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“I have broken my good battle-axe,” was his only reply.

This incident ended the day. Night was at hand. Both armies rested on the field. But at an early hour of the next day, the 24th of June, the battle began, one of the critical battles of history.

Through the Scottish ranks walked barefooted the abbot of Inchaffray, exhorting the men to fight their best for freedom. The soldiers kneeled as he passed.

“They kneel down!” cried King Edward, who saw this. “They are asking forgiveness!”

“Yes,” said a baron beside him, “but they ask it from God, not from us. These men will conquer, or die upon the field.”

The battle began with a flight of English arrows. The archers, drawn up in close ranks, bent their bows, and poured their steel shafts as thickly as snow-flakes on the Scotch, many of whom were slain. Something must be done, and that speedily, or those notable bowmen would end the battle of themselves. Flesh and blood could not long bear that rain of cloth-yard shafts, with their points of piercing steel.

But Bruce had prepared for this danger. A body of well-mounted men-at-arms stood ready, and at the word of command rushed at full gallop upon the archers, cutting them down to right and left. Having no weapons but their bows and arrows, the archers broke and fled in utter confusion, hundreds of them being slain.

This charge of the Scotch cavalry was followed by an advance in force of the English horsemen, who came forward in such close and serried ranks and with so vast an array that it looked as if they would overwhelm the narrow lines before them. But suddenly trouble came upon this mighty mass of knights and men-at-arms. The seemingly solid earth gave way under their horses’ feet, and down they went into the hidden pits, the horses hurled headlong, the riders flung helplessly upon the ground, from which the weight of their armor prevented their rising.

In an instant the Scotch footmen were among them, killing the defenceless knights, cutting and slashing among the confused mass of horsemen, breaking their fine display into irretrievable disorder. Bruce brought up his men in crowding multitudes. Through the English ranks they glided, stabbing horses, slaying their iron-clad riders, doubly increasing the confusion of that wild whirl of horsemen, whose trim and gallant ranks had been thrown into utter disarray.

The English fought as they could, though at serious disadvantage. But their numbers were so great that they might have crushed the Scotch under their mere weight but for one of these strange chances on which the fate of so many battles have depended. As has been said, the Scotch camp-followers had been sent back behind a hill. But on seeing that their side seemed likely to win the day, this rabble came suddenly crowding over the hill, eager for a share in the spoil.

It was a disorderly mob, but to the sorely-pressed English cavalry it seemed a new army which the Bruce had held in reserve. Suddenly stricken with panic, the horsemen turned and fled, each man for himself, as fast as their horses could carry them, the whole army breaking rank and rushing back in terror over the ground which they had lately traversed in such splendor of appearance and confidence of soul.

After them came the Scotch, cutting, slashing, killing, paving the earth with English slain. King Edward put spurs to his horse and fled in all haste from the fatal field. A gallant knight, Sir Giles de Argentine, who had won glory in Palestine, kept by him till he was out of the press. Then he drew rein.

“It is not my custom to fly,” he said.

Turning his horse and shouting his war-cry of “Argentine! Argentine!” he rushed into the densest ranks of the Scotch, and was quickly killed.

Many others of high rank fell, valiantly fighting, men who knew not the meaning of flight. But the bulk of the army was in hopeless panic, flying for life, red lines constantly falling before the crimsoned claymores of the Scotch, until the very streams ran red with blood.

King Edward found war less than ever to his royal taste. He fled to Stirling Castle and begged admittance.

“I cannot grant it, my liege,” answered Mowbray. “My compact with the Bruce obliges me to surrender the castle to-morrow. If you enter here it will be to become prisoner to the Scotch.”

Edward turned and continued his flight, his route lying through the Torwood. After him came Lord Douglas, with a body of cavalry, pressing forward in hot haste. On his way he met a Scotch knight, Sir Lawrence Abernethy, with twenty horsemen, riding to join Edward’s army.

“Edward’s army? He has no army,” cried Douglas. “The army is a rout. Edward himself is in flight. I am hot on his track.”

“I am with you, then,” cried Abernethy, changing sides on the instant, and joining in pursuit of the king whom he had just before been eager to serve.

Away went the frightened king. On came the furious pursuers. Not a moment was given Edward to draw rein or alight. The chase was continued as far as Dunbar, whose governor, the earl of March, opened his gates to the flying king, and shut them against his foes. Giving the forlorn monarch a small fishing-vessel, he set him on the seas for England, a few distressed attendants alone remaining to him of the splendid army with which he had marched to the conquest of Scotland.

Thus ended the battle which wrested Scotland from English hands, and made Robert Bruce king of the whole country. From the state of an exile, hunted with hounds, he had made himself a monarch, and one who soon gave the English no little trouble to protect their own borders.