by Alan Young
. . . by a long road round a hill and attacked the Scots in the rear and thus these, who had stood invincible and impenetrable in front, were craftily overcome in the rear.
The Wallacestone Monument. Overlooking Falkirk, this 10-ft memorial was erected in 1810 to ‘that celebrated Scottish hero Sir William Wallace’.
Lowther Hills. This area was close to the route of Edward I’s 1298 campaign between Ayr and Lochmaben.
Fordun states that Robert Bruce, the future King, was in this English unit, but this seems to be a mistake and must surely refer to Bruce’s father, who had been consistently on the English side and was known to be in the English army at Falkirk.
Falkirk was a hard and closely fought English victory, but after the ‘shield-rings’ were broken the Scottish infantry were massacred in their thousands. Wallace escaped during the battle when he saw that Scottish defeat was inevitable. English exultation was recorded in political songs, such as this extract from the Lanercost Chronicle:
Berwick, Dunbar and Falkirk too
Show all that traitor Scots can do
England exalt! thy Prince is peerless,
Where thee he leadeth, follow fearless!
The Song on the Scottish Wars puts the blame for the Scottish debacle firmly on William Wallace:
The site of Tibbers Castle. This stronghold was taken by the English in the follow-up to their victory at the Battle of Falkirk, 22 July 1298. After Falkirk, Edward I was at Ayr between 26 August and 1 September and reached Tibbers on 3 September.
Wallace, thy reputation as a soldier is lost; since thou didst not defend thy people with the sword, it is just thou shouldst now be deprived of dominion. But, in my view, thou wilt always be the ass thou wert formerly: – Thou wilt pass into a lasting proverb; thy kingdom is divided, and cannot stand; thy people now drink of the cup which thou hast prepared . . .
Wallace lost the military and political leadership of Scotland following the English success at Falkirk. Yet the defeat was not as decisive as English propaganda would have led contemporaries to believe. Edward I’s army marched north but little was achieved apart from the burning of St Andrews and Perth. Stirling was also burnt but it is possible that this may have been part of Wallace’s strategy to deny resources to Edward. Provisioning of his troops remained a problem for the English King as he moved southwards towards Ayr, where Robert Bruce, clearly now on the Scottish side, had burnt down the castle as further impediment to the English. Unlike 1296 after Dunbar, Scottish resistance continued after Falkirk, the Scots holding the country north of the Forth and having pockets of resistance in the south. Edward needed another offensive to consolidate his narrowly won victory at Falkirk. Yet problems with supplies, renewed political opposition and financial difficulties in England meant that Edward I had to abandon immediate plans for another campaign and return south. Neither the Scottish patriot movement nor Wallace had been completely eliminated.
Lochmaben Castle. The stone castle at Lochmaben, where some curtain walls survive to their original height, was the chief base of the Bruces in south-west Scotland. After the Battle of Falkirk, Edward I’s forces took Lochmaben 4–5 September 1298, after Bruce had rendered Ayr Castle useless to the English by fire.
Solway Firth looking towards England. Most of the fighting in the Scottish wars after 1298 took place in the south-west, which made the Solway Firth a key crossing area for English armies.
6
THE WILDERNESS YEARS – BETRAYAL AND MARTYRDOM
Between the battles at Stirling Bridge and Falkirk William Wallace occupied a central role on the military and political stage and, therefore, in historical record. The period after Falkirk saw Wallace apparently revert to being a peripheral figure. Yet so significant was Wallace’s position between 11 September 1297 and 22 July 1298 that, despite few references to him in the sources for the time after Falkirk up to his capture and execution in 1305, he still exerted a powerful influence on both Scottish and English operations in the continuing war.
Wallace lost political power after Falkirk as controversially as he had gained it after Stirling Bridge. It is not clear whether he resigned the office of Guardian or was asked to relinquish it. Fordun blames the treachery of the Comyns at Falkirk for Wallace’s voluntary renunciation of his office:
William Wallace, seeing by these and other strong pieces of evidence, the obvious wickedness of the Comyns and those who were in league with them, chose rather to serve with the crowd, than to be set over them, to their ruin, and the grievous wasting of the people. So, not long after the Battle of Falkirk, at the water of Forth, he, of his own accord, resigned the office and charge which he held, of the Guardian . . .
The strength of the condemnation, of course, reflects the need of nationalist narratives of the fourteenth century to condemn the Comyns specifically as rivals and enemies of their heroes, William Wallace and Robert Bruce. The Lanercost Chronicle blames the inadequacy of the Scottish cavalry in general rather than the military role of the Comyns in particular: ‘all the Scottish cavalry being quickly put to flight’. The accusation of perfidy sits slightly strangely with the Comyns long-held support both of the customs and liberties of Scotland and John Balliol’s kingship (to which William Wallace also keenly adhered). It is also at odds with John of Fordun’s own statements that the ruling class accepted John Comyn, the younger, as Guardian of Scotland ‘in the same year’ as Wallace’s resignation ‘not long after’ Falkirk. Wallace’s political leadership of Scotland, his martial Guardianship, could only last as long as he was militarily successful. It is probable, therefore, that he was forced to give up the Guardianship shortly after Falkirk as John Comyn, the younger, and Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick (and future King), were officially designated joint Guardians by December 1298, in an attempt to establish a new Scottish government of national unity.
Selkirk above St Mary’s Loch. This area was often used as a refuge and base in Wallace’s ‘career’ as a fugitive.
Loch Dochart.
ROBERT BRUCE
History is written by the winners rather than the losers. Thus Robert Bruce became the hero of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Scottish nationalist writers such as John of Fordun, Andrew Wyntoun, Walter Bower and John Barbour. It should be remembered, however, that Robert Bruce’s elevation to national hero came after he had defeated Scottish opposition to his 1306 ‘coup’ and had assumed the Scottish kingship. Bruce’s standing was secure in Scotland, at least, by 1309 but it was not until his victory over Edward II at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 that his position as King of Scotland was truly safe. Fourteenth- and fifteenth-century writers regarded the Battle of Bannockburn as a fitting climax of a just, indeed a holy, war, as expressed by John of Fordun in The Chronicle of the Scots Nation (c. 1380):
Robert Bruce’s Grave, Dunfermline Abbey. During alterations to the church in 1819, Bruce’s remains were found wrapped in a cloth-of-gold shroud. The report of the find noted that the skeleton was of a man between 5 ft 11 in and 6 ft tall.
But God in His mercy, as is the wont of His fatherly goodness, had compassion . . .; so He raised up a saviour and champion unto them . . . Robert Bruce. The man . . . putting forth his hand unto force, underwent the countless and unbearable toils of the heat of the day . . . for the sake of freeing his brethren . . .
Bruce’s heart stone, Melrose Abbey. Robert Bruce made a deathbed wish for his heart to be buried at the abbey after it was taken on Crusade by James Douglas. It lay buried there until discovered by archaeologists in the 1920s. It was re-found in 1996 (the burial spot was not indicated in the 1920s) and returned in 1998 with the present stone marking the heart’s re-burial for the third time in its history.
The Robert Bruce Statue, Bannockburn. The Pilkington Jackson bronze monument, modelled on the equestrian representation on the King’s Second Great Seal, was unveiled by HM Queen Elizabeth II on 24 June 1964 to celebrate the 650th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn.
Yet in the context of Willia
m Wallace, Bruce’s achievement and his status as a winner came after Wallace’s death in 1305. Robert Bruce was twenty-two years old in 1297 when William Wallace emerged ‘from his den’ and his actions between 1297 and 1305 show uncertainty about how to achieve his family’s dynastic ambitions in Scotland. This contrasts with William Wallace’s undaunted and single-minded approach in these years – Bruce’s boldness and certainty would come in 1306.
The site of Castle Doon, Loch Doon. The Bruce earldom of Carrick had Turnberry Castle, Ayrshire, as its headquarters. The castle at Loch Doon also had great strategic significance and, until damming in the 1950s, it could be seen on an island in the loch.
That William Wallace left the highest office in Scotland in anger is reflected in an English spy’s report (see J. Bain [ed.], Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland, II, no. 1978 [Edinburgh, 1881]) of an argument that broke out at the baronial council in Peebles in August 1299:
At the council sir David Graham demanded the lands and goods of sir William Wallace because he was leaving the kingdom without the leave or approval of the guardians. And sir Malcolm, sir William’s brother, answered that neither his lands nor his goods should be given away, for they were protected by the peace in which Wallace had left the kingdom, since he was leaving to work for the good of the country . . .
It seems that, after the Battle of Falkirk, Wallace was once more out of sympathy with the traditional aristocratic leadership but, just as importantly, they no longer had an affinity with him. Present at the council meeting were Malcolm Wallace, William’s brother – described by the spy as ‘of the earl of Carrick’s following’, William Lamberton, Bishop of St Andrews, and James Stewart, who tried to act as mediator. A year after Falkirk, William Wallace was, clearly, still a cause of much bitterness in Scottish political circles. While his brother was in Bruce’s following, it was unlikely that William Wallace, with his strong defence of John Balliol’s kingship, would be anything other than suspicious of the motives of Robert Bruce, who was in the unlikely position of acting in 1298 and 1299 on behalf of Balliol. James Stewart’s actions in 1299, too, appear not to be those of a firm supporter of William Wallace’s cause. It is hardly surprising, given the nature of the new government in Scotland, that William Wallace, as he had done in the past, acted in 1298 independently ‘without the leave or approval of the guardians’. The impression given by the account of the 1299 council is that the political community, having been bullied by his uncompromising manner into supporting his military leadership, was taking the opportunity of putting Wallace in his proper place. Wallace would not serve under their terms. John of Fordun may have been correct in his comment that Wallace ‘chose rather to serve with the crowd’.
The reality of hard political in-fighting in Scotland after Falkirk should be set against the rather charged nationalist writings of Walter Bower and Blind Harry in the fifteenth century. To them Wallace’s main legacy after Falkirk was the kindling of a true vocation of nationalism in Robert Bruce, the future King. Bower was not content simply to repeat Fordun’s inaccurate report that Robert Bruce (mistaken in probability for his father) played a significant role in the English victory at Falkirk. Instead, he told an elaborate story linking Wallace and Bruce with a mutually held cause:
Pursuing them [Wallace and his men] from the other side, Robert de Bruce . . . is said to have called out loudly to William, asking him who it was that drove him to such arrogance as to seek so rashly to fight in opposition to the exalted power of the king of England and the more powerful section of Scotland. It is said that William replied like this to him: ‘Robert, Robert, it is your inactivity and womanish cowardice that spur me to set authority free in your native land . . .’
On account of all of this Robert himself was like one awakening from a deep sleep, the power of Wallace’s words so entered his heart that he no longer had any thought of favouring the views of the English. Hence, as he became every day braver than he had been, he kept all these words uttered by his faithful friend, considering them in his heart . . .
This powerful picture, which supports the traditional view that Robert Bruce took over the leadership of the national cause after Wallace’s capture and execution in 1305, is far from the reality of 1298. Robert Bruce, the younger, if not at Falkirk in 1298, was certainly on the Scottish side at the time – shortly after Falkirk he seems to have been at Ayr setting fire to the castle in order to prevent its use by the English. In 1298 Wallace and Bruce probably regarded each other with mutual suspicion. At this time Bruce was just breaking into the political elite in Scotland, and his opinion of Wallace was likely to have been shared by other aristocratic families. Wallace must have been aware that the Scottish ‘cause’ that he was fighting for, i.e. Scottish independence under King John Balliol, was at odds with the Bruces’ ambition to found their own dynasty. Robert Bruce, the future King, started the war of 1296 on the English side opposing a Scottish government trying to uphold John Balliol’s kingship and Scottish independence. Despite the apparent confluence of interests in 1297 and 1298 when the young Robert Bruce came over to the ‘patriot’ side, the actions of Robert Bruce between 1298 and 1305 do not support Bower’s story that Bruce became a true patriot in Wallace’s image after 1298.
Dumbarton Castle, a naturally strong site similar in origin to the great rocks at the castles of Edinburgh and Stirling. Dumbarton rises dramatically from the north shore of the Clyde as it meets the River Leven, where Wallace was held after his capture. Most of the medieval stronghold has been destroyed by later fortifications, though some sections of the medieval curtain wall and the portcullis arch remain.
It seems that William Wallace left Scotland without the leave or approval of the Guardians (both Bruce and Comyn) to assist in the diplomatic negotiations in France and at the papacy on behalf of Scotland. As a military man, he had observed the weaknesses of the Scottish in the face of the English cavalry, and would, no doubt, have been looking for French military help as part of the Scots-French alliance of 1295. In addition, he would, of course, have been interested in pursuing all avenues to secure the release of King John Balliol. It is not known when Wallace left Scotland, although he was present at the French court by November 1299. It is unlikely that he left Scotland before being briefed by William Lamberton, who owed his elevation to the bishopric of St Andrews to Wallace. Lamberton was consecrated in Rome on 1 June 1298, before joining fellow Scots at the French court. It should be remembered that Lamberton’s predecessor, William Fraser, had died in France in 1297, no doubt, also, on an ambassadorial mission. Scottish representatives at the French court, in 1298, seem to have included Bishop Matthew Crambeth of Dunkeld, John Soules and the Abbot of Melrose. This Scottish diplomatic endeavour seems to have had some success judging by the letters of Philip IV, King of France, and Pope Boniface VIII, in June and July 1298, to Edward I demanding the liberation of John Balliol. Although this request was at first refused, Balliol was released into papal custody in July 1299. The Pope also wrote to Edward I urging the English King to abandon the war in Scotland. Boniface claimed that
. . . from ancient times the realm of Scotland belonged rightfully, and is known still to belong to the Roman church . . . you are known to have safeguarded the interests of the nobles . . . by writing [in the Treaty of Birgham, 1290] that the realm should remain for ever entirely free, and subject, or submitted to nobody.
Scotland was constantly strengthening its diplomatic mission in France, the Abbot of Jedburgh and John Wishart being warmly received in April 1299. Discussion of the nature of French aid to the Scottish cause was clearly at the heart of the negotiations which Lamberton had been leading on behalf of the Scottish mission. Apparently Lamberton had unsuccessfully proposed to Philip IV that the French King’s brother, Charles of Valois, should be sent to Scotland with an army. It seems probable that Lamberton would have briefed Wallace thoroughly on these matters when he returned to Scotland, which he had done by August 1299. Given Wallace’s expertise in martial
affairs, it would have seemed perfectly natural for him to volunteer his services to press the French King further on the military needs of France’s ally, Scotland. Wallace had left for France by 19 August (the date of the baronial council in Peebles where discussion of Wallace’s lands led to an ugly brawl between Comyn and Bruce supporters) and in early August did not take part with the rest of the Scottish leaders in an extensive raid across Scotland, south of the Forth. By November 1299, Wallace and a small group of associates (Roger Mowbray, William Vieuxpont, Richard Fraser, Edmund Leilholm and Hugh Fotheringay) were at the French court in Paris. All had links with the Balliol cause and it seems that they were formally representing Balliol interests to the French King – perhaps suggesting the restoration of Balliol to Scotland. The fact that they were receiving loans and payments from Philip IV in November 1299 implies that Wallace’s party were warmly welcomed at the French court.
English sources give a rather less glowing account of Wallace’s reception in France. The Rishanger Chronicle records that William Wallace and five knights were seized by the King of France on arrival in Amiens; the King of France subsequently offered to deliver Wallace to King Edward. Such an action, if correctly reported, would only have been feasible during a temporary truce between England and France. This, perhaps, could have occurred during the summer of 1299 following the conclusion of the marriage agreement between Philip IV’s sister, Margaret, and Edward. Edward’s reply to Philip’s offer, according to Rishanger, was to ask the French King to hold Wallace in his care in France. This rather puzzling piece of evidence suggests that Edward I no longer felt that Wallace was a threat to him – it would not, of course, be the first time that he underestimated Scottish ‘patriot’ resistance. By November 1300, the date of the next known reference to William Wallace in France, it is clear that Wallace was well regarded at the French court (after a stay of one year). At this time, Philip IV wrote a letter of recommendation, on Wallace’s behalf, to his (French) agents in Rome asking them to help ‘our beloved William le Walloys of Scotland knight’ in his diplomatic business with the Pope. Fifteenth-century Scottish nationalist writings have elaborated considerably on Wallace’s adventures in France. According to a later version of Walter Bower’s chronicle, Wallace impressed his hosts by fighting French pirates and English invaders in France. Blind Harry develops the same tradition in his own inimitable way, detailing Wallace’s struggles not only with the French pirate known as the ‘Red Rover’ but also an angry French lion!