Bannockburn
Trip Start
May 19, 2008
1
5
24
Trip End
Jun 02, 2008
Bannockburn, Stirling, UK,
United Kingdom
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Unlike American battlefields, such as Gettysburg or the Battle of Little Big Horn, which are painstakingly preserved and marked with positions and details of the battle, Bannockburn's actual battlefield has been largely built upon. At the Heritage Center is only a small portion of the actual field, probably where Bruce set up his command post, and roughly the starting positions of his troops.
Still, it is a big enough field that hundreds of re-enactors, including cavalry, take part here in the annual (well, apart from this year) re-enactment. Joe, one of the employees at the Heritage Center, took me around the grounds and pointed out where the jugglers, minstrels, craft booths, jousting, and actual re-enactment take place.
Joe deserves more mention here. I asked him one quick question-- where does the actual re-enactment take place-- expecting one quick answer, but here is a man who must have a passion for his subject. He took me back into the Heritage Center and spent 20 minutes at the diorama and at the 5 or 6 foot tall aerial photograph of the current area of Bannockburn and Stirling, which has overlays explaining positions of troops and possible sites of the actual battle. He gave me the best explanation yet, even after 18 months or more of research, of exactly why they cannot say for sure where it happened, and what evidence there is for each contender for The Site. He then took me out on the grounds, and spent probably another 15 or 20 minutes walking over them with me, pointing out the path which would be lined with jugglers, minstrels, and craft booths on the day of the re-enactment. He showed me over on the west side of the grounds where "King Edward" would set up his tent, and over on the southeast, the sloping field where the re-enactors would stage the battle each year.
The Heritage Center is small, but incredibly informative if you're interested. There are plaques and displays of the events leading up to the Battle of Bannockburn, starting, if I remember correctly, from the death of Alexander III. His death left no clear heir to the throne, other than an infant granddaughter, the Maid of Norway. She, however, died on her way to Scotland to take the throne. This is when Edward Longshanks/ I/ Hammer of the Scots got involved, choosing John Baliol as king and adding, as an afterthought that he himself would be the real overlord and ruler of Scotland. Needless to say, not all Scots took kindly to him simply announcing that their country was now his.
Enter William Wallace. We all know his story, thanks to Mel Gibson. Robert the Bruce learned from him and continued the fight after his death in 1306. Shortly thereafter, Robert the Bruce killed John Comyn, the other main contender for the throne, in front of the altar at Dumfriens, and rushed himself to Scone to be crowned king before the Pope could ex-communicate him (which he did, on hearing the news) and thus make him ineligible to be king. Nigel Tranter, the novelist's, view of those events actually makes Comyn's murder seem like a necessary evil, if Scotland was to have any hope against the English, and portrays Bruce as a man who acted in the heat of the moment and lived his life with the guilt of the action.
The bulk of the display gives a very detailed, blow by blow account, of the two days of the battle, via wall plaques detailing the armies' positions, life-size wax-museum type displays, the aerial photograph and diorama previously mentioned, and actual dirks, helmets, and swords on display.
For anyone interested in military history, I strongly recomment learning about the Battle of Bannockburn. It shows Bruce to be a genius commander, who managed to defeat-- no, that's too weak a word, make that ROUT-- the world's greatest army, a force 3, 4, or even 5 times the size of his own (depending which account you read), with minimal loss to his own men. It is this battle that won the Scots their independence from the previous 20 years of England's brutal tyranny..
A plaque showing the armies' positio
