“Insolent bastard! Full attack! Give no quarter! And I want this Wallace’s heart brought to me on a plate!” Talmadge ordered.
Cheltham spurred his horse to form up the attack. The English army moved forward toward the bridge, so narrow that only a single file of riders could move across it at any time. The English cavalry, two hundred knights, crossed the bridge quickly and formed up on the other side of the river.
And with that one simple repositioning of his forces, Talmadge had put the Scots in the most dangerous situation they could have faced. The cavalry was his most formidable threat, the one for which no army had a counter. The Scots’ only hope would have been to try to stop the riders at the narrow bridge, where, had the Scots resisted, an assault of archers and infantry would have been required to get the horsemen across. But the Scots had not even contested the maneuver! It was clear to Talmadge that Wallace was not only insolent but a fool.
Things looked terrible to the Scots themselves. And it was then that Stephen turned to Wallace and said, “The Lord tells me He can get e out of this mess. But He’s pretty sure you’re fooked.”
Talmadge and his men started across the river in dismay. Still the Scots were doing nothing. “Amateurs!” Talmadge spat in disgust and dismay. “They are neither wise enough to contest us or smart enough to flee! Send across the infantry!”
“M’lord, the bridge is so narrow—“ Cheltham began.
“The Scots just stand in their formations! Our cavalry will ride them down like grass. Get the infantry across so they can finish the slaughter!” Talmadge demanded.
The English leaders shouted orders and kept their en moving across the bridge. Talmadge gestured for the attack flag.
The cavalry on the other side of the bridge saw the signal banners commanding their attack. They took the lances from their squires and lowered the visors of their helmets. They were proud, plumed, glimmering; their huge horses, draped in scarlet and purple, held them high above the mortals who stood on mere earth. They looked invincible.
With a great shout, the knights charged.
To the Scots who stood and watched them come on, the noise of the horses’ hooves was like thunder of a storm that no army could weather. No one on the battlefield had ever seen anyone even try. Formations of men, feeding on each other’s will to fight or poisoned by each other’s panic, had always scattered, for there was no known weapon for footsoldiers to resist the charge on open ground and no amount of courage to stand and face it.
And yet the Scots stood.
On and on the horses came. The rising thunder of the charge mixed with the sound of a heart hammering in every Scottish chest.
The lances lowered, an onrushing cluster of death.
Closer… closer… closer.
Wallace jumped to the front of his clan. “Steady!” he shouted. “Hold… hold… now!”
The Scots snatched their fourteen-foot spears from the ground and snapped them up in unison, thrust forward in ranks, the first line of men bracing their spears at an angle three feet above the ground, the men behind them jabbing theirs at a five-foot level, the men behind holding theirs at seven feet.
The English knights had never seen such a formation. Their lances were useless—too short!—and it was too late to stop. The momentum that was to carry the horses smashing through the men on foot now became suicidal force; knights and horses impaled themselves on the long spears like beef on skewers.
Talmadge could see it; but worse was the sound, the scorching screams of dying men and horses, carried to him across the battlefield.
Wallace and his men now stood protected behind a literal wall of fallen chargers and knights. Wallace drew his broadsword and led his swordsmen out onto the field where they attacked knights that were still alive. Most were off their horses; a few had managed to pull up their mounts. But the armored knights moved like turtles; the Scots swarmed around them, and the field ran with blood.
Suddenly all was quiet. Wallace lifted his huge, blood-stained sword, faced Talmadge in the distance, and bellowed, “Here I am, English coward! Come and get me!!”
Talmadge was even more enraged –and his judgment was gone. “Press the infantry across!” he barked at Cheltham.
“But m’lord!”
“Press them!”
Cheltham gave a wave, and the vanguard of the English infantry began to stream onto the bridge.
Wallace smiled. He grabbed Hamish by the shoulder. “Tell Mornay to ride to the flank and cross upstream. Wait! Tell him to be sure the English see him ride away!”
Hamish hurried off with the message.
The Scottish nobles watched from their position on the abbey hill as the English infantry began moving across the little bridge. Behind them were their personal contingents of cavalry, a few dozen riders lightly armed. Having had not part in the first great shock of the battle, they felt unable or unwilling to do anything more than watch — and criticize.
“If he wait much longer, he will squander the brief advantage he gained,” Lochlan was saying as Hamish galloped up.
“Ride around and ford behind them!” Hamish ordered.
The nobles did not challenge Hamish’s insolence; rather they questioned the wisdom of the instruction that they knew had come from Wallace. “We should not divide our forces!” Mornay protested.
Hamish exploded. “Wallace says do it! And he says for you to let the English see you!”
“You listen to me, you common bastard!” Lochlan spat, but Mornay understood the strategy and put his hand on Lochlan’s arm.
“They shall think we run away,” Mornay said. “He has got them. He has planned everything from the first moment.” He looked at Hamish. “Tell Wallace we will do it.”
Mornay stood high in his stirrups, waved grandly to his men, and led them in a gallop around the back side of the hill.
Lord Talmadge saw the Scottish nobles ride off and shouted to Cheltham, “See! Every Scott with a horse is fleeing! Hurry! Hurry! Press them! Lead them yourself!”
Cheltham spurred his horse forward and herded half the English arm across the fiver.
Wallace lifted his sword, “FOR SCOTLAND!”
He charged down the hill toward the soldiers massing on the north side of Stirling bridge. And the whole Scottish army followed him.
The English soldiers on the Scottish side of the bridge could not stand against the ferocity of the attack. They were outfought, outled, and outnumbered. They were thrown back toward the bridge itself, their only lifeline.
Talmadge was shocked at the butchery of his forces. It seemed impossible to him. It was a scene so horrible, so unthinkable to him that he could barely look, and yet he could not pull his eyes away. He felt his other field commanders at his shoulder, wanting instructions. It was hard to think. “Press reinforcements across!” he ordered them.
The flagmen signaled; the English infantry leaders, desperate to save their friends on the other side, tried to herd more of their footsoldiers onto the bridge, turning the already jammed passage into a plug of writhing humanity.
On the other side of the bridge, Wallace and his men were carving through the English vanguard. The Scots had already reached the bridge itself. Now everything was chaos. The English footsoldiers on the bridge who tried to shove their way forward to fight were pressed back by those trying to flee the hacking Scottish blades. Talmadge’s cavalry was gone. His archers, with fiend and foe so tightly packed, were useless. And his infantry had a deathgrip on itself.