Battle of Bannockburn: 1314

by

Michael Brown

• LAST MODIFIED: 20 August 2024
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791279-0259

Introduction

The battle of Bannockburn was fought near Stirling in central Scotland on 23–24 June 1314. During these two days, the army led by Robert Bruce, king of Scots, decisively defeated the force the English king, Edward II, had brought to Scotland. Bannockburn occurred during the sequence of wars waged by the English Crown to establish sovereignty over the kingdom of Scotland. These had begun in 1296 and, with only brief interruptions, the state of war between the two kingdoms on the island of Britain would continue into the sixteenth century. Bannockburn has long been regarded as a pivotal moment in this Anglo-Scottish conflict. In the context of the war, and of later medieval warfare more generally, such a large-scale battle in the open field was highly unusual. It was also rare for the two armies to be led on the field by their respective rulers. The claims of Robert I and Edward II to be rulers of Scotland were in direct conflict, making their leadership a test of legal and moral right. These elements gave the Scottish king’s victory an immediate significance and would supply Bannockburn with a resonance to subsequent generations. By the later fourteenth century, the battle was regarded by Scottish writers as the key event in their struggle against the English. It has remained a symbolic touchstone for Scottish identity, providing a late medieval demonstration of martial nationhood in parallel with battles like Crecy (1346) and Agincourt (1415), Courtrai (1302), Orléans (1429), and Kosovo Polje (1389). This perceived historical importance has generated an exceptional level of interest in Bannockburn for over 150 years. In that time there have been over twenty books focused directly on the battle and many more studies that included extensive discussion of its events. These works also reflect the ongoing debates about Bannockburn that cross different fields and disciplines of enquiry. There remain questions about the reasons why the battle was fought at all, given the context of contemporary warfare. What Bannockburn reveals about the ability of an army of spear-armed foot soldiers to defeat heavy cavalry and archers has been related to wider tactical changes in late medieval Europe. The location of the field and its effect on the course of the battle remain a matter of dispute. Finally, the contribution of Bannockburn to concepts of Scottish identity continues to inspire analysis.

General Overviews

The significance of Bannockburn as an event is recognized by its inclusion in works covering the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in relation to Scotland, England, and the islands of Britain and Ireland as a whole. The majority of works in this section provide an overview of historical developments in these regions in the period before and after the battle and in the context of relations between the lands and peoples of the islands. These works do not give detailed accounts of the campaign or battle of Bannockburn itself. However, all convey something of its significance in its broader frame. Prestwich 2005 and Brown 2004 do this in relation to the politics of the English and Scottish kingdoms. King and Etty 2016 includes a survey of Anglo-Scottish relations. Frame 1990, Davies 2000, and Brown 2013 represent the treatment of 1314 in terms of the so-called New British History. They consider the battle as a symbol and, perhaps, a catalyst for wider shifts in the character of Britain and Ireland in the fourteenth century focused on the contraction of English royal authority. Barrow 2005 is included in this section as an influential and fluent narrative of the events in Scotland leading up to Bannockburn and its aftermath.

• Barrow, Geoffrey. Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland. 4th ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005.

  DOI: 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748620227.001.0001

  Originally published in 1965, this volume has retained its value as an account of events in Scotland from the outset of the political crisis in the kingdom in 1286 to the end of Robert Bruce’s reign in 1329. Detailed and scholarly but readable, it positions Robert as a leader of vision who utilized and championed broader themes relating to communities and nations. The book provides a full and convincing account of Bannockburn.

• Brown, Michael. The Wars of Scotland 1214–1371. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004.

  DOI: 10.1515/9780748679775

  Structured in two parts dealing with the Scottish kingdom in the thirteenth century and then the years of crisis and war after 1286, this volume provides an introduction to Scottish politics and society in the period around Bannockburn. The battle is located in the narrative as the end of active, internal opposition to Robert Bruce and the start of his period of more conventional kingship.

• Brown, Michael. Disunited Kingdoms: Peoples and Politics in the British Isles 1280–1460. Harlow, UK: Pearson, 2013.

  The only full attempt to focus on the period of insular history from the late thirteenth to the mid-fifteenth century. This era witnessed the slowing or contraction of the processes that defined the period from 1100: English royal sovereignty over the other lands of the islands, Anglicized law and government, and economic and demographic growth. The Scottish war and Bannockburn are represented as part of this major change.

• Davies, R. R. The First English Empire: Power and Identities in the British Isles 1093–1343. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

  A thematic study of themes and values in Britain and Ireland that Davies sees as moving toward a single insular monarchy in the thirteenth century. He identifies the failure of that process as the responsibility of Edward I’s intolerance toward alternative traditions of rule. The volume ends with the “ebb-tide” of this “English Empire” in the early fourteenth century.

• Frame, Robin. The Political Development of the British Isles 1100–1400. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.

  An integrated and lucid overview of a period of major change across all the lands of Britain and Ireland. It still provides the reader with a clear strength of the different processes at work up to 1300 in forming a more integrated insular world and why they ended in conflict.

• King, Andy, and Claire Etty. England and Scotland 1286–1603. British History in Perspective. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

  DOI: 10.1007/978-1-137-49155-8

  There have been surprisingly few attempts to categorize the relationship between Scotland and England over the long period of mutual animosity that began in the late thirteenth century and ended (in one sense) in dynastic union. This is a useful and accessible attempt to fill this gap and places Bannockburn in the context of the immediate war but also the longer rivalry.

• Prestwich, Michael. Plantagenet England 1225–1360. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

  DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198228448.001.0001

  Divided into chronological and thematic sections, this volume provides a clear and helpful entry into the politics of England in the period of the major Scottish wars from 1296 to 1340, written by a specialist on that era. The book provides a useful introduction to the painful politics of Edward II’s reign and has a chapter on Anglo-Scottish relations through the period.