BANNOCKBURN, a town of Stirlingshire, Scotland. Popu lation It is situated on the "burn" from which its name is derived, the Bannock (Gaelic, ban oc, "white, shining stream"), an affluent of the Forth. The town lies 24m. S.S.E. of Stirling by the L.M.S. railway, and now has woollen manufactures (chiefly tweeds, carpets and tartans) though at the beginning of the I9th century it was only a village. The Bore Stone, in which Bruce planted his standard before the battle in which he defeated Edward II. in 1314 (see below) is preserved by an iron grating. A mile to the west is the Gillies' hill, now finely wooded, over which the Scots' camp-followers appeared to complete the dis comfiture of the English, to which event it owes its name. Ban nockburn house was Prince Charles Edward's headquarters in Jan. 1746 before the fight of Falkirk.
The famous battle of Bannockburn (June 24, 1314) was fought for the relief of Stirling castle, the principal strategic key to Scot land, which was besieged by the Scottish forces under Robert Bruce. The English governor of Stirling had promised that, if he were not relieved by that date, he would surrender the castle, and Edward II. hastily collected an army in the northern and midland counties of England. Bruce made no attempt to defend the border, and selected his defensive position on the Bannock Burn, 21m. S. of Stirling. His front was covered by the marshy bed of the stream, his left flank by its northerly bend towards the Forth, his right by a group of woods, behind which, until the English army appeared, the Scots concealed themselves. On the 23rd the van of Edward's army which heavily outnumbered the Scots (perhaps 25,00o to 15,000), appeared to the south of the burn and at once despatched two bodies of men towards Stirling, the first by the direct road, the other over the lower Bannock Burn near its junc tion with the Forth. The former was met by the Scottish out post on the road, and here occurred the famous single combat in which Robert Bruce, though not fully armed for battle, killed Sir Henry Bohun. The English detachment which took the other route was met and after a severe struggle defeated by a body of Scottish pikemen near St. Ninian's. It would seem probable that the main passage of the English army took place at a point be tween these two crossings. Early on St. John's day the Scottish army took up its assigned positions. Three corps of pikemen in solid masses formed the first line and Bruce had with him in re serve a 4th corps of pikemen and a squadron of 50o chosen men at-arms, kept mounted, under Sir Robert Keith, the marischal of Scotland. Edward's cavalry were formed in nine or ten "battles," arranged in three lines, with the unwieldy masses of foot behind. Ignoring the lesson of Falkirk (q.v.), the mounted men rode through the morass and up the slope, and it would seem that the attack was precipitated before the English dispositions were com plete. It failed to make any gap in the line of defence, and the battle became a melee, the Scots, with better fortune than at Fal kirk and later at Flodden (q.v.), presenting always an impenetrable hedge of spears, the English, too stubborn to draw off, constantly trying in vain to break it down. So great was the press that the "battles" of the second line which followed the first were unable to reach the front and stood on the slope, powerless to take part in the struggle on the crest. The advance of the third English line only made matters worse, and the sole attempt to deploy the archers was crushed with great slaughter by the charge of Keith's mounted men. Bruce threw his infantry reserve into the battle on a flank, the arrows of the English archers wounded the men at-arms of their own side, and the remnants of the leading line were tired and disheartened when the final impetus to their rout was given by the historic charge of the "gillies," some thousands of Scottish camp-followers who suddenly emerged from the woods, blowing horns, waving such weapons as they possessed, and hold ing aloft improvised banners. Their cries of "Slay, slay!" seemed to the wearied English to betoken the advance of a great reserve, and in a few minutes the whole English army broke and fled in disorder down the slope. Many perished in the burn, and the de moralized fugitives were hunted by the peasantry until they re crossed the English border. One earl, 42 barons and bannerets, 200 knights, 70o esquires and probably Io,000 foot were killed in the battle and the pursuit. One earl, 22 barons and bannerets and 68 knights fell into the hands of the victors, whose total loss of 4,00o men included, it is said, only two knights. The fundamental lesson of the battle (that of the folly of launching a mounted at tack against unbroken pikemen) was turned to account at Dupplin (133 2) and Halidon Hill , and led in turn to the repeated victories of the Hundred Years' War (q.v.), wherein the English archers disorganized the enemy before any decisive stroke was attempted.
See Barbour, Bruce (W. M. Mackenzie's ed., i9o9) ; J. E. Shearer, Fact and Fiction in the Story of Bannockburn (19o9) ; Oman, History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages (1924), vol. ii., 24-1oo.