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Bannockburn is Revealed!
The battle of Bannockburn has never made sense. For nearly forty years
the accounts given by Professor Barrow in his book Robert Bruce and the
Community of the Realm of Scotland and the National Trust in their booklets have
been different, with the battle in different places and the streams and
woodlands different.
In a new book, Bannockburn Revealed, William Wallace Cunningham Scott BA, BSc,
MEd, FIMA, FSA (Scot) has resolved the dispute and shown that the traditional
beliefs about the great Scottish victory in 1314 are false. The mistakes
are due to a failure to consider the reliability of sources, to analyse them
altogether, to investigate thoroughly the old maps of the area and the ground
itself.
Generations of Scotsmen have been reared on the idea that a small Scottish
army defeated an English army 3 or 4 time as large, that the English were
afraid because of skirmishes on the previous day, that there were 4 schiltroms
or Scottish divisions under Moray, Douglas, Edward, Robert Bruce, that a charge
of 500 light cavalry dealt with the English archers, and that the Scottish small
folk waving sheets on a distant hill made the English believe that a second army
was about to attack them. Demoralized they fled....
These notions are demolished as soon as all the relevant sources are printed
together for none of the English saw any Scottish cavalry charge or any reserve
army; they all saw 3 Scottish schiltroms advance upon them on foot, and the
armies were not dissimilar in size. The one Englishman actually present,
Robert Baston, who wrote his version for his Scottish captors does not tell of a
smaller Scottish army for which, it had it been so, he might have been put to
death. He even writes of a multitude of Scots. If the Scots army was
smaller he should have said so. Even two fragmentary Scottish reports
written in 1314 do not suggest a small Scottish army.
Because of these important differences between Barbour and the English
sources who wrote much sooner after the battle within recent memory, the fact
that Barbour was probably not born until long after the battle, did not write
his epic until 63 years later and died in 1395, Barbour should be considered a
secondary source.
Further analysis confirms this fully. Barbour simply invented most of
the events in his version. The Scottish cavalry charge because he expected it
and, the "Small Folk" waving sheets, in an effort to explain what had
been forgotten.
Yet generations of Scots have been misled by his epic poem, The Bruce,
if only because it is the only Scottish version of any length. If anybody should know whether
there was a Scottish cavalry charge and an army of Small Folk, it should have
been the English who were facing them. None of them saw any such thing.
None of the 11 earliest sources saw this. And
what they did see is far more wonderful than has ever been appreciated before.
Professor Barrow who has the English camp at the entry to the Carse, says the
battle was fought in the Dryfield of Balquhiderock and that the battle took its
name from the place and not the stream. However, Roy's map c1750 shows
only 3 houses 150yards apart then, which means that there was no village in
1750. Four centuries earlier there would have been fewer houses, probably
only one. 'no place
"Bannockburn" in 1314.'
. When Roy's
map is used to draw the woodland of 1314 it is clear that there could have been
no battle on the Dryfield, for cavalry charges cannot take place in woodland.
Worse, the English could not have penetrated into the Dryfield because it was
the finest natural fortress for miles around with a steep, densely wooded slope
20-60Ft high around it. Barrow and every other scholar believe the English
cavalry were in front facing the Scots and that they charged the advancing
Scots. How could they have charged up a steep wooded slope? The
ground shows it to be impossible. Fifty-two photographs in the book reveal
this and other features.
Barrow's version is false in having the English attack up the Roman Road,
which had been given up by this time. Bruce waited for the English at
Milton Ford, leaving them 100yards space to blunt their lances on his pikemen.
Only a handful could attack at one time and were easily beaten off.
Elsewhere, shown in the Book by 52 magnificent photographs, the Bannock Burn was
a wonderful defence with very steep wooded banks impassable to cavalry.
The strategy of the Scots was to force the English to move north East into the
Carse. Once camped there, there defeat was inevitable and Bruce knew it
beforehand. Otherwise he would not have remained to face such a finely
equipped and experienced army.
What is so wonderful? The Scots occupied a fine defensive position on
high ground among woods that had served them well the day before. The
desire to remain must have been tremendous. But a single cavalryman
on his armoured horse weights a ton. Unarmed foot soldiers hit by this at
speed are like being run over by a tank: squashed flat and mangled. The
English had around 3000 heavy cavalry that the 500 lightly armoured Scottish
cavalry were no match for.
The Scots left their good position on high ground
to attack heavily armoured cavalry on a flat plain on foot!
What daring! What initiative! What bravery! What leadership! That was the way to
win. Get really close to their cavalry and deprive them of space to get up
speed.
Leaving the English in the Carse unmolested to get drunk the night before,
the Scots rose at 3am, slid down the steep slopes of Balquhiderock wood and
lined up just before dawn. They then marched boldly on foot upon the
English cavalry so that they could not get up speed. Once they were very
close, the Scots dug in with the butts of their pikes. There was a short
charge by the English, which was held by the Scots, at least twice as many
as believed up to now. Once the pikemen got in amongst the stationary
cavalry the battle was as good as over because the English could not manoeuvre in the Carse where
they were hemmed in by the Pelstream and the Bannock, wider because of the
tide and recent rain and obstructed by palisades of trees on both banks.
And the
feared English archers were reduced to bystanders because they were behind the
cavalry and very close to the Scots. So close that firing over the heads
of their mounted knights was impossible without hitting their own men in the
back. This is what the eyewitness reports tell us. The Scots won
because they were brilliant!
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