Scotsman.com view
BANNOCKBURN NAMED UK’S MOST DECISIVE BATTLE – POLL This will probably be trotted out as a “valid excuse” for an Indyref2…? - Mad Max the Pavement
Warrior Oh dear the Nat drones nobbled the poll. But in their world this poll will provide justification for their Freedum along with anything else they can make up.
- dweller55 Perhaps it’s the most popular battle in the minds of some but it’s hardly the most decisive. Flodden, Dunbar and even Prestonpans were more decisive in their outcomes … I would also include the Battle of the Standard which resulted in a Scottish king being captured and ransomed.
- philmus How do you define decisive? Flodden and Culloden were more decisive (and disastrous) in the long term. Hastings did more to shape British history bringin in Norman supremacy (including the Bruce dynasty). The Battle of Britain was part of a long term war. Culloden, on the other hand, ended the Stuart dynasty and the Protestant/ Catholic struggle as well as ending the clan power base.
- sandystewart This has to be some sort of joke, on the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain … if it had not been for the “Few” Hitler might have launched Operation Sea Lion instead of Barbarossa.
- Mercutio The problem with all these polls is they say more about those who enter them than anything else.
- jcampbel2 It was certainly decisive. If it hadn’t been for Bannockburn, then Scotland would have ceased to exist as a sovereign kingdom, and we would have ended up as an English province. We wouldn’t have a UK today, but would be part of a greater England. Of course, whether the union is effectively just that is another argument.
- Onwards What about Naseby which culminated in the loss of the divine right of the king and in parliamentary democracy? Or Flodden Field from which the Scottish nobility never recovered and led to the eventual union? Or the Boyne which completed the change of the monarchy? Or Trafalgar which led to Pax Britannica and 100 years of peace for Britain?
- Interested Reader I support the union but I’m still a proud Scot. Bannockburn was a first class military victory and in time forced England to recognise Scotland’s right to self determination, certainly it was going to be a vassal kingdom without Bannockburn unlike the mutually beneficial union we have enjoyed since 1707.
- The G Man When you look at the history surrounding Bannockburn there was very little to be proud of for either side. It’s been romanticised … Basically a greedy power grab by two self-serving aristocracies in Edinburgh and London who cared not how many expendable peasants died.
- Anteaus