Early in the day of the 24th the English host came in sight. Edward rode out with his body-guard to reconnoitre. The first sight that met his eyes was an aged priest, bare-footed, walking along the Scotch lines and all the rough soldiers on their knees.
“See,” said the confident king, “They kneel, they cry for mercy.”
“Yea,” said Sir Ingeltram de Umfraville, “they cry for mercy, but it is to God, not to you.”
Presently came Bruce riding a little Scotch pony along the lines, giving his men their last directions and words of cheer. English chivalry, in the person of Sir Henry de Bohun, thought this an opportunity for cheap glory. Chivalry, with all its pretense of fairness, took odds when it could, and de Bohun in full armor, on a heavy Flanders steed, thundered down on Bruce. Dextrously dodging Bohun’s spear, Bruce rose in his stirrups and, as his enemy careered past with a great circle in the air he brought his axe down full on Bohun’s head. The axe was shattered by the tremendous blow, while helmet and skull were cleft and the brilliant knight rolled in the dust. A great shout from the Scotch hailed this feat; a damp silence among the English hailed this defeat No. 2. “The Englishmen had great abasing,” says old Barbour. As for Bruce, when his chiefs reproached him for the risk he had taken, he only looked ruefully at the fragment of the axe-handle in his hand and muttered, “I have broken my good axe.”
It is at this moment, just before the battle, that Burns puts into the mouth of Bruce the most inspiring battle-hymn ever written:
Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled, Scots wham Bruce hae often led, Welcome to your gory bed, Or to victory. Now’s the day and now’s the hour; See the front o’ battle lour. See approach proud Edward’s power, Chains and slavery!
Wha will be a traitor knave, Wha can fill a coward’s grave, Wha sae base as be a slave, Let him turn and flee! Wha for Scotland’s king and law Freedom’s sword will strongly draw, Freeman stand or freeman fa’ Let him follow me.
By oppression’s woes and pains, By your sons in servile chains, We will drain our dearest veins But they shall be free! Lay the proud usurper low! Tyrants fall in every foe! Liberty’s in every blow! Let us do or die!