Loudoun Hill 1307 AD

[Erpingham]

Name : The Battle of Loudon Hill, 10th May, 1307
Commanders : Aymer de Valence (England) v. Robert Bruce (Scotland)
Numbers : English c. 3000 Scots c.600
From : Book VIII of Barbour's Bruce, The Bruce Being The Metrical History Of Robert The Bruce King Of Scots
Compiled A.D. 1375 By Master John Barbour Archdeacon Of Aberdeen
Translated By George Eyre-Todd, Gowans & Gray Limited, London & Glasgow, 1907


The king lay in Galston, which is right opposite Loudoun, and took the country to his peace. When Sir Aymer and his following heard how he ruled all the land, and how none durst withstand him, he was vexed in heart, and by one of his company sent him word, saying if he durst meet him in the open country, he, Sir Aymer, should on the tenth of May come under Loudoun Hill. "And if the Bruce would meet him there," he said, "the renown would be greater and more knightly that was won in the open with hard blows and in equal fight than was to be got with far more trouble in skulking."
When the king heard this message he greatly disliked Sir Aymer's haughtiness. Therefore he answered seriously, and said to the messenger.
"Tell thy lord that if I he living he shall see me that day very near, if he dare hold the way he has said, for assuredly I shall meet him by Loudoun Hill."
The messenger at once rode to his master, and told his answer. Then was there no need to make Sir Aymer glad, for he felt sure, by the great strength and force of arms he possessed, that, if the king dared appear to fight, he should overthrow him beyond recovery.
On the other side the Bruce, ever wise and prudent, rode to see and choose the ground. He saw that the highway lay upon a fair field, even and dry, but upon either side, a bowshot from the road, was a great moss, broad and deep. The place seemed to him all too wide for a stand to be made there against cavalry. Therefore he cut three ditches across, from each of the mosses to the road. These were a bowshot and more apart from each other, and so deep and steep that men could not pass them without much trouble, even though none withstood them. But he left gaps at the road large enough for five hundred to ride through abreast. There he determined to await battle, and oppose the enemy, having no fear that they could attack him on the flank or rear, and feeling sure that in front he should be defended against their strength.
He caused three deep trenches to be made so that, if lie could not manage to meet the enemy at the first, he should have the second in his power, and afterwards the third, if it so happened that they passed the other two.
Thus he arranged. Then he assembled his host. They were six hundred fighting men, besides camp-followers as many or more. With all that host he went, on the evening before the battle was to take place, to Little Loudoun. There he determined to wait, to see the coming of the enemy, and then hasten forward with his men, to be at the trench before them.
Sir Aymer, on the other side, gathered a great force, nigh three thousand strong, well armed and equipped, and then, in knightliest fashion, held his way to the tryst. And when the set day was come he sped fast towards the place that he had named for the battle. The sun had risen, shining brightly, and flashed on the broad shields, as he advanced with his array in two squadrons.
Very early in the morning the king saw their first squadron coming, well arrayed in close order, and at its back, a little way off, he saw the second following it. Their basnets [sic] were all burnished bright, and flamed in the light of the sun, and their shields, spears, and pennons lighted up all the field. Their bright embroidered banners, and horses caparisoned in many hues, and many-coloured coat-armour, and hauberks white as flour, made them glitter like angels of the kingdom of heaven.
The king said, "Sirs, ye see now how yonder mighty men would slay us if they could, and how they appear for that end. But, since we know their cruelty, go we and meet them boldly, so that the stoutest of their host shall be discouraged at the encounter. For if the foremost be fiercely met ye shall see the hindmost suddenly discomfited. And though they be more in number than we, that need dismay us little, for when we come to the fighting there can no more meet us than ourselves. Therefore, sirs, let each be stout and valiant to uphold our honour here. Think what gladness awaits us if we can, as may befall, gain the victory here over our foes! For there will be none in all this land that we need fear."
Then said all that stood about, "Sir, please God, we shall act so that no blame shall be ours."
"Then go we forward," said the king; "and He that made all things of nothing, lead us and preserve us for His greatness' sake, and help us to keep our right!"
With that they sped upon their way. They were full six hundred strong, doughty and valiant, stalwart and stout, yet, were it not for their extraordinary valour, all too few, I promise, to stand in battle against so many.
Stoutly and in good array the noble king marched forth, and reached the foremost ditch, and took the field in the gap. The baggage- carriers and rabble, of no account in battle, he left halted behind, standing all together on the hill.
Sir Aymer saw the king and his men come proudly and boldly down from the hill to the plain, right willing, as it seemed to him, either to defend or attack any who should give them battle. Accordingly he encouraged his men, and bade them be strong and valiant, for if they could overcome the king and gain the victory, they should be right well rewarded, and add greatly to their renown.
With that, they were very near the king, and Sir Aymer stopped his exhortation, and caused the trumpets to sound the charge, and the fore- most of his host seized their broad shields and rode together in close array. With heads stooping and level spears they rushed right at the king. And he met them with so much vigour that the best and bravest were brought to the ground at their meeting. There arose such a crashing and breaking of spears and such cries and shouts of the wounded as were dreadful to hear. For those that first encountered fenced and fought all sturdily, and kept up the noise and outcry.
Ah! mighty God! whoever had been there and had seen the king's majesty and his brother beside him bear themselves so hardily, and encourage their host by deeds of valour, and how Douglas so manfully encouraged those beside him, he should indeed say they desired to win honour. The king's valiant men with their sharp spears stabbed both riders and steeds till the red blood poured from wounds. The wounded horses lashed out, and overthrew the men about them, so that the foremost were stabbed here and there in troops.
The king seeing them thus overthrown and reeling to and fro, ran upon them so keenly and dealt blows at them so stoutly that he laid low many of his enemies. The field was wellnigh all covered with slain horses and men; for the good king was followed by full five hundred men-at-arms [literally that bear weapons] who spared their foes no whit. They drove at them so doughtily that in a short time a hundred and more of the enemy might be seen lying on the ground. The rest were the weaker for this, and began to fall back. And when those in the rear saw their vanguard thus overcome, they fled without waiting longer.
And when Sir Aymer saw his men all presently in flight, ye may well know he was full sad. But by no exhortation could he get any to turn for him again. And when he saw he lost his pains he drew his bridle, and fled. For the good king pressed them so that some were slain and some were taken and the rest were in flight.
The soldiery fled thus without stopping, and Sir Aymer went again to Bothwell, lamenting the hurt he had taken. And so ashamed was he to have been vanquished, that he went forthwith straight to King Edward in England, and greatly abased gave up his wardenship; nor ever afterwards on any account, save when he came with the king himself, did he return to make war in Scotland. Thus heavily did he take to heart that the Bruce, in set battle, with a few rabble-like followers, had vanquished him, who was renowned for his valour, and his great host. This was Sir Aymer's vexation.
Meanwhile the bold king Robert remained in the field till his men had quite left the pursuit, and, with the prisoners he had taken, they went again towards their quarters, praising God diligently for their welfare. Then might one have seen a folk glad and merry for their victory.

Commentary
Although the original is in verse, Eyre-Todd produces a prose translation, befitting Barbour's romantic style.  This is the only detailed description of this battle, though the defeat of de Valence at Loudon Hill is noted in English works.  Notable are that the battle is placed in the chivalrous context of an encounter at a pre-arranged location, Bruce's pre-preparation of the field (which will be one of the tactical lessons the English take from the Anglo-Scottish wars – compare, for example, the Battle of Morlaix in 1340) and how the Scots handle the cavalry charge – first halting it then counter attacking into the confusion of fallen knights and horses.  The English fall back to regroup but retreat becomes rout.  De Valence tries to rally his men but eventually gives up and withdraws.  His second division doesn't even get into the action.  The fight is depicted simply as an encounter between mounted men-at-arms and spearmen.  If either side had archers, they didn't make a significant contribution. 

The battle is well described by Kelly DeVries in Chapter IV Infantry Warfare in the Early 14th Century but he does make a couple of errors in interpretation of the battlefield.  Contrary to Barbour, he places the marsh on one side, rather than both, and draws up the Scots behind the third trench rather than in the gap in the first.

[aligern]

Brilliant Anthony,
I look forward to many more postings here, your expertise adds great value to the project.
Roy

[Erpingham]

Thanks Roy.  I do have a couple of others I've been studying lately, maybe towards a Slingshot article, which might take a turn here.

[aligern]

I wouldn't like to speak for our editor, but I think that it would be perfectly possible to put an extensive quote of the source on a battle here and still do a Slingshot article which included the same quoteand more and a very much extended commentary.. The cites here are intneded as a short fomat with a long life that gains value from covering a lot of battles. So, from my point of view give us both please.
Roy

[Erpingham]

I was actually thinking the same thing.  I've done a brief commentary but a slightly longer piece of discussion of the text (what can we learn from this text about medieval warfare?  basically) would give a nice short piece for Slingshot.

[aligern]

Also, might I suggest that it is an interesting comparison with a wargame. Why didn't de Valence soften the Scots up with missiles first? Did he have none?  Why did the English not work a force around the Scots flank. By then they must have known that charging spearmen head on was not going to work??

Roy

[Erpingham]

The first one is tricky because we don't know the composition of the force.  Oman berates de valence for the same thing - not bringing up his archers - but he may not have had any/many.  Likewise, Bruce probably had some e.g. Scots archers feature in an ambush earlier in Book 8.  How many and where would they go?

On the second point, de Valence can't turn the position.  There is a bog either side and Bruce has so narrowed the field with ditches that it matches the front of his infantry.  Barbour confuses this by saying the gap in the trench was only wide enough for 500 horsemen.  This is far too long - this frontage would mean Bruce's men were in a single rank to fill the gap.  Barbour has likely misread his source - it may have said de Valence had 500 in his first battaille for example.

[Patrick Waterson]

Very elegant battle article.

A rough calculation suggests that space for 500 to ride through abreast would amount to 750-1,000 yards, a 'gap' almost the frontage of a fair-sized mediaeval army.  Bearing in mind that the 'moss' was 'a bowshot' away from the road on both sides, we are either looking at herculean archers or more probably a 50-abreast gap that gained an extra zero when Barbour penned the tale. 

Patrick

[Erpingham]

As I see it, Barbour has done one of two things - misinterpretted his source as saying there were 500 men in the first rank rather than the first division or misread the number of hundreds.  I don't think medieval latin used D for 500 - I think they used vc.  He might have might have misread eg ijc - 200.  That is still rather wide, though.  On the whole I'd go for the first interpretation.  I don't think the meter needs 500 - any single syllable number of hundreds would fit.

[Patrick Waterson]

That seems to cover all the bases: I do wonder how he could have got Pembroke's van mixed up with Bruce's gap, the context seeming a little out, but strange things happen in literature, so maybe that was it.  If he was just mistaking the gap size, or even adjusting it to conform with his metre, turning 50 into 500 would mean replacing 'quinquaginta' with 'quingenti' - or (wild guess here) maybe he just got the two confused - people do, even today!

Just to confuse the issue still further, 'quingenta' (as opposed to 'quingenti') means 'thousands and thousands'.  One slip of the pen and Bruce could have been really stretched.

Patrick
P.S. - Any chance of any more battle descriptions?  I liked this one. 

[Erpingham]

Another possibility occured to me yesterday - that barbour had two sources describing how narrow the battlefield was - one said two bowshots and the other enough space for 500 men to ride abreast, so he used both, failing to spot that they both refered to the battlefield before Bruce started trench digging.

As to your other query, I do have another one in progress.  Yet again small scale and with some similarities because they both are part of a bit of research I'm doing.  Will have to wait for the weekend though.

[Erpingham]

Just to let folks know, I did finally finish the article based on the above discussion.  Better late than never I suppose.

[aligern]

As long as there is an illustration of Pembroke's van... was it a Transit?
R

[Patrick Waterson]

I shall look forward to driving - I mean reading - it.   

Patrick