William Wallace

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William Wallace Page 6

by Andrew Fisher


  NOTES

  1 For genealogical tables relating to Alexander III and the subsequent disputed succession, see, for example, Dickinson, op. cit,. 53, 151; Barrow; Robert Bruce, 455; Duncan, op. cit., 628–29, 632; Nicholson, op. cit., 616.

  2 Barrow: Robert Bruce, 9.

  3 Bower, Book X

  4 Chron. Fordun. II.

  5 As an introduction to Alexander’s reign: Dickinson, op. cit., passim; Powicke, op. cit., 589–98; Reid (ed.): Scotland in the Reign of Alexander III, 1990. Lanercost, 40, is one source for Alexander’s addiction to the pleasures of the flesh during his widowhood.

  6 Bower, Book IX.

  7 Ibid., Book X.

  8 Ibid., Book IX.

  9 As, for example, in Bruce’s activity in south-west Scotland in the winter of 1286–87.

  10 Magnusson: Hakon the Old, 1982, offers an interesting and informative perspective on the period. Duncan, op. cit., 579–81, also warns us that the battle ‘has been the subject of many misconceptions’. He seeks to reduce the numbers involved dramatically.

  11 Bower, Book X, concurs, with ‘thousands slain’.

  12 Magnusson, op. cit., 22.

  13 See ‘The Treaty of Perth: A Re-examination’, SHR, lviii, April 1979, 35–37. McDonald, op. cit., deals with Largs and the Treaty of Perth at some length.

  14 McDonald: op. cit., 121–22.

  15 Dickinson, chap. 8; Barrow: Kingdom, chap. 4; Powicke, 574, 588–89.

  16 MacQuarrie: Scotland and the Crusades 1095–1560, 1997, chap.3 for Alexander Balliol and other Scots involved in the Crusade.

  17 Barrow: Robert Bruce, 9.

  18 Dickinson, 110.

  19 Wyntoun, 266.

  20 Lanercost, 40, is our sources for Alexander’s addiction to the pleasures of the flesh during his widowhood.

  21 Foedera, I, ii, 638.

  22 Palgrave, Documents and Records, 42.

  23 Ibid.

  24 See Reid: ‘The Kingless Kingdom: The Scottish Guardianships of 1286–1306’, SHR, vol. LXI, Oct. 1982, 105–29.

  25 Lanercost, 117.

  26 Barrow: Robert Bruce, 17–18; McCulloch: Galloway, A Land Apart, 2000, 149–50.

  27 Nicholson, op. cit., 28–29; Dickinson, op. cit., 144; Barron: The Scottish War of Independence, 1934, 112, and Barrow: Robert Bruce, 17–18, offer some of the opinions on the issue.

  28 An attitude which persisted throughout the coming war, adding to the difficulties facing Wallace.

  29 See Reid, n. 24 above.

  30 Prestwich: Edward I, 1988, 360; Barrow: Robert Bruce, 27.

  31 Barrow, op. cit., 28.

  32 Ferguson: Scotland’s Relations with England, 1977, 22–24.

  33 Ibid., 23.

  34 Ibid.

  35 Prestwich: op. cit., chaps 14 and 18; Barrow: Robert Bruce, chaps 3 and 4; Barron, op. cit., chaps I & IX; Dickinson, chap. XVI; Powicke, op. cit., 598–607.

  36 Despite intermittent, sometimes serious, disagreements, the two maintained a friendship. Bek it was who conducted Edward’s funeral.

  37 Fordun, 308.

  38 Rishanger, 241.

  39 He had been asked to use his good offices in the war between Castile and France in the early years of his reign. Prestwich, op. cit., 319ff; Salzman: Edward I, 1968, 49–50; Powicke, op. cit., 242–44.

  40 Ferguson, op. cit., 24.

  41 As an Englishman, Balliol now had little reason to love the Scots.

  42 On Henry II and Malcolm IV see Warren: Henry II, 1983, passim.

  43 Chron. Lanercost, 166.

  44 Rishanger, 371.

  45 See below, chap. 6.

  46 McNair Scott, 34.

  47 Fordun, 317.

  48 Lanercost, 115.

  49 Ibid., 174.

  50 Barrow: Robert Bruce, 71.

  51 As well as questioning such a figure, there is no unanimity on the scale of the battle, among modern commentators, c.f. Barrow: Robert Bruce, 101–02, and Preswich, op. cit., 473, for contrasting opinions.

  52 Young, op. cit., 161 ff.

  53 Wyntoun, 295.

  54 See for an excellent account of Edward’s government of 1296, Fiona Watson: Edward I and Scotland 1286–1307, 1998, passim.

  55 Some, like William Douglas, submitted twice.

  56 As has been suggested above, he may not have merited inclusion.

  3

  The Time of Victory, 1297

  ‘A ripple of jubilation spread through the oppressed’

  Edward left Scotland on 17 September 1296. If preoccupied with affairs across the Channel, he had reason to feel satisfied with the campaign he had just completed. The opposition, where it had not faded before him, had been futile, ill-conceived and badly led. Balliol had been ridiculed and exiled; no natural successor was available, even if Edward had been prepared to entertain the idea of a second puppet king. The war party in Scotland had been broken and many of its members were in English prisons. It is hardly surprising if Edward gave no apparent thought to a further rebellion against his authority. He knew of no source for rebellion; that there could be any potential leaders of opposition to be found outside the ranks of those he had so easily defeated never occurred to him. His blindness to the alternatives was shared by the Scots nobility. They, like Edward, had been raised to think of themselves as unique; failure, like success, opened no new avenues for them.

  Something of Edward’s contempt for Scotland and the Scots may be gleaned from a remark attributed to him at the time of his departure from Scotland.1 It was directed to Warenne. As one old soldier to another, Edward is reported to have said: ‘Bon besoiogne fait qy de merde se deliverer.’2 He had been less coarse but equally dismissive when the son of the Competitor, Robert, lord of Annandale, reminded him, almost certainly timidly, of the promise of the throne of Scotland. Edward, with Balliol defeated, no longer needed to placate the likes of Bruce for whom he had the same contempt he had for other Scots. ‘Have we nothing to do but win kingdoms for you?’ he snarled at the unfortunate Bruce. Edward never lost that attitude to the Scots, although he was not always so forthright; to achieve his ends he would use whatever approach he thought appropriate.

  His crossing of the Tweed back into England was not the signal for an immediate rising against the government for which he had made Warenne responsible. The nature of Edward’s hold, in military and political terms, over the Scots ensured that for some months at least there would be a lull. Neither Warenne nor Cressingham, any more than Edward himself, can fairly be blamed for failing to realise that it would be no more than a lull. If Warenne and Cressingham can be charged with arrogance,3 they had cause. They had seen and been a party to their king’s achievements in Scotland. Warenne himself had, with little effort and few losses, chased from the field the best of the Scots. Only time would show how transient Edward’s first success in Scotland was. The situation in the autumn of 1296 was in line with the pattern of Edward’s relationship with Scotland for the rest of his life. While he himself was in the field or held the reins of government close, his supremacy was safe, certainly in military terms. It was as if he exercised some sort of mental hold upon the Scots, Wallace apart. His reputation, or their perception of it, appeared to negate the drive of the Scots. Against his ruthless practicality, their actions are seen as mere posturings. His preparations for a campaign were more thorough,4 his assessment of the factors involved more realistic, his judgement of the commitment of the Scots more experienced. It may well be true that, in Barron’s words, ‘after Stirling Bridge the Scots under Wallace never won a victory in the open against any English force which could fairly be described as an army’.5 Barron, of course, is pursuing in this context a comparison of his hero, Andrew Murray, with William Wallace, to the latter’s detriment. Barron’s passionate championship of Murray is a useful and important corrective to the lack of balance existing before. He does not, however, deal with one significant question: which of the Scots, while Edward was in charge of the English forces, achieved what he accuses Wallace of f
ailing to do? Murray himself died before he could face the ultimate test of a Scottish commander: an engagement with an English army led by Edward in person.6 Stirling, the credit for which Murray shares, was, in any case, a pitched battle: are we to assume that the decision to fight was Wallace’s alone, that Murray allowed himself to be persuaded against his better judgement to fight? If that is so, it speaks badly for the powers of leadership which Barron so eloquently defends. Murray, after all, had been at Dunbar and there is no reason to suppose that he would have disagreed with the failed Scottish tactics there.

  When we turn from Andrew Murray to Robert I, we find that his victory at Loudon Hill on or about 10 May 1307 may seem, at first sight, to contradict the argument of Edward’s infallibility against the Scots. Bruce, however, never fought against Edward. At Loudoun Hill, he was opposed by Edward’s lieutenant in Scotland, Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, who had sent him scurrying away from Methven in the previous June.7 Bruce at this period was an opportunist and a quick learner, creditable qualities in a general, no doubt, but perhaps not sufficient to bring victory against Edward I in his prime. When Edward left Scotland in September 1296, he was, as far as the Scots were concerned, in his prime, his superiority over them as yet unquestioned.

  It was a superiority which, being personal, was not long to survive his departure. Edward’s choice of subordinates to govern Scotland in his absence has been much criticized. Warenne in particular has been faulted both for his indolence and for his conduct of the Stirling Bridge campaign. Some eight years older than Edward, he was not enthusiastic about exercising in person the authority he had been given. The victor of Dunbar preferred to take his ease on his estates in Yorkshire; he feared for his health, we are told, in the unpleasant air of Scotland.8 Edward’s biographer9 has fairly described the earl as ‘a loyal, if unimaginative, supporter of the king’. Loyalty in his subordinates was a quality which Edward, not unnaturally, prized, and if Warenne was unimaginative, that would not distinguish him from the majority of his contemporaries, Edward himself not excepted.10 Warenne’s record as an associate of Edward over a period of fifty years was not to be despised. They were reconciled after a fall-out in 1262 and henceforth Warenne was Edward’s man. He fought on the royalist side in the Barons’ War and took the cross with Edward in 1268. He served with Edward in Wales and was one of those summoned to the Shrewsbury parliament of 1283, at which judgment was passed on the unfortunate Dafydd ap Gruffydd.11 The Scots had come to know Warenne well, even before the outbreak of war in 1296. He was in Scotland in 1285, was involved in the negotiations for the Treaty of Salisbury in 1289, and in 1290, with Antony Bek, was appointed by Edward to treat with the Guardians.12

  Edward’s reliance on Warenne after the defeat of Balliol in 1296 is thus perhaps more understandable. As reliable diplomat and subordinate, Warenne could not readily be overlooked in the allocation of responsibilities, and while Edward was prepared to appoint men of ability to leading posts in his armies, he did not always find it easy to ignore the claims of those, like Warenne, from the highest ranks in society.13 Nor was Warenne’s passivity in 1296 and 1297 necessarily a true reflection of his character. He had a fiery side to his nature and was prompt to defend his rights. He quarrelled violently with, among others, Henry de Lacy, earl of Lincoln, and Alan la Zouche, Henry III’s justice in Chester.14 One account, if it can be credited,15 well illustrates Warenne’s less passive side. In answer to a demand by Edward’s lawyer that he prove his rights to land, Warenne held up a rusty sword, declaring, ‘Look, my lords, here is my warrant. My ancestors came with William the Bastard, and conquered their lands with the sword, and I will defend them with the sword against anyone wishing to seize them.’

  Warenne is remembered today for his failure at Stirling Bridge. But Edward had reason to trust him in 1296. Neither king nor earl could have foreseen the rise of Wallace, with a revolutionary approach to war, and Warenne’s reputation and length of service would have seemed proof against any eventuality. In Cressingham, Edward had a servant of a different order, an administrator of no little experience. Of illegitimate birth and somewhat unprepossessing,16 Cressingham, seconded by his colleague, William Ormsby, the justiciar, effectively ran the government. The treasurer had learned his trade in the household of Queen Eleanor.17 Her husband was devoted to her and she was by all accounts a cultured woman.18 Her treatment of her tenants does not, however, bear close scrutiny, and on at least one of her estates, where Cressingham acted for her, her behaviour aroused great resentment. No less a figure than the archbishop of Canterbury, John Pecham, had occasion to write to her in unflattering terms about her methods, and both she and the king were taken to task in verse for their greed:

  The king he wants to get our gold

  The queen would like our lands to hold.19

  As one of the queen’s stewards and throughout his career, Cressingham was not noted for his probity. He was active on the king’s behalf, as a commissioner of array in Norfolk, raising troops for service in Wales, and as a justice in the north of England. In Scotland, the treasurer was soon to be unpopular, both in himself and in his official capacity. His grasping nature prompted even an English commentator to state that he ‘loved money’. The same source adds that the Scots referred to him not as ‘treasurer but treacherer to the king’, and they believed this to be the truth.20 This, of course, may be a reflection of his ability to raise money for his king,21 but he and Ormsby exercised their authority in an aggressive manner, certain to alienate those over whom they had been placed. Thus, Ormsby ‘prosecuted all those who did not wish to swear fealty to the king of England without making distinction of person’. Even those who swore allegiance to Edward were subjected to a tax.

  By May 1297 the English administration in Scotland was facing a series of insurrections throughout the country. Traditionally but inaccurately, the signal for rebellion was the murder by Wallace of the English sheriff of Lanark some time in May. The date reflects the dominance in popular thought of Wallace, but we know that there were disturbances over a wide area – whether spontaneous or organized is unclear – well before then. It is unlikely that all who participated in these disturbances were inspired by the highest motives. The activities of Edward’s officials, as has been noted, must have been a considerable factor; however successful Cressingham and Ormsby were in implementing Edward’s policies, it was inevitably at the cost of public resentment. Some of those who took to arms at this time would have hoped, for their own ends, to benefit from the lack of English garrisons in the more isolated areas. Itinerant outlaws, a perennial problem, would be attracted by news of what would soon threaten to lead to anarchy. A minor success against the occupying forces would breed confidence. But if there were squalid motives for involvement in the growing struggle, many who participated were, beyond dispute, genuinely patriotic, determined on ridding the land of a detested enemy, and on disproving the myth of English invincibility.

  The effect of the disturbances which appear to have begun in the early months of 1297 was, whatever lay behind them, considerable. In the western Highlands, in Aberdeenshire, down in the south-west in Galloway, there were reports of violence and upheaval.22 No one, let alone Cressingham, could have co-ordinated action against the insurgents over such an area. Had action been possible, the weather, like the distances involved, would have militated against the necessary response. The time was well chosen, the tactics of the insurgents realistic; a lesson had been learned from the campaign of 1296. What prompted the timing and the change in approach we do not know. If there was a single guiding hand behind the disturbances, it was surely that of a genius.

  That there was subsequently such a guiding hand became the firm opinion of the English. It is interesting that the names advanced were not those of the two men most closely identified in the popular imagination with the destruction of English power in 1297, William Wallace and Andrew Murray. Rather, the English saw in Robert Wishart, bishop of Glasgow, and James the Stewart the ins
tigators of rebellion. This belief was not perhaps without foundation. If Edward attempted to appoint English rather than Scottish priests to Scottish benefices, he was bound to arouse resentment. The Church in Scotland already possessed the framework for the dissemination of rebellious ideas and the integration of one uprising with another. To the English, therefore, it was peopled with subversives. The Chronicle of Lanercost was emphatic on this point:

  In like manner, as we know that it is truly written, that evil priests are the cause of the people’s ruin, so the ruin of the realm of Scotland had its source within the bosom of her own Church; because whereas they who ought to have led them, misled them, they became a snare and a stumbling block of iniquity towards them, and brought them all to ruin. For with one accord both those who discharged the office of prelate and those who were preachers, corrupted the ears and minds of nobles and commons, by advice and exhortation, both publicly and secretly, stirring them to enmity against that king and nation who had so effectively delivered them; declaring falsely that it was far more justifiable to attack them than the Saracens.23 Wishart, who lived until 1316 and thus saw the triumph of Robert I, was without doubt a persistent supporter of the Scottish cause and therefore deserved the abuse of the English.24 As for the noble James the Stewart, he belonged to that category about which another English chronicler was no less scathing than Lanercost, if somewhat more restrained in his language. It was Cressingham’s opinion that the Scottish lords were not to be trusted in this year of 1297, and Guisborough shares the treasurer’s suspicions. He tells us that wherever their bodies might be, ‘even when … present with the king … at heart they were on the opposite side’.25 It is, however, when we turn again to Lanercost that we find the bishop and the Stewart linked in what is seen as a common culpability:

 

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