It was scarcely an accident that Alex Salmond’s Scottish Nationalist party set the 700th anniversary of the battle of Bannockburn as the year for Scotland’s vote on independence. Commemoration of Robert the Bruce’s famous victory over the English would surely rekindle the embers of patriotism ahead of September’s vote on separation.

So the first minister will have been disappointed by this week’s news from sponsors of the planned two-day celebration of the defeat of Edward II’s English army on June 24 1314. So slow has been the take-up that the organisers have had to cut ticket prices. Perhaps it is an omen. The momentum of the nationalist campaign seems to have stalled.

Mr Salmond could still win on September 18, but there are signs – some of them ugly – that SNP confidence is waning.