by Alan Young
. . . came in to ask us [the English] whether we would delay a little while, to see if they could pacify their retainers and the other Scots folk in any way. So we gave them until 10th September when they returned saying that they could not do as they had hoped, but that they would nevertheless come to join us the next day with 40 knights.
The Lanercost Chronicle, rather more explicitly, accuses James Stewart of treachery:
. . . the Steward treacherously said to them [the English] – ‘It is not expedient to set in motion so great a multitude on account of a single rascal; send with me a few picked men, and I will bring him to you dead or alive.’
Both English chroniclers continue to write as if, at this stage, as at the beginning of the 1297 revolt, Stewart was masterminding the military activities of Wallace. The English writers also focus on Wallace rather than Andrew Moray. The reality was probably different, especially after the abject surrender, without a fight, of Stewart, Wishart and Bruce, self-styled leaders of the community of the realm, at Irvine in early July. With some of his associates at Irvine, namely William Douglas and Robert Wishart, in prison, Stewart must, at best, have been ‘on probation’, i.e. needing to be on his best behaviour, as far as the English commanders were concerned. It is probable that he was making a token gesture of arbitration in keeping with his political status; it is possible that he wished to persuade Moray and Wallace that a pitched battle with an English army superior in cavalry and larger in number was foolish – that had been his own policy in 1296, following Dunbar, and in 1297 at Irvine. It is unlikely that he had, at this time, sufficient military credibility to offer advice to Moray and Wallace – and have such counsel accepted. It is most improbable, therefore, that he had the military boldness to lure the English over the bridge at Stirling to allow the army of Moray and Wallace to ambush them, as suggested by the Lanercost chronicler. Delaying tactics, as after Irvine, was the most that Stewart could offer Wallace and Moray.
Details of the Battle of Stirling Bridge are chiefly drawn from the Guisborough chronicler who may have been party to an eyewitness account of the Yorkshire nobleman, Marmaduke Thweng. This did not, however, stop Walter of Guisborough from greatly exaggerating the figures for those involved in the battle. He gave the English numbers as 1,000 horsemen (cavalry) and 50,000 footmen (many were Welsh), with the Scottish army comprising 180 horsemen (cavalry) and 40,000 footmen. Hugh Cressingham wrote to Edward I on 23 July that he had mustered from Northumberland 300 horsemen and 10,000 footmen, so this is a minimum figure. What is clear is that the English army had greater numbers in total and a striking superiority in cavalry – and it was unheard of, at this time, that such a large mounted force could be defeated. Stewart was a cautious pragmatist rather than a coward.
The Scottish force had gathered on the slopes of the Abbey Craig, the site of the Wallace Monument today. Their position was a mile north of the original bridge over the Forth. North of the bridge was a causeway with fairly soft ground on either side of it. On the south side of the Forth, half a mile from the bridge, lay Stirling Castle. In the days before the battle, it seems that the English were anticipating a Scottish surrender, as at Irvine and Dunbar, and were prepared to wait for it. Even when Lennox wounded an English foot soldier as he left the English camp with Stewart, on 9 September, to negotiate with Moray and Wallace, Warenne ignored the call for instant vengeance, as reported in the Guisborough Chronicle:
Let us wait tonight, and see whether they keep their promise in the morning; then we shall better be able to demand satisfaction for this insult . . .
The events of the morning of 10 September reveal, yet again, the lackadaisical, disorganised approach of the English commanders, as well as their belief that the Scottish would capitulate eventually. The Guisborough Chronicle continues:
Thus it was ordered that everyone should be ready to pass over the bridge of Stirling the next morning, and more than 5,000 of our infantry, with many Welshmen, did in fact then cross it; but they were called back again, because the earl had not yet woken from his sleep . . .
When he did awake, Warenne still showed a complete lack of urgency. As the Guisborough chronicler reveals, he put chivalry before practicality and ‘made several new knights’:
Meanwhile our infantry was crossing the bridge a second time, but they were ordered back yet again, for the Stewart and Lennox were seen riding in with only a small retinue, and not with the 40 knights they had promised. We thought, therefore, that they must be the bearers of good tidings . . . but they only made excuses saying they could neither persuade their followers to submit nor even obtain horses or weapons from them . . .
The impression given by the English chroniclers and the Scottish chronicler John of Fordun was that the Scottish lords had lost control over their retinues to Moray and Wallace. It is interesting that, even at this stage, Warenne sought a Scottish surrender and so, according to the Guisborough chronicler, he sent across two Dominican friars to ‘that robber Wallace’ to ‘see if by any chance he wished to put forward any peace terms’. Wallace’s unequivocal reply, no doubt voiced previously to Stewart and Lennox, was as follows (Guisborough Chronicle):
‘Go back and tell your people that we have not come here for peace; we are ready, rather, to fight to avenge ourselves and free our country. Let them come up to us as soon as they like, and we shall prove this in their very beards.’
Stirling Old Bridge. The bridge that gave its name to the Battle of Stirling Bridge was a wooden one close to (a little upstream of) the present ‘old bridge’, which was built in the sixteenth century. According to the Seal of the Burgh of Stirling, the original wooden bridge had eight spans.
When this reply was heard, the reaction of the rasher men on the English side once more showed a complacent disregard for the smaller Scottish force: ‘Let us go up to them at once; their numbers are but small.’ (Guisborough Chronicle). This complacency with regard to the Scottish strength of numbers came, of course, from the top of the English command. Cressingham was keenly aware of Edward I’s shortage of money and had already ordered home the troops that Henry Percy had brought to Stirling from Cumbria and Lancashire, as recorded by the Guisborough chronicler:
. . . saying that our army was already quite large enough, and that there was no point either in putting themselves to needless trouble or in spending more of the king’s treasure than they could help . . .
There then followed debate in the army about how the English attack on the Scottish forces would be conducted. According to the Guisborough chronicler again, Richard Lundie, a Scottish knight who had come over to the English side at Irvine, gave good advice:
‘My lords, if we cross that bridge now, we are all dead men. For we can only go over two abreast, and the enemy are already formed up: they can charge down on us together whenever they wish. There is, however, a ford not far from here, where 60 men can cross at a time. Give me 500 cavalrymen, then, and a small body of infantry, and we will outflank the enemy and attack them from behind: while we are doing that, the earl and the rest of the army will be able to cross the bridge in perfect safety.’ But our leaders refused to accept this sound advice, declaring that it would be unsafe to divide our army.
It is probable that, at the outset, Moray and Wallace did not have a strategy to ambush the English at the bridge. After their march from Dundee, it is unlikely that they were in a position to strike against the English when they twice crossed the bridge on the morning of 10 September. However, the rather confused manoeuvrings of the English army during this morning must have given them the idea (and the confidence) to launch an attack on the English when they eventually made their way across the bridge on 11 September.
It is in keeping with the conduct of the English campaign against Scottish resistance in 1297 that the eventual decision to cross the narrow bridge at Stirling was taken by the militarily inexperienced Hugh Cressingham, and for financial rather than military reasons. Even worse, Earl Warenne allowed himself to accept the Tre
asurer’s dubious judgement (Guisborough Chronicle):
‘It will do us no good, my lord earl, either to go on bickering like this or to waste the king’s money by vain manoeuvres. So let us cross over right away, and do our duty as we are bound to do.’
The worst fears of Richard Lundie were realised (Guisborough Chronicle):
Thus (amazing though it is to relate, and terrible as was to be its outcome) all these experienced men, though they knew the enemy was ready at hand, began to pass over a bridge so narrow that even two horsemen could scarcely and with much difficulty ride side by side . . . and so they did all the morning, without let or hindrance, until the vanguard was on one side of the river and the remainder of the army on the other. There was, indeed, no better place in all the land to deliver the English into the hands of the Scots, and so many into the power of so few.
According to the Guisborough Chronicle, which is supported by the Lanercost Chronicle, the Scots waited until as many English had crossed the bridge as they thought they could successfully attack. Moray and Wallace and their forces then moved down from the hill:
. . . sending meanwhile a large body of spearmen to block the [northern] end of the bridge so that no English could either come across or retire over it.
Later writers elaborated on the ambush, with Thomas Gray reporting in Scalacronica that Wallace ‘caused the bridge to be broken’. Even more elaborately, Blind Harry’s The Wallace tells how Wallace employed a ‘cunning carpenter, by name John Wright’ to sabotage the bridge by cutting through the main beam and supporting it with a wooden pin. Wright, hiding under the bridge ‘in a close cradle’ knocked out the pin on hearing a blast from Wallace’s horn, which signalled that sufficient English troops were on the bridge. Such a detailed plan was probably not feasible and the more contemporary and very full account of the Guisborough chronicler states that the bridge remained intact, and this is a more preferable version.
In the Guisborough Chronicle it is reported that 100 English knights and 5,000 infantry were killed either by Scottish spearmen or by drowning in the Forth. The vanguard of the English army was almost completely destroyed, while the cavalry were unable to be deployed because of the boggy turf on the north side of the bridge, the confines of the river, which surrounded them on three sides, and the pressure of the Scottish infantry. A few lightly clad infantry escaped by swimming but Sir Marmaduke Thweng, the knight who probably related his account to the Guisborough chronicler, decided to face the Scottish troops:
‘My dear fellow, do not tell me to drown myself on purpose. Forget all that nonsense and follow me, and we will hack a path through the midst of them.’
Thweng succeeded but Cressingham, fatally impatient to defeat the Scots at the earliest opportunity, and the standard-bearers of both the King and Warenne were slain. The Scots made an example of the hated Treasurer, and according to the Lanercost chronicler, Wallace ‘. . . caused a broad strip [of skin] to be taken from the head to the heel, to make thereof a baldrick for his sword’. The Guisborough chronicler reports an equally grisly end for Cressingham: ‘. . . the Scots afterwards flayed his fat body, and divided strips of skin amongst them, not as holy relics, but as mockery of him . . .’. In Scalacronica Thomas Gray states that the Scots ‘. . . in token of hatred made girths of his skin.’
The English forces under Earl Warenne on the south side of the bridge saw the devastation and confusion. Warenne was unable to come to Cressingham’s aid because of the narrowness of the bridge and decided to flee with a small following to Berwick. The Lanercost chronicler records that he escaped ‘with difficulty’, leaving Marmaduke Thweng at Stirling Castle while the rest of his army followed him to Berwick. At this late stage, with Warenne and the English army in retreat, Stewart and Lennox emerged to harry the English baggage train and all English fugitives from the battle.
The Scots suffered few casualties at Stirling Bridge but Andrew Moray, joint leader of the Scottish army, was seriously injured, and he died from his wounds in November 1297. This meant that William Wallace took an even more prominent role in the continuing Scottish campaign against the English presence. According to the Scalacronica, William Wallace:
. . . followed the said Earl of Warenne in great force and skirting Berwick, arrived on Hutton Moor in order of battle; but perceiving the English arrayed to oppose him, he came no nearer to Berwick, but retired and bivouacked in Duns Park [north of Berwick].
Warenne left Berwick with Wallace’s approach, leaving the town wasted before his departure. The Scalacronica gives a strong impression of Wallace now being in clear command of military operations:
. . . perceiving the departure of the Earl of Warenne, sent the chevalier Henry de Haliburton to seize Berwick, and appointed others to besiege Robert de Hastings in Roxburgh Castle with a great force.
The Scots entered Berwick, the town that still lacked protective walls owing to the failure of Cressingham – perhaps for financial reasons again – to provide them. The few remaining English in the town were killed, though the castle was not surrendered and, therefore, gave refuge to some. Wallace did not advance into Northumberland but the inhabitants of the county, fearing the worst, fled in terror to Newcastle with their families, belongings and animals.
Bamburgh Castle, an important refuge for the people of northern Northumberland. The parishes of Norhamshire recorded sharp declines in tax revenues probably as a result of the damage inflicted on this area by Wallace and his army.
An invasion of northern England was not immediately forthcoming but the Northumbrians were right to fear that an offensive was imminent – the first recorded activity was on 13 October. In the weeks before this date, Wallace continued with his principal task of driving out the English from their few remaining enclaves in Scotland. Yet he had no siege weapons and though Stirling Castle, with Marmaduke Thweng as commander, soon surrendered owing to lack of provisions, Wallace was unable to take the castles at Berwick or Roxburgh.
The victory by Moray and Wallace at Stirling Bridge was, however, a huge psychological blow to the English and strengthened the position in Scotland of the only two successful leaders of Scottish resistance. The fact that the commanders of the army of the Scottish realm were already seen as the effective rulers of Scotland is indicated in a formal document dated 11 October 1297. Andrew Moray and William Wallace wrote to the mayors and people of the towns of Lübeck and Hamburg that Scottish ports were now open and safe for access for their merchants:
Andrew de Moray and William Wallace, leaders of the army, and the community of the realm, to their wise and discreet beloved friends the mayors and common people of Lübeck and of Hamburg . . . we willingly enter into an undertaking with you asking you to have it announced to your merchants that they can have safe access to all ports of the Scottish kingdom with their merchants because the kingdom of Scotland, thanks be to God, has been recovered by battle from the power of the English. Farewell. Given at Haddington 11th October 1297 . . .
This reveals that if the army commanded by Moray and Wallace at Stirling Bridge was the ‘army of the kingdom of Scotland’ its leaders now had control over clerks knowledgeable of the workings of the Scottish royal chancery. This document, one of only four surviving that emanated from Wallace himself, reveals that Scotland was, in practice, being run by its military leaders. They, however, had a clear grasp of economic necessities – their regime needed money, through trade, to be able to maintain its independence and the letter to Lübeck and Hamburg was probably one of many sent to Scotland’s trading partners to encourage a resumption of trade. A postscript to the letter contains a further request to the mayors of Lübeck and Hamburg:
. . . to agree to promote the business of John Burnet and John Frere, our merchants, just as you may wish us to promote the business of your merchants . . .
This definitely shows Wallace in a rather different light to ‘outlaw’, ‘robber’ or ‘guerrilla leader’. Instead, he is portrayed as a man capable of grasping the economic detai
l necessary for political leadership.
Another letter of 7 November, this time a letter of protection issued by Andrew Moray and William Wallace, sheds further light on Wallace’s political position. Here Moray and Wallace describe themselves as
. . . commanders of the army of the kingdom of Scotland, in the name of the famous prince the lord John, by God’s grace illustrious king of Scotland, by consent of the community of that realm.
It is clear what Wallace stood for and it is also evident from the order of their names in the letter that Andrew Moray was still regarded at the time, though gravely wounded, as the senior of the two. At some stage in the period between 7 November 1297 and 29 March 1298, William Wallace was knighted to give him, in theory, the same noble status as Moray, Stewart, Comyn and Bruce. It is stated in the Charter of William Wallace to Alexander Scrymgeour, 29 March 1298, that he acquired the title of
. . . knight, Guardian of the kingdom of Scotland and commander of its army, in the name of the famous prince the lord John, by God’s grace illustrious king of Scotland, by consent of the community of that kingdom.
By this time, if not earlier – Moray died in November 1297 – Wallace had become sole military and political commander of Scotland. He invested Alexander Scrymgeour with the Constabulary of Dundee as a reward for carrying the royal standard in battle. In practice, Moray and Wallace formally resurrected the principle of Guardianship soon after their victory at Stirling Bridge. The Guardians had held the nation in trust for its rightful monarch between 1286 and 1291 and, as has been seen, upheld the tenet of an independent Scotland through the Treaty of Birgham (1290). Moray and Wallace still regarded John Balliol, forcibly deposed by Edward I and still in captivity in England, as the lawful King of Scotland. They acted in his name and used his seal in government.