must have been the crisis of the
fight, according to Barbour, and Bruce bade Keith with his five hundred
horse charge the English archers on the flank. The bowmen do not seem to
have been defended by pikes; they fell beneath the lances of the
mareschal, as the archers of Ettrick had fallen at Falkirk. The Scottish
archers now took heart, and loosed into the crowded and reeling ranks of
England, while the flying bowmen of the south clashed against and
confused the English charge. Then Scottish archers took to their steel
sparths--who ever loved to come to hand strokes--and hewed into the mass
of the English, so that the field, whither Bruce brought up his reserves
to support Edward Bruce on the right, was a mass of wild, confused
fighting. In this mellay the great body of the English army could deal
no stroke, swaying helplessly as southern knights or northern spears won
some feet of ground. So, in the space between Halbert's bog and the
burn, the mellay rang and wavered, the long spears of the Scottish ranks
unbroken and pushing forward, the ground before them so covered with
fallen men and horses that the English advance was clogged and crushed
between the resistance in front and the pressure behind.

"God will have a stroke in every fight," says the romance of Malory.
While the discipline was lost, and England was trusting to sheer weight
and "who will pound longest," a fresh force, banners displayed, was seen
rushing down the Gillies' Hill, beyond the Scottish right. The English
could deem no less than that this multitude were tardy levies from
beyond the Spey, above all when the slogans rang out from the fresh
advancing host. It was a body of yeomen, shepherds, and camp-followers,
who could no longer remain and gaze when fighting and plunder were in
sight. With blankets fastened to cut saplings for banner-poles, they ran
down to the conflict. The King saw them, and well knew that the moment
had come: he pealed his ensenye--called his battle-cry--faint hearts of
England failed; men turned, trampling through the hardy warriors who
still stood and died; the knights who rode at Edward's rein strove to
draw him toward the castle of Stirling. But now the foremost knights of
Edward Bruce's division, charging on foot, had fought their way to the
English King and laid hands on the rich trappings of his horse. Edward
cleared his way with strokes of his mace; his horse was stabbed, but a
fresh mount was found for him. Even Sir