Dan Snow's History Hit - William Wallace

Episode Date: October 3, 2021

William Wallace is a legendary figure in Scottish history as one of the leaders of the First War of Scottish Independence. He led the Scots to a famous victory at the Battle of Stirling Bridge before being defeated at the Battle of Falkirk and was eventually betrayed meeting a gruesome end in London in 1305. Dan is joined by Professor Tony Pollard for this episode to talk about one of the most famous and mythologised characters in Scottish history. They discuss the truth behind William Wallace, where he came from, his successes and failures and how he emerged as one of the key figures in the Scottish fight for freedom.

Hello everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. The film Braveheart featured a man called William Wallace, played by Mel Gibson. Now the term Braveheart actually did not refer to William Wallace originally, it referred to Robert the Bruce, King Robert of Scotland as he became. But with a liberal use of artistic license, Gibson turned William Wallace into the great hero of the Scottish War of Independence and made him Braveheart. What's the truth behind that myth? Who was William Wallace into the great hero of the Scottish War of Independence and made him Braveheart. What's the truth behind that myth? Who was William Wallace? Where did he come from? And how did he emerge to play a great part in that War of Independence from England in the late 13th,

very early 14th century? He won a crushing victory over the English at Stirling Bridge, where battles were fought before and since. But he was then catastrophically defeated at the Battle of Falkirk, another battlefield that would see plenty more armies tramping over it before history was done. And he ended up hanged, drawn, quartered, butchered in central London. The person to talk about William Wallace is, of course, Tony Pollard. He's a legend of British history, archaeology, and broadcasting. He goes to battlefields and unlocks their secrets by looking at the landscape and looking for what lies beneath the soil. And he's done lots of broadcasting. He teaches at Glasgow University. And very excitedly as well, he's been a historical advisor on films like Outlaw King, the big Netflix smash hit all about Robert the Bruce.

Tony Pollard has not been on this podcast before. I've spent years trying to get hold of him. And finally, he said yes to talk about one of the most mythologized, one of the most famous characters in Scottish history. Buckle up, folks. This conversation was long and wide ranging. We went from the battlefields of Scotland to the killing zone of Tewksbury, of Towton, and other medieval battles. I just couldn't really restrain my enthusiasm talking about the subject. So it's rambling. We go around

the houses. I think you'll probably enjoy it. If you want to learn more about military history, medieval history, then there's a place that I know that you can do that that's history hit tv we've launched it it's been nominated for best specialist channel in the uk we'll be finding out next week if we win so watch this space everybody very exciting bit of a night out for team history hit coming up and on that channel we have hundreds of hours of history documentaries we've also got all of these podcasts without the ads which some people prefer i can see why so head over to historyhit.tv, get your 30 days free if you subscribe today. Last week was our record week in terms of acquisitions of new subscribers. So please, let's make sure this week also breaks

the record. That'd be nice. But in the meantime, here is Tony Pollard talking about William Wallace. Enjoy. Pollard, talking about William Wallace. Enjoy. Tony, great to have you on the pod. Thank you for inviting me, Dan. It's been a long time. We've been trying to do something together for a while now, haven't we? I know. Sorry, man. I've been hassling you. I haven't seen you, I don't think, since you and I shot that cannon together for a Seven Years' War programme, and you were masterful, masterful.

I must get that YouTube video out because I could show it to my students because we've got nowhere near it. So everything's been a bit odd, but it's nice to start getting outside again, I have to say. It is nice. And now let's dial back from the 18th century all the way back to the 13th. Tell me, William Wallace, we're not going to mention that movie, but tell me, what do we know about his biography before he emerges as this battlefield leader? It's fairly sketchy, that film that you mentioned, which I've actually written about academically. I don't know why. You can't avoid it. We have an account by a guy called Blind Harry who writes this epic poem called The Wallace in around 1440, so a good time after. And I'll say

the word Braveheart is loosely based on Blind Harry, but he is not a reliable source. And the reality is that there are big gaps in Wallace's biography. We know he was the second son of a minor noble. We know he came to notoriety, as far as the English were concerned, when he killed the sheriff of Lanark, and that was in May of 1297. So he becomes an outlaw at that point. He may even have been an outlaw before then. But obviously we mainly know him through his actions on the battlefield. And when his reputation is damaged through defeat on the battlefield, he disappears onto the international stage and sets off on presumably, trying to garner support for an independent Scotland. And then he comes back to Scotland and is then famously betrayed and executed down in London.

So there are huge gaps in our understanding. And where those gaps exist, obviously, myth and Mel Gibson have stepped in. But he is a fascinating character, no doubt about it. You've studied the archaeology, the history of the battlefields on which he fought more than anybody else. What have you been able to learn by walking the ground, but also by reading the texts and the sources? What have you been able to learn about him as a leader on the battlefield? I've really enjoyed, in fact, I think I am at my happiest professionally when I'm combining things like contemporary documents and also secondary works of history with the landscape. And when people say,

are you an archaeologist or a historian? That's a very difficult question to answer. As far as I'm concerned, I'm a historian who uses the landscape as a text, as a document. When I teach my history students, I throw in the landscape as an extra tool that they can use. It's not just about documents in archives. And certainly, if you're looking at military history, and you know this as much as anyone, there is nothing to beat actually walking the ground on which a battle was fought to understand what happened. And then when you start to weave that experience in with the accounts and later interpretations, it can be a hugely rewarding experience. And I think, though I wouldn't consider myself a medievalist, my interests these days are a much more modern period, but I do find the period

of the First War of Scottish Independence absolutely fascinating. It's probably because, as you say, I've put time into walking those battlefields, be it Stirling Bridge or Bannockburn. It's just absolutely fascinating stuff. And what really interests me about that period, there's an idea which I don't believe in at all, and not many current academics do, in a kind of military revolution at the time in the late 1200s, early 1300s. like William Wallace. And very importantly, and this will come out in this conversation, I think Andrew Murray and Robert Bruce is how they learn their trade, how they learn how to beat the English on the battlefield. And I think there's a continuum from the Battle of Stirling Bridge, which is obviously that very famous victory of Wallace, and importantly Murray, over the English, through Wallace's defeat at Falkirk, and then Bruce's rise, the Battle of Loudon Hill, and all of it climaxing with Bannockburn.

There's a continuum between them where lessons are learned, lessons are forgotten, innovations are made. And I think it has a hugely profound impact on things like how the English fight the Hundred Years' War, how they fight the French. And I find that hugely compelling, and I keep coming back to it, even though my interests have moved on from the medieval period. Well, I'm going to ask you all about that now. Edward I, Marcus Norwood, takes advantage of a very disputed succession in Scotland, the first marches and all, takes advantage of a very disputed succession in Scotland, sort of seizes the crown in the very late 1290s, doesn't he? And then William Wallace emerges.

As you say, he kills this sheriff. Do we know anything about that incident? There are various stories. Some of it, again, is myth. Some say that the sheriff had killed his fiancée, who funnily enough was called Marion. There's almost like a Robin Hood type mythology possibly associated with Wallace at this time. But we don't know much about it. We just know that he's not a commoner, which is part of the myth. He is part of the nobility, albeit minor nobility, and he's a second son, so he doesn't stand to inherit. So his options professionally are essentially going to the church or the military. And we don't know how much, if any, of a military training he had. There is some suggesting that his education,

I think which in part was in Aberdeen, might have included, as wouldn't be unusual of someone of his status, some military background. But we don't know much about that event. But what we do know is that, as you say, Edward I comes in, we have the death of Alexander III in 1286, which creates a power vacuum. And we get this thing called the Great Cause, which is where those in Scotland who see themselves having a legitimate line to the throne start to compete against one another. And this is where those in Scotland who see themselves having a legitimate line to the throne start to compete against one another. And this is where the Balliols and the Commons and the Bruces all start to battle it out. But the Scots bring in Edward I, the King of England, to basically adjudicate over this. And he sees an opportunity here, ultimately ultimately to take control of Scotland and pronounces himself the overlord of Scotland.

And through this process, which is kind of like a competition, he decides that John Balliol is the appropriate person. So Balliol is crowned as King of Scotland in 1292. And up until 1296, he is the King of Scotland, but it doesn't take him long to rebel against Edward because Edward largely regards him as a puppet. And when Edward clicks his fingers, he expects Balliol to jump to his tune, to raise money, to send troops to France in support of Edward's causes, etc. And this goes down very badly. And Balliol does ultimately rebel against this, and at one point raids the north of England, and in fact, attacks Carlisle Castle. And that enrages Edward. In fact, at the time, interestingly, Carlisle Castle is held by Robert the Bruce,

King Robert the Bruce, as he will become. It's held by his father. So these guys do end up on different sides at various times. But the thing about Wallace is he never subjects himself to the fealty of Edward I. Never, no question about it. He's a freedom fighter throughout. And to a degree, that's where the Braveheart legend comes from. Though, as we know, Braveheart is actually a term that was used to refer to Robert Bruce, not him. The whole thing can get very confusing.

But basically what happens is that a popular rebellion breaks out in Scotland through this discontent of Edward's overlordship. Some see it as Balliol's incompetence, etc. And William Wallace is one of those that rises to the surface at this time and starts to lead a campaign of sorts in central and southern Scotland, just as this other guy, Andrew Murray, starts to fight against Edward's overlordship in the north. Murray's very interesting and he has more of a definable military background. When Edward comes north in 1296, he sacks Berwick just across the border, massacres loads of the population. An awful event. He then starts to move into Scotland to basically get the magnates to come to his side. We get a battle at Dunbar in 1296. And Andrew Murray and his father are on the Scottish side of that battle,

on the Balliol side. And he's captured along with his father and taken down into England. And the Battle of Dunbar is important because about 100 men-at-arms and nobles on the Scottish side are captured there. And a lot of these guys are actually cavalry, and it removes a very important arm for some time from the Scottish military system. Murray is taken down to England, but escapes and comes back. And when he comes back, he becomes this fighter for Scottish independence. And at some point, Murray and Wallace join forces, and they become a bit of a team.

And the best expression of their collaboration is the Battle of Stirling Bridge. That's 1297. By that time, things have become very serious. and Edward I realises that there is a real problem in Scotland. So he sends some of his most trusted men up there to put this down. The Earl of Surrey plays a really important role here. He was the victor at the Battle of Dunbar. He sent up to Stirling, and to contextualise Stirling, it was described as the brooch that held Scotland together. We've got this wonderful castle on a rock right in the middle of Scotland. So strategically speaking, Stirling has always been important, and very much so during the medieval period. So what we get is this English force, which is thousands strong, maybe 10,000 infantry, 3,000 cavalry, a lot of men. I must say here that actually putting

numbers on the size of armies at this time is really difficult. Assessments of the English army at Bannockburn, depending on what source you read, range from about 10,000 up to 100,000. So these are very roughly estimated figures. But nonetheless, what you get is the English military host, basically below Stirling Castle, the Scots commanded by Murray and William Wallace on the other side of the River Forth, because that's the other important thing here. You've got northern and southern Scotland

really separated by this big river. And to get to the Scots to do battle, because there is a degree of chivalry about this, some of these battles are pre-arranged or there's evidence that that's the case and there are some rules of war, but the English basically need to get to the other side, onto the flat ground, the casse as it's known, on the other side of the river so they can face the Scots. And the Scots are on high ground. They're actually on the high ground, which is where today the Wallace Monument, that late 19th century tower, celebrating Wallace's role in the fight for Scottish independence. So they can see the English coming across what is a very narrow bridge. Now that bridge no longer stands, but through the wonders of archaeology, a local archaeologist

actually identified at Low water some years back the ruins of the pillars under the water, the stone pillars. So we know exactly where the bridge was. Love that. Now it's very narrow. It's probably just these stone pillars with a wooden causeway, a walkway across the top of it. And it's said in the contemporary accounts that only two horses abreast could ride across it. So it's basically a choke point, a bottleneck. So the English have to trot and march across so they can deploy to face the Scots on the other side. Now, Wallace and Murray aren't silly.

They can see that their army is massively outnumbered and indeed out-armed because the English have the advantage of these heavy horses, these men-at-arms and knights on horseback that are the pride of European chivalric warfare. So they've got to be very careful what they do here. And what they do is they watch them come across and they get to the point where they think, OK, that's quite a few. It's not too many. We can probably handle this. And so they then, at speed, and just to remind, this army is largely on foot, armed with long spears, and they advance at speed along the causeway,

because there's wet ground around here, straight towards the English army. And the English, as they come off the northern side of the bridge, find themselves in a meander, an enclosed space where the Forth goes round a bend. So they haven't got a huge amount of space to deploy over. And the point about things like English heavy cavalry is that they advance charge over a straight line. They need space. And that's really denied them by the shape of the river. And the Scots recognise this. And what they do is they basically charge into them. Spears are very effective against horses and push them effectively into the river.

And meanwhile, there's a good number of English troops on the other side of the river that can't get across because the Scots have closed off the end of the bridge. And they basically annihilate this force. It's tactically speaking, taking an outnumbered, on paper, less well armed, less well trained army, and using it basically to mete out this incredible defeat against the English. It's really quite newsworthy at the time. And some idea of Wallace's later reputation comes out. There was a chap called Tudor Cressingham, who was actually the English treasurer in Scotland. And part of this discontent is over the raising of taxes to support Edward's wars. And he'd sent loads of money down south in his time in Scotland and was hated.

And it's said that he fell into Wallace's hands and his corpse was fleshed. He took off all of his skin and made a baldric, which isn't a Tony Robinson character. It is a medieval sword belt. That's where the name comes from. So he took the skin of the English treasurer of Scotland and made a sword belt out of it. I'm not saying that's the person because I don't believe this story,

but that's the reputation that he earned. So there's this amazing victory. The downside is, well, there are two. One is that Edward I is absolutely raging about this and isn't going to let it lie. The other is that part of this partnership, half of this partnership, is killed in battle. Andrew Murray is wounded and dies of his wounds. And if we are going to look at the military reputation of William Wallace and his

contribution to the partnership, it's not just me who has pointed to the fact that his next big battle where he's in solo command without Murray is an absolute disaster for him. So it does seem likely that Andrew Murray, who, as I've said, does have more of a military background probably than Wallace, may have been the brains of the operation. Now, I'm not doing down Wallace there, but it does appear that experience and that training might have made Murray the more able of the two military commanders. This is the heretical stuff that we're looking for from Tony Poirier. I love it.

But also, there is something, what do you make, Tristan? Is it a counter-battle? There's a spontaneity there, isn't there, which was lacking at Falkirk, when it's a more, you line up your guys, we'll line up yours, and we go after each other. Well, what happens is that Edward's in Flanders fighting over these regions he's lost

to Philip the French King. And he looks back to Scotland and he goes, this is not good. So he actually signs a treaty with the French King so that he can come back and deal with this issue personally. This is now personal. He comes north the following year. So this is 1298 with a big army, comes into Scotland and his aim is to hunt down Wallace, destroy the Scottish army and remove him. And what we end up with is an encounter at a place called Falkirk, which is a town between Edinburgh and Glasgow, obviously much smaller then. We don't know exactly where

the battle was fought. The beauty of Stirling Bridge is because of the local geography, the fact that we can identify the bridge, we know exactly where. Most of that battlefield is now under a rugby pitch. Falkirk, we've tried to hunt it down. There's just not enough evidence there. Somebody someday might find archaeological finds that give us the key to locating it. But around Falkirk somewhere, Wallace's army was located by Edward's army. And as you say, the spontaneity at Stirling Bridge was identifying the point at which the move was to be made. That's the genius, right, move, now we've got them. What happens at Falkirk is that the bodies of spearmen that Wallace is still using, and the word we use to describe them is

a schiltron, and these are almost like harking back to the ancient Greek hotlight in the phalanx, the infantry soldier with the long spear moving en masse with maybe a thousand of these in a body making up a schildtron. And Wallace has three or four of these schildtrons at Falkirk. Now, Wallace is credited with inventing the schildtron at Falkirk. I don't believe that at all. I think that they were using a schildtron. What else were they doing at Stirling Bridge? They were moving masses of spearmen from one place to another to engage the English. That would not be done just as a disorganised mob. We're looking here at some degree of command and control. So as far as I'm concerned, the Shiltern was in place as a battlefield manoeuvre, as a weapon at Stirling Bridge.

But the difference at Falkirk is that Wallace, without the benefit of Murray, doesn't move them. He literally ties them down. There's one account which suggests he ropes them in to sort of contain them. So you've got these groups of spearmen, which Wallace has pinned to the ground, really. So he's expecting to fight a stationary combat. Now there are cavalry there on the Scottish side, some of the nobility, they actually leave. They see which way the wind's blowing in this battle and leave. Some say abandon Wallace to his fate. They've also got some archers, but largely the army is

made up of these spearmen. And Edward arrives on the scene and thinks, OK, we'll have them, and sends in his heavy horse. So the English cavalry charge at these fixed bodies of Scottish spearmen and get pushed back. Quite naturally, horses will not throw themselves willingly onto the ends of long spears. And so they are fought back. But then what Edward does is he brings in his archers. And this is the killer blow. And famously, he's got Welsh archers. He's got archers from Cheshire. There's a big debate about the rise of the longbow, the myth of the smallbow. We could do an entire program on that. Let's not go there. As someone who's married someone from Cheshire, Tony, this is giving me very, very profound anxiety. So yeah, let's keep rattling through. So basically,

he brings in his archers. And given that Wallace's men are lightly armored, and in a fixed position, these three or four bodies of men, he shoots them to pieces. These arrows are raining down thousand upon thousands of arrows, down onto the heads of these spearmen and breaks open these shiltrons. And the point about these bodies of spearmen is they've got to retain integrity. If you break them, if you knock gaps in them, you can start to get inside them and defeat them. So with that impact, what he then does is send his cavalry back in again. So you've got combined arms being used here in an intelligent way.

And the Scots are absolutely annihilated. Wallace gets away by the skin of his teeth, but there is a huge loss on the side of the Scottish. Now, this causes Wallace a huge loss of reputation. We'll get to that. But when we go back to what I was talking about, about learning how to fight, I think what's happened here, to a degree, is that Wallace has been hoist on his own petard.

He's a little overconfident. Despite the fact that Murray was killed at Stirling Bridge, he's gained confidence. He knows he can beat the English and he knows those spearmen did it. But the problem is that Stirling Bridge was a bit too successful for Wallace. That speed of movement, that blocking of the bridge, the pushing back of the force that had got across the bridge. What happens at Stirling Bridge or what doesn't happen is that the English do not have time to deploy their bowmen. So basically, Wallace at Stirling Bridge does not see what the English longbow used en masse can do. That is a surprise that awaits him at Falkirk. So I think

there's a success initially, that success was so great that it basically masked a really dangerous part of the English army. So what we get is this defeat. Wallace's reputation is damaged. It's at that point that he disappears overseas. For listening to Dan Snow's history, we've got Tony Pollard talking about William Wallace. More coming up. Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt, and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai

warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. And then he does his ambassadorial stuff comes back and does he command a significant force again or is he betrayed quite quickly when he comes back wallace comes back from the continent apparently having seen the french king and the pope and all of that in 1303 and at that point

he becomes a commander in the Scottish army. And let's not forget, he's hugely respected. At one point, he was knighted, some say possibly even by Robert Bruce. He was a guardian of Scotland. So he was a man of huge standing at the height of his military powers. But he comes back, I wouldn't say a diminished character, but he will never reach the level that he wants attained, this knight, guardian of Scotland. But he's still, for the English, very much a troublemaker, and he's still a very wanted man. And the sad truth is that in 1305, Wallace is betrayed,

and he's betrayed by a fellow Scot. And this is indicative of the internecine nature of this struggle. At times, Robert Bruce and Wallace will be on the opposite side. Robert Bruce was very much a pragmatist. He did at least once show fealty, took the king's peace and was on the English side, if we like. And as I've said, Wallace never did that. And Wallace is betrayed. He's taken down to London. There's a show trial. He's found guilty of treason and all sorts of other crimes,

and very famously is dragged through the streets of London, hanged at Smithfield, and then chopped into pieces, and bits of his body are taken to the various parts of the kingdom. It's said that one part went to Stirling to remind people of his actions at Stirling Bridge. So that's the end of Wallace. But what we see there is the rise of Robert the Bruce. And Bruce inherits Wallace's military CV, if you like. Wallace's military CV, if you like. And I think the difference between Wallace and Bruce's is that Bruce is a consummate student of warfare. He looks back at what happened to Wallace and Murray at Stirling Bridge, then the disaster. There's even a suggestion he might have been at Falkirk, perhaps even on Edward's side. Obviously, Braveheart makes much of that in a very confusing way.

But the point is that Bruce, whose family have been part of this contention, this competition for the throne, seizes the moment. And up until 1300, he was actually one of the guardians of Scotland, basically covering this power vacuum. You've got this puppet king in exile. So he's one of the management of Scotland. He resigns that role because he has an argument with an old rival, John Common. And what he then does is to cut a long story short, he actually kills Common in 1306 in Greyfriars Church in Domfries. And there are various stories about did he kill him? Did his men kill him? Was it a fight that got out of hand? But he kills one of his main rivals in a church and is promptly excommunicated by the Pope. But he then very quickly after takes the throne.

He seizes basically the vacant throne of Scotland. And his story develops from there. But he has ups and downs militarily. Tony, I've taken enough of your time, and there's a whole separate podcast on Bannockburn. But can you just try and finish the story of these massed spear formations, these schiltrons? It was seen as this kind of remarkably Scottish response to this heavy cavalry that was able to be deployed by the English.

At Bannockburn, like Falkirk in terms of they deploy onto a field of battle, it's not a kind of rushed encounter battle, is it? Or you tell me, how does Bruce build on and win using the raw materials that Moray and Wallace had in their previous battles? The first lesson that Bruce learns from these previous battles is the use of terrain. And the great example there is Stirling Bridge, where all of the advantages that the Scots can take, they do take from that landscape, hemming the English in, stopping their advance, etc. And Bruce fights a battle, a much smaller battle, at a place called Loudoun Hill in 1307. And in that battle, he digs ditches across a road and obstructs

the English advance and prevents the English from developing the full charge. And again, they've got loads of cavalry. The Scots don't. They've got more men, et cetera. But Bruce has these shiltrons and uses them effectively as the English try to get through the gaps in these ditches, these choke points.

So he's using the landscape very intelligently. And that's a lesson that stays with him. When we get to Bannockburn, there's a long and complicated story about how this battle happens. But to cut a very long story short, it happens over two days. In the first day, Bruce has got his army, which again is largely these infantry spearmen, to the south of Stirling Castle. The English, under Edward II this time, are coming up to try and relieve the siege of Stirling Castle. And basically, day one is a number of probing attacks by the English, which the Scots win.

But Edward II does not fall into what might have been Loudon Hill Mark II, but written much larger. Edward II has a bad reputation as far as being a military commander is concerned. I think that's been rather overplayed. On day one of Bannockburn, I think Edward II plays it quite cannily. He sends in these probing attacks to try and work out how many Scots there are, where they are. On both occasions, these attacks are pushed back. And famously, in one of these encounters, Robert Bruce chops into the head of de Boon and there's this story of Manoway, Mano combat. It's all overplayed. It's all part of this English reconnaissance of the Scottish position. What happens then is that English have got a bloody nose, okay, but Edward has a lot of information, takes his men off the

ridge where the road is that they've advanced up onto, again, the low ground of the Forth, the Cass, similar terrain to where the Battle of Stirling Bridge was fought. Puts a good distance overnight, quite obviously, thing to do between him and the Scots, can also water his horses, and possibly doesn't even expect Robert the Bruce to attack him the next day, because Bruce has basically earned this reputation as a guerrilla fighter, and if he doesn't think he's going to win, he won't fight. Edward came up in 1310 looking for Robert Bruce. He just refused to fight him, and he basically left. This time, Bruce recognises that Edward II and his army are in a weak position.

There's a story that a disaffected Scot fighting for the English, Alexander Seaton, comes up the hill at night and says, they're in disarray, attack them now, now's your chance. I don't believe we needed Alexander Seaton. I think by this time, Robert Bruce is astute enough as a military commander to see that his moment has come. So what he does on the morning of the next day is move his men, largely again infantry, off the high ground, coming down the slope onto the flat ground of the cask where he's facing off the English host. They are in

some array, they get their act together, they slept in their armour, you know, onto their horses, advance at the Scots. But Bruce, who again, three or four shiltrons, older counts say four, more modern assessments reckon three, these thousands of men packed into these hedgehogs of spearmen, they advance at speed into the English before they can form up. So ultimately end up pushing back the English heavy horse onto the English infantry. They end up fleeing to the river. Loads of them drown in the river trying to escape. There's this account that you could walk dry shod over the English dead

across the Bannock Burn, which the battle is named after. So what I think happens here is that on day one, Robert Bruce has prepared the ground. The story is of him digging pits, which kind has prepared the ground, the stories of him digging pits, which kind of mirror what happened at Loudon Hill back in 1307. He's waiting for the English to come on. They do, but only in small numbers, enough to know that we're going to be annihilated if we go there. Let's not do that. Let's rest and wait for the next day. So Bruce fails to coax the English into a Loudoun Hill scenario. But what he does on day two is he refights the Battle of Stirling Bridge.

It's got the river, you've got a limited amount of land for the English cavalry to deploy on, and these shiltrons moving at speed into the enemy. So he's using Wallace's playbook there, and Moray's playbook. And I guess the key is against the enemy, better on particularly with ranged weapons, you cannot let them fight the battle they want to fight. You've got to get up in their faces. Exactly, exactly. And again, the English do not manage to deploy their archers effectively. What they've got to do, and this is a tactic the Jacobites used in the 1700s, is close that killing ground. Let's say Culloden, Cumberland's army is using muskets, a lot of

muskets, the equivalent of the medieval archer. The Jacobites charging toward them have got to close that killing ground. As you say, in the face, hand-to-hand combat where the advantage of the better armed enemy is lost. And that's exactly what Bruce is doing, is these shiltrons, these bodies of spearmen, steamroller over that terrain, closing the distance, smacking into the English before they can form up. It's genius. I don't use that word lightly. I do think that Robert Bruce is a military genius, or was a military genius. I love it. And also, for any veterans of Falkirk, it was just the opposite. Rather than these children's being kind of static, immovable, but also deeply vulnerable,

this is them as a kind of offensive, like a flying wedge. It's unbelievable. It's completely turning things on their head. I love it. Yeah. It's all about warfare in Scotland in the first War of Independence. And Bannockburn doesn't end it, it goes on. In fact, the First War of Independence that we're talking about here doesn't end till 1328 with the Treaty of Edinburgh and Northampton. But what it does, it secures Bruce's reputation as King of the Scots and really sets the scene for what will come. will come. Land a Viking longship on island shores,

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new episodes every week. But that battle is the pinnacle of Scottish tactical development. And what we're seeing here is battle as an academy with lessons being learned. In some cases, as with Falkirk, a lesson being forgotten, but largely through a lack of information because, as I said, Wallace never saw those archers in action. What we get in the Second War of Independence, which breaks out in 1332, there's a long and complicated story as well, but the English have learned their lesson and under Edward III, the archers start to come into their own. Heavy cavalry are kind of abandoned. They start to fight on foot using combined arms of infantry and archers and start to get one over on the Scots at that point because their tactics are developed.

Is there something about the Scottish landscape and cavalry, at the risk of being sort of cliche, but is it just that the heavy horse is just not the weapon it is on the plains of... But I mean, you know, Flanders is a wet place. Scotland's wet. Is there something going on there? No, but you mentioned Flanders there. We've got 1302, a precursor to Bannockburn in the Battle of Courtrey or the Golden Spurs, where the French are fighting the Flemish. And basically a bunch of Flemish foot soldiers, including the peasantry with spears, in a broken landscape with hedges and stuff, beat the pride of the French army, many of whom are knights on horseback. So there is this point, and this is where an idea of a military revolution comes along,

that infantry, if properly trained, and training is key, command and control is key. If that is all done properly, and these forces are mobile, they can defeat cavalry. And as you say, Scotland lends itself to this form of warfare, because we don't have masses of open fields. And when we do, there's wet ground, there are rivers. Yeah, they're not limestone uplands. It's just not as you see it at Agincourt or whatever. But Agincourt itself, there's terrain features there. So really heavy horse and not the way ahead. And it took people a long time to actually learn that.

And then you get the Swiss, I guess you get the Swiss pikemen stuff emerging. The Swiss are doing very much what the Scots did, but in a more rigid and a more disciplined fashion. The secret of the Swiss pike in the late 1400s and 1500s, again, was discipline and speed. And they wiped the battlefields of Europe. But then we get to Flodden. That's another story entirely. Crikey.

Well, yeah, we could go there. But it's interesting. I mean, pikemen, the images you get from those manuscripts, those engravings, are of solid mass. You just don't get any sense of kinetic of movement in those pikemen. It's so interesting to hear you really emphasise that today. When I've worked with reenactors on that, it's impressive to see how effective they are, even just small numbers. But imagine a Schiltron, maybe 1,000, 1,500, even bigger. Phenomenal weapon. And you think of the courage they need to kind of hold their nerve as great

heavy horses are crashing around them. But actually, I didn't know you also needed extraordinary aggression and fitness to move around those battlefields and sure-footedness as well. So they were the complete unit. Yeah, and it's where you get the rise of things like the non-commissioned officer who's in there in amidst them, giving orders to smaller units within the larger organic hole. And they're so effective that on the first day, the probing movement by the English cavalry around the eastern flank of the Scottish position down on the Kars is intercepted by a Scottish Shiltron. And it does at some point in that combat become stationary. But the English cavalry force is unsupported. So there are no archers. It's this

reconnaissance mission. And they get so frustrated that they can't penetrate this formation, that there are stories of them just throwing their battle axes at them in a rage, and eventually just having to retire. There's nothing they can do. Thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate that. We've gone off on one, as is always the way with these things. It's making me think now of Edward IV at the Battle of Towton. He would have fought in the middle of it, right? In a very different way. Yeah, and why did Murray get killed?

Was he at the front? Was he very much leading from the front? And as we know from the likes of James IV, who dies at Flodden, leading from the front in these battles is not necessarily the best idea. Yeah, well, that is true. Thank you very much indeed, Tony. And now I'm suddenly thinking about all these royal commanders that die in battle.

Henry V, Prince Henry almost dies at Shrewsbury. You've got Edward the Prince dying at Shrewsbury. It's a dangerous business to be in amongst it, right? Yeah, even blown up by canon. Oh, well, yes. And don't start with the Stewart family. The Stewart family. They didn't have much luck, those Stewarts.

No, poor things. Unlike me talking to you. Tony, thank you so much for coming on today. Is there any books and projects that you want to tell everyone about at the moment? I've got a few things happening at the moment. I'm very busy with teaching. The new semester or term has just started

and we're back to face-to-face teaching, which is bringing its own challenges, but I'm very busy with teaching the new semester or term has just started and we're back to face-to-face teaching which is bringing its own challenges but I'm enjoying it but yeah there's stuff happening and you and I will I would imagine end up talking about it at some point in the near future hopefully you'll see it here folks thank you very much Tony a pleasure take care Dan I feel we have the history on our shoulders all this tradition of ours our school history our songs this part of the history of our shoulders. All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our country, all were gone and finished. Thanks folks for listening to this episode of Danston's History. As I say all the time, I love doing these podcasts. They are the best thing I do professionally. I feel very lucky to have you listening to them. If you fancied

giving them a rating review, obviously the best rating review possible would be ideal. It makes a big difference to us. I know it's a pain, but we'd really, really be grateful. And if you want to listen to the other podcasts in our ever-increasing stable, don't forget we've got Susanna Lipscomb with Not Just the Tudors, that's flying high in the charts. We've got our Medieval podcast, Gone Medieval, the brilliant Matt Lewis and Kat Jarman. We've got The Ancients with our very own Tr Kat Jarman. We've got the ancients with our very own Tristan Hughes, and we've got warfare as well, dealing with all things military. Please go and check those out wherever you get your pods. you