SCOTLAND
In the tenth century the Scottish kings were established as overlords of Strathclyde, including Cumberland, Furness, and perhaps Westmoreland. From 954 - 1018 A.D. they became masters of Northern Bernicia. The Scottish kings, however, acknowledged the overlordship of the more powerful English kings, such as Edgar and Cnut certainly for these southern dominions, probably for all their kingdom, the distinct ties of feudal homage being not yet existent Malcolm Canmore, 1058 - 1093, acknowledged the superiority of William the Conqueror in general terms. He conquered the Scandinavians in the north of the island. The existing English population in the south and on the east coast was reinforced in his reign by many English exiles, and his marriage with Margaret the sister of Edgar the Etheling resulted in English manners and ecclesiastical influence being introduced. In the time of David I. 1124 - 1153, there was a great influx of Norman adventurers, and feudal tenures were probably introduced. For the next 130 years the various elements of the kingdom, Celtic Scots, Strathclyde Welsh, Scandinavians, English, and Normans were being gradually moulded into a nation under the Anglicized kings, in more or less dependence upon England.The war of Edward I resulted in the complete separation of Scotland, and the almost complete separation of Ireland for a time from the English crown. The kingdom of the Scots, north of the Firth of Forth and Clyde, had played somewhat the same part in the north of Britain, which Wessex had played in the south, offering a centre round which gathered all who opposed the Scandinavian invasions.
In 1286, Alexander III died, in 1290 Edward negotiated a marriage treaty at Brigham between his son Edward and Margaret, Queen of Scotland, then in Norway, reserving to Scotland certain marks of lndependence, which the king refused to allow Edward's first plan for a union of England and Scotland met with general approval. But the marriage never took place, because the Maid died on her way from Norway to Scotland in 1290. The throne of Scotland was vacant, and there was no direct heir .
The line of William the Lion being extinct, the descendants of his younger brother David were the claimants. Several
came forward, and of these the most important were John Balliol and Robert Bruce. Balliol was the grandson of David's
eldest daughter, while Bruce was the son of his second daughter. Edward was asked to act as judge or arbiter, but
he consented only on condition that the candidates should recognise him as overlord of Scotland. As he was already
overlord of most of them for estates in England, they were afraid to refuse what he asked, and Edward was able
to take an unfair advantage of their position.
In 1292 Edward decided, that the best claim was that of John Balliol,who ruled Scotland for three years as Edward's
vassal, and then Edward's plan again broke down. The English king had taken every opportunity of reminding Balliol
that he was his vassal. The Scots resented Edward's interference greatly, and at last Balliol himself refused to
obey, and made an alliance with Edward's enemy, the King of France. For more than 250 years after this, Scotland
was hostile to England and friendly to France.
Edward came north and overran Scotland. He savagely sacked the prosperous town of Berwick-on- Tweed; Balliol had
to surrender to his feudal lord the fief which he had lost through his disobedience. Edward also carried off to
Westminster "the Stone of Destiny," which formed part of the throne on which the kings of Scotland were
crowned. The stone has never been brought back to Scotland but the legend is that, whenever the stone be, with
the Scots they will rule; and this came true when James VI of Scotland became King of England also in 1603
The officials whom he left in charge in Scotland were not well chosen, They dealt harshly with the Scots and they and their English soldiers became more and more detested by the people. To resist Edward the Scots allied themselves with the French. Since Edward was at war with France he regarded this as an act of hostility. He summoned Balliol to meet him at Newcastle. The Scottish nobles refused to allow their king to go, and from this moment war began Edward struck with ruthless severity. He advanced on Berwick. The city, then the great emporium of Northern trade, was unprepared, after a hundred years of peace, to resist attack. Palisades were hurriedly raised, the citizens seized such weapons as were at hand. The English army, with hardly any loss, trampled down these improvised defences, and Berwick was delivered to a sack and slaughter which shocked even those barbaric times. Thousands were slain. The most determined resistance came from thirty Flemish merchants who held their depot, called the Red Hall, until it was burnt down. Berwick sank in a few hours from one of the active centres of European commerce to the minor seaport which exists to-day.
This act of terror quelled the resistance of the ruling classes in Scotland. Perth, Stirling, Edinburgh. yielded
themselves to the Kings march. Here we see how Edward I anticipated the teachings of Machiavelli; for to the frightfulness
of Berwick succeeded a most gracious forgiving spirit which welcomed and made easy submission in every form. Balliol
surrendered his throne and Scotland was brought under English administration. But, as in Wales, the conqueror introduced
not only an alien rule, but law and order, all of which were equally unpopular. The governing classes of Scotland
had conspicuously failed, and Edward might flatter himself that all was over. It was only beginning
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The Scots found a leader in Sir William Wallace, a Strathclyde Briton who lived near where the town of Paisley now stands. Wallace had behind him the spirit of a race as stern and as resolute as any bred among men, He added military gifts of a high order. Out of an unorganised mass of valiant fighting men he forged, in spite of cruel poverty and primitive administration, a stubborn, indomitable army, ready to fight at any odds and mock defeat. The structure of this army is curious. Every four men had a fifth man as leader; every nine men a tenth; every nineteen men a twentieth, and so onto every thousand; and it was agreed that the penalty for disobedience to the leader of any unit was death. Thus from the ground does freedom raise itself unconquerable. |
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Sir William Wallace |
Wallace watched with measuring eye
the accumulation of the English troops across the bridge, and at the right moment hurled his full force upon them,
seized the bridgehead., and slaughtered the vanguard of five thousand men. Warenne evacuated the greater part of
Scotland. His fortress garrisons were reduced one after the other. The English could barely hold the line of the
Tweed.Wallace was now the ruler of Scotland, and the war was without truce or mercy. A hated English official,
a tax-gatherer, had fallen at the bridge, his skin, cut into suitable strips, covered Wallace's sword-belt for
the future.
After this, Wallace went to France and to Rome to ask help for the Scots, but in 1302 and 1303 both of these failed him. He then returned and carried on the war against the English as well as he could but he had few followers, for the nobles were jealous of him and did not support him. In 1305 he was betrayed to the English, and executed.
It was beyond the compass of King Edward's resources to wage war with France and face the hideous struggle with
Scotland at the same time. He sought at all costs to concentrate on the peril nearest home. He entered upon a long
series of negotiations with the French king which were covered by truces repeatedly renewed, and reached a final
Treaty of Paris in 1303. Though the formal peace was delayed for some years, it was in fact sealed in 1294 by the
arrangement of a marriage between Edward and Philip's sister, the young Princess Margaret, and also by the betrothal
of Edward's son and heir, Edward of Carnarvon, to Philips daughter Isabella. This dual alliance of blood brought
the French war to an effective close in 1297, although through Papal complications neither the peace nor the Kings
marriage were finally and formally confirmed. By these diplomatic arrangements Edward for two years was able to
concentrate his strength against the Scots.
Edward, forced to quit his campaign in France, hastened to the scene of disaster, and with the whole feudal levy of England advanced against the Scots.
The Battle of Falkirk in 1298, which he conducted in person, bears a sharp contrast to Stirling Bridge. Wallace, now at the head of stronger powers, accepted battle in a withdrawn defensive position. He had few cavalry and few archers; but his confidence lay in the solid 'schiltrons' ( or circles) of spearmen, who were invincible except by actual physical destruction. The armoured cavalry of the Eng]ish vanguard were hurled back with severe losses from the spear-points. But Edward, bringing up his Welsh archers in the intervals between horsemen of the second line, concentrated a hail of arrows upon particular points in the Scottish schiltrons, so that there were more dead and wounded than living men in these places. Into the gaps and over the carcasses the knighthood of England forced their way. Once the Scottish order was broken the spearmen were quickly massacred. The slaughter ended only in the depths of the woods, and Wallace and the Scottish army were once again fugitives, hunted as rebels, starving, suffering the worst of human privations, but still in arms.
In 1305 Edward drew up regulations for the government of Scotland, in a Council at London attended by English and Scotch deputies, by which Scotland was divided into four districts, each under an English and a Scotch justice, and by which the Scotch Parliament was to send up commissioners to the English Parliament.
It was not until 1308 that Wallace was captured, tried and with full ceremony in Westminster Hall, hanged, drawn,
and quartered at Tyburn. Meanwhile Edward had held a meeting at Perth, in which ten Scots and twenty Englishmen
drew up a plan of government. The number of sheriffs and of justices was increased, and Edward's nephew, John of
Brittany, was made governor. The scheme of union failed owing to the inherent feeling of baronial opposition to
the crown, and the love of local independence in the Lowlands of Scotland.
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No one was anxious to have Balliol back again: and
the next candidates for leadership in Scotland were Robert Bruce,
the grandson of the claimant of 1290 , and John Comyn of Badenoch, the Red Comyn, whom the Scots had chosen as
regent. Comyn was Balliol's. nephew, and, according to the decision of Norham, he was really the nearest heir after
Balliol and his descendants. Comyn made peace with Edward in 1303 and, when Bruce succeeded to his father's estate, and the earldom of Carrick in 1304, he tried to come to an arrangement with Comyn about their claims for the crown. In the beginning of 1306 they met at Dumfries and quarrelled violently. Comyn was wounded by Bruce and killed by his followers. This act left Bruce no choice as to his future line of action. He got himself crowned at Scone but was twice defeated in Perthshire, first by the Earl of Pembroke, whom Edward had sent to Scotland, and then by Comnyns uncle, the Lord of Lorn. For the winter Bruce withdrew from the mainland of Scotland to an island off the coast of Ireland, not far from his own lands in Ayrshire. |
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Robert The Bruce |
It was on that very day that Edward's army joined battle with the Scots near Stirling, on ground that had been
carefully chosen and prepared by Bruce. The result was a great disaster for the English; the freedom of Scotland,
which will ever be associated with the name of this battle, Bannockburn, was then established, and though often
threatened in later times was never lost.. Edward fled to Dunbar without dismounting, and from Dunbar to England
by sea. Bruce followed up his victory by recovering Berwick-on-Tweed and making several plundering raids into the
north of England. Edward was hopelessly crippled throughout his reign by quarrels with his nobles. A truce was
made with Scotland in 1323, and a treaty of peace arranged at Northampton in 1328, after the death of Edward II.
In 1326 Bruce summoned what is regarded as the 1st Scots Parliament. In reality it was a feudal assembly of the king's tenants, Like the Great Council in England. Besides the Lords Spiritual (the bishops and abbots) and the Lords Temporal (the great barons), there attended members who represented those towns which held their lands and privileges directly from the king, and which were thus also really feudal tenants-in-chief. These towns were known as the Royal Burghs. The strength of the feudal barons in Scotland was increased by the large grants of land with which Bruce had to reward his supporters, whereas in England Edward I had been doing all he could to lessen the power of the barons.
Bruce's. brother, Edward, was invited to deliver Ireland also burn the English He was crowned King of Ireland in
1316, but though he achieved some success, he was at last defeated and slain at Dundalk in 1318.
