Battle of Bannock Burn

Leadership.

Edward II was one of the people to the lead the battle of Bannockburn on the side of the English, Edward was not a great leader like ‘Robert the Bruce’ but he never gave up. He was physically impressive but, he preferred to do other craft work than fight a war. After his fail to win the battle he was a hated man and unpopular. Bearing in mind it was a great victory for Bruce and the Scots because they had beaten the English, As Bruce was determined and a good fighter he had the right tactics.

The battle site.

The battle site was not one of the best places as the ground was very marshy and they had to go through a lot of forests and Bruce had lay calthrops to lame horses, behind the Bannockburn.  
Size of the armies

Edward’s army was well armed, well trained and about 20,000 strong and was just very badly led. They did outnumber the Scots with three to one. The Calvary numbered round 2000 and was very brave! Each knight would have charged into battle with a four-metre long lance and carried a mace or battleaxe for close combat. The Scottish army was organized into four divisions of foot soldiers and one of horsemen. 500 of the horsemen were light cavalry as their job was to protect the foot soldiers from the English archers. Each of the spearmen also carried a sword, axe or dagger to protect themselves. 2000 were reserves for archers and the Scots even had lack on weapons for just training.




Tactics

Bruce’s tactics were to go and straight charge at the English but, the best of all ideas was to attack the English early morning when they least expect it. While the English army set out confident for victory but, were they?

The battle of Bannockburn

An English knight, Sir Henry De Bohun spotted Bruce at the front of his troops. He was not yet ready or dressed for a battle as he was on his pony and not his horse. Bohun recognised Bruce from the start by his golden crown and went straight towards him with his lance! Avoiding the...