NOTES AND QUESTIONS

Discussion. 1. Describe the two armies, the English and the Scottish. 2. What stratagem did the King use? 3. Draw a diagram of the Scottish line showing the relative positions of the Park, Bannockburn, Stirling, Gillies’ hill, the church of St. Ninian’s, and Falkirk. 4. What did the King mean when he said to Randolph, “There is a rose fallen from your chaplet”? 5. Read passages that show two fine sides of Douglas’s nature. 6. Describe the Scottish king as he rode up and down the ranks of his army. 7. Describe the battle. 8. What decided the victory? 9. Read the passages that seem to you the most thrilling. 10. Why was this such an important battle? 11. Read Bruce’s address to his soldiers as given by Robert Burns in his poem “Bannockburn.” 12. Pronounce the following: boggy; exhorted; fugitive; frontiers.

Phrases

The Exploits of Douglas and Randolph (1315-1330)

Robert Bruce continued to reign gloriously for several years, and was so constantly victorious over the English, that the Scots seemed during his government to have acquired a complete superiority over their neighbors. But then we must remember that Edward the Second, who then reigned in England, was a foolish prince, and listened to bad counsels; so that it is no wonder that he was beaten by so wise and experienced a general as Robert Bruce, who had fought his way to the crown through so many disasters, and [acquired in consequence] so much renown, that, as I have often said, he was generally accounted one of the best soldiers and wisest sovereigns of his time.

In the last year of Robert the Bruce’s reign, he became extremely sickly and infirm, chiefly owing to a disorder called the leprosy, which he had caught during the hardships and misfortunes of his youth, when he was so frequently obliged to hide himself in woods and morasses, without a roof to shelter him. While Bruce was in this feeble state, Edward the Second, King of England, died, and was succeeded by his son Edward the Third. He turned out afterwards to be one of the wisest and bravest kings whom England ever had; but when he first mounted the throne he was very young, and under the entire management of his mother.

The war between the English and the Scots still lasting at the time, Bruce sent his two great commanders, the good Lord James Douglas, and Thomas Randolph, Earl of Murray, to [lay waste] the counties of Northumberland and Durham, and distress the English as much as they could.