielded a smaller force in which he could have confidence. A memory that armies in medieval Scotland might be selected from the best of those who mustered is contained in a history of the MacDonalds that dates to the seventeenth century. It describes how in 1411 Donald, Lord of the Isles, raised the best of his men, to the number of 10,000, and chose out of them 6,000. In this case those not selected are said to have been sent home. ¹⁰⁷

It is probable that traditional recruitment methods had broken down in the wars, and men fought who in other times would have been non-combatants. Certainly men were out campaigning for much longer than the required 40 days a year. The charters known to have been issued by Bruce as king are a useful guide to his supporters, but only those of some status. Exceptionally, two barbers, Richard Young and Adam, were rewarded with grants of land for the service of an archer each. Perhaps these two had worked as professionals in the king’s service. ¹⁰⁸

Barbour mentions only about 65 Scottish patriots. He concentrates on big men doing chivalrous things, deeds of great daring or bravery. He does, however, have Ingram d’Umfraville telling Edward II (in 1321?) that the English would not defeat the Scots because the latter’s yeomen, by long experience and training, were as good as knights. The only way forward, he counselled, was to arrange a long truce so that these yeomen would return to the land, their weapons would fall apart or be sold, and future generations would lack their skills. ¹⁰⁹

Yeomen were not gentlemen, but men who worked the land. They were for the most part unnamed in documentary sources, and there is little evidence of their reaping great rewards for their arduous and devoted service. Barbour mentions only a handful of men who might be considered as belonging to this category, including Philip the forester, for his part in the taking of Forfar Castle with ladders. Sym of the Ledhouse is named because of his similar role in the capture of Roxburgh Castle, and William Frances for his in the taking of Edinburgh Castle. Then there is William Bunnock, described as a husbandman, who took Linlithgow peel by getting a hay wagon with men in it stuck in the entrance. Of these, Philip the forester and William Bunnock acted totally on their own initiative, relying on friends for support and not on the bidding of their superiors. ¹¹⁰

Other points emerge from an arming act of 1318, the earliest comprehensive set of instructions for arming issued by a Scottish administration. It clearly has many similarities to the English ‘Assize of Arms’ of 1181, ¹¹¹ and so the possibility cannot be dismissed that it is an update by King Robert of now lost earlier legislation. First, the property qualifications for arming were not based – as at other times before and afterwards – on landholding, but solely on the value of goods. Thus all with £10 worth of goods were required to have an aketon (padded coat), basinet (helmet), gloves of plate, a spear, and a sword, or else a habergeon (mail coat), a hat of iron, and gloves of plate. All with goods to the value of a cow were to have a spear or a bow and arrows. ¹¹² This may have been intended to put more of the responsibility for turning out for service on individuals, especially in circumstances where their lords, or the local officers of the crown, were not supporting the king or providing effective leadership.

Second, these property qualifications were set very low and would have included just about every male of age in the country. A cow at that time was worth between 8 and 10 shillings. ¹¹³ Using the evidence of an account for armour supplied by the English administration in Scotland to the Earl of Ross in 1303, it appears that £10 could have bought the military equipment required by a man with goods of that value. Ross’s aketon was made from a gambeson (a quilted garment worn over armour) that cost £3, his hat of iron was £1 10s., and his basinet was suspiciously cheap at 8s. His habergeon was £5. ¹¹⁴ Admittedly, armour for an earl may have been of considerably better quality than gear for a yeoman. A Scottish exchequer account of 1329 records the purchase of 12 aketons for £12, ¹¹⁵ but, even so, by the time gauntlets and weapons are taken into account, the required equipment would have been a considerable financial drain on many.

Third, the punishment for non-observance of the act was draconian. Sheriffs and other local lords were to organize wapinschaws (military reviews), and those lacking the appropriate equipment were to have all their goods confiscated, half to be given to their lord and the other half to the king. ¹¹⁶ Bruce was evidently serious in requiring compliance, but this requirement to serve must surely have followed what had been a reality, or possibility, in the wars. If this was the case, it lends weight to the supposition that men fought who previously would not have been required to do so.

An emphasis on spears is apparent from the 1318 arming act, although the importance of spearmen does not come through in the surviving charters granted by Bruce, presumably because most were of too lowly status to be crown tenants. Four charters of lands in Galloway from late in the reign, apparently all to local men, are for the service of one foot-soldier each. In three of the cases the footmen were required to be armed with sword and spear with maintenance for 40 days. In the case of the charter to John, son of Nigel, the land is described as having an extent of one penny and a farthing. ¹¹⁷ The tenant of even just a pennyland was a man of some status, at least a yeoman.

The 1318 arming act and surviving land grants are elements in a major programme to put Scotland on a sound footing for warfare. More detailed study of Bruce’s military planning and objectives are beyond the scope of this paper, but we can at least review the likely sources of inspiration for his decision to fight with large formations of spearmen. Firstly, there was Wallace, even though his tactics at Falkirk ended in failure. There has been much speculation on whether Bruce was involved in the battle of Falkirk or not. The opinion of his most influential biographer, G.W.S. Barrow, is that ‘we do not know’. If Bruce was present with the men from his earldom of Carrick, it may be supposed that several of them would also have been in his army at Loudoun Hill. ¹¹⁸ Some of the Islesmen who then supported him might also have seen service at Falkirk, though certainly not the MacDonalds who were then in English service. ¹¹⁹

Secondly, Bruce may have been inspired by the Islesmen and Irish who came to his support in 1307. They were more used to rowing long ships than riding horses, and it is possible that at this time their favoured weapon was the spear. The contingents from Ayrshire as much as the Galwegians were the descendants of those spearmen who insisted on mounting the first attack on the English at the battle of the Standard in 1138. Perhaps they kept up a tradition of using spears. We have no solid evidence to back up either of these speculations.

Thirdly, Bruce may have been well aware of how the Flemings gained their remarkable success at Courtrai. A clue that this was a major influence on Bruce is provided by the English chronicler Sir Thomas Gray, who believed that the Scots were following the example of the Flemings at Courtrai when they fought as formations of spearmen at Bannockburn. His own chronicle contains an account of Courtrai, and so he could have drawn his own conclusions. His father, however, was captured by the Scots at Bannockburn and spent some time in their captivity, and Sir Thomas himself was a prisoner of the Scots in 1355–6. He claims that it was while he was in captivity that he started writing his chronicle. Might it be that father or son had picked up the Courtrai reference from his Scottish captors? ¹²⁰

None of these sources of inspiration can be dismissed, and all three may have helped shape Bruce’s policy. It can be argued, however, that Courtrai may have been particularly influential, since comparisons do not just involve large formations with spears but also planning to impede, not stop, the enemy cavalry making a full-frontal attack. At Courtrai the French cavalry, in order to attack the Flemish formations, had to ride over a ditch or a stream, which had the same effect as achieved in Scotland with ditches and pits (Figure 1b).

The Scots were among the first to demonstrate that it was possible for foot- soldiers to stand up to and defeat heavy cavalry. Wallace, and then Bruce, had to make conscious decisions to adopt new tactics and concentrate on using spears. Wallace probably understood exactly what was required but lacked the time to get it right at Falkirk. Bruce realized that the way to victory was not just about spears but required his spearmen to be drilled and trained. His armies were probably better prepared for battle than any other Scottish forces prior to the civil wars of the seventeenth century. The English were forced to adapt to the new Scottish tactics, and stopped relying on cavalry by the 1330s. This set the scene for their battle triumphs in the Hundred Years War.

Unfortunately for them, King Robert’s successors failed to match English developments with revised tactics of their own, and do not seem to have understood how to deal with the enormous threat posed by English archers. Successful campaigns could be mounted by the Scots, causing their English enemies much damage, but when pitched battles happened the Scots were almost always at a disadvantage in the years after the death of Bruce. He had created a force of mercenaries and warriors, trained in long campaigns over many years. The Scottish system of raising men for the defence of the realm did not adapt under his successors to provide the training and length of service necessary to mount a serious challenge to English armies. The English learned more from Bannockburn than the Scots.

There was much more to Bruce, his military exploits, and his statesmanship than Bannockburn alone. It is perhaps fitting, however, for this paper to end with the reaffirmation of how significant Bannockburn was, and why a constant harking back to it by Scots is not altogether misplaced. The Scots who were there, many of them fairly ordinary folk but literally with their shoulders level with the greatest in the land, had the confidence to stand up to one of the most effective, well-equipped, and experienced war machines in medieval Europe, though armed with little more than long pointed sticks tipped with iron. That confidence came from their king and leader, who equally had confidence in them. This really was one of the most important moments in the history of Scotland.