in four "battles,"
with Randolph to lead the vaward and watch against any attempt to throw
cavalry into Stirling. Edward Bruce commanded the division on the right,
next the Torwood. Walter Stewart, a lad, with Douglas led the third
division. Bruce himself and Angus Og, with the men of Carrick and the
Celts, were in the rear. Bruce had no mind to take the offensive, and as
at the Battle of the Standard, to open the fight with a charge of
impetuous mountaineers. On Sunday morning mass was said, and men shrived
them.

"They thought to die in the melee,
Or else to set their country free."

They ate but bread and water, for it was the vigil of St. John. News
came that the English had moved out of Falkirk, and Douglas and the
Steward brought tidings of the great and splendid host that was rolling
north. Bruce bade them make little of it in the hearing of the army.

Meanwhile Philip de Mowbray, who commanded in Stirling, had ridden
forth to meet and counsel Edward. His advice was to come no nearer;
perhaps a technical relief was held to have already been secured by the
presence of the army.

Mowbray was not heard--"the young men" would not listen. Gloucester,
with the van, entered the park, where he was met, as we shall see, and
Clifford, Beaumont, and Sir Thomas Grey, with three hundred horsemen,
skirted the wood where Randolph was posted, a clear way lying before
them to the castle of Stirling. Bruce had seen this movement, and told
Randolph that "a rose of his chaplet was fallen," the phrase attesting
the King's love of chivalrous romance. To pursue horsemen with infantry
seemed vain enough; but Randolph moved out of cover, thinking perhaps
that knights adventurous would refuse no chance to fight. If this was
his thought, he reckoned well. Beaumont cried to his knights, "Give
ground, leave them fair field." Grey hinted that the Scots were in too
great force, and Beaumont answered, "If you fear, fly!" "Sir," said Sir
Thomas, "for fear I fly not this day!" and so spurred in between
Beaumont and D'Eyncourt and galloped on the spears. D'Eyncourt was
slain, Grey was unhorsed and taken. The three hundred lances of Beaumont
then circled Randolph's spearmen round about on every side, but the
spears kept back the horses. Swords, maces, and knives were thrown; all
was done as by the French cavalry against the British squares at
Waterloo, and all as vainly. The hedge of steel was unbroken, and, in
the hot sun of June, a mist