by Marc Morris
As this paternal inheritance implies, Balliol was to all intents and purposes an Englishman. His father had been lord of Barnard Castle in County Durham, had fought for Henry III in the Battle of Lewes and, around the same time, had achieved lasting fame as the founder of Balliol College, Oxford. John, it is true, was Scottish on his mother’s side, and it was from his mother that he inherited his claim to Scotland’s empty throne. But Dervorguilla Balliol lived to be a very old lady, surviving until January 1290. Only at that point did her son, around the time of his fortieth birthday, enter into her extensive estates in Galloway and become a major Scottish landowner in his own right.20
Nevertheless, Balliol had another connection with Scotland in the form of his brother-in-law, John Comyn. Having married Balliol’s sister, Eleanor, in the early 1270s, Comyn had gone on to become the lord of Badenoch, and as such wielded especially great power in the northern part of the kingdom. Together with his other relatives, moreover, he held lands and castles in almost every corner of Scotland. It was an indication of the Comyns’ importance that two of their number – John and his great-uncle Alexander – had been among the six Guardians elected in 1286. All of which is to say that John Balliol, although he was a newcomer to the ranks of the Scottish nobility, had major and influential backing for his claim to the throne from a family that was arguably the most formidable force in Scottish politics.21
That claim, however, did not go unchallenged. Balliol and the Comyns had a powerful opponent in the shape of Robert Bruce. Despite the fact that he too held lands in England, Bruce was the more obviously Scottish candidate: Annandale, a lordship in south-western Scotland, was his paternal inheritance (although, like Balliol, his claim was on his mother’s side). An elderly man – in 1290 he was about seventy years old – Bruce was nothing less than ferocious in prosecuting what he regarded as his superior right. Indeed, he evidently considered his right to be superior not only to that of Balliol, but also to that of the Maid of Norway. It was Bruce who had raised rebellion in the winter of 1286-87, on learning that Yolande of Dreux’s pregnancy had failed.22
At that point the majority of Scots, represented by the Guardians, had given their backing to the Maid, and Bruce’s pretensions had been forcibly held in check. But in the autumn of 1290, once the Maid was revealed to be dead, the renewal of armed conflict seemed all but inevitable. Support was split between the two camps: neither Bruce nor Balliol could command sufficient backing among Scotland’s political community to impose a decisive settlement.
What the Scots needed was a powerful outside agency to help them choose between these two contenders: an honest broker to come and arbitrate. Once again, there was only one realistic option, and that was the king of England. He, after all, had been playing the role of international peacemaker in Europe for the past five years. On 7 October 1290 one of the Guardians, the bishop of St Andrews, wrote to Edward, stressing the turmoil in Scotland, and urging him to hasten north and prevent the outbreak of civil war.23
The king’s response to this request has, unfortunately, not survived. The Scots would later allege that, after the death of the Maid of Norway, Edward sent them a letter of condolence, in which he promised that he would indeed come to Scotland in order to give his advice as ‘a friend and neighbour’.
The king’s intentions, however, were far from friendly or neighbourly. Death, in taking the Maid, had robbed him of a rich prize and within just a few weeks had also deprived him of his own beloved queen. Edward retreated to Ashridge, and there, in his mourning, he began to formulate a new plan. According to one English chronicler, this was revealed to his magnates when they assembled early in the new year. The king, we are told, ‘said that it was in his mind to reduce the king and kingdom of Scotland to his rule, as he had recently subjected Wales to his authority’.24
If these words attributed to Edward are genuine, they show either supreme self-confidence or immense naivety – or perhaps both, the one born of the other. Scotland and Wales, of course, do share certain physical characteristics: most obviously, a large proportion of their landscape consists of hills and valleys. This meant, in the thirteenth century, that they also possessed some economic similarities. The predominance of upland meant that Welsh and Scottish societies were for the most part pastoral and hence poor in comparison with England. Viewed from Westminster, therefore, the two Celtic countries might have appeared to have much in common. In fact they were very different places.
In one respect, Wales was a more united country than Scotland. The Welsh, as we have seen, were a single ethnic group – the last survivors of an ancient civilisation that had once occupied all of Britain, but that had been gradually driven into the western margins of the island by the English. Hence, in terms of culture and language, Wales was homogenous. Scotland, on the other hand, was a complicated ethnic mix. Here too, in the south-western corner of the country, there were Brittonic elements that had been pushed out of England. Yet in south-eastern Scotland the population was mostly of English stock, a remnant of the once extensive Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. In the west, meanwhile, the natives were mainly of Gaelic origin, having immigrated from Ireland in ancient times, or of Norwegian (Viking) descent. Ethnically and culturally, medieval Scotland was a melting pot.25
But politically – and this was its other major difference from Wales – Scotland was united. The kings of Scots, whose rule had once been restricted to the area around the River Tay, had over the centuries expanded their power first southwards, then westwards. By the thirteenth century their authority was acknowledged, albeit loosely in some quarters, by all of Scotland’s multi-ethnic, multi-cultural inhabitants. An important factor in promoting this political unity had been the Scottish monarchy’s adoption during the eleventh century of the practice of primogeniture. As a consequence, while the petty kings and princes of Wales continued to squabble for power with each successive generation, in Scotland the throne passed smoothly – or at least smoothly in relative terms – from one occupant to the next.26
These fundamental differences between Wales and Scotland had huge ramifications after 1066 when England was brought under new, Norman management. It meant that when those Frenchmen who acquired lands along England’s northern and western borders went looking for further opportunities to expand their power, they were confronted with two very different prospects. In Wales they saw a fragmented society, with no existing political structures within which they could realise their objectives. They therefore simply took whatever they could and set themselves up in competition with the natives – which is to say, they created the March of Wales and became Marcher lords. Those Normans who harboured ambitions to expand into Scotland, however, saw a society that, in its barest essentials, conformed to their expectations. The kings of Scots were not only too strong to challenge for supremacy; they also possessed sufficient stature that it was possible to offer them military service in return for landed reward. In Scotland, therefore, the Norman newcomers were absorbed into the existing society, thereby adding yet another new ethnic layer to the country’s already complex combination.27
Thus, as Wales was left drained and diminished by the advent of parasitical Norman neighbours, Scotland was strengthened by what was in effect a transfusion of new Norman blood. Thanks to the arrival of these Continental adventurers, Scottish kings and their subjects were soon drawn inexorably into the mainstream of European culture. A good indication that this process of assimilation was well under way by the end of the eleventh century is provided by the names of Scotland’s kings. Prior to this point they were exclusively traditional and Celtic – Donald, Malcolm and Duncan – but thereafter the names that predominated were classical, biblical or French – Alexander, David and William.28
The key moment, indeed, in this transformation of Scottish society took place in the middle of the twelfth century during the reign of King David I. Although descended from the Celtic dynasty that had ruled in central Scotland since the late eighth century, David had
grown up at the court of Henry I of England, where he received what contemporaries regarded as the benefits of a civilised education. Exposed in his youth to European cultural norms – modes and morals of warfare, methods of government and manners in general – David returned home to Scotland as king and began the business of acquainting his subjects with these new standards. In this he was helped by a number of friends he had made during his time in England, who accompanied him on his return, and whom he rewarded with lands and honours north of the Border. To take just one obvious example, David brought with him a certain Robert de Brus, a man who originally hailed from Brix in Normandy, and who was the forefather of the Robert Bruce who claimed the Scottish throne in 1290.29
Nor were Anglo-Norman aristocrats like the Bruces the only newcomers. In the same period Scotland was engulfed by a veritable wave of more humble settlers – merchants and labourers in search of new markets. Some came from as far afield as France or Flanders, but, in the overwhelming majority of cases, they were drawn from England. The Scottish kings endorsed and encouraged this immigration, founding new towns or ‘burghs’ in the more prosperous eastern parts of their realm. In fact, at almost every level, twelfth-century Scotland threw its doors wide open to outside influences. As well as the new burghs, and also in response to royal initiative, new abbeys and priories began to be founded on the Continental model; the king’s household, with its new officers, such as the constable and the steward, increasingly resembled those of other European rulers; royal government adopted the coins and charters common to the other civilised countries of western Europe. Above all, though, Scotland was approximating itself to England. Existing Scottish regions were recast as ‘shires’ – the characteristically English division of local government – and new shires were created along English lines. The English language, already the established vernacular in south-eastern Scotland, began to gain ground in other areas as the new burghs and burgesses spread. As one modern English historian has memorably (and rather provocatively) put it, ‘it is almost as if we are looking at two Englands, and one of them is called Scotland’.30
The anglicisation of David I, and the subsequent anglicisation of Scotland, occurred at a critical moment. As we have already seen, it was in the middle decades of the twelfth century that attitudes in England towards the people beyond its borders underwent a fundamental shift. At first, the Scots were deemed to lack the essential hallmarks of civilisation, and, like the Irish and the Welsh, were stigmatised as barbarians. But, by the end of the twelfth century, the English were obliged to admit that their northern neighbours had effected a remarkable transformation. They waged warfare according to the proper rules; they held respectable attitudes towards sex and religion; and, as their new towns, castles and abbeys attested, they had achieved a commendable level of economic advancement. Whichever way one looked at it, the Scots were manifestly eligible for membership of the civilised club.31
That they had been admitted by the thirteenth century is confirmed by the rising number of important Anglo-Scottish marriages. In 1221 Henry III’s sister, Joan, was married to Alexander II of Scotland, and thirty years later Alexander III married Henry’s daughter, Margaret. In the meantime the earls of Norfolk, Kent and Pembroke were all partnered with Scottish princesses; John Balliol’s father, a northern English magnate, married Dervorguilla of Galloway, and Robert Bruce was married to a daughter of the earl of Gloucester. The multiplication of such matches, along with other social, cultural and economic links, suggests that the border between the two nations was beginning to blur.32
Over and above this general bonhomie, however, an important question still loomed. What was the proper political relationship between the two kingdoms? Was Scotland, the weaker of the two by a very long chalk, in any way subservient to England? This was clearly the case with Wales, whose rulers had for centuries accepted that the king of England was their rightful overlord. In the 1250s and 1260s Llywelyn ap Gruffudd had been desperate to do homage and swear fealty to Henry III, seeing this as the only way in which his territorial gains and title ‘prince of Wales’ could be legitimised. Even when the same prince fell out with Henry’s son, the argument was over exactly what dependency entailed. That such dependency existed was not denied – not until native Wales was in its death throes.
The Scots, however, squarely refused to accept any suggestion that a similar subservient relationship applied in their case. While relations with England during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were for the most part amicable, the issue would surface during times of tension. The most consistent cause of stress in this period was the question of where the border between the two kingdoms should be. The kings of Scots would have liked to have redrawn it considerably further south than its present position, which is defined by the Cheviot Hills and the River Tweed. Their ambition was to gain control of Cumbria and Northumbria, and on occasion – when England was distracted by civil or Continental wars – they succeeded in doing so. It was for this reason that the castle keep at Carlisle, begun by Henry I, was finished by his former protégé, David I of Scots. When they regained their composure, however, the kings of England were always able to reverse such Scottish gains, and typically took the trouble to spell out, from a position of dominance, how they felt Anglo-Scottish relations ought to operate in the future. The most significant of these occasions came in 1174, when King William the Lion of Scotland, grandson of King David, was taken prisoner by Henry II of England and compelled to perform a humiliating act of homage. After his release the Scottish king renounced his oath, complaining that it had been exacted under duress, and in 1189 the English accepted the original state of affairs. King Richard I of England, desperate for funds to finance his crusade, agreed to drop the English claim to overlordship in exchange for a large cash payment.
For the next hundred years the question was never revisited with the same directness or intensity. It helped that in 1237 the line of the Border was fixed in its present position by mutual agreement, thereby removing the likeliest cause of future contention.33 Nevertheless, the issue of overlordship remained a live one. A good example of the kind of diplomatic tightrope that the kings of Scotland were sometimes forced to walk can be seen on the occasion of the marriage of Alexander III and Margaret, daughter of Henry III, which took place in York at Christmas 1251. The English king evidently assumed that, in the course of this sustained display of his superior power, he could easily extract from his new ten-year-old son-in-law an admission of political dependence. Young Alexander, however, had clearly been well coached by his advisers: he answered the request with a polite refusal, and Henry had sufficient wisdom to let the matter rest.34
What might Edward I, then aged twelve and present as a witness, have made of this exchange? In the minds of thirteenth-century Englishmen the superiority of their country to Scotland was not merely based on the self-evident balance of power in the present; it was a matter of unimpeachable historical fact. Anybody who had read or heard Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain – and that must have included just about everybody, to judge from the number of surviving copies – would have understood that Scotland had always been subordinate to its southern neighbour. Geoffrey, for example, told the story of Belinus and Brennius, two brothers who, in the days before the Romans, had battled for control of Britain. When they finally agreed to divide the island between them, Belinus took all the lands south of the Humber (that is, England and Wales), while Brennius was to hold those to the north (including Scotland). Only Belinus, however, the elder brother, was crowned as a king. Brennius, it was agreed, ‘who was the younger, should be subject to his brother’. More famous still was Geoffrey’s account of the northern adventures of King Arthur. Having first waged war on the Scots for rebelling against him, Arthur went on to grant Scotland to a certain distant royal relative called Auguselus. This client ruler later honoured Arthur by attending his coronation, during which he carried one of the processional swords as a mark of his subservience.35<
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This, then, was how Edward I understood the relationship between England and Scotland. In Scotland, however, little boys were told a very different story. When Alexander III was installed as king of Scots in 1249, a Highland historian appeared before him and read out, in Gaelic, a list of Scottish kings. Like the royal pedigrees recited in England, immeasurably elongated and enhanced by the fantasies of Geoffrey of Monmouth, the Highlander’s list was a genuine genealogy of recent rulers, extended into the remotest past by invention. The eight-year-old Alexander was reminded that his dynasty began with Scota, a warrior princess, daughter of Pharaoh of Egypt, who had wrested northern Britain from the heirs of Brutus and renamed it in her own honour.36
As well as highlighting the different histories that the English and Scots told themselves in the thirteenth century, Alexander’s inauguration also reveals another source of contention on the issue of overlordship. The king-making ceremony of 1249 took place, as it had always done, at Scone Abbey. A hefty stone of ancient provenance, used for such occasions since time immemorial, was carried out of the abbey church and into the churchyard, where it was probably placed in the base of an oaken chair. On this the young Alexander would have been seated for his transformation into a king. He was acclaimed, mantled and invested with the Scottish regalia, which included a sword, sceptre and a crown. Despite the use of this last item, however, and in spite of the best efforts of the Scots, this was not quite a coronation. Alexander was not anointed by anyone, nor was his crown blessed by any of those churchmen present. Since the start of the thirteenth century, Scottish kings had been applying to the pope for permission to sacralise their ceremony at Scone. Every time, though, they were rebuffed, thanks to English intervention. Their friends south of the Border might acknowledge that the rulers of Scotland were kings, but they firmly maintained that there was only one true Crown in Britain – the one worn by the king of England.37
