The Bruce
of the time are not defective.”[86] This, however, is not always true,
and Bain, applying this principle absolutely, is once, at least, led to
a wrong conclusion.[87]
[79] Vol. iii., p. 482, etc.; also in _Rotuli Scotiæ_, i., p. 127; and
_Parliamentary Writs_, book ii., div. 2, p. 117.
[80] _Cf._ _Commune of London_, p. 296; _Engl. Hist. Rev._, xiv., p.
133.
[81] _Bain_, ii., Nos. 956, 1202, 1092, 1136.
[82] _Writs as cited_, pp. 176, 177.
[83] _Trokelowe_, p. 102; _Rot. Scot._, i., p. 183.
[84] _Art of War_, p. 573 and note.
[85] _Annals_, ii., p. 48.
[86] _Calendar_, iii., p. xx.
[87] See note on Book XVI., 285.
An important question now suggests itself, but no one has so far raised
it: did the levies in these full numbers turn up? They are allotted
in round figures: what proportion was actually furnished? That there
would be some trouble in securing the conscripts is anticipated and
provided for in severe measures for the contumacious.[88] This was
usual, and even the strong hand of Edward I. could not prevent men
from deserting after they had received their wages.[89] Here we have,
also, a sufficient basis for an estimate. On May 12, 1301, Edward I.
summoned for midsummer 12,000 men from nine of the counties included
in the Bannockburn levy--York, as in that case, being assessed at
4,000.[90] On July 12 we have the numbers from these counties as they
appear on the pay-roll, when it is stated that they had contributed
in proportions which give only 5,501 all told; York having sent only
1,193, and Northumberland, assessed at 2,700, providing the largest
proportion--2,019.[91] The numbers vary slightly on other days, but
seem never to have exceeded, if they reached, 50 per cent. of the
nominal levy. Mr. Morris works out the same result for the Caerlaverock
Campaign of 1300.[92] There are no grounds for assuming that things
went differently in 1314, and thus over 21,540 men are reduced by
about half. It is quite a fair conclusion that not more than 12,000
English foot--which exceeds the proportion above--were actually present
at Bannockburn.
[88] _Writs_, ii., p. 185.
[89] _Palgrave_, cxxvii.; _Welsh Wars_, pp. 95, 98.
[90] _Bain_, ii., No. 1202.
[91] _Bain_, ii., 1229.
[92] _Welsh Wars_, p. 301.
For the foreign contingents no figures exist. Bain thinks they were
not “more than a few thousands.”[93] The Gascon corps in the Falkirk
army should have been 106 mounted men.[94] The Hainault and Flanders
auxiliaries who shared in the campaign of 1327 amounted to 550
men-at-arms, and were an expensive item.[95] The Irish contingent which
came to Edward I. in 1304 amounted at most, for a few weeks only, to
3,500 men,[96] but to merely 361 in the army of 1300.[97]
[93] III., p. xxi.
[94] _Welsh Wars_, p. 289.
[95] _Cf._ Book XIX., 267 note.
[96] _Bain_, ii., p. xxxix, note.
[97] _Welsh Wars_, p. 301.
I would suggest, therefore, for the English army the following
round numbers: 3,000 to 4,000 horse of all sorts, 12,000 English
and Welsh foot, 3,000 (?) Irish, 1,500 (?) foreigners, or, in a
lump sum, 20,000 men of all arms, to which must be added a crowd of
non-combatants--servants, traders, and camp-followers generally. Bain
(as cited) proposes 50,000; Round, 30,000; Oman, 60,000 to 70,000.
I consider 18,000 to 20,000 the most probable range. With even the
lower of these numbers, the English commanders in organization and
commissariat would have rather more than they could manage.
Barbour’s figure for the Scottish army must be similarly reduced. More
than 30,000 would be a huge proportion of the Scottish population
of that time, especially as the whole does not seem to have been
drawn upon, and of that, as Barbour insists, a good many were still
hostile.[98] William the Lion was credited in 1173 with a national
host of 1,000 armoured horsemen, and 30,000 unarmoured footmen,[99]
and the latter unit is surely over the score. At Halidon Hill, 1333,
the Scots are said to have had 1,174 knights and men-at-arms and
13,500 light-armed men or foot;[100] and this chronicler consistently
exaggerates. Yet these figures represent a united kingdom. Forty
thousand at Bannockburn is the estimate for the Scots of the _Vita
Edw._ writer, but the English writers, on their side, grossly overstate
the numbers of the enemy, as witness what is said of Hemingburgh above.
Bain’s figure of 15,000 to 16,000 is no doubt nearer the mark; “perhaps
twenty-five thousand men in all” is Mr. Oman’s conjecture.[101] Possibly
6,000 to 7,000 is as near as we can go, adopting Barbour’s ratio, which
gives a proportion of 1 to 3 of the English army. The non-combatants
here, too, would be numerous. Up to this time Bruce’s men in the field
could be numbered only in hundreds, so that as many thousands would
represent a very special effort. And note that after Murray’s success
over Clifford nearly the whole Scots army gathered round him to see him
and do him honour--a fact which is suggestive[102] as to its size.
[98] See note on 46.
[99] _Chronique de Jordan Fantosme_, lines 328-9.
[100] _Hemingburgh_, ii., pp. 308-9.
[101] _Art of War_, p. 575.
[102] XII. 159-164.
APPENDIX D
THE THROWING OF THE HEART
BOOK XX. *421-*432
These lines are found only in Hart’s printed edition. Pinkerton
thought there was “no reason to view them as an interpolation,” and
Jamieson regarded their agreement with the account in the _Howlat_[103]
“a strong presumption of authenticity.” By Skeat they were at first
accepted as genuine, but afterwards, influenced by the reasoning on
Barbour’s rhymes of P. Buss in _Anglia_,[104] he surrendered them as an
interpolation. In the passage of twelve lines three rhymes occur, which
are unusual--more strongly, impossible--for Barbour on the basis of
his admitted work. These are _battell--tell_, _to be--de_, _ho--to_.
In the first case, Barbour, it is claimed, elsewhere always uses the
“liquid” form _bataill_ (_battalyhe_) to rhyme with another word of
the same character as _assaile_ or _travaill_ (_travailyhe_).[105] In
the second, he “never rhymes _be_ with _de_ (correctly _dey_),” as
Skeat puts it, for _de_ (Icel. _deyja_) was still influenced by the
terminal semi-guttural, giving it an “impure” sound, whereas “be,”
with no ghostly after-sound, is quite “pure.” The final example brings
together two different values of “o,” and, it may be added, in the four
cases in which Barbour uses the word, it is in the form _hoyne_.[106]
These rhyme-tests had also been applied to the same result by Mr. W. A.
Craigie.[107]
[103] See below.
[104] First Series, vol. ix., 493-514.
[105] But note _battell_, two syllables, in xiii. 395, 418; xiv. 175;
and _battell-stede_ (xiv. 301).
[106] V. 602; vi. 564; x. 226; xiv. 152.
[107] _Scottish Review_, 1893, p. 192 note.
With this conclusion Mr. Brown agrees, “although on slightly different
grounds.”[108] Hart’s edition, of course, takes a place in his general
scheme of redaction. But he would “hesitate to reject the lines
on the rimes alone,” and “The _be, de_ test” seems to him “quite
untrustworthy.”[109] Skeat thinks it unanswerable.[110] Mr. Neilson
pleads “that this canon begs the whole question of the text of the
Bruce ... first you find your canon; then you edit out of your text
all that is disconform.”[111] Arguing specially on its application to
_The Legends of the Saints_, he points out that “There are not a few
metrical and other solecisms in the Bruce,” and that the “exceptional
_e_-rhyme” is the stamp of transition.[112] It is to be observed
also that Chaucer, Barbour’s contemporary, and more careful in such
matters than he, rhymes _ho, y-do_ in the _Knight’s Tale_.[113] In the
_Alexander_ occurs the _tell--battell_ rhyme.[114] On the whole, the
test is perhaps not so conclusive--out of Germany--as Skeat imagines.
Further, from the indubitable reference in the _Howlat_ to the _Bruce_,
Neilson accepts the latter as the sole source of its digression, and
the lines as therefore authentic.[115]
[108] P. 135.
[109] P. 135.
[110] _Pref._, liv.
[111] _John Barbour_, p. 50.
[112] _The Scottish Antiquary_, vol. xi., p. 107 note.
[113] Group A, 2533-2534.
[114] P. 308; 26, 27.
[115] Chambers’s _Cyclopædia of English Literature_, i. 175.
If, however, what has already been said of the passages from Hart
hold good,[116] then this one must go with the rest. Fortunately, in
this specific case that argument can be greatly strengthened, for the
lines have never been tried by their relation to the context and their
historic implications, and that obvious and indisputable test puts the
question beyond doubt. They have but an outside connection with the
narrative of Barbour, and otherwise are in flat contradiction thereto.
So much is at once evident from the closing couplet:
“And took it up in gret daintie;
And _ever in field_ this used he.”
[116] _Pref._, pp. vi-viii.
It is a series of performances of this kind that is contemplated, not
a single example, which is all that Barbour’s account gives room for.
Douglas is credited with a habit of this sort, “ever in field”; while
Barbour, like Froissart, knows of only one battle in which Douglas
fought while bearing the heart of Bruce.[117] Nor is Barbour likely to
have omitted such a “point of chivalry” on the part of his twin hero,
had a valid tradition of it existed in his day.
[117] _Cf._ notes on Book XX. 393, 431.
The problem becomes clearer when we consider alternative and later
accounts of the expedition of Douglas, for which see note on Book
XX. 191, 192. Evidently the idea of his going to the Holy Land, as
Froissart explains the commission,[118] and as it occurs in Bower, gave
an opening for embellishment, which expands in the hands of Boece to
the extent of thirteen victories achieved by Douglas over the Turks!
This, however, is only to give more precision to a composite account
contained in the _Buke of the Howlat_ of the middle of the fifteenth
century, a poem written in glorification of the Douglases. The author,
supposed to be Richard Holland, speaks of the great friendship Bruce
had for Douglas: “Reid the writ of thar work to your witness”[119]--a
clear reference to the _Bruce_, especially as in xxxv. and xxxvi. he
paraphrases the reply of Douglas to the King in Book XX. 223, 234.
Thereafter, however, he strikes off from Barbour. Douglas goes to “the
haly graif,” where--
[118] In part; but see the reconciling passage in note on xx. 191-2.
[119] Stanza xxxi.
“XXXVII.
“He gart hallowe the hart, and syne couth it hyng
About his hals[120] (neck) full hende (respectfully), and on his
awne hart.”
[120] But _cf._ xx. 307, where this comes before.
The story then proceeds:
“XXXVIII.
“Now bot I semble for thi saull with Sarasenis mycht,
Sall I never sene be into Scotland!”
An extension of the original commission, be it noted, and a motive for
what follows:
“Thus in defence of the faith he fure to the fecht
With knychtis of Cristindome to kepe his command.
And quhen _the batallis_ so brym, brathly and bricht,
War _joyned_ thraly in thrang, mony thousand,
Amang the hethin men the hert hardely he slang,
Said: ‘Wend on as thou was wont,
Throw the _batell_ in bront,
Ay formast in the front,
Thy fays amang;’
“XXXIX.
“‘And I sall followe the in faith, or feye to be fellit,--
As thi lege man leill, my lyking thow art.’
* * * * *
Thus frayis he the fals folk, trewly to tell it,
_Aye quhile he coverit_ (recovered) _and come to the Kingis hart,
Thus feile feildis he wan, aye worschipand it_,
Throwout Cristindome kid (known)
War the dedis that he did,
Till on a time it betid
As tellis the writ.”[121]