John Sadler - Bannockburn : battle for liberty

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First Published in Great Britain in 2008 by
Pen & Sword Military
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS

Copyright John Sadler, 2008

ISBN 978-1-84415-673-3
eISBN 9781844689972

The right of Johh Sadler to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

Typeset in 11/13 Ehrhard by Concept, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire

Printed and bound in England by Biddles Ltd

Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the Imprints of Pen & Sword Aviation,
Pen & Sword Maritime, Pen & Sword Military, Wharncliffe Local History,
Pen & Sword Select, Pen & Sword Military Classics, Leo Cooper.

For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact
Pen & Sword Books Limited
47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England
E-mail: enquiries@pen-and-sword.co.uk
Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

Contents

Dedicated to My Wife

Preface

O God of Battles! Steel my soldiers hearts;

Possess them not with fear; take from them now

The sense of reckoning if th opposed numbers

Pluck their hearts from them

William Shakespeare, Henry V

This book has been a long time in the making, the product of a lifetimes obsession with Scotland, with its history and landscapes. There is, perhaps, no more epic contest than Bannockburn itself, a battle which seems to typify the Just War, the struggle by a sovereign nation to free itself from a ruthless foreign domination. The events of 1314 have a particular resonance which has never faded and have been brought even more sharply into focus in recent years by the whole devolution debate, even if this is, in part, fuelled by Hollywood fantasies such as the film Braveheart .

As a schoolboy is the 1960s, when history was still taught in the traditional, now no doubt unfashionable way, I learnt, at an early age, the moral of Bruce and the spider and the epic duel with de Bohun before the hosts. Bruce was the very stuff of legend, the freedom fighter, the man who liberated his countrymen from the yoke of English oppression. The reality is, of course, a good deal more complex. Bruce established himself only after a ruthless and bitter civil war and, following Bannockburn, visited a systematic and relentless reign of terror on northern England.

Apart from high drama the story of Bannockburn and the years of strife from 1296, have much to teach us today. The nineteenth-century German military philosopher Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz, whose epic treatise On War extends to a hefty eight volumes, hails the concept of the remarkable trinity, that is the state, the army and the people harnessed to a common strategic purpose. Clausewitz was much influenced by both Napoleon and Gerd von Scharnhorst, a fellow Prussian and noted military reformer. His writing predates the modern age of industrial warfare but occurs after the dawn of the age of mass conscription, the levee en masse .

Clausewitzs understanding was that the prevailing mode of warfare, introduced by Bonaparte was the massive military event with a decisive outcome. I think it likely he would have accepted Bannockburn as falling within this concept. Nonetheless, the battle was not one which Bruce, given a prior choice, would have chosen to fight. He had, hitherto, maintained a careful policy of reliance on low intensity guerrilla type warfare, avoiding a general engagement as being too risky.

The siege of Stirling and his brothers arrangement with the castellan is traditionally regarded as having been the catalyst, one which had pitched the king onto a course he did not relish, (this, however, is open to question) This would, of course, be entirely sensible: the English could field an army that was both larger and far better furnished with heavy cavalry, then still regarded as the prime arbiter on the field. At the decisive moment, when urged by his captains to stake all on the hazard of battle, the king, after initial misgivings, chose to seize the moment. By careful generalship and inspired leadership his inferior army won a momentous victory. This, of itself, did not end the war, which was to drag on till 1328, a bitter, savage and inglorious attrition of raiding and destruction.

But, without the victory at Bannockburn, the Peace of Northampton would not have been possible. King Robert secured the national identity of Scotland. After the battle the English, previously the aggressors, were constantly on the back foot, their northern shires at the mercy of Scottish spears. Further victories at Mytton and Byland followed, the northern English were utterly cowed, the pride of their chivalry run ragged and humiliated in the course of the abortive Weardale campaign of 1327. Even the crowning triumph of the Treaty of Northampton, which set the seal on a remarkable lifetimes achievement, did not mark the end of hostilities between the two realms which sparked with dire frequency until 1568. This legacy of strife was only brought to an end by the Union of the Crowns in 1603 when, with fine irony, it was a King of Scots who ascended, unopposed, to the throne of the southern kingdom.

Over a century later, the Act of Union finally and fully unified the two realms. At the time of writing, there appears to be a growing and insistent clamour for this process to be reversed; for the two kingdoms, once again, to seek separate destinies. Should this come to pass it is to be hoped that not all of the lessons of past history will be forgotten. At present the battlefield is commemorated by the excellent Heritage Centre, managed by the National Trust for Scotland, though much of the field is obscured by modern development, the quality of which does little for the historic environment.

John Sadler, Northumberland, Spring 2007 .

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to Rupert Harding, my editor at Pen and Sword; to Dr David Edge of the Wallace Collection; Winnie Tyrell of Glasgow Museums; Ailsa MacTaggart of Historic Scotland; Shona Corner of National Galleries of Scotland; Chloe Rodham for the maps; the staff of the Royal Armouries, Leeds and of the National Trust for Scotland at Bannockburn Visitor Centre; Rosie Serdiville of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne; Alex Speirs, The Time Bandit; Philip Walling for help with the photographs; Graham Trueman and the staff of the DLI Museum and Art Gallery in Durham.

Timeline

1286	Death of Alexander III of Scotland.
1292	John Baliol ascends the Scottish Throne.
1296	Beginning of the Wars of Independence: capture of Berwick upon Tweed and the Battle of Dunbar.
1297	Battle of Stirling Bridge, Wallace appointed as Guardian.
1298	Wallace defeated at Falkirk.
1302	Battle of Courtrai in Flanders: defeat of the French chivalry.

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