Page:Prophecies of Thomas the Rhymer, the ancient Scotch prophet (2).pdf/14

 pieces as broken pots, and other vessels, have been found; and upon rocks near the surface, marks of fire have been discovered, where it was supposed the soldiers had made ready their provisions. Barbour, the author of King Robert Bruce’s life, speaks as if their camp had stretched so far northward as to occupy a part of Carse Ground; and so vast a multitude must doubtless have covered a large tract of the country.

The Scottish army was posted about a mile to the northward, upon several small eminences, south from the present village of St. Ninians. Upon the summit of one of these eminences, now called Brok’s-Brae, is a stone sunk into the earth, with a round hole in it, near three inches in diameter, and much the same in depth, in which, according to tradition, King Robert’s standard was fixed, the royal tent having been erected near it. This stone is well know in that neighbourhood by the name of the Bore-stone. The small river of Bannockburn, remarkable for its steep and rugged banks, ran in a narrow valley between the two camps.

The Castle of Stirling was still in the hands of the English. Edward, Bruce the King’s brother, had, in the spring of the year, laid seige to it, but found himself obliged to abandon the enterprize; only by a treaty between that Prince and Moubray, the Governor, it was agreed, that, if the garrison received no relief from England before a year expired, they should surrender to the Scots.

The day preceding the battle, a strong body of cavalry, to the number of eight hundred, was detached from the English camp, under the conmandcommand [sic] of Lord Clifford, to the relief of that garrison