by Alan Young
Edward I’s invasion of Scotland, 1296.
The motive of James Stewart in submitting to Edward I only sixteen days after the English victory at Dunbar was surely to preserve Stewart family dominance in western Scotland. Edward I sought to ensure Stewart loyalty to his overlordship by arranging a marriage alliance between James Stewart and the sister of one of Edward’s closest supporters, Burgh, Earl of Ulster. It seemed at first that Edward was willing to use Stewart to help him control Scotland – James Stewart was soon employed to receive the surrender of the Comyn castle of Kirkintilloch on about 10 June. However, James Stewart’s political supremacy in western Scotland soon came under threat by Edward I’s new English appointments. In September 1296 Henry Percy was appointed English Warden of Ayr and Galloway. In the north-west, Edward attempted to extend English influence by appointing Alexander Macdonald of Islay as Baillie of Kintyre, a position formerly under James Stewart’s jurisdiction. Between April and September 1296 Stewart gradually came to see that he would be deprived of most of his political control (and power) in the west of Scotland by two of Edward I’s new agents. James Stewart had a lot to lose from the English government in Scotland.
Both James Stewart and William Wallace had their reasons for revolting against the English overlordship of Scotland and the means used to secure it. Only analysis of their action in 1297 will assist us in understanding whether Wallace was an independent adventurer or merely a ‘frontman’ for his Stewart lords.
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WILLIAM WALLACE AND THE REVOLT OF 1297
The actions of William Wallace and his lord, James Stewart, in 1297 need to be set in the context of the Anglo-Scottish war, which began so disastrously for Scotland with the defeat at Dunbar in 1296. Their roles should also be examined against the background of the Scottish political community, its leadership and its policy in 1296. The Scots were led into war in 1296 by the Comyn family, who had dominated Scottish politics and landholding for much of the thirteenth century. The two main branches of the family, the Comyn lords of Badenoch and Lochaber and the Comyn earls of Buchan, controlled key castles and therefore the main lines of communication, especially in northern Scotland where their virtually vice-regal power stretched from Inverlochy Castle in the west to Slains Castle in the east. Between these two points they had in their power strategically situated castles at Ruthven, Lochindorb, Blair Atholl, Balvenie, Dundarg, Cairnbulg (originally called Philorth), Rattray and Kingedward. In particular, Comyn strongholds controlled important passes from the north and west Highlands into the Tay basin.
However, Comyn power was not only restricted to northern Scotland. The family, including a third branch – the Comyns of Kilbride – had a great deal of land and power in central and southern Scotland. They held castles at Kirkintilloch (Dumbartonshire), Dalswinton (Nithsdale), Cruggleton (Galloway), Bedrule and Scraesburgh (Roxburghshire) and Kilbride (East Kilbride). In addition to their private landholding, the Comyns controlled a number of royal castles through their role as hereditary sheriffs of Dingwall and Banff (in the north) and Wigtown (in the south-west). In the early 1290s the family took additional responsibility for the royal castles at Kirkcudbright, Aberdeen, Jedburgh, Clunie, Dull and Brideburgh (Barburgh in Dumfriesshire). Comyn influence over the political scene was further enhanced by marriage alliances in the course of the thirteenth century with the earls of Mar, Ross, Dunbar, Angus, Strathearn and Fife and with the powerful families of Macdougall, Moray, Balliol, Mowbray, Umphraville and Soules. Other prominent allies were the Grahams, Frasers, Sinclairs, Cheynes, Mowats, Lochores, Maxwells and Hays. The Comyns, therefore, with their wide-ranging and extensive landed power and their network of powerful partners exercised political influence at the centre as well as in many regions of Scotland. Their long-standing authority was witnessed by their extended tenure of the Justiciarship of Scotia, the most important political and administrative office in the kingdom – three successive Comyn earls of Buchan were justiciars of Scotia for no fewer than sixty-six years between about 1205 and 1304.
In the context of this network of well-established noble ruling families, it is interesting to place the families of Stewart and Bruce. It is clear that the Stewarts were not within the Comyn network of allies who so dominated Scottish government. However, it would appear that the Stewarts were part of the aristocratic group upon which Alexander III depended to consolidate royal authority in the regions. The Stewarts, with their hereditary role as ‘Steward’ guaranteeing them a role in the royal circle, moved firmly to the forefront of Scotland’s political community with their extensive landholding in the west of Scotland, recognised and further consolidated by control of the sheriffdoms of Ayr and Dumbarton. The family were prominent in the royal circle from the 1250s to the 1280s. The Bruces, on the other hand, held no political offices in Alexander III’s reign. However, their status and landholding power in Scotland had been increased in 1272 when the family gained the earldom of Carrick in south-west Scotland, and this built on their existing strength in this area, which was based upon the lordship of Annandale they had held since 1124. The Bruces, though outside the political elite of noble families in Alexander III’s reign, did have much ambition and a dormant claim to the Scottish throne – apparently acknowledged by Alexander II in 1238 and by the Scottish baronage in the late 1240s – should the male line of the Scottish royal family die out. It is in this light that the Stewarts’ family connections with the Bruces should be noted. A marriage between Walter Fitz Alan II and Euphemia, daughter of William Bruce and sister of Robert Bruce, indicates that these links dated from 1261.
The Stewarts’ role at the centre of Scottish government as well as their family links with the Bruces were both emphasised in the dramatic events of 1286. On 18 March 1286, Alexander III, King of Scots, died suddenly, aged forty-four, the result of a tragic accident on a dark, stormy night when he was on his way to Kinghorn to meet his new French wife (of less than six months), Yolande de Dreux. There was great uncertainty over the succession. Yolande, Alexander III’s queen was, at first, believed to be pregnant, though the magnates of Scotland had acknowledged the ‘Maid of Norway’, Alexander III’s granddaughter, Margaret (then aged one), as rightful heir in February 1284 should Alexander III not produce an heir. As a result of the confusion and the inevitability of a long period of minority government, a provisional government of six Wardens or Guardians was set up. This comprised two earls (Alexander Comyn, Earl of Buchan, and Duncan, Earl of Fife), two bishops (William Fraser of St Andrews and Robert Wishart of Glasgow) and two barons (John Comyn of Badenoch and James Stewart). The Lanercost Chronicle’s description of this group as ‘guardians of peace’ highlights its key function: to maintain peace and stability within the kingdom and protect freedom from external interference. The Guardians were also in a good position to implement the succession and help to establish the next heir to either Yolande’s child or Margaret, a delicate child of three years at the time of Alexander III’s death. The two families considered to have the best claims to be heir presumptive were the Balliols and the Bruces. However, the Comyns dominated the Guardianship and had a strong family link to the Balliols – John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch (died 1302) was the brother-in-law of John Balliol, the Balliol candidate and eventual King of Scots in 1292. These factors persuaded the Bruces to resort to strong-arm tactics in 1286, and they launched attacks on the Balliol castle at Buittle and the royal castles of Wigtown and Dumfries.
Bywell Castle on the River Tyne.
JOHN BALLIOL
The names of William Wallace and Robert Bruce have captured popular imagination and hold a unique place in Scottish history and tradition. In contrast, that of John Balliol has been associated with the abject surrender of his kingdom to Edward I in 1296. Balliol acquired the derogatory nickname of ‘Toom Tabard’ (’Empty Surcoat’) after his coat of royal arms was stripped from his tabard in public and humiliating circumstances following his formal submission to Edward I at Montrose on 8 July 1296. As the main oppo
nent of the Bruces’ dynastic ambitions in the ‘Great Cause’ (1291–2), John Balliol has naturally been given a ‘bad press’ by the pro-Bruce Scottish writers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. To Walter Bower (c. 1440) the Scottish kingdom was ‘abnormal in the time of this disastrous King John’. This was in keeping with the official government propaganda of the Bruce kingship, which in 1308 referred to itself as the successor to Alexander III (ignoring any reference to John Balliol’s kingship) and in 1309 (for the first time) declared that Balliol had been imposed by English force on the Scots. Despite Balliol’s lack of political experience and personal frailties, it should be remembered that the Scots fought in his name and on his behalf from 1296 onwards. He symbolised Scottish independence for William Wallace between 1297 and 1305. Even after Robert Bruce’s ‘coup’ of 1306, Balliol remained a significant focus for opposition to Robert Bruce until his death in 1313, after which his son Edward Balliol continued to represent Balliol interests. The Bruces still needed to wage a propaganda war even after Bannockburn.
Stracathro church. After the Scottish defeat at the Battle of Dunbar in April 1296, John Balliol (who was probably not present) fled to the north with his main supporters, the Comyns. The Comyns, the real leaders of the Scottish political community, decided to seek surrender terms during the summer. In early July 1296, Balliol submitted to Edward I at Stracathro church, north of Brechin, before proceeding to Montrose where he was forced to give up his crown.
Barnard Castle, the principal English stronghold of the Balliol family (their other northern base was Bywell in Northumberland). Barnard Castle received significant additions in the second half of the thirteenth century, a reflection of the family’s wealth at this time.
Sweetheart Abbey, Nithsdale. Probably not completed before the outbreak of the Scottish wars, Sweetheart Abbey was founded in 1273 by the rich and pious Devorguilla Balliol in honour of her husband, John (died 1268). Devorguilla was the mother of John Balliol, King of Scots, 1292–6.
The potential for a clash of allegiances for James Stewart, and his following, was clearly present in 1286. The Turnberry Band of September 1286 seemed to indicate that the Stewarts were putting family loyalty before national interests. The pact made at Turnberry (the chief castle of the Bruce earldom of Carrick) linked Robert Bruce, Lord of Annandale (a potential claimant to the Scottish throne and the future Robert I’s grandfather), his son Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, James Stewart (the Guardian), his brother, John Stewart of Jedburgh, Walter Stewart, Earl of Menteith, and his sons, Patrick, Earl of Dunbar, Angus Macdonald, Lord of Islay, and his son in an agreement to support Richard Burgh, Earl of Ulster, and Thomas Clare against their enemies. This involved swearing oaths of allegiance to the English King and whoever should be King in Scotland ‘by reason of the blood of the lord Alexander, king of Scotland, according to the ancient customs hitherto approved and used in the Kingdom of Scotland’. The oath has been interpreted as an indication of a deliberate bid by the Bruces, supported by their close family allies, the Stewarts, for the Scottish throne. This is, probably, reading too much into the statement and there may have been nothing more to the agreement than a family/factional pact to conquer land in the west of Ireland. Yet, at a time of uncertainty following the death of Alexander III, when disorder in south-west Scotland was being initiated by the Bruces, any military pact such as that at Turnberry must have been viewed with suspicion by the Comyn-led government and their allies.
James Stewart, despite the Stewart family’s support for the Bruces at Turnberry, tended to put his duties as Guardian before the concerns of his partners within Scotland. He backed, for example, the Guardians’ policy of putting the host on twenty-four hours’ readiness to suppress unrest. Perhaps the Stewarts felt that their interests in the south-west and west were threatened by the Bruces’ strong-arm actions, which could have turned that area into a civil-war zone. It is difficult to assess the individual role of James Stewart within the six-man team of Guardians between 1286 and 1290. Evidence suggests that he supported the collective policy decisions of the committee but did not play a leading part in their active implementation. Stewart was not a member of, for instance, either of the two embassies dispatched to Edward I in France during the summer of 1286 to receive his counsel and perhaps ask for his help to bring stability to the Scottish political scene.
In 1289 the committee of Guardians was reduced to four by the deaths of Alexander Comyn, Earl of Buchan, and Duncan, Earl of Fife. Despite this, James Stewart maintained his low-key role, for example, in the negotiations for a marriage between Margaret, ‘Maid of Norway’, the Scottish heiress, and Edward I’s heir, Edward of Caernarfon. He was not one of the Guardians who arranged the Treaty of Salisbury (1289) with the English representatives; nor was he involved in the discussions for bringing the young Scottish heiress from Norway to Scotland in 1290. Stewart was not regarded as a member of the dominating Comyn clique who tended to control membership of missions and embassies implementing Guardian policy. Undoubtedly, the Comyns were suspicious of the Stewarts’ association with the Bruces, openly displayed in 1286, while appreciating the need to acknowledge the importance of Stewart authority in the west in order to maintain stability in that area. It can only be surmised that Stewart followers, such as the Wallace family, shared Stewart ambivalence in a difficult political climate. The Stewarts could not afford to lose their position in central and local government which consolidated their power and influence in western Scotland, yet their family connection with the Bruces must have caused some tension with the dominant Comyn family.
The position of the Stewarts in the network of influential noble families is important for understanding the factors that affected William Wallace and his family. Another important consideration is the policy and political stance adopted by Scotland’s aristocratic governing community in the ten years between the death of Alexander III in 1286 and the outbreak of the Anglo-Scottish wars in 1296. The tendency of Scottish tradition – the foundations of which were firmly laid by the writings of John Barbour (writing in about 1375), John of Fordun (1380s), Andrew Wyntoun (c. 1420), Walter Bower (c. 1440) and Blind Harry (c. 1470s) – has been to emphasise the factiousness of a nobility whose motivation was self-interest rather than the national interest. This served to highlight the roles of William Wallace and Robert Bruce as champions of Scottish nationalism, the only clear embodiments of a policy of Scottish independence against English imperialism. This distorted view, from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, has hidden the reality that a definite political focus did emerge in the period after Alexander Ill’s death. The negotiations for the marriage between Margaret, ‘Maid of Norway’, and Edward of Caernarfon culminated in the Treaty of Birgham (eventually signed in July 1290), which embodied a detailed and carefully considered expression of the Scottish government’s position on Scottish rights and Scottish independence. Scotland had a defined political manifesto and a distinct sense of its own identity before William Wallace (in 1297) and Robert Bruce (in 1306) came to dominate the Scottish political scene. The following extract is taken from the Treaty of Birgham:
Norham Castle, the chief border stronghold of the Bishop of Durham. It was appropriate that Edward I stayed here – Anthony Bek, Bishop of Durham, was his chief adviser on Scottish affairs – while hearing the claims of the thirteen Competitors for the Scottish throne in 1291.
. . . the realm of Scotland shall remain separated, apart and free in itself, without subjection to the realm of England, by its rightful boundaries and marches, as it has been preserved down to the present . . . the rights, laws, liberties and customs of the same realm of Scotland to be preserved in every respect and in all time coming throughout the said realm and its borders, completely and without being impaired . . . The relics, charters, privileges and other muniments which concern the royal dignity and the realm of Scotland shall be deposited in a secure place within the realm of Scotland, under strong guard, under the seals of the greatest magnates of the
realm and under their supervision . . . Parliament shall not be held outwith the realm of Scotland or its marches to deal with these matters which concern that realm or its marches, or to deal with the status of the inhabitants within that realm. No tallages, aids, military service of maltols [an arbitrary tax on exports, imports or internal markets] shall be demanded from the aforesaid realm, or be imposed upon the people of the same realm, unless it be to meet the common needs of the realm and in circumstances in which the kings of Scots have been used to demand such things . . .
The leaders of the Scottish political community, including James Stewart, steadfastly pursued the key terms of the Treaty of Birgham. These elements became the backbone of the Scottish fight for independence when this was threatened by the death of the Scottish heiress, the ‘Maid of Norway’, in Orkney late in September 1290 as she made her way to Scotland. Edward I had been taking an increasingly interventionist stance towards Scotland even before the Treaty of Birgham and this became accentuated after the death of the ‘Maid of Norway’. It is important to trace the development of this approach in the years prior to William Wallace’s emergence in 1297. As early as February 1290, for example, Edward I granted to Anthony Bek, Bishop of Durham, the custody of the lands and tenements in Cumberland and Northumberland which had formerly been held by the King of Scotland. Later, in June 1290, the custody of the Isle of Man, clearly a part of the Scottish kingdom, was given to Walter Hunterscumbe. While the position adopted by the Scottish Guardians in the terms of the Treaty of Birgham (July 1290) could be viewed as a response to incipient English encroachment, Edward I still reserved some rights for himself in this treaty: