BATTLE OF BANNOCKBURN PART II

This was a grand feudal army, one of the last of its kind to leave England in the Middle Ages. King Robert awaited its arrival south of Stirling near the Bannock Burn in Scotland.

The English army marched rapidly to reach Stirling before Mowbray's agreement expired on 24 June. Edinburgh was reached on 19 June and by 22 June, it was at Falkirk, only 15 miles short of its objective. Edward's host followed the line of the old Roman road, which ran through an ancient forest known as the Tor Wood, over the Bannockburn and into the New Park, a hunting preserve enclosed at the time of Alexander III. 
Bruce's army had been assembling in the Tor Wood, an area providing good natural cover, from the middle of May. On Saturday, 22 June, with his troops now organized into their respective commands, Bruce moved his army slightly to the north to the New Park, a more heavily wooded area, where his movements could be concealed and which, if the occasion demanded, could provide cover for a withdrawal. 
Bruce's army, like William Wallace's before him, was chiefly composed of infantry armed with long spears. It was probably divided into three main formations.  Thomas Randolph, 1st Earl of Moray, commanded the vanguard, which was stationed about a mile to the south of Stirling, near the church of St. Ninian, while the king commanded the rearguard at the entrance to the New Park. His brother, Edward, led the third division. According to Barbour, there was a fourth nominally under the youthful Walter the Steward, but actually under the command of Sir James Douglas.
The army might have numbered as many as nine thousand men in all, but probably more of the order of six thousand to seven thousand. It was gathered from the whole of Scotland: knights and nobles, freemen and tenants, town dwellers and traders:  men who could afford the arms and armor required.
Barbour tells that King Robert turned away those who were not adequately equipped. For most, such equipment would consist of a spear, a helmet, a thick padded jacket down to the knees and armored gloves. It is highly probable that a large proportion of the spearmen had acquired more extensive armor given that the country had been at war for nearly twenty years.
This is in contrast to the modern romantic notion of the Scots army, which depicts its foot soldiers clad in kilts, painted wood and little else. The balance of the army consisted of archers and men-at-arms. The Scottish archers used yew-stave longbows and it is not to be thought that they had weaker or inferior bows but rather had inferior numbers. Consisting of possibly only 500 archers, they played little part in the battle.
There is first hand evidence from the captured Carmelite friar, Robert Baston in his poem, written just after the battle, that one or both sides employed slingers and crossbowmen Each of these troop types was indistinguishable from their counter parts in France or England many of the Scottish men-at-arms (recruited from the nobility and the more prosperous burgesses) served on foot at Bannockburn.