Besides Stirling, the only fortresses of any importance that now remained in the hands of the English were Berwick, Jedburgh, and Bothwell. But the immediate interest centres in the fateful attempt to relieve the castle of Stirling.
[CHAPTER IX]
THE BATTLE OF BANNOCKBURN.
As far back as December 23, Edward II. had summoned his army to assemble at Berwick on June 10, 1314, for the war against Scotland. In March, he was busily ordering his fleet for service on the east and west coasts, and hastening the muster of the Irish contingent under the Lord of Ulster. On May 27, from New Abbey, he issued an urgent reminder to the sheriffs and barons of the northern and midland counties to have their men at Wark by June 10. He has learnt, he tells them, that the Scots are massing great numbers of foot in strong positions protected by marshes and all but inaccessible to cavalry; and he fires their zeal by informing them of the agreement of Mowbray to surrender the castle of Stirling unless the siege be raised by midsummer day. Bruce, then, had already chosen his ground, and commenced his measures of defence.
The English and Welsh troops summoned on May 27, numbered together 21,540. The numbers of the Irish contingent are not preserved, but, on analogous cases, they can hardly be reckoned beyond 3000. The Gascons, Hainaulters, and other foreigners are not likely to have numbered more than the Irish. 'After allowing,' with Mr Bain, '10,000 light horsemen and 3000 heavy cavalry, the whole English army probably did not exceed 50,000'—at the very outside. The Earls of Lancaster, Warenne, Arundel, and Warwick did not join the expedition, on the ostensible ground that the King had not first consulted Parliament in conformity with the Ordinances, and thus they would be laid open to ecclesiastical censure; but they sent their feudal services. The outfit of the army was on the most ample, not to say magnificent, scale. 'The multitude of waggons, if extended one after another in file,' says the Monk of Malmesbury, 'would have stretched over twenty leagues.' In truth, he says, it was universally acknowledged that 'such an army did not go out of England in our time.' The Monk's testimony lends a sober colour to the assertion of Robert Baston, the Carmelite friar that went to celebrate an English victory and was captured and made to sing the Scottish triumph. 'Never,' he declared, 'was seen a more splendid, noble, or proud English army.'
There is no definite clue to the numbers of the Scots. 'But,' as Mr Bain says, 'in so poor and thinly populated a country, devastated by long war, 15,000 or 16,000 would be a fair estimate of the comrades of Bruce. The Scots, twenty years later, could raise no more for the almost equally important object of relieving Berwick.'
The estimates usually given follow Barbour, who says there were over 100,000 English—enough 'to conquer the whole world'—and some 50,000 Scots, of whom 30,000 were fighting men. No doubt Barbour includes in the English 100,000 the miscellaneous 'pitaille,' or rascalry, that swarmed about the baggage trains of mediæval armies. But Mr Bain's estimate seems to be as near as the authorities will admit. The proportion of English to Scots was most probably somewhere about three to one.
The army that mustered under Edward was indeed 'very fair and great,' yet, in the eye of the Church—probably enlightened by later events—there was one needful thing lacking. When Edward I. was on the warpath towards Scotland, says the Lanercost chronicler, 'he was wont to visit on his way the saints of England—Thomas of Canterbury, Edmund, Hugh, William, Cuthbert—and to offer them fair oblations, to commend himself to their prayers, and to dispense large gifts to the monasteries and the poor'; but his degenerate son, omitting these pious duties,' came with great pomp and circumstance, took the goods of the monasteries on his route, and, it was stated, did and said some things to the prejudice and injury of the saints,' by reason whereof 'certain religious of England prophesied' that no good would come of the expedition. To the same effect, Robert of Reading records that Edward permitted his troops, on their march, to ravage with violence the patrimony of 'religious' and other churchmen, as if they had been robbers (more prædonum). Still the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Durham, rehearsing the long list of Bruce's alleged enormities, officially enjoined all within their jurisdiction to pray for the success of the King's arms, offering an indulgence of forty days in reward of such patriotic piety.
The King was in high spirits over the splendour of his army. Apparently he anticipated an easy and complete triumph. He started from Berwick only a few days before the fateful day of St John. 'From day to day,' says the Monk of Malmesbury, 'he hastened to the place fixed on beforehand, not like a man leading an army to battle, but rather as if he were going on pilgrimage to Compostella. Short was the stay for sleep; shorter still the stay for food; in consequence of which the horses, horsemen, and foot were worn out by labour and fatigue.' On Friday, June 21, the English army lay at Edinburgh; and on Saturday it lay at Falkirk, little more than ten miles from Stirling.