“18. And Gorgias and his host are here by us in the mountain; but stand ye now against our enemies, and overcome them, and after this ye may boldly take the spoils.”[63]
APPENDIX C
THE NUMBERS AT BANNOCKBURN
English: One hundred thousand men and ma.
Scots: Thretty thousand, and sum deill mare.
These figures have given rise to much discussion, without any very certain result. Yet official data are not wanting—sufficient, at least, to check what is only another example of the wild conjectures of mediæval chroniclers when dealing with numbers. Hemingburgh gives Wallace at Falkirk “about three hundred thousand men”[64]—rather more, probably, than the whole male population of Scotland. We need not be surprised, then, at how all such estimates shrink in the cold light of Exchequer figures.
Edward II. summoned all owing him military service,[65] which corroborates the statement of the author of the Vita Edw. Sec. that “the King exacted from all the service due,”[66] as well as that of Barbour—“of England hale the chivalry.” The Earls of Lancaster, Warenne, Arundel, and Warwick did not attend, for a particular reason, but sent their contingents.[67] Now, by Mr. Round’s calculations, the whole number of knights’ fees in England did not exceed 5,000;[68] Mr. Morris raises the figure to something short of 7,000.[69] The important point is, however, that in practice the assessment was only a nominal or conventional one. Thus Gloucester, with 455 fees, was assessed at ten knights.[70] Including all grades of horsemen, Mr. Morris puts “the maximum of the cavalry arm” at “about 8,000”; but, all things considered, no such number could ever take the field.[71] Edward I. had summoned his full feudal array (omnes sui fideles) for the Falkirk campaign, and Hemingburgh says that, when counted, it came to 3,000 men on armoured horses (Barbour’s “helit hors”), and more than 4,000 on unarmoured horses—say, roughly, 7,000 in all.[72] Mr. Morris, however, by a generous calculation from the rolls, arrives at 2,400 as the highest possible figure.[73] Now, it is to be noted that the author of the Vita Edw. Sec., while lauding the size and magnificence of the host that went to Bannockburn, gives 2,000 men-at-arms as apparently the total of the cavalry, since he simply adds “a considerable body of footmen.”[74] On the whole, 3,000 to 4,000 English horse is a higher limit for Bannockburn, when we consider all the difficulties of sufficient armour, remounts, and forage. Mr. Morris thinks 10,000 “impossible,” though he is here calculating on yards of frontage on a site where the battle was not fought.[75] About 7,000 is Mr. Round’s free estimate, adopting Hemingburgh’s figure for Falkirk.[76] Bain accepts Barbour’s 3,000 heavy horsemen, and suggests 10,000 light horse, but proceeds on no data.[77] Mr. Oman calculates that “three thousand ‘equites coperti,’ men-at-arms on barded horses,” means, probably, 10,000 for the whole cavalry,[78] but this traverses his Falkirk figures. England never put, nor could maintain, on the field such a mounted force, to say nothing of the difficulty of handling and manœuvring it.
For the foot we have, fortunately, exact figures in the Fœdera[79]—21,540 men all told, which would include the archers. Only the northern counties—but not all—and Wales are drawn upon, as those of the south would be for a French campaign.[80] Such had been the practice of Edward I., whose levies from the northern counties and Wales ranged from 29,400 foot in 1297 to 12,000 in 1301.[81] Mr. Morris contends that not till 1322 were infantry drawn from all England for a Scottish campaign (as cited), but in this he is wrong. It was done by a special vote of Parliament, and according to a prescribed form, as early as March, 1316, when every township, with some special exceptions, furnished one soldier,[82] and again in 1318.[83] These are clearly new and special arrangements, and there is thus no reason to believe that the list in Fœdera, etc., is not complete, as Mr. Oman suggests, adding, accordingly, a southern contingent of about 30,000 men, though he doubts if “the extreme South” sent its full muster.[84] This is quite gratuitous. Lord Hailes, too, contended that the official records are imperfect, and that the numbers given by Barbour “are within the limits of probability.”[85] Bain’s authoritative reply is that, “as a rule, the writs were always enrolled, and the Patent Rolls of the time are not defective.”[86] This, however, is not always true, and Bain, applying this principle absolutely, is once, at least, led to a wrong conclusion.[87]
An important question now suggests itself, but no one has so far raised it: did the levies in these full numbers turn up? They are allotted in round figures: what proportion was actually furnished? That there would be some trouble in securing the conscripts is anticipated and provided for in severe measures for the contumacious.[88] This was usual, and even the strong hand of Edward I. could not prevent men from deserting after they had received their wages.[89] Here we have, also, a sufficient basis for an estimate. On May 12, 1301, Edward I. summoned for midsummer 12,000 men from nine of the counties included in the Bannockburn levy—York, as in that case, being assessed at 4,000.[90] On July 12 we have the numbers from these counties as they appear on the pay-roll, when it is stated that they had contributed in proportions which give only 5,501 all told; York having sent only 1,193, and Northumberland, assessed at 2,700, providing the largest proportion—2,019.[91] The numbers vary slightly on other days, but seem never to have exceeded, if they reached, 50 per cent. of the nominal levy. Mr. Morris works out the same result for the Caerlaverock Campaign of 1300.[92] There are no grounds for assuming that things went differently in 1314, and thus over 21,540 men are reduced by about half. It is quite a fair conclusion that not more than 12,000 English foot—which exceeds the proportion above—were actually present at Bannockburn.
For the foreign contingents no figures exist. Bain thinks they were not “more than a few thousands.”[93] The Gascon corps in the Falkirk army should have been 106 mounted men.[94] The Hainault and Flanders auxiliaries who shared in the campaign of 1327 amounted to 550 men-at-arms, and were an expensive item.[95] The Irish contingent which came to Edward I. in 1304 amounted at most, for a few weeks only, to 3,500 men,[96] but to merely 361 in the army of 1300.[97]
I would suggest, therefore, for the English army the following round numbers: 3,000 to 4,000 horse of all sorts, 12,000 English and Welsh foot, 3,000 (?) Irish, 1,500 (?) foreigners, or, in a lump sum, 20,000 men of all arms, to which must be added a crowd of non-combatants—servants, traders, and camp-followers generally. Bain (as cited) proposes 50,000; Round, 30,000; Oman, 60,000 to 70,000. I consider 18,000 to 20,000 the most probable range. With even the lower of these numbers, the English commanders in organization and commissariat would have rather more than they could manage.