the north. He salted the fields and killed the farmers who tended them so that nothing could grow there for a generation. By 1314 Stirling was the only castle still left in English hands. Forced to respond to the disintegrating situation north of the border, Edward II gathered the largest army he could and marched north. Now Robert had to face the thing he feared the most, a pitched battle. Some 30,000 English faced a Scots army of 10-15,000 spearmen. The Bruce kicked off the fight by beheading the English knight Henry de Bohun in single combat, and through a combination of Edward’s ineffectiveness and the Bruce’s excellent tactics the enemy was routed, with less than a third of the invaders returning home. It would be another 15 years before Scotland won the war, but in that moment the Bruce became a legend. Although at first he had been motivated by self-interest and ambition for the crown, he kept fighting when could have easily given up. He was brutal and sometimes savage, but he achieved what was thought to be impossible and there most likely would not be a Scotland today without him.
Bonnie Prince Charlie
Charles Edward Stuart is the most overly romanticised character from Scotland’s history. His bid to reclaim his grandfather’s throne has been transformed into a war to free Scots from Westminster’s rule. However Charles’ Jacobite rebellion was anything but that. 56 years before, his grandfather, James II, was forced to abdicate due to his Catholic leaning to make way for William of Orange and the Hanoverian dynasty. In July 1745, with the backing of the French King and the Pope, the Bonnie Prince landed in the Outer Hebrides. Many of the Highland clans, both Protestant and Catholic, gave him a warm
welcome. Once he had raised up to 6,000 men he marched south, first taking Edinburgh and then marching into England. He won a string of significant victories and got as far south as Derbyshire. However rumours of a large government force to the south persuaded the Clan leaders to return to Scotland, against the protests of the Prince. The rumours were false, but this retreat gave the Hanoverians enough time to raise a large force under the Duke of Cumberland. The superior government force trapped the Jacobites at Culloden field outside Inverness. Ignoring the advice of his best commander, Charles chose to fight on a flat open field, leaving his forces open to the British artillery. While the highlanders charged the Prince waited behind the lines where he could not even see the battle. It lasted no longer than an hour and by the end the Jacobites were totally crushed. Charles managed to escape Scotland by dressing as a woman. Bonnie Prince Charlie was far from a hero. He sacrificed thousands of Scottish lives in a vain attempt to retake his ancestor’s throne. He was mostly Polish, and had lived in Italy all his life. And the idea that this was a war of Scots against English is a fallacy, as there were more Scots who supported the Hanoverians than the Jacobites. Charles Stuart died in 1788 exiled, depressed and drunk, a disappointing end to the Stuart dynasty. There are many others that I could talk about, like Robert Burns or the Black Douglas. But these most prominent individuals epitomise Scotland’s tenancy to create these heroes from people who do not deserve it. It is interesting that these heroes have all been drawn from the two most violent periods in Scotland’s history. Perhaps it is when a nation’s existence is threatened, as Scotland’s was many times, that the people romanticise and exaggerate the virtues these men had. They feel that big men must counteract small size. That is not to say that it is a bad thing. In purely practical terms heroes that create interest in a country’s history can bring benefits. But we must be careful not to forget the truth of what happened and indulge too much in a false culture. Saul Sorooshian
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