On the 23rd of June, midsummer's eve 1314, the army of Edward II arrived before the Bannockburn ford.
As Robert Bruce had anticipated, they had come by the old roman road, so he had set his positions accordingly, his divisions lining the road under the cover of the forest. For him to win he would need to fight the battle on his terms, which meant confining the bulk of the English army to a gap to small for them to fight at full force. He hoped then that his schiltroms* could repel the thrust of the English cavalry, keeping his lines unbroken.
For the battle site, Robert had chosen the narrow gap between the woods surrounding the Bannockburn village and those on Gillies Hill, near where the road fords the Bannock Burn. Within the woods he blocked all paths with branches and dug pits which he covered with sticks, anti-cavalry traps intended to counter an outflanking movement. Then with his men in position, he waited.
* A schiltrom was basically a large circle of men who carried huge 15 ft pikes. They were trained to march consistently in this formation with pikes outwards, forming an impenetrable wall of spears.
On the arrival of the English, Stirling's governor, Sir Philip Mowbray rode out to meet Edward. He pleaded that a force should be dispatched to relieve the castles garrison, to which Edward agreed, giving him 500 cavalry.
Mowbray knew the Scots positions would make using the road impossible, so he led the force, under Sir Clifford and Sir Beaumont along a narrow bridle path leading from the village to the castle. Within the gorge, which the path followed, the English Knights were well hidden from the Scottish positions. Luckily, just before they had managed to pass, Robert spotted them and immediately dispatched Randolph to intercept.
Randolph quickly gathered his men and charged down towards the English, blocking their path. He knew that there would be no option but to fight, as the English were 500 horse, and would be confident of breaking the Scots lines. So, as the English cavalry gathered for the charge, within the Scots schiltrom spears were grounded and muscles strained in preparation for their impact.
The first wave of cavalry hit the Scots with tremendous force. Their lines held sure though and many English Knights crashed to their deaths on the wall of spikes. The cavalry retreated, gathered and charged again, but still they could not break through. This continued for some time, each charge weakening as more knights fell, their own dead blocking their path.
Meanwhile James Douglas, concerned for Randolph's men persuaded Robert to let him take a small division of reinforcements down to the battle. On arrival though he was greeted by a surprise; it was not the Scots who were failing, but the English, who had given up charging and had now resorted to throwing their hand weapons at the Scots, though to little effect. So Douglas, seeing that it was Randolph's fight, and almost won, held his men and watched as his friend finished the English himself.
The English cavalry began again to retreat, and gathered a small distance from the Scots schiltrom. Suddenly the Scots, confident now of victory, did something before unheard of in medieval warfare, they charged the cavalry. For the English knights this was the last straw. Tired and disorientated, they now found themselves swarmed by the Scottish infantry and in a blind panic began to scatter. Of the 500 English Knights who set out to Stirling, only around 400 struggled back to the camp. As for Scots loses, Randolph reported only 6.
This victory, though small in the fact that they were still outnumbered 3 to 1, elated the Scots. Although they knew the worst maybe still to come, their victory would not only demoralise the English, but prove undoubtedly that a well disciplined schiltrom was capable of repelling heavy cavalry.
James and Randolph returned, taking up their positions again within the Scots lines. On their arrival however, they were to be greeted with the news that Randolph's men were not the only ones to have seen some action. There had also been some skirmishing on the battle front, where The Bruce's division were in position. These skirmishes had been sparked by an incident which was undoubtedly the tensest moment of the entire campaign for The Bruce's men, but with which any Scot with a knowledge of the King remembers with pride.