Proofs [Taken From Bannockburn Proved]

Proof 7 [p83-88]:

The Vita[1314]: ‘[Robert Bruce] led his whole army out from the wood....They advanced like a thick set hedge...James Douglas who commanded the first phalanx [right wing] of the Scots vigorously attacked the Earl of Gloucester’s line.’ [BR p175, line 29]

This is Balquhiderock Wood. The Scots are advancing on the English. Bruce is in the centre, Douglas at the south end [Scottish right] for Randolph must be on the left where he was defending the approach to the Castle near St Ninians. This can be ignored, as the Dryfielders would like to do. But the following cannot be ignored:

The Vita [1314]: ‘While they [the English commanders] argued in this way, and the Scottish forces were approaching rapidly,’ [BR p176, line 13]

I Where are the English commanders arguing? In their Camp! Barbour confirms this. He gives his version of what the argument is about.

Barbour [1377]: Bk 12, 460: [Umphraville says to King Edward II] ‘But if you want my advice, you will not take them lightly. Withdraw your battalions suddenly until we pass our own pavilions and you will see that despite their commanders they will break ranks and scatter to take our equipment. And when we see them scatter so, we will strike them strongly and we will have them easily for none will be formed up to fight....’ ‘I will not,’ said the king, ‘Indeed, nobody is going to say that I turned away from the battle nor withdrew from such a trick.’ [BR p244, line 15; Duncan’s trans of Barbour’s Bruce p471]

The trick is the surprise attack by the Scots, before breakfast, an ungentlemanly act. The King of England thinks it is not fair. Does this mean that the English battalions are lined up in front of their camp? No! But a lot of English heavy cavalry are in front of their King as we expect, defending his tent with theirs. The English are not ready at all as we have just seen and are about to see even more clearly in what follows. Barbour is the reporter writing out of contact with the battle, a full 63 years later, remember.

II What are these Englishmen doing at the time they are arguing? Staring at the Scots approaching them in dense battle array in their 3 divisions, as we know by now.

Barbour [1377]: ‘And when the King of England saw the Scots take the hard field so openly and upon foot he was surprised and said: ‘What, will yon Scots fight?’ to which Umphraville replies: ‘Forsooth now, sir, I see it is the most surprising sight I ever saw, for the Scots have taken on the might of England to give battle on the plain hard field.’ [BR p243, line 41; Duncan, p471]

III How can these Englishmen in the flat ground of the Carse see the advancing Scots over the heads of so many of their own mounted and mounting knights, and their tents, wagons etc? Because they are on the Knoll in their camp. They have been encamped in the Carse all night expecting the Scots to flee and be chased by them [the English] for the rest of the day and, instead, the Scots have come to them. They are still in their camp. That camp is in the Carse and every principal scholar already believes the camp is in the Carse.
Do you see what this means? Because the approaching Scots can be seen and given that the English are camped in the Carse, we know for sure that the English are still in their camp, because only from the Knoll, which is the King of England’s camp, could the Scots be seen over the heads of the knights in front.
All of which is confirmed again and again, by far better sources written close to the battle, for:

Scalacronica [1320-]: ‘the Scots resolved to fight and at sunrise on the morrow marched out of the wood in three divisions of infantry. They directed their course boldly upon the English army which had been under arms all night with their horses bitted.’ [BRp189 lines 10, 22]

IV This means that the Scots marched out of their wood at dawn and directed their course upon the English army which had been in their camp all night under arms.

V But the camp is in the Carse! We already know that. So the Scots marched out of their wood and attacked the English in their camp. That is what this means!

Since the English have camped in the Carse, as every principal scholar believes, that is where they were attacked by the Scots. Therefore the battle was fought in the Carse in the manner explained.

Further,

Scalacronica [1320-]: ‘The English mounted in great alarm for they were not accustomed to dismount and fight on foot; whereas the Scots had taken a lesson from the Flemings who had before that defeated on foot the power of France at Courtrai.’ [BR p189, line 44]

VI Why are they mounting in great alarm? Because they are in their camp and the Scots have attacked them. They are alarmed because they have been taken by surprise while still in their camp! They would not be mounting unless they were still in their camp!

And we see why they are alarmed: the Scots have attacked at sunrise, before they were ready.

Scalacronica [1320-]: The Scots came in line of schiltroms and attacked the English columns which were jammed together.’ [BR p190, line 4]

VII The Scots are in a line; the English are jammed together. By what? The bounding streams, the Bannock burn and the Pelstream, swollen with rain from the days before and the tide coming up the River Forth which held back the streams on either side of the Carse and the palisade of trees on their banks. [What could be on the Dryfield which jammed in the English, especially when the Dryfielders (mistakenly) do not believe there were any woods on it? And that the slopes on the edges can be ridden up and down by heavy cavalry? ]

This is confirmed by Lanercost.
Lanercost [1314]: ‘When both armies engaged each other and the great horses of the English charged the pikes of the Scots, as it were into a dense forest, there arose a great and terrible crash of spears {pikes and lances} broken and of destriers wounded to the death; and so they remained without movement for a while. Now the English in the rear could not reach the Scots because the leading division was in the way, nor could they do anything to help themselves; wherefore there was nothing for it but to take to flight.’ [BR p184, line 33]

VIII The English could not move because they were jammed in. The English in the rear could not get to the front because of the muddied bounding streams that were deep and treacherous to armoured men. The English are camped in the Carse. The Scots have attacked before the English were ready. The English are still in their camp. They charge. The English cavalry are held. They are jammed in by the bounding streams: Bannock burn and the Pelstream.

Baston [1314, definitely present]: ‘The English warriors look for Scots they can kill—Scots no longer far off but close at hand.’ [BR p208, line 17]

IX The Scots have moved a long way.

Baston [1314]: ‘Rushing down, the raging Scottish fighters advance on foot extracting terrible recompense for what they spend.’ [BR p209, line 2]

X ‘Rushing down’ from their positions up on the Dryfield, that is, down to the Carse, over sixty feet lower.

Trokelowe [c1327]: ‘The Scots... attacked sooner than expected in dense battle array.’ [BR p195, line 14]

XI This confirms a surprise attack by the Scots in packed formations, 3 divisions, Bruce in the centre, as he also tells us. And when they had reached the place they wanted to defend, the narrow 830 yd space between the streams, then

Trokelowe[c1327]: ‘Emboldened, they [The Scots] awaited the arrival of the English without fear...On their side, they [the Scots] were all on foot: picked men, very courageous, properly armed with very sharp axes and other weapons of war with their shields tightly locked in front of them forming an impenetrable formation. They completely abandoned their horses...Robert the Bruce, who claimed to be King of Scotland went ahead of his whole army on foot with his entourage so that in this way with the danger shared equally by great and small, no one would think of running away.’ [BR, p 191/192]

XII What these two statements mean is that the Scots first marched into position on foot unexpectedly early and then awaited the English charge.

XIII Lanercost confirms these two moves exactly!

Lanercost [1314]: ‘commending themselves to God and seeking help from heaven, after which they [The Scots] advanced boldly against the English… Truly, when both armies engaged each other and the great horses of the English charged the pikes of the Scots, as it were into a dense forest there arose a great and terrible crash of spears broken and of destriers wounded to the death; and so they remained without movement for a while.’ [BR p184]

Trokelowe and Lanercost are in complete agreement: the Scots advanced boldly upon the English and then the English charged the Scots. This means the Scots have dug in beforehand to absorb the inevitable cavalry charge. Hence ‘the spears broken and destriers wounded to the death’. The spears are mainly pikes but lances too. Scalacronica is describing the same thing:

Scalacronica[ 1320-]: ‘The Scots came in line of schiltroms and and attacked the English columns which were jammed together and could not operate against them [the Scots] so direfully were their horses impaled upon the pikes.’ [BR p190]

This is the same thing! The Scots attack in a line and the English then charge the Scots!

The Vita tells the same tale:
Vita[1314}: ‘[Bruce] led his whole army out from the wood…and not one of them was on horseback… They advanced like a thick-set hedge and such a phalanx could not easily be broken. When the situation was such that the two sides must meet, James Douglas…vigorously attacked the Earl of Gloucester’s line. The Earl withstood him manfully and once and again penetrated their wedge and would have been successful if he had had faithful companions.’ [BR p175].
The Earl of Gloucester has jumped on a horse and ridden at the advancing Scots. He is the first English knight to move against their unexpected advance. He leads their cavalry charge, for the rest of the English cavalry [eventually, after recovering from the surprise] charge after him towards the Scots who have surprised the English in their camp. He probably kills one man or two in a forward, still advancing, group and then is engulfed by others. Gloucester makes contact before Douglas’s men are fully in position. The Vita is describing the battle just before the others.

XIV All four of the best sources agree on what occurred! They are describing the same event in different ways.

The Brut y Tywysogyon [1314]: ‘Llywelyn, bishop of St Asaph, died, and Dafydd ap Bleddyn was elected in his place on the eve of the feast of John at Midsummer. And on that day occurred the encounter in the Pools, and Gilbert the Younger, earl of Clare [Earl of Gloucester ] and many of the men of England besides, were slain by the Scots. And the king of England ignominiously fled from that encounter.’ [BR p327; Peniarth MS. 20. 294b. 25-296a. 15. p123 trans with notes by Thomas Jones]

XV The battle took place among the pools of water in the Carse where the English camped, the pools of water Barbour mentioned, the pools that regularly form in this Carse as so many Plates here show. [ Plates 33,34,35,36,37,60,61,67]
The Dryfielders have been constructively demolished. Again! The Vita, Scalacronica, Lanercost, Barbour, The Brut and even Baston and Trokelowe have all told of a surprise attack made soon after dawn [Scalacronica, BR p189, line 10; Trokelowe BR p195, line 14] by the Scots and it is a surprise because the English have not moved out of their camp!

The battle took place in the Carse. The matter is settled.
The final statement of the proof may be summarised :-
The English camped in the Carse.
The Carse is bounded by two streams: the Bannock burn and the Pelstream, both deeper and wider than usual because of recent rain and the tide and muddied by an army seeking water, their banks palisaded by trees.
The Scots attacked the English unexpectedly, at sunrise, out of their natural fortress, the Dryfield, which they had successfully defended the day before.
The English were still in their camp, unready, and unable to decide how to respond to an advance on foot by the Scots which was unexpected and involved new tactics: to dismount their own cavalry which was inferior in numbers and equipment, march very close to the English cavalry which were in the van, to cut down the space available for the English cavalry to get up speed and close off the space between the Pelstream and Bannock burn.
The Scots were able to march up close to the English who were still in their camp and await their move, pikes held at the ready like ‘a thick set hedge’, butts in the ground to take the force.
The English charged and their charge was held.
The Scots pulled the English in the front rank off their horses and killed them. English archers were behind their cavalry like the rest of their foot and could not hit the Scots over the heads of their own cavalry who were in front. Having shot some of their own mounted knights in the back, they were ordered to stop firing and did so. [Baker, BR p198, line 12]
English knights on horses, jammed together between the streams and unable to retreat and manoeuvre to the rear because of their own foot soldiers, servants, wagons, tents etc behind, some of them pushing forward to try and fail to get into the battle, were no match for lightly armed Scots on foot who gradually moved through them killing them as they went.
The English King and his commanders observed the battle from his camp on the Knoll. Seeing he would be captured, they withdrew across the Pelstream and fled.
Then began a rout of the English as other Englishmen fled in disorder.
Many were killed fleeing, many drowned in the burn, but many, because their troops were so large and remained united, escaped in good order.
This is what the written sources tell us. It is what our knowledge of the ground tells us. This issue is determined.

XVI Scalacronica [1320-]: BR p190 line 7: ‘The troops in the English rear fell back upon the ditch of Bannockburn, tumbling one over the other.’

Bannock burn in the Carse, that is. The Bannock burn bends around behind the Knoll. It is where the English would flee to, there and to the Bannock burn on the south of the Carse back the way to England—there most of all.

XVII Lanercost [1314]: BR p185 line 1: ‘Another calamity which befell the English was that, whereas they had shortly before crossed a great ditch called Bannockburn into which the tide flows and now wanted to recross it; in confusion, many nobles and others fell into it with their horses in the crush.’

Bannock burn in the Carse is what the writer means, for there alone is it affected by the tide.

XVIII Vita [1314]: BR 177 line 31: ‘Thus, while our people fled, following in the King’s footsteps, behold, a certain ditch entrapped many of them, and a great part of our army perished in it.’

What ditch? Bannock burn, of course, in the Carse. Every other source has told us the name of it.

Proof 8.[p 131-137]

38. Metahistory

At the level of Metahistory, the consideration of the processes involved in this research and its status as knowledge, BR and this work, BP, should be considered as works of science. Every relevant source was assembled, translated where necessary and analysed very precisely, right down to the criteria for reliability and relevance and the method of analysis which was no arbitrary process but one that would produce the same results whoever performed it; for a few differences of interpretation, all that are possible, would make no difference to the conclusions ultimately reached. And these are compelling: outrageous to believe the contrary. Every argument for every conclusion was carefully examined for its compulsive force and a surprising number were found to be alphas, many, indeed, alpha plus: inconceivable to be otherwise. This kind of examination is novel and precise and scientific in character. Everything, every fact about the ground or about what the written sources tell us or even about these in combination which has been discovered in BR and BP can be verified and confirmed for they are all justified in this work. Every observation necessary to confirm what is stated can be repeated. If anything will hold up the acceptance of this research it is precisely the failure to perform, in the various maps, in the written sources and on the ground, all the actions necessary to achieve this confirmation.
What characterizes science is the exhaustiveness of the investigation; the completeness and precision of the explanation: everything makes sense and fits without contradiction; the compelling power of the arguments; and the repeatability of its experiments when these are involved [Einstein’s papers are not write ups of experiments in a lab but gedangken experiments: thought experiments, like the Charisma-Population Argument; Darwin’s Origin of Species is not a record of experiments at all]. When repetitions under the same circumstances or efforts at confirmation produce the same results, these become part of the knowledge of the science. Science is not mere opinion (like all histories of this subject before). It is a set of compelling conclusions, fully justified, which explain the issues at hand.
By using maps before which were unjustified, all previous histories necessarily belong to the realm of opinion. The failure to show the essential features of the ground in the many photographs necessary means that such history is work done without seeing the necessity, without knowledge of the ground, which must be conveyed as part of a proof— mere opinion, then. The refusal to expose mistakes also consigns that work to opinion; for it leaves all other work as equivalent. The use of selective quotation and references and the failure to deal with all relevant sources together, analysed for each issue, item by item, makes their interpretation an arbitrary matter and makes such work, opinion. It cannot be anything more. The failure to consider the validity of arguments—the arguments pro and con—consigns such work to opinion.
Another aspect of science, the one pointed out by Sir Karl Popper in Objective Knowledge , is its falsifiability. It should be so complex that it is easily falsified, if it is false. It is tested by efforts to falsify it. When these fail every time, the science is in good condition. What would efforts to falsify this work involve? Finding some error in the estimated map of 1314? This could only be done by referring to the maps already enclosed, for there are no other maps which are relevant, or referring to some feature of the ground. If only scholars in the past had studied the ground enough to be able to notice an error! Or to some written source? But since all the relevant sources (and some not, just to show that they are not) are printed in BR for the first time, translated and analysed, validated even for reliability, independence and date of composition, something else that is new, there are no more that could be brought into the debate. Efforts to falsify this work will be welcomed for it is likely that these will produce nothing so much as a greater understanding of the entire matter by the person making the attempt. Yet, as we will very soon see in the appendix which deals with the estimated map of 1314, even if there were a few aspects of the map which could be bettered, the generality is correct and can be seen to be correct from the maps and the ground and the written sources. The plain fact is that there never has been anything like this depth of investigation into these matters. So a few irregularities could hardly affect such a mountain of fresh insights.
The propositions that might usefully be tested are few in number.
As Popper pointed out, all scientific knowledge consists of theories, such as Newton’s or Darwin’s or Einstein’s or The Big Bang Theory or the current quark theory. To say, in a strict sense, that they are theories is not to denigrate them or science. Invariably, the great theories of science, such as these, are not shown to be false. Instead, they are subsumed among new theories which have to be discovered to account for the increased range of human experience. Newton’s theory was found not to be viable for questions outside its own range. Einstein’s was better outside the solar system. So Newton’s is a special case of Einstein’s. A theory is a good theory if it is easy to falsify and if efforts to falsify it all fail. For this to be so, it needs to be testable. If it passes the tests, the theory is part of our knowledge. And it remains part of our knowledge until it fails those tests. How does this present work [and the work in BR] stand in this regard?
What are the crucial aspects? Three propositions, each justified by the people present at the time and confirmed by the ground as it has been discovered to be.

1. The English camped in the Carse the night before the main battle. All the best known authorities believe this already because of Barbour alone. The Brut y Tywysogyon makes it even clearer and Scalacronica is describing the camp in the same place. One way to try to falsify this is to find more than three independent reports of the battle written as close to the battle as these which deny that the English camped in the Carse or which assert that they camped elsewhere. At the time of writing there are no such sources. Nor are any expected after seven centuries when those we have were all available many centuries ago. The proposition has not been falsified and it is difficult to imagine that it ever will be falsified.
There is a further significant fact that the discovery of new independent written reports, however many, could not rebut: that this Carse, even today [2005 ] and for all the years of living memory, possesses the unique property of many pools of water, regularly formed (after heavy rain and we know that heavy rain did fall just before the battle) which is precisely what Barbour and the Brut y Tywysogyon describe in the place of the camp. The other carses nearby were not like this. As Roy and Miller’s OS map of 1931 shows, they were bogged, would be impossible to move upon in 1314, still less, camp upon by an army of 30,000 men and horses, let alone wagons and equipment. The pools on the Carse of Balquhiderock were useful to men and horses needing water on a midsummer day. Nor are there any sources which place the battle in a site manifestly different. ‘Bannokmora’ [Trokelowe] or ‘a place near the village of the Bannockburn’ [nobody has said this] do not contradict the proposition because there never has been a place Bannokmora and there was no village Bannockburn in 1314: no place whatever at that time: these are and could only be names applied by reporters who had no name but the name of the stream. That they wrote many years after the battle is another reason for their confusion. Moreover, the many details about the ground in the area: its woodland, bogs, steep slopes, flat ground, fords, absence of bridges and other roads, are in complete agreement with what these sources say about the English campsite. The English wished to remain in contact with the Scots who had always avoided a pitched battle before. In addition, The Unknown in Scotichronicon , Lanercost and Scalacronica , all tell of the English crossing Bannock burn before encamping and being pushed into the burn during the battle. These fully confirm the English camp in the Carse of Balquhiderock. Also, Lanercost tells of the English being jammed in. By what? The bounding streams of the Carse. And Vita tells of the Scots marching rapidly out of their wood on foot. What wood? Balquhiderock Wood. Into the Carse, the only place without trees in 1314, because of the regular pooling and flooding.
To rebut this proposition, then, not only would 5 reports, written close to the battle, have to be found which denied it, they would have to deny that the battle took place among pools of water which is what the 3 [especially Barbour and the Brut y Tywysogyon] we have describe and what the 3 others confirm. No other place north of Bannock burn and south of St Ninians has this property of numerous, substantial, deep, pools of water forming after heavy rain. A bog is not a pool of water it is a vast permanent obstruction to movement, still less occupation, by anyone, an army most of all. They would also have to deny the details of the ground which have been discovered and which so completely support the proposition. It is hard to conceive of any discoveries of any kind which would be capable of rebutting this proposition. The ground itself, then, is a material fact that cannot be denied, whatever hypothetical discoveries are made in future. Further, anyone who now thinks that the ground is different to what it has been discovered to be and to have been in 1314 and 1750, has simply failed to study all the relevant maps and the ground and read the mountain of insights in Appendix 5 herein which explain what they mean.
So long as it remains unfalsified, the proper application of scientific method demands that the proposition remains as accepted knowledge. The English camped in the Carse of Balquhiderock. Since all the main scholars believe this already, it should present no difficulty.

2. The Scots occupied the Dryfield of Balquhiderock, the night before the main battle. All the best known authorities believe this already, because the sources tell us that the Scots defended the road to the Castle, camped in the New Park and repulsed the English the day before the main battle. That means they had control of the Dryfield. This proposition has not been falsified and it is difficult to imagine it ever being falsified, no matter how many new sources were discovered. For, if the English had not been repulsed at the road the English must have triumphed there and a battle on the second day would have been unnecessary. A battle on the second day was necessary because there was no pitched battle on the first day, only a defence of the Dryfield of Balquhiderock by the Scots, which was successful as all the written reports assert . Moreover, it is at last clear that the Dryfield was a natural fortress surrounded by steep slopes and woods which no medieval army could have ascended and taken, against a determined occupying army which won the battle. And no source so much as suggests that the English did so at any time. The only route northwards was across the burn at Milton Ford, the place where the English were successfully repulsed.
So long as it remains unfalsified, the proper application of scientific method demands that the proposition be accepted as part of our knowledge of this affair.

3. The Scots attacked the English in their camp soon after dawn on the second day. The best written sources, Vita, Lanercost, Scalacronica, Trokelowe, and Barbour and Baston all describe a move by the Scots, ‘at sunrise’, ‘from far away’, from ‘in their woods’, which is ‘sudden’ and ‘bold’ and catches the English ‘mounting in alarm’ [Scalacronica ] and their commanders, not with their troops, but arguing together with the King, as the Scots approach [Vita , Barbour ] and which catches them in their camp. Arguing in their camp. ‘The Scots came in line of schiltroms and attacked the English columns which were jammed together’ [Scalacronica]. The Brut y Tywysogyon tells of the battle among the pools. And there are pools of water on this Carse regularly. Pools of water do not form on the Dryfield which is so named because it is dry. What would it take to falsify these accounts? More accounts?more than seven, fresh and independent accounts, written in the year of the battle, like most of these.
Until this happens, the proper application of scientific method demands that this proposition be accepted as part of our knowledge of this great event.

If, miraculously, some additional independent chronicle, written in the year of the battle, was discovered, what is it likely to say? It is very likely to support everything said by the sources we already have. It would be a miracle to the nth power if it did anything else.

What we have here, then, are three propositions about a particular part of the world on a particular day in 1314. They have not been falsified and it is difficult to imagine that they ever will be. There is, in addition, a mountain of evidence in the ground, the written reports of the event and the maps, old and new, to support and further illuminate these propositions. The area has been shown to be of a particular topography in 1750 and in 1314. These are constants, not subject to change, for the only way of challenging them is by using the very maps made in the past and present, and the ground itself. Since these have been exhaustively investigated in ways never attempted before, challenging the way the ground has been found to be is very unlikely to reveal anything different. The statement: ‘There was no Halbert’s Bog of that size,’ is answered by pointing to Roy’s wonderfully detailed map, shown to be wonderfully accurate as to detail within this book. The statement: ‘There was no wood on the slope where now there is Balquhiderock Wood,’ is rebutted by the fact that every decent map of the area shows the wood right back to the time when the first map proper was made. It is now outrageous to assume the contrary. However, there never was a time when it was not outrageous, for why should one assume that an area which is known, because so many written sources tell us, to have had a lot of woodland in 1314, would have far less woodland in 1314 than at any time since? The same security is available for every feature of the ground discovered, explained and fully justified in the 20 pages of Appendix 5 herein [In Bannockburn Proved].

Since, according to the proper application of scientific method, these three propositions should be accepted, the conclusion that the main battle of Bannockburn was fought in the Carse of Balquhiderock should now become part of our knowledge. And that knowledge is objective knowledge .

This history is no longer a matter of opinion or of doubt.
This history has become a science.

To put the matter simply, The English camped in the Carse. The Scots camped on the Dryfield. The Scots attacked the English soon after dawn and caught them in their camp. That makes the battle in the English camp. That is, in the Carse.
Further, if a dozen sources written close to the battle were suddenly discovered— after seven centuries— all of which asserted that the battle took place on the Dryfield or anywhere else, what would we do? Disbelieve them. For the ground itself and those we have, show it to be impossible. We would remember Oxford Professor Hugh Trevor Roper, the Hitler Diaries, and wonder who had forged them.

39. The relation between this history and science: further discussion

The idea that this history might qualify as science may be repugnant to some, though the certainty or apparent certainty, of science is something they might crave. Science has more kudos, more power.
Consider the discovery of the planet Pluto. The first event was the observation that the Newtonian System had broken down. That observation was an event in the world. The hypothesis was that the observation could only be explained by an extra planet. Both the observation and the hypothesis were stated as propositions. Efforts were made to falsify the hypothesis and these failed. The idea that there is a ninth planet was added to our knowledge as a further proposition and so long as it remains unfalsified by experience, it remains so. But the planet has not actually been seen (and could not be seen at the time by any means) with the naked eye because it is far away and there is no light from it. The discovery of the quarks likewise involves, in the literature of science, propositions: about the world as it has been seen to be, of hypotheses to account for them and so long as further experience does nothing to falsify the hypotheses, the quarks are part of our scientific knowledge. But nobody has seen a quark or expects to do so . This is because they are fractions, not integral wholes, and fractions of matter, at this level, are unlikely ever to be observed.
The 3 propositions listed in the above section on metahistory are of the same character as these in the previous paragraph. Yet there is a difference and it is surprisingly in favour of the superiority of the history rather than the examples from science given. For, whereas the scientific community is inundated increasingly with experiences that might easily falsify the hypotheses from which all its advances are a continuation, there are far fewer experiences which might falsify these 3 propositions already referred to. What experiences in the future might do this? The discovery of 100 battleaxes and lances on the Dryfield? Would that prove that the battle was fought there? No, for they could have been put there at any time in the last seven centuries. Would the discovery of a battle axe with the name Robert Bruce on it in the Carse, prove that he fought there on 24rd June 1314? No, for he might have dropped it there on the 25th, or had it stolen by the man who mended it on the night of the 23rd who then dropped it there some time later.
Could any possible future events or experiences in the world lead to the falsification of the 3 propositions referred to? What if pits were found on the Dryfield that contained the skeletons of hundreds of bodies which could be identified, from their DNA, as Englishmen and Englishmen, because of carbon dating, say, or ‘bone chronology ’, who died around 1314? Such a discovery would not affect proposition 1 which says the English camped in the Carse. Nor would it affect proposition 2 which says the Scots occupied the Dryfield. Nor would it affect proposition 3 which says the Scots attacked the English in their camp. For there is compelling evidence that these things are so. And they would not cease to be so just because of the discovery of battleaxes and lances, or Bruce’s axe or even English graves on the Dryfield. The people who were present at the battle all tell of the Scots moving a long way and attacking the English in their camp and that their camp was in the Carse. So there can be no argument about that.
So far from falsifying the three propositions concerned, the discovery of English graves on the Dryfield would, instead, cause us to wonder why it was that the Scots went to all that trouble to transport dead bodies up the slopes of Balquhiderock Wood through the trees that stood there. That would be an interesting puzzle. One possible answer might be: the owner of the Carse did not want his ground sullied with English dead and paid or ordered or bullied his followers to bury them somewhere else. And the nearest place no one would object to was the Dryfield because, having no water, it was unproductive.
It follows that it would not matter what archaeological evidence was produced to the contrary, the fact that the people present at the battle at the time have told us, in different ways but independently, that these 3 propositions are correct, is decisive. The only discovery that might falsify these is the discovery of seven, new, independent, reports written by people in the year of the battle or close to it which denied them. That is about as likely as the discovery of seven new planets in our solar system.
As stated before, if one new written report came to light which had been written in the year of the battle, what would be expected, what is highly probable, is that it would merely confirm what the others in our possession have said already. For if six independent reports tell of one thing, why would not a seventh?
This work then is secure. It is knowledge, not some opinion backed up by a few selectively chosen quotations. This history really is objective knowledge. That is what objective knowledge is: that which survives every test and makes excellent (if, surprising) sense to describe part of our world at some particular time . More cannot be expected from our knowledge. A statement like: it is true or it is absolutely true, is too simple to be useful. Even what is conceived to be an a priori truth may one day fail because some fresh mind perceives that it is not and shows that it is not.
This history is even more secure than a lot of scientific knowledge, for its power is not empirical: no action can be taken in the world to disprove it, for the propositions concerned and the written reports which require them cannot now be undone, because they have already taken place. Nor does it expect to be affected by a new development in the wider world every other week, but, in addition, it does not need a peer group to give its approval. The strength of these propositions is in themselves alone.
Without that approval, of course, nothing can be done to make use of it. See PS 2 p 199.