In revenge for this attack, the Scots pursued the English vanguard for a short distance, but the King recalled them to their ranks, and made a speech, calling on them all to be in arms by break of day, forbidding any man to break his line for pursuit or plunder, and promising that the heirs of such as might fall should receive their inheritance without the accustomed feudal fine.
All night there was the usual scene; the smaller and more resolute army watched and prayed, the larger revelled and slept. Edward, among his favorites and courtiers, had hardly believed that there would "be any battle, and had no notion of generalship, keeping his whole army compressed together, so that their large numbers were encumbering instead of being available. Five hundred horse were closely attached to his person, with the Earl of Pembroke, Sir Ingeltram de Umfraville, and Sir Giles de Argentine, the last a gallant knight of St. John. When he rode forward in the morning, Edward was absolutely amazed at the sight of the well-ordered lines of Scottish infantry, and turning to Umfraville, asked if he really thought those Scots would fight. At that moment Abbot Maurice, of Inchaffray, who had just been celebrating mass, came barefooted before the array, holding up a crucifix, and raising his hand in blessing, as all the army bent to the earth, with the prayers of men willingly offering themselves.
"They kneel! they kneel!" cried Edward. "They are asking mercy."
"They are, my liege," said Umfraville, "but it is of God, not of us. These men will win the day, or die upon the field."
"Be it so," said the King, and gave the word.
The Earls of Gloucester and Hereford rushed to the charge with loud war-cries. Each Scot stood fast, blowing wild notes on the horn he wore at his neck, and the close ranks of infantry stood like rocks against the encounter of the mailed horse, their spears clattering against the armor in the shock till the hills rang again. Randolph meanwhile led his square steadily on, till it seemed swallowed up in the sea of English; and Keith, with the five hundred horsemen of the Scots army, making a sudden turn around Milton Bog, burst in flank upon the English archery, ever the main strength of the army. The long-bow had won, and was again to win, many a fair field; but at Bannockburn the manoeuvre of the Scots was ruinous to the yeomanry, who had no weapons fit for a close encounter with mounted men-at-arms, and were trodden down and utterly dispersed.
The ground was hotly contested by the two armies; banners rose and fell, and the whole field was slippery with blood, and strewn with fragments of armor, shivers of lances and arrows, and rags of scarfs and pennons. The English troops began to waver. "They fail! they fail!" was the Scottish cry, and as they pressed on with double vehemence, there rose a shout that another host was coming to their aid. It was only the servants on the Gillies Hill, crowding down in the excitement of watching the battle, but to the dispirited English they appeared a formidable reinforcement of the enemy; and Robert Bruce, profiting by the consternation thus occasioned, charged with his reserve, and decided the fate of the day. His whole line advancing, the English array finally broke, and began to disperse. Earl Gilbert of Gloucester made an attempt to rally, and, mounted on a noble steed-a present from the King-rode furiously against Edward Bruce; but his retainers hung back, and he was borne down and slain before his armorial bearings were recognized. Clifford and twenty-seven other Barons were slain among the pits, and the rout became general. The Earl of Pembroke, taking the King's horse by the bridle, turned him from the field, and his five hundred guards went with him. Sir Giles de Argentine saw them safely out of the battle, then, saying, "It is not my custom to fly!" he bade Edward farewell, and turned back, crying, "An Argentine!" and was slain by Edward Bruce's knights.
Douglas followed hotly on the King, with sixty horse, and on the way met Sir Laurence Abernethy with twenty more, coming to join the English; but finding how matters stood, the time-serving knight gladly proceeded to hunt the fugitives, and they scarcely let Edward II. draw rein till he had ridden sixty miles, even to Dunbar, whence he escaped by sea.
Bannockburn was the most total defeat which has ever befallen an English army. Twenty-seven nobles were killed, twenty-two more and sixty knights made prisoners, and the number of obscure soldiers slain, drowned in the Forth, or killed by the peasantry, exceeds calculation. The camp was taken, with an enormous booty in treasure, jewels, rich robes, fine horses, herds of cattle, machines for the siege of towns, and, in short, such an amount of baggage that the wagons for the transport were numerous enough to extend in one line for sixty miles. Even the King's signet was taken, and Edward was forced to cause another to be made to supply its place. One prisoner was a Carmelite friar named Baston, whom Edward of Caernarvon had brought with him to celebrate his victory in verse; whereupon Robert imposed the same task by way of ransom; and the poem, in long, rhyming Latin verses, is still extant.
The plunder was liberally shared among the Scottish army, and the prisoners were treated with great courtesy and generosity. The slain were reverently buried where they fell, except Lord Clifford and the Earl of Gloucester, whose corpses were carried to St. Ninian's kirk, and sent with all honor to England.
Bruce had not forgotten that the blood of the Clares ran in his own veins, and that Gloucester had warned him of his danger at King Edward's court: he not only lamented for the young Earl, but he released Ralph de Monthermer, the stepfather of Earl Gilbert, and gave him the signet-ring of Edward II. to bear home.
Gilbert was the last male of the stout old line of De Clares. Gloucester, and his estates descended to his three sisters-Margaret, the widow of Gaveston; Eleanor, the wife of Hugh le Despenser; and Elizabeth, who shortly after married John de Burgh, Earl of Ulster.
The Earl of Hereford had taken refuge in Bothwell Castle, but was unable to hold it out, and surrendered. He was exchanged for captives no less precious to Robert Bruce than his well-earned crown. The wife, daughter, and sister, who had been prisoners for eight years, were set free, together with the Bishop of Glasgow, now blind, and the young Earl of Mar. Marjory Bruce had grown from a child to a maiden in her English prison, and she was soon betrothed to the young Walter, Steward of Scotland; but it was enacted that, if she should remain without a brother, the crown should descend to her uncle Edward.
That midsummer battle of Bannockburn undid all the work of Edward I., and made Scotland an independent kingdom for three hundred years longer. Ill-government, a discontented nobility, and a feeble King, had brought England so low, that the troops could not shake off their dejection, and a hundred would flee before two or three Scottish soldiers. Bruce ravaged the northern counties every summer, leaving famine and pestilence behind him; but Edward II. had neither spirit nor resolution to make war or peace. The mediation of the Pope and King of France was ineffectual, and years of warfare passed on, impressing habits of perpetual license and robbery upon the borderers of either nation.
CAMEO XXXIX. THE KNIGHTS OF THE TEMPLE. (1292-1316.)
_Kings of England_.
1272. Edward I.
1307. Edward II.
_King of Scotland_.
1306. Robert I.
_Kings of France_.
1285. Philippe IV.
1314. Louis X.
_Emperors of Germany_.
1292. Adolph.
1296. Albert I.
1308. Henry VII.
1314. Louis V.
_Popes_.
1296. Boniface VIII.
1303. Benedict XI.
1305. Clement V.
Crusades were over. The dream of Edward I. had been but a dream, and self-interest and ambition directed the swords of Christian princes against each other rather than against the common foe. The Western Church was lapsing into a state of decay and corruption, from which she was only partially to recover at the cost of disruption and disunion, and the power which the mighty Popes of the twelfth century had gathered into a head became, for that very cause, the tool of an unscrupulous monarch.