In Our Time - The Battle of Bannockburn

Episode Date: February 2, 2011

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Battle of Bannockburn.On June 23rd 1314, Scottish forces under their king Robert the Bruce confronted a larger army commanded by the English monarch Edward II at Bannockburn. It was the culmination of a war of independence which had been going on since the English had invaded Scotland in 1296. After eighteen years of intermittent fighting the English had been all but expelled from Scotland: their last stronghold was the castle at Stirling.The Scots won a decisive victory at Bannockburn. The English were routed and their king narrowly escaped capture. Although it took a further 14 years for Scotland to achieve full independence with the 1328 Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton, this was an important triumph; today it remains one of the most discussed moments in the nation's history.With:Matthew StricklandProfessor of Medieval History at the University of GlasgowFiona WatsonHonorary Research Fellow in History at the University of DundeeMichael BrownReader in History at the University of St Andrews Producer: Thomas Morris.

Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk,org, forward slash Radio 4. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello, at Banachburn, the English lay, the Scots there were nefar away, but waited for the break a day that glinted in the east. The opening of Robert Burns' poem Banachburn, setting the scene for the tumultuous events of June 24th, 1314. A few hours later, an outnumbered Scottish Army, inspirationally led by Robert the Bruce, defeated the forces of the English king Edward II.

The English were put to flight, and their king narrowly avoided capture. Banachburn was the culmination of a war of independence which had rumbled on for 18 years. It paved the way for the restoration of full Scottish independence. Almost 7th centuries on, it remains one of the defining events in the nation's history.

With me to discuss the Battle of Banachburn and Matthew Strickland, Professor of Medieval History at the University of Glasgow, Fiona Watson, Honoury Research Fellow in History at the University of Dundee, and Michael Brown, reader in history at the University of St Andrews. Matthew Strickland, let's begin, we're going to talk about 1314, but let's begin earlier in the late 13th century with a dispute which became known as the Great Cause. What was that, and why did it matter so much?

Well, that has its origins in 1286 when King Alexander III of Scotland accidentally rides off a cliff at King Horn in and his death leads to... Accidentally rides off a cliff. Well, he was trying to visit his young wife, Yolander of Dres, for a night of passion, but it was a stormy night, and against his advisers' counsel, he decided to make the journey, and he was found the next morning with a broken neck

at the bottom of the cliffs. So the problem was... What a way to go. The problem was that his nearest direct successor was a young and sickly girl, Margaret the maid of Norway, his granddaughter. And any medieval kingdom facing a minority

was faced with the time of great crisis. So the Regency government, known as the Guardians, looked to their powerful southern neighbour, Edward I for protection. It's worth remembering that Edward I was the brother-in-law of Alexander III. He had a reputation on a European stage as an arbiter, the Justinian of England. And also it's important to be.

bear in mind for what we're subsequently going to be talking about, that there'd been a period of unprecedented peace between England and Scotland. About a hundred years. Yes. 12-17 is the last major conflict, but fairly much unbroken peace up to that point. So, faced with this crisis of succession, the Guardians realised that they had to take action

because two major competing factions exist within late 13th century Scotland, the Bruce family and the powerful common family. Initially, Edward and the Guardian's broker a deal, which could have potentially been of enormous significance, to marry Edward I's son, Edward, to Margaret the maid of Norway, which would have been a union of the crowns. But that is scuppered by the death of Margaret in 1290. The Scots then ask Edward to adjudicate who among the nobles of Scotland has the best claim to the throne. And this leads to what you were mentioning,

the Great Cause, which begins in 1291. It's a long and complex legal dispute. In 1292, the judgment is given in favour of John Balliol. The two principal candidates emerge. John Balliol, who claims the throne through seniority of degree, of seniority of line, and Robert Bruce, the competitor, the grandfather of King Robert of Banachburn. So it settled on bail-a-lil, but Edward II uses this as a chance to exert more authority in Scotland. He'd hammered the Welsh and he wanted to become a hammer of the Scots in a way.

And so he came, he started to interfere a lot, far more than the Scots thought he should do, which led to a difficulty in the sense that they didn't like it and they got an alliance, they made an alliance with the French, the old alliance, which then provoked Edward I, Edward I, the first, to March north. Yes. There are a number of factors that we really see in these years of 1290s an intensification of claims of English sovereignty over Scotland under Edward. Edward is essentially a political opportunist. One could say in the 1280s he probably had no sense of an invasion of Scotland,

not really even until maybe 12-195-6. What he did is he provoked John Baylor, who he had established as king by acts that challenged his sovereignty within Scotland, allowing nobles to go over the head of King John to appeal to the English crown. But King John's alliance with France was a, was obviously. spitting in the eye of Edward I first who then decided to march on Scotland. And what were the consequences of that invasion in 1296, Fiona Watson? Well, the invasion was designed to get rid of the kingdom of Scotland.

It was now under direct English rule Edward sets up. His own government in Berwick, he has a lieutenant, the Earl of Surrey, and a treasurer and a chancellor. And as far as he's concerned, that's it. Scotland has dealt with. They took less time to conquer than the Welsh. he's going to go abroad for his main fight, which is with the King of France, over his own position as Duke of Gascony.

So Scotland is conquered. It's supposed to contribute men and money for Edward's wars on the continent, as indeed does England and Wales. And that's that, as far as he's concerned. Who's he put in place in Scotland after that conquest? Well, the Earl of Surrey was the victor at the Battle of Dunbar, which had sealed the conquest.

and then you've got a Chancellor, Walter Amisham, and a very important man, the Treasurer, whom the Scots hate because the chief financial officer is the Chamberlain in Scotland, not the treasurer, and he's a man called Hugh Cressingham, and it's Creshingham who is on the ground in Berwick and probably sees most clearly as the difficulties begin for the English administration in Scotland in 1297.

Just to be clear, do the Scots still have a king then? No, Bealeo was captured after Dunbarre was forced to, well, he was ritually humiliated and stripped of his insignia of Scottish chit. You mean literally publicly? Humiliated. When you say stripped, you mean he was taken off him in public in front of a lot of people that is in public?

Exactly, that's exactly right. He wore this, he had this coat. Well, in fact, it was specially made for this humiliation. He had this coat. So it was made to be ripped off? Absolutely. I see. Edward knows exactly what he's doing. And so the king is, along with most of the Scottish nobility

who fought against Edward, not all of the nobility of Scotland fought against Edward. The brus, for example, were with Edward. but anyway, Balliol and the common family are all put in prison in England so the natural leaders of Scotland and the King himself are not in Scotland in this period. Just to make it nice and complicated, there's something approaching a civil war rumbling away in Scotland at this time all the time, isn't it, since the death of Alexander, these two great families and others joining in.

So they're at each other's throes, some are on the English side, and some are living in what we would now call England in Northumbria as well, of us from Scotland, peels down into the north-east and a bit into the north-west, Carlisle castles in Scottish hands time and again and so and so forth. So it's not clear. There isn't that clarity there. Absolutely.

And I think that though one can say that clearly there is some sense of identity that people choose to fight for Scotland, including the nobility, that there's a lot of this war that is creating a deep sense of antipathy and division that wasn't necessarily there before. But Edward, who is a brilliant soldier, Longshanks, Great plan. Tension it goes back to London, and indeed done, and a year later, Wallace rises up and shakes his fist and marches on so-called impregnable positions.

Yes, and he's not the only one. I mean, what seems to happen is spontaneous revolt, because the Scots, you may not be surprised to hear this when they're asked for money, they don't like it, and they don't have such an intensive government. Edward makes all these demands, and a lot of the middling sort are very upset about the idea that they might be called to fight abroad. which they've never ever done before.

And so there's all these natural leaders in local communities suddenly without the normal leadership spring up in revolt. Wallace is one of them, the young Andrew Murray, who was caught at Dunbar, imprisoned, but escapes from Chester and comes back north to his father's lands north of Inverness. He's another of these leaders. So all over Scotland there is spontaneous revolt. But we single out Wallace.

Are we right to single out Wallace? Was he the leading noble, dissident? Well, I think people, well, we have brave heart. So that kind of clouds our judgment. But I mean, Wallace became the symbol of all of that for the Scots later on. And he is very important and very unusual and clearly a great leader. But he's not the only one. But he and Murray defeat the Earl of Saria at Stirling Bridge,

which causes great consternation, of course. And Edward's on the continent at this point. And he basically said, right, everyone stop, wait till I come back. I'll deal with this. And that's what happened. And he does deal with it. Absolutely at Falkirk. He wins a great battle at Falkirk.

So one of these rebels, Michael Brown, was Robert the Bruce, and in 1306 he became king, after a murder, really, committed by him in a church. Yes. Can you develop that, please? There's a lot of water goes under the bridge between 1297 and 1306, as you see. Well, I'm sure you can stream us down that very quickly. Well, Bruce's record, as we've seen already, his family's record is very much fixated on what we would consider family interest, dynastic interest relating to what the Bruges considered to be their right to the Scottish throne,

and perhaps more widely, that Anglo-Scottish conundrum that you've already raised about the landholding links with the nobility. So his record from 1297 to 1304, which is a period of ongoing war, is mixed. If you're judging things by a patriotic standard, he changes sides at least twice. So he's fighting for the English sometimes? He's fighting, certainly fighting for the English. he submits formally to Edward I first in 1302 while the war is still raging, at least partly because at that point

there's a possibility that John Balliol may return, and that's not something that he wants. So can me characterize him with this, I must determine to be king at all costs. That would be nice, but I don't think it's probably helpful. No. I don't wonder why it's nice, or else. I'm really concerned about whether it's accurate.

I don't think it is accurate, because I think, you know, Matthew's already mentioned Edward I've the first, as opportunities. I think to a certain extent all politicians are opportunists. What the brusies are concerned with is to keep their claim in play. Whether the opportunity will come is another matter. And I think what Robert is concerned with, as his grandfather has been, is to make that claim a possibility.

How it comes about in 306 may be very likely to be a combination of accident and design. There may be some kind of hope and possibly even long, held plan amongst Bruce and his supporters that he'll make a bid for the throne. But the circumstances, as you've already said, relate to a specific act of violence. Bruce kills his main Scottish rival, John Common in the Greyfriars Kirk at Dumfries.

And to make sure that he's dead, he sends in his henchman afterwards to finish the job in case he might not have done it. There's a touch of Don Collierney. Once you've wounded, Commin, there's not much sense in leaving a wounded man to get better and be very angry with you. You might as well finish him off.

But the curious thing is after that murder in that church, six weeks later, he is absolved, absolved of the crime and becomes king. He's absolved by the Bishop of Glasgow, Robert Wichard, who is one of his supporters, and who encourages him, directs him to go and be king, provides him with the vestments that he wears at his own inauguration. So one of the leading figures in the Scottish Church is providing him with a platform to go and take the throne. It's an extremely controversial act within Scotland. which alienates a large number of Scottish nobles

and presumably appalls a lot of ordinary Scots and it brings this simmering, factional tension that we've already indicated, out into the open. Well, thank you very much for rushing through that first part. It really is important, but one more thing. So we got Robert de Bruce coming as King of Scotland there with blood on his hands and every other bit of him, but there you go, that's what is.

And a year later, Edward I, a very great warrior, we're told, a great king, and leaves a son who turns out to be much less effective than he is. Is there a hopelessness of his son? He's described as hopeless in somebody's notes here. And his relationship with Piers Gaviston, which took him away from the affection and admiration of his own nobles, and kept him away from Scotland for a crucial time, so Bruce could build up his strength.

How important is that before we fast forward to 1314? It's vital. You can see in terms of Bruce's position, if we're measuring in that. Before Edward I was first death, he's penned into Southwest. He's been defeated in 1306, driven into exile, comes back, but really is scurrying around the South West, avoiding much larger English force,

which Edward is sending against him. When Edward I first dies, the pressure is removed, and Bruce is free thereafter to pick his own strategy, to take the initiative. He may take it step by step, but as English politics goes into this cycle of sort of virtual civil war and then reprushment and then onto the next crisis,

which really characterises it through to 1314. Bruce is just taking part, region of Scotland, after region of Scotland, largely fighting against Scots, largely fighting against his Scottish opponents who won't forgive him for taking the throne which they believe belongs to Balliol and for killing common.

So Bruce is building up his strength in Scotland and we, it's all of you saying, has been said he was a very fine, perhaps even again, great military leader, a particularly guerrilla warfare at this time. And the English strength is failing because of the king, who was not up to the job of his father, certainly. So there we've got them there. Now, we've got to march to Banachburn in a moment or two.

Can you tell us the incident that set off the decision by Edward II to march north? Well, the two closely related factors in late 1313, this is the political element, Bruce holds Parliament, the gathering of Scottish nobility in which he decrees that his Scottish opponents have a year in which to come into his lordship, in which case they can hold their lands and titles or suffer perpetual forfeiture. And that really is the wake-up call for Edward, because unless he moves to the help of his Scottish allies, they will be in serious and possibly a fatal trouble. So he begins to plan the great army of 1314 in late 1313. In the early months of 1314, anticipating this great army from England,

Bruce redoubles his efforts to take the great English-held strongholds of Lothian. Edinburgh falls by Amberscade. Roxburgh also is taken in a wonderfully daring raid by James Douglas. Stirling Castle holds out under the leadership of a man called Philip Mowbray who was a Scot but loyal to Edward Bruce lays siege to Sterling

impregnable fortress which guards the eastern approaches into central Scotland that's a strategic key The approach that holds Scotland together That's what one of you called it Absolutely it's critical It's also a very tough nut to crack And leaving the siege in the hands of

his brother, Edward Bruce. Edward comes to an agreement with Mowbray, the Castellan, by which the castle was surrendered to the Scots unless it is relieved by the English coming within three leagues of Stirling on Midsummer's Day, the 24th of June, 1314. There's a sort of wonderful romantic shrillic thing comes in. Midsummer's day, not a day before, not a day after. Was it at noon?

And the flowers to be in bloom. Anyway, let's get on with it. Fiona Watson. So the English then marched north with a very big army subsidised by the Pope more or less. That's absolutely right. Although there is debate about how big it was. I mean, we know how many were summoned, how many actually turned up, given the unpopularity. Well, let's uncover that. The Pope subsidised it. Well, he gave them a lot of money. Let's leave it at that. He borrowed a lot of money from the Pope. Now, let's talk about it because numbers are really important because the legend is that it was an Agincourt, the small Scots against the mighty English and so. So about how many

Without taking About how many did the English really have? Okay well I mean there were supposed to be over 20,000 There certainly were that many So estimates go from about 10 to 15,000 And this is cavalry and infantry? That's infantry. That'd probably be about 2,000 horse. So 10 to 15 infantry and 2,000 horse

They march north and then what? Well Edward seems to have been a bit lackadaisal in this He knew the deadline, the midsummer deadline But he kind of dilly dallys and he's got this huge baggage train that stretches for 20 miles supposedly. And so in the end, they kind of have to jog a little bit to come through the Nithgow and to make it towards Stirling. Bruce, meanwhile, through the spring of 1314,

has been training his men. This is vitally important. And again, as you've mentioned, how great a war leader Bruce is. He is going to completely revolutionise the Scottish approach to this. The Scots are predominantly an infantry army. We don't know again, we don't know, but probably 7,8 to 10,000. It's not as the Scots like to make play up

how great an army, the English army was and how small they were. It probably wasn't as disproportionate as some of the chroniclers like to suggest. But still, the English army would be bigger. About two-thirds the size of English forces. Something like that. Give or take. And Bruce has been training

his men in the Torwood, which lies between Falkirk and Stirling. So that they're practicing, traditionally, the Scots have had spears, their spearmen. Wallace had roped his spearmen. men in it, Falkirk where he'd lost. What Bruce does to revolutionise this is to train them to move, to be offensive rather than defensive.

And that is his great innovation. Obviously, that's to attack cavalry, because horses don't like to come on to point he sticks. So he's training these men, and the suggestion is that as men try to join his army immediately before the battle, he sends them away because he doesn't want guys who don't know what they're doing in that army. So it's a very tight, semi-professional force you might almost argue.

So there's hedgehog moving forward, but well-trained. I'm interested in that. He really did he go out in the field and train them, did he, and said, do it this way, do it that way, six-hour days. Do it again, do it again, yeah. And this is an army with long spears and axes, in one sense, poorly equipped, but taking tremendous advantage of what they had, being able to move forward against the cavalry.

Yeah. And all credit to him. So Michael Brown, where did the two armies meet? The English army has eventually got up to Stirling, with its 20 miles of baggage train and its cavalry, two or three thousand cavalry in its infantry. pretty exhausted after that. Anyway, no matter.

Can you describe the terrain they met on and give us the place of battle? I can. I just add something to what Fiona was saying, which is, I think, the other disparity between the armies, if you like, is in terms of leadership. Bruce clearly chooses, as his leaders,

people who have fought with him consistently, politically close to him and very experienced in a type of warfare he wants. So a tight group. Edward's army, if you like, is led, bar. his bitterest opponents aren't there, but there are a lot of people who have opposed him in the previous decade.

So there is a kind of difference in terms of the cohesion at the top level between the two armies. In terms of where they meet, the English army, as Fiona said, is coming up from the southeast. It's coming roughly parallel to the river fourth, along the old routes, the old Roman roads that run parallel to that, passing the belt of the Torwood. Bruce probably retreats before them to the new park just south.

of sterling. So the two armies in a sense, you know, rather uniquely for a medieval battle, a meeting almost exactly where both sides are prepared to fight when the deal about sterling has been made. Well, the interesting thing is, just going back to Michael's point there,

is that Bruce seems to be preparing for a defensive engagement. I mean, Fiona's point about the offensive spearmen, we'll see, plays an important role in both days of the battle, but initially he blocks the route, the direct route, through what's called the New Park, a hunting reserve, by digging pits, knee-deep holes with stakes that are then covered over with branches and twigs.

And the point of that is to break the charge of the heavy cavalry, which is the key weapon of the English army. Can I go back to Michael for a moment, pick up a point you made about leadership. From what you've said and from what I've read, the Scots there in under Bruce seemed to be very cohesive, used to fighting, used to fighting together. He's lieutenants go off and capture castles without him being there. They know what to do, they know how to do it. Now, in English, they're a great army at the time.

They swing into battle all over the rest. But Edward, how important is the lack of leadership from Edward II? Well, it becomes one of the crucial factors. Of course, once you lose a battle, the argument goes in one way. You look for the reason why you lose it. So we're working with hindsight, obviously, in this respect. But yes, I think that it's not simply what Edward does in the campaign. It's the impression people have of him as a leader before.

that. And in a sense, we have a story that Edward is disparaged by his father, that Edward provides no military leadership during the crucial period from 1307 to 1313. And so the readiness of people to take his commands without argument, I think, is an issue. And there are a series of accounts of English commanders disputing with each other or refusing to take Edwards' leadership without a debate. I think it's important to add that within his army, there are men with considerable experience of the Scottish Wars under Edward I, men like Robert Clifford and Henry Percy. So there's the old wise heads,

but they don't seem to be given any great opportunity to lead. And then, of course, you have the classic example where the English vanguard is traditionally led by the Earl of Marshal, the young Earl of Gloucester, Edward's nephew is also given command. So they're at loggerheads, and there just doesn't seem to be a plan. One of the most authoritative chronicles written by a man whose father was in the battle and captured on the English side captured in the first part of the engagement on the 23rd of June

he says that the English vanguard assault the Scottish positions in the New Park while Edward and his army are stopping to discuss whether or not they're going to camp there so if Thomas Gray is right it would suggest that they can't even command the vanguard and he said the young men push forward in their urge to attack the Scots. Yeah, I think related to that is probably a general sense, given what they know about Bruce and his strategy when facing major English armies, which is that he avoids contact with them, that he's going to try and retreat.

He's going to pull away from a battle. And therefore, when they can make contact, there is a desire, I think, amongst English commanders throughout the two days of the battle, to try and press that home, to rush into battle. with disastrous results on both days, in fact. Can we just dig in a bit deeper here, Michael? You say two days. The English have got there, the Stirling Castle, very hard to take.

There's the river, there's the Bernick-Burn. There's another river which plays a part, so there's nearby. And Bruce has prepared this, as you've said, very carefully. What did English do when they get there? They don't seem to have any battle plan at all. Do they think that their cavalry, their heavy cavalry, will just sweep the day. I think they've relieved the castle, actually.

Technically, they've done what they've come to do. But they want a battle. And in a sense, they're probably prepared to invite Robert to attack them. On the first day, they send a second cavalry force. We've heard about the one that runs into Bruce's forces in the New Park. They send a secondary cavalry force round onto the cask, round onto the low ground by the river, to get to Stirling Castle. And that comes into contact with a portion.

and Bruce's army charges it unsupported and is repulsed. So that's the second clash. Unsupported by a bowman, yeah. That is the critical weakness. And again, it argues for a rushed and unplanned assault that the cavalry are going out in force, but they don't have infantry or archer support, because that was what had helped Edward I,

the first, crack the Shiltrons, these great dense formations of Piedman at Falkirk. What is interesting is that in the preparations in June, earlier in June of 1314, Edward anticipates the Scots will take this strong defensive position in the woods. And he summons more troops, more infantry from Yorkshire. He says we will need these troops because the Scots have taken up strong defensive position in ground difficult for cavalry. So they should have been better prepared.

Yes, I think it's the speed with which they try and engage in a way. in a sense the first day is the English advanced forces bumping into Scottish forces if you like there's not a plan there is the first day the incident of Henry de Boehre and Robert de Bruce can you, as it's such a heroic thing as can you

describe this year? It's a wonderful incident yes I mean again Just take an hour or two minutes okay no problem this is classic as I've been describing the new plan and this is young man in the English fan who spots the king on his little pony and he's got a little

kind of circlet on his head. It's a king on the little pony. He's on his great big warhorse. He sees him and it's cool for glory. It's right. If I can kill the king, that's it. Game over, I'm made. So he charges up towards the king and Bruce sits there really coolly. And just as this great warhorse is thudding towards him, he wheels his pony round, rises up in his stirrups and brings his mace down right through the helmet and kills the man and the Scots go absolutely mad. And that's the incident that seems to be just before the rest of the English vanguard then charges

and there's quite an onslaught. Bruce apparently gets a bit of a roasting from his generals because obviously if he had been killed, that would have been it. But it is a classic incident and it really gets the Scots going. So could I dwell enough for just a second because in those sort of battles, I mean, images in your mind is a heavily armoured man on heavy horses and fewer Scots cavalry

by quite a... on ponies and the Schultron's well trained and the English Bowman not getting a look in and these rivers going by in boggy land and so on. It's all sort of slow motion sort of murk and violence, isn't it? So is that something of the description? But it seems rather... The English side still seems rather aimless. There is a decision, mate, at the end of the first day, by the English, which is that they will go down off the line of

the ridge, the road, the Scots are blocking it in the wooded part of the new part. They'll go off that and down onto the cast land, the flat land by the river forth. Pass being the flatland. Yeah. Which is, I don't know how swampy would be in June. It could be a Scottish summer, so it could be quite swampy.

But it's a difficult route to take. And the English spend a long time during the evening and through the night, getting their army off the road down onto this, bridging some of the burns, the Manuk Burn, using material taken from Sterling Borough, which the Castle Garrison has now come out to link with them and to make. So the English do take a decision. It's not a good decision, but they do take a decision on that.

And that's a rather surprise that the battle is going to last a second day because, as one of you said before, Robert DeBruce's tactics of being to live to fight another day, haven't they? And essentially, that's the momentous decision, is that on the evening of the first day of the battle, Bruce may well have been thinking of withdrawing into the safety of the Lennox. And the way his army was drawn up on that first day, he commands the rearguard, which takes the brunt of the main vanguard's attack.

So he might have been thinking about withdrawing, having blooded Edward, having had this wonderful feat of arms in which he's killed Henry de Boone, and the morale of the Scots is enormously boosted. And I probably could have thought, well, the English have achieved what they wanted. They've come, they've secured selling castle. They'll go home now. Right. And as I think Michael said, it's extremely.

Extremely rare for two great armies to come together in a pitch battle in this period. And still more for a king of Scots to take on an English army. Normally, sensible kings of Scots withdrew at any opportunity when they were confronted by a major force. But crucially, Bruce sees Edward maneuvering his army onto this constricted land between the Bannock-Burn-Peel Stream's boggy ground. And according to an English source, a Scottish knight, Alexander Seton, comes to him that even. He deserts the English cause, and he says the English should put themselves into an incredibly difficult position. If you ever want to win, now is your moment.

Attack them the next day and the victory will be yours. And the next morning they went to attack them, as it were, before the English impression I got, you tell me, were really ready. They didn't expect this to happen. Well, the first engagement is between the archers, the Scottish English archers. We're talking about the second day now, the 24, the one that burns are at the power. Absolutely. And obviously, I should expect the English archers.

win, that bit of the engagement. But then the English horse kind of line up, and they can't deploy properly, they're in their brigades, but they can't spread out, so they're all in one line. And that's when they see the Scots advancing out of the mist romantically towards them, and kneeling in prayer. And Edward says, look, they're kneeling in front of me, and Ingram de Mumfell of Scott in his army says,

yes, they're kneeling, but not before you, before God. And then... The Scots army that's advancing is these chulton. are these lots of men well-trained, not all the other, compact groups with long spears coming like a sort of, anyway. Yes. Hedgehog, I suppose. It diminishes

the thing, a great army coming towards them, yes. Yes, and the English don't really have a response. They're hemmed in, they're hemmed in on the right by the undulations towards Stirling and the river the Pell Stream on the far left. They've got the Bannockburn,

which is very deep ravine at that point. Behind them is the car, of Sterling and in front of them are the Scots. So the cavalry at this point suddenly realised they really have no answer to this and the archers are not allowed to deploy. And the cavalry rather madly heroically run onto the spears

and then turn. The young Gilbert de Clare, the Earl of Gloucester, leads a charge, a desperate charge, the purpose of which seems to be to try and stop the oncoming short trance. I mean, it seems that... It's not as stupid as... No. Sometimes it gets presented as. It does...

It is reckless and it is disastrous, but it does have a purpose, as Matthew says. And that is to get the spearmen to stop so that the English can then bring up their archers and try and thin out the ranks. But Bruce and his commanders, there are three main divisions of Scottish children. They seem to have taken the English by surprising

taking the offence of, as Fiona was saying. This is what is different from the earlier battles under Wallace. The Scots actually come forward in these disciplined formations. And as they advance quickly on the English, the cavalry have no room to maneuver. They don't have time to draw back to charge. Fiona, what, can

you give us briefly the aftermath of the battle, Edward fled the field, the first fled the field, which people think it was a good thing, even more humiliating had he not fled, had he been captured and so on. But the English turn and the slaughter, a lot of people drowned, killed by locals and so on and so forth. So it's a rout as much as the defeat, isn't it? Absolutely. It must have been absolutely horrific. I mean, the English infantry are not really deployed.

They start to run away anywhere they can go. people are just scattering in all directions and of course the Scots then they just break out and follow them. Edward initially goes to Stirling Castle, Will Philip Mubbridge says if you've got me in here you're captured and that's game over so he then charges towards Berwick on his horse with James Douglas'

Bruce's lieutenant on his little pony trying to catch him up and unfortunately failing to do so but then for most... Unfortunately did you say. Well unfortunately for the Scots from Bruce's point of view Well unfortunately in terms of the impact of a battle I mean, there you are.

We'll be dealing with the implications of the battle in a minute. Sorry, I gave away there. But so the Scots also on that day capture many English noblemen, which is very important because they can use the ransoms and many, many a Scot is enriched in that day. So if you capture a knight, you're made. You're made. Yes.

Scott spend the rest of the day. I mean, the battles over very early in the morning. I think the Scots spend the rest of the day plundering the English camp for the most part. Michael, Michael Brown, do we have any idea of the camp? The numbers? No. Okay. So what did Matthew...

My colleague, my learning... That's true. We don't have an exact number, do we? But we know at least 100 English knights are killed. And Barber says that 200 pairs of golden red spurs, red gold spurs are taken from the battle. That's a poetic flourish. But that is an extraordinary number of knights to be killed in engagement.

I think there's something that we really should stress that the only precedent for that had been in 1302 when the Flemish had destroyed the flower of French chivalry at Coutre. And indeed the English sources look back and they say there hasn't been a catastrophe like this for the nobility since Cotry. And how was it that these infantry, these Scottish infantry, could defeat the flower of English chivalry. Yes, it's not the numbers, it's who. Yeah. It's the Earl of Gloucester the King's nephew. He gets killed in that charge.

Robert Clifford, the steward of the king's household. Yes, John Common, the son of the man killed him. Meanwhile, back on the ranch, a lot of infantry were killed as well. You haven't found out how many. People didn't take... They didn't bother to take the common infantry casualties. What would the political consequences of Bannickburn say in the following decade? Well, obviously, the biggest...

For Scotland, for Robert Bruce, it allows him to carry out his threat, to disinherit anyone who doesn't come in to accept him as king. And many of the irreconcilables or people regarded as irreconcilable, the real pro-Belio common people, Ingram Dunfifo, Philip Mubre, they all accept him as king. So that's important. I think the other very important element

is that as a result of the ransom of the Earl of Hereford, in particular, he gets his queen and his daughter back without whom there is no future. They've been captured when he lost an earlier battle and taken to London. And that's very, very important. Because he has no ear otherwise.

What about Edward the second, Matthew Strickland? Well, the interesting thing is that although there is a short-term repercussion for Edward, his reform party within the aristocracy forces him to undertake certain reforms within his household and in governmental terms, the defeat is not as catastrophic

as one might suspect, and Edward holds on to power. He's able to launch several new campaigns. He tries to invade Scotland again in 1322. He keeps coming back. That's a catastrophe too. At this time, very interestingly,

Bruce refuses to engage in battle. He's got away with it once. He doesn't risk his luck. And he just allows the English army to run out of supplies and withdraw. And then he counterattacks and nearly captures Edward for a second time at Byland. Yeah, I mean, I think the disparity between 1314 and 1322 is interesting. Bruce fights in 1314 because there is a political stake within Scotland. It's about the submission of those parts of Scotland,

and those Scottish leaders who haven't recognised him. Once he's got that, he doesn't need to do it again on one level. so the war is in a Scottish sense the war is exported after 1314 it's about the recognition of the English king it's not that civil war element anymore but one consequences I understand it

is the beginning of what became two or three hundred years of border warfare because the borders had been quite different as I mentioned earlier hadn't they the Scots had spilled in a Northumbria we know they'd spill into what we know it's Cumbria and Carlisle was important just as

and they could kept raiding after Bruce, they kept raiding the North, and Edward the second, just sort of left the North to take care of itself as so many orders people in charge. Authorities

and London, I'm trying to find the right way without implicating everybody, authorities on and have done. I mean, the wasting of the North is one of the great... The effective defence of the North collapses under Edward in this period. I mean, it really began to collapse from at least 1311 and Bruce uses

the raids on Northern England to force the locals who are deprived of effective protection from Edward to pay, it's blackmail, they buy off the Scottish raids and that's a word that appears at that time. Indeed. And of course it fills Bruce's coffers. The Scots, unlike the English, make the war pay. It's self-funding at the expense of those northern communities.

And then they become border marches and the let us call them English begin to fight back and you have these wars every year really. The North comes very militarised, absolutely. These families putting hundreds of men in the saddle every year. It's not a long period. I mean, really, the rates start in 1311, intensify after 1314, but as a sustained series of campaigns end in 1323. But psychologically, I think it changes the outlook,

not simply of southern Scotland, but northern England turns it from being somewhere which the border is a political boundary, but it's not a social or a cultural boundary, and in the late Middle Ages it becomes very much a military frontier, which extends both sides. So it has that period, I think, is crucial. in that. But we do have the border conflicts going on for quite a while, the cattle raiding,

the setting fire in terms of the depth and frequency of Scottish invasion to the north down as far as the east riding of Yorkshire. That doesn't happen again. And the benefits to Scotland, Fiona, what's? Well, the immediate short-term

benefits are that the Bruce dynasty can continue in your stability and you do get the 1328 treaty, although you cannot point to Baner as a direct cause of that. It It's the internal politics of England that it's the deposition of Edward II. The Regency Government is insecure and it wants Bruce off their backs and they give the treaty. The irony from the Scottish point of view is that subsequently war leaders in Scotland, as the wars grumbled on not so intensely well they did in the 1330s, but going on centuries.

They always said, what did Bruce do at Baner? We'll do the same thing again. Right up into the 16th century. They maintained the spearmen, even when they've got guns against them. But to conclude this story, in 1328 the Scottish got independence, shouldn't they? And then we have before then this Treaty of Arbroath where they declare that they're fighting for their freedom above all else and it sort of is some kind of settlement in the Scottish mind

and in the Scottish state at the time. Well that is a very controversial document because it's come to us to be this great statement of freedom and liberty. Very inspiring. But in its political context in 1320 it's very much the product of this Bruce faction that Michael and Fiona have been talking about.

So it's perhaps, it claims to be speaking for the Scottish nation, but in fact it's very much a document justifying Bruce's kinship. Can you give us some idea, Michael Brown, of the lasting consequences of Banach Byrne? I mean, I think that the lasting consequences are that it provides the Scots with a military moment of glory. You know, if you look at late medieval countries across Europe, they all seem to have this kind of battle,

which is either a kind of victory against the odds, or in the case of the Serbs, a disastrous defeat against the odds. But it coalesces ideas of Scottish independence and Scottish identity on the battlefield. And the battlefield is not simply a matter of delight for the military classes. It's a proof of the test of God. You know, God favours the Scots in this conflict. There are a lot of battles that the Scots lose, both before and after Banatburn. But Banatburn is enshrined in Scottish historiography as being this conflict.

crowning moment of military success, which sweeps everything else away. And as important as Scottish myth and legend. I think Scottish historiography and Scottish myth and legend are sometimes quite hard to distinguish. Well, Michael Brown, Matthew Strickland, Fiona Watson. Thank you all very much. Next week we'll be discussing the human nervous system. Thank you for listening. If you've enjoyed this Radio 4 podcast, why not try others, such as Thinking Aloud,

where Laurie Taylor discusses the latest social science. research. To find out more, visit bbc.co.com.uk forward slash radio four.