Bannockburn

Best-selling author Alistair Moffat offers fresh insights into one of the most famous battles in history. As 8,000 Scottish solders, most of them spearmen, faced 18,000 English infantrymen, archers and mounted knights on the morning of Sunday 23 June 1314, many would have that the result a foregone conclusion. But after two days' fighting, the English were routed. Edward II fled to Dunbar and took ship for home, and only one English unit escaped from Scotland intact. The emphatic defeat of much