A Historian Reacts - BANNOCKBURN - History Marche (War for Scottish Independence)

welcome back everyone to another reaction video well i am feeling in the mood to embrace my scottish roots today um i i might one of my closest immigrant ancestors came from scotland but he was not in fact scottish he lived in glasgow but he was english but i do have a lot of scottish roots specifically i'm a direct descendant of king james iv of scotland who was one of the last of the stuart kings of scotland before the crowns were united of england and scotland i've got my shirt on today here it's in my dna uh so hello and thank you to all of our uh wonderful supporters out there in scotland today we're going to take a look at one of my favorite youtube channels this is history march they do a great job explaining some of the great battles of history but also the background of those battles and so we're going to look at one of the great victories of all time for british people and that is the battle of bannockburn which is viewed as the battle that wins scottish independence it was just a ridiculous victory uh outnumbered something like four to one the scottish were against the armies under edward ii this is the battle that they briefly refer to at the very end of um the movie braveheart where they talk about robert the bruce when he goes out there at the end and he says you bled with walters now bleed with me and they say they fought like warrior poets and won their freedom well it was it was a great victory they inflicted uh i believe they killed twice as many englishmen as they even had in their own army i mean think about that there were like 6 000 scottish soldiers in this battle and they killed something like 12 000 of the english which was half of their army it was just i mean you cannot stress enough what a victory this was for scotland but more than that there's a really cool moment that happens near the beginning of the battle that i'm sure we're going to talk about it's one of those great moments of single combat where you have robert the bruce going up against henry de boen uh who's the nephew of one of the english commanders in single combat and it's just such a a surreal moment that i wish was portrayed more often in film because it's so amazing and it's one of those things made for hollywood moments so let's go ahead and dive into history march and the battle of bannockburn as always the link is in the description to the original content creator please give them a like and a subscribe if you haven't already done so and before we get any further i do want to mention this did not in fact lead directly to scottish independence i'm sure somebody's thinking no that's not how it happened it was 14 years later before the treaty was signed that actually granted scottish independence but this was the the last kind of major obstacle to scottish independence when they win this battle there's really never again at least not under the second any significant threat to scottish independent rule all right let's dive in big shout for audible for sponsoring this video i love audible by the way fantastic the unexpected death of king alexander iii ended the long period of peace and prosperity in scotland and with his only heir his sickly granddaughter margaret dying four years later the scottish throne was left with no clear successor in an attempt to avoid a civil war between no less than 13 claimants to the throne edward longshanks was asked to arbitrate realizing that the possibility of controlling scotland as he did wales and ireland was within his grasp the english king ultimately announced in favor of john baliel whom he anticipated would be a reliable vassal so yeah so long changes like sure i'll come help you out and arbitrate and what he really wants is somebody who's gonna like you said serve as kind of a de facto vassal of the english empire and you know to this day longshanks is remembered as the hammer of the scots uh and of course he defeats william wallace eventually has him executed for treason which is always kind of fascinating to me since wallace didn't view himself as an english subject but uh that's all stuff that we can talk about another time however by 1295 edwards demands for men and money to support the war with france exasperated the scottish nobility who persuaded balliol to rebel and enter a defense pact with france outraged edward raised an army and invaded starting the first war of scottish independence and interestingly this is something that will happen for centuries afterwards scotland they call it the old alliance a-u-l-d alliance uh and it's scotland and france always kind of had each other's backs i shouldn't say had each other's backs basically scotland always looked to france for protection from england and that was what that was one of the things that kept scotland independent from this time until the crowns were emerged under uh james vi of scotland and the first of england after elizabeth's death uh they always kind of relied on france for that and there's a lot of intermarriage alliances that happened between the two as one of the strongest and ableist of kings to ever rule england edward crushed the scots at dunbar [Music] john balliol surrendered his kingdom before being dispatched to the tower of london although a garrisoned force was left to guard the conquered lands disturbances broke out soon after when william wallace fanned the flames of revolt across scotland after he defeated an english force at sterling bridge his victory resulted in his elevation to the guardianship of the realm and preparations began for what was to follow a confrontation with edward determined to hammer the scots into submission the english king marched north having previously signed a peace treaty with france he mustered a powerful army and decisively defeated wallace at falkirk with the throne still vacant in 1306 robert de bruce made a bid for the crown by killing his main rival john common the third in the greyfriars church yeah and this was a big big deal and there's actually uh i think there's a scene in there's a sequel kind of a sequel to braveheart uh sharing uh starring i think it's angus mcfaden who played robert the bruce in the movie braveheart and it's really really good actually i think it's called the robert the bruce i think is the name of the movie um and it shows that scene where uh where he and john common meet in the church and robert the bruce ends up killing him in the church and you know this is a big deal obviously they met in a church because it was viewed to be a place of safety where that no harm would come to them and so robert the bruce from this point on is kind of the main claimant to the throne and now he tries to unite everybody under him but it doesn't really happen right away and he ends up losing a bunch of family members several brothers die throughout these wars that are to come claiming the throne of scotland as the great great grandson of david the first with the support from a section of the scottish church and nobility he was crowned at scone but his rebellion got off to a bad start with a shattering defeat at methvin where most of his loyal followers died or were captured and executed then at dalry robert's retreating force was intercepted and nearly wiped out with his position collapsing he escaped to the tiny isle of wrathlon where he set about reorganizing his resources and if you watch the movie outlaw king i think they cover a lot of that in the movie on netflix it's really well done worse followed robert's sisters his daughter and his wife elizabeth were captured and delivered into the hands of edward the first and his brother neil was executed at beric in early 1307 he ventured back toward the mainland with a handful of followers meanwhile his two younger brothers sailed for galloway intending to harass english communications between carlisle and heir but once they landed in loch ryan they were ambushed captured and later executed robert on the other hand had success against the english at glen trool and more significantly at loudoun hill which saw his following and his territorial gains grow significantly scottish fortunes took a turn for the better when the 68 year old king edward the first the hammer of the scots died on july 7th 1307. unlike how they showed in braveheart he did not die at the same time that william wallace was being executed and he did not leave his throne to uh a son in edward ii whose wife was pregnant with william wallace's child the timelines just don't match at all for any of that stuff to even be possible his frivolous son and successor edward ii lacked his father's military and political skill and his reliance on favorites earned him the contempt from his leading magnates which distracted him from the situation in scotland this allowed robert valuable time to deal with those scottish nobles who opposed his rule most notably his arch-rival john common third earl of buckin whose rich aldum was left at his mercy after he defeated the earl at invari robert took aberdeen in the summer of 1308 making his hold on the northeast unassailable and other nobles soon joined him enabling him to turn his attention to driving the english from his kingdom and see this is the key thing here is that robert the bruce needed that time and space that has been provided to him by the english uh the change over to edward ii who was not a very good king not a very powerful influential king uh because you have these warring clans you have you know like they showed at the beginning something like a dozen different people who have claims on the throne so to be able to unite everyone behind him was huge and was not easy and i think it's a testament to robert the bruce and the kind of person he was the kind of warrior he was but also the kind of influence he was able to have that he was able to unite the clans the the highland and the lowland the different factions all to support them and eventually build up a power base that allowed him a chance to fight the english now remember edward ii eventually is overthrown by his wife and her lover his french wife and her wife mortimer or her lover mortimer so there's a lot of distraction going on in england but this is the perfect storm of events that creates the opportunity for the bruce to be able to to win this over the coming years one by one english castles fell and robert gave those scottish nobles who had not yet come to his banner a year to swear fealty to him or they would lose rights to their lands [Music] by early spring of 1314 only the great strongholds of boswell and sterling remained in english hands bardwell was isolated and presented no immediate threat so robert entrusted his brother edward bruce with the siege of sterling philip mowbry the beleaguered governor realized that the fall of sterling was but a matter of time and agreed with edward bruce that if he was not relieved by june 24th he would surrender the castle king robert was displeased with his brother's chivalrous gesture towards mowbry understanding that this deadline would spur the english into action yeah it's he what he's really doing why would you give a timeline why not just surrender he's buying time knowing that there's an english army that's coming to relieve the castle now only a pitched battle would prevent the castle from being relieved and robert knew that this could undo all that he had achieved so far meanwhile king edward ii patched up relations with some of his magnates and was now on his way north to muster an army at beric under pressure to relieve sterling by june 24th money had been raised with a loan from the pope and a stream of men converged on beric along with an immense amount of supplies and equipment that were brought by land and sea as the army marched towards sterling all provisions had to be stockpiled and transported as the scots would make sure to scorch the land and leave nothing of use for the advancing english king robert faced an army more than twice the size of his own and he positioned his forces a few kilometers south of stirling where he waited for edward so most of the sources that i've read estimate the scottish army somewhere between six and eight thousand whereas the english army i think has something like twenty one 000 infantry as well as a couple of thousand cavalry um and you know one of the cool things and you guys hear me talk about this all the time about my relationships to the people in history but that's what helps me have that personal connection my wife and i are both descended from robert the bruce which makes sense since i'm a descendant of james iv that kind of makes me a descendant of pretty much every king of england scotland denmark france you name it because all these royal families intermarried to each other but i'm also a direct descendant of a guy named uh clifford who was at this battle and who was actually killed in the battle of bannockburn fighting on the english side so um and this is one of the places assuming uk us travel opens up this summer i'm gonna visit the battle battlefield of bannockburn in july and bring you guys some video from that battlefield i'm excited about it but yeah i mean they're outnumbered more than two to one it may have been three or four to one actually robert divided his seven thousand infantry into four divisions of skilltrends strong defensive squares of men with pikes arraying them along the falcok road that goes through the new park forest to sterling on the morning of june 23rd sir james keith commander of the 600 light scottish horseman went on patrol to observe the arrival of the english army seeing three thousand horsemen knights and men at arms their weapons and armor glistening in the sun was a daunting sight behind them thirteen thousand infantry and a contingent of welsh archers exited the torwood descending onto the plane south of the bannockburn stream the english formation stretched for several kilometers and hereford's heavy cavalry in the vanguard started making their way down the steep embankment of the considerable bannockburn stream and after climbing up onto the road they cited the scottish footman apparently retreating back into the woods and i believe it's hereford's nephew that gets into this instance of single combat with robert the bruce which is coming up here in a minute and just one of my favorite moments in all of history meanwhile on the english far right baron of clifford rushed along a path hidden from view with his armored mounted contingent to cut off the scottish line of retreat towards sterling castle it's a good strategy back on the bannockburn stream hereford's nephew sir henry the bowen spotted a figure riding out in front of the scottish infantry it was king robert himself commanding his troops henry could not resist he saw this as a chance to end the war by striking down the scottish king and achieve personal glory and this is not a unique thing in history this has happened several times this happened at the battle of bosworth where you have richard iii seeing an opportunity to kill henry tudor and end the battlefield the battle and the threat to his rule and you know see how that worked out for richard iii he lowered his helmet steered his fully armored charger towards the king and pointed his land straight at him on his light grey paul free unequipped for mounted combat robert had every reason to seek safety with his troops not robert but he set his horse towards the challenger who bore down full tilt so imagine this for a second he's got troops with him there's no reason to risk yourself this way but robert the bruce is the kind of guy he is he's like all right i'll take it on all he had was an axe he didn't even he wasn't even properly equipped for this kind of a battle but what he does next is just crazy it's really really cool as they closed in bruce quickly swerved his nimble horse aside to avoid the lance stood up in his stirrups and smashed through henry's helmet his axe breaking on impact the english knight was dead before he hit the ground i mean just a picture this in your mind the guy's got a lance he's coming at him he dodges it with his horse he steps up in the stirrups and comes down on top of bowen's head with his axe and he later complained that that was his favorite axe and he had broken it killing the guy that's how kind of just nonchalant about the whole thing he was and talking about it afterwards meanwhile hereford spurred his men forward along the road confident that the scots wouldn't dare confront the armored horsemen on open ground he wanted to catch the footmen before they retreated to the safety of the woods and and this is the common you know idea at the time is that nothing can defeat heavy cavalry on a battlefield and so that's why they're confident that's why they're attacking before they've got their full force in place it probably would have made more sense when you when you outnumber an enemy like three or four to one you know wait till you have your whole forks and hit them all at once but they were that confident their heavy cavalry was the difference maker on the battlefield but the scots weren't retreating robert had ordered large pits covered with branches to be dug on both sides of the road and he waited for the enemy to come to him before the english could form up robert skiltrins lowered their spears and moved up in a tightly packed phalanx-like formation hereford's cavalry was immediately met with heavy losses as they ran into a wall of scottish spears as the rest of his mounted contingent tried to form up they experienced considerable difficulties with the pit traps gloucester circled back with his mounted men attempting to cross further upstream seeing the maneuver edward bruce immediately moved to protect his brother's flank unsure about the extent of the pit traps and with edward bruce's troops approaching the english fell back so this is brilliant because it keeps them from being able to spread out and and hit robert the bruce's troops on his flanks uh he tries to get around but they don't know how far out these pits go and then they see edward bruce coming up so they decide not to support and already this thing's falling apart on the english meanwhile on the scottish left flank randolph noticed clifford's contingent almost too late he quickly sprang into action angry with himself that he almost allowed the enemy to encircle his position and remember this was meant to be the intercepting force to stop the scottish in their inevitable retreat but now that hasn't happened they're not retreating they're not hitting a forces retreating they're hitting a force that's ready to go he let his men out of the woods and towards the unrushing english the scots formed shoulder to shoulder as an impenetrable wall of spears clifford's cavalry circled around their formation launching attack after attack without success and in their frustration at not breaking through the skiltron the knights hurled spears darts and maces even their swords that randolph's men in a vain attempt to maim enemy troops so they can't break through the line so they're just riding up and throwing stuff at them throwing spears throwing their swords they're just frustrated that they can't use their cavalry to break through these skill trends it's uh you know it's kind of the form square idea and this is where a lot of that happens douglas meanwhile left the woods with his spearmen and slowly advanced now you got spirits lifted the pressure on randolph that some of the english cavalry wheeled about to meet the incoming enemy randolph seized the opportunity and assumed the offensive charging right through the english ranks with their formation broken and with fresh scottish infantrymen approaching the english heavy cavalry dispersed this brought the fighting of june the 23rd to an end although the english losses weren't heavy and they still retained their two to one numerical superiority their morale took a big hit after the two clashes with the day drawing to a close king edward's troops needed a place to encamp and the horses needed to be watered he decided to move all of the cavalry and about a half of the infantry into a marshy area across the bannockburn while the remaining infantry and the baggage train would encamp south of the stream meanwhile robert bruce gathered his officers for a council of war despite the successes of the day harsh past experiences taught him to avoid pitched battles against heavy cavalry and he considered withdrawing deeper into the rugged scottish wilderness where it would be too hard for the english to follow but as the talks went on a scottish knight in english service defected and swore fealty to robert bruce he informed the king that the english are demoralized and disorganized pledging his life that if bruce attacked in the morning he would have victory robert that's that's gutsy i mean because it would be easy for them to think you're a spy you're coming here to try and draw us out into a battle uh boy i don't know how i would have felt if i'm in robert's position if i would have believed this guy let's turn to his officers saying shall we fate or not in one voice they boldly answered for battle gutsy call on the morning of june 24th among the english a mood of caution replaced the earlier presumption of easy victory king edward began deploying his cavalry between the deep ravine of the pell stream and a thick wooded area in the south ordering archers and infantry to form behind them king robert the bruce then gave the momentous order to advance across the open field against the mighty english army more than twice the strength in his own and with far superior weapons the seemingly suicidal plan of advancing with infantry against heavy cavalry was only possible because of the innovative way in which robert trained his skill trends to move forward in echelon formation he hoped that the english would still view his formations as defensive and wouldn't appreciate just how vital their mobility was for his plan of attack as the scots moved slowly to keep their cohesion robert sent his archers forward to divert as much attention from his spearmen as possible and the ruse worked as english bowman responded by shooting at scottish archers instead of the infantry formations sucks to be the archers though right you send these archers out forward and they're you know probably the the lightest armored of anybody on the battlefield and they're the ones that have to take the english archers uh fire as the english were still forming their lines their commanders argued over who should lead the cavalry attack refusing to wrangle for too long gloucester charged headlong across the open space between the two armies followed by clifford and many other prominent knights as they crashed into edward bruce's skeleton gloucester and his comrades were instantly killed by the wall of spears raised to meet them idiot most of the cavalry contingent was annihilated in a matter of minutes this is what happens when you seek glory instead of working together as one and that makes a difference on this field because robert's all about keeping his units together having a plan where one unit's complementing another instead of people just trying to fight for glory for themselves the scottish bristling hedge of steel-tipped pikes now pushed forward a succession of spirited attacks were mounted by the english but they weren't able to break the scottish formation observers said that as the cavalry met the skiltrons the horses disappeared from sight like men plunging in the sea slowly but surely edward bruce's formation reached bannockburn and anchored its position to the stream allowing other skilltrends to push forward robert now planned to trap the english between the two streams meanwhile all the infantry for hours the fighting continued as the scottish spearmen held their ground against bruising rushes of horsemen physical demands on individual spearmen must have been enormous the disciplined scots showed great unity against the attacks of the english cavalry as they edged their way further into the narrowing pocket between the bannockburn and pell stream so far the english archers who could have potentially broken up the scottish formations weren't utilized properly and they're not using their infantry either they've got a two-to-one infantry advantage on this field and they're all they're doing is fighting with the cavalry and it's not working at what point do you say okay let's try something different pull the cavalry back send the infantry in but someone finally ordered them to shoot at the skiltrans however with scottish ranks being so narrow the arrows now flew harmlessly over them the bowmen were then ordered to shoot past the cavalry directly at the spearmen this also failed as english horsemen towered over the scottish footmen in effect shielding them from arrow volleys and finding themselves in the line of fire nevertheless arrow volleys continued as english archers gradually moved across the pell stream to get a better angle seeing this robert ordered his light cavalry under marichal keith to try and disperse them recognizing the danger archers could pose for his spearmen good move meanwhile the scots closed the pocket between pell stream and vanickburn effectively trapping the english between the deep ravines of the two streams after crossing the pell stream himself keith's light cavalry galloped with their lances leveled towards the english archers the bowmen were overrun and those who weren't killed fled across the stream keith continued to patrol up and down the pell stream to prevent any further flanking attempts but and meanwhile english infantry still sitting here still sitting over here not doing anything ayacha's as the hard-fought battle reached its savage attrition stage the push of the exhausted scots slowed and robert now played his full hand by sending his own two skilltrends forward aware that he could not afford a stalemate some filled the gaps in douglas's spear lines while others leaned with all their strength against the backs and shoulders of men whose knees were buckling after hours of fighting the english finally began giving more ground with the outcome now virtually certain to go against them english leaders were determined to get their king to safety as the scottish spearmen were close about him on the front line the withdrawal of 500 knights to protect the king not only guaranteed defeat but triggered an undisciplined flight by many others now it was interesting and i want to go back and look at that for just a second those numbers that they give because i've seen some casualty numbers that are a little different than that this one here says a total strength of about 13 000 infantry and 3 000 cavalry uh where in losses 4 000 infantry uh mostly killed or drowned in the fourth river after the battle because yeah the infantry really didn't fight in this battle i've seen numbers as high as 21 000 infantry engaged or at the battlefield and 11 000 uh that actually died so i guess you know like all battles like all historical events especially ones from 700 years ago we really don't know for sure we have varying reports and obviously the scottish reports are going to inflate the english deaths in the english numbers whereas the english reports are going to downplay those so we really don't know for sure but regardless it's a great victory no matter how you look at it it's to protect the king not only guaranteed defeat but triggered an undisciplined flight by many others the defeat of the english opened up the north of england to scottish raids and allowed the scottish invasion of ireland which didn't go wrong in exchange for the captured nobles edward ii released robert's wife elizabeth and his sisters christina and mary as well as his daughter marjorie ending their eight-year imprisonment in england the victory at bannockburn secured scotland's independence with the treaty of edinburgh northampton in 1328 the english crown recognized the full independence of the kingdom of scotland and acknowledged robert de bruce his heirs and successors as the rightful rulers so um yeah and and like he said at the beginning and he said again audible's fantastic uh you know spending a lot of time traveling i listen to audible all the time so uh it's cool that they're being supported by that i want to show you just in looking at my own family tree how uh this how they all kind of tied together uh with robert the bruce and everything uh robert the bruce the the crown of scotland ends up passing down through his daughter marjorie uh who marries walter stewart and that's where you get the stewards who eventually take over robert ii of scotland is robert's grandson through his daughter marjorie bruce and then it goes to robert iii james the first james ii and that's where you have all of the stewart kings uh and i'm actually descended from the stewards from like three different lines um but eventually goes to james ii james iii james iv uh james iv marries the sister of henry viii uh but i'm descended actually through one of his mistresses as a woman named marion boyd and through that line but just a fascinating fascinating time in the history of britain and something that i'll definitely be covering more especially when i go to scotland hopefully in july and if you want to help make that happen you can support this channel through patreon or through the gofundme the links are in the description below uh all of that money goes directly toward my travels to help create original content for the channel please hit like make sure you check out history march great stuff we'll see you again soon thanks for watching

Channel: Vlogging Through History

Views: 55,095

Keywords: history documentary, medieval warfare, history tutorial, robert the bruce, scotland, battle of bannockburn, robert the bruce review, scottish war of independence, scottish wars of independence, scottish history, scottish independence, william wallace, robert bruce

Id: kQEr9G2bLWY

Length: 34min 41sec (2081 seconds)

Published: Tue May 18 2021