PRIMARY SOURCES
Primary sources
A description of the Battle of Bannockburn (day 2), from the Lanercost
Chronicle
Now when the two armies had approached very near each other, all the Scots
fell on their knees to pray, commending themselves to God and seeking help
from heaven; after which they advanced boldly against the English. They had
so arranged their army that two columns went abreast in advance of the
third, so that neither should be in advance of the other and the third followed
with Robert in it.
When both armies engaged each other and the great horses of the English
charged the pikes of the Scots like into a dense forest, there arose a great and
terrible crash of spears broken and of the houses wounded to death. Now the
English in the rear could not reach the Sco ts because the leading division
was in the way, nor could they do anything to help themselves, so there was
nothing for it but to take flight. This account I heard from a trustworthy
person who was present as an eyewitness.
In the leading division the Earl of Gloucester, Sir John Comyn, Sir Pain
Tiptoft, Sir Edmund Mauley and many other nobles were killed, besides foot
soldiers who fell in great numbers. Another calamity which befell the English
was that whereas they had shortly before crossed a great ditc h called
Bannockburn, into which the tide flows, they now wanted to recross it; in
confusion, many nobles and others fell into it with their horse in the crush,
while others escaped with much difficulty, and many were never able to
extricate themselves from the ditch. Thus Bannockburn was spoken about for
many years by the English.
An extract from the Declaration of Arbroath, 1320
Thus our people (the Scots), under their protection lived in freedom and
peace until that mighty prince Edward, King of the English, father of the
present king, when our kingdom had no head and out people harboured no
malice or treachery and were not then used to wars or attacks came in the
guise of a friend and ally to invade us as an enemy. His wrongdoing, killings,
violence, looting, arson, imprisonment of prelates, burning down of
monasteries, despoiling and killing of religious and still other innumerable
outrages, sparing neither age nor sex, religion nor order. No -one could fully
describe or fully understand unless experience had taught him.
But from these innumerable evils we have been freed with the help of our
most valiant prince, king and lord the lord Robert, who in order that his
WARS OF INDEPENDENCE (H, HISTORY)
© Learning and Teaching Scotland 2011
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PRIMARY SOURCES
people and his inheritance might be delivered out of the hands of enemies,
cheerfully endured toil and fatigue, hunger and danger…
We are bound to him for the maintenance of our freedom both by his right
and his merits, as to the one by whom deliverance has been wrought unto our
people, and come what may we mean to stand by him. Yet if he s hould give up
what he has began, seeking to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of
England or to the English we would exert ourselves at once to drive him out
as our enemy and as a subverter of his own right and ours and we would
make some other man who was able to defend us as our king. For as long as a
hundred of us remain alive, we will never on any conditions be subjected to
the lordship of the English. For we fight not for glory or riches or honours,
but for freedom alone, which no good man give s up except with his life.
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WARS OF INDEPENDENCE (H, HISTORY)
© Learning and Teaching Scotland 2011