Killing Fields of Scotland

by R J M Pugh

  Comyn of Badenoch appears to have planned no strategy or tactics other than to mount a frontal attack on the English; few if any troops were kept in reserve. For his part Warenne knew that his numerically inferior force would be hard-pressed to rebuff a frontal assault made by the superior number of Scots on the higher ground at the base of Doon Hill. He deployed his troops carefully, posting archers among the infantry in the front line; it was his intention to engage the Scottish left or right wing, then roll up the centre, a tactic Oliver Cromwell would use at Dunbar in 1650.

  We can imagine the scene at Oswald Dean on that cold April day. Steel reflecting the weak sunshine, the only sound being that of neighing horses and the English pennons and banners snapping in the stiff wind that blew along the narrow valley. From his vantage point on Doon Hill Comyn of Badenoch had watched Warenne deploy his men; observing no further movement in the serried ranks of the English army, he ordered a full attack, launched from his strong position on the hill. (History would repeat itself in 1650). The Scottish van was packed with men and boys eager to engage the enemy; the undisciplined mass charged across the plain at the foot of Doon Hill, then down the slopes of Oswald Dean, blowing their horns to encourage those who followed. The precipitate charge was a disaster.

  The unruly, screaming horde of peasants armed with inferior weapons – spades, scythes, axes and pitchforks – did not in the least confound the ranks of Warenne’s disciplined professionals. Warenne protected his flanks with his 1,000 cavalry, with archers interspersed among the front-line infantry. That day the English fought under the banner of Edward I and their protecting saints – John of Beverley, Cuthbert of Durham and Wilfrid of York.

  The English infantry stood fast, confident that their flanks were well protected by the horse which could quickly deploy and scatter any Scots who attempted to get behind them. The infantry and archers, observing the undisciplined mob that was the Scottish vanguard, let confusion do their work for them. Too many men in a confined space at Oswald Dean reduced the effect of Comyn’s superiority in numbers, turning it to disadvantage. The order was given for the English archers to loose their deadly arrows that surely must have filled the sky. The shafts could scarcely fail to find a mark among the ragged mob leaping over Spott Burn in tightly packed, undisciplined bunches.

  The foremost elements of the Scottish host were cut down in minutes, if not seconds; the fallen hindered the progress of those who followed. Dead and wounded began to pile up on the green sward. The tide of battle did not even remotely threaten the English foot, commanded by dismounted knights who no doubt stiffened their resolve by standing alongside their men, taunting the Scots. A welter of blood soon began to stain the turf at Oswald Dean.

  The agony was over in less than half an hour. Hundreds – thousands, if the English chronicles of the day can be trusted – of dead eyes stared at the sky that dreadful April day. The English chroniclers numbered the Scottish dead in their thousands – 10,055, a suspiciously precise and high figure, even given the devastation wreaked by the English archers. We have little choice but to accept the contemporary English accounts, although it is often said that, in battle, the victors write the history. It made good propaganda for home consumption. Warenne’s army had been out-numbered, yet he had prevailed. There does not appear to be any record of the English casualties.

  The shattered bands of survivors ran from the field, seeking refuge in the Border forests, leaving their wounded at the mercy of Warenne’s men. Among the undoubtedly numerous slain was Sir Patrick de Graham of Montrose who gave and expected no quarter; he alone was praised by the English for valiantly standing his ground. Another noble, Walter, Earl of Menteith, was taken prisoner and executed on Edward I’s orders; other prisoners included the Earls of Atholl and Ross, members of the oldest Celtic noble families in Scotland. Dunbar Castle surrendered the same day as the battle; sheltering within its walls were Sir Richard Siward, John ‘the Red’ Comyn, son of Comyn of Badenoch and many other ransomable notables. More than 100 knights were taken into captivity in chains; they were sent to no fewer than twenty-five castles in England, the most prestigious including the Red Comyn – and valuable in terms of ransom money – being imprisoned in the Tower of London.

  As for Countess Marjorie, doubtless she was rebuked by her husband, Patrick, Earl of Dunbar for her contumacy although the marriage survived. As far as is known, no such rebuke came from Edward I; in point of fact, Edward showed an unusual clemency towards the wives and daughters of those taken prisoner in Dunbar Castle, even to the extent of awarding them pensions. The English king could be chivalrous when it suited him.

  After the battle of Dunbar, Edward I conquered Scotland with almost derogatory ease. Scottish resistance collapsed like a house of cards. In the subsequent weeks the castles of Roxburgh, Edinburgh, Perth and Stirling surrendered. As for his part, King John Balliol – ex-king in Edward’s eyes – sent the English king a grovelling letter in which he confessed his fault, blaming his actions on false counsel. He apparently renounced the Treaty of Paris – the Auld Alliance – but this failed to pacify Edward; he was determined to humiliate Balliol to serve as a warning to any others attempting to gain the throne of Scotland and rise in rebellion. Balliol was attended by John Comyn, 3rd Earl of Buchan at Montrose Castle, where, on 5 July, Balliol surrendered to Edward. When the English king learnt of the alliance Balliol had made with France he was enraged. In an ignominious ceremony, Edward stripped the hapless king of his royal trappings; this involved the physical removal of Balliol’s tabard – a knight’s decorated outer garment worn over armour and blazoned with his coat of arms – his hood and knightly girdle, a punishment usually meted out to a knight found guilty of treason. Balliol became known in Scotland’s history as Toom Tabard (Empty Coat); he was taken to the Tower of London along with his closest advisers, there to languish for a time before he was exiled to France, where he died in obscurity a few years later.

  Edward was determined to strip Scotland herself of any symbols of her right to independence, along with every document held in the national archive supporting this claim. The Stone of Destiny at Scone, where many Scottish monarchs were crowned, the Holy Rood, the personal relic of Scotland’s only saint, Margaret, wife of Malcolm III, and many documents were taken over the Border. The Great Seal of Scotland (Magni Sigilli Regum Scotorum) was broken up. This act tellingly revealed Edward’s utter contempt for the country; on destroying the seal, Edward is supposed to have commented that ‘a man does good business when he rids himself of a turd’7.

  Edward’s sojourn in Scotland did not last long. The country was prostrated; Edward appointed John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, as governor of Scotland and Hugh Cressingham as its treasurer. There is an interesting account of Edward’s brief stay at Dunbar which goes thus:

  On the day of St George, 24 [sic] April [1296] (St George’s Day is actually 23 April), news came to the king that they of Scotland had besieged the Castle of Dunbar, which belonged to the earl [sic] Patrick, who held strongly with the king of England. It was upon a Monday that the king sent his troops to raise the siege. Before they came there, the castle had surrendered and they of Scotland were within when the troops of the king of England came there. They besieged the castle with three hosts on the Tuesday that they arrived before it. On the Wednesday, they who were within sent out privately [i.e. sent couriers to John Comyn, leader of the Scottish army] and on the Thursday and Friday came the host of Scotland all the afternoon to have raised the siege of the Englishmen. And when the Englishmen saw the Scotchmen [sic] they fell upon them and discomfited the Scotchmen, and the chase continued more than five leagues [about fifteen miles] of way, and until the hours of vespers [evening prayers] and there died sir [sic] Patrick de Graham, a great lord, and 10,055 by right reckoning. On the same Friday by night, the king came from Berwick to go to Dunbar, and lay that night at Coldingham [Priory] and on the Saturday [28 April] at Dunbar and on the same day they of the castle surrendered themselves to the ki
ng’s pleasure. And there were the earl [sic] of Atholl, the earl of Ross, the earl of Menteith, sir [sic] John [the Red] Comyn of Badenoch, sir Richard Suart [Siward], sir William de Saintler [Sinclair] and as many as fourscore [sic] men-at-arms and sevenscore footmen. There tarried the king three days.8

  The message that came loud and clear from the battle of Dunbar in 1296 was that patriotism alone was not enough. Edward had, however, forged a dangerous weapon. The rise of a strong and determined Nationalism would in time create a cohesive political and military force that would resist the kings of England for the next three centuries.

  Edward I conquered Scotland in five months – April to August 1296, considerably less than the three wars over two decades he took to subdue Wales. In a parliament convened at Berwick on 28 August 1296, Edward made the final arrangements for the governing of Scotland. This time there would be no puppet king to interfere with whatever policy he might choose to adopt. In addition to Warenne and Cressingham, William Ormsby was appointed as Justiciar, or high judge. Edward also demanded the presence of every significant landowner in Scotland to pay him homage, accepting him as their liege lord. About 1,900 barons, knights and ecclesiastics answered his summons and attached their seals to what became known as the Ragman’s Roll, so-named because it was festooned with waxen or lead endorsements. The names of Robert Bruce the Elder and Bruce the Younger appear which is of some significance; much more important were those signatures which are absent – notably that of William Wallace, knight of Elderslie, who in 1297, in the brief but stirring words of the historian John of Fordun, ‘lifted up his head’.

  Until 1296, Wallace was an obscure squire, living on the small estate of Elderslie, near Renfrew. His elder brother Malcolm held the land but the absence of their names from Ragman’s Roll is surprising. Lesser men than the Wallaces saw fit to sign the roll and swear an oath of allegiance, so it cannot be said that the Wallaces were considered lowly.

  It is probable that the family de Waleys was of Norman origin who came to England with William the Conqueror in 1066. William was the younger son of Sir Malcolm Wallace of Elderslie by marriage to Margaret, daughter of Sir Reynold Crawford, Sheriff of Ayr. William was born in c.1270; little of his life is known to us save through The Actis and Deidis of the Illustere and Vailzeand Campioun Schir William Walleis, Knicht of Elderslie (Acts and Deeds of the Illustrious and Valiant Champion, Sir William Wallace etc.) by Henry the Minstrel, better known as Blind Harry. Written two centuries after Wallace’s death, Blind Harry’s account owes more to romantic fiction than fact which obliges us to rely on the equally imperfect and heavily biased accounts of contemporary English chroniclers.

  William Wallace’s name comes to us first in 1297 when he appears to have been at odds with the by now occupying English administrators. Matters came to a head in May 1297, when the English murdered Wallace’s common-law wife, Marion or Marron Braidfute; in revenge, Wallace slew William de Hazelrig, Sheriff of Lanark. In the same month Warenne and Cressingham were absent on business in England; Justiciar Ormsby was holding court at Scone when Wallace and his small following broke into the place, looted it and very nearly took Ormsby prisoner.9 The idea persists that Wallace and his men were landless peasants, virtual outlaws, but this was not entirely the case. What mattered was that Wallace had shown the Scottish nobility it was possible to challenge England’s authority and succeed. Contemporary English chroniclers certainly portray Wallace as an outlaw, a view echoed by Patrick, 8th Earl of Dunbar who, if we can believe Blind Harry, reputedly said this of him:

  This king of Kyll I can nocht understand

  Of him I held niver a fur [long] of land.10

  It is thought that Kyll may derive from the Celtic coille, meaning a wood; Dunbar is therefore describing Wallace as a kind of Robin Hood, an outlaw of the forest.

  While we rightly acknowledge Wallace as the dedicated, unflinching patriot that he undoubtedly remains in Scotland to this day, key leaders of the revolt against England were two of the former Guardians, Robert Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow and James the Steward, the latter being Wallace’s feudal superior. They were joined by MacDuff, son of the Earl of Fife and Bruce the Younger, Earl of Carrick. After a farcical encounter with the English at Irvine in Ayrshire, Wishart and the Steward surrendered to the English commander. To his discredit, Bruce the Younger turned his coat for Edward I; he would continue in this fashion for nearly a decade, shifting his political position like a weather vane driven by the winds of change.

  Only in the north was the revolt gaining momentum. Andrew Murray, son of a leading baron in Morayshire, was gaining a reputation for his bold and successful resistance to England’s authority. Murray and his father had been prominent on the field of Dunbar in April 1296; both had been taken prisoner but the younger Murray escaped from his prison in Chester Castle intent on continuing the fight. By early autumn 1297 the series of isolated outbreaks against English authority had become co-ordinated.

  During the summer of 1297 Wallace had engaged in a period of intensive training of his raw levies; he taught them discipline and how to fight in schiltrons, tightly packed circular formations of men with long spears, the only effective defence against the English heavy cavalry. Because of Murray’s and Wallace’s successes, they were made joint Guardians of Scotland, acknowledged as ‘commanders of the army of the kingdom of Scotland and the Community of the Realm’.11

  Stirling Bridge

  Wallace was besieging Dundee Castle when word reached him that John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, and Hugh Cressingham had crossed the Border with a large army intent on confronting the rebellious Scots at Stirling. Wallace broke off his siege of Dundee and hastened to meet up with Murray against Warenne and Cressingham at the bridge of Stirling. On 10 September Wallace took up position on the Abbey Craig, the precipitous height on the north bank of the river Forth, looking across to the town of Stirling and down upon a small, narrow wooden bridge which had been built by the monks of Cambuskenneth Abbey, near Stirling.

  What followed is recorded by the English chroniclers of the day; the ensuing battle was as great a proof of the folly of the overconfidence of Warenne and Cressingham as much as Wallace’s superior skill in strategy. An approach was made to Wallace, stationed on ground at one end of Stirling Brig, by the English high command, urging him to sue for peace. Wallace’s reply was brief and resolute; he informed the English envoys he would fight for Scotland’s freedom.

  The only approach across the difficult and treacherous river Forth was by way of the wooden bridge. Despite being warned that the bridge would only allow passage of two horsemen riding abreast at one time, Warenne was adamant that his force would cross over. Cressingham was anxious to engage the Scots but argued that his colleague’s tactics were unsound. Warenne was over-confident and irked by Cressingham’s criticism; his 200 mounted knights and men-at-arms backed by several thousand well-armed foot soldiers were advised to cross the Forth at a ford about a mile upriver but Warenne was impatient. He ordered his men across Stirling Brig.

  On the Abbey Craig Wallace and Murray could not believe their eyes. At the rate of passage across the bridge, it would have taken many hours before the entire English army could cross over and form up to engage the Scottish army. When the foremost units of the English cavalry reached the other side of the Forth they found themselves on ground too soft for an effective charge against the Scots. Also, at that point, the river Forth meandered in loops; the only passage which would allow the heavy English cavalry to advance was a narrow strip of dry and firm ground between two loops or curves of the Forth. Added to this, the English had their backs to the deep, fast-flowing river, their only exit being by way of the walkway they crossed – that crowded, narrow wooden bridge that would give its name to the defeat which followed. As one English chronicler put it, there was no better place to deliver the English into the hands of the Scots.12

  Wallace and Murray stayed their hand until about half of Warenne’s men were across the Forth, then
they ordered the spearmen forward in schiltron formations. Neither English horsemen nor infantry were spared that day; riders were dragged from their terrified horses and slain. Cressingham himself was hauled from his horse and hacked to pieces. (It was said later that Wallace had the skin flayed from Cressingham’s body to be made into a swordbelt.)13

  Five thousand cavalry and infantrymen were killed at Stirling Brig. As for Warenne, he never ventured across the Bridge; he watched the slaughter from the south side of the Forth. After the battle he ordered the bridge to be destroyed, then led the remainder of his shattered army to Stirling Castle, where he installed a Yorkshire knight who rejoiced in the faintly comical name of Sir Marmaduke Twenge as governor of the castle. Warenne then fled across the Border to report his defeat to Edward I.

  The unthinkable had happened. A professional, well trained and well equipped English army had been virtually destroyed by a horde of amateurs, ill equipped and lacking proper arms. (It is likely that Wallace and Murray’s men possessed little else by way of weapons other than the spades, axes and pitchforks the peasant army of John Comyn of Badenoch had fought with at Dunbar the year before.) The Scots had not only won a battle, they had gained a stunning, staggering victory, word of which spread not only in England but also on the Continent. Edward I’s military machine, that had seemed invincible in Wales and had struck fear in the hearts of Frenchmen, had been beaten by a raggle-taggle army of peasants and minor clergy; true to his nature, James the High Steward of Scotland changed sides and reputedly joined in the looting of the English baggage train at Stirling.