CHAPTER FIVE

The Bruce Intervention in Ireland, 1315–1322

The Earl of Carrick, Sir Edward

Who was braver than a leopard

Thought that Scotland was too small

For himself and his brother both

And therefore to one and all announced

That he of Ireland would be king.

Of all the aspects of the Wars of the Bruces, the intervention in Ireland is the most curious. The themes are weighty: strategy, on a scale grander even than that conceived by Edward I; professions of ‘pan-celtic’ brotherhood, purporting to span centuries and seas with equal ease; and kingship, produced as by magic like a rabbit from a hat. Of the sources, no chronicle as full and reliable as Lanercost exists to provide a framework for the interpretation of events.¹ Although the other main sources have been in print for some time,² crucial aspects have eluded the light. Not surprisingly an authoritative interpretation of the Bruce involvement in Ireland has yet to emerge though the subject has attracted many scholars.³

Robert I showed a consistent interest in Ireland and visited the country on at least four occasions. Edward his brother led a Scottish invasion of Ireland in 1315, used the title ‘King of Ireland’ and died in battle against the Anglo-Irish at Fochart in 1318. The Bruces represented their interest in terms of a pan-celtic solidarity against the common enemy. An illustration of how they wanted to be seen in Ireland is the letter of Robert I to ‘all the kings of Ireland, to the prelates and clergy, and to the inhabitants of all Ireland, his friends’.⁴ Enigmatic and undated, it is a letter of credence for envoys, claiming for the Irish and Scots a common national ancestry, a common language and common customs. It is justly famous for its use of the phrase ‘our nation’, clearly intended to embrace both peoples: an expression of that pan-celtic sentiment which occasionally surfaces in medieval literature, but only rarely in history or politics. In their appeals to the common culture and the common mythology of the Scots and Irish, and their similar overtures to the Welsh, the Bruces laid claim to leadership of a Celtic Alliance against the English; and in their interventions in Ireland from 1315 to 1318, this claim appears to have been sustained with blood and steel.

Yet the most basic questions surrounding the Bruces’ involvement in the celtic world remain unanswered. Why was the letter to the Irish written? Why did the Bruces embark upon the costly invasion of Ireland? Were they gradually sucked into intervention, or did they grasp a sudden opportunity? How did they think they could unite the multiplicity of warring kingdoms of the Gaeltacht? And how far was what happened in Ireland related to events in Britain? There is no end to the questions; and there are many possible answers. The anxiety to stop the flow of provisions from Ireland to the English western march is one explanation for the occupation of Ulster, but it does not account for the Bruces’campaigns in Leinster and Thomond. The desire to enlist the Gaelic-speaking peoples of the west against a common Anglo-Saxon foe was noised abroad by both brothers, but their own actions and those of their Gaelic allies suggest that this was propaganda rather than substance. The arrogance of Edward Bruce is well attested by narrative sources, and his desire to achieve kingly status is borne out by his stated ambitions in Wales and reported interest in the Western Isles; but the persistent involvement of King Robert and his willingness to divert resources to assist in the subjugation of Ireland suggests that the King of Scots had his own reasons for wanting to see his brother become King of Ireland. On the whole the evidence suggests that Scottish intervention in Ireland was driven primarily by the dynastic ambitions of Edward Bruce, but also that these ambitions were being made to serve the war aims of Robert I.

Fortunately the broad outline of events in Ireland is no longer in question, so it is possible to provide a summary narrative incorporating the findings of recent research and relying where possible on documentary sources rather than the accounts of the Irish annalists. Related aspects and interpretations of the Irish episode may then be examined: the presence in the ‘Irish Sea province’ of Scottish lords whom the Bruces had exiled from Argyll and Galloway; Ireland as a source of supply for the warring kingdoms of Britain; the development by the Bruces of the Celtic Alliance, embracing Wales as well as Ireland; and finally the implications of Edward Bruce’s claim to the kingship of Ireland. But it would be wise to begin by setting these narrative, military, logistical and political questions within the overwhelming economic reality of the time – the crop failures of 1315–18.

Historical evidence for the Irish manifestation of the Great European Famine does not extend much further than the stock epithets and images of the native annalists:

Then reigned many diseases generally throughout the whole kingdom, a great loss of the inhabitants, great scarcity of victuals, great slaughter of people, and in summer, ugly and foul weather.⁵

Occasionally in the annals the hard times are depicted with a ghoulish horror which cannot quite be accepted at face-value:

Also it was said truly that some evil men were so distraught by famine that they dragged out of cemeteries the corpses of the buried, and roasted the bodies on spits and ate every single one of them; and women ate their sons for hunger.⁶

The lurid imaginings of the annalist were included only as entertainment for the reader; but there is no mistaking the fact that the famine of 1315–18 was worse than anything in living memory. Heavy rainfall ruined successive harvests; and the Scottish invasion coincided exactly with scarcity, crop failure and animal and human epidemics. Not surprisingly, the annalists drew a direct connection between the dearth and the presence of Edward Bruce.⁷ Campaigning inevitably involved deliberate destruction of agricultural productivity, but ‘friendly’ armies were almost as destructive as the hostile. The Annals of Connacht describe the rival armies passing through Ulster:

. . . between them they left neither wood nor lea, nor corn nor crop nor stead nor barn nor church, but fired and burnt them all.⁸

What evidence there is from manorial accounts tends to confirm the impression of great hardship, hunger and increased human mortality. In the atrocious summer of 1315, the meadows on four manors of the Archbishop of Dublin could not be mown; and turf at Finglas could not be cut.⁹ The difficulties of keeping the armies supplied continually impinge upon the narratives of marches and battles. Edward Bruce is portrayed as highly reliant upon his Gaelic Irish allies for supplies. In the winter retreat from Leinster in February 1316 many of the Scots are said to have perished from hunger and cold. Under the year 1316, the Scottish account by Fordun records that during King Robert’s visit in 1317 ‘many perished through confusion and scarcity of provisions; for such dearth prevailed there that many fed on horse flesh’.¹⁰ In Britain famine conditions affected the English, who had relied for their superiority upon large concentrations of infantry; but in the Irish campaigns, where there was no discernible difference between the armies of the Scots and those of their opponents, the dearth favoured neither side.¹¹

The famines and pestilences of the early fourteenth century were at least as responsible as the Wars of the Bruces for accelerating the long-term decline of the Anglo-Irish colony. But there was a much longer-standing drain on the resources of the lordship: the exploitative policies of English kings. From the start of Edward I’s reign to 1311, over £53,000 had been paid from Irish sources directly into the royal wardrobe for the king’s business elsewhere. Much more probably went unrecorded. War against the Irish, economic malaise and the diminishing size of the colony were at the same time bringing about a dramatic decrease in the revenues of Ireland. The Ordainers had attempted to preserve the resources of the colony by declaring that all revenue from Irish customs was to be paid into the Dublin exchequer and expended on the colony’s defence, rather than sent over to the royal wardrobe. But when the Ordainers were sidestepped and Edward II regained control of his government in 1312, this concern went by the board.¹²Furthermore, from 1312 to 1314 a further £2,000 of the revenues of Ireland were made over to Antonio Pessagno in part-payment of the king’s debts to him.¹³ During this reign the Irish colony, formerly a net contributor to royal finances, became a liability.

THE IRISH CAMPAIGNS

An escalation of the war in the Irish Sea forms the background to the Scottish invasion of Ireland; and the event which immediately preceded it was the recapture of the Isle of Man for the English by John of Argyll shortly before 18th February 1315. Duncan MacGoffrey, John’s deputy, captured the Scottish garrison on the Isle, Murtagh MacKennedy and 22 of his comrades.¹⁴ John may have been anticipating a Scottish offensive. In the spring of 1315 the Scots were preparing to receive a convoy of ‘thirteen great cogs’ from Flanders, loaded with foodstuffs and weaponry; and a Scottish expedition may have been advertised in Ireland with a view to acquiring allies, for among eight Scots arrested and imprisoned in Dublin by16th February was a messenger of the Scottish king called Henry.¹⁵ But the English and their allies had also laid plans for an offensive. On 18th February the Irish justiciar, treasurer and chancellor had been ordered to raise 10,000 men in Ireland and a fleet of 60 ships manned at double strength to be commanded by John, and this was to be ready by 6th April 1315 for an expedition against the Scots. John was ordered to ‘receive to the king’s peace’ magnates and communities of the Western Isles, including Edward Bruce’s ally Donald of Islay. His appointment as captain of the western fleet coincided with that of John de Botetourt on the North Sea. The ports of Seaford and Shoreham were to supply four ships and Bristol 14 ships, all with double crews. The co-operation of the Cinque Ports fleet was secured probably just as news of the Scottish invasion of Ireland reached Westminster.¹⁶ It is not really possible therefore to say which side was taking the initiative in the Irish Sea; Edward Bruce’s invasion of Ireland appears to have averted this invasion of western Scotland by John of Argyll.

On St. Augustine’s Day (26th May) 1315, a Scottish fleet left Ayr, where the nobles of the kingdom had congregated for a Great Council, and landed on the Antrim coast. The annals do not agree as to the precise location of the landing; some give it as Glendun which was Bisset territory, others Ulfreksfiord (the modern Larne) where Robert himself was to land in 1327.¹⁷ There being no Scottish royal fleet, Edward Bruce had to rely upon galleys of MacDonald and MacRuairidh, and upon the existing commercial carrying network for transport. Larne was an established crossing point, and would have been a source of ships and crews.¹⁸ We do not know the size of Edward Bruce’s force. Chronicles employ a stock figure of 300 ships which is probably a gross exaggeration. But judging from the kudos of the personnel accompanying him, this expedition represented a substantial investment in both material and psychological terms. Barbour lists the Scottish heroes who accompanied Edward Bruce. They include the great magnates Thomas Randolph Earl of Moray, John Soules and Philip Mowbray, none of whom had any particular interest in Ireland or the Irish Sea. But there were others who had traditional territorial interests in the region. John Stewart who accompanied the expedition was perhaps a brother of Walter the Stewart, whose expansionist ambitions in the region were well established and who had married a sister of the Red Earl of Ulster. Less is known of Fergus of Ardrossan, but the toponymic suggests an interest in the western sea routes.¹⁹ Most Scottish lords involved in Ireland came and went as opportunities for plunder arose and abated. There is no firm evidence that the Scots were accompanied by Irish exiles, but the Laud Annals alone mention the presence of John Bisset, the son of Hugh and a former commander of Edward I’s North Channel squadron. The Ulster Bissets seem to have been casual in their allegiances.²⁰ That no Gaelic presence is specified is probably due to dependence upon non-Gaelic sources, for prominent Irish and Scots Gaelic lords are known to have participated at later stages. Dr. Duffy has drawn attention to the ambition of Edward to become King of Ireland and the Western Isles, and he was accompanied by a strong force of ‘galloglasses’, as Gaelic mercenaries were called.²¹

Edward Bruce was immediately opposed by the leaders of the Ulster gentry. Barbour lists as his adversaries De Mandeville, Bisset, Logan and Savage, though Bisset and Logan are described in documentary sources as supporting the Scots during the early stages of the expedition.²² It is worth noting, too, that even from this early stage contemporaries were convinced that the Bruces aimed at outright conquest of all Ireland, and as rapidly as possible. Gaelic Irish rapidly submitted to Edward; and from this point onwards Edward Bruce was never without Gaelic allies.²³ Domnall Ó Néill, the powerful king of Tyrone, was probably Edward’s ally from an early stage. The Scots proceeded against Carrickfergus Castle, an obvious target for any lord interested in controlling the North Channel, but a virtually impregnable stone keep. Edward’s siege of Carrickfergus commenced at around the same time that King Robert began his siege of Carlisle (22nd July) just across the Irish Sea.²⁴ The Scots’ lack of the means to reduce elaborate fortifications, so evident at Carlisle, was once again apparent at Carrickfergus. According to Barbour, the garrison agreed to surrender ‘when the folk of Ulster were wholly come over’ to the side of Bruce.²⁵

Leaving men to invest Carrickfergus, Edward Bruce led his force southwards in the early summer to confront Dundalk. On the way there was widespread destruction of the countryside.²⁶ He can hardly have ignored the chief manorial centres on the coast, Dundrum and Downpatrick. There is no record of his capturing either, though from November 1315 the Bishop of Down was maintained as a refugee in Dublin castle, having been expelled by Edward Bruce.²⁷ Greencastle, Co. Down, was taken and a Scottish garrison installed which was commanded by an Irishman, Robert of Coulrath. Duncan suggests that Robert had been the Anglo-Irish warden, and had surrendered to the Scots on their approach.²⁸ However, there may already have been many Irish in the pay of the Bruces. MacKennedy’s garrison on the Isle of Man includes men with Irish toponymics. In the marches of Uriel at ‘Innermallane’ the Scots were ambushed by enemies whom Barbour names as ‘Makgullane’ and ‘Makartane.’²⁹ The Laud Annals date the capture of Dundalk to 29th June. Barbour’s assertion that an abundance of wine was discovered in the town rings true; Dundalk, Drogheda and other east-coast ports of Ireland functioned as supply depots for English campaigns in Scotland. Edward stayed three days in Dundalk. Chronicles agree that the town was razed and the inhabitants slaughtered; and documentary sources record damage.³⁰ Devastation of Louth followed upon the fall of Dundalk, and the towns of Ardee and Rathmore are also said to have been burnt.³¹

By July the Justiciar, Edmund Butler, Richard de Burgh the Red Earl of Ulster and their Anglo-Irish and Gaelic allies advanced against the Scots.³² Among them was John de Barry, who described to Edward II the advance from Dublin, through Dundalk and Carlingford between 3rd and 18th July.³³ At this time the Annals of Clonmacnoise place Edward Bruce at Inniskeen, an archepiscopal manor.³⁴ The Prior of St. Mary’s Abbey Louth was later accused of

warning the said Scots at Iniskeen . . . that the Justiciar and [ ] of Ireland and many more nobles and magnates of Ireland were coming, with a great army of the king, and his banner displayed, to fight the Scots by means of which warning the Scots who would have been slain, as it was hoped if such warning had not been given, then retreated in flight through fear of the arrival of the army to the town of Coulrath [Coleraine] in Ulster.³⁵

While the Scots retreated into Ulster, the Red Earl, anxious to preserve his lands from the passage of such a great host, persuaded the Justiciar and other magnates to leave the pursuit of the Scots to him and his Gaelic ally Fedlimid Ó Conchobair. John de Barry, David fitz Alexander de la Roche and other Anglo-Irish lords returned home with the Justiciar.³⁶ But John le Poer of Dunoyl stayed with the earl, and followed the Scots into Ulster ‘for five weeks’, and he gives a valuable report of the campaign. The Scottish retreat northwards to the banks of the lower Bann is reported by the annalists’ accounts, and it is clear that the Scots were led back, through the lands of the earldom which they had already wasted, and to the east of Lough Neagh. At Coleraine they crossed the bridge over the Bann and then demolished it to prevent its being used by the earl’s army which was following them.³⁷ In the Barbour narrative there occurs at this point a mysterious anecdote. It is related that the Scots trusted an Irish king called O’Dempsey, who nevertheless deprived them of cattle, flooded their camp and abandoned them to starve in a desolate place by the River Bann, until they were ferried across the river by Thomas of Downe, who arrived with four ships. This hero of the hour was Thomas Dun, a privateer operating with increasing success against English vessels on the Irish Sea. The identity of O’Dempsey is more of a mystery as the family name O’Dempsey is not common to the north of Ireland. Professor Frame suggests that the anecdote belongs to a later, more southerly episode in the Scottish intervention. However, the story seems to fit the context of distrust between the Scots and their Gaelic allies in Ulster, and it is consistent perhaps with the meanness of a Gaelic ally forced to provide hospitality yet determined to prevent the passage of the Scots through his land in a year of scarcity. The presence of the Scots did indeed place a strain on the resources of the Gaelic lords, and Domnall Ó Néill was obliged at one point to guarantee the immunity of certain ecclesiastical lands against subsidies and imposts ‘for ourselves or for our Scottish allies’.³⁸ Furthermore the Annals of Inisfallen seem aware that lack of hospitality had been alleged:

. . . it was reported that in the Scottish camp four quarters of a sheep fetched 2s. sterling. On account of this dearth, however, the people of the countryside, principally ÓNeill, Ó Cathain and Ó Flainn, did not fail to provide for them as best they could.³⁹

The O’Dempsey of the Barbour text can only be Ó Néill, who was in Bruce’s company at Iniskeen, whose territories lay west of the Bann, and who appears as an ally in the subsequent battle.⁴⁰

In the chronicle accounts the armies faced one another across the Bann at És Craibe, the Salmon Leap opposite Coleraine:

they were severed from each other by the deep, spacious and smooth-running waters or river. Nevertheless, they had a daily shooting of arrows . . .⁴¹

Edward Bruce then became involved in negotiations between rival factions of the Ó Conchobairs. He was approached by Ruairidh Ó Conchobair, enemy and rival of Fedlimid, for an alliance against the English. But Fedlimid also parleyed with him, trying to outbid Ruairidh for Edward’s support. Edward tried to retain the allegiance of both Ó Conchobair factions by granting Rory alliance on the condition that he did not attack the lands of Felimid. In this Edward displays naiveté in dealing with Irish kings; the feud between Ruairidh and Fedlimid was of such immediacy that it was bound to take precedence over any alliance against the English. Ruairidh returned to Connacht and straightaway began to attack the lands of his rival. For Edward there was however a favourable outcome to these discussions, for Fedlimid Ó Conchobair was forced to withdraw from the earl’s army to defend his own lands in Connacht.⁴² This gave the Scots an opportunity to attack. A letter of John le Poer written on 3rd October reports to Edward II that

. . . by chance on Monday after the feast of the Decollation of St. John the Baptist [1st September] it happened that Ó Néill and the other Irish of Ulster and your said enemies [the Scots], attacked us suddenly at Connor and found us vulnerable there through the negligence of our scouts who ought to have warned us and in whom we trusted. Some of the company of the said earl [of Ulster] fought them and in the fight Sir John Stewart and Sir John de Bosco were mortally wounded, and a great number of their people were killed as I heard. But the place remained theirs at the end. And at that action on our side, William de Burgh was captured and wounded and is said to have been sent to Scotland.’⁴³

Le Poer is putting a brave face on what was a significant defeat. Barbour and the Irish annals record this as a rout, though they give the date as 10th September.⁴⁴ The Red Earl abandoned the defence of his possessions in Ulster and went to Connacht to try to save his lands there from devastation in the Ó Conchobair wars. After this Moray left Ireland on 15th September 1315, taking the captive William de Burgh (a nephew of the Red Earl) and four ships of Thomas Dun, possibly to collect on the peace agreement which he had made with Durham Priory the previous October.⁴⁵ Presumably the Irish adventure was costing all the Scottish magnates a great deal of money; but the capture of prisoners would have helped to offset their expenses. Already Gaelic Irish as far away as Desmond were rebelling against the English; Maurice fitz Thomas reported to Edward II that he had been unable to take part in the Ulster campaign because the Irish of Desmond had risen against him and that all the Irish were emboldened by the presence of the Scots.⁴⁶ If the Ulster gentry had initially opposed the Scots, as Barbour suggests, they were now coming to heel. A letter written to Edward II on 18th October 1315 states that

since their [i.e. the Scots’] arrival in your said land, he [Edward Bruce] has been received and sustained by the Irish who are in the march of Ulster and of Uriel and by those English who are of his company, that is to say the Bissets and the Logans.⁴⁷

Much later, the Mandevilles, Logans, Bissets and Savages were all accused of riding in the company of Robert and Edward Bruce through Louth. But these allegations could well be spurious, for among the Ulster gentry bitter recriminations persisted long after the Scots had been vanquished.⁴⁸ At this time, too, an amphibious night attack was launched from English ports against the Scots before Carrickfergus, and the attackers carried away the tents and gear of the besiegers, allegedly killing 40 of them.⁴⁹

The crucial importance of Carrickfergus lay in its relation to the sea lanes between Ireland and Scotland. The ‘birlings’ of the north-western sealanes did not differ greatly from their predecessors of Viking times. Contemporary sculptures show single masted, clinker-built vessels, with high stem and stern, even sometimes bearing the grotesque figureheads that are popularly associated with Viking ships.⁵⁰ But they were ideally suited to the strong currents of the North Channel. Thomas Dun’s ferrying of Edward Bruce’s men across the Bann and of Moray to Scotland suggests a high degree of co-ordination between these Scottish forces in the western theatre of war. This was not the case with the English and their allies. Until quite late in the summer Edward II seems to have had little idea of the crisis facing his Irish colony, and he pressed ahead with plans for a naval offensive against western Scotland. The involvement of the Cinque Ports fleet, however, seems to have necessitated a change of commissions, for William de Creye and Thomas de Hewys were appointed admirals and John of Argyll relegated to captain.⁵¹ All the king’s debts in Ireland were to be collected and directed towards the maintenance of the fleet, and the money was to be ready three weeks from Midsummer. An unspecified sum was sent to pay the wages of the Cinque Ports fleet; and sailors were being pressed into service in Bristol and Gloucestershire by John of Athy and Alexander le Convers. In July, Athy was given his own command of 11 ships in Bristol.⁵² In the event the campaign of 1315 in Britain never materialised; and most of the fleet was held up in Portsmouth by contrary winds. Some service was obtained; Alexander le Convers accounted for £466 which he received in 1315–16 for wages of the Cinque Ports fleet, ‘who came from Ireland in the company of Alexander and went from there to Scotland in the king’s service’.⁵³ Other ships too were in the Irish Sea on royal service. But probably even if a landing in Scotland was effected, little was achieved. The money ran out; and in October the king wrote to the mayor and bailiffs of Winchelsea, allowing them to recall the 17 ships which they had granted as an aid to the king for the Scottish War, and which were languishing in Portsmouth harbour unable to set out on account of contrary winds and tempests.⁵⁴

While this English fleet rode at anchor, Scottish privateers threatened the Isle of Man and carried out a particularly spectacular exploit off Anglesey. On 12th September 1315, shortly after Edward Bruce had defeated the Red Earl on the River Bann, Thomas Dun sailed into the harbour of Holyhead on Anglesey and captured a laden cargo ship, the James of Caernarvon.⁵⁵ In a petition to Edward II for relief, her captain voiced suspicions that local officials had colluded with the Scots. He claimed that Tudor ap Candelo, ‘rhingyl’ (or official) of the county, had sent a boat out to Dun’s ship and had contacted the privateer. The captain accused Tudor of failing to raise the alarm with urgency and of allowing the Scots to make off with the prize. The incident is doubly significant: firstly, it is the earliest indication that the Bruces might have the capacity to influence events in Wales; secondly, the name of Thomas Dun is henceforth encountered repeatedly in the sources as ‘a perpetrator of depredations on the sea’ and ‘a cruel pirate’.⁵⁶ His reputation spread rapidly; but though Dun is said in the petition to have entered the port with ‘a great navy’, he is twice described as commanding only four ships.⁵⁷ The names of three other privateers are given in the captain’s petition. It may be that Dun’s three companions on the Holyhead raid were the captains of his three other ships and that this may have been the whole strength of the privateer squadron. The privateers may not even have been exclusively Scottish; one of Dun’s accomplices is named as William of Cashemary in Ireland, and Thomas Dun himself may have come from An Dun or Downpatrick. Probably the privateer squadron had originated in the North Channel as carriers and supply vessels for Edward I, turning to piracy as the work dried up, and then turning for employment to the Bruces. To counter the threat posed by the privateers, John of Argyll wrote to Edward II before 27th September pleading that six ships remain with him in Irish ports to harass the enemy during the coming winter.⁵⁸ Shortly after this, however, he was forced to retire to London, ‘impotent in body and his lands in Scotland totally destroyed’.⁵⁹

That autumn at the Council of Lincoln it was decided that the resistance of the Irish colony to Edward Bruce should be stiffened by the dispatch of a trusted royal servant. John de Hotham Bishop of Ely crossed to Ireland in order to take charge. He had to be escorted by 86 satellites and crossbowmen, ‘to secure his passage and because Thomas Dun and divers other enemies, robbers on the sea between the lands of England, Wales and Ireland are doing much mischief and daily perpetrate evil’.⁶⁰ Hotham’s background was that of a trusted official, experienced in Irish affairs, and his arrival in Ireland had a salutary effect on the inefficient and impoverished Dublin government. He had been invested with wide powers of patronage, including the capacity to grant pardons, wardships and marriages, to remit debts and to replace incompetent officials. Changes in the Anglo-Irish administration followed, and oaths and hostages were taken to secure the loyalty of the magnates; but it was probably his judicious use of pardons, grants and privileges that contributed most in this most dangerous situation.⁶¹ Hotham’s success in organising resistance to the Scots was due to his astute handling of relations with the Anglo-Irish magnates; but it would take time before his report to the English council could result in military or financial assistance.

With winter coming on, Edward Bruce again marched south out of Ulster. Barbour makes no mention of this expedition; but the Anglo-Irish had been expecting a winter campaign.⁶² The town of Dundalk had been reoccupied and, presumably, fortified, for the Scots bypassed it. The Laud Annal lists the locations through which the Scots passed. At Dundalk they met Moray returning from Scotland with 500 men. Advancing into Meath, they encountered at Kells Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, defending his lordship of Trim, and put him to flight. They were guided by Mortimer’s inveterate foes and tenants, Walter and Hugh de Lacy, who when later charged with treason responded that they parleyed with the Scots only at Mortimer’s request and led them among the lands of the king’s Irish enemies, in order to spare the revenues of the king and his lieges.⁶³ Mortimer left Ireland after this defeat, crossing to Wales to defend his estates there against the revolt of Llywelyn Bren. Edward Bruce spent Christmas at the de Verdun manor of Loughsewdy, because Mortimer’s retainer Walter Cusack held Trim Castle against him. The citizens of Dublin began to prepare for the worst. From 9th December Brother Walter de Aqua was directing the defence of the city. The castle was repaired and provisioned; and the bell tower of St. Mary del Dam was demolished and the materials used in the repair of the castle.⁶⁴ Surprisingly, however, they did not attack Dublin but continued to advance southwards.⁶⁵ At Ardscull near Skerries the leading Anglo-Irish magnates of Leinster turned out in force to oppose the Scots on 26th January 1316. By all accounts, the Anglo-Irish should have won the day. A draft report to Edward II read as follows:

There were assembled more than enough men-at-arms, hobelars, and foot soldiers and they met with the enemy in open field but they withdrew from the place, without warlike exploits on the enemy and without losing any of their people except for one man, as men beaten on the day, each on his own, and by ill luck the enemy kept the field but the enemy lost on the day some of their best men.⁶⁶

In a comment on the size of Edward Bruce’s force, the Laud Annals remarks that even one of the Anglo-Irish magnates assembled against him (Edmund Butler, John fitz Thomas or Arnold le Poer) should have been able to defeat the Scots. Yet the Scots prevailed, though they suffered the loss of two captains, Fergus of Ardrossan and Walter de Moray. The Gaelic Irish of Leinster were inspired to rise in revolt, taking advantage of the situation to attack the Anglo-Irish colony. The Irish destroyed Bray; the Scots and Irish together devastated Carlow. As far away as Desmond the Irish clans O’Donnegan, Ó Conchobair and O’Kennedy rose in sympathy and anticipation.⁶⁷ The Scots besieged Kildare Castle briefly, but then began to withdraw.⁶⁸ On account of lack of supplies probably, Edward then withdrew into fortified places (forceletz) in the vicinity of Leix, while the Anglo-Irish regrouped near Kildare. The Scots burnt Lea Castle and the church of the new town of Leix, and were at Geashill in Offaly on 14th February; but they began to suffer from a shortage of provisions:

The Scots suffered from such famine that many of them died of hunger, and on account of this, they secretly marched towards Fore in Meath. On the Sunday following, they were so weakened, both from hunger and from exhaustion, that many of them began to die.⁶⁹

They did indeed visit Fore, for the prior and convent wrote to the king complaining that they lost their charters in the destruction caused by the Scots. As Professor Phillips has put it, the Scottish retreat after Ardscull is a better measure of their military situation than their temporary possession of the battlefield. The purpose of Edward Bruce’s campaign of early 1316 is difficult to fathom; shortage of food was bound to compel withdrawal. Frame does not mince his words: ‘It is hard to see how any commander in his right mind would have freely chosen to campaign in the early months of 1316 or 1317’.⁷⁰ One possible explanation, though perhaps a far-fetched one, is that Edward Bruce was anxious to take advantage of conditions in South Wales (where the Welsh prince Llywelyn Bren had commenced an insurrection against the English on 18th January) and might have been working to a timetable which admitted of no delay on account of the weather.

In the early spring of 1316 Edward Bruce’s depleted force returned to Ulster; and in March 1316 he seems to have been consolidating his authority there. The Laud annalist states that about the end of March Edward Bruce ‘held the pleas of Ulster’, ‘killed the Logans’ and captured Sir Alan Fitz Warin and led him to Scotland. The earl of Moray left once again for Scotland, in the first week of March, tempted away by the prospect of an expiring truce on the Anglo-Scottish border. As the Scots’ most able leader he was present on most of the Bruce brothers’ major enterprises, and his departure may be taken as a sign that it had been decided to cease campaigning in Ireland for the foreseeable future.⁷¹ Now confined to Ulster, Edward’s main difficulty was the continued resistance of Carrickfergus. The Anglo-Irish were making determined efforts to reinforce the castle. On 17th March Thomas de Mandeville was granted permission to negotiate with those English and Irish against the peace of the king, that is, to foment opposition to Bruce in Ulster. At Drogheda ships were arrested and pressed into service; provisions accumulated; and a relief expedition was launched.⁷²

Mandeville’s force of 15 ships arrived on 8th April during an Easter truce between garrison and besiegers. The Laud Annal relates that he met with initial success, putting to flight the Scots and killing 30 of them. On the eve of Easter, 10th April, he attacked the Scots a second time, but the Scots were reinforced by a lord whom Barbour refers to as ‘MacNakill’, arriving with 200 spearmen, who succeeded in capturing four or five of the ships. Thomas de Mandeville was cut down in desperate street fighting, and so the attempt to relieve the castle failed. Yet the garrison grimly held out.⁷³ During negotiations at Midsummer the garrison seized 30 Scots and put them in irons as hostages. The defenders were now reduced to eating animal hides and, according to one source, they devoured eight of their Scottish prisoners.⁷⁴ The garrison was not assisted by the action of the Red Earl, who commandeered eight supply ships destined for Carrickfergus towards the ransom of his nephew in Scotland. Other supplies were diverted to Whitehaven and Skinburness, either by accident or for personal gain.⁷⁵ For Carrickfergus the end was now very close and it is not surprising to discover from subsequent legal proceedings that the garrison began to compromise. An officer of the garrison, Henry de Thrapston, agreed to a month’s truce with Edward Bruce. Thomas Dun was admitted to the castle, treated to food and given cloth for a cloak; perhaps this buttering up was in the hope that he could moderate the surrender terms.⁷⁶ Carrickfergus had fallen by 30th September 1316 when Edward had returned to Scotland.⁷⁷ A hitherto unnoticed entry in the Laud Annals may explain why. The annalist records under 1316 that news came to Dublin that Robert Bruce, King of Scotland, entered Ireland to help his brother Edward and that the castle of Carrickfergus was besieged by the said Scots so Carrickfergus may have surrendered not to Edward but to Robert himself.

In the Irish Sea the summer of 1316 saw the English on the offensive, and a naval presence continued to be maintained off the coast of Ulster. Nicholas de Balscot, royal clerk, had spent £578 in the year 1315–16 (which included pay of the forces of the justiciar, men-at-arms, hobelars and foot, besides the pay of sailors); and £262 in the year 1316–17 was spent on the pay of sailors alone.⁷⁸ The naval activity that this expenditure represents seems to have been sufficient to keep Thomas Dun’s privateers at bay. There is evidence of strenuous activity in the Irish Sea ports; 10 ships from the ports around Dublin were ordered to be commandeered; and all the shipping around Drogheda was ordered to patrol and search out Thomas Dun and his privateers, described as ‘lurking in maritime places between Ulster and Scotland’.⁷⁹ Edward II, however, had plans for a much greater initiative. He contracted with his Genoese banker, Antonio Pessagno, for the provision from Genoa of five galleys, each with 200 men, to leave Genoa for Ireland on 1st April 1317. Pessagno was to take these vessels into the Irish Sea, and use them to escort victuals to Skinburness to provision a campaign in the summer of 1317. For this he was to be paid 250 marks per galley per month, and that rate was guaranteed as long as the ships remained in his employ.⁸⁰ Pessagno delivered enormous quantities of victuals on the east coast of England; but the Irish aspects of the plan were not carried out. Later he undertook to furnish a small army of 200 men-at-arms and 2,000 foot in Gascony for Ireland, and claimed to have paid £500 to begin recruitment. But Edward’s plans were bigger than his purse, and the scheme collapsed ‘for want of payment’.⁸¹ Nevertheless these plans are remarkable testimony to the anxiety of Edward II to regain control of the Irish Sea, and to guarantee the safety of his supply convoys for the English western march.

After the surrender of Carrickfergus, Edward and Moray both returned to Scotland. On 30th September King Robert confirmed a grant to Moray of the Isle of Man, with the assent of Edward ‘King of Ireland’. Moray had already been granted the Isle by July 1316; but this confirmation may have been necessary to record the assent of Edward Bruce, whose established western interests it affected. Since at this time Man was in English hands, it provided an incentive for Moray to wrest the Isle from them.⁸² It was most certainly a return for Moray’s service in Ireland; and it provided a basis for co-operation for these three principals in a third Irish campaign. In January 1317 King Robert and Moray sailed from Loch Ryan in Galloway to Carrickfergus. The timing of this expedition calls for comment. There was probably a truce on the marches of England, for Robert would hardly have left Scotland at this time with the earl of Arundel maintaining a powerful presence on the borders. In Britain between 1315 and 1317 there had been sieges of Carlisle and Berwick, but only one Scottish attack deep into England. In Ireland, by contrast, this was the third campaign in two years and the second consecutive winter campaign. Robert was then sufficiently confident of his position in Britain to put things on hold; but in Ireland he was impatient for victory. Edward Bruce’s position in Ulster may have been increasingly unstable; chronicles report that in November 1316 John Logan and Hugh Bisset killed 300 Scots. Sir Alan Stewart had been taken prisoner by the Anglo-Irish.⁸³ Moreover, Roger Mortimer of Wigmore had been appointed Keeper and King’s Lieutenant in Ireland on 23rd November with wide powers, and he was to go to Ireland with 150 horse and 500 foot in February. Like the original invasion of 1315, this expedition may have been intended to fend off an impending English offensive.⁸⁴

Robert landed at Larne, and together with Edward and Moray he continued southwards onto the plain of Meath. The Scots are said to have beeen at Slane on 16th February 1317, where yet again ‘they laid waste the whole country’. They attacked the manor of the Red Earl at Ratoath; and the earl, then in residence, was forced to flee to Dublin. The Scots then advanced to Castleknock, within striking distance of Dublin, clearly intending to intimidate the city into surrender.⁸⁵ On their approach Dublin began to prepare a second time for a desperate defence. Suburbs were destroyed to deprive the attackers of cover; the bridge over the Liffey was broken; and the tower of the church of St. Saviour was demolished to provide material for barricades. Within the city, the earl of Ulster was arrested on charges of treachery. There is no evidence that he was anything but a faithful vassal of Edward II; but his daughter’s marriage to Robert I naturally made him an object of constant suspicion, and the citizens may have felt that by arresting Robert’s father-in-law they were taking a hostage. In fact they already had at least one Scottish hostage in Sir Alan Steward. For a second time the Scots decided against an assault. They may have been impressed by the defences of the city or they decided against risking the lives of the hostages. Moving away from the city in a south-westerly direction, they marched towards the valleys of the Nore and Barrow, where Edward had campaigned the previous year. Map 14 shows their itinerary through Leinster and Munster as given by the Laud Annals. Edmund Butler the Justiciar, and now provocatively bearing Edward Bruce’s own title ‘Earl of Carrick’, had mustered a force but dared not commit it to battle. There survives an account of wages paid to this Anglo-Irish army in the period 24th February to 17th April, which provides information on the movements of the Anglo-Irish force shadowing the Scots, and hence by implication, on the movements of the Scots themselves.⁸⁶ On 18th and 19th March the Scots were at Cashel. From there they turned north towards Nenagh where they wasted lands belonging to Edmund Butler. Responding to an appeal from an Ó Briain faction, Clann Briain Ruad, for assistance against their enemies, the Bruces moved westwards into Thomond. Early in April they were approaching the city of Limerick, their movements followed cautiously at a distance by Edmund Butler.⁸⁷ Butler had at this time a force of 220 men-at-arms, 300 hobelars and 400 foot. It may be inferred that the Bruces had an army superior to this.

The English administration had been ordered to accelerate preparations for Mortimer’s expedition at the end of January,⁸⁸ but it was April before the army materialised. A convoy of ‘twenty great ships’ was assembled from Bristol and surrounding ports by John of Athy, to ferry across the army under Roger Mortimer. This was landed at Youghal on 7th April; but Athy had orders ‘to stay at sea for the defence of Ireland and the king’s land of Scotland’.⁸⁹ Limerick had refused to admit the Scots; and in Thomond the Bruces were met not by their allies from Clann Briain Ruad, but by the hostile Ó Briain faction Clann Taid, who had recently triumphed over their rivals.⁹⁰ Short of supplies, they had no choice but to retreat, first to Leinster, where on 17th April there was the merest brush with Edmund Butler’s hobelars at Eliogarty, and then to Meath. Here even Scottish writers admit they were ‘nearly perished with hunger and fatigue, and many were left there dead’. After a painful retreat to Ulster, Robert left for Scotland to meet the threatened invasion of 1317, since the current truce on the Anglo-Scottish border was about to expire.⁹¹

On the Irish Sea meanwhile the English continued to be frustrated by the presence of the privateers, and the smuggling of provisions to Scotland. Simon de Montecute and others were ordered in April to prevent the people of southwest England from trading corn, victuals and armour to Scotland. Grain from these counties (Somerset, Devon, Dorset, Cornwall and Gloucestershire) was currently arriving at Carlisle, and it appears that the merchants carrying these supplies also traded with the Scots.⁹² Just as Robert I left Ireland, in May 1317, Edward II commissioned Nicholas Dauney and Geoffrey de Modiworthe to provide a good ship from one of seven English ports, to be equipped at the expense of the king ‘to destroy Thomas le mariner, who is infesting the sea towards the west with a crew of Scots, doing great damage to trade coming to England’. Modiworthe had already paid for a 140–man galley, a very large vessel by the standards of the Irish Sea and probably therefore faster than anything else afloat.⁹³ On 2nd July John of Athy caught up with Thomas Dun, and in the greatest sea battle of the war 40 of the privateers are said to have been slain. Geoffrey de Coigners captured the privateer chief and received a reward of £10 from Edward II.⁹⁴ Before his execution Dun was made to reveal that Moray was ready to mount an attack on the Isle of Man ‘and intends to attempt Anglesey by aid of some English traitors’. The Scottish presence on the Irish Sea was indeed far from finished. In October 1317 Edward II believed that he still controlled Man, but Moray was in possession of it shortly afterwards.⁹⁵

We have no information as to what occurred between the departure of Robert and Moray in May 1317 and the Battle of Fochart in October 1318, a period of over eighteen months. Famine provides a plausible explanation for this hiatus in what had been vigorous campaigning in Ireland; but the absence of Moray, who was raiding in England, generally coincided with lulls in the Irish theatre of war. We do not know whether Edward Bruce was comfortably maintaining his position in Ulster; or whether it was being slowly eroded by famine, defections or deteriorating relations with local allies. The Scots may have been starving. There is one indication that they had to be supplied from outside Ireland: a local official in Meath was accused of taking bribes to permit a ‘foreign’ ship to furnish the Scots with victuals. The Laud annalist claims they were reduced to cannibalism.⁹⁶ Dublin at any rate still considered Edward a threat; it retained the emergency fortifications which had been thrown up in 1317, for at least a year afterwards.⁹⁷

It was not until the summer of 1318 that a good harvest caused grain prices to fall.⁹⁸ The availability of food enabled Edward Bruce to advance out of Ulster on his fourth and final campaign. One source, the Continuation of Nicholas Trevet, contains the names of 29 commanders who, it is alleged, fought and died with Edward Bruce. The list probably includes all those who ever sided with him, regardless of the many comings and goings of the Scottish lords and the many changes of sides by the Irish. The Scottish commanders are named as Philip de Mowbray, John Soules, John Stewart and the brothers Walter and Alan Stewart. Among those of Anglo-Irish descent there were said to be four members of the de Lacy family; and from Ulster there were said to be Robert and John Savage. Gaelic Irish allies were also present, though according to Barbour they refused to participate in the battle. Bruce is known to have had the support of Scots-Gaelic lords, including Alexander MacRuairidh, ‘King of the Western Isles’, his long-time ally Donald of Islay and also Alexander Óg MacDonald.⁹⁹ Ranged against him on the Anglo-Irish side were three prominent magnates: Edmund Butler, John de Birmingham, and Archbishop Roland Joyce of Armagh. We also know the names of many lesser lords and others who claimed to have taken part on the winning side, from the petitions for reimbursement for losses, among them burgesses of Drogheda. Judging by the names of those petitioning, Edward did not encounter on this occasion the assembled might of the Anglo-Irish colony, but rather a force hastily gathered together from Meath.¹⁰⁰ This suggests that the Scots and their allies were on the offensive.

The battle was fought at Fochart near Dundalk on 14th October 1318. According to Barbour, Edward’s undoing was his overweening pride and arrogance, in his refusal to share the glory with a reinforcement. ‘Sir John Stewart’ is given a speech in which he pleads with Edward to wait, saying that his brother is leading 15,000 men to his aid (the numeral, of course, has been plucked from the air). The Gaelic Irish allegedly refused to fight while the Anglo-Irish heavily outnumbered them.¹⁰¹ The Annals of Clonmacnoise agree with Barbour about Edward’s rash judgement, stating that ‘anxious to obtain the victory for himself, he did not wait for his brother’.¹⁰² But there is a third account, in the Lanercost Chronicle, which states that the reinforcement had already arrived. It claims that Edward approached Dundalk ‘with a great army of Scots which had newly arrived in Ireland’. Edward, who had been inactive for so long, did not venture out of Ulster without reinforcements. Lanercost gives the clearest description of the battle:

They [the Scots] were in three columns at such a distance from each other that the first was done with before the second came up, and then the second before the third, with which Edward was marching, could render any aid. Thus the third column was routed, just as the two preceding ones had been. Edward fell at the same time and was beheaded after death; his body being divided into four quarters, which were sent to the four chief quarters of Ireland.¹⁰³

There died at Fochart the heads of the MacDonald and MacRuairidh clans, and Robert I’s only surviving brother.¹⁰⁴ News of the defeat must have come as a bitter blow to Robert, which he may have attributed to the curse of Malachy, the twelfth-century Irish saint, on the Bruce family.¹⁰⁵ Furthermore the battle was followed by a collapse of the Scottish position in Ulster. Carrickfergus was retaken and garrisoned by John de Athy, by 2nd December 1318 at the latest. John de Birmingham received most of the credit for the defeat of the Scots in Ireland; and he was elevated to the earldom of Louth for his part in the defeat of the Scottish invasion.¹⁰⁶ Fochart, however, by no means brought an end Robert’s interest in Ireland. In 1319 five ships from Devon had to be sent to John of Athy ‘for repelling the Scots’, and until July 1320 Athy had to maintain a strong garrison at Carrickfergus, 20 men-at-arms and 15 crossbowmen ‘because at that time great danger threatened the castle by the presence and the frequent arrival of Scots and other enemies of the king in the districts around the castle’.¹⁰⁷ Athy was assisted in this by Colman ‘Megulhan’. This individual appears to be MacDuilechain, Gaelic lord of Clan Breasail, a territory just east of the Bann and south of Lough Neagh. In 1319 Edward II wrote to MacDuilechain thanking him for his consistent support.¹⁰⁸ But Athy never regained control of the North Channel. The Mayor of Dublin reported in October 1321 a rumour that the Scots were descending once more upon Ireland in haste and with great force.¹⁰⁹ There was a need for constant patrols in the North Channel: Duncan MacGoffrey was patrolling the sea between Ireland and Scotland in 1320 and 1321 and subsequently John of Athy was appointed to the custody of the sea between Ireland and Scotland.¹¹⁰ When in May 1322 huge purveyances were ordered in Ireland to supply the English invasion of Scotland, they were ordered to be kept near the coast until a naval escort under the admiral Robert de Leyburn should arrive, ‘as the sea between Ireland and Skinburness is infested by the king’s enemies, with the intention of taking the victuals’.¹¹¹

SCOTTISH EMIGRÉS IN IRELAND, MAN AND THE IRISH SEA

An essential part of the background to the invasion of Ireland is the presence in lands bordering on the Irish Sea of Scottish exiles who had shifted operations to Ireland after expulsion from western Scotland. The most active of these exiles was of course John of Argyll. An indefatigable enemy of the Bruces, and a cousin of that John Comyn who had been murdered by Robert Bruce at Dumfries in 1306, John first arrived in Ireland with his father on 9th December 1309, having been driven out of Argyll. He travelled from Ireland to Berwick to attend the king, and no doubt to press the case for western offensives.¹¹² Having captured the Isle of Man in February 1315, he sent the Bruces’ garrison led by Murtagh MacKennedy to Dublin, preferring to see them behind bars in Dublin Castle rather than to release them for ransom.¹¹³ One of John’s knights in the Irish Sea was Duncan MacGoffrey, later to command at Newcastle McKynegan during the invasion of Robert and Edward.¹¹⁴ Another was that veteran of resistance to the Bruces, Dungal MacDowell. In one English source Dungal is described as ‘hated by the enemy’, and with good reason; he had handed over Thomas and Alexander Bruce for execution in 1307.¹¹⁵ He had been sheriff and constable of Dumfries from 1311 to 1313, and then as commander of Rushen he had held out against Robert I for six weeks. With MacGoffrey he served in John’s fleet during the years 1315 to 1316; and after the defeat of Edward Bruce both he and MacGoffrey appear in the garrison at Carlisle.¹¹⁶Dungal de Gyvelestone, a Scottish exile who had been serving in Ireland, also shows up in John’s fleet in 1315. In March 1315 Edward II made over to de Gyvelestone, for the good service of himself and his father, all the lands of Suny Magurke in Knapdale and ‘Glenarowyle’, currently held by Robert’s liegeman, John de Menteith. In 1319 he was serving in Northumberland.¹¹⁷ Another exile, Duncan Makouri, was ordered to Ireland in 1316; he too appears as a deputy of John of Argyll, keeping the Isle of Man, and claimed to have lost his own father and had his lands destroyed by ‘the Scots’ in serving John.¹¹⁸ This network of exiles was thus operating in the Irish Sea, thirsting for revenge against the Bruces and their MacDonald and MacRuairidh allies, and in 1315 their forces were poised on the Isle of Man to attack the western approaches of Scotland.

It would be wrong to see the invasion of Ireland purely as a response to John of Argyll’s capture of Man; it would have been a wholly disproportionate response on the part of the Scots, and in any case there are many indications that the Scots were, prior to February 1315, preparing an offensive in the western theatre of war. But the invasion of Ireland must be seen in the context of an escalation of activity in the region by both sides; and against a background of very personal animosities, in which context it served as a crushing response to the exile presence in the Irish Sea. One of Edward Bruce’s first objectives may have been destruction of the sources of supply for John’s fleet on the Isle. When Robert had seized Man in 1313, he had sailed to Ulster to secure provisions and no doubt John of Argyll depended upon the same source. The wasting of Ulster, the progress of Edward Bruce through Ireland, his destruction of Dundalk and his repeated wastings of Meath must have been a source of mounting anxiety to John. Similarly the capture of Northburgh, Greencastle and above all Carrickfergus deprived John of harbours.

Furthermore the Irish expedition was one prong of a dual attack on MacDougalls. Edward’s crossing to Antrim and initial victory in Ulster was complemented by a simultaneous campaign by King Robert in the west. After the Council at Ayr Robert had moved into the western Gaeltacht to take the homage of the western lords. According to Barbour, the same fleet that carried Edward to Ireland then proceeded against Argyll. Walter the Stewart accompanied the king on this expedition, just as his relative John accompanied Edward in Ireland. At Tarbert Robert established a new royal sheriffdom; and Barbour tells how he had galleys hauled over the isthmus of Tarbert, fulfilling the ancient prophecy that dominion over the Isles would come to one who made ships sail overland. Barbour’s claim that ‘John of Lorn’ (which is his name for John of Argyll) was captured on this occasion cannot be correct; nevertheless this campaign dealt a terrible blow to MacDougall influence, for the MacDonald chief who fell with Edward Bruce at Fochart, Alexander Óg, was known as ‘King of Argyll’.¹¹⁹ On either side of the North Channel the brothers were co-operating to reduce MacDougall influence in Argyll and to secure the western approaches of Scotland from attack by the exiles.

IRELAND, CARLISLE AND THE ENGLISH WEST MARCH

Squeezing the MacDougalls was only one minor advantage of the invasion of Ireland; the Scots could expect to achieve more from the pressure which a Scottish presence in Ireland exerted on Carlisle. Edward’s investing of Carrickfergus (around Midsummer 1315) mirrors his brother’s assault on Carlisle (from 22nd July to 1st August) and, in the broader picture, the intermittent siege which was applied to Berwick after Bannockburn.¹²⁰ Long recognised as the pivotal points of war on the Anglo-Scottish border, Carlisle and Berwick dominated the western and eastern marches respectively; but the importance which the Scots attached to the capture of Carrickfergus suggests that they saw this castle in the same light, as a third English forward garrison, threatening a flank vulnerable to MacDougall influence. The author of the Vita Edwardi II makes the invasion of Ireland simultaneous with the siege of Carlisle; and considers a rumour of defeat in Ireland as one of the factors which persuaded Robert I to abandon the siege of Carlisle:

A false report meanwhile spread throughout England that our army in Ireland had scattered the Scots, that Edward Bruce was dead, and that hardly one of the Scots remained alive. Hence Robert Bruce, both on account of these wild rumours and because he heard that the Earl of Pembroke had recently arrived with many men at arms, gave up the siege and set out towards Scotland.¹²¹

Another link between Carlisle and Ireland was the significant Irish presence on the west march, often in the shape of light cavalry or hobelars for whom employment on the Anglo-Scottish border was guaranteed.¹²² During the siege of Carlisle, there were 40 Irish archers in the town; besides these, the crossbowmen in Cockermouth Castle appear to have been Irish.¹²³ Some of Pembroke’s relieving force is likely to have been raised from his Irish estates.¹²⁴

Ireland was also a potential source of supply for both warring kingdoms. The author of the Vita Edwardi II maintains that in 1315 the English blockade was creating scarcity in Scotland; a more obvious cause of dearth was perhaps the atrocious weather of that year. Whatever the cause, it is not surprising to read that in that year the earl of Moray brought back to Scotland ‘four pirate ships full of the goods of the earth of Ireland’, one of which sank.¹²⁵ But the overwhelming image of Edward Bruce’s campaigns in Ireland is one of wholesale wastage of agricultural production. About this, too, there is nothing that surprises; it was a practice common to all armies of the day. But Edward’s wastage of Irish resources weakened the resilience not only of the Anglo-Irish colony, but also of the city of Carlisle. Reports reaching the English chancery show that supplies at Carlisle were at their lowest in March and September 1315, immediately before and immediately following the Irish expedition. A state of virtual siege seems to have existed at Carlisle for some time before and after the assault of late July 1315. During the siege and for six months afterwards the gates were bricked up, and the citizens lost all access to their lands and possessions outside the walls.¹²⁶ The Bruce invasion of Ireland came, then, at a critical time for Carlisle, and one effect of the invasion was to make the supply of Carlisle difficult and dangerous. The accounts of royal receivers at Carlisle, preserved in the records of the royal wardrobe, show that the English had relied heavily upon provisions from Ireland to sustain their occupation of south-western Scotland from 1299 to 1306.¹²⁷ No receivers’ accounts for the years 1307 to 1311 have been found, but the records of grain shipped to Ireland by the purveyors at Irish ports are preserved. These have been analysed by Professor Lydon, and they show that Ireland continued to supply large quantities of grain to the depot at Carlisle from 1307 until Bannockburn.¹²⁸ There was therefore no decline in the provisions forthcoming from Ireland in the years prior to the Scottish invasion, as the receivers’ accounts alone might lead one to suppose. But from July 1315 to the end of 1318 neither the receivers’ accounts nor the records of the Irish purveyors show that any provisions were shipped to Carlisle or anywhere else in England. Not realising how serious the situation in Ireland was, Edward II still ordered victuals to be accumulated for shipping to Carlisle and to Welsh castles; but nothing very much can have been forthcoming.¹²⁹ Rather, stores at Dublin destined for Skinburness were diverted to the provisioning of Carrickfergus, Northburgh and Dundalk, and to the fleet on the coast of Ulster.¹³⁰ During these years Carlisle had to be provisioned at great risk and expense across the privateer-infested Irish Sea, from Somerset and Dorset, Gloucestershire, Cheshire, Beaumaris, and Devon.

The cessation at Carlisle of receipts of grain from Ireland between 1315 and 1318 may be accounted for by a variety of factors, among them: the decline of Edward I’s purveyance machine in the reign of his successor; the presence of Thomas Dun’s privateers in the Irish Sea; the cessation of English campaigns on the west march; and of course the famine, raging in England and Ireland from 1315 to 1318. But Carlisle depended on supplies from Ireland, and the Scottish occupation of Ulster coincided with a sustained attempt to capture Carlisle. One of the benefits which Robert I expected to flow from his brother’s presence in Ireland was additional leverage in his own attempts to crack the English stronghold at Carlisle.

CELTIC ALLIANCE – OR ANGLO-NORMAN ADVENTURISM?

Edward Bruce’s invasion of Ireland therefore served the purposes of his brother Robert, in that it helped bring pressure on the émigrés threatening Scotland from the Irish Sea, and brought pressure to bear on Carlisle, a city ‘hateful to the Scots’. It is quite impossible to prove that either provided any motivation for the Scottish involvement in Ireland, but most historians would agree that they could well have done. It is worth looking at another explanation, which though it is offered by medieval writers, is more difficult to credit, namely that Edward Bruce (and later Robert I in 1327) invaded Ireland with a view to intervening in Wales. It is clear from their letters to Irish and Welsh lords that the Bruces appealed to pan-celtic sentiment; and furthermore English writers and contemporaries were convinced that the Bruce invasion of Ireland was part of a wider strategy of ‘Celtic Alliance’. The author of the Vita Edwardi II relates:

And there was a rumour that if he [Edward Bruce] achieved his wish there [in Ireland], he would at once cross to Wales, and raise the Welsh likewise against our king. For these two races are easily roused to rebellion; they bear hardly the yoke of slavery, and curse the lordship of the English.¹³¹

Perhaps given the recent history of colonising the celtic countries, English authors were bound to interpret any Scottish intervention in Ireland or Wales as part of a plot to unite the celtic peoples against them.

The chain of stone castles along the coast of North Wales, still under construction, had been designed by Edward I to surround the Welsh; but Edward II also considered that they had a role in controlling the Irish Sea. Immediately upon recapturing the Isle of Man in February 1315, he gave orders that armour for 100 crossbowmen and 20 foot should be purchased in London and taken to Beaumaris, and that provisions should be sent from Ireland for the use of the chamberlain at Caernarvon.¹³² The security of Man was seen as depending upon the Welsh castles; and it may also have been that the security of Wales was considered to depend upon that of Man and Ireland. Because of the arrival of the Scots in Ireland Edward II gave orders in June 1315 for Welsh castles to be provisioned and the Welsh coast to be defended. Justices of Wales were ordered to look to coastal defences.¹³³ After the salutary shock of Thomas Dun’s raid on Holyhead in September, a commission was appointed to take precautions against the danger of invasion by the Scots. They were ordered to ‘speak and treat with the people, so that if the Scottish enemies come thither, they may have no power to land’.¹³⁴ A general rising of the Welsh was to be avoided at all costs. Messengers were sent to constables and all the other ministers of the king in North Wales with gifts; and 18s. was spent on ‘various men assigned by the Justice and Chamberlain to watch the sea coasts and to examine and listen in on gossip among the Welsh on account of the coming by sea of Thomas Dun the pirate, and the attacks of Scots and Irish by the same means’. This may have been in response to a petition, presumably from English settlers, which requested that the coast of Wales be well guarded against Thomas Dun and other Scottish felons, who might come from Ireland to Wales.¹³⁵ The authorities considered that trouble was brewing throughout Wales. The castles of North Wales were prepared; Beaumaris, St. Briavels, Aberconway, Hardelagh and Crukyn were all to be provisioned and made ready, and the quay of Caernarvon repaired.¹³⁶ Finally, a messenger of a ‘Bishop Enadens’ of Ireland was taken at Caernarvon with suspicious letters and held for 96 days in the castle; one of a number of incidents that provoked Edward II to write to Pope John XXII in March 1317 complaining that some Irish prelates were supporting the Scots.¹³⁷

What were these letters? Richard, the bishop’s messenger, may have been carrying a personal correspondence, but it is more likely that he was caught with the open letter which Edward Bruce directed to the Welsh, addressed to ‘all those who desire to be delivered from servitude’. This manifesto is comparable to that written by his brother to the Irish, in respect of its claims of primeval kinship between the Albanicus and the Britannicus. But Edward’s letter is more wordy, much more explicit in its invitation to rebel against the English, and contains not only a promise of military aid to the Welsh but also a less than self-sacrificing offer to assume chief lordship over them in return for such assistance.¹³⁸ Material of this sort would have been copied and circulated in Wales by Irish or Scottish travellers and traders, wherever there was a likelihood of attracting the attention of the disaffected. The manifesto used much the same terminology as that of Robert’s letter to the Irish, and the themes of slavery and deliverance come across strongly:

Since each Christian man is obliged to assist his neighbour in every difficulty, so also should those who proceed from a common root, who share the same race, ancestors, and country of origin. On that account we have now and for a long time been overwhelmed by sympathy with you in your servitude and oppression. Affronted by the vexations of the English, we are bound to attend to your plight, and, with the help of the Most High, to expel from the borders of your land with all force the unnatural and barbaric servitude imposed by the English, so that, as from earliest times, the Albanic and British people having expelled their enemies, should become one in perpetuity.

Since no enemy is dispersed willingly or easily, and since the English yoke bears as heavily upon you as it did recently depress the Scottish people, we intend that by your own efforts and with our irresistible assistance, you will be able to recover your just rights and to possess peacefully your property and inheritance.¹³⁹

Edward did not conceal that he expected a quid pro quo, and asked the Welsh magnates to consider whether ‘you wish to commit to us the prosecution of your case and right, or indeed the chief lordship of your people, which until now your other prince [that is, Edward II] was accustomed to possess  . . .’ The manifesto ended with a promise that all traditional rights, inheritances and customs would be restored to the Welsh if they agreed.

This, then, was the sort of propaganda that the Bruces were putting about in Ireland and Wales, but, as Edward’s offer of assistance to the Welsh, conditional upon their accepting him as Prince of Wales, suggests, the Bruces had their sights fixed firmly on their own aggrandisement. Claims to common racial origin and awareness of common language and customs among the Irish, Scots and (more rarely) Welsh were long-established themes in Gaelic and Welsh poetry, but manifestations of pan-celtic sentiment seldom occurred outside the world of literature. There was however one precedent of some importance within living memory; in 1260 the Irish king Briain Ó Néill built up a coalition of Irish kings and appealed to the Scots for assistance against the English. Brian died in battle the following year and the rebellion was put down. More significant perhaps was the accelerating pace of conflict in the late thirteenth century between the English crown and the rulers of the celtic-speaking regions. A revival of Gaelic culture had been underway in Ireland since about the middle of the thirteenth century with a growing tendency among Anglo-Irish lords to show interest in and adopt the customs of the Gaelic Irish.¹⁴⁰ The Bruces were familiar with the Gaelic world; and, while they themselves had more in common with the Red Earl of Ulster and his peers than with the petty kings of the Gaeltacht, it may have seemed natural to their Irish allies to cast their struggle against the English in terms of Gaedhil against Gall.

The Bruces may be seen exploiting pan-celtic sentiment wherever they felt they could turn it to their advantage. There is no mistaking the excitement which the Scots invasion of Ireland stirred up among the Gaelic Irish. On arrival Edward was aided by the Irish of Ulster and Uriel. In the autumn of 1315 the Irish of far away Desmond were in rebellion because of the coming of the Scots. Edward’s campaign of 1316 in Leinster clearly involved wide co-operation with native chiefs. Yet Edward Bruce had as many Gaelic enemies as allies. He was welcomed by several kings in Ulster, but was treacherously attacked by ‘Makgullane’ and ‘Makartane’. Barbour seems to indicate that many of the Scots felt shoddily treated by Domnall Ó Néill’s failure to provide adequate supplies for them. While in Ireland the brothers seem to have seriously underestimated the factional strife that pervaded the Gaeltacht. Twice the Scots were inveigled into participation in the struggles of rival Gaelic factions. Edward was manipulated by factions of the Ó Conchobairs who each sought his support in 1315; and in 1317 both he and Robert were diverted far to the west by the promises of an Ó Briain faction. These instances, in which the Bruces expected to find and exploit commitment to an anti-English crusade in Ireland, show how foreign to them were the shifting alliances and all-absorbing local conflicts of the Gaeltacht. As Professor Frame points out, ‘Political fragmentation and disputed successions had a long history and a long future’ and bedevilled the Bruce’s attempt to form a broad alliance against the English.¹⁴¹

No doubt the same fragmentation would have stymied any Bruce intervention in Wales. But there are aspects of the invasion of Ireland that are difficult to account for unless by reference to a strategy involving Wales as well as Ireland. In February 1316 the rebellion of Llywelyn Bren erupted in Glamorgan, the result of famine, of instability proceeding from the death of the earl of Gloucester at Bannockburn, and of deep-seated grievances against the English.¹⁴² The coincidence of this revolt with Edward Bruce’s winter campaign in Ireland is striking, and the idea that the Bruces in Ireland and Britain were working to pre-arranged times affords a tempting explanation of this midwinter campaign and their indecent haste to conquer Ireland. The text of a reply to Edward Bruce’s manifesto survives, written by the Welsh magnate Gruffydd Llwyd. It is couched in the same rhetoric as Edward’s manifesto, professing common racial origins and common hatred of the English. Llwyd states that if Edward were to come to Wales, or if he were to send someone with even a few men, then the nobles of Wales would all be prepared to join him. Llwyd was arrested in December 1316, and his son removed to the English court.¹⁴³

In practical terms the evidence amounts only to a Scottish interest in keeping the Welsh pot boiling. There is no evidence of Scottish involvement in the rebellion of Llywelyn Bren; and evidence for the Scottish interest in Wales amounts only to the raid of Thomas Dun in 1315, and Edward’s manifesto, ‘a typical piece of Bruce fishing in troubled waters’.¹⁴⁴ When Robert I returned to Ireland in 1327 and 1328, he appears to pay much more attention to winning over Anglo-Irish allies than Gaelic Irish. Yet the idea that the Bruces actively sought a ‘celtic alliance’ embracing Welsh as well as Irish cannot be dismissed until it is known quite why Edward Bruce felt the need to campaign in Ireland in the bleak winter of 1315–16; why the Scots were in such a hurry to conquer Ireland from 1315 onwards; and what it was that attracted first Edward, then Edward and Robert together, to the south-east of Ireland. At a time when Scottish raids in England were increasingly purposeful, deliberate, and beginning to be aimed at the achievement of very specific objectives, it is difficult to credit that Edward Bruce, and Moray and Robert I, were floundering aimlessly in Ireland.

THE KINGSHIP OF EDWARD BRUCE

It has been pointed out that the Scottish intervention in Ireland served the purposes of Robert I, and also that the Scots were reacting to events and dangers in the Irish Sea. Yet Edward Bruce’s desire for conquest, martial glory and a throne was probably the most powerful motivation for the invasion of Ireland. Edward must surely rank as one of the great opportunists of history, and his pride, arrogance and ambition were all noted by chroniclers. Barbour praises Edward’s hardiness, but claims that, in contrast to Robert, he lacked ‘measure’, or prudence. Fordun hints at bad feeling between Robert and Edward:

The cause of this [Irish] war was this. Edward was a very mettlesome and high-spirited man, and would not dwell together with his brother in peace unless he had half the kingdom for himself, and for this reason war was stirred up in Ireland.¹⁴⁵

Edward’s actions are those of a man possessed by ambition to achieve kingly status. He wrote to the nobles of Wales asking to be made Prince of Wales; he is said to have addressed a similar letter to the nobles of Ireland; and he also sought dominion over the Western Isles.¹⁴⁶ In Ireland he was successful in gaining a degree of recognition and was addressed as King of Ireland on 30th September 1316 by his brother, and at an uncertain date by Domnall Ó Néill.¹⁴⁷ Edward II of course made no acknowledgement of such claims; but his elevation of Edmund Butler to Edward Bruce’s own title ‘Earl of Carrick’ before November 1316 may have been a deliberate scorning of Bruce’s adoption of the grandiose title ‘King of Ireland’.¹⁴⁸

Were the date of his inauguration known for certain; it would help identify the priorities of the Scots in Ireland. If after the invasion a year or two elapsed before Edward assumed the title, this would indicate that the motivation was military or logistical and that Edward’s ambition was subordinate to the purposes of Robert I; it might also lend weight to the idea that the Scots were being drawn into Ireland by degrees. If, as seems more likely, it took place shortly after the landing, it would support the idea that the initiative came from Scotland, from Edward Bruce himself, and that he was embarked upon a war of conquest and hellbent on becoming a king. A time early in the expedition seems to be most probable. Native annals all agree in placing the inauguration in the year 1315. TheAnnals of Connacht, Loch Cé and Clonmacnoise, all working from the same source, describe it as follows:

. . . [Edward] then burned Ardee and took the hostages and lordship of the whole Province without opposition, and the Ulstermen consented to his being proclaimed King of Ireland and all the Gaels of Ireland agreed to grant him lordship and they called him King of Ireland.¹⁴⁹

Only the Laud Annals, in its entry for the year 1315, offers a more precise date, ‘very soon after the feast of Saints Philip and James [1st May]’.¹⁵⁰ But Edward Bruce was not in Ireland on 1st May 1315; he had arrived only on 26th May. This has led some authors to conclude that Edward was inaugurated on 1st May in the following year, 1316 (despite the annals including it under 1315). Duncan has another suggestion: that the feast originally intended was not that of Philip and James, but that of Philip the Deacon (6th June).¹⁵¹ This timing would allow the inauguration to coincide broadly with an early submission to Edward made by Irish kings of Ulster mentioned in the Barbour narrative.

But it is the settlement of the succession to the Scottish throne, agreed at Ayr in 1315 (just before the expedition sailed), that confirms the Scottish intervention as motivated primarily by conquest and by Edward’s ambition. It suggests that the Scots had agreed among themselves that Edward would become King of Ireland.¹⁵² While Robert’s queen was a prisoner in England, Edward had stood a fair chance of becoming King of Scotland. But following the release of Queen Elizabeth in January 1315, Robert could expect an heir; and Edward’s chances of succeeding in Scotland were suddenly diminished. The royal tailzie (or entail) of 1315 settled the succession on King Robert’s heirs male; and only if Robert failed to have a son would Edward succeed to the throne. Furthermore, if Robert were to die leaving an infant son, the regent was not to be Edward, but Moray. Both Edward and Moray were leaving for Ireland, but the tailzie implies that Edward was expected to be permanently absent from Scotland. Finally, relations between Edward and Robert, or perhaps Edward and Moray, may not have been cordial. Edward’s pride and arrogance loom large in Barbour.¹⁵³ Among Anglo-Norman families it was often the burning ambition of all younger brothers to acquire lands and titles equal to those of the first-born. Barbour and Fordun are in no doubt that it was Edward’s personal ambition to become a king that was responsible for the extension of the war to Ireland. Edward had clearly been culpable in alienating David Earl of Atholl on the eve of Bannockburn. It is remarkable too that, leading up to the siege of Carlisle, King Robert should not require the earl of Carrick and lord of Galloway to assist in the assault on the city. The kingship of Ireland would both compensate Edward for the loss of his hopes to succeed in Scotland, and might have had the further advantage from Robert’s point of view of removing an awkward personality from a crucial theatre of war. For all these reasons, then, it appears that the intervention in Ireland may have been propelled by internal Scottish considerations. The early date of Edward’s inauguration has further implications. It suggests that Edward’s kingly ambitions were as significant in prompting the invasion as any strategic design. It also points to a strong impulse for expansion from Scotland, rather than to a response to any pressing invitation from Irish magnates; and it means that the Scots were bent upon outright conquest of the country rather than limited strategic aims and objectives.

In the sources the inauguration is mentioned, but not described by Barbour or any of the annalists. From Anglo-Irish and Gaelic perspectives alike, Armagh’s ecclesiastical importance and regalian associations make it a likely location for the event. One source mentions Armagh in the itinerary of the Scots from Iniskeen to Coleraine.¹⁵⁴ At an uncertain date Domnall Ó Néill made a confirmation of privileges to the Archbishop, Dean and Chapter of Armagh, citing ‘Edward King of Ireland’ as guarantor, and since ‘King of Ireland’ was not a title ever used by Edward II, this can only refer to Edward Bruce. The document suggests that Edward Bruce was an acceptable intermediary and (perhaps) that his regal status was accepted by both parties.¹⁵⁵ Probably at such a place as Armagh a deal was struck between Edward Bruce and Domnall Ó Néill, enlisting the Scots as Ó Néill’s allies against the Red Earl; in return for which Edward Bruce was acclaimed King of Ireland. The essential elements common to both Scottish and Irish inaugurations would probably have been observed: the placing of the king on a ceremonial stone, recitation of genealogy, acclamation by the assembly and ratification by the clergy. Coronation of course was unknown in either country at this date.

In all probability, the Gaelic Irish reacted to the arrival of the Scots in much the same fashion as their compatriots of 150 years before had reacted to the coming of Henry II and King John.¹⁵⁶ Anxious to acquire the Scots as allies in local struggles, they might readily have conceded Edward’s claims to overkingship or superior lordship. There are sources which suggest an invitation from the Gaelic Irish; indeed, if such an invitation was not spontaneous, Edward Bruce would have been able to procure one with the same ease that he procured an invitation from the Welsh.¹⁵⁷ The ‘Remonstrance of the Irish Princes’ written on behalf of Domnall Ó Néill illustrates the point. This document, addressed to the newly elected Pope John XXII and dated to summer or autumn of 1317, recites a list of oppressions by the English and invokes papal approval for redress against them. It is accepted (though not without misgivings) as a genuine text rather than a fourteenth-century forgery. It is thought to have been written both to take advantage of the presence of the two cardinals in England, and to undermine the success of the English envoys at the papal court. It is of Irish provenance, although it survives only in a Scottish source and may have been composed under Scottish influence or transmitted to the papal court viaScottish envoys.¹⁵⁸ Contained in the Remonstrance is a declaration that Edward Bruce has been acclaimed as King of Ireland:

And in order to achieve our aim more swiftly and more fitly in this matter, we call to our help and assistance the illustrious Edward de Bruce earl of Carrick, the brother of the lord Robert by the grace of God the most illustrious king of Scots, and sprung from our noblest ancestors. And as each person is free to give up his right and transfer it to another, all the right which is recognised to pertain to us in the said kingdom as its true heirs we have given and granted to him by our letter patent so that he may dispense judgement with justice and equity there, which, as a result of the inadequacy of the prince have utterly failed there. We have unanimously established him as our king and lord, and set him over us in our aforesaid kingdom . . .

This is very gracious lip service. As the royal visits to Ireland by Henry II, John and Richard II demonstrate, Gaelic lords had no qualms about conceding grand titles to powerful allies, for overkingship had almost no meaning amid the constantly shifting local alliances that prevailed in Gaelic Ireland, where no allegiance was for ever. The text of the Remonstrance itself illustrates this, as some paragraphs further on it turns out to be a most comprehensive statement of Ó Néill regality, claiming for Domnall Ó Néill lineal descent from 136 kings ‘without admixture of alien blood’.

Edward Bruce’s inauguration cut little ice with the annalists, and probably less with his Gaelic allies. In the climate of ever-shifting alliances and temporary allegiances which prevailed in Gaelic Ireland, Edward Bruce’s Kingship of Ireland cannot have meant very much outside Ulster; but it seems to have been of crucial importance to the Scots. King Robert may have had a vision of allied neighbouring monarchies, bound by ties of blood. But the sense that Edward Bruce had been something of a liability in Scotland runs strong in Barbour; and Robert may have been relieved to see the back of him. The invasion of Ireland, however, still served Robert’s immediate and long-term aims: pursuit of the MacDougalls and the other Scottish émigrés; destruction of Ulster as a source of supply for Man and for the English west march; and the capture of Carrickfergus as a step towards controlling the whole of the Irish Sea. The motives behind the Scottish invasion of Ireland were probably very mixed.

It is not quite accurate to say that Edward’s stirring up of trouble in Ireland provided a diversion in support of Robert’s own offensives, since campaigns in both theatres never coincided. Nor can it be said that the English were forced to divert resources to Ireland; for the colony patently received very little help. Scottish failure in Ireland stands in contrast to success in Britain. Whereas long-range raids of the Scots into the relatively prosperous north of England enriched the Scots at the expense of their enemies, expeditions into relatively impoverished and war-ridden Ireland could never compete in terms of plunder or chivalric lustre. But the failure of the Irish adventure should not be taken for granted; by all accounts the Scots came close to conquering Ireland; and Scottish involvement in Ireland may indirectly have contributed to success in Britain. The occupation of Ulster for three years (a considerable achievement in years of famine) no doubt assisted in anchoring the Bruce regime by taking the war to the MacDougalls and their allies. However, support for the Gaelic Irish tended to alienate the Anglo-Irish who controlled that part of the country most relevant to Bruce ambitions. The administrations of Westminster and Dublin both recognised this and took critical steps to secure the allegiance of the Anglo-Irish lords. The Bruces would have done better to drop the pan-celtic rhetoric, appeal instead to Anglo-Irish lords, and thus maintain a presence on the east coast. Instead of fighting the Red Earl, they should have been wooing him and his peers to their cause. Moreover, the capture of sea ports ought to have been a priority. From Westminster the presence of a Scottish army in the north of Ireland was uncomfortable and threatening; but the capture of Dublin might have given the Bruces sufficient diplomatic leverage to impose a peace upon England.

NOTES

1 Besides Barbour, The Bruce XIV, XV, 1–266 and XVIII, the most reliable narrative source is the Laud Annals in Chartularies of St. Mary’s Abbey, Dublin, ii, 303–98. Other narratives include: The Annals of Connacht, ed. A.M. Freeman (Dublin, 1944) [Ann. Connacht]; The Annals of Clonmacnoise, ed. D. Murphy (Dublin, 1896) [Ann. Clonmacnoise]; The Annals of Inisfallen, ed. S. Mac Airt (Dublin, 1951) [Ann. Inisfallen]; The Annals of Loch Cé, ed. W.M. Hennessy, (2 vols.) (R.S., 1871) [Ann. Loch Cé]; The Annals of Ireland by Friar John Clyn and Thady Dowling, ed. R. Butler (Dublin, 1849) [Clyn]; and Jacobi Grace, Kilkenniensis, Annales Hiberniae, ed. R. Butler (Irish Archaeological Society, 1842) [Grace].

2 Phillips, ‘Documents’; Sayles, Affairs of Ireland; Gilbert, Hist. Mun. Docs. One text has been unmasked as a forgery: S. Duffy, ‘The Gaelic Account of The Bruce Invasion, Cath Fhochairte Brighite: Medieval Romance or Modern Forgery’, Seanchas Ard Macha xiii (1988), 59–121; and there is doubt as to the authenticity of another: D. O’Murchadha, ’Is the O’Neill–MacCarthy Letter of 1317 a Forgery?’, IHS xxiii (1982–83), 61–67.

3 The modern starting point is R. Frame, ‘The Bruces in Ireland, 1315–18’, IHS xix (1974), 3–37. Since then: J.F. Lydon, ‘The Impact of the Bruce Invasion’, NHI ii, 275–302; Duncan, ‘Scots Invasion’, pp. 100–17; and Duffy, ‘Bruce Brothers’, pp. 55–86.

4 See above p. 37.

5 Ann. Clonmacnoise, p. 275 (1315).

6 Chart. St. Mary’s Dublin ii, 358.

7 Ann. Clonmacnoise, p. 282; Ann. Connacht, p. 253.

8 Ann. Connacht, p. 233.

9 Reports of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records of Ireland xxxix (1907), 65.

10 Fordun ii, 340; Bower vi, 381; Pluscarden ii, 186.

11 Frame makes this point with regard to the decision by Edward Bruce to campaign during the winter of 1316, ‘The Bruces in Ireland’, p. 11, n. 35.

12 J.F. Lydon, ‘Edward II and the Revenues of Ireland in 1311–12’, IHS xiv (1964), 39–49, Appendix pp. 56–57; NHI ii, 275–76.

13 P. Connolly, ‘List of Irish entries on the Memoranda Rolls of the English Exchequer, 1307–27’, Analecta Hibernica xxxvi (Irish Manuscripts Commission, 1995), no. 51, p. 184.

14 E101/237/2 and E372/166, m.26. Fourteen of the garrison are named on NAI KB2/7, pp. 31–32.

15 CCR 1313–18, p. 218; NAI RC8/7, p. 760. Professor Phillips suggested this as the occasion for Robert’s letter to the kings, prelates, clergy and inhabitants of Ireland, ‘Mission of John de Hothum’ England and Ireland in the Later Middle Ages ed. J.F. Lyndon (Dublin 1981), pp. 66–67.

16 Rot. Scot., i, 138–39, 143–44.

17 NHI ii, 282; Grace, p. 63 gives the location as ’Glondonne’. None of these locations is far from Carrickfergus, CDS iii no. 216, p. 44.

18 Larne had been the rendezvous for the Anglo-Irish fleet of 1311, CDS v nos. 557, 559, 560, 563, 564.

19 G.W.S. Barrow and A. Royan, ’James Fifth Stewart of Scotland’, in Essays on the Nobility of Medieval Scotland, ed. K.J. Stringer (Edinburgh, 1985), pp. 167–69. Barbour, The Bruce XIV, 23–32 mentions also Ramsay of Ouchtirhouse, and Grace, p. 63, ‘the Earl of Menteith’ (which might be a mistake for John of Menteith, who was closely associated with the Stewarts), John Bosco, and John Bisset. Fergus of Ardrossan, who supported the Bruce coup in 1306, is reported by the Laud Annals to have fallen at the battle of Ardscull in 1316, yet the name appears in the list of those attesting the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath.

20 John Bisset of Antrim received a commission from Edward II in March 1315, Rot. Scot. i, 139.

21 Duffy, ‘Continuation of Trivet’, p. 308; Ann. Connacht, p. 249.

22 J.R. Greeves, ’Robert I and the De Mandevilles of Ulster’, TDGNHAS (3rd Ser.) xxxiv (1955–56), 60; Phillips, ‘Documents’, no. 8, pp. 257–58; Barbour, The Bruce XIV, 46–60; Clyn, p. 12: ‘almost all the Irish of the land’ of Ulster adhered to the Scots.

23 Vita Edwardi II, p. 61; Phillips, ’Documents’, nos. 15, 16; Clyn, p. 12: ‘almost all the Irish of the land’ adhered to the Scots.

24 See above p. 80.

25 Barbour, The Bruce XIV, 97–98.

26 Ann. Connacht, p. 231; Ann. Loch Cé, i, 563.

27 E101/237/4, m. 1.

28 E101/237/5, m. 5; Chart. St. Mary’s Dublin ii, 345; Duncan, ‘Scots’ Invasion’, p. 105.

29 Barbour, The Bruce XIV, 101–12; Phillips, ‘Documents’, no. 8, pp. 257–58. The placename ‘Innermallane’ or ‘Inderwillane’ is generally used to refer to the Moiry Pass, between Newry and Dundalk. The former personal name may indicate Colman Megulhan whom Edward II thanked in 1319 (see p. 186), the latter is surely MacArtaín.

30 Chart. St. Mary’s Dublin ii, 345 ; Barbour, The Bruce XIV, 224–32; Clyn, p. 12; E101/237/4, m. 1, £46 paid to attorneys of the town ‘recently robbed and burned by the Scots’, for its rebuilding and repair.

31 Duncan, ‘Scots Invasion’, p. 107; Ann. Clonmacnoise, p. 268; Ann. Inisfallen, p. 419.

32 Barbour does refer to Butler, but not to de Burgh; however, he consistently names Edward Bruce’s arch-opponent in Ireland as ‘Richard de Clare’. This was the name of an Anglo-Irish magnate who fought Bruce in Ireland, but he was not one of the lordship’s leading magnates.

33 Phillips, ‘Documents’, no. 18, pp. 264–65.

34 Ann. Clonmacnoise, p. 269.

35 NAI KB2/7, pp. 58–59. Printed in D. Mac Iomhair, ‘Bruce’s Invasion and the First Campaign in County Louth’, Irish Sword x (1971–72), 201.

36 Phillips, ‘Documents’, nos. 18, 9,

37 Phillips, ‘Documents’, no. 17, pp. 263–64. Ann. Clonmacnoise, p. 269; Ann. Connacht, p. 233.

38 PRONI DIO 4/2/2, f. 39.

39 Ann. Inisfallen, pp. 419–20.

40 Barbour, The Bruce XIV, 329–66; Ann. Inisfallen, pp. 419–21; Frame, ’Bruces in Ireland’, p. 22.

41 Ann. Clonmacnoise, pp. 269–70.

42 Ann. Inisfallen, p. 419; Ann. Connacht., pp. 233–34; Ann. Loch Cé i, 567.

43 Phillips, ’Documents’, no.17, pp. 263–65.

44 Barbour, The Bruce XIV, 383–XV, 85; Chart. St. Mary’s Dublin ii, 346; Ann. Clonmacnoise, pp. 271; Ann. Inisfallen, p. 421.

45 Chart. St. Mary’s Dublin ii, 346; see above p. 78.

46 Phillips, ’Documents’, no. 14, pp. 261–62.

47 Phillips, ’Documents’, nos. 8, 14.

48 C260/60, no. 9 (dated to 1344).

49 Chart. St. Mary’s Dublin ii, 347.

50 The ‘Rodel ship’ may have been broadly representative of the vessels available to Thomas Dun, Late Medieval Monumental Sculpture in the West Highlands, K.A. Steer and J.M.W. Bannerman (Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, 1977), pp. 180–84 and plates 16, 32 [Plate ].

51 Phillips, ‘Mission of John de Hothum’, p. 67; Rot. Scot. i, 139, 144, 136.

52 Rot. Scot., i, 146–48; CPR 1313–17, p. 333.

53 Connolly, ‘Irish Entries on the Memoranda Rolls’, pp. 196–97.The Aliceot of Bristol by 14th February 1316 had served half a year in Irish waters, NAI RC 8/10, pp. 532–33, 539–40.

54 CCR 1313–18, pp. 252–53.

55 CDS iii, no. 451, p. 84; CPR 1313–17, p. 421.

56 Society of Antiquaries, MS 121, f. 29; Clyn, p. 13; Phillips, ’Documents’, no. 20, p. 267.

57 Barbour, The Bruce, XIV, 381; Chart. St. Mary’s Dublin ii, 346.

58 CDS iii, no. 450, p. 84.

59 CDS iii no. 912, p. 166.

60 Phillips, ‘Documents’, p. 267; Phillips, ‘The Mission of John de Hothum to Ireland, 1315–16’, p. 68. The term satellite often denotes native soldiery, in this case Welsh or Irish troops.

61 Chart. St. Mary’s Dublin ii, 346; Phillips, ’Documents’, no. 21, pp. 268–69.

62 Phillips, ’Documents’, nos. 15, 16.

63 NAI KB2/8, p. 44; NAI KB2/7, p. 21.

64 Phillips, ‘Mission of John de Hothum,’ pp. 68, 71, 73. Irish Exchequer Payments 1270–1446, ed. Philomena Connolly (Irish Manuscripts Commission, 1998), p. 234.

65 Chart. St. Mary’s Dublin ii, 347.

66 Phillips, ’Documents’, pp. no. 7, pp. 255–57; ‘Mission of John de Hothum,’ pp. 69–70.

67 Chart. St. Mary’s Dublin ii, 347; Frame, ’Bruces in Ireland’, pp. 20–23; Hist. Mun. Docs. no. XCVII, pp. 456–62; Sayles, Affairs of Ireland, nos. 127 and 128.

68 SC8/004 (184), calendared in P. Connolly, ‘Irish material in the Class of Ancient Petitions (SC8) in the Public Record Office London’, Analecta Hibernica xxxiv (1987), pp. 7, 50; Chart. St. Mary’s Dublin ii, 349; Duncan, RRS v no. 101, comment, p. 379.

69 Chart. St. Mary’s Dublin ii, 349; P. Connolly, ‘Irish material in the Class of Chancery Warrants Series (C81) in the Public Record Office London’, Analecta Hibernica xxxvi (1995), p. 47.

70 Frame, ‘Bruces in Ireland’, p. 11, n. 35.

71 Chart. St. Mary’s Dublin ii, 349.

72 NAI RC 8/10, pp. 552, 553–54, 570.

73 G.O. Sayles, ‘The Siege of Carrickfergus Castle, 1315–16’, IHS (1956–57), 94–100; NAI RC 8/10, pp. 651–52, 553–54, 581–82, 610; Barbour, The Bruce XV, 101–242; Chart. St. Mary’s Dublin ii, 296–97, 350. Mandeville’s body was the subject of a legal fracas between the Friars Minor of Carrickfergus and the Friars Preachers of Drogheda, Calendar of Papal Letters, 1305–42, p. 171. John MacNakill was a lord of Argyll who in 1315 was considering defection to Edward II through the good offices of John Argyll, Rot. Scot. i, 139; John Barbour The Bruce, ed. A. A. M. Duncan (Edinburgh, 1997) p. 560, n. 222. The MacNakill at Carrickfergus was possibly a son ot brother of John MacNakill, who had been sent to Ireland to ensure John’s continued loyalty.

74 Chart. St. Mary’s Dublin ii, 297.

75 Chart. St. Mary’s Dublin ii, 296; NAI RC 8/10, p. 570, 581–82.

76 Sayles, ‘Siege of Carrickfergus’, pp. 97–100.

77 Duncan, RRS v, no. 101, pp. 378–79.

78 E101/237/4; and E101/237/5 and /6. £4,000 had been assigned to Balscote by the Council of Lincoln, but the £578 was all that was forthcoming from the revenues of the colony, NHI ii, 290.

79 NAI RC 8/10, pp. 613, 651–52.

80 CPR 1313–17, p. 603; Fryde, ‘Antonio Pessagno’, p. 174.

81 Connolly, ‘Irish Entries on the Memoranda Rolls’, p. 189.

82 Duncan, RRS v, no. 101, pp. 378–79.

83 Frame, ’Bruces in Ireland’, pp. 29–31; E372/166, m. 26. Alan Stewart, kinght and Scottish felon, was kept prisoner in Dublin Castle, Irish Exchequer Payments 1270–1446, ed. P. Conolly, p. 244.

84 CPR 1313–17, pp. 563, 574.

85 Chart. St. Mary’s Dublin ii, 352–53; Barbour, The Bruce XVI, 63, places the start of this campaign in May probably for literary effect; O. Armstrong, Edward Bruce’s Invasion of Ireland (London, 1923), pp. 101–2.

86 R. Frame, ’The Campaign against the Scots in Munster’, IHS xxiv (1985), 361–72.

87 Ann. Inisfallen, pp. 425–7; Clyn, p. 13.

88 CCW 1244–1326, p. 461

89 CPR 1313–17, p. 632.

90 Cathreim Thoirdhealbhaigh, ed. S.H. O’Grady (Irish Texts Society, 1929), ii, 83–84. For discussion of this text and of the political situation in Thomond, see A. Nic Ghiollanhaith, ’Dynastic Warfare and Historical Writing in North Munster, 1276–1350’,Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies ii (1981), 73–90.

91 Duncan, RRS v, Introduction, p.140; Rot. Scot. i, 170.

92 Society of Antiquaries, MS 120, f.42; MS 121, ff. 25, 25d; CPR 1313–17, pp. 693–94.

93 C81/100(4219), calendared in CDS iii, no. 549, p. 106.

94 Chart. St. Mary’s Dublin ii, 355; Society of Antiquaries, MS 121, f. 29.

95 Duncan, RRS v p. 379; CDS iii nos. 636, 637.

96 Hist. Mun. Docs., pp. 352–53; Chart. St. Mary’s Dublin ii, 357–58.

97 Hist. Mun. Docs., pp. 442–43.

98 Chart. St. Mary’s Dublin ii, 359.

99 Philip de Mowbray did not die at Fochart, Duncan, RRS v ‘Introduction’, p. 146; and John Stewart was reported to have died already at Connor in September 1315, see p. 174 above. A full analysis of the lists of the ‘fallen’ is contained in the Duffy ‘Continuation of Nicholas Trevet’, pp. 309–12. See also Duffy, ‘Bruce Brothers’, pp. 73–74.

100 Clyn, p. 14; Walsingham i, 154; Connolly, ‘Irish material in the Class of Ancient Petitions’, pp. 29, 31, 33, 34, 37; Reports of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records of Ireland, xlii, 13.

101 Barbour, The Bruce XVIII, 20–68.

102 Ann. Clonmacnoise, pp. 281–82.

103 Lanercost, pp. 225–6.

104 Duffy, ‘Continuation of Nicholas Trevet’, pp. 307–12; Chart. St. Mary’s Dublin ii, 359–60; Sayles, Affairs of Ireland no. 143, p. 105.

105 Duffy, ‘Bruce Brothers’, p. 72.

106 CPR 1317–21, pp. 334–35.

107 BL MS Add. 9951, f. 17; CPR 1317–21, p. 313.

108 CCR 1318–23, p. 127, identified in K. Muhr, Place Names of Northern Ireland (Vol. vi): North-West Co. Down from Rathfriland to Moira (forthcoming), p. 10.

109 Sayles, Affairs of Ireland no. 144, pp. 105–6.

110 Connolly, ‘Irish Entries on the Memoranda Rolls’, p. 195.

111 CPR 1321–24, p. 126.

112 CCR 1307–13, p. 205; CDS iii nos. 95, 132, 157.

113 CDS iii no. 421, p. 80. The men of Bruce’s garrison are all named. They included Henry le Welbe and John le Masoun of Carlingford, NAI KB2/7, pp. 31–32.

114 CDS iii no. 479, p. 92; E101/237/2, m. 2; E101/237/6.

115 CDS iii nos. 84.

116 E101/378/4, f.13d.

117 CDS iii nos. 423, 647, 649.

118 CDS iii no. 521, p. 99.

119 Barbour, The Bruce XV, 266–318, though the claim that ‘John of Lorn’ was captured on this expedition is untrue. Duncan, RRS v, Introduction, pp.136–7; Barrow, Robert Bruce, pp. 291–92.

120 Phillips, ‘Documents’, nos. 2, 3, 6, 19, draws attention to the persistent linkage in sources between affairs at Berwick and in Ireland.

121 Vita Edwardi II, pp. 61–62.

122 See above pp. 155–56.

123 E101/14/31, Schedule 2, 1.

124 E101/237/4, m. 1; Phillips, Aymer de Valence, p. 91, n. 4.

125 Vita Edwardi II, p. 60; Chart. St. Mary’s Dublin ii, 346.

126 CDS iii no. 621, p. 117.

127 See Charts 5 and 6, p. 127.

128 J.F. Lydon, ‘Ireland’s Participation in the Military Activities of the English Kings in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Century’ (University of London Ph. D. thesis, 1955), pp. 281, 284, 290, 297.

Period	Quarters Wheat	Quarters Oats
1308–09	530	947
1310	642	428
1311	1377
1312	400
1314	702	360

It is however not a simple matter to reconcile dispatches from Irish ports with receipts at Carlisle. Periods of account differ, not all the supplies dispatched reached Carlisle, and it has not been possible to incorporate this information into Charts 5 and 6.

129 Lydon, ‘Ireland’s Participation’, pp. 305–6.

130 CDS iii no. 479, p. 92; Chart. St. Mary’s Dublin ii, 296; E101/237/2, m. 4; E101/237/4, /5.

131 Vita Edwardi II, p. 61.

132 CCR 1313–18, pp. 147, 148.

133 Beverley Smith, ‘Gruffydd Llwyd and the Celtic Alliance’, pp. 463–67.

134 Calendar of Ancient Correspondence Concerning Wales, ed. J.G. Edwards (Cardiff, 1935), no. LV.31, pp. 253–54.

135 SC6/1211/9, m3; Connolly, ‘Irish material in the Class of Ancient Petitions’, p. 58.

136 Beverley Smith, ‘Gruffydd Llwyd and the Celtic Alliance’, pp. 463–65.

137 SC6/1211/9; Foedera ii (I), 318–19. Beverley Smith considers that ‘Bishop Enadens’ might have been the Irish-speaking Bishop of Annaghdown, ‘Edward II and the Allegiance of Wales’, Welsh Historical Review viii (1976–77), 152.

138 RRS v, 695, no. 571, pp. 700–1, and J. Beverley Smith, ‘Gryffyd Llwyd and the Celtic Alliance’ 1315–18, Bulletin of the British Board of Celtic Studies xxvi (1976), 477–78, where the reply is also printed.

139 An extract from the letter printed in full by Beverley Smith, ‘Gruffydd Llwyd and the Celtic Alliance, 1315–18’, p. 478 and by Duncan, RRS v no. 571, pp. 700–1.

140 Duffy, ‘Bruce Brothers’, pp. 68–69, 79; Lydon, ‘A Land of War’, NHI ii, 241–43.

141 Frame, ‘The Bruces in Ireland’, pp. 16–25 is still the best treatment of the Gaelic reaction, but it contains references to sources now considered to be forgeries.

142 R.A. Griffiths, Conquerors and Conquered in Medieval Wales (Stroud, 1994), pp. 84–91; R.R. Davies, Conquest, Coexistence and Change (Oxford, 1987), pp. 387–88, 435. Trokelowe, p. 92, considers that the Welsh revolt was sparked off by the Scottish success at Bannockburn.

143 Beverley Smith, ‘Gruffydd Llwyd and the Celtic Alliance’, pp. 463–67 and 477–78.

144 Duncan’s comment on the letter in Beverley Smith, ‘Gruffydd Llwyd and the Celtic Alliance’, p. 474, n. 2.

145 Barbour The Bruce IX, 666–76; Fordun ii, 340.

146 Duffy, ‘Continuation of Trevet,’ pp. 308, 314.

147 Duncan, RRS v no. 101, pp. 378–79.

148 CPR 1313–17, p. 536.

149 Ann. Connacht, p. 231. Compare Ann. Loch Cé, p. 565, Ann. Clonmacnoise, p. 276.

150 Chart. St. Mary’s Dublin ii, 345.

151 Duncan, ‘Scots’ Invasion’, p. 109.

152 Duncan, ‘Scots’ Invasion’, p. 113.

153 Barbour, The Bruce, IX, 480–95, 661–71; Barrow, Robert Bruce, pp. 293–94.

154 Ann. Inisfallen, p. 416.

155 PRONI DIO 4/2/2, f. 39, dated to this period by K. Simms, ‘The Archbishops of Armagh and the Ó Néills, 1347–1471’, IHS xix (1974), 38–55.

156 F.X. Martin, ‘Overlord becomes feudal lord’, NHI ii, 89–91.

157 Phillips, ‘Documents’, no. 14, pp. 261–62, Appendix, pp. 269–70

158 Bower vi, 385–403. See J.R.S. Phillips, ‘The Irish Remonstrance of 1317: an International Perspective’, IHS xxvii (1990), 112–29. Bower vi, Introduction, pp. xxi-xxiv contains another valuable discussion of the Remonstrance. Michael MacLochlainn, Franciscan friar and unsuccessful candidate for the see of Armagh in 1307 is the putative author.