Nigel Tranter - The Price of the King's Peace

These now, at Irvine’s order, were the first to take the grievous step

of rising from the prone. They rose each only on one knee, admittedly

* and in this their shorter Scots bows aided them, lacking though they were in hitting-power. But it took a deal of courage for men to hoist themselves up, to make immediate targets of themselves. As swiftly as they might, their own arrows began to fly, practically unseen as their targets were. Some few never drew string before they fell back, pierced through.

Although they were shooting blind, even such attack would be alarming for men standing up behind six-foot-long bows just within the screen of bushes. The enemy fire slackened almost to nothing. It was more than Bruce had hoped for.

“Sound the advance!” he jerked. Then, as the trumpeter’s unsteady notes rang out, he was the first to his feet.

“Up!” he shouted.

“Up! A Bruce! A Bruce!” Axe raised, shield held up before him, he leapt forward, down off the track and into the softer ground to the left.

He did not look back, nor did he have to. He did not have to shout for speed, either. No man there was going to linger, with even a few arrows in the air and some 300 yards of open ground to cover. Yelling, the Scots line rose and surged after him, while their own archers raised their bows to shoot above their heads, in their turn having to attempt dropping-shots.

By the noise, Moray’s people had redoubled their efforts on hearing Brace’s advance trumpet-call.

What with the return archery, and the twin Scots assaults, the enemy clearly were thrown into considerable confusion. Their own surprise attack had proved no surprise, and the biters were being bitten. Some arrows did still come over at their suddenly mobile opponents-and now with a higher percentage of casualties; but they were no longer volleyed, or anything but individual and spasmodic efforts.

Bruce was fortunate, considering his prominence, foremost position, and the Lion Rampant of his surcoat and shield. Two shafts did strike that shield, harmlessly, and another ripped along his right forearm, tearing the surcoat’s linen sleeve but failing to penetrate the chain-mail beneath. A fourth actually clanged on his helmet, knocking it slightly askew and setting his head ringing, but doing no damage. Then he was close enough to the trees for archers to be considering their own safety rather than throwing good arrows after bad.

Shouting the dreaded Bruce slogan, the Scots flung themselves into the wood, thankful to have covered the intervening open ground alive. It was no conventional woodland, tall trees being fairly wide-scattered;

but there was a great deal of low scrub and bush, rising out of

undrained boggy ground-difficult country to fight in. But almost

certainly less difficult for the Scots than for their opponents, or

many of them-English archers with six-foot bows and footmen with long pikes, both of which were of no help to passage through clutching undergrowth.

Immediately the struggle became indiscriminate, utterly confused, catch-as-catch can. There was no line, no distant prospects, no means of assessing numbers. Each man fought whom he could see-or tried to avoid fighting. And in this again the Scots had the advantage. For archers were precious, highly-skilled folk, and knew it-specialists with a clear-cut role. Not for them the cut-and thrust of a hand-to-hand melee, in bogs and bushes, where their unwieldy bows and quivers of yard-long shafts got entangled in everything that grew. Their duty, most certainly, was to retire-and their protecting pike men duty to get them out of a dangerous position, not to engage in needless heroics.

So the mood was sensible retreat on the one hand, and angry advance on the other-a situation liable to develop predictably.

The Scots, however, chased their foes through the scrubland with more sound and fury than actual bloodshed, more shouts than blows, without even having any clear idea how many of them there were, or where their line was, if any. The enemy retiral was in roughly a southerly direction, which was as far as certainties went Presently these fleeing men became involved with others fleeing diagonally across their front, south-westwards, left or right. This must mean that Moray’s advance was close on the left. In a very rough and ragged fashion the pursuit swung round also, so that all movement was approximately in the same direction.

A number of archers fell, and rather more pike men But it could by no means be called a slaughter. The King himself did not achieve a single victory, none waiting sufficiently long for him to get within axe-range.

Ploughing his way through clutching brambles, he found a panting Moray at his elbow.

“Too easy,” that man gasped.

“They flee … too easily.”

“They are not the main body.”

“They lead us to it?”

“If we let them.”

“You suffered badly? With the archers?”

“No. Little. Thanks to you.”

”De Burgh’s position? Formation? His main body. How think you?” “If he leads this host, they will be a-horse. In that, he is like my brother, a cavalryman. He would never demean himself to fight on foot! I judge him waiting somewhere that he may use his horse.

Open firm ground in front of him. The bowmen sent to trap us. Pin us down. On that road. Against the cliff. He and his horse to finish us off. My guess, they must be massed to the south, and so that they can see some way down that road.”

His nephew nodded.

“He will not expect attack from this flank.”

“He would not. He will now, with this rabble fleeing back on him.”

“He will not know our strength.”

“Not in here. But he will know our total strength. Less than 6,000. He will have watched Edward ride past, with 3,000 men. He can count, Thomas!”

The trees were thinning before them now and the brittle winter sunlight flooding the area beyond. Into this open space the fleeing archers were bolting, Scots at their heels.

Suddenly Bruce held up his hand, and barked a command to the trumpeter, “Sound the halt! Quickly, man!”

He could see, now, beyond the last of the trees. There, across another 300 yards or so of grassy clearing, were the solid, serried ranks of a great army drawn up, silent, waiting, menacing, horse and foot, banners, trappings, knightly chivalry, helmeted steel-girl infantry and Irish irregulars. Stretching right across the line of vision, each flank disappeared into trees again.

Even Moray jerked a shaken curse.

“So-0-0!” Bruce said.

“My good-sire!” He pointed to where, near the centre, the great red-cross-on-gold standard of de Burgh stirred beside that of the Leopards of England.

“God save us there are tens of thousands there!” Hay, at their backs, exclaimed.

The King did not comment.

“Have our bowmen forward,” he ordered.

“Now is their opportunity.”

So, in a strange, unequal way, the situation was reversed. The Scots were in cover and the enemy stood as a vast target for archers in open ground. Unfortunately the bowmen were too few to take fullest advantage; nor were they so expert as their English counterparts-for archery in war had never been greatly practised in Scotland. But they did their best, and soon their shorter arrows were winging their way into the waiting host, scattered and few at first but ever increasing as men came scrambling out of the scrub. And no difficult dropping shooting was required here. Richard de Burgh was no crawler on the ground; his ranks stood upright, or sat their mounts as knights should. The least expert or most breathless marksman could not miss.

However staunchly gallant-and well encased in steel-the Anglo-Irish knights might be, de Burgh’s rank-and-file could not stand still and take this for long. Fairly quickly the massive line began to sag and fold and break, as men and horses went down screaming. Obviously the English leaders were seeking to rally and bring back into action their own disheartened archers.