Page:Robert the Bruce and the struggle for Scottish independence - 1909.djvu/274

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220
Robert the Bruce.
[1314 A.D.

on the field will never be known; nor can it be guessed in proportion to the losses among those of gentler degree, because allowance has to be made for the custom of mediæval war, whereby the lives of nobles and knights were tenderly preserved when that was possible, in view of the price that their ransom would bring the captors. The common soldiers received no such consideration. Twenty-one English barons and bannerets were slain, including such renowned commanders as the Earl of Gloucester, nephew of King Edward, the veteran de Clifford, Sir Giles de Argentine, and Sir Edmund de Mauley, the Marshal of England, who was drowned in the Bannock, John Comyn, also, and Sir Pagan de Typtoft. Forty-two knights perished, and sixty were taken; among the slain being Sir Henry de Bohun, Sir John de Harcourt, and Sir Philip de Courtenay. The number of other gentlemen of coat-armour who lost their lives on the Sunday and Monday is put by the English chroniclers at the enormous figure of seven hundred.[1]

The prisoners taken included twenty-two barons and bannerets, among whom were the Earls of Hereford[2] and Angus, Sir Ingelram de Umfraville, Sir Thomas Gray, Sir Antony de Lucy, and Sir Thomas de Boutetourt. Sixty knights and several clerics were also among the prisoners. Many of the English of all ranks had sought refuge in the crags of Stirling. King Robert detached a force to dislodge them, on which they all surrendered.

  1. Scutiferorum septingentorum.—Walsingham.
  2. Taken at Bothwell Castle some days later.