King and Outlaw

The Real Robert the Bruce

Dr Chris Brown, Chris Brown

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9780750993920
  9780750987929
• Edition: 2
• eBook ISBN:
  9780750989732
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

The iconic figure of Robert the Bruce has gone down through the centuries as one of the most remarkable leaders of all time. With equal parts tenacity and ruthlessness, he had himself crowned King of Scotland after murdering one of his most powerful rivals, and so began the rule of an indomitable military genius unafraid of breaking convention, and more than a few English heads. Indeed, it was under the leadership of King Robert that the Battle of Bannockburn took place – a famous victory snatched by a tiny Scots force against a larger, supposedly more sophisticated English foe. In King and Outlaw medieval expert Chris Brown explores the life of Robert the Bruce, whose remarkable history has merged with legend, and reveals the true story of the outlaw king.

Despite his Norman name, when Robert Bruce was born on 11 July 1274 he was about as Scottish as a child could be. His father’s family held the Lordship of Annandale and had been resident in Scotland for five generations, and his mother Marjorie was the Countess of Carrick – an ancient Celtic earldom.

Oddly, his career was formed by the choices of his greatest enemy, Edward I. If Edward had not been an exceptionally greedy man, he would not have forced the candidates for Scottish kingship to accept him as their overlord in 1290–91. John Balliol would still have been chosen as king – this was not Edward’s decision to make, but Edward would not have been in a position to undermine him and force a war. There is no reason to think that John would not have been a perfectly adequate ruler or that the Bruce family would have done anything more exciting than carry on with being Earls of Carrick and Lords of Annandale. Had it not been for Edward’s violent avarice, the name Robert Bruce would be known to a tiny handful of academic specialists, and no one else.

At the time of Scottish King Alexander III’s death in 1286, Scotland and England had enjoyed a long tradition of fairly good relations. Intermittent attempts by English kings over the preceding two centuries and more to procure a degree of sovereignty over Scottish counterparts had never really taken root; indeed, it is questionable whether any English king had ever seriously believed that they would. William the Lion (reigned 1165–1214) had been obliged to give homage for his kingdom after he was captured in 1174 as part of his ransom arrangements, but fifteen years later he paid a large sum to ensure that he and his successors would be free of any feudal obligation to the English Crown in the future.

A century later, when Edward I came to the throne in England, Alexander III made a trip south to give homage for his various properties in England. Edward made a rather half-hearted attempt to have Scotland included in the homage ceremony, but this was robustly rejected by Alexander, who told him that the Kingdom of Scotland was held ‘from God alone’, which Edward accepted – and there the matter rested.

Relations between the two countries were largely based on social relationships. Cross-border landholding was fairly commonplace, but although a Scottish lord might own several properties in England (or in France or Ireland) or vice versa, there was nobody who was a top-ranking noble (or magnate) in both kingdoms.

Naturally, any level of landholding automatically meant a degree of obligation to the Crown, and therefore anyone who held land in both countries had a range of responsibilities to both kings, but this had never been a serious problem before the English invasion of 1296, and its significance thereafter has been rather exaggerated by historians. The number of individuals involved was not terribly large in either kingdom and the properties concerned were mostly quite modest. No individual held a property of greater significance than a barony in more than one kingdom. Contrary to the claims of many writers in the past, neither Robert the Bruce nor John Comyn, nor even Alexander III, was considered a magnate in the English political structure, though all three of them did hold valuable English properties.

There was surprisingly little economic activity between the two countries. England’s trade lay mainly with France, while Scotland’s was with the Baltic and the Low Countries – the Netherlands and Belgium. Both countries depended on wool as the chief export and there was therefore little point in exporting wool from one to the other.

There was, however, a considerable degree of cultural overlap. Both kingdoms had adopted the political and military ethos of France that we now call feudalism. In England, this had come about through the Norman Conquest of 1066; in Scotland, it had occurred through a mixture of exposure to the practices of her southern neighbour, a considerable degree of intermarriage between the two royal families and the senior nobility, and the general adoption of feudal practice across northern and western Europe. In short, that was how a ‘modern’ nation functioned in the later Middle Ages.

Long before the outbreak of the Wars of Independence, there was precious little practical cultural, military or political difference between Scotland and England. There were some very clear regional differences within both countries, but little or nothing to distinguish the social ethos of Brechin from that of Bedford, save that the average ‘parish gentry’ landholder in Bedford might be more likely to speak French (or at least, be able to if they chose to do so) than his northern counterpart.

A PARTING OF THE WAYS

The generally cordial relationship between England and Scotland started to unravel with the death of Alexander III in March 1286. Alexander’s two sons by his first marriage had already died, and his granddaughter, Margaret (‘Maid of Norway’, daughter of Erik II of Norway), had been recognised as his heir at the age of 3. There is a possibility that Alexander and Edward were planning a dynastic union of the two countries, which would be achieved by the marriage of Margaret to Edward’s eldest son – the future Edward II – but Alexander was still only in his forties, and had married Yolande de Dreux in 1285, clearly hoping to produce a direct heir.

Alexander’s death did not cause an immediate crisis. The Scottish political community was supportive, although the prospect of a female heir, especially one who was still a child, was certainly an unusual thing in medieval Europe. The political situation did, however, become a major issue when Margaret died en route to Scotland in 1290.

There were now two serious claimants to the throne, John Balliol and Robert Bruce (grandfather of the man who would become Robert I), and a number of others who might make claims of more dubious validity. Since the death of Alexander, Scotland had been administered by a council of ‘guardians’ representing the major political groups in the community. This system had worked well for the intervening four years, but the question of the succession was too momentous to be decided by a council of lords and clerics, and there was no prospect of reaching a unanimous agreement, since the council contained supporters of both of the significant candidates.

The council approached Edward I for advice. They have attracted a great deal of criticism from historians over the years for bringing Edward into the discussions at all, but their actions were perfectly rational. Edward had had a good relationship with the late Alexander III; he was known to have a real interest in jurisprudence; he was powerful enough to impose the final decision if necessary; and he was acceptable to both of the main contenders. As the King of Scotland’s only neighbour and a major player on the European political stage, he simply could not be ignored, and if the process degenerated into a civil war – and that was a real possibility – Edward might well allow the two sides to exhaust themselves and simply march into Scotland at the head of a great army and take over, as he had in Wales.

Edward was more than happy to take on the role, correctly identifying it as an opportunity to further his own interests in Scotland. The council did everything they reasonably could to ensure the future security of the realm, but Edward was an astute politician and would clearly have had a strong negotiating position. He was not invited to arbitrate on the question of the succession – his role was to conduct a court of enquiry, ensure a fair and equitable process and then oversee the installation of the successful candidate.

In due course, a grand jury of 104 auditors was assembled. The auditors include forty chosen by John Balliol and forty chosen by Robert Bruce, a clear indication that none of the other candidates really had a serious case to present, but were simply making a demonstration of their interest in the event that both the Bruce and Balliol lines might fail to produce heirs at some point in the future.

Edward was able to manipulate all of the candidates into accepting his overlordship as a condition of having their bids for the crown recognised at all. There was some resistance to this from various barons, but their position was undermined by the acceptance of Edward’s demands by the different candidates.

The case ran for over a year, but in November a decision was finally reached, and John Balliol became King of Scotland, although he was obliged to give homage for his realm to Edward. Almost immediately, Edward’s actions became increasingly overbearing. He asserted his right to hear appeals against John’s Court judgements and generally set about undermining John’s authority at every opportunity.

John was not in a position to challenge Edward’s action, and his political credibility suffered accordingly. Edward hoped to provoke John into open resistance and the opportunity arose when Edward issued writs demanding military service from John and various prominent members of the Scottish nobility for service against France.

At around this time, the majority of the Scottish political community had taken power out of King John’s hands. Initiatives of this nature were – to say the least – rare in medieval politics, but the process was eased by the fact that a committee of guardians had ruled effectively during the years between the death of Alexander III and the death of his granddaughter Margaret, a period of four years. The Scottish political community had acquired some experience of governing a kingdom without actually having a king – experience that would prove invaluable in the years between 1297 and 1304.

The new council made a treaty of mutual defence with the King of France, and from 1295 there was, in theory at least, a state of war between England and Scotland. In practice, however, very little happened. Edward was already busy with his war in France and was unable to pursue operations in Scotland until the spring of 1296. Both sides raised armies, but the Scots simply had no idea about how to conduct a war. There had not been war in Scotland for more than thirty years, and that had been a relatively short affair that had been dealt with by the county communities of the south-west.

Edward, on the other hand, was an experienced commander who pursued his campaign with purpose. The Scots made some rather ineffective raids into northern England, but Edward approached the town of Berwick in April 1296, stormed it, and sacked the community with enormous loss of life. The town – in those days, one of the most significant commercial centres in the British Isles – was largely destroyed, but Edward had effectively sent a signal to every other town in Scotland that resistance was not only futile, since hardly any Scottish towns had defences of any kind, let alone serious fortification, but would also result in the utter destruction of the community.

There was only one action in the rest of the 1296 campaign, when a body of Scottish men-at-arms encountered a similar English force near Dunbar and were completely routed. The term ‘man-at-arms’ did not just mean any soldier; it was specifically a fully armoured cavalryman with a good quality warhorse, also known as armati or homines ad arma (or ‘armed men’). The term ‘armed’ meant armoured from head to toe, not ‘armed’ in our modern sense of carrying a weapon. These troops were the basic tool of day-to-day warfare and generally served a number of days per year as part of the rent of their property. This was called ‘knight service’, although only a tiny proportion of them were actually knights.

Only one fatality is recorded from the skirmish at Dunbar, but in the aftermath of the fighting and the subsequent surrender of Dunbar Castle, more than 200 members of the Scottish nobility and gentry were taken prisoner. The main body of the Scottish Army, now bereft of leadership and purpose, simply dissolved and made their way home without ever seeing action.

THE SCOTS REGROUP

King John’s government had not enjoyed the full support of the political community. A certain Robert Bruce (‘The Bruce’, grandson of the man who had sought to become king in 1291–92) had sided with Edward I in the hope that his father (his grandfather had died in the interim) would now be installed on the throne at the hands of Edward I. He was quickly disabused of this; Edward had no plans to make anybody King of Scotland.

Instead, Edward marched northwards demanding homage and the surrender of castles and towns – all of which were easily accomplished given the events at Berwick. By July, he had captured King John, forced his abdication and packed him off to London as a prisoner. Assuming – perhaps understandably – that the war was won, Edward left the consolidation of his occupation government to his lieutenants and returned to the more pressing affairs at home.

The Scots had certainly been defeated and Edward had obliged a great number of Scottish nobles and towns to give homage, but their recovery was rapid. Within a matter of months, Edward’s officers reported that the Scots were in the process of forming a government and were appointing officials in many areas. Only two counties – Berwickshire and Roxburgh – were properly under English control, and they ‘only lately’.

Any hopes that Edward had of imposing his own rule quickly and securely disappeared in early 1297. One of the prisoners taken the previous year, Sir Andrew Murray, escaped from captivity, made his way back to the north-east of Scotland and raised a force which set siege to strongholds. Robert Bruce had decided to jump ship and was assembling a force at Irvine with a number of other lords, in what we now call the ‘Noble Revolt’, while William Wallace, youngest son of an obscure Ayrshire knight, was conducting operations in central Scotland.

Bruce was now fighting for King John, although he had been conspicuous by his absence the previous year. His enthusiasm for the Balliol cause was purely a matter of long-term self-interest. In practice, if he ever wanted to be king himself, Bruce had to be seen to be espousing the cause of independence, and in 1297 that meant supporting John. More to the point, if John was to return to power, Bruce would have to have a very good story to tell to avoid being forfeited and exiled – if not executed – for his failure to fight for the Balliol cause in the past.

The prospect of King John being restored to authority was not as unlikely as it might seem. He had been deposed at sword point, but not at the cost of a destructive campaign with heavy casualties; armies could still be raised and his fortunes could be turned by military means. Equally, it was not impossible that Edward I might choose to reverse John’s forfeiture. Earls and lords who forfeited their power after rebellion in times of civil war were quite often later restored to their estates. Even if they were not restored themselves, it was not uncommon for their heirs to be reinstated, and John Balliol had a son. Edward I was intermittently at war in relation to his lordships in France and the King of France had some degree of sympathy for John and Scotland as a potential ally against Edward’s aggression. It was not impossible that the price of some future peace treaty, or even just a long truce, might result in John’s return.

The situation was complex and fraught with danger for Robert Bruce, but for his own allies at Irvine, and for Wallace and Murray, the matter was more clear-cut. They were simply fighting to get John restored to the throne.

The Battle of Stirling Bridge, September 1297

Due to his commitments elsewhere, Edward was unable to take to the field himself and entrusted operations in Scotland to his lieutenants. The Nobl...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1 A Man Who Would be King
• 2 King Robert’s War
• 3 King Robert’s Scotland
• 4 Some Myths About King Robert
• Dramatis Personae
• Maps of Bannockburn
• Timeline
• Glossary
• Further Reading