ion to take their fate with him. The King proceeded to draw
up the army in the following order: Three oblong columns or masses of
infantry, armed with lances, arranged on the same front, with intervals
betwixt them formed his first line. Of these Edward Bruce had the
guidance of the right wing, James Douglas and Walter, the Steward of
Scotland, of the left, and Thomas Randolph of the central division.
These three commanders had their orders to permit no English troops to
pass their front, in order to gain Stirling. The second line, forming
one column or mass, consisted of the men of the isles, under Bruce's
faithful friend and ally, the insular prince Angus, his own men of
Carrick, and those of Argyle and Cantire. With these the king posted
himself in order to carry support and assistance wherever it might be
required. With himself also he kept in the rear a select body of horse,
the greater part of whom he designed for executing a particular service.
The followers of the camp were dismissed with the baggage, to station
themselves behind an eminence to the rear of the Scottish army, still
called the Gillies' (that is, the servants') hill....

"On the morning of St. Barnaby, called the Bright, being the 24th of
June, 1314, Edward advanced in full form to the attack of the Scots,
whom he found in their position of the preceding evening. The Vanguard
of the English, consisting of the archers and bill-men, or lancers,
comprehending almost all the infantry of the army, advanced, under the
command of the Earls of Gloucester and Hereford, who also had a fine
body of men at arms to support their column. All the remainder of the
English troops, consisting of nine battles, or separate divisions, were
so straitened by the narrowness of the ground, that, to the eye of the
Scots, they seemed to form one very large body, gleaming with flashes of
armour, and dark with the number of banners which floated over them.
Edward himself commanded this tremendous array, and, in order to guard
his person, was attended by four hundred chosen men at arms. Immediately
around the King waited Sir Aymer de Valence, that Earl of Pembroke who
defeated Bruce at Methven Wood, but was now to see a very different day;
Sir Giles de Argentine, a Knight of St. John of Jerusalem, who was
accounted, for his deeds in Palestine and elsewhere, one of the best
Knights that lived; and Sir Ingram Umfraville, an Anglicised
Scottishman, also famed for his skill in arms.