Gilliesʹ Hill

In the battle of Bannockburn (1314) King Robert Bruce ordered all the servants, drivers of carts, and camp followers to go behind a height. When the battle seemed to favour the Scotch, these servants, or gillies, desirous of sharing in the plunder, rushed from their concealment with such arms as they could lay hands on; and the English, thinking them to be a new army, fled in panic. The height in honour was ever after called The Gilliesʹ Hill. (Sir Walter Scott: Tales of a Grandfather, x.)

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.