Excerpt from A History of the Battle of Bannockburn Fought A. D. 1314: With Notices of the Principal Warriors Who Engaged in That ConflictStill, though placing great reliance on the various statements of Barbour, I do not consider him in every point perfect, nor have I hesitated to differ from him when he relates what, in my opinion, will not bear the test of calm deliberate judgment. My aim has been to discard improbability, and search for truth in whatever form it may be ascertained. Every individual who presumes to write history ought to sift the evidence most carefully which he has amassed before him, and endeavour, so far as his power of discrimination will enable him, to separate what is correct from that which, under any form, may appear doubtful. Unfortunately, we have perceived, time after time, that when one historian stoops to follow another implicitly, without the exercise of his higher powers, we have the same error repeated over and over again. This ought no longer to be tolerated.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.