The Earl of Gloucester about to be killed at Bannockburn, 1314 (MED0054)

The Earl of Gloucester at Bannockburn, 1314

On 24 June 1314, on marshy ground south of Stirling, the English army of Edward II was broken by a Scottish force half its size. Among the dead was Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, one of the wealthiest magnates in England, killed after charging into the Scottish spears ahead of his own men. The manner of his death is not incidental: it explains the battle.

The schiltron

Robert the Bruce had trained his infantry to fight in schiltrons — dense blocks of spearmen, ranks deep, presenting a hedge of points in every direction. Static, such a formation was vulnerable to archery; the innovation at Bannockburn was that Bruce moved them. Advancing schiltrons pushed the English cavalry back onto their own infantry in ground too narrow and too wet to deploy.

Terrain chosen in advance

Bruce had picked the position and prepared it, digging pits along the approaches to break up any charge. The English army, larger and better equipped, was funnelled between the Bannock burn and the marshes, where numbers became a liability: units could not open out, the archers could not find a clear field, and the cavalry could not gather speed.

Why Gloucester died

Accounts agree that the earl charged prematurely, without waiting to form up — some sources attribute it to a dispute over precedence with the Earl of Hereford, others to a rebuke for cowardice from the king. He struck the schiltron alone or nearly so and was killed at once. It is a compressed illustration of what made English arms fail that day: individual valour against a formation that did not break.

Equipment and consequences

Giuseppe Rava shows the harness of the early fourteenth century, the transitional moment when plate defences were being added to mail at knee, elbow and shin, and the great helm was giving way to the visored bascinet. Bannockburn secured Scottish independence in practice, though English recognition took another fourteen years, at Edinburgh-Northampton in 1328.