King Robert the Bruce, Bannockburn and Braveheart Part Two

Blàr Allt a' Bhonnaich, The Battle of Bannockburn, on 23-24 June 1314, was one of the most important occasions in all of Scottish history. I mention the movie Braveheart, because so many people take what is in that movie as truth rather than fiction. In the movie, Robert the Bruce hasn't quite decided whether he will fight the English or not. Finally, the Scottish army simply makes a pell mell, sword-waving charge at the huge English army and (miraculously) defeat it.

Ha! They would have been SO dead.

I think in Part One of this series, I indicated pretty clearly that King Robert made a lot of preparation for that battle, but that doesn't answer what happened at the battle itself.

Many people have the idea (probably from movies where it isn't practical to have enough extras to form a real army) that medieval armies were small. This was very often not the case.

A levy called by a king could form an army with a substantial portion of the entire kingdom's adult male population who owed him service. While the English army, very likely of about 20,000 men, was unusually large, it was not at all outside the range of what was possible with a year's preparation, which is what King Edward II put into it. It was led by the King Edward, who didn't have a great reputation as a fighter, but also by hardened fighters such as Aymer de Valence, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, Henry de Beaumont and Robert de Clifford, 1st Baron de Clifford as well as the earls of Gloucester and Hereford.

The Scottish army, made up of about every fighting man in Scotland, was about one-half that size, probably in the range of 8,000 to 10,000 men total. You can vary those estimates by a few thousand, but not much more than that. I find the possibility they were larger unlikely. It is also highly unlikely they were much smaller.

The Scots knew not only that an English army was on its way but very close to when they could expect it. However, they didn't know its makeup. On 23 June, King Robert sent one of his most trusted lieutenants, Sir James Douglas, with a small force to scout the approaching army. Even this doughty fighter was horrified at the sight of the medieval host they would face. There was debate about whether to retreat--always something King Robert was willing to do rather than have an army destroyed. King Robert the Bruce decided to take the risk.

On the first day of battle occurred one of the most stirring fights in all of Scottish history -- a fight witnessed and described by chroniclers with both armies.

The English vanguard was approaching the Scottish host. King Robert himself decided to scout the ground. No one knows quite how he got so far ahead of his commanders, but, alone, not wearing armour, on a regular steed rather than a warhorse and armed only with a battleaxe, the King was spotted and was identified by Sir Henry de Bohun, slightly ahead of his own army, by his crown and gold tabard.

De Bohun couched his lance and set his massive warhorse into a charge.

It is hard to imagine the horror of the king's watching lieutenants as Robert the Bruce sat calmly, watching the oncoming knight thunder towards him. When de Bohun was no more than a few feet away, King Robert turned his horse, rose in his stirrups, and slammed his battleaxe down on de Bohun's head.

The single blow split de Bohun's helmet and his head in two.

The Scot version of the fight says that when he was reproached for so risking himself, King Robert's reply was a complaint that he had broken his favorite battleaxe. Sir Henry de Bohun, nephew of the Earl of Hereford, lay dead. Only the king's command held the Scots back from a charge.

Thus began one of the greatest battles in all medieval history.


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Please check out my novels on Scotland's struggle against English conquest. Freedom's Sword is available on Amazon and Smashwords. My novel about Robert the Bruce's most trusted lieutenant, Sir James, the Black Douglas, is A Kingdom's Cost is also available on Amazon and Smashwords.

Writing Large Battles Scenes

This is a tough thing to do for most writers. There is so much going on all at once. The writer often feels as battered as the character fighting the battle. How do you manage to get it all in? How do you describe it all?

I am going to give my beliefs on how to do it. Will everyone agree with me? Of course not, but one of the parts of my writing that at times gets the most praise is my battles, so I suspect I may do something right at least part of the time.

I start with something I try to keep firmly in mind in all my writing. Do NOT violate point-of-view. Ever.

In a battle, this means several things. Most of all, it means that your protagonist can't see everything that is going on. They will see what is going on around them, but they are unlikely to know what is going on across the battlefield. The protagonist may not even know if the battle is won or lost.

Also, always keep in mind that battles involve the sensory, not only seeing, but hearing, tasting, feeling. Probably, not a lot of thinking though. When someone is trying to stick sharp implements in your guts or pierce them with bullets, the chances of philosophizing are slim.

However, think about times when you have been under extreme stress. I have never been in a medieval battle, but I have been in car accidents and had loved ones suddenly die. I have been around people who had these kinds of experiences, so I have a good idea how people react in emergencies and under stress.

Strange things happen to you. Time can do strange things, seem to collapse, hours seeming like minutes and seconds seeming like hours.

You may be so focused on the immediate, that you only see what is right in front of you. Or you may by divorcing yourself emotionally from the stress, even deny that the situation is stressful. Or you may appear very calm although piss runs down your leg. Some may freeze, unable to move. The same person may react in different ways at different times.

While occasionally someone may be very conscious of how they are moving their hands and feet, for the most part this isn't what one thinks about under any circumstances. One is much more likely to think of the whole. Think of physical activities we do under more ordinary circumstances, such as dancing, playing golf or playing tennis. Unless we are taking lessons, most of the coordination of our body is automatic. If we spend much time telling the reader that the protagonist's hand went here while their foot went here, it soon begins to be not only boring but also very artificial and (worse) an authorial intrusion.

I'll include a battle scene that is in Chapter Two of Freedom's Sword. I wonder if you think I followed my own rules? Did they work? I'd love to discuss it in comments.

Here newly knighted Sir Andrew de Moray is in his first battle. Part of the Scottish army, they are charging an apparently fleeing English host:

The trap snapped shut.

Cursing, his father jerked his horse into a rearing turn. "To me! To me!"

The English were upon them from both sides. They were in a chaos of crashing lances, of horns, of trumpeting horses. Everywhere steel screamed on steel.

Andrew raised his shield and caught a sword slash on it. His father rammed his lance into a knight's shield. The lance shattered. The knight crashed onto his back under plunging hooves. Lord Avoch tossed aside the butt and scraped his sword free. A knight in a red tabard bore down, lance level towards his father's chest. Andrew threw himself forward, shield high. The lance skirled, screaming, along his shield. Ducking low, Andrew swung, shearing through mail, muscle, and gut. The man was dead as he slumped, bouncing from the saddle as his steed plunged forward.

Andrew's world shrank to his father's back and his sword. An unhorsed knight thrust at his chest. His sword lashed out, knocking the axe aside. The knight darted aside for another try. Andrew rode over him, bursting his head open. One of their men rode by, slumped over his horse's neck.

A lance had gone through his belly and stuck out his back.

Sir Waltir de Berkely, unhorsed, slashed at an English knight but the mount reared. Sir Waltir ducked under slashing hooves. His father slammed his sword into a foe's side as another rode at him, swinging. The blade flashed. His father toppled. Andrew jerked his horse into a rear and shattered the man's chest with a kick. His horse made a small leap over Brian's body, blood trickling from his mouth and head in a crimson pool. He jumped from the saddle. All around rang sword upon sword and men wailed, screaming in pain.

His father rolled over. Alive. Andrew straddled him, shield up. Caught a blow. Swung hard at a mailed arm. Blood gushed over his hand.

A sickening crunch and pain exploded in his back. His vision shattered into broken shards. He was falling. He couldn't yell... Couldn't move... His father's body lay under him on the ground. A jolt jerked his head.

"England!" a voice cried out. "For England and King Edward!"

Andrew drifted into a wave of gray mist.

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My new novel, A Kingdom's Cost, is now available on Amazon and Smashwords for $2.99.

Freedom's Sword is price reduced to 99 Cents through May 14 at Amazon and Smashwords.

Why Battles Are Like Sex

All right, maybe not exactly. But I write about them the same way. I got a funny look from someone the other day when I said that, so I'm going to explain the similarities.

First -- non-sex related unless you have different tastes than me, but who knows *grin* -- and this applies to sword fights or just describing warriors and knights in general, don't get tied up in what I once saw an editor call "weapon porn". I am a heck of a lot more interested in what the armour and weapons are called than 99% of my readers. I know the name, weight and capabilities of every piece. So should you, but don't necessarily list it. They really just want to see what it does, not hear its name. But do get the capabilities of the weapons right, please. Please. Swords did not weight 30 pounds, and it was not a matter of the heavier the better. Most weigh less than 3 pounds. 6 pounds is about tops for a functional sword that is not for ceremonial use only.

Swords cut. They do not crush.

Know all that to make the scene authentic but don't burble it all out and bore your poor reader to death--or on to another novel.

(Possibly that is more like a sex scene than I thought. Don't list all the body parts either!)

Now on to the sex part:

1. The senses do not stop working during battle or during sex. Battle is noisy and smelly. Things touch; things taste. The coppery taste of blood in your mouth. The tickle or sting of sweat trickling down your sides. The shit from dead horses and men. The senses put the reader there in either type of scene. Don't leave them out.

3. Battle and sex are both drippy. There are a lot of fluids. Blood in the mouth, on your hands, in your face. Sweat dripping. Horses lather and bleed. Mud squelches under your feet. Important stuff. I'll leave the sex dripping to you. *grin*

4. Don't announce orgasms OR winning the battle. In a battle, no one holds up a sign and shouts, "it's all over". Battles take a long time, sometimes all day, and even when you've won, the fighting rarely stops with that. There are enemies to be hunted down or an escape to be made. Or you're a prisoner wondering who of your friends survived. From your spot in the battle, you may not even know whether you've won or lost. There's a good chance you won't just like you don't necessarily know... *chuckles*

5. It is ALL in the feelings. Exactly where you put the feet or how the sword was swung doesn't mean a thing any more than how "Part A goes into Slot B". What matters are the emotions and reactions. There can be all kinds of feeling in battle. Cool calculation as you figure out how the enemy will react to what you do. Or you might be totally lost in the moment, seeing nothing but the next swing of the sword and the next victim ridden down. It may be fear and terror. It may be elation. But it is the feelings that count! If you don't know that about sex... well, I don't know what to tell you.

6. You had better feel it yourself. You notice I describe it as though it is happening to you. If your sex scenes don't arouse you, they probably have a problem. If you don't feel your own battle scenes, then you probably need to get more inside your character.

So that's why I think they're the same. Kind of. But I do try to be alive and unbloodied after sex. My characters can't necessarily say the same after battle, because I try to always have them at risk. And that's another essential point. If there is no risk to your characters, is there really any point in writing the scene? Just another thing to think about.

My own novel, Freedom's Sword, is based on the life of Scotland's hero, Andrew de Moray. You can find it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords.