38. These successes of Bruce inspired great confidence, and he soon found himself at the head of a formidable force. With this he marched up and down the country, and compelled the English to keep strictly within their castles and fortified places; and even several of these were captured. King Edward I, of England, heard of these successes of Bruce with astonishment and rage. Though old and sorely diseased, he raised a large army and marched for the north; but he had scarcely crossed the Scottish border when his physician informed him that he had but a few hours to live. He immediately called his son to his bed-side, and made him swear that he would push forward this expedition against the Bruce; and he died cursing the whole Scotch people. He even gave direction that his body should be boiled, and that his bones, wrapped in a bull's hide, should be carried at the head of the army as often as the Scots attempted to recover their freedom.

39. Edward II was a weak prince, neither so wise nor so brave as his father. He marched a little way on to Scotland, but, having no great liking for war, he turned and marched back into England. He disregarded his father's injunction about the disposition of his bones, but took them back to London, and deposited them in Westminster Abbey.

40. From this time the cause of Bruce was a succession of victories. During the winter and spring one English fortress after another surrendered, until there only remained the strong castle of Stirling held by the English power. This castle was besieged, and Sir Philip Mowbray, the commander, agreed to surrender it if it was not reinforced by the English before midsummer. Then came a cessation of hostilities, and a period of rest for the Scots. King Edward had made no arrangement to again interfere in Scottish affairs. But now, when Sir Philip Mowbray, the governor of Stirling, came to London to tell the king that Stirling, the last Scottish town of importance which remained in possession of the English, was to be surrendered if it were not relieved by force of arms before midsummer, then all the English nobles called out, it would be a sin and shame to permit the fair conquest which Edward I had made to be forfeited to the Scots for want of fighting. It was, therefore, resolved that the king should go himself to Scotland with as great forces as he could possibly muster.

41. King Edward II, therefore, assembled one of the greatest armies which a king of England ever commanded. There were troops brought from all his dominions. Many brave soldiers from the French provinces which the king of England enjoyed in France; many Irish, many Welsh, and all the great English nobles and barons, with their followers, were assembled in one great army. The number was not less than one hundred thousand men.

42. King Robert the Bruce summoned all his nobles and barons to join him, when he heard of the great preparation which the king of England was making. They were not so numerous as the English by many thousand men. In fact, his whole army did not very much exceed thirty thousand men, and they were much worse armed than the wealthy Englishmen; but then Robert, who was at their head, was one of the most expert generals of the time, and the officers he had under him were his brother Edward, his nephew Randolph, his faithful follower the Douglas, and other brave and experienced leaders, who commanded the same men that had been accustomed to fight and gain victories under every disadvantage of situation and numbers.

43. The king, on his part, studied how he might supply, by address and stratagem, what he wanted in numbers and strength. He knew the superiority of the English both in their heavy-armed cavalry, which were much better mounted and armed than those of the Scots, and in the archery, in which art the English were better than any people in the world. Both these advantages he resolved to provide against. With this purpose, Bruce led his army down into a plain, near Stirling, called the Park, near which, and beneath it, the English army must needs pass through a boggy country, broken with water-courses, while the Scots occupied hard, dry ground. He then caused all the hard ground upon the front of his line of battle, where cavalry were likely to act, to be dug full of holes, about as deep as a man's knee. They were filled with light brushwood, and the turf was laid on the top, so that it appeared a plain field, while in reality it was all as full of these pits as a honeycomb is of holes. He also, it is said, caused steel spikes, called calthrops, to be scattered up and down in the plain, where the English cavalry were most likely to advance, trusting to lame and destroy their horses.

44. When his army was drawn, the line stretched north and south. On the south it was terminated by the banks of the brook called Bannockburn, which are so rocky that no troops could come on them there. On the left the Scottish line extended near to the town of Stirling. Bruce reviewed his troops very carefully; all the useless servants and drivers of carts, and such like, of whom there were very many, he ordered to go behind a height called the Gillies' Hill—that is, the Servants' Hill. He then spoke to the soldiers, and expressed his determination to gain the victory or to lose his life on the field of battle. He desired that all those who did not propose to fight to the last would leave the field before the battle began, and that none would remain except those who were determined to take the issue of victory or death, as God should send it.

45. Burns has expressed Bruce's sentiments in his fiery poem.

BRUCE'S ADDRESS.

46. Scots who have with Wallace bled,
Scots whom Bruce has often led,
Welcome to your gory bed
Or to victory!
Now's the day, and now's the hour;
See the front of battle lower;
See approach proud Edward's power,
Chains, and slavery!