When Wallace and Murray judged that sufficient English troops had crossed the narrow Stirling Bridge, they launched their schiltrons on 11 September 1297 to cut the English column in two. The vanguard of roughly 5,000 men on the north bank was surrounded and annihilated; cavalry attempting to escape were driven into the Forth and drowned. Hugh de Cressingham, the hated English treasurer, was killed and reportedly flayed. The north-bank destruction was the decisive tactical act that made Stirling Bridge a victory of the first order.
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