The Handy Military History Answer Book. Samuel Willard Crompton
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of heavy cavalry, solid infantry, and mobile archers, all of which had gained in strength and knowledge during the English wars with Wales. Scotland, by contrast, had a sprinkling of nobles—whose horses lacked armor—atop a ragged combination of individual fighters. Everything suggested England would win, and that was how the wars began, with solid English victories. Motivation and morale—which are not precisely the same—always play roles in military actions, however, and the Scots found their inspiration in William Wallace.
Was there ever a scene quite as amazing—and terrifying—as the one shown in Braveheart, where the Scots used wooden pikes to impale the enemy’s horses?
The element of surprise that day was not nearly as dramatic as is shown in the film, but yes, the Scots—lacking heavy cavalry of their own—formed solid groups of men known as shiltrons. Resembling the ancient Greek phalanx, the shiltron was a blocklike group of pikemen that could repel its foes.
William Wallace was the Scottish hero par excellance, but it was Robert the Bruce who won the final battle for Scottish independence. In 1314, Robert and his Scots won the Battle of Bannockburn over King Edward II, ensuring that Scotland would be free.
Did William Wallace end up “dead,” as he was warned in the film Braveheart?
Yes. Wallace won an outstanding victory at the Battle of Falkirk in 1296, but he was bested the next year at Falkirk. Resigning his post as defender of Scotland, Wallace played a hit-and-run, hide-and-seek war against the English for several years before being captured. He was brought to London, given a show trial, and then executed in the most gruesome method imaginable. His head was stuck atop London Bridge as a warning to other traitors. The movement that began with Wallace continued, however, under the leadership of Robert the Bruce.
Was Robert the Bruce as conflicted, and sometimes as cowardly, a figure as depicted in Braveheart?
Some of the scenes in Braveheart have seldom been surpassed in their depiction of medieval warcraft. One of these takes place when William Wallace, badly defeated at Falkirk, pursues King Edward I’s party from the battlefield. One knight turns back to fight Wallace, and in the ensuing scrape, Wallace prevails and eventually pulls off the other man’s helmet to find that he is a Scot in disguise, none other than Robert the Bruce. The epic treachery of Robert the Bruce should be rewarded with a swift death—this is what nearly all the viewers declare—but Wallace spares his life and staggers away from the battlefield, marveling that Scots could fight and betray each other in this manner.
Robert the Bruce was a slippery character. He did fight with King Edward I at Falkirk and only later was he converted completely to the idea of full Scottish independence. Several years later, the Bruce was involved in an assassination, and he struck the final, deadly blow. There is little to love in the man who later came to stand for Scottish freedom. But there was strength in the man, as well, as he showed a real capacity for growth. Crowned by the Scottish nobles, he fought the English long after both William Wallace and Edward I were dead.
”The Trial of William Wallace” as depicted in the 1909 edition of Cassell’s History of England. The trial was just for show; there was no way the rebellious Scotsman was going to escape his execution.
How did the final struggle come about?
King Edward II—son of the one called “Longshanks”—was not a military man in the tradition of his father, but he was a wily, even cunning, opponent. In the spring of 1314, Edward II summoned all the English lords to provide a muster for the king’s advance into Scotland; this was to be the single largest of all the border invasions.
Robert the Bruce knew that the English were coming, and by mid-June, he had about 7,000 men in position on the north side of the River Forth, hidden and protected by a rugged section of land called the Bannock, sometimes referred to as the Bannockburn. The Bruce knew he was outnumbered by more than two to one; even worse was the fact that the English had perhaps 2,500 heavy horses. The Scots had perhaps 500 horsemen, but almost none of them possessed the equipage—or even the sheer weight—of their cavalry opponents. In archers, too, the English had a marked superiority. The Bruce had to rely, therefore, on native skill and a measure of luck.
What was the most dramatic moment of the Battle of Bannockburn?
On June 23, 1314, the Bruce was directing and assembling a group of his pikemen when an English noble, just 500 yards away, began to charge. Sir Henry de Bohun espied the crown atop the Bruce’s helmet and hoping to score a great coup, he charged alone on horseback. Even though the Bruce could have fled to a cover of trees, to do so would be to lose face in front of hundreds of his men. Therefore, though he was mounted on a pony rather than a real war horse, the Bruce waited.
As Sir Henry de Bohun came close, he leveled his lance and charged straight for the Scottish king, but the Bruce was a master at guerrilla tactics; he evaded the lance and, allowing the Englishman’s horse to continue its charge, he came from behind and split de Bohun’s head with his axe. Though the Scots chastised their king for exposing himself to such danger, they quietly applauded his bravery. The battle itself, however, did not take place until the following morning.
What were the results of Bannockburn?
Six thousand English troops were killed and wounded, and the list of men taken prisoner was enough to give any loyal Englishman pains. One earl, forty-two barons and bannerets, and scores of knights were taken prisoner.
King Edward II (ruled 1307–1327) was almost captured, but he escaped to fight another day. His ambitions remained strong, but the English attempt to take over Scotland had ground to a halt. Further battles would be fought, and the English would win their share of them, but it would never again be close to annexing Scotland. Between them, William Wallace and Robert the Bruce had accomplished what seemed impossible: winning complete political independence.
How did Switzerland win its independence from Austria?
The Battle of Morgarten, fought in November 1315, was one of the decisive battles toward the end of Swiss independence. Several thousand Austrians invaded Shwyz, one of the federations of the Swiss republic, and found perhaps 5,000 men of Schwyz opposing them. In the battle, fought near the mountain pass of Morgarten, the Swiss proved their superiority in mountain fighting. Using spears made of wood, the Swiss killed nearly 1,500 Austrians (many others drowned in Lake Ageri). As the Austrians retreated, it became plain that Switzerland was on its way to political independence.
Did the Dutch, too, fight for their independence?
They did not need to. Holland and the other Dutch provinces had won their independence from the Holy Roman Empire without any battles, and by the early fourteenth century those provinces were on the way to establishing themselves as solid political units. The major reason no one—such as England or France—claimed Holland is that there seemed to be nothing much of value there. No incentive existed for any of the great powers to invade Holland, and the area slowly evolved in a direction that involved fishing, farming, and a growing maritime presence.
What happened to the crusading movement?
It died in the half century following the year 1204. Three more crusades were formed, but very little was accomplished. Something had gone out of the soul of the crusading movement, and it could not be regained.
Christian Europeans had never been shy about fighting each other, but the number of conflicts and wars began to increase as the crusades wound down. One of the most persistent of conflicts was the series of border wars between England and Scotland. The cause of these border wars was the desire of England—its noble class especially—to add Scotland to the Kingdom of England.
Where else were “border wars” being fought?
They took place throughout much of Europe during the fourteenth century. It almost seems as if the common people realized that the mounted knights were vulnerable for the first time in almost two centuries. Border skirmishes and battles took place in Belgium, in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Lithuania. A common theme was that