Bruce slowly collected the men that had remained faithful to him, and at Loudon Hill in May he and his followers met an English army. The English leader, whose name was De Valence, had done everything in his power to make Bruce come forth from his mountain retreat and do battle with the English, for he believed that on open ground he could defeat the Scots decisively and do away with the long chase of Bruce that was wearying himself and his followers. So De Valence sent Bruce a letter in which he called him a base coward for refusing to meet him in battle, and challenged Bruce to stand up to him as a soldier at Loudon on the tenth of May. Stung with anger, Bruce accepted the challenge and the crafty English leader rejoiced because his enemy had delivered himself into his hands.
Bruce, however, had no intention of being defeated. He arrived on the appointed spot several days before the English and studied his ground with the eye of a trained general. He knew the route that must be taken by the English and so arranged his forces that it would be impossible for his enemies to outflank him, entrenching himself behind marshes and ditches that the English could not pass.
On the appointed day he saw the gay banners and shining armor of his enemies. They approached recklessly and hurled themselves against his line in a headlong charge. But the Scots held firm. Again and again the English sought to break the Scottish ranks or to take them on the flank, but to no avail. And then when their ranks showed signs of wavering, Bruce himself gave the signal for the charge. With a shout his men rushed forward and the English were routed. Victory had crowned the arms of a tattered and ragged band of outlaws who fought with English halters around their necks.
Then a terrible calamity befell the English and turned the scale still further in favor of Bruce. Old King Edward, embittered because his cherished schemes regarding Scotland had failed, died, and with his last breath he asked his son, the Prince of Wales, to see his bones were carried in their coffin at the head of the English army invading Scotland.
The Prince of Wales who succeeded him was called Edward the Second and was a hollow echo of his father's greatness. While Edward had been the finest general of his time either in England or in Europe, the new king knew little of military art and was idle and of a pleasure loving nature. He knew nothing of generalship and cared less, being content to leave the leading of his armies in the field to the nobles who served him.
At once it was seen that the death of the strong King Edward the First was a great stroke of good fortune for his equally strong opponent. In the two years that followed King Edward's death nearly the whole country of Scotland rose against the English and threw off the foreign yoke, acclaiming Bruce as their rightful king. Border warfare was constant and raids and skirmishes were carried on both by the Scots and the English, with varying success on either side.
In these raids, sieges and forays one of Bruce's followers particularly distinguished himself. This was James Douglas, who had shared all his leader's hardships.
While most of Scotland was now under Bruce's banner, the English still held many important strongholds which were thorns in the side of Bruce and his followers. Chief among these fortresses were those of Stirling and Berwick.
Realizing that the overthrow of these strong fortresses was necessary to the success of the Scottish cause, King Robert in the autumn of 1313 sent his brother, Edward Bruce, to lay siege to Stirling Castle. So well did the Scots succeed and so ruthlessly did they beset the strong walls of Stirling that at last the English commander, one Sir Philip Mowbray, agreed to surrender, providing the besieged soldiers were not relieved by the English before the twenty-fourth of June of the following year. This was a strange agreement and showed that the old laws of chivalry which bound all noblemen to certain forms of warfare and certain conditions of fighting were still in operation.
But the English had no intention of allowing Stirling Castle to fall into the hands of the Scots and before the stipulated date a strong army advanced into Scotland, led by King Edward the Second in person. It numbered, we are told, about one hundred thousand men, while the total number that Bruce was able to muster was thirty thousand, so that his force of seasoned veterans was compelled to fight at odds of more than three to one.