In his preparations for the great struggle, which was to determine the fate of Scotland, the Bruce carefully avoided the errors which had led to Wallace’s defeat at Falkirk.  He selected a position which was covered, on one side by the Bannock Burn and a morass, and, on the other side, by the New Park or Forest.  His front was protected by the stream and by the famous series of “pottes”, or holes, covered over so as to deceive the English cavalry.  The choice of this narrow position not only prevented the possibility of a flank attack, but also forced the great army of Edward II into a small space, where its numbers became a positive disadvantage.  King Robert arranged his infantry in four divisions; in front were three schiltrons of pikemen, under Randolph, Edward Bruce, and Sir James Douglas, and Bruce himself commanded the reserve, which was composed of Highlanders from Argyll and the Islands and of the men of Carrick.[49] Sir Robert Keith, the Marischal, was in charge of a small body of cavalry, which did good service by driving back, at a critical moment, such archers as made their way through the forest.  The English army was in ten divisions, but the limited area in which they had to fight interfered with their arrangement.  As at Falkirk, the English cavalry made a gallant but useless charge against the schiltrons, but it was not possible again to save the day by means of archers, for the archers had no room to deploy, and could only make vain efforts to shoot over the heads of the horsemen.  Bruce strengthened the Scots with his reserve, and then ensued a general action along the whole line.  The van of the English army was now thoroughly demoralized, and their comrades in the rear could not, in these narrow limits, press forward to render any assistance.  King Robert’s camp-followers, at this juncture, rushed down a hill behind the Scottish army, and they appeared to the English as a fresh force come to assist the enemy.  The result was the loss of all sense of discipline:  King Edward’s magnificent host fled in complete rout and with great slaughter, and the cause of Scottish freedom was won.

The victory of Bannockburn did not end the war, for the English refused to acknowledge the hard-won independence of Scotland, and fighting continued till the year 1327.  The Scots not only invaded England, but adopted the policy of fighting England in Ireland, and English reprisals in Scotland were uniformly unsuccessful.  Bruce invaded England in 1315; in the same year, his brother Edward landed with a Scottish army at Carrickfergus, in the hope of obtaining a throne for himself.  He was crowned King of Ireland in May, 1316, and during that and the following year, King Robert was personally in Ireland, giving assistance to his brother.  But, in 1318, Edward Bruce was defeated and slain near Dundalk, and, with his death, this phase of the Bruce’s English policy disappears.  A few months before the death of Edward Bruce, King Robert had captured