Authors: Robyn Young
Chapter 49
Near Stirling, Scotland, 1314 AD
The battle was dour and vicious. The sun had risen higher, throwing garish light over the great swathes of men locked together all across the field. Dust filled the air in choking clouds, kicked up by the hooves of the horses. The spearmen of the schiltroms choked and panted, blinking away the salt sting of the sweat pouring into their eyes. Many moved sluggishly now, pressed in against comrades and enemies alike, propping one another up as they toiled for blood.
The red of it was everywhere: splattered brightly on surcoats and across faces, slimed dark along blades, clotted in hair and beards. More was on the ground, congealing in a swampy, stinking soup of spilled bowels and entrails, severed limbs, vomit and horse dung. The mêlée was so densely packed that if a man collapsed and went down among that foul stew he would never get up again. Many were trampled by hooves, or had the breath crushed out of them.
Those who had lost lances and swords used shields to shatter jaws and faces. Spearmen, wedged in at close quarters, resorted to dirks to stab at groins or the bellies of horses. Others used their bare hands, falling on one another, gasping, pressing eyes into skulls with their thumbs, wrapping hands around throats. Guttural cries and strangled shrieks rose; a dreadful clamouring chorus. It was as if the earth had split and hell itself had come bubbling up through the rift. Soldiers, wild-eyed and slathered in blood, screamed shrilly as they hacked their enemies apart. In the craze of battle men were unravelled, undone.
Knights and squires, slumped dead in their saddles, mail punctured and slashed, were carried on the currents of fighting. Other beasts stampeded through the chaos, a danger to English and Scot alike. There were ebbs and flows of fighting still, but for the most part the English cavalry had become pools on a strip of sand, isolated from one another and from their infantry, at the mercy of the incoming tide of Scots. The knights hurled swords and war-hammers at their ranks in desperation, trying to break them, to no avail. The Scottish schiltroms had joined to form an almost unbroken line, forcing the English back towards the slope they had ascended, back down on top of their infantry, struggling and failing to reach the beleaguered knights, despite the desperate ringing of the horns.
Edward Bruce had been unhorsed and fought on foot alongside his spearmen, scores of knights and squires from Carrick and Annandale packed in around him. Edward was exhausted, but he fought like a savage, battering his blade at another of Gloucester’s knights, still fighting furiously to avenge their fallen lord. Close by, Gilbert de la Hay chopped his way through the enemy, alongside Neil Campbell, whose teeth were bared as he thrust his sword into the meat of another man’s face.
James Douglas, still mounted, was duelling with one of Humphrey de Bohun’s knights, his sword whip-quick in his hand, slivers of red-hot metal sparking from both their blades. His cousin, Walter Stewart, was surrounded by his father’s men, fiercely protective of the young steward, who was nonetheless holding his own against a knot of men-at-arms in the colours of Ingram de Umfraville. Some distance away, Thomas Randolph smacked aside a sword strike with his shield and lunged at the man who had delivered it, thrusting his blade through layers of padding, into the muscle beneath. He snarled as he withdrew the sword with a vicious twist of his wrist.
In the heart of the king’s company, Cormac of Antrim hefted his axe, two-handed, and swung it into the chest of a squire who had just tried to run him through. The Irishman’s face was feverish, sweat streaming down his cheeks. His two front teeth had been kicked out by a horse and his top lip was a bloody mess. Not far away was Robert himself, his surcoat misted with blood, the gold crown on his head flashing as he cut and thrust from the saddle of his palfrey. Angus MacDonald fought alongside him, roaring the battle cry of Islay. Nearby were Nes and Malcolm of Lennox, the earl’s handsome face smeared red. There, too, was Alexander Seton, fighting on foot with his falchion. The cross of St George was gone from his arm. That morning he had begged Robert to allow him to fight and the king had finally agreed. Alexander was pushing forward, his eyes on the white and blue stripes of Pembroke around King Edward, visible beneath his banner, beyond the shifting battle lines. In his mind, his cousin’s face burned like a beacon. Close by was a riderless horse, caught in the fray, stamping and tossing its head. It wore a trapper in the colours of Gloucester. Snarling with effort, Alexander propelled himself towards it.
At the ferocity of these captains and their king, the English cavalry were falling back, closer to the slope; back, closer to the mass of infantry still trying to surge forward. Suddenly, from behind the Scots came a clamour of cries.
The camp followers, watching the battle from the safety of a hill beyond the woods, had seen their countrymen winning and now, spurred by jubilation and the chance for glory, they rushed to join them – cooks wielding pans and knives, grooms brandishing hay forks, servants and carters with sticks and rocks.
Humphrey de Bohun was caught in the core of the fighting when he saw this new host swarming down the field towards them. They were too far for him to tell whose men they might be, but his heart quailed at the sight of fresh forces, come to join the ranks of the enemy. Gloucester had fallen, as had Robert Clifford. So, too, had many of his own knights. Humphrey glimpsed Ralph de Monthermer nearby, surrounded, fighting grimly for his life, but he couldn’t get to him.
As Humphrey battered aside another spear and stabbed at the man who held it, the muscles in his shoulders screamed with pain. The favour Elizabeth had given to him was still tied around his arm, but the blue silk was now sodden with blood. His horse was wild-eyed and bleeding from several cuts, but the mail skirt beneath its trapper had saved the beast from mortal wounds. Jostled and shoved in the crush, it was all he could do to stay in the saddle. His helm had been dented by an axe blow. The visor had broken and was hanging by its hinge. Up in his saddle, he could see the full extent of the chaos. Everywhere was a sea of helmed heads and a tangle of spears. The Scottish schiltroms were pushing in, relentless. He could hear his own men panting, struggling for breath, but the Scots were starting to shout, their voices lifting in triumph. He knew they could smell victory – just as he could taste defeat. They were coming on too hard, too fast. He could feel his horse staggering backwards under the onslaught. All around, men were falling on top of one another, a wall of bodies building. In Humphrey’s mind flashed a memory: his father going down at Falkirk, sinking in the mire, his side pierced by a Scottish spear.
There were more shouts from the Scots.
‘
On them! On them! They fail!
’
Humphrey cried out as the tip of a spear grazed past his cheek, slicing open skin. He swerved from the worst of it, then struck at the man wielding it, almost severing his arm at the elbow. The man reeled away, but another stepped in to take his place. Some knights, those who could, were wheeling their horses around, tearing free from the crush. To his left, Humphrey saw a gap in the crowds. In desperation, he jerked on the reins and kicked his way towards it.
All of a sudden, the English lines broke.
Aymer de Valence was with the king when they witnessed the avalanche begin. It was just a few men at first, peeling from the lines, then more followed, until everywhere horses and men were fleeing, surging towards them. Aymer, who had raised his visor to get a better view of the battle, realised the peril. They were trapped – caught between the advancing spiked wall of Scots and the thousands of their own men on the slope behind them. To the left was the defile of the Bannock Burn. The only way out was right, along the edge of the escarpment towards Stirling Castle.
‘My lord!’ He twisted round to the king, who was yelling hoarsely at his impotent captains to send in the infantry. ‘We must go!
Now!
’
Edward jerked round, staring at the earl aghast. ‘Give up the battle?’
‘We’ve no choice!’ Aymer’s eyes flicked to the raging flood of men, almost upon them. He swung his shield from his back and drew his sword. ‘If you’re captured we lose this
war
!’ Turning, he shouted at Giles d’Argentan and Marmaduke Tweng. ‘Get the king to safety.’ He pointed his sword along the ridge.
The two veterans didn’t need telling twice. Giles spurred his horse through the fray, clearing a path, while Marmaduke grabbed the king’s bridle and, kicking at its sides, forced Edward’s piebald destrier along with him. Aymer moved to follow, shouting at those of his men still around him to withdraw. The royal standard-bearer galloped hard after the king, the retreating banner signalling many more knights and squires to follow their leader.
All at once, a horse came hurtling towards Aymer, a gold trapper flying behind it. For a moment he thought it was one of Gloucester’s men, then he realised the man astride it looked nothing like a knight – dressed in the poor, mismatched clothing of an infantryman. The man’s bloody face was lit with furious intent. Aymer knew him. Alexander Seton. The Scottish lord rose in his stirrups, the short sword in his hand swinging towards him. Aymer lifted his shield to block the blow. At the same time, he brought his own sword slicing in.
First, there was the concussion in his arm as Seton’s sword struck. The blade scored across the edge of the shield, then skidded off. Aymer felt its sting as the tip slashed across his face, partly exposed by his raised visor. In the same moment, there was the impact in his sword arm as his own blade connected with Alexander’s chest. The man flew back, hurled from the saddle, and disappeared among the hooves and feet of those now trying to follow their king. Aymer, gritting his teeth at the searing pain in his cheek, wheeled his horse around. Taking one last look behind him, the earl’s eyes fixed on the royal banner of Scotland, closer now, the red lion clearly visible, rearing triumphant. With a bitter cry, Aymer de Valence kicked his destrier after his fleeing king.
When King Edward fled the field, the English forces knew the battle was lost and the Scots under Robert knew they had won. As the Scots poured down the hillside on top of the stampeding enemy, disorderly rout turned into disaster.
The English cavalry, bearing down on the infantry, began a great, tumultuous exodus. Men knocked down in the press found themselves suffocated by the hundreds who crawled on over them, burying them in the churned earth. Those near the back, still spread out across the boggy plain, pushed north, stumbling over the stream-riven ground. Many threw themselves into the deep waters of the Forth. Those who could swim made it to the far banks, but many more were dragged under the broad river’s current. Thousands of others floundered on the plain, twisting into the sudden dips and pools, easy targets for the hordes of Scots swarming to engulf them. Horses careered, knocking men down. Porters and grooms around the baggage train, some distance from the fighting, jumped from the wagons and fled, wading back through the Bannock Burn.
Up on the ridge, in the blind chaos of the rout, knights and squires, trapped between the Scots and their own infantry, urged their horses into the woods to their left, many unaware of the defile that opened beyond. The animals plunged through the trees only to hurtle off the edge of the cliff-like banks. Men and beasts screamed as they fell, the destriers breaking trees and branches on their tumbling downward course. Water and mud burst up from the wide stream as they plummeted into its depths. Others crashed down on top of them, forcing those struggling in the weight of their mail beneath the surface. Hundreds met their fate here. Others, gasping, fought their way over this bridge of writhing flesh to get to the other side. The waters of the Bannock Burn were churned brown with the flailing limbs of drowning men.
Chapter 50
Near Stirling, Scotland, 1314 AD
It was over, a little more than two hours after it had begun. The battleground, a vast, ruined canvas, was daubed all over with the blood of the fallen. The stink was horrific. Men staggered about, retching, stomachs turned as they waded through the mess of burst and broken corpses. Already, scores of crows were circling in the sky, drawn by the promise of a feast. Others settled in the trees, hunched like black gargoyles.
Cries and groans, whimpers and pleas rose all around, cut through by triumphant yells and cheers. Some Scots punched fists into the air, wide-eyed and battle-drunk, some sat in silence, numb with exhaustion. Many leaned on the shoulders of comrades, laughing and crying with relief, gulping at skins of water and wine. Others crouched beside injured friends, trying to comfort them in their last moments of life. Hundreds of the remaining English nobles, those who hadn’t fled or been killed, were being rounded up, taken prisoner.
Robert was up on the ridge with his captains, overseeing the aftermath of the battle. He had dismounted from his horse and had handed his helm and shield to his squire. His muscles felt as though they were on fire, but victory animated him, pumping the blood hot through his veins. His heart still hammered in his chest, as if it didn’t know the fight was over. As Nes passed him a skin, he pulled off his padded arming cap and upended the skin over his head, closing his eyes as the water poured on to his scalp and down his face. It stung as it trickled through the deep wound over his left eye, where a stray sword strike had carved skin to the bone. Later he would have his physician stitch it closed, but for now he was needed here. His commanders were returning to give reports from different parts of the battleground and receive new orders.