519 With speris ... and axis. Of the Scots it is said in Vita Edw.: “They had an axe by the side, and carried spears (lanceas) in their hands” (p. 203). For the “weill grundyn” axes, cf. Trokelowe above, line 448.
535 He held his way. The Scots appear to have attacked with successive battles, each coming up later than, and to the left of, its predecessor—in echelon by the right. So we may infer from Barbour, as well as from the rather obscure description in the Lanercost chronicle: “But they so ordered their army, that two divisions (duæ acies) of it should precede the third, the first on the flank of the second, so that neither should go in front of the other (una ex latere alterius, ita quod neutra aliam præcederet), to be followed by the third, in which was Robert” (p. 225). Gray simply says that the advance guard of the Scots came on in line of schiltrons and engaged the English (Scala., p. 142). Baker alone states that the Scots stood drawn up in solid array behind an artificial “hurdle” covered ditch, and waited the English attack (Chron., p. 56).
537 The nyne battales. Probably, as Mr. Oman suggests (Art of War, p. 574), in the way the French were at Creçy, in three lines of three battles each, the advance guard under Gloucester and Hereford thus forming a separate body (cf. lines 435-7). Mr. Oman gives the tenth, however, to “a reserve under the King” (ibid.). Baker, whose account is the latest and is really a summary essay on tactics, divides the English army into three “wards” (custodias): first, the heavy horsemen, which he tumbles into the “fragile” ditch (see above on 536, and note on Bk. XI. 360); next, the foot with the archers reserved to deal with the enemy in flight (see on Bk. XIII. 51); and, third, the King himself, with the bishops and other “religious” men (Chronic., 56-7).
BOOK XIII.
32 tynt the suet. “Lost their lives.” The phrase in this sense occurs also in the Wallace: “The Scottis on fute gert mony loiss the suete” (The Wallace, Jamieson’s edition, Bk. xii., line 194).
36 slew fire. “Struck out fire.” Also in Wallace, iv. 285: “slew fyr on flint.” Cf. from The Buik of Alexander: “thare dyntis, That kest fyre as man dois flyntis” (p. 236, line 24).
51 the archeris war perelous. Baker says that the archers were not given a suitable position, as in his time, being placed behind the first line instead of on the wings (cf. note on Bk. XII. 537, and below lines 102-5, and note on 104). “Some,” he adds, “shot upwards so that their arrows fell fruitlessly (incassum) on the helmets of their adversaries; those who shot straight wounded a few Scots in the breast, but more English in the back” (Chron., pp. 57-58). At Falkirk (1298), after the failure of the first attack by the horsemen, Edward I. brought up his archers to play on the Scottish masses till these were broken, and then charged and dispersed them. Bruce anticipated this manœuvre, and made provision for it (see note on 98).
61 Robert of Keth. The Kethes or Keiths took their name from the barony of Keith, in Lothian. This Robert was still in the English service on May 23, 1308 (Bain, iii. 44), yet his name appears among those present at Bruce’s Parliament of March 16, 1309, as Robert de Kethe, Marshall (Acts Parl. Scot., i., p. 99). Elsewhere he is said to have joined Bruce at Christmas, 1308 (Bain, No. 245). He received from Bruce the office of Earl Marshall as its holders, one of the branches of the “Mareschals,” were adherents of England, and continued to be (Bain, iii., p. lxviii).
68 at a syde. “On one side,” as in line 163, “in-till a front.” This movement is too vaguely described to be located exactly. Most probably it was to the left of the three “battles” now engaged (English right), on ground presently occupied by Bruce with his own division.