Robert Bruce: Our Most Valiant Prince, King and Lord by McNamee Colm

Author:McNamee, Colm [McNamee, Colm]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780857904966
Publisher: Birlinn
Published: 2012-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

The English spent the night at Falkirk, and on the Sunday 23 June ‘after dinner’ they came within sight of the Torwood. They were anxious to reach Stirling Castle either that day or the next, before Mowbray delivered it up for lost, so there was a tendency for leading groups to press ahead. There were two encounters that evening, which took place as the main body of the English army was still arriving. In the first incident, a group of young aristocratic hotheads, spying some Scots ‘straggling under the trees as if in flight’, galloped off around the Torwood to cut off their retreat. What they had seen was Moray, retiring from his position at the chapel of Larbert to join King Robert in the New Park. Probably he had seen the English host from afar and decided upon withdrawal. The English must have seen further activity around the New Park, for they rode off in that direction, confident that the Scots were in full retreat before them. Great was their surprise then, when the Scottish king himself galloped out towards them, at the head of a force of cavalry:

He rode upon a little palfrey,

Low and bonny, and directing

His company with an axe in his hand

And on his bascinet he wore

A hat of boiled leather

And on top of that

As a sign that he was king,

A high crown.

At the head of the English aristocrats rode Sir Henry de Boun, a knight of Hereford’s retinue and possibly a relative of that earl. Levelling his lance, he rode full tilt at the king, but missed, and as he passed Robert stood up in his stirrups and brought his axe down on de Boun’s head. With the force of the blow, Barbour tells us, the axe-shaft broke in two, and Barbour has the king complain nonchalantly that he had ruined a bloody good axe. The English knights fled. Robert’s victory in this one-to-one combat is attested by two English chronicles, and such a personal feat of arms at the very commencement of battle sent Scottish morale soaring. It was a vindication in itself of Robert’s right as king. Enormously encouraging, news of the encounter will have spread rapidly throughout the Scottish ranks.

Shortly before or after this, Robert Clifford, who also saw Scots close by the woods, led a contingent of cavalry to skirt around the woodland and cut off the Scots’ retreat. Clifford was accompanied by the earl of Gloucester, Henry Beaumont and, among others, to our good fortune, by Sir Thomas Gray, whose son included his father’s eyewitness account in his narrative, Scalachronica, written in 1355–57. These knights galloped around the wood until out of the sight of the main body of the English army, and took up a position to block a retreat towards Stirling. Suddenly, out of the woods, came a rush of Scottish infantry, bunched closely together in a tight schiltrom formation, and carrying pikes. Moray had seen that the English contingent was isolated. The English cavalry had halted too

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