Political History Part III

Edward instantly began to summon John to his courts, even on such puny matters as a wine-merchant's disputed bill. He appeared to aim at driving Baliol into rebellion and annexing his kingdom. In 1293 Edward refused to obey a similar summons from the king of France, and in 1294 was fighting in Gascony. Baliol declined to follow his standard and negotiated for a French alliance. Edward ordered Baliol's English property to be confiscated; Baliol renounced his fealty, and English merchants were massacred at Berwick. The Comyns failed in an attack on Carlisle, and (3oth of March 1296) Edward took Berwick, seized William Douglas (father of the Good Lord James), and massacred the male populace. A disorderly levy of Scots, appearing on the hills above Dunbar, left their strong position (like Leslie later) and were defeated with heavy loss. Robert Bruce was now of Edward's party; the nobles in a mass surrendered and Edward was unopposed. He seized the Black Rood, the coronation stone of Scone, St Margaret's fragment of the True Cross, and many documents; then he marched north as far as Elgin. The Ragman's Roll contains sworn submissions of all probi homines outside of the western thoroughly Celtic region; and, in October 1296, Edward returned to England, with Baliol his prisoner, leaving Scotland in the hands of the earl of Surrey as guardian, Cressingham as treasurer, and Ormsby as justiciary.

Agitation at once broke out, and, when Edward went abroad in June 1297, he left orders for suppression of assemblies (conventiculae). Now Sir William Wallace came to the front, a younger son of Sir Malcolm Wallace of Elderslie, near Paisley. The family probably came from England with the FitzAlans, the hereditary Stewards of Scotland. The English chroniclers call William Wallace, "a brigand," and he probably was a leader of broken men, discontented with English rule. Sir Thomas Gray, son of an English gentleman wounded in a rising at Lanark in May 1297, says that Wallace was chosen leader "by the commune of Scotland," and began operations by slaying Heselrig, sheriff of Clydesdale, at Lanark. The Lanercost contemporary chronicler writes that the bishop of Glasgow, and the Steward began the broil, and called in Wallace as the leading brigand in the country-side. Wallace, in fact, was a gentleman of good education. Percy and Clifford led the English forces to suppress him, and (7th July) made terms with the bishop, the Steward and Robert Bruce, who submitted; but Wallace held out in Ettrick Forest. Sir William Douglas was kept a prisoner for life, but Andrew Murray was out in Moray, with a large following. The nobles who had submitted made delays in providing hostages, and Warenne marched from Berwick against Wallace, who, by September 1297, was north of Tay.

On hearing of Warenne's advance, Wallace occupied the Abbey Craig at Stirling, commanding the narrow bridge over the Forth; the Steward and Lennox attempted pacific negotiations; a brawl occurred; and next day (11th of September) the English crossed Stirling brklge, marched back again, recrossed, and were attacked in deploying from the bridge. The general, Warenne, was old and feeble, Cressingham was hasty and confident; counsels were confused, the manner of attack was rash, and the rout was sanguinary. Cressingham was slain, and Warenne fled to Berwick. Pursuing his victory, Wallace ravaged Cumberland, most English writers say with savage ferocity; but Hemingburgh represents Wallace as courteous on one occasion, and as confessing that his men were out of hand.

By the 29th of March 1298 Wallace appears, in a charter granted by himself, as guardian of the kingdom, and, with Andrew Murray, as army leader in the name of King John, that is, the captive Baliol. By June 1298 Robert Bruce is active in the service of Edward, in Galloway. Edward was moving on Scotland, and on the 22nd of July he found Wallace in force, and in a strong position, guarded by a morass, at Falkirk. The Scottish horsemen fled from the English cavalry, but the archers of Ettrick fought and died round Sir John Stewart of Bonhill, brother of the Steward. The schilirons, or squares of Scottish spearmen, were unbroken by Edward's cavalry, till their ranks were thinned by the English bowmen and could no longer keep out the charging horse. Wallace had made the error of risking a general engagement in place of retiring into the hills; to do this had, it is said, been his purpose, but Edward surprised him, and Wallace disappears from the leadership, while the wavering Robert Bruce appears in command, with the new bishop of St Andrews, Lamberton; Lord Soulis; and the younger Comyn, the Red Comyn of Badenoch. For want of supplies, Edward returned to England through Annandale, burning Bruce's castle of Lochmaben. Stirling still held out for England. There is certain evidence of fierce dissensions in some way connected with Wallace, among the Scottish leaders (August 1299). Wallace was going to France; the Scottish leaders were reconciled to each other, and took the castle of Stirling, which they entrusted to Sir William Oliphant. The Scottish cause seemed stronger than ever, under Bruce, the Steward, the Red Comyn and Lamberton, but in June 1300 Edward mustered a splendid array, and took Caerlaverock castle, but, on the arrival of the archbishop of Canterbury with a letter from the pope approving of the Scottish cause, he granted a truce till Whitsuntide 1301.

The barons of England angrily refused to submit to the papal interference, but nothing decisive was attempted by Edward, though Bruce had again entered his service. By 1303 France (which doubtless had moved the pope to his action) deserted the Scots in the Treaty of Amiens, and Edward, with little opposition, overran Scotland in 1303.

On the 9th of February 1304 Comyn with his companions submitted; they hunted Wallace, who had returned from the continent, and on the 24th of July the brave Oliphant surrendered Stirling on terms of a degrading nature. Among his officers we see the names of Napier, Ramsay, Haliburton and Polwarth.

The noblest names of Scotland now took part in the pursuit of Wallace, who, as great in diplomacy as in war, had visited Rome (he had a safe-conduct of Philip of France to that end), and had at least secured a respite for his country. It seems probable that Wallace remained consistently loyal to Baliol, and hostile to the party of the wavering Bruce. He was taken near Glasgow, in his own country, and handed over to England by Sir John Menteith, sheriff of Dumbartonshire. Menteith certainly received the blood-money, £100 yearly in land, and Wallace, like Montrose, was hanged, disembowelled and quartered (at London, August 1305). Tradition attributes to Wallace strength equal to his courage. His diplomacy in France proves him to have been a man of education, and his honour is unimpeached; he never wavered, he never was liegeman of Edward, while bishops, nobles, and, above all, Bruce, perjured themselves and turned their coats again and again. The martyr of an impossible loyalty, Wallace shares the illustrious immortality of the great Montrose, and is by far the most popular hero of his country's history. His victory at Stirling lit a fire which was never quenched, and began the long and cruel wars of independence on which Scotland now entered.

For an while there seemed as if there might be no raising of the fallen standard of St Andrew. Edward had not yet alienated the country by cruelty, save in the case of Wallace and the massacre of Berwick. He aimed at a union of the two countries, and Scottish representatives were chosen to sit in the English parliament. The laws of David I. were to be revised. Eight justices were appointed, the sheriffs were mainly Scots of the kingdom; the bishop of St Andrews was one of the Scottish representatives. The country was being reorganized, ruined churches and bridges were being rebuilt. The "commons," the populace, were eager for peace; nobles like Bruce were Edward's men. Bruce had been actively engaged in the siege of Stirling, and had succeeded his father as earl of Annandale. Yet, during the siege of Stirling, Bruce had entered into a secret band with Lamberton, bishop of St Andrews, for mutual aid. Early in February 1306 he stabbed the Red Comyn before the high altar, in the church of the Franciscans at Dumfries: Comyn's uncle was also slain, and Bruce, from his castle of Lochmaben, summoned his party to arms; he was supported by the bishops of St Andrews and Glasgow, and by Sir James of Douglas, and was promptly crowned by the countess of Buchan, representing the clan MacDuff, at Scone.

The cause of the slaying of Comyn is unknown; the two men had long been at odds, but the evidence does not confirm the story that Comyn had betrayed Bruce to Edward. It is more probable that Comyn merely refused to be drawn by Bruce into a rising, and that the deed was unpremeditated. Be that as it may, Bruce had now no place of repentance for a sacrilegious homicide; he could not turn his tabard again; he was outlawed forfeited and excommunicated. He had against him, not merely England, but the kith and kin of Comyn, including the potent clan of MacDowall or MacDougall in Galloway and Lorne; on his own side he had his kinship, broken men, and the clergy of Scotland. Heedless of the excommunication they backed him, and the preaching friars proclaimed his to be a holy war.

Bruce was warring in Galloway when, in May 1306, Aymer de Valence led an English force to Perth. Bruce followed, and was defeated in Methven wood; the prisoners of rank, his brother Nigel, and Atholl, with others, were hanged, and his two bishops were presently secured. "All the Commons went him fra," says Barbour, the poet chronicler. His queen, with Lady Buchan and his sister, were imprisoned; and his castles were held against him. He took to the heather, making for the western seas, hewing his way through the MacDougals at Tyndrum and marching over the mountains to Loch Lomond, which he crossed in a canoe. Sir Nial Campbell of Lochow, founder of the house of Argyll, secured shipping for him, and he reached a castle of Macdonald of Islay (Angus Og), his ally, at Dunaverty in Kintyre. He was driven to an isle off the Irish coast; he thence joined Douglas in Arran, and by a sudden camisade he butchered the English cantoned under his own castle of Turnberry in Carrick.

Two of his brothers were taken in Galloway and hanged at Carlisle, while King Edward, a dying man, lay with a great army at Carlisle, or at the neighbouring abbey of Lanercost. Aymer de Valence, Butetourte, Clifford, and Mowbray were sent to net and "drive" the inner wilds of Galloway, where Bruce lurked in the forests and caves of Loch Trool and Loch Dungeon. He evaded them, he and his valiant brother Edward, surprised and cut them up in detail, doing miracula, says a contemporary English chronicler.

Douglas, an excellent guerilla leader, captured his own castle and butchered the English garrison. By the 15th of May 1307 a writer of a letter from Forfar says that if Edward dies his cause in Scotland is lost. Bruce slipped into Ayrshire and defeated de Valence at Loudon Hill; so Edward, a dying man, began to move against him with his whole force. He died (7th of July 1307) at Burgh-on-Sands, leaving his incompetent son to ruin himself by his own follies, while ferocious hangings and dragging of men to death at horses' heels roused the Scottish Commons, and the men of Ettrick and Tweeddale, renouncing their new lord, de Valence, came over to the wandering knight who stood for Scotland.

In the winter of 1307 and in 1308 Bruce ruined Buchan, a Comyn territory, and won the castles of Aberdeen and Forfar, while Edward Bruce cleared the English out of Galloway. In the summer of 1309 Bruce fell on the MacDougals, on the right side of the Awe, where it rushes from Loch Awe at the pass of Brander, and, aided by a rear attack led by Douglas, seized the bridge and massacred the enemy. He then took the old royal castle of Dunstaffnage and drove the chief, John of Lorne, into England; Menteith, the captor of Wallace, changed sides, and Edward, after a feeble invasion in 1310, retreated from a land laid desolate by the Scots.

In 1311 Bruce carried the war into England, seconded by the most audacious if the least skilled of his captains, his daring brother Edward. For two years the north of England, as far south as Durham and Chester, was the prey of the Scots, and some English counties secured themselves by paying an indemnity. The castles of Carlisle and Berwick, however, repelled the assailants, but Perth was surprised, in January 1313, Bruce himself leading the advance. Randolph, earl of Murray, took the chief hold in the country, Edinburgh castle, by scaling the precipitous rock to the north, while a feigned attack was being made on the accessible southern front. In short almost every castle held by the English was captured, and the fortifications were destroyed.

In the spring of 1313 Edward Bruce invested Stirling castle, the key of Scotland; on midsummer day he accepted a pact for the surrender of the place if not relieved within a year. This was a heedless piece of chivalry on Edward's part. It gave the English king, less opposed by his nobles since his favourite, Gaveston, was slain, time to muster a large army, which Bruce must meet, if at all, in the open field. Edward II. not only summoned English but Irish levies, and knights of Hainault, Bretagne, Gascony and Aquitaine crowded to his standard. The estimates of numbers by the old writers are usually much exaggerated; modern authorities reckon King Edward's army at 50,000 of whom 10,000 were cavalry. Old accounts put the infantry at Ioo,ooo, the horsemen at 40,000. Bruce had but five hundred horse, under Keith the Marischal; Douglas led the levies of his own district and Ettrick Forest; Randolph commanded the men of Moray; Walter Steward, those of the south-western shires; and Angus Og brought to the Scottish standard the light-footed men of the Isles, and, probably, of Lochaber, Moidart, and the western coast in general. Bruce commanded the people of Carrick and probably of his old earidom, Annandale.

Moving out from the Torwood forest, Bruce arrayed his force so as to guard either the Roman road through St Ninians, or the way through the Carse, which was then studded with marshes and small lakes. The former route appeared to be chosen by the English, and Bruce stationed his army in a position where it was defended by a cleugh, or ravine of the Bannockburn, and by two morasses between which was a practicable but narrow neck of firm land. Randolph, on Bruce's left, was to guard against a rush of English cavalry to relieve Stirling castle.

The Macdonald tradition is that their clan was on the right wing, under Angus Og; the old accounts place them with Bruce's reserves. Three hundred English horsemen appear to have stolen round Randolph's flank unseen by him, and Bruce is said to have warned him that "a rose had fallen from his chaplet." Randolph advanced with his footmen against the English horse, who unwarily accepted his challenge and were defeated by his spearmen. While Edward's army paused, Bruce, mounted on a palfrey, was attacked by Sir Henry Bohun. Bruce evaded his spear and slew him with an axe stroke; the axe shaft broke in his hand. The omens were evil for England; and her forces bivouacked, reserving the general attack for the following day. Bruce is said to have proposed retreat and a guerilla war, but his council were for fighting.

In the general engagement, next day, the English cavalry could not break the "impenetrable wood" of the Scottish spearmen, who, however, were galled by the arrows of the English bowmen, which had broken their formation at Falkirk. Bruce bade Keith, with his five hundred horse, charge the archers in flank: apparently they were unprotected by pikes; they were broken, and the great peril passed away. The Scottish archers charged with axe in hand, and the Scottish right front was protected by a mass of fallen English horses and fighting men; the rear ranks of the English, clogged and crowded, could not reach the foe, and the line of Scottish spears pressed steadily and slowly forward. Now a panic was caused by a rush of camp followers and the English wavered; Bruce commanded an advance of his whole line: the English rout was general, and, had Bruce possessed cavalry, few would have escaped.

The Bannockburn was choked with the fallen, and it was only by hard spurring that Edward and his guards reached Dunbar, whence he sailed to Berwick. An immense booty and many ransoms rewarded the Scots, whose victory was one of the decisive battles of the world. It was won by the generalship of Bruce and his captains; by the excellence of his position, by the steadiness of his men, and, obviously, by the reckless fury of the English cavalry, and by the folly which left their archers open to defeat by the Marischal's handful of horse (24th of June 1314).

Bruce now swept the country, but Carlisle he could not take. He married his daughter, Marjory, to the Steward, and from this union came the Stewart (Stuart) dynasty. The invasion of Ireland by Edward Bruce failed (1315-1318), and Edward fell in battle: after which (1318) parliament settled the crown in the Steward's line, failing male descendants of Robert Bruce. He disdained the pope's efforts to make peace with England, except on terms of absolute independence for his country. He took and held Berwick, and (14th of October 1322) defeated Edward with heavy loss near Byland Abbey in Yorkshire, where the highlanders scaled a cliff and drove the English from a formidable position. A thirteen years' truce was arranged in 1323: the pope removed his excommunication from Bruce, and acknowledged him as king: a son, David, was born to him in 1324.

Bruce, previously so shifty, had never wavered or turned back since he smote the Red Comyn at Dumfries. In face of obstacles apparently insurmountable he had made a nation, consolidating all the forces which Wallace had stirred into life. There is, perhaps, nothing in the history of medieval Europe which so closely resembles a voice from ancient Greece as the reply of the nobles and the whole communitas of Scotland to the pope (parliament of Aberbrothock, 6th of April 1320). They will be liegemen of Bruce only so long as he resists England. As long as a hundred Scots are left alive, they will continue the war for freedom, "which no good man loses save with his life." They show that the barbarities of Edward I. (which he regarded as reprisals) have made it eternally impossible for Scotland to yield to an English king. Their excommunication by Rome does not trouble them at all. They are free from Rome, from England, from all alien powers. Henceforth, through good and evil fortune, this was the spirit of the nation.

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