Bannockburn
When the call to arms came for the most renowned confrontation in Scottish military history, Earl Malcolm led the Clan Pharlan and his other supporters to fight with the King's brother Edward on the right flank of the army. Joining them were men of Angus, Buchan, Mar and Strathearn making a total of eighteen hundred infantrymen. Earl Malcolm led six hundred of these, but before taking command he advised King Robert Bruce to scatter caltrops, which were pointed metal shards, as a primitive minefield to further slow the advance of the English cavalry. This would allow the Schiltrons (Scottish pike companies) to take down the English with little effort.
Aftermath
Even when the Battle of Bannockburn was fought the Earl of Lennox was fifty years old, in the following years King Robert purchased Dumbarton Castle with lands formerly belonging to Earl Malcolm. King Robert was unwilling to trade with Menteith, the betrayer of Wallace, but Earl Malcolm convinced him that the impregnable fortress, which had held out even after Bannockburn, was worth the price. So the Earl traded some of his own ancestral lands for the good of the kingdom, but this was not his last gesture for Scotland. At the age of sixty-nine he led his followers yet again into battle at Halidon Hill where he died, a true servant to his country to the last.
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