This Week in History recalls memorable and decisive events and personalities of the past.
24th July 1304 – Wars of Scottish Independence: Fall of Stirling Castle: King Edward I of England takes the stronghold using the War Wolf
In the late 13th century, King Alexander III of Scotland died, leaving his 3-year-old granddaughter Margaret, as his heir.
In the Middle Ages, child monarchs and female monarchs often brought instability as ambitious nobles would either challenge their right to rule or would battle for behind the scenes control of the monarch.
To head off this potential instability, the group of nobles known as the Guardians of Scotland, who had been empowered by the dying king to hold power for his daughter, decided that they would need a marriage alliance to protect the young queen from being overthrown and civil war breaking out.
So, they approached the king of England, Edward I, who agreed to marry his young son, the future Edward II, to the young queen. They hoped the marriage alliance would ensure stability in Scotland, but as a term of the treaty made clear that this would not be a union between Scotland and England, and that even if they shared a royal family, the two kingdoms would remain distinct.
Margaret was the daughter of the king of Norway and had grown up in Norway, and so a few years after her grandfather died, she set off at the age of 7 for her new kingdom. Tragically on the way to be crowned, Margaret became seriously ill, likely with food poisoning and died in 1290.
This was a complete disaster, as now Scotland had no clear heir to the throne.
13 men quickly put their names forward as the rightful next king. They were:
John Balliol, Lord of Galloway;
Robert de Brus;
John Hastings;
Floris V, Count of Holland;
John “the Black” Comyn, Lord of Badenoch;
Nicholas de Soules;
Patrick Galithly;
William de Ros, 1st Baron de Ros;
William de Vesci, Baron de Vesci;
Patrick Dunbar, 7th Earl of Dunbar;
Roger de Mandeville;
Robert de Pinkeney; and
Eric II, King of Norway.
Only four of these men were considered legitimate: John Hastings, John Balliol, Robert de Brus, and Floris V, and only two had support enough in Scotland to have a realistic change of victory, Bruce and Balliol.
Fearing a gruesome civil war, the Guardians of Scotland asked the late queen’s father-in-law, Edward I of England to arbitrate the dispute over the throne.
In 1291, Edward heard arguments from all the claimants in a court held at Berwick in England.
Seeing Bruce and Balliol as the only real contenders he asked each to choose 40 arbiters, and he would choose another 24 and these would together decide the succession.
John Balliol emerged as the victor and was crowned King of the Scots on 30 November 1292. He would then pay homage to Edward I, for his role in resolving the dispute peacefully.
The ceremony of homage was essentially the recognition by one feudal ruler of another ruler’s superiority. However, in practice it was often more a polite recognition of formality rather than a swearing of allegiance. The King of England for example, even when he ruled much more of France than the King of France did, would pay homage to the French king as technically he was a vassal of the French king.
Scottish, Irish, and Welsh lords had all in the past paid homage to English kings, even when the English exercised relatively little power over them, as a way of ensuring good relations. Since the Norman Invasion of the British Isles in 1066 and the establishment of a Norman nobility in England, Scotland, and Ireland, ceremonies like homage were fairly common expressions of diplomacy.
This meant when King John of Scotland paid homage to Edward, he likely thought he was just politely thinking his ally for his role in making him king and agreeing that Scotland was a lesser power than England.
Edward, however, took the homage much more seriously, and now thought of the Scottish king as his vassal to be ordered about. He issued orders and demands to the new Scottish king and gave him until 1st September 1294 to provide troops to the English army for an invasion of France.
John struggled to resist Edward, as the supporters of Bruce undermined him at every turn bitter about their defeat in the arbitration.
John decided at this point to revolt, sent messengers to inform the French about the English invasion, and began gathering his forces.
Edward learned of John’s secret alliance with the French and ordered him to abandon castles so that Edward could give them to his allies.
In 1296, John summoned all Scottish nobles to the army, but some of these, like Robert du Bruce ignored the summons.
The English invaded that year and smashed the Scots at the Battle of Dunbar. By July of 1296, they forced John to abdicate the throne, and Edward’s armies forced the Scottish nobles to pay homage to the English king.
In 1297 however, a Scottish noble known as William Wallace, along with a number of other nobles began a revolt against Edward. The Scots finally won a battle at the battle of Stirling Bridge.
The Scots then raided into England, and Wallace was appointed the new Guardian of Scotland in March 1298. Edward returned with his main army in July of that year and beat the forces of Wallace at the Battle of Falkirk. Wallace then resigned as Guardian of Scotland. Robert du Bruce then became the Guardian of Scotland in his place.
Wallace likely went to fight the English in France for some years, before returning to Scotland in 1304. In 1305 he was captured by English troops after being handed over by a Scottish knight loyal to Edward. Wallace was tried for treason but said that he had not been at the pledging of allegiance to Edward, and therefore was not his vassal, so had committed no treason. The English also charged him with brutalizing the civilian population claiming that he spared “neither age nor sex, monk nor nun.”
This charge against Wallace is considered by some historians one of the first trials for war crimes in human history.
Wallace was found guilty and was hung, drawn, and quartered.
In 1304 shortly before the capture of Wallace. Edward laid siege to Stirling Castle, the last major fortress of the Scottish rebels.
To intimidate the defenders, Edward built the largest trebuchet ever constructed, the War Wolf. This mighty stone-throwing machine was said by one contemporary report to have sent a single stone through two of the castle’s walls. Other historians suggest that the Scots surrendered before it could be used against them, and that wanting to show how powerful it was, after capturing the castle, Edward ordered the War Wolf to fire at the empty castle.
Robert du Bruce would become the main leader of Scottish forces and would lead a rebellion against the English following in Wallace’s footsteps. He decisively defeated Edward’s far less talented son King Edward II at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, and reestablished Scotland as an independent kingdom.
The kings of Scotland would eventually inherit the English throne after the death of Elizabeth I in 1603, and the two kingdoms were united into one kingdom, the Kingdom of Great Britain in the Acts of Union in 1707.
*Disclaimer: the author of this piece is a direct descendent of Robert du Bruce through his father’s mother.
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