The Plantagenets: History of a Dynasty

by J. S. Hamilton

  Following negotiations, Balliol too surrendered, unconditionally. Stripped of his kingship, Balliol – or ‘Toom Tabard’, as he now became known – was sent south to London along with the other symbols of Scottish independence, the Stone of Scone and the Black Rood of St Margaret. In August 1296, Edward I held a parliament in Berwick to establish his administration of Scotland. The conquest was seemingly complete.

  The war having been won, the peace proved more difficult. Warenne was appointed king’s lieutenant in Scotland, with Henry Percy serving as warden in Galloway and Ayr. English models of administration were imposed, along with English personnel. This was most apparent in the appointment of a treasurer rather than the maintenance of the traditional Scottish office of chamberlain. The traditional three justiciars were retained, but staffed by English officials. If this was an ‘alien’ regime at the top, it was also so at the bottom, with the sheriffs at the local level. The administration of 1296 is perhaps best seen as a military occupation, and like most such occupations in history, it was resented. Disturbances in the northwest could perhaps be written off to traditional clan rivalries, but unrest soon spread south and found an unlikely champion in William Wallace who triggered a more widespread revolt in early 1297 with the murder of the sheriff of Lanark and raids over into Dumfriesshire. Meanwhile a ‘noble’ rebellion was led by Robert Wishart, bishop of Glasgow, James the Steward, and Robert Bruce, earl of Carrick, ostensibly over Edward I’s demand for military service overseas in Flanders. This noble revolt, however, quickly collapsed, with a capitulation at Irvine.

  The Scottish uprising was not over, however, as Wallace, now allied with Sir Andrew Murray, remained in the field. An English army under Warenne and Sir Hugh Cressingham was drawn into battle at Stirling, suffering a disastrous defeat on 11 September 1297. In the aftermath of this defeat, the English hold on Scotland north of the Forth was broken, and the same was also true in the southwest. The silver lining of the defeat at Stirling Bridge was that it shocked the English aristocracy back into allegiance to Edward I at a time of political unrest in England. A new army was raised immediately, and this force included several of the earls who had refused to serve the king in Flanders. By February 1298, Roxburgh and Berwick had been relieved, but Warenne was then ordered to await the arrival of the king in person before proceeding further in the campaign to recover Scotland.

  Edward raised an army of perhaps 30,000 men in 1298, including a contingent of some 13,000 Welsh foot-soldiers. To support the war effort, he moved the exchequer and the courts to York, where they would remain for the next 6 years.

  The English king crossed into Scotland on 3 July 1298. The Scots, led by Wallace, may have been emboldened both by the difficulties of provisioning such a large invasion force, and also by injuries sustained by Edward I when his own horse trod on him. The Scots chose to confront the English at Falkirk. Although the schiltrons – tight formations of spearmen, often likened to a hedgehog – initially held their ground, the Scottish cavalry withdrew without engaging, leading to a devastating defeat. Although it is unlikely that the 100,000 Scots reported killed by the Lanercost Chronicle is an accurate figure, English wage accounts suggest that some 3,000 English foot-soldiers perished on the winning side, indicating how severe the Scottish losses must have been. Immediately after the battle, Stirling Castle was besieged, while the earl of Lincoln led an army northeast to Cupar, St Andrews and Perth. The king marched through Annandale, and by 8 September had retired to Carlisle, having left behind a substantial garrison of 1,000 men in Berwick town, in addition to the garrison in the castle.

  Edward returned to Scotland in December 1299, following his marriage to Margaret of France, but troops failed to materialize for his projected winter campaign. In 1300, another campaign was undertaken, aimed at securing southern Scotland, specifically Galloway, Caerlaverock Castle and Selkirk forest. Having paid particular care to the composition of the fleet, which was crucial to the provision of food for the army, Edward arrived at Carlisle on 27 June and reached Caerlaverock on 9 July, which quickly surrendered. But the army achieved little else and never reached Galloway. A truce was arranged through the good offices of Philip IV on 30 October, to run until 21 May 1301. Desultory – and half-hearted – peace negotiations were held at Canterbury in the following spring, but failed to produce an extension to the truce.

  Edward arrived at Berwick on 5 July 1301 and mustered his army within a week. He then advanced to Glasgow. A second army, under the Prince of Wales, mustered at Carlisle and then proceeded to Ayr, which was soon taken.

  Turnberry, chief centre of the Bruce earldom of Carrick, and Bothwell, were also taken in September. The king wintered at Linlithgow in 1301–1302, but his army, poorly paid or provisioned, melted away. Nonetheless, Edward’s intentions were made clear by his summons to his master builder, James of St George, to come to Linlithgow in 1302 to strengthen its defences. At Linlithgow, Edward sealed the Treaty of Asnières, establishing a truce with Scotland to run until 1 November 1302. The king may have been induced to seek this truce, in part because of the support of both the king of France and the pope for the Scottish cause, embodied in the fact that John Balliol had been released from papal custody in the summer of 1301 and allowed to return to his ancestral homeland at Ballieul in Picardy.

  But whatever hopes of French support the Scots derived from the Asnières agreement, those hopes were shattered in July 1302 with the shocking French defeat at Courtrai. The subsequent treaty of Amiens of December 1302 was concluded between England and France without any reference to Scotland. At the same time, the ongoing and escalating conflict between Philip IV and Boniface VIII led the papacy to place increasing constraints upon the Scottish church. Meanwhile, the establishment of Berwick as a free borough in August 1302 points to the increasing consolidation of the English position in the southeast. By late summer 1302, Edward was planning a major campaign for 1303. This, he hoped, would provide the knockout blow.

  The Scots enjoyed some modest successes during the winter of 1302–1303, recovering Selkirk Castle and emerging victorious in a skirmish near Roslin.

  Edward arrived at Roxburgh on 16 May 1303, where he mustered some 7,500 foot-soldiers and 450 men-at-arms, while the Prince of Wales accounted for another 180 men-at-arms. The king issued summonses for military service to Scottish landholders in 1303, and among those who responded was Robert Bruce, earl of Carrick, who was ordered to provide 1,000 foot-soldiers and all the men-at-arms he could find. The English army moved via Linlithgow to Stirling and on to Perth, where it remained throughout June. The Scots meanwhile attacked Cumberland under Sir Simon Fraser and Sir Edmund Comyn, while Sir William Wallace marched through Galloway. Undeterred, in July, King Edward moved north through Arbroath to Montrose before turning inland to besiege Brechin, which fell on 9 July. From there, the king continued on to Aberdeen. He and Prince Edward, who had been operating independently, took several more key fortifications such as Inverness, Urquhart, Cromarty and Lochindorb Castles, before returning south, reaching Dundee on 16 October.

  The fact that Edward had been able to penetrate so far north, coupled with his decision to winter in Scotland, left the initiative entirely with the English.

  Throughout the winter of 1303–1304, raids and chevauchées were conducted even as negotiations progressed with Sir John Comyn, guardian of Scotland. Sunday 16 February at Perth was set as the time and place for Scottish submissions to be offered, although those presently residing in France would be given until 12 April to make their way into the English king’s presence. The terms were not particularly vindictive, except for those extended to Wallace. Indeed, the terms, somewhat reminiscent of the Dictum of Kenilworth, were generous enough to the Scots that Edward I was faced with considerable administrative difficulty in restoring the Scots to their former lands without unduly punishing his own supporters.

  In March 1304, Edward I held a parliament in St Andrews, at which outlawry was declared on Wallace, Simon Fraser and the enti
re garrison of Stirling Castle.

  Some 129 Scottish landholders appeared at this parliament and recognized Edward as their liege lord on 14–15 March. This assembly was followed immediately by the siege of Stirling Castle. Massive quantities of siege equipment were shipped to Stirling from all directions. The king commanded his son to strip the lead from the roofs of all the churches around Perth and Dunblane in order to provide necessary counterweights for his trebuchets; even Greek fire was deployed to overwhelm the garrison commanded by William Oliphant. Indeed, on 20 July, Edward refused to accept the garrison’s offer of surrender until after he could test the effectiveness of a device known as ‘the Warwolf ’ against the castle’s defences. In the end, however, he spared the lives of the garrison, including Oliphant, when they finally capitulated 4 days later. By then, Sir Simon Fraser had submitted to the king, leaving only William Wallace in open defiance.

  Wallace’s capture was set as a test of loyalty for Edward’s new Scottish liegemen. He was finally rounded up near Glasgow in August 1305 by John of Menteith, who received lands valued at £100 in reward for this service, while his men shared a total of 100 marks in cash. The outcome of Wallace’s subsequent trial in Westminster Hall was a foregone conclusion: he must be found guilty of treason and die a traitor’s death. His notoriety was such that Wallace was not allowed to speak in his own defence. Wearing a crown of laurel, he was drawn on a hurdle to Smithfield, where he was hanged and disembowelled prior to being beheaded, his entrails burned and his corpse quartered. His head, like that of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd before him, was displayed on London Bridge, while his quartered remains were sent north to Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling and Perth.

  In 1304, unlike 1297, Edward chose to rule Scotland with Scots. For instance, the earl of Atholl was made warden and justiciar of Scotland beyond the Forth, whereas prior to this he had been Scottish Sheriff of Aberdeen. Perhaps most prominent of all in this new collaboration was Robert Bruce, earl of Carrick, Sheriff of Ayr and Lanark. In 1305, Wallace’s execution was followed by a parliament at Westminster in September in which a Scottish settlement was arranged.

  A group of ten Scottish representatives had been chosen by a committee comprised of the earl of Carrick, the bishop of Glasgow, and Sir John Moubray. The Ordinance for Scotland of September 1305 specified not only offices, but officeholders for Scotland. All but two of the sheriffs named were Scots, and the justiciars were placed into four pairs with one Scot and one Englishman in each. Although the most powerful official of all, John of Brittany, earl of Richmond and king’s lieutenant in Scotland, was English, he was given a Scottish council of 21 members (four bishops, four abbots, five earls and eight barons) in addition to the major officials such as the chancellor and chamberlain. Still, Edward planned to revise ‘the laws and customs [of Scotland] which are clearly displeasing to God and to Reason’, just as he had 20 years earlier in Wales. The king did not address the paramount concerns of taxation and overseas military service. Nevertheless, in 1305, his settlement appeared to be the culmination of a process going back two decades, which promised at last to provide order and stability to Scotland, even if at the price of English overlordship. The Lanercost Chronicle contains a poem celebrating the benefit of Edward’s overlordship for Scotland. It concludes:

  Let Scotia prosper, while, from o’er the border,

  King Edward shields the cause of law and order.20

  And yet, although it appeared in 1305 that Edward I had conquered Scotland for a second time and would now incorporate the northern kingdom into his own, the dramatic murder of John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch, by Robert Bruce on 10 February 1306, changed everything.

  Although the murder at the Franciscan church in Dumfries was reprehensible, it, or at least its consequences, cannot have been unanticipated despite the spontaneous nature of the act. As soon as 25 March, a gathering including four earls and three bishops assembled at Scone for the coronation of Robert I of Scotland.

  The reaction of Edward I was even more predictable. An army was quickly raised, which under the command of Aymer de Valence defeated Bruce in battle at Methven on 19 June. By summer’s end, the would-be king was in flight and his wife and several close kinsmen and associates were prisoners of the English. The earl of Atholl was hanged in London, as was Simon Fraser, and Bruce’s brother Neil was put to death at Berwick. Edward I had both Bruce’s sister Mary and the Countess of Buchan placed on display in specially constructed cages at Roxburgh and Berwick Castle, respectively, suggesting the depth of the outrage felt by the aged king at Bruce’s betrayal.

  The following year began encouragingly. In February, both Thomas and Alexander Bruce were captured in Galloway by Dougall MacDouall, their heads being dispatched to the Prince of Wales. On 1 April, John Wallace, brother of Edward’s late nemesis, was also captured. In May, however, Robert Bruce won a minor victory at Loudon Hill against Valence, and 3 days later defeated a separate force under the young earl of Gloucester. The king himself resolved to travel north and lead his army in person and set out from Carlisle. He reached no further than Burgh-by-Sands, where he died on 7 July 1307, the Scottish prize still tantalizingly beyond his grasp.

  The war with Scotland dominated the final decade of the reign, but despite the king’s apparent success until 1305, the costs of war coupled with continued political controversy had a negative effect on the kingdom as a whole. The crisis of 1297, already discussed above, makes a suitable point of departure for a consideration of the final years of the realm. The grievances articulated in the Remonstrances and De Tallagio do not so much challenge the king’s right to levy taxes as critique the level and nature of these exactions and the manner of their levying. Although the king spent much of the final decade attempting to undo what he perceived to be the damage done in 1297, his opponents in and out of parliament consistently pressed Edward to hold to the commitments made in his name in 1297, often with mixed results. In March 1299, for instance, the king withdrew from London with considerable haste and a minimum of dignity, rather than confirm the Charter of the Forest in its entirety before parliament. A year later, before a parliament that included representatives from both the shires and the boroughs, the king was confronted by the archbishop of Canterbury and the earl of Norfolk, who advanced the lingering grievances of the clergy and laity.

  Edward was finally able to obtain the promise of a twentieth only by issuing the Articuli super Cartas, although even here he insisted that ‘in each and all of the aforesaid things it is the king’s will...that the right and lordship of his crown be saved’, a very broad qualification. In the end, the twentieth having been made conditional upon the king’s fulfilment of promises made earlier, this levy was never collected.

  In January 1301, parliament met at Lincoln and, interestingly, the king mandated that the same representatives attend as had been at the previous parliament. The king’s representative, Chief Justice Roger Brabazon, asked for a grant of a fifteenth. Instead of receiving the grant, Edward was presented with what is now known as Keighley’s bill, named for a knight of the shire from Lancashire, but presented to the king on behalf of the whole community. This bill called for the observation of the Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest, but went beyond this to call for a perambulation of the royal forests and investigation into contraventions against the recent Articuli super Cartas, as well as a return to the annual farm for each shire as it had existed in the reign of Henry III. Then, and only then, might a twentieth be considered. The king was clearly offended by this bill, but there was no way round it. Eventually, in 1306, he identified Henry Keighley as the author of this offensive bill and had him imprisoned. But at the Lincoln parliament in 1301, the king was forced to agree to the perambulation of the forests as well as investigation into other abuses. Moreover, it was also argued that the commons should assent to the appointment of the king’s chief ministers, a proposal that was probably aimed primarily at the unpopular treasurer, Walter Langton, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. This proved too
much, harking back to the constraints placed upon Henry III by the baronial reformers of Edward’s youth. Edward was beside himself with rage and his infamous temper was soon on display. The king personally berated the assembled representatives in a speech dripping with sarcasm, asking why each of them did not request a crown, since they clearly wished to rule the kingdom in his stead.

  After 1301, however, the tension between the king and the community of the realm lessened. In part, this reflected the widespread support for the war in Scotland. Equally important, the king sought other, non-parliamentary, sources of revenue to support the war, while allowing the government to run a deficit. For instance, in 1302, the king finally collected a feudal aid for the marriage of his daughter Joan (authorized as long ago as 1290), which netted perhaps £7,000.

  The first tallage of the reign, in 1303, produced another £5,000, while in 1306 a feudal aid for the knighting of Edward of Caernarfon was negotiated into a more traditional tax of a twentieth and a thirtieth, generating some £26,500. Meanwhile, wool duties accounted for roughly £9,000 per annum, whereas an aggressive programme of re-minting coinage yielded perhaps £7,000 a year from 1300 until the end of the reign.

  Another source of financial support, perhaps surprisingly, was clerical taxation. Although Archbishop Winchelsey had held up clerical taxation ever since the promulgation of Clericis laicos in 1296, in 1301 Pope Boniface VIII authorized a crusading tenth to be collected for a period of 3 years, with half the proceeds to go to the king. This amounted to £42,000. In 1305, the new Gascon pope, Clement V, authorized a tenth to be collected for 7 years, and by the time of Edward I’s death, some £25,000 had been collected. In the end, however, none of this was sufficient to meet the costs of war in Scotland, and Edward turned increasingly to the Frescobaldi. Between 1297 and 1310, the Florentine banking house appears to have lent the English kings some £150,000, and when Edward I died in 1307 the crown was probably in debt to the tune of £200,000 (20 years later at the end of the reign of Edward II, some £60,000 of this debt had still not been cleared from the books). Even the feasts and celebrations that followed the marriage of Edward I to Margaret of France in 1299 had been funded with Frescobaldi money that had been secured by the customs duties on English wool.