But with the kindly spring he makes another bid for fortune. He sails to the Isle of Arran, and has hardly landed before he well-nigh walks into a trap laid for him. Then begins a fresh period of difficulty and danger, of hairbreadth escapes and desperate deeds. Slowly but surely the tide turns in his favour. The preachers are with him; a prophecy has been discovered which assures him of victory; stout hearts begin to flock to his side; his cause gains ground every day. By the middle of May he is no longer a hunted fugitive but a leader of forces. He has defeated two English earls in the field, and they are shut up in the castle of Ayr, which he is closely besieging.
Now old Edward begins to move. He is too weak and ill to throw his long limbs across a horse, so they carry him on a litter in front of his army. At Carlisle the prospect of the strife he loves so well gives him a slight renewal of strength. He mounts his horse for the last time, and leads the march in the old way. But it is the final flicker of life’s flame, and at Burgh-on-Sands, within sight of the tossing Solway, he yields him to the power that conquers even kings. To his bedside he calls his vain, pleasure-loving son, and bids him swear a solemn oath never to cease from strife until the Scots are thoroughly subdued. “Boil the flesh off my bones,” he is said to have cried, “and keep them safe, and as oft as the Scots assemble their forces, let my bones lead the van.” So he dies, fierce and implacable to the last, and the breath is hardly out of his body ere his degenerate son sighs for his jugglers and minstrels and the careless pleasures of the court he has left behind.
He advances half-heartedly to Ayr; but the Bruce has retreated before him, knowing well the temper of his foe. At the first decent opportunity Edward hies him southward, and Bruce resumes his work of ridding the land of the English. One by one the castles are captured by storm or stratagem; day by day the English power grows weaker and weaker, and the Bruce grows stronger and stronger. At last the flag of England, once to be seen everywhere, flies only over the castle of Stirling. Its stout-hearted defender is almost starved into submission. He will surrender on midsummer day, unless he is relieved before it dawns by an English army.
The new Edward must leave his elegant trifling and bestir himself, unless Scotland is to be hopelessly lost. Hitherto his reign has been singularly inglorious, and his barons have made him, as he says, no longer master in his own house. But he will show them that the spirit of his sire still lives in him. He will invade Scotland, and the Bruce shall feel the weight of his heavy hand. Stirling shall be relieved; he will take up the wager of battle that Scotland has thrown down.
Forthwith he assembles the most powerful army that has ever yet menaced Scotland. Mindful of the archers’ victory at Falkirk, he scours the country for bowmen, and every man of them boasts that he “carries the lives of four-and-twenty Scotsmen at his belt.” Forty thousand mounted men are with him, and a prouder and more confident array never took the field.
Bruce has chosen his ground well. His front and right are defended by the Bannock burn, which winds through two morasses, and at one place has steep, wooded banks. On the left, where the ground is open, he has honeycombed the field with pits that look firm and level to the eye, but are terrible snares for cavalry. Only one way of approach is open, and that is strewn with caltrops to lame the horses.
It is the Sabbath morning of June 23rd, in the year 1314. On comes the English host, with its countless banners, standards, and pennons waving in the breeze. The sun glints from burnished helmet and spear as the dense battalions draw near. To an observer on the castle walls it would seem that they were about to make an immediate attack. The Bruce is arraying his men, clad in full armour, and carrying a battle-axe in his hand, but riding a light palfrey in place of the heavy charger that is to carry him to-morrow. That panoply of armour which he wears hides the real man from you. Were you to see him out of harness, you would mark his strong and powerful frame, his close, curly hair, his full, broad forehead, his high cheek-bones, and the square and massive jaw that tells of determination and dogged courage.
Now the English army halts, and a vainglorious knight, one Sir Henry Bohun, seeing the Bruce so poorly horsed, thinks to do a deed of valorous renown. So he spurs his charger, and levelling his spear bears down upon the Scottish king. As he comes rushing on at full speed, the Bruce twitches his palfrey’s bridle, and the little creature obediently starts aside. Then, as the knight goes rushing by, Bruce rises in his stirrups and smites him fiercely on the helmet with his battle-axe. It crashes through helmet and skull, and the riderless steed gallops wildly away. The first stroke of the great fight has been struck, and the Bruce has won. As he rides back to his lines his knights take him to task for his adventure, reminding him that an accident would have robbed them of their leader. Bruce listens to their chidings, and only replies, “I have broken my good battle-axe.”
Another misfortune befalls the English. Three hundred young horsemen, eager for the fray, see a clear way lying before them to the castle. On they spur towards it, but find their road blocked by a party of Scottish spearmen, who form a deadly circle of bristling steel. In vain the knights spur their horses to the attack; the schiltron remains unbroken, though hidden from sight by the cloud of dust and heat which rises from the plain. Now the spearmen advance and drive back the weary and disheartened horsemen. Grim foreboding this of the great fight to-morrow.
The short summer night falls on the battlefield, and loud sounds of revelry come from the English camp. The Scots sleep in the open, and when the sun has risen Edward sees them massed in schiltrons beneath their banners. “Will yon Scotsmen fight?” he asks of a veteran by his side. “Yea, siccarly, sire,” he replies, and at the moment the Scots bend the knee as the crucifix is borne along their line. “Yon folk kneel for mercy,” says the king; and again the veteran replies, “Yea, sire, but not of you. Yon men will win or die.” “So be it,” cries Edward, and gives the signal for his trumpeters to sound the charge.