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! In the battle which now began, the wisdom of Bruce’s plans appeared. His small cavalry force he placed in hiding at the right for flank operations on the dreaded English archers. To cope with the more dreaded English men-at-arms he had dug all the solid ground along his line full of pits, set them full of sharp stakes, and covered all fairly with boughs and turf. His baggage, horses and camp impediments were parked behind the hill in his rear; the wagoners and servants (“Gillies”) there secreted were destined to play an important part in this singular battle—a part so signal that the hill has ever since been known as Gillies Hill. The English attack began, as expected, in the assault of archers. It made havoc among the Scotch with their bull’s-hide bucklers for their only protection. “Now we’ll cut their bow-strings!” cried Edward Bruce to the Scotch horsemen in cover, and forthwith they were hewing and sabering among the English yeomen, who, having no small arms wherewith to fight hand to hand, were helpless to resist this attack. They were stampeded and hurled back a confused mass upon the English army. Defeat No. 3. The appearance of Scotch horse in the engagement was a surprise to the English. To meet it they ordered a charge of their own cavalry. Down the narrow passages they thundered, a galling fire of Scotch arrows in their faces. Rushing, ten thousand horsemen came, With spears in rest and hearts on flame, That panted for the shock; Down, down in headlong overthrow, Horseman and horse the foremost go, Wild floundering on the field. Loud from the mass confused the cry Of dying warriors swells on high, And steeds that shriek in agony. They came like mountain torrent red, That thunders o’er its rocky bed; They broke like that same torrent’s wave When swallowed by a darksome cave, Billow on billow rushing on Follows the path the first has gone.[E] “Some of the horses that stickit were,” says Barbour, “rushed and reeled right rudely.” The fall of the horse in the pits was complete with hardly a blow from the Scotch. As yet Bruce’s line had not been touched; Bruce’s brain more than Scotch brawn had won thus far. The grand charge of Edward’s body-guard, three thousand steel-clad knights, the pick of English chivalry, was now ordered to redeem the day. They charged the line of Scotch spearmen and axmen with great fury and effect—“Sae that mony fell down all dead; the grass waxed with the blude all red.” The Scotch knights, until now held in reserve, were led by Bruce himself, and a most desperate struggle took place, all the forces left on both sides being engaged. “And slaughter revelled round.”