by R J M Pugh
The Treaty of Brigham was a compromise which Edward I exploited to his fullest advantage. On the surface, his initial reaction seemed favourable; he even took an oath to defend the laws of Scotland, appointing Anthony Bek, Bishop of Durham to reinforce his oath in Scotland and to protect the Fair Maid’s interests – meaning his own. This was a cynical move on Edward’s part; Bek’s presence in the Scottish Council of Guardians can be interpreted in only one way; he was thus able to monitor the Council’s activities. Emboldened by this, Edward next demanded that all the main strongholds in Scotland should be surrendered into his hands, a demand the Scots resolutely opposed. Edward apparently took the rebuff in good part – for the moment.
Then, as if the Scots had not suffered enough with the death of their King, a further calamity threw the realm into panic and despair. In the month of September 1290 the Fair Maid set sail from Norway for England and her wedding; tragically, she died at Orkney in October. The Maid’s death denied Edward the special position he had engineered to interfere in Scotland’s constitutional and domestic affairs; however, his hopes were boosted by assistance from an unexpected quarter. On 7 October 1290 William Fraser, Bishop of St Andrews wrote to him, describing the parlous state of the kingdom and claimed that it was poised on the brink of civil war, with factions of Scottish nobles quarrelling with each other. Matters concerning the succession to the throne had come to a head with the rival claims for kingship by Bruce the Competitor and John Balliol. Fraser urged Edward to intervene in the dispute to avoid bloodshed. Edward grasped this opportunity with unconcealed glee. He responded by inviting the Scottish nobles and clergy to meet him at Norham-on-Tweed on 10 May 1291. (Norham Castle was the fortified home of Bishop Bek.) At the outset of the proceedings, Edward described himself as Superior and Lord Paramount of Scotland and that he saw his role as settling the affairs of the country. The Scottish Guardians, nobility and clergy were stunned by his audacity but they had little choice other than to submit to Edward’s demands in the interests of settling the succession question. This became known as ‘The Great Cause’ – the bid to decide the rightful heir to the Scottish throne, with Edward I as judge and jury. Thirteen claimants1 submitted their petitions, Bruce the Competitor coming first, John Balliol last.
Events had reached a watershed in the spring of 1291. The Scottish Guardians agreed to meet Edward at Norham on 10 May. Edward demanded they acknowledge his rights as feudal superior over Scotland; he gave the Scots three weeks to prepare their reply. The Guardians responded in courteous and diplomatic terms but were unequivocal in one respect. The Guardians informed Edward they had no knowledge of any document confirming his right to claim superiority over Scotland:
Nor did they [the Guardians] ever see it claimed by you and your ancestors, therefore they answer you as far as in them lies, that they have no power to reply to your statement in default of a Lord to whom that demand ought to be addressed and who will have power to answer to it.2
On 5 June Edward appointed 140 commissioners to examine the claims of the thirteen competitors – forty each for Bruce and Balliol and sixty for the other eleven. On 6 and 11 June nine competitors solemnly swore that saisin (ownership) of Scotland and its royal castles be surrendered to Edward who by then had promised to announce his decision on the succession by 2 August.3
Shabby though the events of June 1291 appear to modern eyes, they were necessary and inevitable. There was not a single direct or legitimate – in terms of birth – survivor from the last three generations of Scottish kings; many of the thirteen claimants were foreign, remote, their claims based on extremely shaky and tenuous grounds. Only four, all descended from Henry, son of David I, had anything approaching a legitimate claim. Of these, Edward himself acknowledged that only Bruce the Competitor and John Balliol had strong claims – hence the appointment of forty auditors each to investigate their merits. Bruce had the claim of nearness of degree, whereas Balliol enjoyed the prerogative of seniority of line.
So, as mentioned above, the demeaning ‘negotiations’ of June 1291 must be viewed in the context of their time. In Scotland, a system of government had collapsed; underlying this were the serious divisions between the nobility and the senior clergymen as to whom should rule the country. Without a king the feudal system could not operate effectively and decisively. Edward I, self-confessed champion of the code of chivalry and feudal law – when these suited his purpose – was a devious and cunning ruler who would brook no challenge to his authority and was devoid of any genuine compassion for a country he knew to be prostrated at his feet. All he had to do was to summon his scribes and dictate terms in the full knowledge that the Scottish magnates could hardly refuse his demands, even if they wanted to.
The way seemed clear for Edward’s decision but he stalled, rubbing salt into already smarting wounds on 13 June 1291 at Uppsettlington4, a small hamlet on the north bank of the Tweed (now known as Ladykirk, which has a certain ring of irony in its name). It was there that the Scottish Guardians and other nobles were required to swear fealty to Edward. Among the twenty-seven signatories were the Bruces of Annandale (Robert the Competitor and Bruce the Elder), Balliol, Atholl, Mar, Randolph, Comyn of Badenoch, two de Umfravilles and Stewart of Menteith.
Gradually the thirteen contenders were reduced to two – Bruce the Competitor and John Balliol. Under modern Scottish law, Bruce’s claim was the stronger as he was closer to the throne through his mother Isabella, daughter of William I’s brother, David of Huntingdon. However, under feudal law, John Balliol’s claim took precedence; although he was the great-grandson of Isabella’s sister Margaret, the latter was senior which gave him the edge on Bruce. Bruce argued against Balliol’s claim, declaring it to be weaker than his own since it was based on Balliol’s mother Dervorgilla’s relationship to the royal line whereas Bruce’s claim was based on his father’s marriage to Isabella. He was also at pains to remind Edward’s auditors that he had been named as Alexander II’s heir in 1238. Bruce’s appeals were dismissed out of hand. Edward chose Balliol for legal and political reasons; in Bruce the Competitor, Edward saw a man who would be less compliant than the weak John Balliol. To his credit Bruce the Competitor accepted Edward’s judgement; on 7 November 1291 he quietly transferred his claim to the throne to his son, Bruce the Elder and his heirs. Two days later Bruce the Elder gave his earldom of Carrick to his son Bruce the Younger, then aged eighteen. It was clear that the two senior Bruces saw the younger Bruce as potential ruler of Scotland. By 1310 the propaganda of the Bruce cause would assert that the patriotic people of Scotland had always believed that Bruce the Competitor had had the rightful and legal claim to the throne of Scotland and that his grandson, Robert the Bruce, had inherited the right to be king.
Balliol, that unhappy king, was crowned at Scone on St Andrew’s Day, 30 November 1292. He would be the last king of Scotland to be crowned on the Stone of Destiny which would be appropriated by Edward I in 1296.b
From the outset Balliol was nothing more than a vassal of the King of England, bending his knee to his feudal superior Edward I at every turn. At Newcastle, on 26 December 1292, Balliol swore fealty to Edward, addressing him as ‘Lord Superior of the Realm of Scotland’. Bruce the Competitor withdrew from what he considered an ignominious and shameful ceremony; he died in 1295, never having sworn allegiance to Edward.
Edward’s true intentions towards Scotland soon became apparent. In 1294 he summoned the English parliament to advise and provide funds for a contemplated expedition into his fiefdom of Gascony, English interests there being managed by Philip IV of France. Edward summoned Balliol to his side and on 29 June ordered the Scottish king and ten of his earls and fourteen barons who possessed lands in England to reinforce him in his expedition. Balliol returned to Scotland to raise money and troops for the forthcoming campaign; he found his nobles and subjects in no mood to defer to Edward’s demands. A defiant council held at Scone agreed that all English subjects were to be expelled from the Scottish court, their Scottis
h estates being forfeited to the Crown. Edward had other problems to preoccupy him; in addition to his proposed French campaign, a rebellion in Wales had to be subdued and so the expedition to Gascony was postponed. Angered by Balliol’s intransigence, Edward demanded reparation; Balliol protested his loyalty and, by way of appeasing the English King, offered the castles of Roxburgh, Berwick and Jedburgh to the Bishop of Carlisle. It was an empty gesture. By now the Scottish nobles were in despair of their weak King.
On 5 July 1295 the Scottish parliament effectively removed the reins of power from the lacklustre Balliol’s hands. A council, or Standing Committee of twelve magnates – four earls, four barons and four bishops – was appointed to govern the country. Earlier that year Philip IV of France had appealed to the Scots to enter – or renew – an alliance with France against England. The Council of Twelve ratified this, the Treaty of Paris pledging mutual support against England; this formal treaty became known as the Auld Alliance.5 The treaty was signed by Balliol and Philip IV, ‘Le Bel’, and kept secret from Edward; ratified by the Scottish parliament on 23 October 1295, the alliance would remain in place for over three centuries.
Meanwhile, events in Scotland were proceeding at a pace with a wapinshaw (a medieval muster of able-bodied men) being called in February 1296. Parliament issued a summons for war, an order which Bruce the Elder, de Umfraville of Angus and the Earl of Dunbar studiously ignored; Balliol’s reaction was to declare their estates forfeit to the Crown. The three nobles were hardly troubled; they had sworn allegiance to Edward I and knew he would restore their lands. Edward retaliated to Scotland’s declaration of war by issuing writs for the seizure of all English estates owned by those Scottish nobles who refused to join him against Balliol. Perhaps because Scottish morale was low, more than eighty Scottish nobles met Edward at Wark Castle, Northumberland, to pay homage to him. Among those present were Bruce the Elder, de Umfraville and Dunbar who swore they would serve him
well and loyally against all mortal men, on every occasion we are so required or instructed by our lord the king of England and his heirs …6
Even so, there was no mass exodus of the patriotic nobles to France; instead, the common army and the feudal host gathered at the traditional mustering-point at Caddonlee, near Selkirk, on 11 March 1296. An invasion force was organized and led by John ‘the Black’ Comyn, 2nd Lord of Badenoch, his son, John ‘the Red’ Comyn and Badenoch’s cousin, John Comyn, 3rd Earl of Buchan. The expedition entered Cumberland; apart from an orgy of looting and plundering, the raid was inconclusive, although for a single day, the Scots besieged Carlisle Castle held by Bruce the Elder for Edward. Edward would wreak a terrible revenge for this insult. In the spring of 1296 the English army numbered 4,000 heavy cavalry and 25,000 infantry, many of whom were veterans of Edward’s Welsh campaigns. By contrast, the Scottish host was inexperienced, having seen no action in the field since Largs in 1263; it contained few archers and only light cavalry which were scant in number. As for the 40,000 infantry, many were old men and boys, armed with mere farm tools for weapons.
While the Scottish host was attacking Carlisle, Edward’s army had mustered at Newcastle and now confronted Berwick, one of the earliest of the Scottish royal burghs. Crossing the Tweed at Coldstream, Edward exacted a terrible price from the people of Berwick on 30 March 1296, offering no quarter. The siege of Berwick lasted three hours, the sack of the town three days. Between 7,000 and 8,000 were put to the sword; only thirty Flemish merchants occupying the town’s Red Hall put up any resistance but they were slaughtered to a man. Comyn of Badenoch (the Black Comyn) had retreated over the Border after the unsuccessful siege of Carlisle, then he re-crossed the Tweed on 1 April, leading an inconclusive raid in Northumberland. Balliol’s sole response to the sack of Berwick was to withdraw his diffidato (the feudal term for homage) to Edward; this was delivered by the Abbot of Arbroath to the English king in Berwick on 5 April.
War had broken out suddenly and brutally. The populations of the Merse (Berwickshire) and East Lothian were panic-stricken, even if their feudal superior, Patrick, 8th Earl of Dunbar had sworn allegiance to Edward. The knight-tenants who owed homage to Dunbar were obliged – and probably glad – to do so as their lands would hopefully escape the retribution Edward had wrought on Berwick. Then, on 23 April, news reached the English king at Berwick that the Scottish host had laid siege to Dunbar Castle. Edward lost no time in meeting the challenge.
Dunbar I
The spirit of revolt in 1296 was far-reaching; just as the untimely death of Alexander III in 1286 had deprived the nobles and the Community of the Realm of a figurehead on whom the functioning of the feudal system depended, the Scottish nobles had taken a dangerous step in dismissing John Balliol as their lawful king. Men such as Sir John de Graham, John Comyn, 2nd Lord of Badenoch, John Comyn, 3rd Earl of Buchan, Sir John de Soulis, Sir Andrew Murray of Bothwell, John de Strathbogie, Earl of Atholl, Alexander, Earl of Menteith, Bishop William Lamberton of St Andrews and Bishop William Wishart of Glasgow were determined to resist the invader even without a resolute king to lead them in battle.
In April 1296 Patrick, 8th Earl of Dunbar was in Berwick, attending the war council convened by Edward I when news arrived there that Dunbar’s Countess Marjorie Comyn had handed over his castle to her brother, John Comyn of Buchan. Dunbar, who lived in perpetual fear and awe of Edward I, was devastated; not only had he lost face on account of his wife’s insolent act, but his pledge to hand over Dunbar Castle to Edward as a base for operations in the south-east was broken. Nothing appears to have been recorded about Edward’s views on the matter but, doubtless, he held Dunbar in contempt and would have shown it. No matter, he detached a portion of his large army under the command of John de Warenne, 7th Earl of Surrey, and William de Beauchamp, 9th Earl of Warwick, the latter a veteran of Edward’s campaigns in Wales. Warenne and Warwick were given express orders to relieve Dunbar Castle; on 25 April, they marched out of Berwick with a force of 1,000 heavy cavalry and 10,000 infantry. It is not known if the Earl of Dunbar accompanied them.
Countess Marjorie Dunbar, daughter of the late Alexander Comyn, 2nd Earl of Buchan did not share her husband’s enthusiasm for Edward I. Whether she acted on impulse or was persuaded by her Comyn kinsmen to give up Dunbar Castle is not recorded; it is more than likely that, appalled by the reports of the massacre at Berwick, she decided to support her kinsmen. (According to one source the Earl of Mar declared Patrick Dunbar a traitor and persuaded Marjorie to surrender his castle as a matter of honour.) Dunbar’s brother Alexander, who was in command of the castle, knew he could not hold out against the Comyns with his pitifully small garrison; on 25 April he surrendered the castle to the patriots.
Dunbar Castle was placed in the charge of Sir Richard Siward, a man renowned and respected in feats of arms. Warenne and Warwick arrived at Dunbar Castle on 26 April and immediately laid siege to it from both land and sea. For a day the defenders did little more than glower at the besieging forces until Warenne learnt that the Scottish host commanded by the Comyns of Badenoch and Buchan was camped at the foot of Doon Hill, which overlooks Dunbar. Warenne left the siege of the castle to a few junior officers in command of a token force as he knew the garrison was hardly able to sally out; Siward and his defenders were going nowhere, expecting Warenne and Warwick to be defeated by the Comyns. Warenne led the bulk of his force, intent on engaging the Scottish host which he knew was camped about two miles south of Dunbar.
According to English chroniclers of the day the Scottish host numbered 40,000; the figure was probably closer to 4,000, with Warenne’s 10,000 nearer 1,000. Contemporary accounts tended to exaggerate the strengths of armies to make the victors more victorious, the defeated ignominious; it is thought that each army at Dunbar and in other conflicts was a tenth of the figures given by the chroniclers, a fact which many modern historians support. Whatever the precise strengths of the Scottish and English armies, the Comyns outnumbered Warenne and Warwick by four to one at least.
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It is not entirely certain where the battle was fought. Some historians consider it took place near a part of Spott Glen in the vicinity of a farm called The Standards for obvious reasons. One has to question whether the name dates as far back as 1296. However, more recent research suggests the battle took place near Wester Broomhouse which is within a bowshot or two of Spott Glen and its continuation, Oswald Dean. The valley, a deep defile formed by glacial activity, runs from the east of Spott village to Broxmouth on the coast. It is a picturesque glen, watered by a small, unimpressive burn or stream; its sides are steep, covered by straggles of gorse and stunted, windswept hawthorn bushes. In spring it is a bleak place which even a profusion of primroses fails to soften. It was in this obscure glen that cold steel would determine the fate of King John Balliol and the nation of Scotland.
The Scottish host was camped on or near Doon Hill. On the morning of 27 April, Comyn of Badenoch would have easily discerned the approach of Warenne’s army, marching to Wester Broomhouse on the road to Spott Village. The dust raised by the men and horses would have pinpointed the English advance for more than a mile. The Scots waited, confident in the superiority of their numbers; however, apart from the fact that their largely untrained army was unaccustomed to warfare, it also lacked heavy cavalry and archers, crucial elements that day and in many to come in the Wars of Independence.
On that cold but bright spring day any flocks of sheep or cattle grazing in Spott Glen would have been driven away to safer fields. The English came on relentlessly, confident of victory and marching in good order. When Warenne reached Spott Glen or Oswald Dean the forward ‘battles’, as the medieval group formations – comparable to modern infantry battalions – were then known, descended into ‘a valley’ to form their line of battle. Changing from column to line was a delicate business; the most effective way of deploying an army into battle formation was to march it on to the field with units of the column wheeling right until the entire force was ordered to halt and then turn left to form a line facing the enemy. Although this sounds simple it would have been difficult to execute in the narrow confines of Oswald Dean. During this deploying movement the Scots thought Warenne was retreating.
