Fell that stern dint—the first—the last!—
Such strength upon the blow was put,
The helmet crash'd like hazel-nut;
The axe shaft, with its brazen clasp,
Was shiver'd to the gauntlet grasp.
Springs from the blow the startled horse,
Drops to the plain the lifeless corse.
The battle began on the following morning, Midsummer Day, and the mighty host of heavily armed men on large horses moved forward along what they thought was hard road, only to fall into the concealed pits carefully prepared beforehand by Bruce and to sink in the bogs over which they had to pass. It can easily be imagined that those behind pressing forward would ride over those who had sunk already, only to sink themselves in turn. Thousands perished in that way, and many a thrown rider, heavily laden with armour, fell an easy prey to the hardy Scots. The result was disastrous to the English, and it was said that 30,000 of them were killed, while the Scots were able afterwards to raid the borders of England almost to the gates of York.
The surgeon said that in the Royal College of Surgeons in London a rib of Bruce, the great Scottish king, was included in the curios of the college, together with a bit of the cancerous growth which killed Napoleon. It was said that Bruce's rib was injured in a jousting match in England many years before he died, and that the fracture was made good by a first-class surgeon of the time. In 1329 Bruce died of leprosy in his fifty fifth year and the twenty-third of his reign, and was buried in the Abbey Church of Dunfermline. In clearing the foundation for the third church on the same site, in 1818, the bones of the hero were discovered, Sir Walter Scott being present. The breastbone of the skeleton had been sawn through some 500 years before, as was customary, in order to allow of the removal of the heart, which was then embalmed, and given to Bruce's friend, Sir James Douglas, to be carried to Palestine and buried in Jerusalem.
The surgeon also told us—in order, we supposed, to cheer our drooping spirits—of another battle fought in the neighbourhood of Bannockburn in 1488, but this time it was the Scottish King James III who came to grief. He had a fine grey courser given him "that could war all the horse of Scotland if the king could sit up well." But he was a coward and could not ride, and when some men came up shouting and throwing arrows, they frightened the king. Feeling the spurs, the horse went at "flight speed" through Bannockburn, and a woman carrying water, when she saw the horse coming, dropped her bucket down on the road and ran for safety. The horse, frightened by the bucket, jumped over the brook that turned the mill, and threw the king off at the mill door. The miller and his wife, who saw the accident, not knowing that the rider was the king, put him in a nook in the mill and covered him with a cloth. When he came round, he asked for a priest and told them he was the king. But he had fallen into the hands of his enemies. The miller's wife clapped her hands, and ran out crying for a priest for the king. A man called out, "I am a priest; where is the king?" When he saw the king he told him he might recover if he had a good leeching, but the king desired him to give him the Sacrament. The supposed priest said, "That I shall do quickly," and suiting the action to the word, he stabbed him several times in the heart. The corpse he took away on his back, no one knew whither, and the king's soldiers, now leaderless, fled to Stirling and Linlithgow.