Killing Fields of Scotland

by R J M Pugh

  On 10 May 1307 Pembroke ordered his heavy cavalry forward; he believed he had little to do other than charge the well disciplined but pitifully thin line of Scottish spearmen. His horsed knights and men-at-arms made straight for Bruce’s camouflaged trenches, containing their murderous chevaux de frises. On came the thundering cavalry, the blood lust on them. They seemed unstoppable – until it was too late. Hundreds of Pembroke’s men and their horses were skewered on Bruce’s sharp stakes. The Scottish spearmen raced down the hill to put the wounded survivors out of their misery, then they drove through the tangled mass of horses and men milling in front of those bloody trenches, the confused English infantry to the rear uncertain of what they should do. The surviving cavalry were speared and Pembroke ordered a retreat. The battle of Loudon Hill was over in minutes. Although English losses were minimal – reckoned to be about 100 – Pembroke’s army withdrew in utter confusion. Bruce had won his first battle, a resounding victory. Neither Glen Trool nor Loudon Hill can be considered major engagements but, for Robert Bruce, they were political dynamite. Bruce had emerged undefeated from both skirmishes, a major victory for a patriot who not only had to contend with England but also his own countrymen to prove his worth and his right to be Scotland’s king.

  Bruce’s triumph at Loudon Hill was crowned by an even greater event which overshadowed it. On 7 July 1307 Edward I, the relentless opponent of Scottish freedom died a bitter old man – he was sixty-eight – at Burgh-on-Sands on the English side of the Solway Firth, leading yet another campaign into Scotland to crush its people. His son, Edward of Caernarfon, now Edward II, led his father’s army into Scotland, bearing his father’s bones as instructed in the late king’s will. He achieved nothing, contenting himself with the homage he received from some minor nobles in the south-west of Scotland; in the south-east, Patrick, 8th Earl of Dunbar and his son and heir also called Patrick pledged their allegiance to the new king. Edward II returned to England and would not trouble Scotland again for the next three years.

  Barra

  As for Bruce, he made good use of his time, now being unhindered by English armies. In May 1308 he subdued Aberdeenshire – Comyn territory – at the battle of Barra, also known as the battle of Inverurie and the battle of Old Meldrum. Bruce was confronted by John Comyn, 3rd Earl of Buchan, in one of the many episodes in Bruce’s civil war with domestic enemies such as the Comyns. In the spring of 1308 Bruce’s army of 3,000 had been reduced to 700; he was also ill, suffering from an unspecified complaint; he lay on his sick bed in camp at Inverurie, near Old Meldrum. When Comyn’s force approached, Bruce’s lieutenants carried him from his sick bed and put him on a horse. It is said that Comyn’s men had been told that Bruce was ill and near death; when they saw the king apparently well and ready to do battle, Comyn’s men broke and ran as far away as Fyvie, several miles north of Inverurie.

  Pass of Brander

  The next conflict occurred in late summer 1308 or early spring 1309 – the date is still in dispute – between John Macdougall of Lorn and Bruce at the Pass of Brander. Little is known of this battle but the defeat of Macdougall ended the opposition of the Comyn-Balliol faction against Bruce, who went on to subdue Galloway – Balliol country – which effectively ended Comyn resistance. (John Comyn fled to England, where he died in 1309. The Comyns were a spent force; they would never again challenge Bruce. Any hopes of the Comyn family returning to their former power would be finally extinguished at Bannockburn.)

  Bruce’s able lieutenant James ‘the Black’ Douglas gained further territory in Tweeddale, bringing to the Scottish camp Thomas Randolph, Bruce’s nephew. Randolph, son of a Roxburghshire knight, had supported Bruce following the murder of the Red Comyn in 1306; he was taken prisoner at Methven and was promised the return of his Scottish lands if he swore allegiance to Edward I, which he did. Then, during James Douglas’s campaign in Tweeddale, Randolph was captured and brought before his uncle. Bruce greeted him cordially, expecting Randolph to switch his allegiance, which Randolph refused to do. He even went as far as to criticize Bruce for the way he was conducting the war with England, reputedly saying that his tactics were unchivalrous, even cunning and cowardly.22 Bruce was taken aback and ordered his nephew to be kept in close custody. In time, however, the two men were reconciled. Randolph was the father of three stout warrior sons and two daughters, one of whom would gain immortality in the defence of Dunbar Castle in 1338.

  Bruce was on a roller coaster run of successes. One by one his Scottish opponents – including those who had sworn allegiance to England – withered before him. He took Inverary Castle, near Oban, Urquhart Castle on the shore of Loch Ness and Inverness Castle. Although these were minor successes, they did much to bolster Bruce’s reputation. At a provincial council held at Dundee in February 1310, the leading Scottish clergy declared to England and beyond that Robert Bruce was the lawful King of Scotland. Bruce had been excommunicated by Rome after the murder of the Red Comyn in Dumfries; now the Scottish church and the clergy were determined to reinstate Bruce, with or without the consent of Pope Clement V.

  Bruce had no use for the castles he took; in his eyes, they were wasteful of his scant manpower, requiring garrisons to defend them. So he embarked on a policy of ‘slighting’ them – walls were torn down, roofs removed and wells filled in.

  The cause of Bruce and his loyal supporters was growing in momentum. In the autumn of 1310 Edward II, anxious to test his standing as Scotland’s overlord brought an army to Roxburgh; from there he marched to Biggar, then Renfrew, returning to Berwick via Linlithgow, where his father had built a stout castle. Having marched unopposed throughout his campaign, Edward was confident that Bruce’s revolt was a spent force. This was far from being the case. To prove the point, Bruce invaded northern England, devastating the Bishopric of Durham. Then, in 1311, Bruce took Linlithgow Castle, possibly to irritate Edward’s already bruised ego. In the same year Bruce again invaded northern England as far as Durham. In early 1314, in quick succession Bruce captured the castles of Roxburgh, Dumfries and Edinburgh – the Black Douglas took Roxburgh, Edward Bruce captured Dumfries and Thomas Randolph took Edinburgh. The one stronghold which still held out for England in 1314 was Stirling Castle. In November 1313 Bruce’s brother Edward was besieging Stirling Castle. Here, we encounter yet another example of the code of chivalry in medieval Britain. Stirling’s governor, Sir Philip de Mowbray, made a rash promise to Edward Bruce, one which was equally rashly accepted; if Stirling was not relieved by Edward II in midsummer – 24 June 1314 – de Mowbray agreed to hand it over to the Scots. Bruce was incensed when he learnt of Edward’s bargain. He had no wish to fight a set-piece battle because he simply did not have a large enough army to withstand Edward, with his unlimited resources. In the following chapter we will learn that in this author’s opinion one of Edward’s staunchest allies, almost the only Scottish noble still supporting him, would bring an English army to Scotland.

  Bruce was at least consoled by the welcome lifting of the Papal excommunication which had without doubt affected his ability to raise a sizeable army. Also, Bruce the waverer, Bruce the opportunist, seeking favour first in Scotland, then in England as the political scene shifted, had a great deal to live down before he would be universally accepted by both the nobles and the common people as Scotland’s rightful king. On Midsummer’s Day 1314 Bruce would face the ultimate and final test of his acceptance as King of Scotland in a battle that would elevate him above the rank of king to that of hero.

  Notes

  1 Many accounts give twelve Competitors but thirteen are named in the Great Roll of Scotland (Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland, vol. ii, No.507.)

  2 Anglo-Scottish Relations 1174 – 1328.

  3 CDS vol.ii, Nos.492 and 496.

  4 Ibid, No. 499 5.

  5 Anglo-Scottish Relations 1174 – 1328.

  6 Anglo-Scottish Relations 1174 – 1328.

  7 Scalacronica (1356).

  8 Extract from a journal of movements of
king Edward in Scotland (from an MS of the fourteenth century held in the Imperial Library at Paris – Fonds Lat. 6049, fol. 30.b.; see also Stevenson, Historical Documents of Scotland 1286 – 1786.

  9 Hume Brown, History of Scotland vol.ii, p.145.

  10 Blind Harry; Pugh, Swords, Loaves and Fishes: A History of Dunbar, p.92.

  11 They were styled thus in a famous and preserved letter of October 1297 sent to the prominent trading towns of Lübeck and Hamburg, members of the Hanseatic League with whom Scotland had traded for many years. The letter virtually makes it known that Scotland was ‘open for business’.

  12 Chronicle of Walter Guisborough.

  13 Hume Brown, op.cit., p.147.

  14 Hume Brown, op.cit., p.149: Brown, Chris, William Wallace (2005)

  15 CDS vol. ii. No.1432.

  16 Oliver, A History of Scotland, p.98.

  17 Oliver, op. cit., p.87.

  18 Hume Brown, op. cit., p.149.

  19 Brotchie, op. cit., p.70.

  20 Vita, p.12.

  21 Anglo-Scottish Relations 1174 – 1328.

  22 Hume Brown, op. cit., p.154; Barbour, The Bruce, pp.166 – 9.

  Chapter 5

  The Wars of Independence: Bannockburn, 1314

  It is generally accepted by those interested in the history of Scotland that the battle of Bannockburn was a mistake, one which Robert the Bruce had not wished to fight, a commitment foisted upon him by his ebullient and chivalrous brother, Edward. In November 1313 Edward Bruce was besieging Stirling Castle, the most important Scottish stronghold in English hands. The Constable of Stirling Castle was a Scot, Sir Philip de Mowbray, in the pay of Edward II; he commanded a garrison of about 100 men. Mowbray had fought against Bruce at Methven in 1306 and was appointed governor of Stirling Castle in 1311.1 At the outset of the siege, Bruce invited de Mowbray to surrender the castle. De Mowbray refused. When Edward Bruce assumed command of the siege, he entered negotiations with de Mowbray, after which the two men concluded an agreement for the conditional surrender of Stirling. De Mowbray had intelligence that Edward II was raising an army to invade Scotland in 1314, so he proposed that he would surrender to Edward Bruce if the English army failed to be within three leagues (nine miles) of Stirling Castle on Midsummer’s Day, on the Feast of John the Baptist, 24 June 1314.

  To understand Edward II’s mindset in the autumn of 1313, we must briefly revisit the events which occurred between 1304 and 1313, the focus being on the largely English-held south-east of Scotland, with particular emphasis on the earldom of Dunbar. As we saw in the previous chapter, Patrick, 8th Earl of Dunbar was one of the few staunch supporters of Edward I – more, it has to be said out of fear than love of the ruthless Hammer of the Scots. When Edward I appointed Dunbar as governor of Ayr Castle in 1304 many questioned the king’s judgement. Ayr Castle was a strategically important base. Dunbar had proved himself to be nothing short of incompetent, indecisive and something of a liability; for example, he was criticized by the pro-English garrison of Ayr who went to the trouble of sending Edward I a petition suggesting Dunbar be relieved of his command. The soldiers at Ayr complained of Dunbar’s lack of military skills and that he was doing nothing to counter the threat from nearby Turnberry Castle, held by Scottish forces. The Ayr petition does not mince words:

  [The men at Ayr] have heard nothing from Earl Patrick whom the king has given the keeping of the country, at which they wonder much.2

  Despite Patrick Dunbar’s lamentable performance, Edward seems to have developed a fondness for his son and heir, also called Patrick. He sent a cask of wine to the young man’s wife Ermigarda and other gifts to the earl-in-waiting. When the 8th Earl died in 1308, his son Patrick, 9th Earl of Dunbar and 2nd of March, swore fealty to Edward II who ascended the throne of England when his father died at Burgh-on-Sands in 1307, leading yet another army against Scotland. By 1308 many of Dunbar’s knight-tenants had loosened their ties with England, declaring for Bruce. Those who remained loyal to ‘the King’s peace’ – meaning Edward II’s – began to pay heavily as a result of Edward’s ineffective ‘immunity’ which he declared would protect them from Bruce’s men foraging for food in the rich agricultural earldom of Dunbar which covered a fair portion of East Lothian and the Merse (Berwickshire). By 1313 only Patrick, 9th Earl of Dunbar and Sir Adam de Gordon supported Edward and even by then Gordon was beginning to waver. The Chronicle of Lanercost accused those Scots who remained loyal to Edward of doing so ‘insincerely’ and only to safeguard the lands they held of Edward in England. Despite their continuing presence in the south-east, with its castles of Jedburgh, Selkirk, Berwick, Dunbar and Yester, the English were sorely tried in their attempts to maintain order and offer protection from Bruce’s roving war-bands, which constantly plundered farms and carried off food and livestock. By autumn 1313 East Lothian and Berwickshire were close to exhaustion. The 9th Earl of Dunbar’s lands were not only being plundered by Bruce but were also at the mercy of the Berwick and Roxburgh garrisons – Dunbar’s supposed allies – whose rascally leaders demanded ransom money and food in return for their ‘protection’ from Bruce. By September 1313 Dunbar was a man at the end of his tether. In desperation he wrote an impassioned letter to Edward II, complaining bitterly about the blackmail and robbery suffered by his tenants. His letter is quoted in part:

  Petition to the king by the people of Scotland [sic] by their envoys, Sir Patrick Dunbar, earl of March and Sir Adam de Gordon … Matters are daily getting worse, as for the ‘suffraunce’ [protection from molestation] they [Dunbar and Gordon] have [been granted] till this Martinmas [11 November] they had to give 1,000 qrs. [quarters, or about thirteen tons] of corn yet their livestock is plundered, partly by the enemy [Bruce] and partly by the garrisons of Berwick and Roxburgh, especially by Gilbert de Medilton [Middleton] and Thomas de Pencaitlande and their company at Berwick … when ‘upplaunde’ [people living in the hills] go to buy their vivers [provisions] in Berwick, the garrison spy out and seize them, Confining them in houses and carrying off others to Northumberland, holding them in concealment and ‘duresce’ [restraint] there till they get a ransom – and the Scots in Northumberland for resettling them … some of them at the end of their ‘suffraunce’ at Midsummer purchase from Sir Robert de Bruys [Dunbar refuses to acknowledge Bruce as king of Scotland] at his late coming, a truce of fifteen days, and on his [Bruce’s] retreat, after they had returned to their houses, the next morning the warden and the whole garrison of Berwick came and took the people in their beds, carrying them off dead and alive to Berwick, and held them to ransom viz. on their foray within the bounds of the earldom of Dunbar, both gentlemen and others, to the number of 30. Also 300 fat beasts, 4,000 sheep besides horses and dead stock [i.e. beef salted for the winter] … some of the Berwick garrison, with Thomas de Pencaitlande as ‘Guyde’ [i.e. leader] carried of [sic] some of the poor people to Berwick. Those who had wherewithal were ransomed; those who had nothing were killed and thrown into the Water of the Tweed.3

  A sorry tale indeed. But was it enough to bring Edward to Scotland with an army? Edward responded to Dunbar on 29 November 1313,4 promising that an English army would come to Scotland in the summer of 1314. We know that Edward was determined to engage Bruce in open battle and thus rid himself of the troublesome Scot. What is perhaps astonishing about Edward’s decision was that he had no intelligence of the deal struck between Sir Philip de Mowbray and Edward Bruce to relieve Stirling Castle by Midsummer’s Day 1314. It is certain that Edward knew of the siege of the castle but Dunbar’s letter surely played an important part in his decision and which, excepting two recent accounts,5 most historians have chosen to ignore. Of course it is true that Edward’s subsequent invasion was a matter of chivalry; he was only apprised of the de Mowbray-Edward Bruce arrangement less than four weeks before he took the field at Bannockburn. As to the troubles caused by his garrisons in southern Scotland, these were caused by Edward’s failure to pay or provision them, so they resorted to preying on their own allies to
feed themselves.

  It seems incredible that Edward contemplated an invasion of Scotland in 1314, particularly after Bruce’s capture of the castles of Roxburgh, Edinburgh and other lesser fortresses early in 1314. In February, Roxburgh fell to Sir James Douglas and Randolph, Earl of Moray, took Edinburgh the following month. With only the relatively strong castles of Berwick and Dunbar in English hands, why did Edward attempt a major invasion of Scotland, the first for several years? It was not solely to lift the siege of Stirling; he was determined to draw Bruce into a set-piece battle and settle the future of Scotland once and for all. But he was not the man his father had been …

  Many English knights and pro-English Scots in the south-east of Scotland were growing weary and disillusioned (‘many say openly victory will go to Bruce’)6 defending a country where Bruce’s guerrilla form of waging war brought sudden – and bloody – attacks. When the English parliament met that autumn of 1313 Edward was granted a subsidy to finance his campaign. On 23 December summons were issued to the English magnates, minor officials and clergy to organize forces and muster at Berwick on 10 June 1314.

  When Bruce learnt of his brother’s pact with Sir Philip de Mowbray, he was devastated. Bruce knew he had neither the manpower nor the weaponry to engage the might of England in a set-piece battle, particularly in defence of a castle he would have simply dismantled on its surrender. Bruce, the guerrilla leader par excellence knew that, realistically, he was unlikely to raise an army capable of engaging, let alone defeating, Edward in the open field. Edward Bruce had forced him into a corner and he was apprehensive at the prospect of meeting Edward on his terms rather than his own. A defeat in 1314 could easily topple him from his still shaky throne. At least he was consoled by the fact that, in addition to Roxburgh and Edinburgh, Linlithgow Castle had fallen to his forces. Now only a handful of minor castles held out for England, the only formidable strongholds being Berwick and Dunbar; these would be vital to Edward on his march north in the summer of 1314, acting as provisioning bases for his supply ships.