10
The governance of Scotland
Defence of the realm was a fundamental duty of all medieval kings, and Robert still had much to do to secure Scotland from attack. Yet defence was only one facet of medieval kingship, though perhaps the most important. Above all, a king was expected to shower his faithful followers with favours, privileges, gifts and silver. Robert’s expenditure on war was heavy, and the economic burden probably fell heaviest on his poorer subjects, but the rewards of successful war were copious. Raiding the relatively rich counties of northern England and dispossession of his Scottish opponents enabled Robert to reward his nobility generously, to create at least the impression of a golden age, fondly remembered for generations.
The cessation of hostilities that lasted from 1323–26 affords a break in the narrative, and an opportunity to assess aspects of Robert’s kingship unrelated to warfare. A king in early fourteenth-century Europe was expected to look every inch a king; to behave regally in word, gesture and deed; to brook no equal; and to dominate the political and social landscape. One who failed to live up to expectations – as Edward II of England did – could find himself in serious trouble. Among his other roles, the king was expected to maintain the laws and customs, provide for the royal succession; safeguard the interests of the Church (without however accepting dictation from churchmen); protect his own position against treachery; manage his nobility through royal patronage; maintain a record-making bureaucracy; and sustain relations with other kingdoms and communities.
Legislation was a crucial function of the medieval monarch, and the tendency at this time was increasingly for laws to be promulgated in parliament, which implied the fullest possible assent of the community of the realm. No votes were taken in medieval parliaments; rather these assemblies were used by the monarch to gather consent or legitimacy for his rule, for spreading responsibility for decisions, and especially for spreading financial responsibilities. We know of ten parliaments held by Robert, and there may have been others. Robert valued the representative nature of parliament, and on three occasions – 1312, 1326 and 1328 – he invited burgesses from each royal burgh to attend to enable representation of trading interests. Since the burghs generated considerable wealth their involvement was crucial when the king required a grant of taxation. In July 1326, at the parliament of Cambuskenneth, Robert was granted for life one tenth of all rents and ‘ferms’ (profits or contracts) throughout Scotland, and, in the summons to the following parliament at Edinburgh in February 1328, burgesses were obliged to bring with them the seals of their communities so that their assent would be binding. At that parliament the burgesses were also to give authority for the collection of the first instalment of the £20,000 ‘contribution for peace’ in accordance with the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton. After 1326, burgh representation at parliament became the norm in Scotland.
Robert was anxious not to be seen as an innovator, and the laws he introduced were for the most part re-enactments of the laws of previous kings. At the Scone parliament of December 1318 a series of twenty-seven laws – the Laws of Good King Robert – were promulgated, many of them repetitions of laws supposedly passed by King William the Lion in the twelfth century. They begin with a declaration that the freedoms of Holy Church were to be respected, and include: an ‘assize of arms’, which laid down what weapons and armour were to be produced at the muster by men of varying degrees of wealth; an adjustment of property law to take account of the extensive changes in property ownership brought about by forfeitures of war; and injunctions that magnates should keep the king’s peace. Other laws relate to everyday rural life: one regulates the mesh of fish traps so that fry might escape; another restates the old law regarding the salmon close season; a third lays down firm measures to prevent the spread of sheep murrain – infected beasts to be slaughtered within eight days on pain of a £10 fine. This last measure was apparently a response – somewhat belated – to the epidemic of sheep disease which accompanied the famine years 1315–17.
Provision for the succession was a fundamental duty of the king, and this was difficult for Robert because war had taken such a heavy toll on his blood relatives. The return to Scotland of Queen Elisabeth in 1315 after an absence of eight years, as part of the prisoner-exchange following the battle of Bannockburn, renewed Robert’s chances of an heir – and, as we have seen, deprived Edward Bruce of the prospect of a throne, motivating him to invade Ireland. At that point, the royal succession had been settled by a royal ‘tailzie’ or entail, which set aside the normal course of the law. Robert’s son, were he to have one, would succeed, but, in the event of his having no son, the claim of his daughter Marjorie, his child by his first marriage, would be – with her permission – set aside, and Edward Bruce would inherit the kingdom. Such was the premium placed on having a soldier on the throne, able to protect the kingdom. On the death of Edward Bruce in Ireland in 1318, the royal succession was settled once again by tailzie at the Scone parliament: in the event of Robert’s dying without male heir, the throne would pass to Robert Stewart, the child of the marriage between Walter the Steward and Marjorie. Elisabeth de Burgh had previously borne Robert two girls: Maud, who first married a simple squire, but was then wedded to Hugh, Earl of Ross; and Margaret, who married William, Earl of Sutherland. Robert has had as many as six illegitimate children ascribed to him; in fact only three of these are now thought to have been his offspring. None of these could succeed to the throne, though the elder, named Robert, was knighted on the eve of Bannockburn and seems to have been especially trusted and able.39 At last, on 5 March 1324 male twins were born to Robert. The heir was named David after the wise and successful David I, King of Scots (1124–53); the other twin, John, died in infancy. On David’s second birthday in 1326 the nobles congregated at Cambuskenneth to perform homage and fealty, and there it was settled, once again by royal tailzie, that Robert Stewart would inherit only if David Bruce died without heir.40 It was always envisaged that, in the event of Robert’s dying before David should come of age, Moray should become guardian of the kingdom for the duration of the royal minority. This came to pass in 1328, when the five-year-old David succeeded to the throne.
Religion being such a dominant aspect of medieval life, every king had to manage ecclesiastical affairs carefully. As stated already, the Scottish Church was remarkable for its group solidarity and the closeness of its ties with Rome. Yet in spite of papal disapproval and application of the strongest religious sanctions, Robert was able to rely upon the bishops of Glasgow and St Andrews, Abbot Bernard of Arbroath and other leaders of clerical opinion to maintain the Church as a mainstay of the Bruce monarchy.41The Declaration of the Clergy published at the St Andrews parliament of 1309 was successively reissued by the Church to emphasize its support for the regime. A ‘general council’ of the Church was held at Dundee, in the church of the Friars Minor in February 1310, and, on the release of the aged bishop Robert Wishart after Bannockburn, all the bishops of Scotland appended their seals to the declaration showing the solidarity of the Scottish episcopate with the monarch. In return for clerical support, Robert was a munificent patron. His patronage of the Franciscans – the Greyfriars – was partly perhaps in penitence for the sacrilegious murder of Comyn in 1306. He granted the Greyfriars of Dumfries, in whose church the murder had been committed, an annual rent of 40 marks, and 20 marks to each of the other houses. He compensated the Cistercians of Deer Abbey for damage probably caused during the herschip of Buchan. In the presence of seven bishops and fifteen abbots, Robert attended the dedication of the newly completed St Andrews Cathedral on 5 July 1318, making over to the canons of the cathedral the parish church of Fordoun, which was in his gift. The Cistercian house at Melrose however benefited most from Robert’s generosity. For the rebuilding of that house – possibly after war damage – in 1325, he granted it a class of royal revenues from Roxburghshire until it should have £2,000. Then, early in 1326 he made a remarkable grant to the monks of Melrose, providing daily to each monk an expensive luxury, a dish of rice in almond or pea-water ‘to be called the king’s dish’. If any monk refused it, it was to be given to the poor. Out of incomes set aside for this purpose, the monks were to clothe and feed fifteen paupers annually.
Robert’s excommunication was first pronounced in 1307, as murderer and rebel against the authority of Edward I and his son, made normal relations with the papacy impossible. By 1310, this had been cancelled. However, Pope John XXII, newly elected in August 1316, accepted the English view that the Scottish War of Independence was nothing more than rebellion and he called on the Scots to desist: ‘their contumacy a cause of peril to Christian souls and the cause of the spilling of much Christian blood, while only the infidel who trampled on the Holy Land could find in it cause for rejoicing.’ Dispatching the cardinals Gaucelin and Luke to Scotland in 1317 as we have seen, he attempted to impose a two-year truce between ‘our dear son in Christ, Edward, the illustrious king of England’ and ‘our beloved son that noble man Robert de Brus, calling himself king of Scotland’. At first two envoys were sent by the cardinals, bearing letters announcing the coronation of John XXII and others relating to the truce between the kingdoms which the papacy was attempting to impose. On entering Scotland the envoys were interviewed in August 1317 at Roxburgh Castle by James Douglas and Alexander Seton, the steward of the royal household. They were then escorted by a royal clerk to Melrose where Robert told them ‘not without indignation and wrath’ that he would not accept bulls or letters that did not address him as king, and that he had no intention of allowing publication of the letters which addressed him only as ‘Governor of Scotland’. Robert pointed out that there were in Scotland several Robert Bruces who, in common with other nobles, were governors of the kingdom of Scotland, and, while he opened and read papal letters bearing address to the Scots in general, he refused to open sealed papal letters that were not addressed to him specifically as king. In their report the envoys cited a letter written by the barons of Scotland to the cardinals stating that, even if the Scottish king were willing to forgo the royal title, his council and barons would overrule him. This did not reflect political reality; Robert was merely using this convenient fiction to spread responsibility for refusal to co-operate with the papacy from his own shoulders onto the community of the realm. He apparently hired Northumbrian bandits to ambush the cardinals and prevent their entry into Scotland as they approached the border on 1 September 1317, as described in a previous chapter. Later in the year Robert sent the cardinals a letter composed by his barons that spelt out to the cardinals that their king had no power to waive his rights in this matter. ‘Without the royal address, there could be no discussion.’
Unable to deliver their letters into Scotland, the cardinals complained that Robert had ‘stopped his ears after the manner of a deaf adder, lest he might hear the words of the wise father who exhorted him’. Two friars who entered Scotland bearing the letters had them snatched and torn to pieces, and the friars themselves were set upon and robbed. These at least were allowed to go unharmed; the next messenger, Adam, guardian of the Franciscan house at Berwick, was not so lucky. In trepidation he set out to find the King of Scots on 16 December. He did not have far to go: Robert was in the woods at Old Cambus, preparing siege engines for an assault on Berwick. Seton, the royal steward, denied Adam access to the king but demanded the letters from him, saying that he would deliver them to Robert. Before handing them over to Seton, Adam bravely proceeded to proclaim the truce there and then, while a crowd gathered to shout him down. As expected, Robert refused to accept the letters from Seton’s hand because they did not address him as king, and Seton returned them to Adam, telling him to clear out of Scotland. Seton, however, denied him a safe conduct, and on his way back Adam was roughed up by four men and robbed of the letters, his clothes and everything he possessed. Robert went on to capture Berwick and raid England in pointed defiance of the papal truce. By this he provoked the renewed papal excommunication of 29 May 1318, of himself by name and of his supporters, and the imposition of an interdict on their lands, excluding the faithful from participation in certain services and rituals. So far as we can tell, the sentence was ignored in Scotland.
The cardinals gave up trying to deliver the papal sentence, and decided that publishing the letter everywhere else in Britain and Ireland would have to do. Accordingly, by letter posted upon the church doors throughout England on 19 August 1318, Robert Bruce and his supporters were given ten days to desist, or face immediate excommunication. This new sentence extended not only to Bruce’s supporters but to all who so much as provided them with supplies. All obligations or debts to the Scots were to be regarded as null and void. The cardinals withdrew to France fulminating that Bruce had ‘hardened his heart in an idolatrous manner, not without suspicion of heretical depravity.’
On 8 January 1320, the pope cited Robert and the four bishops of St Andrews, Dunkeld, Aberdeen and Moray to appear before him in person or by proxy on 1 May, and he furnished safe conducts to enable them to do so. Robert and the bishops ignored the summons, but, following a royal council at Newbattle in March 1320, decided upon a written reply to the barrage of papal sanctions. The response to John XXII is a masterpiece of patriotic rhetoric, which expresses lucidly the passion of small nations everywhere for freedom and justice and recognition. In the Declaration of Arbroath some see only Robert’s response to the accusing papal bulls, others the origins of Scottish constitutionalism, while others still view it as an expression of medieval nationalism.
The famous letter of the barons of Scotland to Pope John XXII, dispatched to the papal curia after 6 April 1320 and delivered at Avignon between 17 June and 29 July by three handpicked envoys, has many antecedents. The earliest and most obvious model is the letter of the English barons to Boniface VIII of 1301, rejecting papal interference on behalf of the Scots. Though it bore the seals of seven earls and sixty-four barons, it had been framed by royal clerks. The Declaration too, though it purported to be the spontaneous response of the community of the realm, was clearly organised and written by Robert’s chancery. A second document that furnished much of the reasoning in the Declaration was the Processus of Baldred Bisset, also written in 1301: it contained a comprehensive list of arguments for rejection of Edward I’s claims. A third antecedent, the Remonstrance of the Irish Princes was sent to the papal court by Donal O’Neill in 1317, and complained bitterly and at length of English injustices in that country and embraced Edward Bruce as king of Ireland. However, the immediate forerunner of the Declaration appears to have been the letter, now lost, written from the Scottish barons to the cardinals in 1317. The text of the declaration was thus the culmination of a long thought process, to which there had been many contributors.
The form and sentiments of the Declaration had then been developed over twenty years, and it was composed with great care, probably under the supervision of Robert’s chancellor, Abbot Bernard of Arbroath. Certain of its phrases are drawn from the classical authors Sallust and Cicero; other internal evidence points to familiarity with the Old Testament books of the Maccabees; it also draws freely upon canon law arguments. Since it was drafted by royal clerks, the Declaration reflects the Bruce regime’s view of itself, rather than the objective view of the barons. It is scarcely surprising then to find in the document a panegyric on Robert’s achievements, and stress on the debt Scotland owed to Robert:
But from these countless evils we have been set free, by the help of him who though he afflicts yet heals and restores, by our most valiant prince, king and lord, the lord Robert, who, that his people and his heritage might be delivered out of the hands of enemies, bore cheerfully toil and fatigue, hunger and danger, like another Maccabeus or Joshua. Divine providence, the succession to his right according to our laws and customs which we shall maintain to the death, and the due consent and assent of us all have made him our prince and king. We are bound to him for the maintaining of our freedom both by his rights and merits, as to him by whom salvation has been wrought unto our people, and by him, come what may, we mean to stand.
When a fair copy of the document had been made, the matrices of the magnates’ private seals were collected in order that seals could be attached at once and without the document having to be brought all over the country to their various residences. The fiction that the document expressed the views of the barons was played upon to great effect; however, it is thought that the government’s rounding up of magnates’ personal seals generated resentment and may have contributed to support for the conspiracy of that year. The following clause – the ‘constitutional clause’ – expressed the idea that the king’s hands were tied by the unanimous and resolute opposition of his magnates to any dilution of his demands: ‘Yet if [Robert] should give up what he has begun, seeking to make us or our kingdom subject to the king of England or to the English, we would strive at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own right and ours, and we would make some other man who was able to defend us our king; for as long as a hundred of us remain alive, we will never on any conditions be subjected to the lordship of the English.’
The theme that the King of Scots’ power could, under certain circumstances, be limited had been first anticipated in King John’s response to Edward I’s accusations at the Westminster parliament of 1293, and then echoed in the barons’ letter to the cardinals of 1317. This idea is unlikely to have had any foundation in law or custom; it represents a convenient fiction adopted by Scottish kings when unwilling to adopt a particular course of action, a rhetorical flourish, rather than evidence of any proto-constitutional arrangement or actual limitation of royal power. The language of the Declaration builds slowly to a memorable climax: ‘For we fight not for glory, nor riches, nor honours, but for freedom alone, which no good man gives up except with his life.’ There has been much discussion as to how this ‘freedom’ is intended to be understood: the personal freedom, of men from an overweening lord – in contrast with serfdom? Or group freedom, of a people from subjection? If the latter, then there is substance to the claim that the Declaration expresses nationalist sentiment. Yet Robert never claimed to be fighting for the Scottish nation. He displayed an understanding of ‘the nation’ that is difficult to reconcile with nationalism as we understand it. In his letter to ‘all the kings of Ireland, to the prelates and clergy and the inhabitants of Ireland’ he seems to have conceived of ‘our nation’ as embracing not just the people of Scotland but the peoples of Ireland as well. His idea of the nation was therefore archaic, far removed from modern nationalism as we have known it from the French Revolution onwards.
The Declaration is the greatest monument to Robert Bruce: it is his mission statement, his justification for waging war. Its values – justice, acknowledgement of independence and respect for ethnic difference – apply across history; and it raises perennial questions: what is freedom? What is the nation? What is sovereignty? And what justifies resistance to government? The Declaration may not be the fount of Scottish constitutionalism, it may not have inspired the American Declaration of Independence, but its timeless qualities save Robert from denigration as ‘just another warlord’. Robert conceived of himself as fighting for right, and engaged in a just but uneven struggle worthy of the attention and recognition of the known world. In the face of Robert’s trenchant opposition, the medieval papacy, less impressed by the Declaration of Arbroath than painfully aware of its own weakness in the face of intractable monarchies, knew when to seek accommodation, and by the end of the reign (1328) had lifted all the excommunications and the interdict, restoring Scotland fully to its position in medieval Christendom, even to the extent of granting the rites of coronation and unction to its kings.
The Declaration of Arbroath was intended to present a picture of a baronage united in its demand for recognition of Bruce’s kingship. It is ironic that, virtually coincident with the sending of this document, there emerges into the partial light a conspiracy against that kingship, known as the Soules Conspiracy. History has been so thoroughly rewritten by Robert’s admirers that scant record survives of opposition to the Bruce monarchy. Yet we know from English sources that such opposition – for example the continued MacDougall and MacSween activity in Argyll and Knapdale – was significant and often sponsored by the English government. Legitimacy was a very strong claim to kingship, and it is not surprising that support for the Balliol claim persisted. In 1320, a glimpse is afforded of the strength of legitimist opposition to Robert, and a sense of the potential for instability which existed in the realm of the hero-king.
Until recently the collection by force of lords’ private seals for appending to the Declaration of Arbroath was considered to be a principal cause of the conspiracy. Michael Penman however has traced its origins back to 1318, and identified other causes: a weakness in the Bruce regime after defeat in Ireland and application of renewed papal sanctions; the efforts of Edward II to effect regime change in Scotland through his sponsorship of Edward Balliol as an alternative candidate for kingship; failure of the Bruce land settlement in the south west to place a single strong lord in control of the chieftains of Galloway and the former Balliol retainers; and exclusion from royal patronage of Balliol and Comyn retainers who had defected to Robert’s side and expected to be rewarded with titles, lands and grants.
Chronicles are fairly consistent as to who was involved in the plot: the magnate William Soules; Agnes, wife of earl Malise of Strathearn; the prominent knights Sir David Brechin and Sir Roger Mowbray; and the minor knights Sir Gilbert Malherbe and Sir John Logy. To this list Barbour adds Richard Broune, a squire. There are many puzzling features to the conspiracy. Barbour claims that it was revealed to the authorities by ‘a certain lady’ – usually taken to mean the countess of Strathearn – whereas another source states that it was Murdoch Menteith who informed the regime. Barbour also relates, improbably, that the conspirators intended to install William Soules as king. Conspiracy in favour of Balliol and Comyn interests is however vastly more likely. It is remarkable how many of the malcontents had Comyn wives or mothers. Countess Agnes of Strathearn was a daughter of Alexander Comyn, Earl of Buchan; so too were the mothers of William Soules and David Brechin, and the wives of Gilbert d’Umfraville, earl of Angus and Patrick earl of March and Dunbar – all of whom were, to a greater or lesser degree, involved in the plot.42 Although Soules’ father had been a Competitor for the Scottish throne in 1286, the Soules interest had never been canvassed as a serious alternative to the Bruce monarchy. Furthermore, had William Soules been the focus for revolt, he would most certainly have suffered execution when found guilty, whereas he was merely imprisoned for life. Most likely the conspiracy aimed to replace Robert with Edward Balliol, the son of King John, who subsequently, in 1324, was invited to England and whose claim to the Scottish throne was accorded full recognition by the English king.
In the spring of 1320 the arrests were made. Soules was captured in Berwick, where he had been assembling his followers, suggesting that execution of the plot was imminent. Penman does not rule out the possibility of an open confrontation by the rebels, a battle or indeed a short campaign, culminating in the surrender of Soules’ 360 liveried followers in Berwick in 1320. In August, at the Black Parliament at Scone, a show trial was held, the leading conspirators – the countess, Soules and Menteith – admitting their guilt. Menteith, the informer, was acquitted; Soules and the countess were both sentenced to life imprisonment. Brechin, Malherbe, Logy and Broune were all sentenced to be dragged by horses and beheaded. Roger Mowbray had died before the trial commenced, but his corpse was carried into court on a litter and made to stand trial – a fact omitted by Barbour. The reason for this macabre proceeding was that forfeiture of lands could only be pronounced over the body of the convict, and thus the presence of the corpse enabled Robert to claim Mowbray’s lands. Robert spared the corpse mutilation, and permitted burial, yet this anxiety to seize the dead man’s estates reveals a petty or grasping side to his character. Patrick Graham and four others were acquitted in the trial; Alexander Mowbray, also reported to be involved in the plot, fled to England to avoid trial. Suppression of the conspiracy may have cost Robert dearly in terms of public affection. Barbour shows great affection for ‘good Sir Davy of Brechin’ and sadness at his execution; he has Sir Ingram de Umfraville leave Scotland, disgusted and grieving for Brechin. Umfraville is more likely to have fled Scotland in fear of his life, since members of his family were involved in the conspiracy. These may be reflections of noble revulsion against the executions. That Robert weathered the storm must be down to the handling of the crisis, and to his accumulation of sufficient support to withstand attacks from Balliol legitimists.
One of the main factors that permitted Robert such control of his nobility was the fact that during his long war to establish himself as king he had destroyed virtually all the private fortifications in Scotland, denying the aristocracy the luxury of remaining uncommitted to his cause, and placing them at his mercy. All the authorities agree upon the conservatism of Robert I with respect to his anxiety to preserve the titles and property rights of the Scottish nobility. Few of the great aristocratic lineages had supported the Bruce claim from 1306, the principal exceptions being Malcolm, Earl of Lennox and Alan, Earl of Menteith. To a large extent the story of the reign is how Scotland’s great families became reconciled to the Bruce monarchy. Some he won over to his side by persuasion, others he compelled by threats and intimidation. William, Earl of Ross, he had at first to intimidate in 1308, though from then Ross remained a faithful ally. Malise, Earl of Strathearn, was compelled early to do homage. Malise then defected to the English and defended Perth against Robert in 1312 and 1313, and, though he was allowed to live in peace, he appears to have been divested of his lands and title and his son installed as earl in his stead. David, Earl of Atholl, defected to Robert’s side in 1312; Duncan, Earl of Fife, in 1315. Since Duncan had left his wife in English custody, a special tailzie had to be devised on this occasion to ensure that there would always be an earl of Fife; it was, after all, the earl of Fife who by custom led the monarch to the throne on the occasion of enthronement.
Robert did not generally raise up pretenders to earldoms where the earl sided against him. We have seen how, at the parliament of Dundee in October 1313, Robert issued an ultimatum that, after one year, any Anglo-Scots who had not come to his peace could not expect to inherit in Scotland. A year later it was duly proclaimed at the parliament of Cambuskenneth in November 1314 that Scots who ‘had not come into his peace and faith, although often called and lawfully awaited, be disinherited forever of their lands and holdings and all their other estate within the kingdom of Scotland, and be held as enemies of the king and kingdom, deprived of all vindication of heritable right or any other right hereafter for themselves or their heirs for ever.’ Robert had refused to disinherit Mar, Dunbar, Angus or Atholl when these earls chose to stay loyal to Edward II. During thirty years of warfare, Robert in only two cases was driven to disinherit earls: Atholl deserted Robert on the very eve of Bannockburn, and as a consequence he could hardly do otherwise than disinherit him in November 1314. The title of the Umfraville earls of Angus, who fought consistently against Robert, was not interfered with until the very end of the reign when Robert granted it to Sir John Stewart of Bunkle.
Just as there was no wholesale intrusion of men of lower status into the ancient earldoms, so there was a minimum of interference in their structure. Robert dismembered one earldom and created one other. He had already destroyed the lands of the earldom of Buchan with fire and sword when the Comyn earls failed in the male line, with the death without children in 1308 of John Comyn, Constable of Scotland. There were two co-heiresses, nieces of John Comyn; one, the wife of John of Ross, came into half the estate, but since her sister, the other co-heiress, was outside the king’s peace – she was in fact the wife of the king’s enemy Henry Beaumont – Robert took advantage of the situation to dismember an earldom which was a focus of bitter opposition, and he parcelled off its lands and appurtenances to his faithful followers: Sir Robert Keith, Sir Gilbert Hay, Archibald Douglas and others. The earldom which Robert created was that of Moray in 1312, for his nephew and chief lieutenant Thomas Randolph. It comprised various lands held by the crown, including Badenoch and parts of Lochaber, which had been held by the murdered John Comyn. Robert is to be faulted for diminishing the estate of the crown, yet, given that the king was expected to reward his faithful followers, this is scarcely to be wondered at. The earldom was created, after all, for his own closest companion and his chief commander, a man to whom he owed a very great debt. Accordingly Randolph received many generous titles: the lordship of Nithsdale from about 1306, the earldom of Moray from 1312, the old Bruce lordship of Annandale from the same time, and the lordship of Man in 1316, a reward for promised service in Ireland. The Isle of Man was subsequently regranted to him in 1324, in terms that were spectacularly complete in their alienation of royal rights. Even pleas of the crown and administration of royal justice on Man were made over to him. In terms of the largesse he received from the crown, Moray eclipsed even Edward Bruce: Edward’s earldom of Carrick, granted in 1313, carried no comparable privileges. Moray’s pre-eminent position among the nobles of Scotland was undoubtedly an important factor in motivating Edward to seek a kingdom of his own in Ireland.
Forfeitures of war provided Robert with enormous reserves of patronage with which to reward faithful followers and tempt recalcitrant nobles to come to his peace. Seizures of the property of such powerful magnates as John Balliol, John Comyn of Badenoch, and, as we have seen, John Comyn, Earl of Buchan, gave the king vast estates, privileges, titles and rights to dispose of. A ‘dangerous mess’ of claims and counter-claims existed – especially in the south-west of Scotland – in the wake of two decades of warfare. The chief flaw in Robert’s post-war land settlement was his failure to appoint a single controlling interest in this deeply troubled region, over the former Balliol lands in Galloway and Wigtownshire. John Balliol’s lordship of Galloway was granted first to Edward Bruce and, following Edward’s death in 1318, the king granted the chief castle of that lordship, Buittle, to James Douglas. Douglas also received Balliol’s property of Lauder. Robert Boyd received Kilmarnock and Robert Stewart, the king’s grandson, gained former Balliol lands in Cunningham. In the far west of Scotland, Robert I’s expulsion of the MacDougalls allowed him to reward John of Menteith – to whom Robert gave the MacSween territory of Knapdale – and the relatives of Sir Neil Campbell – Arthur Campbell received Dunstaffnage Castle and Lorn, and Duncan Campbell was given Loudon and Stevenston in Ayrshire. But Robert’s main allies in the west were the MacDonalds, led by Angus Óg. Robert probably accorded him many grants and privileges, but few are extant. Angus was probably confirmed in his possession of Islay and the traditional MacDonald lands in Kintyre, and he was rewarded with the former Comyn lordship of Lochaber, Morvern and Ardnamurchan, along with Duror and Glencoe. Former MacDougall lands of Mull and Tiree were granted to Alexander of Islay, who was successor to Angus Óg. Perhaps the MacDonalds received many more territories that we know nothing of, but perhaps not, for Robert seems to have been conscious of the danger of raising up over-mighty subjects in the west. Many lands that might have been granted to the MacDonalds went to others, and Robert himself retained Dunaverty Castle in his own hands, and built another castle at Tarbert, increasing royal power and diminishing that of the Gaelic clans. Nevertheless, MacDonald support for Robert provided the foundation of their eventual accession to power, for the ‘lordship of the Isles’ emerged within a few years of Robert’s death.
Along with Moray and the MacDonalds, there were others particularly favoured. The family of the hereditary steward of Scotland was repeatedly and lavishly rewarded. Walter the Steward received in 1315 the hand in marriage of Marjorie, then Robert’s only child. He also received the barony of Bathgate and most of the Comyn barony of Dalswinton. His son and his relatives, the Stewarts of Bunkle, also benefited from royal largesse. James Douglas too was granted many forfeitures: Buittle, Lauderdale, Cockburn, Bedrule and others. Besides rewarding his leading commanders, Robert also remunerated those who had shown faith in him at an early stage: the small group of early supporters who embraced his cause in 1306 and those who shared his outlaw existence in Galloway and Carrick in 1307–8. They included Christopher Seton, Neil Campbell and Simon Fraser, each of whom was rewarded with marriage to a sister of the king. Sir Robert Keith, the marischal; Sir Gilbert Hay, the hereditary constable of Scotland; and Sir Robert Boyd all received special marks of royal favour.
On the back of a hugely successful foreign war, Robert I did not perhaps need to be a consummate manager of royal patronage. Nevertheless there was nothing random or unpredictable about the distribution of favours, titles and privileges, and those who supported the regime were rewarded, often handsomely, and at the long-term expense of the crown. The England of Edward II furnishes a stark contrast, where access to the cornucopia of royal favour was controlled by a narrow clique of greedy royal favourites, and where a growing sense of insecurity characterised relations between magnates and crown.
It is remarkable how the royal bureaucracy, shattered by defeat in 1296, was revived, first by the guardians, and then by King Robert. The whole of the existing royal archive – the rolls upon which copies of outgoing letters were made – appears to have been carried off by Edward I. But Robert will have been able to call upon some of Alexander III’s chancery personnel to compensate for this, among them Abbot Bernard. Bernard served Robert as chancellor from 1310 or 1311 to 1328. For the last year of the reign, Walter Twynham took over the office. Chancellor and chamberlain co-operated closely, and, because of the small size of both bureaucracies, there appears to have been great flexibility in their operation. A register of deeds was kept on rolls of parchment, and, though all but one of the original rolls were lost with the foundering of a ship in 1660, much of the information they contained has now been recovered from other sources. Robert’s charters have been painstakingly collected from scattered sources and edited by Professor Duncan, forgeries discovered and discarded. Like the chancery, the chamber, the royal financial apparatus, must have been fully restored and functioning according to usage of Alexander III’s time by about 1309, when the Bruce court was possessed of sufficient gravitas and cash to conduct relations with the king of France, to entertain three English earls, and to stage-manage a general council of the Scottish Kirk. The exchequer roll of 1326–27 shows that restoration of the chamber was conservative, as we might expect. Nevertheless, the resuscitation of the apparatus of the Alexandrine bureaucracy was a tremendous feat, and the single accomplishment that underpinned most of Robert’s other achievements.
Regulating the economy was of course far beyond the competence of any medieval monarch, yet the activities of kings had profound economic repercussions. Robert’s achievement of keeping the English largely out of the country will not have protected Scotland from the ill effects of the movement of friendly armies, often every bit as harmful as foreign invasion. During the 1310s Scotland was bound to have been affected by the same meteorological disasters as the rest of Europe: she will not have escaped the famine and may have been particularly badly affected by diseases of sheep in 1315–17 and of cattle from 1318 to 1322. In these difficult circumstances spoils of successful foreign war will have helped secure Robert on his throne, but it is impossible to say whether the influx of loot and the ransoms extorted from the north of England eased the plight of the poor in any respect, or whether there was in any sense a general enrichment of Scotland. A rise in the prices of food and everyday commodities might indicate an influx of bullion into the country, but there is insufficient data on the behaviour of prices at this stage. A great deal of cash must also have left the country, much of it for the pockets of Irish kings and magnates to purchase their alliance. Much too was spent on imports of foodstuffs and war materials – the cargoes of the thirteen great cogs of 1315 will have come at a heavy cost.
Kings were, however, expected to ‘live off their own’, to provide for the royal household out of royal estates and customary incomes, and only exceptionally to burden their subjects with demands for taxation. Financial records of the king’s income exist only for the very end of the reign however: the half of the exchequer year 1327 and the whole of 1328 and 1329. This represents a partial snapshot of royal finances; what is lacking is a film showing their development, and it is impossible to know whether Robert’s incomes were increasing or decreasing. Export duties on wool and hides were a major source of revenue, the king’s ‘great custom’ brought in £1,851 in 1328. One third of this came from Berwick, and the ports of Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee contributed successively smaller amounts. Towns produced lesser incomes too, but rather than collect these through royal officials in large towns, Robert farmed out the profits of the burgh to the citizens. In 1319 he allowed the profits of the burgh of Aberdeen to be held ‘in fee-farm’ by the citizens, and, in return for an annual payment of £213, all revenues due to the king were waived. Tolls on produce entering and leaving the burgh, fees and levies were henceforth collected by the citizens and used for communal projects. Larger towns too were granted fee-farm charters: in 1320 royal profits of Berwick were sold in this way by the crown for 500 marks (£333); in 1329 those of Edinburgh were commuted for £34. Little can safely be inferred from the differing rates of commutation; much will have depended upon royal whim, and we are uncertain as to whether these agreements were but a part of wider bargains struck between crown and burghs. This was good for the burghs, which suffered less from royal interference and enjoyed more self-government, but not so good for the monarchy which had settled for an annual fixed sum. Profits of the twenty-six royal burghs came to £1,133 in 1328. Robert created a new burgh at Tarbert, the narrow isthmus between Kintyre and Knapdale, which appears to have been an economic success while his reign lasted. There he also built a large castle, costing in excess of £450 at East Loch Tarbert, and had a track cut for the haulage of galleys to West Loch Tarbert, where he built a smaller fortification. Clearly Robert hoped to underpin a strategic consolidation of royal power in the west by the establishment of a prosperous urban community.
Medieval monarchs had, finally, to manage relations with other kingdoms and communities. Since they dominate the history of the reign, relations with England herself are not considered in this brief survey. Robert reopened relations with Norway in 1312 by the Treaty of Inverness at a time when the mustering of galley fleets for war in the Irish Sea became of crucial importance. One wonders whether he received direct assistance from the Norwegian territories of Shetland and Orkney for his assaults on the Isle of Man and Ulster; however that may be, harmonious relations with Norway will have served him well when he needed to assemble the galleys of the Hebrides. France was, of course, potentially Scotland’s most powerful ally, and in 1309 and 1326 Robert pursued, as best he could, the already time-honoured tradition of the ‘auld alliance’, cultivating France when England threatened. France, however, was but rarely available to Robert as an ally. The early fourteenth century was characterised by co-operation between France and England against their smaller northern neighbours, Flanders and Scotland. In the Declaration of Arbroath ‘the Scottish nobles’ remind the pope bitterly that the larger kingdoms co-operated to crush smaller countries: ‘Then rouse the Christian Princes who for false reasons pretend that they cannot go the Holy Land because of wars they have with their neighbours. The other reason that prevents them is that in warring on their smaller neighbours they anticipate a readier return and weaker resistance.’
However, Robert was remarkably fortunate in the 1310s that the count of Flanders at this time was sufficiently independent of France to tolerate the co-operation of Scottish, Flemish and German privateers in robbing English wool ships. This indeed was Robert’s most notable ‘foreign policy’ enterprise: co-operation not with powerful princes but with smaller communities and ‘irregulars’ in the North Sea that allowed lifelines – access to foreign markets for Scottish produce and imports of food and material – making possible the maintenance of Scotland’s independence in spite of English blockade. It is not going too far to say that, without the Flemings, Robert would not have succeeded in winning Scotland’s independence, and when in 1323 French interests came to control Flanders, Robert wisely made a truce with England. Robert may have seen his relations with Ireland in the same light: an alliance of smaller communities – the Gaelic kinship groups – and ‘irregulars’ – disaffected Anglo-Norman lords – against the major players – the lordship of Ireland, and the Anglo-Irish lords. In the west, however, the vital commercial axis was lacking. Ireland provided supplies, and perhaps some war materials, but not in the same quantities as Flanders, and certainly nothing that justified the enormous Scottish commitment represented by the invasion of Edward Bruce and the involvement of Moray and Robert himself in 1317. The Irish Sea and North Sea theatres differed in that the former returns were meagre and the outlay vast. What is surprising is that Robert did not abandon his western aspirations in 1318, but returned to them in 1327 and again in 1328, as is related in the following chapter.
Robert’s ‘art of kingship’ had its limitations. The Bruce court was never at any stage a centre of great art or culture so far as we can tell; there was neither an Edwardian overhaul of legislation, nor an Angevin development of administration such as occurred in the reigns of great English kings. Many of Robert’s grants of extensive privileges to nobles and religious houses reduced royal government, impoverished it and ultimately tended towards weakening the monarchy. Some medieval kings, such as Edward I, are remembered as great builders; Robert, by contrast, was a great destroyer of castles, and, besides Tarbert, built little that we know of. The Soules Conspiracy and the Black Parliament cast the reign in a slightly sinister light. Victory over the invader did not expunge earlier loyalties, and Robert lived with a usurper’s insecurity and suspicion. Recovery of the kingdom; repulse of English invasions in 1311, 1314 and 1322; the raiding of England; and the attempted conquest of Ireland must all have enormously disrupted every aspect of life in Scotland. Nevertheless, against this turbulent background, Robert’s governmental achievements are impressive: revival of local government through bolstering the power of magnates and baronage; restoring the machinery of justice through sheriffs and justiciars; renewal of foreign relations with France and Norway; and winning round the papacy from a position of complete alienation to a position where it was prepared to grant not only relief from excommunication, but right to full coronation to Scottish kings. In addition to these, Robert succeeded in achieving – albeit for a short time – that key to Scotland’s security and prosperity, peace with England.