11
The Scots wist that wele, and schewed him the vis,
Ther side was ilk a dele in poynt to wynne the pris.
Boldely they bed bataile with visage full austere,
The King’s side gan faile, for he had no powere.
Further mot he noucht, Scotland for to se,
That time no thyng he wrought, but spendid his moné.
The marche under wardeyn he left it as before,
Unto the south again he went, and did no more
PETER OF LANGTOFT
AT the time when Wallace and his five belted knights slipped out of the country on their diplomatic mission, Bishop Lamberton’s strategy was put into effect. Bruce made his abortive attack on Lochmaben from the Maxwell stronghold of Caerlaverock. The Comyns adopted guerrilla tactics in the north, while the Steward and the Earl of Menteith attacked English strongpoints in Clydesdale and the west. Lamberton remained in the Forest, with his headquarters at Stobo near Peebles. In November 1299 the three Guardians came together again in the Torwood during the last phase of the siege of Stirling Castle. The English garrison, as previously noted, was being starved into submission and Edward, who had mustered a host at Berwick intent on raising the siege, was powerless, on account of bad weather and the recalcitrance of his nobles, to take the field against the Scots at that time of year. By now Wallace’s diplomatic efforts were beginning to pay dividends; on 13 November the Guardians wrote to Edward saying that Philip of France had offered to mediate on their behalf and arrange a truce. Edward, however, refused to agree to this and some sporadic fighting went on through the ensuing winter without anything decisive being achieved. The Guardians went their separate ways again, leaving Sir John de Soulis to receive the surrender of Stirling Castle soon afterwards. This time the Scots were determined to hold on to this key position and a garrison under Sir William Oliphant was then installed.
The events of the winter months of 1299–1300 are obscure, but some time between November and the following May the Earl of Carrick resigned as Guardian. There was a clash of personalities among the Guardians and it seems that young John Comyn was the troublemaker — at one point he declared vehemently that he would not serve with Bishop Lamberton. The Steward and the Earl of Atholl interceded on behalf of the bishop, but in the end it was Bruce, not Comyn, who resigned from the regency. His place was filled by Sir Ingelram de Umfraville, one of the Comyn faction and a relative of the Balliols. Bruce was undoubtedly soured by this turn of events; from this period dates his disillusion with and disaffection from the patriot cause.
This change of heart was compounded by military operations in the south-west, the traditional Bruce country. The Earl of Buchan, who was also Sheriff of Wigtownshire, campaigned in Galloway early in 1300 with the hope of winning over the Gallovidians, always men of an independent turn of mind, whose chief enemy was not the King of England but (as they saw it) the Earl of Carrick, whose territories in Annandale and Ayrshire tended to encircle them.
In July Edward’s long-awaited invasion of Scotland got under way. Angered at the temerity of the Scots in attacking his newly founded pele of Lochmaben the previous autumn, Edward concentrated his energies first on reducing the great castle of Caerlaverock at the mouth of the Nith, some ten miles south of Lochmaben. The splendidly photogenic structure which nowadays dominates the Solway coast south-east of Dumfries was largely built by the Maxwells in the fifteenth century, and the stronghold of Edward’s time was a much more modest affair. Edward’s attack on this fortress merited no more than a single line in Langtoft: ‘A poure hamlet he toke, the castelle of Karelavrock’, but an eye-witness of the affair was Walter of Exeter, a Franciscan friar of Carocus in Cornwall, who was inspired to write a lengthy ballad in Norman French describing the siege in loving detail. According to this ballad, written during or soon after the siege, the castle was lightly held by about sixty men. Siege-engines were brought in by sea and soon made short work of the defences. According to one account, the defenders were permitted to leave on certain terms; another states that the constable and twenty-one of his men were imprisoned at Newcastle and Appleby, while the Lanercost Chronicle says merely that many of the defenders were subsequently hanged. At any rate, the surrender of the castle was an amusing diversion for Edward and his new bride, living symbol of the Treaty of Provins between England and France. Peace between these two adversaries had been negotiated in 1299 and sealed by a dynastic marriage. Edward’s first wife, Eleanor, had died in 1290; now he took as his bride Marguerite, the seventeen-year-old sister of King Philip.
Meanwhile even more elaborate preparations than ever before were put in hand for the latest attempt to subjugate the Scots. These preparations were not lost on the Scots and some peace feelers were put out. Bishop Dalton tried to parley with Edward but was brushed aside. At Kirkcudbright Edward met John Comyn and the Earl of Buchan and received the Scottish peace proposals: the restoration of King John and the English estates forfeited by the Scottish magnates. Edward regarded these reasonable proposals as impertinent and brought the two-day parley to an abrupt close. The English army now moved slowly forward through Galloway. While Edward tarried at Twynholm, his scouts engaged a party of Scots on the Cree estuary and captured Sir Robert Keith, the Marischal.
The following day the main body of the English army advanced to the Cree and paused at a point midway between the present-day village of Creetown and Newton Stewart, where the river winds and loops through mud-flats to the sea. On the Wigtownshire bank the Scottish army was drawn up, under the command of the Earl of Buchan, with a sizable force of cavalry. At low tide the English foot soldiers forded the river and engaged the Scots at close quarters. Edward intended to hold back his cavalry but through some breakdown in communication the Earl of Hereford led his brigade forward and charged into the Scots. Edward felt obliged to follow, against his better judgment, and the entire English cavalry crossed the tidal river. At this the Scots were thrown into panic and confusion and fled in disarray. Edward did not press home his advantage, so the actual Scottish losses were light, and the English army recrossed the Cree without having achieved much.
Desultory fighting continued in Galloway throughout the summer, but then, on 30 October, Edward granted a truce until the following Whitsun (21 May 1301) and returned to England without achieving anything beyond the seizure of Caerlaverock.
This flurry of English military operations is deceptive, for Scotland continued to exist in its curiously semi-independent state. Even in those limited areas under English control there was a duality of authority, not unlike the situation in southern Ireland in 1918–21, where the rebels maintained their own system of law and order and collected their own taxes. Inevitably, the triumvirate of Lamberton, Comyn and Umfraville was no more successful than the previous arrangements. Somewhere between December 1300 and Whitsun 1301 the guardianship of these three was dissolved and a single ruler was appointed. According to Fordun this appointment had the personal blessing of King John, now living in style on his ancestral estates at Bailleul. In this it is possible to see the hand of Wallace, who is believed to have met King John and discussed the problems of the regency. Equally, however, it is not improbable that Wallace was sadly disillusioned when he eventually met the man in whose name he had waged war and administered Scotland, and it has been suggested that, having met and taken the measure of Toom Tabard, his unswerving allegiance diminished thereafter.
At any rate, Sir John de Soulis occupied a position midway between the Comyn–Balliol faction and the Bruces. He was related to the Comyns by marriage, but his family, with lands in Eskdale and Liddesdale, were neighbours and ancient allies of the Bruces. Though Bishop Lamberton was no longer a Guardian he worked closely with Soulis in 1301–2, and between them they succeeded in rallying the moderates to the patriotic cause.
Shortly before Whitsun 1301 Edward’s lawyers completed the task of preparing the brief in answer to the Pope’s strongly worded letter of the previous summer and this set out at great length, with numerous dubious, fanciful and downright mythical references to Brutus the Trojan, King Arthur and Athelstan, the case for Edward’s superiority over Scotland. In modern parlance, this document was worthy only of a shyster; even English historians of later generations had to concede that this was one of the most extraordinary state papers to be found on record. Edward, sometimes dubbed the English Justinian in allusion to his legal reforms, appears to have been well satisfied with this monumental exercise in chicanery. The brief was despatched to Rome and Edward went north again.
In May 1301 Scottish and French delegations were supposed to confer with Edward’s commissioners at Canterbury with a view to securing a lasting peace in Scotland. Early the previous month, however, Edward, intent on clinching the matter, warned his northern barons to be ready as soon as the truce expired at Whitsun ‘to resist the attacks of the Scots, if necessary’. Once again, we have the curious spectacle of the aggressor shifting his aggression to his victims. And Edward was not content to wait until the truce expired; on 12 May he issued orders for a levy of 12,000 men. In the event he took the field with no more than 6,800 men, all on foot with the exception of their officers and a few hobelars (light horse).
This time he summoned his barons and feudatories to meet him at Berwick on 6 July. Mindful of the lessons learned on previous campaigns, he arranged this time for an impressive fleet of seventy ships to keep the expedition well supplied with provisions. With such attention to the material, Edward did not neglect the spiritual, devoting much valuable time to further pilgrimages to the shrine of St Thomas à Becket and other holy places. The invasion was launched in July, the English forces being divided into two armies commanded by the King and the Prince of Wales respectively. Edward advanced from Berwick on 18 July and made a very leisurely progress through the Borders and the Lothians as far as the Forth. He was in Peebles for twelve days (2–14 August) and entered Glasgow a week later where he remained a fortnight (21 August to 4 September). Between 27 September and 27 October he was mainly encamped at Dunipace, where Wallace’s uncle had been priest, but he also paid a lightning visit to Stirling. A large contingent was despatched to strike westwards into Clydesdale where siege was laid to Bothwell Castle in August. That great fortress fell to the English a month later. As usual, the Scots melted away before Edward’s advance, contenting themselves with snapping at his heels, harrying the lengthy supply lines and cutting off the stragglers. This time, though, Edward was determined to stay in Scotland and by Christmas he had established his headquarters at Linlithgow, where he built a pele. It was here that another truce, negotiated through the good offices of King Philip, was declared on 26 January 1302, covering the period till St Andrew’s Day (30 November). Edward remained at Linlithgow till the worst of the winter had abated, then recrossed the border on 19 February 1302. The main fact recorded by the English chroniclers is the loss of those few horses which had been brought on the expedition, through want of forage and the severity of the winter.
Meanwhile the Prince of Wales had less success, never venturing inland from the Solway coast and grinding to a halt near the present-day town of Stranraer. The Scots dominated the south-west and harried the Prince’s army on the flanks without letting up. Soulis and Umfraville made an assault on Lochmaben pele early in September but only just failed to capture it. The Scots mustered their forces near Loudoun Hill and prevented Edward and the Prince of Wales from uniting their armies on the Clyde coast as planned. To be sure, the Prince’s troops later managed to take Turnberry Castle near Girvan, but he was unable to quell resistance in Carrick as a whole and was forced to withdraw before the onset of winter and join his father at Linlithgow. In Matthew of Westminster’s telling phrase, ‘he achieved nothing important or even worthy of praise’.
In truth, the expedition of 1301–2 achieved absolutely nothing. Although conducted on a much smaller scale than Edward’s previous Scottish campaigns, the losses sustained were proportionately greater and far outweighed even the temporary advantages. The Scots carefully avoided the English army, but if they had no wish to engage in pitched battles they were every bit as active as in previous campaigns. In September 1301 Sir Robert de Tilliol, castellan of Lochmaben, confessed that he was in dire straits. To Edward he wrote:
And we give you to understand as a certainty that John de Soulis and the Earl of Buchan, with their power, are lying at Loudoun; and Sir Simon Fraser at Stonehouse, and Sir Alexander de Abernethy and Sir Herbert de Morham. If Your Majesty would only send a hundred armed horse, with a good leader, tomorrow the latest! But be informed that all the country is rising because we have no troops to ride upon them.1
On 7 September, probably no more than a day or two after this letter was written, Soulis and Umfraville, with a large force estimated at seven thousand and growing by the day, burned Lochmaben town and assaulted the pele, and made a second attempt to reduce it the following day; but sustaining heavy losses they drew off and turned away towards Nithsdale and Galloway. Tilliol sent a further message that the Scots were seducing those who had accepted the King’s peace. People in their droves were joining the enemy and Sir Robert was convinced that an invasion of England was imminent. Perhaps Edward’s own propaganda was having its effect. At any rate, Sir Robert Hastings and his troops sallied out of Roxburgh Castle in search of these Scottish invaders. On 3 October the Constable of Newcastle-on-Ayr wrote to Edward that the Scots were in Carrick, ‘before the Castle of Turnberry, with four hundred men-at-arms and within these eight days had wanted to attack Ayr Castle’. He begged for reinforcements as he and ‘the other loyalists’ could not withstand such an attack. In February 1302, despite the truce having just come into effect, the castle at Ayr was besieged by the Scots.
The truce meant that the English were unlikely to resume the offensive until the spring of 1303 at the earliest, although it is doubtful how effective such an agreement would have been. Criticism of Soulis and Umfraville is invidious, but one cannot help thinking that if William Wallace had a force of seven thousand at his disposal, ranged against Edward’s army which was allegedly rather smaller, Lochmaben pele would not only have fallen but the English would have been cleared out of the Lowlands altogether.
Doubtless this thought occurred to Edward also, for, only four days after recrossing the Tweed, he changed his mind and tarried at Morpeth. Here he gave his magnates a pep talk. The truce was unlikely to produce any lasting benefits. Nothing less than an all-out invasion of Scotland would settle the matter once and for all. This time he directed his remarks particularly towards the high officials in Ireland who he felt were not pulling their weight.
Two things, not unconnected, happened in 1302. Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, was rapidly becoming disenchanted with his fellow magnates. Despite his success in waging war on the enemy in the south-west, he was excluded from the regency and relegated to a minor role. He had been exasperated by Comyn and then Soulis, but the last straw was probably the news from the Papal Curia of the transfer of John Balliol from the custody of the Abbot of Cluny to King Philip in the summer of 1301 and the strong rumour that Philip was now sending him back to Scotland with a French army. The restoration of King John was the last thing Bruce wanted, fearing that his own position would be threatened.
Some time after the truce of January 1302 came into effect, Bruce surrendered to Sir John de St John, the English governor of Annandale and Galloway. On 28 April Edward put his seal to a document which spoke of ‘his liege Robert de Brus, Earl of Carrick’. After a preamble stating that the King accepted the submission of Sir Robert Bruce the younger for the sake of the good service which Robert’s ancestors and family had rendered, the document went on to promise that if Bruce were to lose his lands or suffer any disadvantage as a result of any truce or papal ordinance, the King would grant reasonable maintenance ‘as is proper for him’. Of special favour he restored to Bruce’s tenants their lands in England lately taken for their rebellion. Edward granted to Patrick de Trumpe the younger and his aunt Matilda de Carrick, two of these tenants, certain lands in the manor of Levington in Cumbria, to which they had fallen heirs. This extraordinary document also promised that, in the event of the throne being restored to Balliol or his son, Bruce was to be permitted to pursue any claims to his inheritance in the English courts. ‘If, by chance, it should happen that the right must be judged elsewhere than in the King’s court, then in this case the King promises Robert assistance and counsel as before, as well as he is able to give it.’ It has been argued that the right referred to here was Bruce’s claim to the throne, inherited from his grandfather the Competitor, but Edward would hardly concede such a right to one who had so recently been a rebel.
In May Bruce set the seal on his defection by taking up the English appointments of Sheriff of Lanark and Governor of Ayr. About the same time he remarried, taking as his second wife Elizabeth de Burgh, daughter of the Earl of Ulster (an associate of the Turnberry Band of sixteen years before). The earl was one of Edward’s most loyal lieutenants and this marriage may have been intended to harness Bruce more closely to the English interest. Elizabeth, however, was also the niece of Egidia, wife of the Steward, and thus the ties between the Bruce and Stuart families were strengthened. It was the marriage of Bruce’s daughter Marjorie to Walter the Steward which was to found the Stuart dynasty ‘that cam wi a lass’.
If Bruce’s defection was a severe blow, it was softened to some extent by success on the diplomatic front. If, as has been suggested, Wallace was in France again in 1301–2, this may help to explain the success of a visit paid by Bishop Lamberton to the French court. At any rate, he returned to Scotland with a letter from Philip dated 6 April, addressed to ‘the Guardians, the magnates and the whole community, his dear friends’ to whom he wished ‘health and hope of fortitude in adversity’. This letter seems to have confirmed Bruce’s worst fears. In it, Philip:
received with sincere affection their envoys John, Abbot of Jeddwurth, and John Wissard, Knight, and fully understands their letters and messages anxiously expressed by the envoys. Is moved to his very marrow by the evils brought on their country through hostile malignity. Praises them for their constancy to their King and their shining valour in defence of their native land against injustice, and urges them to persevere in the same course. Regarding the aid which they ask, he is not unmindful of the old league between their King, themselves, and him, and is carefully pondering ways and means of helping them. But, bearing in mind the dangers of the road, and dreading the risks which sometimes chance to letters, he has given his views by word of mouth to W[illiam], Bishop of St Andrews, for whom he asks full credence.2
These fine words were taken to mean that Philip was considering helping King John to regain his throne. At the very least it seemed that he would send troops to help the Scots, or perhaps renew hostilities with Edward on the Continent. But larger factors were now in play. Philip had quarrelled with Pope Boniface and the latter, as a counterweight to the obstreperous French ruler, now drew closer to Edward. Then, on 11 July, the flower of French chivalry was hammered by the despised Flemish burghers at Courtrai using Wallace’s schiltrom tactics. The battle was virtually a replica of Falkirk with one vital exception: the French lacked the longbow and proved no match for the close ranks of Flemish spearmen. The Swiss at Morgarten and the Scots at Bannockburn were later to demonstrate that the age of chivalry (in the strict sense) was over. Philip cut his losses and a truce was made between England and France.
The first evidence of the growing rapprochement between the Papacy and England came on 13 August 1302 when Boniface sent strongly worded bulls to Bishop Wishart and the other Scottish prelates. The Pope who had, only three years earlier, rebuked King Edward for his treatment of the Scots and had subsequently taken Scotland under his protection, now admonished the clergy with scarcely concealed threats if they did not make their peace with Edward. Bishop Wishart was singled out for a special ticking-off, being likened by His Holiness to ‘a rock of offence and a stone of stumbling’. Boniface was at that juncture ingratiating himself with Edward whom he also urged to resume war against France. But Edward, his ‘dearly-beloved son in Christ’, managed to temporise, making just the right noises to keep Boniface happy, and in return the Pope relaxed the modicum of restraint he had exercised on Edward’s aggression against the Scots.
The truce between Scotland and England expired at the end of November 1302. Although it was too late in the year for an all-out invasion, Edward decided that some show of force was needed immediately. He himself did not take the field, but entrusted the expedition to that rising star, Sir John de Segrave. On 29 September Segrave was ordered to join forces with Sir Ralph de Manton and strike at the very heart of Scotland as soon as the truce ran out. This punitive expedition, which advanced by Kirkintilloch (near Glasgow) and struck at Stirling, soon ran into difficulties. By the end of the year Segrave was reporting back that ‘certain the Scots rebels, in increased force, have broken into the lands there in his possession, occupied certain castles and towns, and perpetrated other excesses; and, unless checked, they may soon break into England as usual.’ The threat of a Scottish invasion of England was, no doubt, exaggerated; but in response to this plea Edward despatched Sir Ralph Fitz-William, the King’s Cofferer or Paymaster, on 20 January 1303 with a large contingent of knights and men-at-arms. Thus augmented, Segrave’s army, which was arrayed in three divisions of ten thousand men each, began a fresh advance through Lothian. The first division was encamped near Roslin south-east of Edinburgh when it was suddenly attacked at dawn on 24 February by a large force, estimated about eight thousand strong, under the command of Comyn and Sir Simon Fraser, who had marched through the night from Biggar. The English were routed, Segrave himself being seriously wounded and taken prisoner. The second division coming up was ambushed and annihilated, but the soldiers of the third division, who had been delayed by their devotions, avoided the trap and partially retrieved the situation by repulsing the Scottish attack and liberating some of the captives, including Segrave. The English chronicles made light of the affair, but the Scots claimed it as a great victory. Certainly it was a master-stroke, the main forces of the English army being destroyed and Sir Ralph de Manton being among those who fell in battle that day.
Interestingly, the Rishanger Chronicle attributes this marked reversal in English fortunes to the reappointment of William Wallace as captain of the Scottish army. As Rishanger was alone in making this assertion it has always been treated with caution, the feeling being that Wallace would not have supported Comyn at this time. But Sir John Comyn, even if he harboured ambitions of gaining the throne for himself, was still nominally regent on behalf of his kinsman King John, and Wallace had been consistent in fighting for the liberation of Scotland in John’s name. In default of references to Wallace in the chronicles of the period we must reluctantly fall back on Blind Harry as the only source of material giving a clue as to the patriot’s activities after his return from France.
It will be recalled that Wallace landed at the confluence of the Tay and the Earn. By night he made his way to Elcho where his ‘dear cousin named Craufurd’ lived. William Craufurd concealed Wallace and his men in his barn for four or five days, but when the food ran out Craufurd journeyed to Perth to purchase fresh supplies. The English, suspicious of his buying more foodstuffs than usual, seized Craufurd and interrogated him closely in prison. Craufurd said that the food and wines were required for a kirking feast, so he was released; but the English were convinced that he was harbouring the notorious outlaw. Young Butler (the son and grandson of James and John Butler slain by Wallace a few years previously) raised a force of eight hundred men and set off in pursuit. Craufurd warned Wallace of what had transpired, and by the time he and his men (numbering nineteen in all) were combat-ready, Butler’s troops were approaching the building. The Scots managed to escape into Elcho Park, a dense woodland where Wallace had constructed a tiny stronghold; but when it became apparent that Butler intended burning down Craufurd’s house, with his wife and family inside, Wallace rushed out into the open and drew off the English in hot pursuit. Wallace retreated into his ‘strength’ and a desperate hand-to-hand skirmish ensued in which a number of the attackers were killed. The English withdrew momentarily to consider the situation and Wallace divided his slender forces into three groups under Longueville, William Craufurd and himself. Butler split his forces into three in order to attack the wood from different directions. Wallace turned to confront the party led by Butler himself and ambushed them as they re-entered the wood. The first seven Englishmen were slain on the spot, but Butler himself escaped and withdrew the rest of his group. As night fell, Butler left patrols to watch the wood while the remainder returned to their camp.
The English governor of Perth, whom Harry names improbably as the Earl of York, sent orders to Butler not to attack again until he came up with a much larger force. Butler, who had strong personal reasons for seeing Wallace slain, did not wish to see this prize fall to his superior officer. Harry has him parleying with Wallace and proposing single combat at dawn the following morning. At daybreak, however, the Scots tried to slip away through a thick mist and in the ensuing mêlée Craufurd was wounded and young Butler slain by Wallace’s own hand. In the resulting confusion the Scots made good their escape to Methven Wood, Wallace allegedly carrying his wounded kinsman all the way. On the way they encountered Ellis of Dundas and Sir John Scott, who had been on the point of submitting to the English but who now, seeing Wallace, decided to join forces with him. Harry claims that Wallace and his growing band went to Birnam near Dunkeld, where they were joined by Squire Ruthven, and then on to Atholl and Lorn in search of food, ‘the district having been made bare both of wild and tame animals’. Later they replenished their supplies by attacking the English outpost at Rannoch Hall. As his forces increased Wallace attacked Dunkeld, slaying all the English there and plundering the cathedral, before advancing on Perth and laying siege to the English stronghold. These and other events, occupying a large part of Book XI (lines 330–790), were no doubt muddled and confused, being derived in large part from the oral traditions of a later century, yet the substance was probably not far removed from Wallace’s exploits during the period prior to his betrayal.
After Courtrai, Philip began patching up his quarrel with Edward. Sensing that France and England were now drawing closer together, the Scots tried to secure their position. Early in May 1303 a powerful delegation of Scottish leaders visited France with a view to securing effective aid from Philip. The delegation consisted of Lamberton, Bishop Crambeth of Dunkeld, the Earl of Buchan, James the Steward, Sir John de Soulis, Sir Ingelram de Umfraville and Sir William de Balliol. They were treated with Gallic charm but given the run-around, and returned with chagrin to report on 25 May to Sir John Comyn that a treaty of peace had been signed five days previously at Paris between France and England — a treaty from which the Scots were expressly excluded. It was small consolation to be told smoothly by Philip that they should not be alarmed at this omission. The French King promised that he would immediately follow up the treaty by sending envoys to Edward urging him to pull back from war against the Scots. This, it was hoped, would lead to a truce pending a peace conference attended by the three monarchs (John now being included). Philip explained the exclusion of the Scots from the treaty on the grounds that their case could be more easily settled between Edward and himself once they were united in friendship and affinity. This last was an allusion to the fact that the bonds of marriage between the two royal houses were to be further strengthened; part of the treaty included the betrothal of the Prince of Wales and Princess Isabella of France. Finally Philip urged them not to do anything to provoke Edward further, although he added in the same breath that the fame of the late conflict had spread over the entire world, and he was confident that, if Edward refused to make peace, they would act with resolution. Philip’s remarks, as reported back to Comyn, were jumbled and confused and may have become garbled and distorted in the telling, the envoys being anxious to put as fine a gloss on matters as possible, but one is left with the impression that the Scots were naïve and gullible.
At the same time, friction between Scotland’s former allies, King Philip and Pope Boniface, erupted into open war, resulting in the capture of the Pope by the French and his subsequent death. Effectively the Treaty of Paris, by bringing hostilities between France and England to an end, merely enabled Edward to turn his attention once more to the Scots. Ironically, the treaty was ratified by Edward from his headquarters at St Johnston (Perth) on 10 July 1303.
After the defeat at Roslin Edward was in no mood to leave the campaign to his subordinates. On 9 April he issued writs for the levy of almost ten thousand men from the English counties, and simultaneously ordered his new ally, Robert Bruce, to bring a thousand men from Carrick and Galloway. About the same time Sir Richard Siward was summoned with three hundred men of Nithsdale. The size of Edward’s army has not been computed but it included large contingents from Ireland, Wales, Gascony and even Savoy (whose Count commanded in person). By 16 May Edward was at Roxburgh, where he stayed till the end of the month, then he advanced by Edinburgh and Linlithgow, and reached Perth on 10 June. This was his headquarters for about seven weeks, and from Perth attacks were made on the surrounding countryside. The advance was resumed at the beginning of August, through Brechin and Aberdeen and thence by Buchan to Banff, Cullen and Elgin. The limit of the advance was Kinloss in Moray, where Edward remained from 13 September to 4 October. By 6 November he had withdrawn to Dunfermline where he made his headquarters in the majestic abbey and spent the winter.
Only two strongholds offered resistance. At Brechin the English advance was somewhat delayed by the heroic defence of the castle by Sir Thomas Maule. Matthew of Westminster says that he cheered on his men and mocked the attackers from the battlements, making a great show of wiping the dust of the wall where it was struck by the rocks hurled by Edward’s siege-engines. Unfortunately for the doughty Thomas, one of the missiles he derided struck him down, but with his dying breath he exhorted his men to fight on. The garrison held out for forty days before capitulating. Sir William Oliphant put up a courageous resistance at Stirling Castle which defied Edward right through until 24 July 1304, and then only surrendered when the starving garrison could no longer withstand the pounding from the thirteen giant siege-engines which were arrayed against it.
Hemingburgh says that the expedition through Scotland in the summer of 1303 was marked by wholesale conflagration and devastation, although it is not clear exactly who did the burning. Edward’s apologists have often pointed out that such wholesale destruction was contrary to his policy: it was against his interests to destroy what was, after all, his own property. Nevertheless, there is the chilling evidence presented in an order by Edward from Dunfermline dated 18 November 1303, directing his Chancellor to issue a pardon in favour of Warin Martyn. Martyn was the commander of the Welshmen in Edward’s army, and he was now being held accountable for sundry murders, robberies, arson and other atrocities committed by the men under his command. Edward shrugged this off, taking the pragmatic view that such things were inevitable in wartime.
From the fact that Edward over-wintered at Dunfermline, on the north shore of the Forth, and had penetrated further north than any previous expedition, it seems that Scottish resistance was on the verge of disappearing altogether. To be sure, a former trusted lieutenant, Sir Simon Fraser, continued to hold out, but the submission of the Earl of Carrick was an important coup for Edward. Furthermore, as the implications of the Treaty of Paris sank in, the Scottish leaders realised that no help would be forthcoming from France after all. They now lost heart and in December Comyn began tentative negotiations with Edward, culminating in the peace made at Strathord on 9 February. The terms of capitulation were remarkably lenient, probably because Edward was in an indulgent mood; the rebel leaders were merely rapped over the wrist, being sentenced to various terms of banishment. The full terms of this punishment belong more properly to the next chapter, for they have a direct bearing on the fate of Wallace.
William Wallace alone did not enter the King’s peace. Harry is silent on the matter, but there is no reason to doubt the word of Robert de Brunne who alleges that, while Edward was at Dunfermline, Wallace (who was then in the Forest of Selkirk) asked his friends to seek terms on his behalf. But Edward was ‘full grim’ and would offer nothing but a reward of three hundred marks to the man who would bring him Wallace’s head. On receipt of this unyielding resolve Wallace fled and continued ‘to dwell in moors and marshes’. Edward’s response, in view of his subsequent treatment of Wallace, is fully consonant with Brunne’s account. It is possible that some of his former comrades, during their own negotations with the King, raised a plea on his behalf; but if it were entered, such a plea was unlikely to have been at Wallace’s request. He was every bit as implacable as Edward himself and he had shown, time and time again, that he would never submit to the King of England. He never had, and he never would; that was his forthright message. This is confirmed by Bower:
For the noble William was afraid of the treachery of his countrymen. Some of them envied him for his uprightness, others were seduced by the promises of the English, and others with tortuous machinations and infinite care prepared traps for him, hoping thereby for the favour of the King of England. In addition, persuasive arguments were offered to him by his immediate close friends that he like the others should obey the King of the English, so that they might thus obtain peace. Besides, others were sent by the King himself to persuade him to do this, promising him on the same King’s behalf earldoms and wide possessions in England or in Scotland, to be chosen by himself and held by his successors for ever. He despised all these approaches, and speaking for the liberty of his people like a second Matthias he is reported to have answered: ‘Scotland, desolate as you are, you believe too much in false words and are too unwary of woes to come! If you think like me, you would not readily place your neck under a foreign yoke. When I was growing up I learned from a priest who was my uncle to set this one proverb above all worldly possessions, and I have carried it in my heart,
I tell you the truth, freedom is the finest of things;
Never live under a servile yoke, my son.
And that is why I tell you briefly that even if all Scots obey the King of England so that each one abandons his liberty, I and my companions who wish to be associated with me in this matter shall stand up for the liberty of the kingdom. And (may God be favourable to us!) we others shall obey no one but the King [of Scots] or his lieutenant.3
These stirring words have the ring of truth, entirely consonant with all that we know of Wallace’s character. He remained what he had always been, Edward’s indomitable and unyielding foe, the only Scottish leader who never wavered in his allegiance to his country and its king. John had been enthroned at Scone, and Wallace’s actions, whether as Guardian or guerrilla, had been carried out in that king’s name.
For his part, Edward was just as obdurate. During the preliminary negotiations in December 1303, when draft proposals for peace were put to John Comyn, Edward made his views crystal clear: ‘With respect to William le Waleys, the King intends that he shall be received to his will and as he shall ordain.’4 At Strathord the following February Edward’s attitude was even more explicit: ‘And as to Messire William le Waleys, it is agreed that he shall give himself up to the will and grace of our Lord the King, as it shall seem good to him.’5
One of the friends of Wallace who interceded on his behalf was Sir Alexander de Abernethy, who made a formal submission to Edward at Strathord. Abernethy was immediately appointed by the Prince of Wales as Warden between the Mounth and the Forth, with the task of watching the fords across the river, lest the guerrilla leader should try to leave the Forest and escape into the Highlands. Abernethy sought clarification: what terms should be given to Wallace if he tried to surrender? On 3 March 1304 King Edward wrote unequivocally to Abernethy from Kinghorn in Fife:
In reply to your request for instructions as to whether it is our pleasure that you should hold out to William le Waleys any words of peace, know that it is not at all our pleasure that you hold out any word of peace to him, or to any other of his company, unless they place themselves absolutely (de haut en bas) and in all things at our will without any reservation whatsoever.6
In other words, nothing short of unconditional surrender would suffice.
Ironically, Wallace’s chief ally after the wholesale capitulation of Scottish leaders at Strathord was Sir Simon Fraser. From the fact that Abernethy’s patrols were operating in Strathearn and Menteith it appears that Wallace and Fraser were roaming the district around Stirling, probably harassing the besieging forces and helping to bring clandestine aid to Oliphant’s garrison.
In March 1304 Edward moved out of Dunfermline Abbey. Although the remains of his own sister, as well as her husband Alexander III and their sons, were interred there, Edward had no compunction about ordering the abbey’s destruction. Most of the English chroniclers, clerics to a man, could find no excuse for such an atrocity. Dunfermline Abbey, founded by the English princess St Margaret in the eleventh century and as sacred to the Scots as Canterbury was to the English, was the most magnificent of the medieval ecclesiastical structures to be found north of the border. The chroniclers described its destruction as atrocious, barbarous or ‘unscrupulous and vindictive’. Matthew of Westminster alone sought to justify Edward’s vandalism. The abbey was spacious enough to lodge at one and the same time three mighty kings and their retinues. But there was an accursed taint on the place. Its size had rendered it suitable for the Scots nobles to hold their meetings there; and there they had devised machinations against the English King; and thence, in time of war, they issued as from ambush, to harry and murder the English. What then? The King’s army, therefore, perceiving that the temple of the Lord was not a church but a den of robbers, a thorn in the eye of the English nation, fired the buildings.
The chapel and a few cells for monks were all that was spared. Even today, however, enough remains of the once-splendid edifice to remind us of the great abbey that was once so admired.
Some time during that month the guerrilla band led by Wallace and Fraser was defeated in a bloody encounter at Happrew near Stobo in Peeblesshire by a large English force led by Sir William de Latimer, Sir John de Segrave and Sir Robert de Clifford.7 A portent of things to come was the fact that Wallace was tracked down on this occasion by a fellow Scotsman, John of Musselburgh, who received ten shillings from Edward’s own hand as a reward. It was Wallace’s last fight. Blind Harry makes no mention of this battle at all; but as the minstrel’s account of this period is thoroughly unrealistic (maintaining that, on the eve of his betrayal, Wallace had rid the country of the hated Southrons) this omission is immaterial. Soon Wallace would be on his own, the only Scotsman of any note to continue the struggle. His would be the only banner of resistance still fluttering beyond the battered walls of Stirling Castle. On 5 May Wallace’s old friend and staunch ally, Bishop Lamberton, submitted to Edward at Stirling while the siege of the castle was still in progress, and shortly afterwards Sir Simon Fraser also surrendered.
Wallace, with no more than a handful of faithful adherents left, was powerless to prevent the all-out assault on Stirling Castle. The powerful fortress which had so often been fought over in the past decade had resisted all attempts by the English to dislodge its resolute constable and his garrison since the previous summer. On 1 April 1304 King Edward commanded the earls of Strathearn, Menteith and Lennox to blockade the castle, preventing the people of Stirling from slipping in and out with much-needed provisions. Five days later several great siege-engines were shipped from Edinburgh and Berwick. The greatest artillery in the British Isles was slowly converging on the beleaguered fortress. On 16 April Sir John Botetourte was ordered to give assistance to the Earl of Carrick in forwarding ‘the frame of the great engine of Inverkip’ which Bruce had just reported as unmanageable. Five days later Sir Robert de Leyburne, Constable of Inverkip Castle, was reprimanded for his inefficiency and ordered ‘to arrest at Glasgow all the iron and great stones of the engines there and forward them to Stirling, without any manner of excuse or delay’, for by his inaction ‘the siege is greatly delayed’. Meanwhile, on 12 April the King had ordered the Prince of Wales ‘to procure and take as much lead as you can about the town of St John of Perth and Dunblane, and elsewhere’ for use in molten form as horrific ammunition. The Prince’s men were to strip the lead off all the church roofs, though the sanctimonious Edward was careful to stipulate that sufficient lead was to be left to give some covering to the altars.
During the first half of April King Edward himself had spent some time before the walls of Stirling, assessing the situation and looking for weak points. On 22 April he returned to Stirling and took personal charge of the siege operations. These were on a scale hitherto unimaginable. Ranged before the walls were at least thirteen of the most powerful engines yet devised, capable of hurling a stone projectile of three hundred pounds or a heavy twelve-foot dart more than a thousand yards. There were other specialised machines, such as a kind of jib crane of great height on a movable platform which was used to hoist a cage containing twenty men-at-arms to the top of the walls. A long spar with a wicked steel claw at the end served to pull down the upper parts of parapets and overhanging galleries. Giant ‘rats’, up to sixty feet long and containing huge beams shod with steel, were used to ram walls and gates, while ‘tortoises’ (armoured shelters) enabled engineers to approach moats and fill them with rocks and earth. The enormous artillery pieces, the catapults and ballistae with their oaken wheels twelve feet in diameter, had not materially changed since they were invented by the Romans a thousand years earlier, but on this occasion Edward was equipped with a fiendish new device known as the War Wolf, which apparently was having teething troubles.
The defence was not entirely passive either, for both Rishanger and Hemingburgh record that the garrison killed many of the besiegers with engines of their own. Grapnels were lowered from the walls by cranes to overturn the rats and tortoises, while molten lead and pitch or boiling oil and water rained down on the attackers with deadly force. King Edward appears to have supervised the siege with great zest. His enjoyment of the action was hardly diminished when, one day as he was riding about and directing his men, a Scottish archer shot him. The steel-tipped arrow lodged in his armour but did not wound him, and Edward ebulliently shook his fist up at the battlements, threatening the bowman with a good hanging.
Although conditions inside the castle were becoming desperate by midsummer, the situation was not much better outside. One correspondent admitted that the King’s horses had nothing to eat but grass and there was ‘the utmost need of oats and beans’. In another letter, written the same day to Sir Richard de Bremesgrave, the recipient was urged to ‘send all the King’s stores he can find in Berwick, in haste by day and night, to Stirling, for they can find nothing in these parts’. Edward himself was continuing to summon reinforcements and field engineers.
Sir William Oliphant offered a spirited and resolute defence. Every day Edward’s troops filled in the ditches with logs and tree-branches, and every day the garrison set fire to them. Next Edward tried filling the ditches with rubble and earth so that he could move the scaling turrets right up to the walls. This tactic led to desperate hand-to-hand combat and many times Edward’s shock-troops were repulsed. But the end was inevitable; the starving garrison was now short of water and Sir William offered to submit if he and his men were granted their lives. Edward, however, insisted on absolute and unconditional surrender. At last, on 20 July 1304, the garrison gave in. There were said to be seven score defenders, but by the time of the capitulation it appears that only Sir William and twenty-five others (including two friars) were still alive. Before the defenders were permitted to come out of the castle, Edward insisted that they submit to a curious field trial, partly as a scientific experiment and partly for the entertainment of the ladies of the court, including young Queen Marguerite. No one was permitted to enter the castle until it should be bombarded by the War Wolf which, at long last, was ready for action. Those within might defend themselves from le Loup de guerre as best they could, for the diversion and amusement of the Queen and her ladies-in-waiting. The result of this savage bombardment is not recorded, but at length Oliphant and the remnant of his garrison were allowed to emerge. Oliphant, who had been captured at Dunbar and confined at Devizes Castle until September 1297, was now sent south in chains and lodged in the Tower of London. The rest of the gallant garrison were despatched to various English castles. In triumph Edward returned to England towards the end of August.
The fall of Stirling Castle was the last act in a drama which had lasted for four years. This period of continual warfare, often known as the Comyn Wars from the principal protagonist on the Scottish side, had not advanced the cause of independence. Nevertheless, it had demonstrated to Edward that Scotland was a much tougher nut to crack than he could ever have envisaged. Indeed, there must have been times when he wondered whether these annual campaigns in the north would ever achieve his goal. The cost in lives and resources to England alone must have been considerable, but one shudders to think what effect this war of attrition was having on the Scots. Langtoft said of Comyn and his men in 1304 that they ‘have nothing to fry, or drink, or eat, nor power remaining wherewith to manage war’, but when they submitted at Strathord Edward himself must have felt only relief, rather than jubilation.
It is idle to speculate that Wallace, the one leader who consistently showed courage and resourcefulness, would have fought the English far more resolutely than Comyn and his confederates, and would have used the available forces to much better advantage. Whenever Wallace commanded, the Scots showed their old mettle, but by 1304 he lacked the mandate to wage war on a large scale. Nevertheless, with the submission of Comyn and his colleagues in February that year, Wallace re-emerged as the one leader standing between Edward and his long-cherished goal, the one great patriot determined never to yield so long as he breathed.