United States or Portugal ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


We put up for the night at Clackmannan, a very decayed and melancholy-looking village, though it possessed a fine specimen of the Scottish castellated tower. It is said that Robert Bruce slept here before the Battle of Bannockburn. But the most interesting thing that I saw during the journey was the Devon Ironworks.

The greatest battle ever fought on British ground, with the exceptions of Hastings and Bannockburn, and greater even than Hastings, if numbers are allowed to count, was that of Towton, the chief action in the Wars of the Roses; and its decision was due to the effect of the weather on the defeated army. It was fought on the 29th of March, 1461, which was the Palm-Sunday of that year.

"There," said Gloucester, in deepest grief, "there broke the noblest heart that ever beat in the breast of man." It was the evening after Bannockburn. The English hosts were in panic-stricken flight; Scotland at last was free. Robert Bruce, king and conquerer, entered the Abbey of Cambuskenneth with his betrothed, Isabella, and stood before the bier of Wallace.

No word of war is breathed; hushed is the clang of arms in these announcements; and the sanguine recruit is almost tempted to expect that pruning-hooks, instead of swords, will be the weapons he will wield. Alas! is not this the cruel stratagem of Brace at Bannockburn, who decoyed to his war-pits by covering them over with green boughs?

Especially when " she broke off, looking at Carter who was pointing out to Honor what he believed to be the Field of Bannockburn. Stephen Lorimer shook his head. "No danger there," he said comfortably. "Top Step is sorry for him a creature of another, paler world ... infinitely beneath her bright and beamish boy's. No, I feel a lot safer to have Carter with her than with Jimsy King."

The death of Earl Gilbert at Bannockburn broke his nearest tie with England, and the release of Elizabeth Bruce in exchange for Hereford gave his daughter the actual enjoyment of the throne of Scotland. His natural instincts as an Irishman and as a baron were to restrain the power of his overlord.

The fortunes of Scotland were, for the time, completely changed; and never was a battle won, more famous upon Scottish ground, than this great battle of BANNOCKBURN. Plague and famine succeeded in England; and still the powerless King and his disdainful Lords were always in contention. Some of the turbulent chiefs of Ireland made proposals to Bruce, to accept the rule of that country.

In winter damp snow furnished plenty of ammunition to make the thing serious, and in summer sand and grass sods. Cheering and shouting some battle-cry such as "Bannockburn! Bannockburn! Scotland forever! The Last War in India!" we were led bravely on.

Whether any understanding had been come to between the northern Irish and Bruce, during his sojourn in Rathlin, or whether the victory of Bannockburn suggested the design, Edward Bruce, the gallant companion of all his brother's fortunes and misfortunes, was now invited to place himself at the head of the men of Ulster, in a war for Irish independence.

William's bones to the Minster; Edward II. retreated from his defeat at Bannockburn to York, and Edward III. was often there for a king's varied occasions of fighting and feasting. Weak Henry VI. and his wilful Margaret, after their defeat at Towton by Edward IV., escaped from the city just in time, and Edward entered York under his own father's head on Micklegate Bar.