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The Hundred Years' War with France
The English Archer; Part 2

The English Archer; Part 2

The establishment of the line of Bruce on the Scottish throne was a crushing blow to the party who had still clung to Balliol and the English cause. They had been driven from Scotland, and their estates forfeited. When Robert Bruce died, and was succeeded by his son David, this handful of the "Disinherited" determined to make one last stroke to regain their estates. Edward gave them no help; but, gathering a scanty force, they landed in Fife, under the leadership of Edward Balliol and Henry de Beaumont Never did cause seem more desperate. They were but 2000 strong, 500 men-at-arms, the rest archers. The Scottish force, under Mar, which advanced to meet them, was 22,000 men - eleven times their number.

Beaumont drew up his scanty force on a hillside, the men-at-arms, dismounted, in the middle; the archers, hidden in the heather, spread on the wings in a half-moon formation. The Scots advanced to the attack with one huge central column intended to crush the men-at-arms, while two smaller ones on the wings were to account for the archers. The weight of the charge drove back the " Disinherited^" centre, but, aided by the hill, they managed to stand, and for the moment the battle stayed, with the lances of the opponents locked tightly, and with scarce room to swing a sword. Meanwhile the archers had so plied the flank columns with arrows that they shrank in on the centre, and increased the pressure and confusion. The whole mass became wedged together helplessly. The men-at-arms hacked at the front ranks; the archers, who closed in on the flank at short range, riddled the rest. " More", says the chronicler, " fell by suffocation than the sword; the heap of the dead stood as high as a spear's length." The Scottish army was annihilated, while of the "Disinherited" some thirty men-at-arms fell, and not one single archer was killed.

This comparatively unknown battle of Dupplin, this victory of David over Goliath, is worth study, not because it led to any great results in Scottish history; Edward Balliol was indeed proclaimed king, and Edward III judged it a good occasion to strike in and support him, though both had soon to abandon their plans; but because it is the pattern of the tactics which made English arms for so long invincible. The essence was to dismount the men-at-arms; to take up a strong position and fight a defensive battle; to dispose the archers thrown forward on the wings under natural cover if it could be found, or support them with the infantry if natural cover failed. Then the enemy was left to attack; the infantry would stop the attack, and the archers would break it. It made little difference whether the attack was made by men on foot or by cavalry. The men on foot moved more slowly and offered an easier mark, but the horseman was a larger mark, and the downfall of men and horses soon threw the charge into confusion (The battle of Halidon Hill (1333) illustrates again the uselessness of the Scottish pike-men against archers. Edward was besieging Berwick. To relieve it the Scots had to beat his covering army, and were therefore obliged to attack. Their columns, advancing up the mil, were so riddled with arrows that very few reached the English lines. And when at length they broke and fled, Edward's mounted men cut them to pieces in the retreat.).

So the battles were won, not because the Englishman was braver, or a better fighter, but simply because, having a better weapon and a better system of tactics, the English armies were able to kill huge numbers of the enemy without suffering much themselves. This is what wins battles in all ages. When the musket had superseded the bow, the same system won again. It was thus that Wellington beat the French in the Peninsular war; by righting in line against the French columns he got a better fire-control and an overwhelming rain of bullets at marks which could not be missed. The French, being in column, could not use their numbers to reply effectively to the converging fire that met them.

The English Archer; Part 2

Chronology