CHAPTER FIVE
ON 26 January 1302, the Treaty of Asnières, granting another truce to the Scots until 1 November 1302, was ratified by the king at Linlithgow.1 The English army began its return south shortly thereafter. Letters of credence on behalf of Edward’s ambassadors to the king of France, which gave them full powers to grant a truce to the Scots, had been issued as early as 24 August 1301 when the king and his army were still at Glasgow.2 Edward may, of course, have merely been taking precautions: a truce might again prove useful in preventing the Scots from undoing the year’s good work if all did not go according to plan. However, there was little point in expending huge resources on spending the winter in Scotland if military activity was thereby financially impossible for most of the next year. Whatever, and whether or not he always intended to ratify the agreement being negotiated throughout the autumn of 1301, he was still determined to achieve as much as possible before the money ran out and the weather deteriorated.
Edward had reason to be concerned. Soules and the main Scottish army had never gone east, but had taken the opportunity, as the prince went north to join his father, to move through Carrick and the districts of Kyle and Cunningham. John Marshall, the earl of Lincoln’s baillie in the newly-acquired barony of Renfrew, reported that the guardian was advancing towards him with a large army. On 3 October the newly captured castle of Turnberry was besieged ‘with four hundred men-at-arms and petail [men] enough to damage it as much as they could’, suggesting that someone in the Scottish army had finally come up with some siege equipment.4 On 25 October 1301, as the English army decamped for Linlithgow, a servant was ‘sent to Glasgow to learn of rumours there of the Scots’.3
It is significant that Soules’ army was attempting to win back the lands of both the earl of Carrick and James the Steward. Certainly the Steward, traditionally a Bruce, rather than a Balliol, supporter, had nevertheless acquiesced in the young earl’s exclusion from power; however, he may have been prepared to look after Carrick’s interests if the latter was unable, for whatever reason, to act as a member of the community of the realm of Scotland. Either that, or the earl was still actively playing that role, including making his contribution to the army, perhaps partly because the guardianship was now held by the less politically offensive person of Sir John Soules, even if the latter’s family certainly had connections with the Comyns.5
The constable at Ayr, Sir Montasini de Novelliano, and the sheriff, Sir Edmund Hastings, were expecting the Scottish army at Ayr by the end of October and thus urgently required reinforcements ‘for the Scots are in such force that they and the other loyalists there cannot withstand them’. They had heard nothing as yet from Earl Patrick, their immediate superior, ‘at which they wonder much’. The earl was, in fact, still at Dunbar, according to Sir Ralph Manton, and intending to join the king at Dunipace. He almost certainly had a quick change of plan, however, since he claimed in February 1302 that the Scots had begun to besiege the garrison at Ayr ‘after his own arrival at the castle’.6
To add insult to insult, a Scottish contingent – perhaps under Sir Simon Fraser – was still active in and around Selkirk Forest. On 29 October a member of the Berwick town garrison was captured at Melrose, despite the presence of fifty men-at-arms and one hundred and twenty footsoldiers under Sir Hugh Audley in the Forest itself.7 Far more alarming, however, was the capture of Sir Robert Hastangs near his own castle at Roxburgh in December. Fortunately for Hastangs, his brother, Nicholas, agreed to stand in as a hostage for his ransom and he was back at Roxburgh by February.8 Yet again the Scots were proving that no matter how impotent they might appear when facing an English army directly, they could still inflict some fairly telling blows through guerrilla tactics; now it was Edward’s turn to look on helplessly.
Despite the profound difficulties experienced by the English administration in trying to keep the two armies together, they still needed to ensure that the garrisons were up to scratch. On 8 October a daily rate of pay, beginning on that date, was calculated for both the royal armies and the fortresses in English hands. It was agreed on 17 November that Sir John de St. John should maintain a small standing army of one hundred and twenty men-at-arms ‘constantly arrayed to make forays on the Scots in Galloway until next Easter [22 April 1302]’; this evidence strongly suggests that, at that point, Edward still did not expect a truce to halt military activities.
The garrisons of Lochmaben and Dumfries were each to contain ten men-at-arms and one hundred footsoldiers, and a clerk was to be sent ‘without delay to see to their weekly pay, and also to the proper munition of these castles with dead stock, corn and wine and other vivers, as he hears they are insufficiently provided’. However admirable these arrangements might appear on paper, they were likely to prove extremely difficult to implement. Sure enough, on 31 December, the king had to send further orders for money to be sent to St. John, ‘who is in great want of it for these garrisons’.9
The amount paid out in wages for the garrisons, apart from Lochmaben and Dumfries which were accounted for separately, totalled £12 7s. 2d. per day, or £4510 1s. 7d. per annum. Although this compares well with the daily figure of £13 5s. for the garrisons in 1300, it is by no means the full complement. There are no figures for Ayr, suggesting that it was cut off from the rest of the English administration by enemy activity. In addition, Berwick, as usual, played host to a small standing army of twenty-five men-at-arms, sixty crossbowmen and two hundred and seventy archers. This is just as well, since the figures given for Roxburgh and Jedburgh are noticeably smaller than usual, caused presumably by the fact that there were now more garrisons for which men had to be provided.
A garrison at Linlithgow under Sir William Felton, as keeper of the castle, was instituted in this regnal year (20 November 1300–19 November 1301). Felton had recently been the constable of Beaumaris, one of Edward’s new Welsh castles.10 Eighty-five men-at-arms and one hundred footsoldiers were ordered to reside at Linlithgow, though ten of the men-at-arms formed the retinue of the new sheriff, Sir Archibald Livingston. Carstairs and Kirkintilloch also feature in English accounts for the first time in this year, most likely acquired as the king’s army passed them en route to Glasgow, in the case of Carstairs, and then to Dunipace, in the case of Kirkintilloch.
The fact that the constable of Carstairs, Sir Walter Burghdon, was also sheriff of Lanark indicates that the castle, belonging to the bishop of Glasgow, had been appropriated by the Crown to act as the centre of a sheriffdom. There was presumably nothing in Lanark itself worth putting a garrison into, perhaps as a result of Wallace’s early activities, though the motte is still visible today. However, the Scots maintained their own sheriff, Sir Walter Logan, in the area, and it is likely that Burghdon did not have it all his own way even after 1301.11
Kirkintilloch, another Comyn of Badenoch castle, was probably garrisoned around the same time as Linlithgow, since Sir William Fraunceys, the constable, chose twenty archers from the latter garrison to go there. They were joined by a total of twenty-seven men-at-arms and nineteen crossbowmen.12 The English garrison community in Scotland was expanding annually, a sign of success, but equally an administrative nightmare. Even some of the private castles needed looking after: Dirleton, in Lothian, was again regarded as so badly supplied that it was permitted to purchase victuals from the Berwick store.13 Though it is possible that nonpayment of dues was the cause of this dearth, it is equally likely that the area was suffering from a surfeit of military activity to the detriment of grain production.
Two more royal stores also came into operation in 1301. The store at Ayr came under the overall control of James Dalilegh, the receiver at Carlisle, and, despite enemy pressure in the area, he was able to issue flour, oats and wine from it in September. A royal clerk, John Jarum, had been appointed its keeper, under Dalilegh, by December 1301.14 The institution of a garrison at Linlithgow – not to mention the king’s residence there – brought about the first mention of a store at Blackness on the Forth. Without this store, provisions could only have been brought up the coast as far as Leith.15
The only evidence in this year for ‘normal’ administrative activity was once more in the sheriffdom of Edinburgh, whose sheriff was again able to collect the issues normally owed to the crown. Though we cannot rule out the generation of similar paperwork from other sheriffdoms just because it has not survived, it might also be the case that Edinburgh was the most secure sheriffdom in English hands; the garrison was certainly not involved in the preparations for a potential enemy attack. The variety of issues was very similar to those collected in the preceding year, indicating that the sheriff and his officers were still able to enforce their authority throughout the sheriffdom.16
Though we are afforded even fewer glimpses of the Scottish administration in its normal modus operandi, there were some developments in this year also. In July 1301, Sir John Soules issued letters patent confirming Alexander Scrymgeour in certain rights pertaining to the constableship of Dundee, presumably still firmly in Scottish hands, proving that the Scottish chancery, revived under Wallace, was still operational even if there is no evidence for the use of a royal seal. More important, however, was the appointment, by 31 January 1301, of Master Nicholas Balmyle as chancellor. Since any revenues which found their way into the coffers of the Scottish administration were doubtless required most pressingly for the prosecution of the war, ‘the rich abbey of Arbroath was made responsible for paying Master Nicholas’s fee . . .’17
On balance, therefore, Edward and his mighty military machine had certainly made considerable progress in the process of reconquest; equally, the Scots, in military terms, had been forced into a largely reactive position, though there were moments when guerrilla tactics seemed to regain the initiative. However, a thorough examination of all aspects of the English military machine reveals considerable weaknesses for which the king’s impotent fury at the frustration of his plans is evidence in itself.
Since we have practically no evidence for the Scottish side of this coin, it is quite possible that the guardians experienced similar difficulties. However, the ability of the Scottish army to maintain itself in the field throughout much of the year suggests that there was still widespread support for the restoration of King John. That support may have been waning in certain areas which now had a long experience of the occupying regime, but nevertheless most of Scotland still remained beyond even the nominal control of Edward’s administration. Thus, although on one level the Scots looked increasingly likely to succumb to the intense pressure inflicted by these impressive English armies year after year, the whole picture suggests that the issue was far less clear-cut as English garrisons remained vulnerable to starvation and attack. To this must be added another dimension which has hitherto played little part in the story, though it has been grumbling away in the background: Continental diplomacy.
The truce of Asnières not only envisaged the suspension of hostilities until 1 November 1302, thereby precluding a summer campaign; it also agreed that the French should hold certain lands in Scotland for its duration. These were:
. . . the lands, possessions, rents . . . which the king of England or someone on his behalf has taken or acquired which the king of France says were occupied from John Balliol or from the Scots since the messengers of the king of France came to the king of England, or which will be taken before the ratification of this present treaty made by the king of England, that these shall be in the hand of the said king of France until the Feast of All Saints to come [1 November 1302].
All this territory was to be handed over by 16 February, to be administered by King Philip as he saw fit. Provision was also made to preserve the rights of the menu people, the lesser folk who held land by heritage, perhaps the peculiarly Scottish ‘kindly tenants’, who maintained such rights because of the continued occupation of their land by themselves and their ancestors.18
Since English ambassadors had been appointed on 24 August, presumably shortly after ‘the messengers of the King of France came to the King of England’,19 the terms of the truce probably encompassed most of the castles captured during the summer campaign, such as Bothwell, possibly Kirkintilloch, Turnberry and Dalswinton. Ayr and Carstairs might just have avoided inclusion. Thus, according to this extraordinary agreement, a large chunk of the south-west was to be handed over to the French. Taken at face value, this would have been a remarkable humiliation for King Edward, not to mention a dreadful waste of the summer campaign if the revenues from captured lands were to find their way into the coffers of the French, rather than the English, crown.
So why agree to such humiliating, even dangerous, terms? The answer lies in the fact that warfare in this period, in common with more recent conflicts, was inextricably bound up with politics and thus affected by shifts in international opinion, in this case, most particularly, by the pope, Boniface VIII. The Scots at the papal court – Master William Frere, archdeacon of Lothian, Master William of Eaglesham and Master Baldred Bisset – had been extremely busy in May 1301, pressing forward the Scottish counter-arguments to the case presented for Edward’s claim to the overlordship of Scotland in the previous year. They claimed to be able to directly refute more than one of the English arguments: the Scots had never acknowledged Edward’s suzerainty ‘by a decree of their entire nation’, as the latter asserted, nor did the English king have ‘full possession of Scotland . . . but only of certain places in the dioceses of St. Andrews and Glasgow’. The Scots at Rome hoped that the pope ‘will pronounce judgement on this affair between them and you [King Edward] and that he [the pope] will immediately forbid you to engage in any kind of warlike acts against them’. The Scottish request for the pope to act as overlord rendered even King Philip as a more acceptable alternative to King Edward.
French pressure on both the pope and the English was also vital to Scottish activities. Of crucial importance to the events taking place in Scotland itself in 1301 was the release of John Balliol from papal custody that summer; he then returned to his ancestral estates in Picardy in France. The imminent return of King John was expected not just by the Scots, but by Edward as well, provoking the extraordinary admission that ‘. . . [it is feared] that the kingdom of Scotland may be removed out of the king’s hands (which God forbid!) and handed over to Sir John Balliol or to his son . . .’20
It was against this background that the negotiations between the French and the English were conducted at Asnières. Edward was undoubtedly very concerned about his diplomatic position. He faced the possibility that the pope would explicitly prohibit him from continuing the war – a ban that would have been difficult for even the diplomatic skills of Walter Langton to circumvent, since the ultimate sanction of excommunication would certainly have been applied if it had been flouted equally, the likelihood of King John’s return was doing little to boost English morale in Scotland, while the Scots must have believed that victory would soon be theirs.
Thus, although the financial and supply difficulties encountered by the English army meant that the king and his men endured a miserable winter in Scotland, this cannot have been what caused Edward to conclude the truce since he had apparently already agreed to it in principle in August 1301. The period up to February 1302 was therefore used to consolidate the English hold in Scotland, primarily through building programmes on most of the new castles in Edward’s hands, in preparation for future campaigns. The purveyance ordered in October 1301 was required to feed the army until it came home at the beginning of the truce, as well as the garrisons themselves.21
Nevertheless, this interpretation of the events of late 1301 does raise a few questions. Most particularly, if Edward knew of the likely conditions of the truce, why did he want to reduce Stirling castle, which would, if captured, have then been handed over to the French unless, of course, he had very little intention of sticking to the agreement? It is quite likely that, with the news of John Balliol’s release, the raison-d’être of the truce for Edward was to prevent a French invasion in 1302; equally, the English army’s presence in Scotland would preclude a surprise winter attack on King John’s behalf before the agreement was struck.
Balliol’s release, implying, as it did, the active support of both Pope Boniface and King Philip, marked the zenith of Scottish achievements in the diplomatic arena. The English king was now firmly on the defensive, even if Scottish military activities were also curtailed. However, this diplomatic success had another important consequence: the return of the earl of Carrick, now nearly twenty-eight years old, to King Edward’s peace. It was one thing for the young earl to act as guardian theoretically in King John’s name; it was quite another to fight for him if he were to return to reclaim his throne. It is most likely that, while not denying patriotism as a motivation, the main reason behind Carrick’s attempt to work with the Comyns in maintaining Scottish government and its military machine was the family’s obsession with the throne and the maintenance of their position within Scottish politics generally. Admittedly the Bruce claim to the throne was currently vested in Carrick’s father, who remained resolutely on Edward’s side, but this does not alter the volumes spoken by Carrick’s action in 1302. A free Scotland and a Bruce king were surely synonymous in the minds of the Bruces despite the fact that a free Scotland and a Balliol king were rooted in the minds of most Scots.
The capture of Turnberry in September 1301 may also have influenced Carrick’s decision to change sides. The English were now making headway in his own earldom, as well as controlling Annandale itself.22 Although the silence about his activities throughout 1301 suggests that he was already effectively a neutral figure, the lack of information on Scottish military operations should make us wary of presuming that he failed to attempt to protect his own lands.
He may even have been involved in the siege of Ayr, a few miles up the coast from Turnberry. That siege had probably been lifted by 23 January 1302, on which date Walter Beauchamp, the steward of the royal household, sent a letter to Dalilegh as ‘warden of the stores at Newcastle-on-Ayr’, commanding him to deliver flour for Beauchamp’s own use.23 The steward was writing from Irvine, ten miles north of Ayr, and such a request would clearly not have been feasible if the Scots had mounted a blockade. If we take this speculation further, it could be suggested that, having failed at Ayr, which could thus continue to threaten Turnberry, Carrick then heard that Edward was about to ratify the truce with the French; the thought of the return of King John was more than his patriotic sympathies could endure.
According to one chronicler, Bruce gave himself up to Sir John de St. John, presumably at Lochmaben. The latter was certainly not with the court at Linlithgow, although he was imminently expected there to help to organise the planned building of a pele, according to a royal letter of 21 February. A petition from Bruce, probably from 1305, implies that he indeed met with Sir John. He was then granted certain conditions, including a grant of Sir Ingram d’Umfraville’s lands in Carrick (possibly as a payback for d’Umfraville’s replacement of the earl as guardian) ‘in the presence of many good people’. Carrick was perhaps then sent on to perform homage to the English king personally.24
After Edward’s departure for England from Linlithgow on 1 February 1302, Bruce remained there as part of a Scottish council consisting of Sir John Segrave, Sir John Botetourt, Sir Robert Clifford, Sir William Latimer, Sir John de St. John, Sir Thomas Furnivall, Sir Hugh Audley, and Sir Nicholas Malemeyns, who were all issued with victuals by Ralph Benton, the keeper of the store at Linlithgow, on 4 March.25
The exact meaning of Carrick’s submission terms have been argued over in detail and there is still dispute as to whether le droit refers to his claim to the throne, or merely to his Scottish estates. Indeed, as Prestwich points out, the degree of speculation over a document which, by its very nature, should have been unambiguous, suggests that one or both parties involved wished to leave part of it vague.26 However, it is also significant, backing up Duncan’s argument, that the word ‘le’ is used with ‘droit’, rather than ‘mon’, until one remembers that the Bruce claim to the throne did not rest with the earl of Carrick, but with his father; he could not, therefore, refer to it as his own.
It is perhaps useful to speculate what Carrick’s submission terms might have been if he had submitted a year earlier, or a year later, when the imminent return of King John was not uppermost in everyone’s minds. It is likely that he would have been confirmed in his lands and property on more or less the same terms as those granted to Sir John Comyn, on behalf of the Scottish government, in February 1304. The difference between the earl of Carrick and every other Scottish noble of a similar rank and background was his family’s claim to the throne, a claim which Edward was perhaps prepared to recognise, albeit covertly, only at a time when the return of King John with the backing of a French army was a realistic possibility. If that possibility became reality, Edward could have attempted to divide the Scottish nobility by proclaiming Bruce of Annadale as king. There is perhaps only one element in this difficult period about which we can be certain: if Edward gave the Bruce claim to the throne any degree of support, it was only because of the difficult circumstances in which the English king found himself in 1301–2. This was plan B, but plan A had not failed yet.
On 12 and 14 February the king and his council at Roxburgh made various ordinances for the keeping of the garrisons during the truce (see Tables 1–4). The standing army in Berwick town was now relatively small at ten men-at-arms, forty crossbowmen and one hundred and forty archers under Sir Edmund Hastings. However, Sir Alexander Balliol in Selkirk Forest had access to six hundred footsoldiers at four days’ warning and one thousand at eight days’ warning, should any infringements of the truce take place in that area. It is not clear where these footsoldiers were to come from, although, given the numbers and the time needed to raise them, they were no doubt to be sent at least partly from south of the border. No agreement survives with St. John for the keeping of the western march and the garrisons of Dumfries and Lochmaben. However, he was still paid £150 for his service with sixty men-at-arms for the Easter term up to 10 June.27
As in 1300, no payment was to be made for loss of horses during the period of the truce. It was also ordained that some of the footsoldiers in the garrisons of Roxburgh, Berwick town, Jedburgh and Berwick castle should be carpenters and masons to make repairs to the walls and houses, in the case of the castles, and to begin the construction of a pele and other defences, in the case of Berwick town. Berwick castle was apparently in something of a state. On 17 March 1302 Edward ordered John Droxford, on the advice of Ralph Manton, ‘who has seen what is lacking in the said castle, to bring about such repairs as you see should be done’.28 On 12 and 14 February 1302 detailed ordinances were also made for the building works to be constructed at Linlithgow and Selkirk.
The defects of the royal manor at Linlithgow had come to the king’s attention upon his arrival there in October 1301. He thus enlisted the services of eighty-one diggers and ninety-one carpenters from 12 November; cementars, scythers and coverers were also involved in making the ‘king’s chambers’ up till 28 November. The town’s defences were to be strengthened with various kinds of crossbows, quarrels and belts sent up from England.
Edward had had plenty of time over the winter to work out his plans for the pele to be constructed around the existing manor house. Sir John Kingston, the sheriff of Edinburgh and Sir Archibald Livingstone, the sheriff of Linlithgow, were appointed ‘overseers and ordainers’ of the building of a ‘forcelette’. A clerk, Henry Brandeston, was appointed to pay the wages of those involved in the building work and each sheriff was to provide a clerk to act as comptroller. The master carpenters were to be Master Thomas Houghton, who had previously resided at Edinburgh, and Master Adam Glasham, who had worked on Edward’s first pele in Scotland at Lochmaben. The sheriff of York was to send as many carpenters, masons and diggers as were deemed necessary, and the sheriffs of Edinburgh, Linlithgow, Stirling29 and Lanark were all to provide carts and wagons.
Lastly, as a measure of the importance and, indeed, the scale, of the works envisaged at Linlithgow, the king sent for the man who had been the architect of the great Edwardian castles in Wales, the Savoyard, Master James de St. George. Both Master James and Master Thomas Houghton had been involved in the works at Beaumaris, where Felton had also served.30 These building works were clearly intended to raise the status of the existing structure at Linlithgow to that of a castle.31
Master James had arrived in Scotland by the end of April and on 23 May an indenture giving exact details of the works to be undertaken was issued. A ditch was to encircle the fortification, as deep and wide as possible so that water from the loch could flow through it. A stone gate and two stone towers had been originally planned, but the king had now changed his mind – presumably because of financial constraints – and ‘would have the gates and towers of timber and the peel itself to be built of untrimmed logs’. The tower of the adjacent church of St. Michael and the church itself were also to be reinforced. Finally, another ‘good defensible ditch’ was to be made behind the castle from one end of the pele to the other, beyond a ridge near the loch, to protect the new construction from an attack by water. Another palisade was to be constructed on top of the ridge.32 Progress was swift. By 14 September 1302, it was reported that there was ‘nothing to do here, except fourteen perches [75 yards] of ‘pele’ [palisading] and six brattices [wooden parapets]’.33
Despite the success of the actual building programme, the enterprise was still plagued with the usual problems of money, and payments to those working at Linlithgow were soon badly in arrears. In 1303, when the king was planning works at Dunfermline, the Linlithgow men categorically refused to be sent there, because they were owed so much.34
Selkirk also required attention because of the basic nature of the structure currently in use. The first reference to a castle there occurs as early as 1120, in the foundation charter of Selkirk Abbey. The royal burgh, situated below the junction of the rivers Ettrick and Yarrow, grew up around the castle at an unknown period before 1366. The castle itself was a favourite royal residence of the early kings of Scots – William the Lion issued at least twenty-seven charters while staying there.35 However, an earthwork located in the grounds of a Georgian mansion house on the outskirts of the town is all that remains of both the early castle and the Edwardian pele constructed in 1302. The tower dominating both was placed on the summit of this mound, which has a diameter of 40 feet.36
The detailed plans envisaged for Selkirk were very similar to those for Linlithgow although the use of stone suggests that the former was intended to be a more impressive edifice than that at Linlithgow, perhaps because of its importance to the security of the Forest and function as a westerly addition to the important network of garrisons of the south-east: Berwick, Roxburgh, Jedburgh and Edinburgh. Sir Alexander Balliol and Sir Robert Hastangs were to oversee the work, and the clerk, William Rue, was to be responsible for paying wages and ‘attendant expenses’. Balliol and Hastangs were also each to provide a comptroller. Master Reginald the engineer, who was usually at Berwick, and Master Stephen of Northampton were appointed as master carpenters. The sheriff of Northumberland was to send enough carpenters, diggers and masons for the work and sufficient carriage for transporting the ‘necessary materials’; Balliol and Hastangs were also to provide workmen and carriage.37 By September the work was not quite completed:
The tower of the fortress is finished, except the roof, from a lack of ‘plunk’ [planking]; a postern is made out of the same to the west, faced with stone; a drawbridge and portcullis, with a good brattice above; the stone work of said bridge is half finished. And fourteen perches [75 yards] of ‘pele’ have been completed from one part of the tower to the other. There are forty-three perches [237 yards] of ‘pele’ yet to make. The stone work of the main gate of the fortress is raised above ground to the drawbridge.
These figures suggest that the new structure covered about a couple of acres in area, at a total cost of £1372 13s. 10d.38 The reason for the delay may be connected with continuing Scottish attacks; certainly, on 6 June 1301, Sir Robert Hastangs, as ‘keeper of our works at Selkirk’, was paid 100 marks to make an expedition ‘without delay’. Five months later, on 8 November, £200 was issued by the exchequer at York, together with twelve crossbows and all equipment pertaining to them, to be taken safely to Roxburgh in dangerous conditions to Sir Robert Hastangs for the works at Selkirk.39 Although the Forest was not such a problem for the English garrisons as it had once been, its security could not be guaranteed.
1302 began well for the Scots. A Scottish parliament met at Scone on 23 February and was informed of Bishop Lamberton’s success in including Scotland in the Anglo-French truce of Asnières.40 The defection of the earl of Carrick presumably came to the attention of his erstwhile colleagues around this time. Although this certainly meant that the earldom’s ‘army’ could no longer be called out on behalf of King John,41 we should not presume that his defection was hugely significant: Bruce was both a particular case and already something of a political has-been, rather than the thin end of the wedge.
If anything, there was more evidence during this year for the devastating effects of Scottish activities, particularly in terms of cross-border raiding. On 14 August 1302, the sheriff of Northumberland was ordered to choose a coroner in place of one Nicholas Middleton ‘whom the king has caused to be amoved from the office as it is testified before the king that Nicholas’s lands have been much destroyed and wasted by the Scots . . .’ Ten days later Edward also informed the chancellor that the people of Northumberland were excused from their duties of castleguard at Newcastle because their lands had been ‘. . . destroyed by the Scots enemies’. In October, the sheriff of Cumberland, Sir William Mulcastre, sought respite for just over half of the £222 9s. 11d. which he owed to the exchequer, claiming that he had not been able to levy this money ‘as the county was so wasted and destroyed by the Scottish war’.42
The Scots should not, of course, have inflicted this damage in 1302, because of the truce, and the above could refer to Scottish activities in any year between 1298 and 1301. However, this may be evidence of a long-standing, and surely systematic, policy, undertaken either officially or privately, of attacking, terrorising and destroying the lands and people of the north of England. Though King Robert Bruce adopted this policy and, as he so often did, made it his own, it had become a feature of this bitter war since 1297.43 The inhabitants of Northumberland and Cumberland, particularly, were caught between the rock of Edward’s continuing demands to sustain the English war effort, and the hard place of being on the front line when the Scots crossed the border.
The dates of the indentures for Linlithgow and Selkirk (12 and 14 February 1302) are extremely significant when it is remembered that the date set for the handing over to the French of the castles captured during the previous campaign was 16 February 1302. This building activity, together with the garrison indentures, make it fairly clear that Edward had no intention of handing over castles to the French. There is no way of telling, of course, whether or not he had ever meant to adhere to this part of the truce. Given the number of castles recaptured late in 1301, his inclination would surely have been to default if he could possibly get away with it. Presumably as the winter progressed and there was no sign of a French expedition on behalf of King John before the ratification of the truce, Edward began to feel confident enough to ignore the 16 February deadline and retain the castles taken the previous year.
This policy was vindicated less than six months later when the Flemings defeated the French army at Courtrai on 11 July 1302, destroying all hopes that Philip IV would take direct action in Scotland on behalf of King John.44 Although the English king could not have predicted such a defeat, he may have been ready to call King Philip’s bluff, based on the shrewd suspicion that the French rarely wished to expend much cost and effort – as opposed to diplomatic pressure – on the Scottish cause. To make matters considerably worse, papal pressure on the English king had also eased by the end of 1302 as a result of the worsening quarrel between Boniface VIII and King Philip, re-establishing King Edward as an attractive papal ally. Indeed the pope now turned directly on the Scottish church, supporting Edward’s claims; the Scottish bishops were encouraged to submit and the bishop of Glasgow was explicitly ordered to cease his rebellious activities.45 It would be naïve to suggest that the support of these important European powers for Scotland had ever been based on altruism rather than pragmatism; now both had need of England. The Scots were equally motivated by political expediency and doubtless had little sympathy for the burghers of Flanders and their blow for freedom against the French at Courtrai. In practical terms, the battle was now once more entirely dependent on the war of attrition being played out in Scotland itself, a battle that neither side could really be said to be winning.
In the meantime, the truce of Asnières was perhaps indirectly responsible for the finalisation of the town-planning exercise for Berwick which had been initiated to so little effect in 1296: even though the new English burgesses in the town were responsible for reviving Edward’s interest in the town, the truce provided him with some time to reconsider matters which had moved to the bottom of the pile during the years of war.
On 4 July 1302 the king ordered an inquest to be held ‘to inquire by what services a burgage and four ‘places’ are held by Nicholas Carlisle, the king’s serjeant in Berwick, and whether forty acres lying between said town and its fosses [ditches] . . . might be granted, without damage, to Nicholas to hold of the king’. The policy of giving garrison members (such as Carlisle) a stake in the communities of which they were, to begin with at least, an obviously alien part, was clearly in operation in Berwick.
The inquest was held on 30 July before Sir Walter Amersham, the chancellor, Sir Edmund Hastings, warden of Berwick town, and Sir John Burdon, the sheriff, by a jury of sixteen. These sixteen asserted that Nicholas Carlisle held the burgage ‘which was Ralph Phelipe’s’ and three places belonging to the bishop of Moray, William the Scriptor and Henry Stirling. These four had presumably forfeited their lands during the course of the war. As for the forty acres it was asserted that they were held
in the late King Alexander’s time by various burgesses of Berwick freely without any reddendum [payment], as is pertinent of their burgages, and when the said burgh was founded [pre-1124] they were given to the burgesses to build, if any wished to do so, and there are streets in said ground arranged for this.
Now, however, these lands were held by ‘various burgesses of the king of England for a yearly payment of 2s.’
These ‘various burgesses’, numbering thirty, are named and include the main English officials in Scotland, including Amersham, the chancellor, Sir John Weston, the receiver, and Master Robert Heron, the comptroller and keeper of the customs at Berwick. Five were English burgesses resident in Berwick, who also sat on the jury of inquest. The remaining twenty-two included Reginald the engineer, currently at Selkirk, and two ship owners, John Spark of Newcastle and John Packer of Sandwich, who had served the king faithfully over the years in bringing up supplies to the north. Edward, it seems, had been successful in making Berwick a base for those who had formed the backbone of English activities in Scotland.
Though four of the jurors appear to have been burgesses of Berwick before 1296 – as the tone of their findings also suggests – none of those holding land in the forty acres can be described without doubt as longstanding Scottish inhabitants of the burgh. Though technically the term ‘burgesses of the King of England’ now applied equally to any ‘British’ burgess, it is highly likely that these thirty burgesses were those sent north in 1297. But, no matter how recently they, or the other jurors, had come to the town, they did not mince their words on the subject of the future of the burgh. It was categorically stated that:
this ground cannot, without the greatest injury to the king and the confusion and destruction of the aforesaid town be held wholly [integre] by Nicholas or any other; for he might build as good or a better town there than the present and the burgesses have no other place within or without their town where they can have a handful of grass or pasture, or any other easement, except these forty acres, whereon all the burgesses, both small and great, have common pasture in open time by use and wont, and they [the 40 acres] are divided in small divisions as in the time of King Alexander among the burgesses.46
This was not the only petition addressed to Edward by the burgesses of Berwick in this year. Of far more importance was their quest for a charter of liberties, because ‘they are new men come into the town and had and have great need of the king’s aid and have several times asked him, for his own benefit and the profit of his town of Berwick, as well as of the burgesses inhabitant’. Edward had, in fact, promised them certain franchises when he was at Roxburgh en route for England in February 1302. This had resulted in a further influx of ‘merchants and sufficient persons’ to the burgh.47
As a result of this petition, Edward granted Berwick a charter of privileges on 4 August 1302. These consisted of the right to be a free burgh, with burgesses and a merchant guild and ‘Hanse’ (guild entry fee), the right to elect a mayor and four bailiffs yearly, as well as a coroner. The burgesses were also permitted to have a prison within, and a gallows without, the burgh, as well as a twice-weekly market on Monday and Friday, and a fair each year from 3 May to 24 June.
This charter of privileges restored to Berwick the rights and privileges which it had long enjoyed – there had been a provost, burgesses and common seal attached to the burgh since at least 121248 – and a mayor and commune since 1235 – many of which, presumably, had fallen into abeyance during the difficult circumstances caused by the conquest of 1296. A letter was sent to the keeper of Berwick town, Sir Edmund Hastings, on the same date, informing him of these rights and privileges and ordering him to present the new mayor to the chancellor of Scotland, as Edward’s representative, to make his fealty. Hastings was then ordered ‘not to intermeddle further in the custody of the town’.49
Having been awarded the status of a free borough, Berwick was now included among the other English trading centres for administrative purposes. Thus, on 13 August 1302, John Spark and William Brown, two of the 40s. acre burgesses, were appointed as ‘collectors and receivers in ports of the new customs of 2s. a barrel, which the merchant vintners of the duchy [of Aquitaine] have granted to the king, in addition to the old customs’.50 Berwick was now effectively in England.
It could be argued that the granting of this charter of liberties at the prompting of the burgesses indicates a degree of confidence in the extent of English control of this furthermost south-eastern corner of Scotland. There is likely to be much truth in that, although doubtless if the military situation had degenerated once more, it would have been necessary to restore the burgh to military control.
Berwick’s good fortune was not the only indication that the previous year’s military gains were being translated into corresponding advances in administrative control. Thomas Fishburn, a former keeper of the Rolls of Scotland, chose this year to petition the king again regarding the restoration of ‘20 marks of yearly rent in Ednam in the sheriffdom of Roxburgh’. He had been regranted it in 1296 but Surrey had been unable to enforce the king’s writ. Whether or not Fishburn’s perception of increased English authority was accurate is, unfortunately, impossible to say. Given that Sir John de St. John, who was given the writ to execute, died a few weeks later, it is likely that poor Thomas remained bereft of his twenty marks; on the other hand, the fact that there is no evidence that he petitioned the king later – when most such outstanding demands were mostly made – suggests that he was successful in 1302. The important point is that he considered it worthwhile to make the petition in the first place.51
On 15 August 1302, in the indenture setting out the arrangements made with Sir Walter Burghdon for the keeping of the sheriffdom of Lanark, it was stated that ‘Sir James Dalilegh, the escheator there, is to inquire and certify . . . what sum Sir Walter has received in his bailiwick and deduct the same’.52 Dalilegh, more usually the receiver at Carlisle, had probably been appointed escheator – a noticeably Scottish office – in 1301, when the English grip on the south-west was extended into Lanarkshire and Ayrshire.
However, the mere fact that, as escheator, he was supposed to account for the issues of lands in English hands does not mean that there was actually much revenue to account for. Edward’s edicts were quite often more hopeful than realistic. Professor Barrow has certainly suggested that the orderly set of accounts produced by Dalilegh in his office as escheator for regnal years 31 and 32 (20 November 1302 to 29 November 1304) shows that ‘whenever the English won any Scottish territory they were able to use an established revenue-collecting and accounting system’. However, this set of accounts – the first of its kind since Edward laid claim to ruling Scotland directly – began only in the Martinmas term (c. 11 November) for 1303, when the conquest of Scotland was once more within his grasp. Even then, it was noted in a number of cases that lands, even in Lanarkshire, were unable to be accounted for in the previous Pentecost term because they were ‘in the hands of the Scots’. It is therefore highly likely that Edward’s officials, with the exception of the sheriff of Edinburgh, had not been able to make a coherent account of the potential revenues of their bailiwicks before late 1303, although small amounts were undoubtedly collected. However, Professor Barrow may well be correct in asserting that ‘the Scots . . . must have been able to keep this system in operation’, though to what degree is, of course, impossible to ascertain for lack of evidence. They had to pay for the war effort somehow.53
It would be wrong to suggest that Edward’s officials were unaware of the need to administer their offices effectively and impartially. However, there were undoubtedly conflicting attitudes among royal officials, highlighting the fact that this was still a war situation. In September 1302, Edward received two letters, from Sir Robert Hastangs, sheriff of Roxburgh, and Sir Hugh Audley, the keeper of Selkirk Forest. The pair had recently been involved in the pursuit of a number of thieves in the sheriffdom of Roxburgh.
According to Audley, whose letter reached the king first, an arrangement had been made between himself, the sheriff of Roxburgh, the latter’s brother, Sir Richard, and Sir Alexander Balliol, ‘that they should attack at three points the moor of Alkirk (near Selkirk) in which some robbers infesting the county of Roxburgh had taken refuge’. Audley and his foresters came across them first ‘in a house’ and captured them all when they fled, returning to the house to collect the stolen cattle. Hastangs, as sheriff, then demanded that Audley hand them all over. ‘As he [Audley] wished to avoid strife, he gave up the beasts but kept the prisoners till he knew the king’s will. The foresters pray the king for the goods of the resetter [the fence for stolen goods], as others have what they can gain on the enemy’.
Hastangs’ version of these events was basically the same, with the additional information that the twelve thieves captured by Sir Hugh ‘in one of their greatest retreats’ had already been indicted before him as sheriff of Roxburgh. Though Audley gave up ‘a part of the bestial’, the thieves had been sent ‘to the prison of Berwick or Bamburgh, he [Hastangs] does not know which’.
As Hastangs himself puts it, Sir Hugh ‘claims them and their ransom as prisoners of war, under the king’s grant of what he can gain upon the enemy’. The sheriff, however, asserted that ‘they are common and notorious thieves and have made such riot in the county that the people told him that they expected him to clear them out’. Hastangs wanted them returned to prison at Roxburgh ‘or he will find no man in the county willing to obey him after his authority has been defied’.54
This was a classic catch twenty-two situation. Audley and his men, in Selkirk Forest, were, or at least had been, in the middle of a war zone and regarded the potential, albeit limited, profit to be made from this conflict as a condition of service. Indeed, the extent to which individual officers were forced to use their own money in the king’s employ meant that some form of return from the enemy was the least that could be expected.
Hastangs had a quite different perspective on this issue: he had been sheriff of Roxburgh now for five years and the local population were presumably used to the idea that if any justice was to be done, he was the man to do it. Criminal activity did not stop just because there was a war on; indeed, the collapse of normal government tended to make theft in particular both more lucrative and easier to get away with. And, of course, Wallace and subsequent Scottish leaders had given cattle-reiving the kudos of a patriotic endeavour. For the inhabitants of Roxburgh, the issue was equally simple: their goods had been stolen and their acceptance of Hastangs’ administration and, through him, that of Edward himself, depended on the sheriff’s ability to bring the perpetrators to book. If only we knew the king’s judgement on the subject.
However, the most substantial example of an increasingly confident English administration was the court held at Linlithgow between 8 October and 5 November 1302 in the presence of Master James de St. George as lieutenant of the keeper of the town, Sir Archibald Livingston, and Sir William Felton, constable of the castle. It is not entirely clear whether this was a burgh court, or a shrieval one, since Livingston was both keeper of the town and sheriff.
A variety of crimes and misdemeanours were brought before the court and a few Scots can be seen taking advantage of this opportunity to receive justice, although Englishmen also sued Scotsmen. However, the most interesting case concerned an action brought by Christina of Edinburgh against Master Adam Glasham, one of the master carpenters. He was accused of ‘unjustly keeping from her a plumb-line, to her damage’. Adam claimed the lead was his. Interestingly, Christina’s pledges were both members of the garrison, Master Thomas Houghton, the other master carpenter, and Adam Tyndale. Glasham was found guilty and he and his pledges ordered to be fined.
But Glasham then allegedly compounded his crime by beating up Christina. When he was brought back to court, he then made a plea of essoin (excuse) against her, but she challenged the validity of this plea because ‘according to the law of Scotland, after the law had given bail, essoin should not be allowed’. That particular hearing was adjourned, presumably to allow the English officers to find out if Christina was correct about the legal position. However, Glasham managed to avoid subsequent court hearings by pleading illness and there are no records of any further proceedings.55
Despite earlier accusations against Edward’s regime, the English officials running this court do appear to have made an effort to be even-handed, as witnessed by the fact that a local woman, supported in her testimony by two members of the garrison, was successfully able to prosecute another garrison member. Not only that, but the reference to essoin makes it clear that it was expected that those making judgement would adhere to the laws and customs of the northern kingdom, rather than English practice.
This cannot have been easy for the Edwardian government to accept, given that the majority of officials like St. George and Felton were presumably unversed in Scots law and would thus be dependent on native experts. Nevertheless, the fact that they were prepared to tolerate Scottish sensibilities on this issue – as had not been the case in 1296/7 – indicates the degree to which this reconquest relied on a two-way relationship between ‘victors’ and ‘vanquished’. Christina’s original involvement with the garrison, together with the activities of Eva of Stirling, indicate that that relationship went on at all levels, although the fact that both of these examples involve women might lead to some interesting conclusions about gender, patriotism and pragmatism if it were not for the fact that two is really too few from which to draw conclusions.
Basic economics – the need, above all, to make a living and provide for dependents – meant that those for whom the English presence was now a permanent reality would find it difficult to avoid interaction and co-operation, promoting, ultimately, acceptance. Though it could be argued that such evidence has merely chanced to survive for this year rather than other years, it is far more likely that it does represent an increased ability, in certain restricted areas, to maintain a normal administrative environment. The gains of the previous few years derived less from the establishment of nominal English control throughout more of Scotland than in the removal of the Scottish government’s ability to challenge Edward’s rule in the areas which had long been dominated, but not completely convinced, by the English presence. The king knew what he was doing in singling out the ‘middling folk’.
Edward’s demands on his own subjects, though certainly lightened by the truce and the absence of a campaign, by no means disappeared altogether, not least because of the backlog of debt from previous years. For example, the Welsh troops who had served with Prince Edward in 1301 were supposed to receive the £4000 owed to them as wages from the fifteenth to be raised in the counties of Hereford, Gloucester, Worcester, Devon, Warwick, Leicester, Shropshire and Stafford in 1302. Unfortunately this was still not enough and, on 13 June 1302, the exchequer was ordered to assign even more counties to make the payment ‘so that the king can have them [the Welsh] at other times more readily for his business’.56 By this point in the war, expediency, rather than one’s place in the payment queue, played the most crucial role in dictating where hard-pressed royal issues were spent.
The garrisons also obviously needed to be paid for. On 2 May 1302 Sir Walter Amersham, described again as chancellor, and Master John Weston, the paymaster, were ordered to lay out £536 13s. 4d. on the second instalment of wages for the Easter term (9 May – 1 June), indicating that the men-at-arms were certainly being paid in advance. This was divided among Sir John de St. John and his retinue, and the garrisons of Berwick town, Berwick castle, Roxburgh, Jedburgh, Carstairs, Edinburgh and Bothwell. £200 was also to be sent to Linlithgow and Selkirk for the works there. The total expenditure equalled £547 1s. and the shortfall was to be met, in the case of the garrisons of Berwick, Roxburgh and Jedburgh, from the issues of these areas.57
Payment was also to be made to Sir John FitzMarmaduke, keeper of the earl of Lincoln’s lands of Strathgryfe. On 15 February, he was issued with a full month’s wages while he was still with the king at Roxburgh. At the end of that month, and for each month following, the money was to be sent to Edinburgh, from there to Carstairs and then on to Bothwell, where Sir John would pick it up. This excessively complicated procedure presumably indicates that the king did not feel happy about transporting money via the store at Ayr, and thus it had to come from Berwick. Indeed, FitzMarmaduke’s job was explicitly ‘to save this land [Strathgryfe] and the surrounding area’. He could not yet run it effectively.58
Even though the truce ruled out a campaign, purveyance was still required for the garrisons. One-third of the supplies collected in England was to be sent to Berwick, while the rest was to be delivered to Edinburgh. The advances made in the last year are reflected in these arrangements – the new garrisons at Linlithgow, including the workmen building the pele, Carstairs, Bothwell and even the earl of Lincoln’s men in Strathgryfe were probably all supplied from the east; Edinburgh, which was nearer to them than Berwick, thus became more important as a store. The western garrisons of Dumfries, Lochmaben and Ayr were to be provisioned from Ireland.59
By 1302 Edward, rather over-confidently, had decided that those to whom he had granted lands in Scotland should provide castleguard, men-at-arms for duty in the garrisons there.60 Fifty-one individuals, who included the earls of Lincoln and Warwick and Sir Walter Beauchamp, Edward’s steward, as well as those, like Sir John de St. John, Sir Robert Clifford, Sir Henry Percy, Sir John Kingston, Sir Robert Hastangs and Sir John Burdon, who had served, or were still serving in Scotland, were to provide the services of one hundred and fifteen men-at-arms. Obviously this would prove a considerable saving to the crown.
However, it is clear from the memoranda concerning these troops that the arrangement was by no means entirely successful: thirty-two were recorded as ‘not yet come’. As Professor Prestwich states: ‘. . . it is not surprising that no more was heard of this particular system’, although it must be noted that the majority were forthcoming. However, the important point to be drawn from the failure of men such as St. John and Beauchamp, whose loyalty to the crown is beyond question, to provide their quotas is that they were not yet in possession of the lands for which they were to provide this service.61
The fleet was another element of the military machine that was required to provide its service whether or not there was to be a campaign, again simply because the garrisons needed supplies all year, every year. Edward was prepared to be lenient towards the Cinque Ports in particular, simply out of need;62 however, the one offence which he was more than ready to punish was the non-fulfillment of promised quotas.
The unprecedented regularity with which service was now demanded ensured that by 1302 many ports were refusing to send their ships. On 10 August 1302, therefore, two royal clerks were appointed to punish the townsfolk of no less than thirteen ports, including Portsmouth, Southampton and Plymouth, who had been ordered to supply a total of fourteen ‘well-armed’ ships for an expedition in that year. They had apparently taken ‘no measures to do so, to the harm of that expedition’ though it is not clear exactly what military endeavour – which would have blatantly broken the truce – this refers to.
At the end of the same month, an inquiry was ordered into the conduct of the men and mariners of one of the ships from Bristol, the Michael, ‘who came in the company of the other ships towards Scotland on the king’s service, and, after receiving the king’s wages at Dublin, withdrew without leave’.63 Such audacious behaviour was quite unacceptable. This point was made to the recalcitrant sailors and on 13 November the constable of Bristol castle was ordered to release them because they had promised to serve the king ‘faithfully’ on his next expedition.64 As was so often the case, Edward’s need was greater than his wrath.
As the end of the truce (1 November) approached, further arrangements were reached with the various garrison commanders and their men to guarantee their services from 1 September until Christmas.65 Sixty of the four hundred and eighty-five men-at-arms were provided by those holding lands in Scotland. Each castle’s store of provisions and military equipment was also checked, and any insufficiencies were remedied. The numbers stated for each garrison in the surviving indentures (see Tables 1–4) indicate that there was little or no increase from the truce level, despite the expected resumption of hostilities.
However, Sir John de St. John’s retinue was increased from sixty to seventy-one men-at-arms. Their brief was ‘to make mounted expeditions and to stay in the garrisons of the castles of Dumfries and Lochmaben’, again suggesting that a strict adherence to the terms of the truce was not considered a priority. Sir William Latimer and Sir John Segrave, based at Roxburgh and Berwick respectively, were appointed specifically ‘to make horsed expeditions in various parts of Scotland as necessary’, with a total of ninety-one men-at-arms between them. This was in addition to the usual force of seventeen men-at-arms, forty crossbowmen and one hundred and forty archers who remained stationed within Berwick town. The keepers of the castles of Linlithgow, Edinburgh, Jedburgh, Roxburgh and Berwick town were all to be allowed full wages while engaged on chevauchées (mounted expeditions) outside their own areas of jurisdiction, to be deducted from their certa.66
As the end of the truce approached, much had changed since its outset, although that was perhaps not particularly obvious within Scotland itself. Yet there was still nothing inevitable about victory for King Edward. Despite the extremely disappointing diplomatic setbacks, the Scots could pride themselves on having contained the English south of the Forth/Clyde line for the past five years; despite, or rather, because of, Edward’s military gains, the supply line was, if anything, in a worse state than ever. However, the stakes for both sides were increasing: by the end of 1302 the Scots had no immediate hopes of the return of their king, in whose name this war was being waged; Edward, on the other hand, though now free of diplomatic obstacles, was finding it more and more difficult to raise the required resources and needed to finish the Scots off once and for all. Despite the truce, which had worked out well for the English, the financial burden was becoming almost unbearable.
But such problems cannot have been restricted to Edward’s exchequer; presumably the Scottish government was also finding it difficult to sustain an apparently endless war, though we will never know the details. The status quo was perhaps still an option, but 1302 provides sufficient evidence to suggest that, while Edward’s subjects had complained longer, many Scots had now reached the point where they would protest loudest. And that meant that Edward’s regime was finding increasing acceptance among the people of lowland Scotland, so long as the reward was firm and effective, though not too heavy-handed, government.
NOTES
1 Foedera, ii, p. 892.
2 CPR, 1292-1301, p. 616.
3 CDS, iv, p. 454.
4 CDS, ii, no. 1121.
5 See above, p. 51.
6 CDS, ii, nos. 1234, 1236, 1293.
7 E101/9/18, m. 2; CDS, ii, no. 1190.
8 CDS, iv, p. 450; E101/68/1, m. 16; CDS, ii, no. 1598.
9 Ibid., no. 1257.
10 S. Cruden, The Scottish Castle (Edinburgh, 1960), p. 70.
11 Kelso Liber (Bannatyne Club, 1846), i, no. 193.
12 E101/9/16, m. 1 dorso.
13 E101/13/17, m. 26.
14 E101/364/13; E101/684/46, m. 5.
15 CDS, ii, no. 1264.
16 E101/9/2.
17 Barrow, Bruce, pp. 119–120; see also RRSV, p. 200.
18 Palgrave, Documents, i, pp. 243–4.
19 CDS, ii, no. 1247; Itin., p. 178.
20 R.J. Goldstein, ‘The Scottish Mission to Boniface VIII in 1301’, SHR, lxx (1991), pp. 1–16; Barrow, Bruce, pp. 116–9; Prestwich, Edward I, p. 495; Stones, Relations, no. 32. John Balliol’s son, Edward, was still in custody in England, but if the pope demanded his release, there would be little, other than engaging in delaying tactics, that Edward could do to stop it.
21 Prestwich, Edward I, p. 494.
22 There is no evidence to suggest that Bruce of Annandale, now permanently resident in England, was in receipt of any of the issues of his lordship, nor, indeed, had anything to do with Annandale at all; on the other hand, the English exchequer certainly received money from the lordship in 1300: see above, p. 115.
23 CDS, ii, no. 1281.
24 Trivet, Annales, p. 397, n. 7; E101/371/21/32; CDS, ii, no. 1657.
25 Itin., p. 182; E101/10/18, part 2, m. 170.
26 Barrow, Bruce, pp. 122–3; A.A.M. Duncan, ‘The Community of the Realm of Scotland and Robert Bruce’, SHR, xlv (1966), pp. 195–8; Prestwich, Edward I, pp. 496–7.
27 E159/75, m. 16.
28 E101/68/1, mm. 14-25d; E159/75, m. 17.
29 Sir Archibald Livingstone was also sheriff of Stirling, in name at least, prior to the capture of Stirling castle from the Scots in 1304: CDS, ii, no. 1457.
30 E101/68/1, m. 23; A.J. Taylor, ‘Thomas de Houghton’, The Antiquaries Journal, xxx (1950), p. 31.
31 Stevenson, Documents, ii, pp. 394–7; Taylor, ‘Thomas de Houghton’, p. 30.
32 A.J. Taylor, ‘Master James of St. George’, EHR, lx (1950), pp. 449–50; Brown, Colvin & Taylor, The History of the King’s Works in Scotland, i, p. 413.
33 CDS, ii, no. 1324.
34 Ibid., no. 1412.
35 RCAMS, Selkirkshire, fifteenth report (HMSO, 1957), pp. 4, 11; A.T. Simpson and S. Stevenson, Historic Selkirk: the archaeological implications of development (Scottish Burgh Survey, 1981), pp. 1, 4.
36 RCAHMS, Selkirkshire, pp. 4, 46; Simpson & Stevenson, Historic Selkirk, pp. 1, 4–5.
37 CDS, ii, no. 1288.
38 Ibid., no. 1324; RCAHMS, Selkirkshire, p. 48.
39 E159/75, m. 7; E159/76, m. 68.
40 APS, i, p. 454.
41 See Barrow, Bruce, p. 124; Melrose Liber, i, no. 351.
42 CCR, 1296–1302, 548; CDS, ii, no. 1319; CDS, ii, no. 1229.
43 See, for example, C. McNamee, The Wars of the Bruces: Scotland, England and Ireland, 1306–1328 (East Linton, 1997), Chapter 3.
44 Barrow, Bruce, p. 124.
45 CDS, v, no. 287.
46 CDS, ii, no. 1313.
47 CM. Fraser (éd.), Northern Petitions, Berwick, Cumbria and Durham, vol. 144 (Surtees Society, 1981), no. 13.
48 Duncan, Scotland: The Making of the Kingdom, pp. 494–6.
49 Stevenson, Documents, ii, pp. 443–4; CPR, 1301–1307, pp. 60–61; CDS, ii, no. 1314.
50 CPR, 1301–1307, p. 78.
51 CDS, ii, nos. 526, 832, 853; CCR, 1296–1302, p. 545.
52 CDS, ii, no. 1321 (6).
53 Barrow, Bruce, p. 105; CDS, ii, no. 1608. Despite the appointment of an escheator, Edward’s officials continued to use English terminology – Martinmas and Pentecost.
54 Ibid., no. 1227.
55 Stevenson, Documents, ii, pp. 393–8.
56 E159/75, mm. 10, 20.
57 Ibid., mm. 16,74.
58 E101/68/1, m. 19.
59 CPR, 1301–1307, p. 35.
60 Castleguard was a traditional duty required of landholders.
61 E101/10/5; E101/10/10; M. Prestwich, ‘Colonial Scotland: The English in Scotland under Edward I’, p. 9.
62 See Nicolas, A History of the Royal Navy, i, p. 280, for an account of the violent and costly quarrel between the Cinque Ports and Yarmouth.
63 CPR, 1301–1307, pp. 52–3.
64 CCR, 1296–1302, p. 564.
65 E101/13/34, m. 18; E101/10/15.
66 E101/9/13, mm. 1–2; E101/9/30, mm. 16–29.