3
Scotland was lost quhen he was bot a child,
And our-set throuch with our ennemys wilde.
BLIND HARRY, BUKE FYRST, LINES 145–46
FROM the outset, the brief reign of King John was beset with problems. Although his main rival, Robert Bruce of Annandale, was eighty-two years of age, Balliol was disconcerted to learn that, on the day after judgment was given, the old man had drawn up a document delegating his claim to the throne to his son, the Earl of Carrick, and his heirs. This impressive document, now in the British Library, was sealed by Bruce and Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester. Two days later, on 9 November, the Earl of Carrick resigned his earldom to his son, the eighteen-year-old Robert. The Countess Marjorie had died earlier in the year and it was in the natural order of things for her eldest son to succeed to the title. In August 1293 the young earl was confirmed in the succession at the parliament convened at Stirling, James the Steward and the Earl of Mar acting as his sponsors. The elder Earl of Carrick, having divested himself of his responsibilities in Ayrshire, left Scotland to travel round Europe and thus studiously avoided having to do homage for his lands to a king whom he despised. In 1293 he was in Norway for the marriage of his daughter Isabel to Eirik II. This marriage resumed Norwegian interest in Scottish affairs. For the moment, however, it was a match with which Edward I was well satisfied, as the Bruces were at that time on good terms with the English court. Moreover, Bruce the Competitor, having resigned his claim, had faded out of the political picture. He retired to his castle of Lochmaben in the heart of his Annandale estates where he died on 1 April 1295 in his eighty-fifth year. In October that year the elder Earl of Carrick returned from his protracted European sojourn and was appointed governor of Carlisle Castle by King Edward. He held this position until October 1297, when he was dismissed because Edward was by then beginning to suspect the loyalty of his son.
But all that was still in the future. In 1293 young Robert Bruce stood in high favour with the man whom he regarded as his true liege lord and spent much of his time on his estates near Chelmsford or his impressive north London mansion, Bruce Castle. If the young Earl of Carrick posed any threat to the new King of Scotland by cultivating his contacts with the Scottish nobility, basking in the reflected glory of his sister’s royal marriage and ingratiating himself with the King of England, King John was more concerned at his own relations with his powerful southern neighbour.
Judgment had no sooner been given in Balliol’s favour than he was being solemnly exhorted by King Edward to be ‘careful in doing justice to his new subjects, lest by giving cause of complaint he should render necessary the interference of his Lord Paramount’. John then again performed the ceremony of homage, putting his seal to a formal affidavit that he did so willingly and in good faith. On 30 November he was crowned at Scone, seated on the Stone of Destiny, yet even during this simple but intensely moving ceremony he was compelled to acknowledge his fealty to the English King, and on Christmas Eve that year he had to repeat his homage to Edward, this time in the character of a crowned king. The proud and ancient kingdom of the Picts and Scots had thus degenerated into little more than an Anglo-Norman province. In imposing his will on Scotland, however, Edward made one fundamental and eventually fatal mistake. In the words of the historian Burton, ‘in his Norman sublimity, seeing only the persons worth seeing, the nobles, scarcely a step below himself in dignity and pretension, and of his own race, he had reckoned without that hitherto silent and inarticulate entity, the Scottish people.’
From the beginning it was abundantly clear that Edward intended that his superiority was to be real rather than nominal, and the pressure on Balliol was subtly increased. Before 1292 was out, Edward demonstrated at least one aspect of his paramountcy by deciding a case at Newcastle. This was an appeal by Roger Bartholomew, a prominent burgess of Berwick, against the judgment of the Guardians of Scotland in a complex triple lawsuit. Bartholomew claimed that he had been unjustly treated and therefore appealed to a higher authority. When King John protested at this clear violation of the Treaty of Birgham, which had agreed that all Scottish lawsuits would be determined in Scotland, Edward blandly declared that the Treaty had ended with Balliol’s accession, and that he himself had the right to judge every Scottish case brought before him. Edward clarified the position, first through Roger Brabazon and then in a personal statement to King John, the prelates and magnates of Scotland and England assembled at Newcastle for the Christmas feast. A few days later, on 2 January 1293, Edward wrung from Balliol an agreement that the Treaty was null and void. Furthermore, John formally undertook to respect the validity of the acts done by Edward as lord while the kingdom was in his trust, in order to maintain the continuity of justice and government.
King John’s position was weakened irrevocably by knuckling under in this way. In retrospect, however, it seems that John has been judged too harshly, for there was little, if anything, that he could have done. He was presented with a fait accompli, and support for any protest he might have made was conspicuously lacking among the Scottish nobility. Inevitably, the closer ties between Scotland and England, especially in the upper echelons of society, stretching back over two generations, created the right atmosphere for the events of 1293–96.
During that period Edward kept up social and legal contacts with influential figures in Scotland, and this insidiously undermined the independence and authority of King John. It was not surprising, therefore, that the mayor and burgesses of the Scottish town of Berwick could describe Edward, in a petition of 1294, as ruling the three realms of England, Scotland and Ireland by divine providence. Gradually a practice arose of appealing from the Scottish to the English courts. In 1293 alone Edward heard appeals from the court of King John, raised by John le Mazun or Mason of Bordeaux and Macduff of Fife, son of a previous earl, who claimed lands in Fife.
The latter case, in particular, highlighted the weakness of John’s position. On the death of Malcolm, Earl of Fife, his heir was an infant. The earl’s brother, Macduff, immediately claimed a portion of the estate. When his claim was dismissed by the Bishop of St Andrews, he appealed to King Edward during the Interregnum. Edward ordered that Macduff’s claim be tried by the Guardians, who decided in his favour. This judgment was overturned by a council held by King John at Scone and Macduff was not only dispossessed but also thrown into prison for violating the law. On his release he promptly lodged an appeal with Edward, who ordered John to appear before him on 25 March 1293 to explain his conduct. When Balliol or his representatives failed to turn up, Edward and his legal advisers drew up a code of regulations, based on English common law, aimed at controlling and penalising John’s disobedience — or ‘feudal delinquency’ as it was termed.
Edward might well have argued that he was only concerned with the maintenance of law and order in the northern realm, and he did not deliberately go out of his way to undermine John’s position; but there were few people by the summer of 1293 who would have believed him. Matters came to a head during the Michaelmas session of parliament at Westminster when John appeared at last to answer in the case of Macduff. John refused to answer, or even to seek an adjournment (as that would have admitted recognition of the court). Instead, he backed down and begged, as Edward’s man for the realm of Scotland, for a day to take counsel. He promised to give an answer in the next parliament. This issue was never resolved; the wars in Wales and Gascony intervened and by 1295 the situation had deteriorated beyond the point of retrieval.
In October 1293, however, Edward got a taste of his own medicine. As Duke of Aquitaine, he was a vassal of the King of France and Philip summoned him to answer for the crimes of some English seamen who had gone on the rampage in the port of La Rochelle. Although he avoided a personal appearance Edward was forced to send his representatives to Philip’s court, to submit and make formal surrender of his French fiefs on 5 March 1294. Two days earlier, Philip gave orders for the suspension of all trade between France and England, Scotland and Ireland; but, interestingly, he waived this embargo in respect of the Scots when, on 10 May, he granted certain privileges to the Scottish merchants trading in Flanders, ‘whom he does not hold as enemies, but rather as his friends’. This special treatment was reinforced by edicts on 14 July securing an indemnity for the goods of Scottish merchants at Amiens and giving general protection to the goods of Scots trading in Flanders.
Smarting under the humiliation inflicted by his feudal superior in France, Edward formed an alliance with his sons-in-law, the Duke of Brabant and the Count of Bar, and the rulers of Franche-Comté and the Low Countries and declared war on his liege lord in October 1294. Philip neutralised the Emperor Adolf, won over Florence of Holland (lately a contender for the Scottish throne) and made a treaty of friendship with Eirik II of Norway. The situation looked grim for Edward, who also had a rebellion in Wales to deal with, and he ordered King John to muster his forces and assemble at London no later than I September 1294. John received this summons at the end of June and within a few days took steps to defy his master. A parliament was hastily convened at Stirling a few weeks later and twelve advisers were appointed to assist the King — four representatives of the earls, the barons and the bishops respectively. Bishops Fraser of St Andrews and Crambeth of Dunkeld, together with two of the barons, formed an embassy despatched to the French court to arrange a marriage between Edward Balliol, John’s son and heir, and Jeanne de Valois, Philip’s niece. On 22 October King John came out in open defiance of his paramount lord; the treaties with Norway and Scotland were approved and made public in Paris and the impending marriage contract celebrated. Eirik II, in consideration of an annual payment of some fifty thousand pounds sterling, undertook to supply a battle fleet of a hundred ships for four months each year so long as hostilities between France and England continued. King John undertook, for his part, to invade England if Edward left the country or sent forces across the Channel to make war on France. In return, Philip promised support to Scotland.
By the summer of 1295 Edward was all too well aware of the secret Franco-Scottish negotiations and early in October he prepared to secure his northern defences against possible attack. On 5 October he appointed Antony Bek and Balliol’s father-in-law, Earl Warenne, custodians of the northern counties. Warenne was also appointed governor of Bamborough Castle and it was at this time that the elder Earl of Carrick received his commission as constable of Carlisle Castle. Edward ordered John to surrender the castles and burghs of Berwick, Jedburgh and Roxburgh. Finally, on 16 October, he issued writs to all the sheriffs in England for the seizure of the English estates, goods and chattels of King John. Two months later he summoned more than two hundred of his tenants to muster at Newcastle in March 1296, fully armed and equipped. In February 1296 he assembled a fleet of ships in East Anglia and proceeded up the east coast, to rendezvous with his land forces at Newcastle. John retaliated by issuing a national call to arms for 11 March and summoning all free men to Caddonlee four miles north of Selkirk.
The Bruces were conspicuous by their absence from the muster. Since the accession of King John, the Bruce family, by and large, had kept a very low profile. The marriage of Isabel Bruce to Eirik II was sanctioned by King Edward and seemed at first to cause embarrassment to the Scottish government; it was certainly a matter much debated by Balliol’s council of twelve, who were uncertain of the loyalty of the Bruce faction to the country. In 1294 the aged Competitor wangled the election of his own nominee, Thomas Dalton of Kirkcudbright, as Bishop of Galloway. Episcopal appointments were theoretically in the king’s gift and John had opposed this election. Furthermore, the diocese of Galloway was conterminous with Balliol’s own estates, yet the neighbouring landowner of Annandale had had the effrontery to challenge him in this way. The clergy of the diocese were split down the middle between Balliol and Bruce and it was alleged that the Bruces had bribed the prior and canons of Whithorn whose privilege it was to elect the bishop. Dalton is a small village some five miles south of Lochmaben and it is presumed that Master Thomas had close family ties with Annandale. And now the appointment of the new lord of Annandale as governor of Carlisle indicated where the Bruce sympathies lay, in the event of a confrontation between Edward and Balliol.
Several Scottish magnates, including the Bruces, ignored Balliol’s summons and were promptly dispossessed. Annandale was assigned to the Earl of Buchan, and the earls of Angus and Dunbar were similarly ejected from their lands for siding with King Edward. The young Earl of Carrick and his brother Nigel were with their father in Carlisle in March 1296 when war actually broke out.
The first skirmish in the hostilities was a curious, half-cocked affair. Robert de Ros, Lord of Wark and an Englishman, was in love with a Scots girl whom he wished to marry. He deserted to the Scottish side and, late in March, led a party of Scots from Roxburgh to attack Wark Castle. The assault fizzled out and the Scots failed to take this strongpoint. Edward moved north and raised the siege of Wark, where he was met by the Bruces on 25 March and received homage from them for their lands in Scotland. The following day a Scottish army led by John Comyn, Earl of Buchan, crossed the Sark and entered Cumbria. By nightfall they had advanced as far as Carlisle, a town which was stoutly walled and resolutely defended by the earls of Carrick. The Scots had to content themselves with burning the cottages and hovels of the poorest classes dwelling outside the walls, before wheeling eastwards and indulging in an orgy of pillage and rapine, burning and looting the villages, monasteries and churches of Corbridge, Hexham and Lanercost. Laden with booty, Comyn’s forces crossed the Cheviots and returned to Scotland well satisfied with their exploits.
About this time, however, the English army, consisting of three thousand foot soldiers and five thousand cavalry, advanced along the Northumbrian coast, crossed the Tweed and on 30 March invested the town of Berwick. Five weeks earlier some English merchants had been murdered in the seaport and the goods in their warehouses looted by the mob. Presumably Edward was quickly apprised of this atrocity and decided to make an example of the town. The attack on Scotland’s largest city began inauspiciously. Four of the English ships taking part in combined operations ran aground in the mouth of the Tweed; the townspeople counter-attacked by the sea gate, burned the ships and killed or captured their crews. Apart from this initial success, however, the town was doomed. The richest commercial centre in Scotland was poorly defended by earthworks surmounted by a wooden stockade. Edward attacked in force from the landward side and his shock-troops swept over the palisade at the first assault. Later the Scots put out a story of English cunning, of cavalry flying false colours tricking the defenders into opening the gates, and it is not improbable that Edward (who had employed a similar stratagem at the Battle of Evesham in June 1265) resorted to such a trick; but the hard facts were more prosaic. The earthworks were pitifully inadequate — Edward is said to have led the cavalry in person, leaping over a dyke on his great warhorse Bayard. The English overran the ramparts, throwing the townsmen into confusion. Virtually the only resistance was put up by the small Flemish community (numbering about thirty merchants and craftsmen) who held the Red Hall. One of the Fleming archers, with an accuracy which had more than a little of luck, shot Edward’s cousin, Richard of Cornwall, through the visor of his helmet and pierced his brain. The enraged King personally ordered the slaughter of the foolhardy foreigners, the Red Hall being set on fire and its defenders burned to death.
Quarter was given to the castle garrison, commanded by Sir William Douglas, known as le Hardi, who promptly swore fealty to his new liege lord and whom Edward retained as a hostage. In contrast, however, Edward did not spare the town itself. He had tried to parley with the burgesses of Berwick but they had taunted him with obscene doggerel and rude gestures. His revenge was thorough, even by the brutal standards of the time. Thousands of men, women and children were butchered in an orgy of rape and wanton destruction that lasted fully three days. Wyntoun said that Edward only came to his senses when he witnessed a woman giving birth to a baby as she was being hacked to pieces by a frenzied soldier. No less eminent an authority than Matthew of Westminster estimated the number of dead at sixty thousand, but this seems a gross exaggeration, given that the population of Berwick at the time was thought to be around twenty thousand. At the other extreme, the Scottish chronicler John of Fordun put the figure at seven thousand. Allowing for the fact that a body count was something to be proud of in medieval terms (and, conversely, Fordun would be anxious to minimise the ‘success’ of the English) it can be assumed that the true figure lay somewhere between these estimates; a more accurate assessment is that between seventeen and twenty thousand perished. The dead were so numerous that their corpses were dumped in huge pits or thrown into the sea. Large parts of the once-prosperous town were destroyed; from the rubble Edward personally supervised the fortification of Berwick which, henceforward, would be an English town. Although it was rapidly resettled from the south it would never regain its former position.
The destruction of Berwick, the worst atrocity ever to stain the pages of English history, was a deliberate act to terrorise and cow the Scots. The horror of this dark deed was heightened by the fact that it had been committed by a people supposedly friendly to the Scots for generations, after the briefest of assaults in which English casualties had been remarkably light. If he had anticipated an easy victory, however, Edward was soon proved wrong. The sack of Berwick belatedly united the Scots behind their monarch who, on 5 April, sent the Abbot of Arbroath to Edward with a letter formally renouncing his allegiance. ‘What folly he commits!’ exclaimed Edward grimly. ‘If he will not come to us, we will go to him.’ Later that month the Earl of Buchan and his army re-entered Northumberland. Marauding bands attacked Cockermouth, Redesdale and Tynedale and plundered the monastery at Hexham for the second time in as many weeks. Much of this destruction was aimless and seems to have been in the nature of reprisals for the Berwick atrocities.
A propaganda document, supposedly prepared for dissemination in France to show King Philip what savages he was allied to, stated of the Scots: ‘They burned two hundred little scholars who were in the school at Corbridge learning their first letters and grammar, having blocked up the doors and set fire to the building.’ The Lanercost Chronicle, however, gives a different location for this atrocity, saying, ‘They collected a crowd of young schoolboys in Hexham school and, blocking the doors, set fire to the building and its inmates innocent in the sight of God.’ Walter of Hemingburgh mentions the burning of Hexham and its priory but makes no mention of the murder of the schoolboys.
In fact, the Scottish punitive expeditions in Redesdale and Tynedale served little purpose, and certainly did not deflect Edward from his grand designs for the subjugation of Scotland. Berwick was to be the pivot on which the administration of Scotland was to balance, and with characteristic energy Edward set to work as early as April to rebuild the town so recently sacked by his troops. He recruited a vast workforce in Northumberland and personally supervised at least the initial stages of the town’s reconstruction. The ineffectual earthworks were replaced by a deep ditch and high, broad earthworks. Having secured the defences Edward then designated Berwick, in September 1296, as the administrative centre for the government of Scotland and appointed Hugh Cressingham, formerly chief itinerant justice for the northern counties of England, as Treasurer of Scotland with his headquarters in the town. In January 1297 a committee was established to advise on the planning of the new town, under Cressingham’s direction.
Almost a month elapsed after the fall of Berwick before Edward resumed the offensive. No doubt he felt that time was on his side, and that the pacification of Scotland would be a relatively simple matter. The King of Scots had already been shown up as weak and ineffective — ‘a lamb among wolves’ is how one chronicler described him. The magnates of Scotland were divided, ranging from those like the Bruces who were actively engaged on Edward’s behalf, to the Earl of Buchan, Constable of Scotland, who was attempting to co-ordinate Scottish resistance to Edward. In between lay the earls and barons who could not decide where their interests lay, or who would not serve under leaders with whom they disagreed.
On St George’s Day, 23 April 1296, the main English army commanded by Balliol’s father-in-law, Earl Warenne, set out along the coast road from Berwick north into the Lothians and four days later engaged the Scots under Buchan on the foothills of the Lammermoors, at Spottsmuir near Dunbar. The earls of Mar and Atholl, traditional supporters of the Bruce faction, decided at the last moment not to take part in the battle and the loss of their troops to the Scottish side was a grievous blow to Buchan. Like the Scots of 1651 before Cromwell’s army, Buchan’s army lost what little advantage they had by rushing headlong from the high ground to charge the English cavalry. Edward’s battle-hardened horsemen, veterans of campaigns in Flanders and Wales, skilfully regrouped and charged the Scots so effectively that the latter were totally routed. The ensuing struggle was unequal and Buchan’s army was destroyed. With this signal defeat, resistance in Scotland crumbled rapidly. Among those taken prisoner at Dunbar were 130 important knights, the earls of Atholl, Ross and Menteith, the son of John Comyn of Badenoch and half a dozen other magnates, and they were speedily transported south, to be incarcerated in various English castles.
The Steward surrendered Roxburgh Castle after a brief siege on 8 May. Jedburgh capitulated a fortnight later, Edinburgh Castle was battered into submission by English siege-engines, and the Lothians were easily subdued. By the middle of June Edward was before Stirling, where an Irish contingent led by Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, joined him, but when they rode up to the impressive castle they found it already deserted by its garrison. From there the English army proceeded in a leisurely fashion northwards through Perth, Montrose, Aberdeen and Banff as far as Elgin. Detachments were sent westwards into the Highlands but the main body moved south again at the end of July.
On 2 July John Balliol, from his temporary headquarters at Kincardine, formally confessed his error in making an alliance with France against his liege lord and surrendered his kingdom to Edward. The letter which he sent to Edward bore the Great Seal of Scotland, probably the last time he sealed documents with this device. Five days later, in the churchyard of Stracathro, Balliol publicly admitted his errors and confirmed his reconciliation with Edward. On 10 July he underwent two humiliating ceremonies: at Brechin, clad in the plain white gown of the penitent and carrying a simple white wand, he formally surrendered his enfeoffment to Antony Bek, and later the same day he repeated it to Edward himself at Montrose. His act of submission was total. Edward, with a fine sense of the dramatic, had the royal insignia ripped from Balliol’s tabard or surcoat, and from this humiliating incident springs the nickname by which the luckless Balliol has ever since been known — Toom Tabard (empty coat). Later generations have confused this nickname, taking it to mean that he was a hollow king, a mere puppet manipulated by Edward, and this harsh though erroneous concept was repeated forcibly by Agnes Mure Mackenzie, maintaining that the quality of his reign made his subjects call him ‘Empty Jacket’. In another age and in other circumstances John Balliol might have shown more positive and statesmanlike qualities. His principal misfortune was to take over a divided country which had been without a leader for six years, and to be faced with the ruthless opportunism of a powerful and greedy neighbour.
Early in August John Balliol and his son Edward were taken by sea to England under the escort of Thomas of Lancaster. Thereafter the erstwhile King of Scots was treated with surprising leniency. For a brief spell he was kept in the Tower of London but shortly afterwards he was allowed a measure of liberty — the modern equivalent would be house arrest — at Hertford not far from his former manor of Hitchin. He was given every comfort in accordance with a man of his position, including a huntsman and ten hounds. When the Scots rose in revolt in 1297 in the name of King John, he and his son were returned to the Tower. Two years later the Balliols, father and son, were handed over to the papal legate with whom they sojourned for a while, before departing from England on 18 July 1299 under the protection of the Bishop of Vicenza. At Dover King John endured the final indignity of a customs search. His baggage was found to contain a substantial quantity of gold and silver plate, as well as coined money. He was allowed to retain this property, but a gold coronet and the Great Seal of Scotland, which he had somehow managed to conceal, were promptly confiscated.
In 1302 John Balliol was released from the amiable custody of the Bishop of Vicenza and allowed to retire to his ancestral estate at Bailleul in Picardy where he died in 1314, the year of Bannockburn. His son Edward was to return to Scotland in 1333 and reigned for five years as a puppet backed by the forces of Edward III, but thereafter he faded from the scene and died, at an advanced age, in 1370.
The inherent weaknesses of Scotland, together with the character defects and vacillation of John Balliol, make this reign one of the most tragic in a history noted for tragedy. The submissions at Stracathro, Brechin and Montrose which brought this sorry reign to an end plunged Scotland into a decade in which the national identity was all but obliterated.
At Scone King Edward removed Lia Fail, the Stone of Destiny on which every Celtic king of Scotland had been crowned. Legend had it that the grey basalt stone had been the pillow on which Jacob slept when he dreamed of angels ascending a ladder to heaven. It was believed to have been brought from the Holy Land by Scota, the daughter of the Pharaoh of Egypt from whom the Scots took their name, and subsequently brought from Spain to Ireland by Gadalos or Gaelus, ancestor of the Gaels. In the sixth century Fergus of Dalriada brought the stone from Ireland to Scone where it reposed for eight hundred years. According to Blind Harry, King Edward had himself symbolically crowned on the stone at Scone before removing it to Westminster Abbey where it reposes, under the Coronation chair, to this day. Harry included a prophetic couplet:
But where that stone is, Scots shall masters be,
God haste the time Margretis heir to see.1
The prophecy would be fulfilled 130 years after this poem was written, when James VI, King of Scots, succeeded to the throne of England in 1603. An unsubstantiated myth, which persists to this day,2 alleges that the monks of Scone, apprised of the approaching English army, hid the Stone and substituted a piece of rock hewn from a local quarry. By inference, the real Stone has been concealed ever since, no one knows where.
Be that as it may, Edward was well pleased with his conquest. He also confiscated the Scottish regalia, including the Black Rood of St Margaret, and transferred these precious and much revered symbols of Scottish sovereignty to London. Even more grievous a loss were the three chests crammed full of royal records and other archives of incalculable value which were shipped south from Leith, never to be seen again. Whether these documents were lost at sea or were deliberately destroyed is immaterial; Edward effectively obliterated the evidence of Scottish nationhood at a single stroke.
According to an anonymous account, Edward held his parliament at Berwick on 28 August 1296:
And there were all the bishops, earls, barons, abbots and priors; and there he received the homage of all, and their oaths that they would be good and loyal to him. To the well regulated people he forthwith gave up all their own goods and those of their tenants; the earls, barons and bishops he permitted to enjoy their lands, provided they came at All Saints to the parliament at St Edmunds. Then he appointed the Earl Warenne to be guardian of the land, and sir Hugh de Cressingham treasurer, sir Walter of Amersham chancellor. Then he tarried at Berwick three weeks and three days, arranging his affairs, and set out on his road to England on the Sunday after the feast of the Holy Cross.3
The main business of the Berwick parliament was the assembly of more than two thousand Scottish landowners, clergy, burgesses and representatives of communities to do homage to Edward, not as superior of Scotland but as King of England, Lord of Ireland and Duke of Guyenne. There has been some doubt expressed4 as to the true size of this assembly, mainly on the grounds that such a multitude of important persons, together with their retainers, would have been impossible to handle, far less take each person through the prescribed ritual in turn. It is considered more likely that certain limited and well-defined classes of persons who held property in Scotland were required to provide written and sealed instruments of homage and fealty. The bulk of the names on the so-called Ragman Roll consisted of tenants-in-chief of the Crown and their heirs, substantial sub-tenants and their heirs, officers and leading burgesses of some eastern burghs, heads of religious houses and other clergy. The names were collected in order of sheriffdoms and for this reason certain people, with extensive holdings in several shires, appear on the Roll more than once.
Among the names were those of Robert Bruce, Lord of Annandale, and his son, the young Earl of Carrick, who had already sworn fealty to Edward the previous March. According to Fordun, the elder Bruce reminded Edward of a promise, made when Balliol first showed signs of rebellion, that the Scottish throne would be assigned to him. To this Edward replied testily, ‘Have we nothing else to do but win you kingdoms?’5 If the elder Bruce made any reply to this it has gone unrecorded. At any rate he returned to his duties at Carlisle without demur. From Edward’s viewpoint it is understandable that, having just topped one figurehead in Scotland, he was not going to establish another. History has an impression of the elder Bruce as a somewhat colourless, spineless individual — not so very different from John Balliol, in fact — but Edward knew him personally and may have feared that Scotland would not be so easily handled under his rule. As for the young Earl of Carrick, those qualities of character — ambition, determination and resolution — which would later win him the throne would already have been well formed. In the autumn of 1296 the Earl of Carrick was turned twenty-two, a well set-up young man with a mind of his own.
On the other hand, absence of a name from the Ragman Roll may not be as significant as later generations have imagined. The Roll was pretty selective as regards the representation of the rising burghs of Scotland, and many knights and lesser gentry were not included. There may be no particular significance, therefore, in the fact that the name of Sir Malcolm Wallace younger of Ellerslie was absent. The name of his uncle, Sir Ranald Craufurd, was included and, indeed, he continued in office as hereditary Sheriff of Ayr, although real power in the county was wielded by the twenty-four-year-old Sir Henry de Percy, appointed by King Edward as Warden of Galloway and Ayr and Castellan of Ayr, Wigtown, Cruggleton and Buittle on 8 September 1296.
Edward himself left Scotland eleven days later. By that time the situation with France had deteriorated and there were matters much more important than Scotland to preoccupy him. His contempt for the Scots and their miserable country comes across most forcibly in the casual remark made to Earl Warenne at the time of his departure. As one old soldier to another, Edward is reported to have said, ‘Bon besoignefait qy de merde se delivrer’ (He who rids himself of shit does a good job).6 For the moment, it appeared that Scotland had been pacified at a minimum loss to England. With the onset of winter most of the English host returned south and was demobilised, leaving garrisons of hand-picked men in all the castles of Scotland. Back in Westminster early in October, Edward doubtless congratulated himself on a good job well done. His self-satisfaction must have been short-lived.
North of the border, in the telling phrase of Fordun, the famous William Wallace, Hammer of the English, caput levavit — ‘raised his head’.