Events

The murder of Comyn

It was no secret that Robert Bruce shared his grandfather’s ambition to become king of Scots. All his actions prior to 1306 can be seen to follow this one desire. These include switching of support between the English and Scottish causes, his attempts to win the favour of Edward and leading Scottish nobles.

It is with this in mind that we need to consider the murder of John Comyn in the Greyfriars Kirk at Dumfries on 10 February 1306. This had not been the first meeting between the two men. There had been a great deal of negotiation between the two nobles; offers and counter offers had been presented and rejected.

It would appear that the two men argued. Robert’s temper got the better of him, and he stabbed Comyn. The stricken noble fell to the floor of the chapel, wounded mortally. Not only had he murdered Comyn, but he had committed the worst of sacrilegious acts by breaking the sanctity of the church and condemning his soul to eternal damnation.

Robert’s only move now was to come out of hiding and have himself proclaimed king of Scots. He gathered his shocked followers and proceeded to Scone where the countess of Fife and a few nobles paid witness to his inauguration.

King Hob

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King Robert’s first few months on the throne ended in complete disaster. By the winter of 1306 his small fledgling army had already been defeated at the Methven Woods near Perth (19 June). The English response to his seizure of the throne had been swift and decisive. The Earl of Pembroke, Aymer de Valance, had assembled a fast-moving body of horsemen and ambushed King Robert’s army as it was setting up camp for the night.

As King Robert fled, his murder of Comyn came back to haunt him. One of Comyn’s relations, MacDougall of Argyll, ambushed what remained of his army at Dalry at the head of Strathfillan. Once again the new king of Scots was forced to flee.

Perhaps an even more bitter blow was the news that his family had failed to make it to safety and had been forced to seek refuge at Kildrummy Castle. However, Edward’s siege of the fortress had been swift and thanks to treachery from one of the defenders, futile. Robert’s wife and daughter were now in the hands of his enemy, and his younger brother Neil and many of his leading supporters were publically executed. Even the venerable Bishop Wishart was captured and taken south to imprisonment in the tower of London.

On the run, with most of his family, allies and friends fallen or captured, the new king of Scots felt anything but a king. It is here that he picks up his nickname, King Hob (King Nobody). King Hob all but falls out of the history pages for a few months. Some suggest that he headed for Ireland, others that he spent a few months in the Western Isles and Orkney.

According to legend it is during this time the king is said to have hidden in a cave on Rathlin Island and pondered his own defeats but to have been inspired by the tireless work of a lowly spider. Of course, there is no real historical evidence for this tale, and it was probably invented in the 19th century by the Scottish novelist and poet Sir Walter Scott.

Scotland’s civil war

In early 1307 King Robert returned to Scotland and raised a small army that had a few early successes. However, it is the news of the death of Edward I on the 7 July that encouraged men to flock to his banner. The scene was now set for a civil war in Scotland between the Bruce faction and the Comyn family and their supporters.

Bruce decided to take the war to his enemies. He marched into the heart of Moray and he was able to field a force, according to Bower, of at least 3000 men. His lightning attacks on the castles of the Comyns and their followers resulted in most of them falling in just a few short months.

Matters came to a head at the battle of Inverurie. King Robert has fallen ill and the Earl of Buchan, who had failed to defeat the king earlier at Slioch, saw this as his last chance. His men were encouraged to believe that the king was on his death-bed, and were thus encouraged to attack. However, King Robert had recovered enough to lead his men from horseback. Buchan’s forces broke, and with them broke the power of the Comyn family in the north east.

King Robert then ordered the harrowing of the north east, burning crops and livestock alike. With the north east secure, the king was then able to mount a series of successful attacks on the strongholds of his enemies, both Scottish and English. One by one, each of Edward II’s garrisons fell to Robert or his famous lieutenants, Douglas, Thomas Randolph and Edward Bruce, his brother.

Robert’s policy of destroying all castles that he captured meant that they couldn’t be used against him in the future. Eventually, by 1313 only Berwick and Stirling remained in English hands, despite Edward II’s attempts to lead costly expeditions north. Stirling, the prized gateway to the north, was willing to surrender if it were not relieved by an English army by midsummer’s day 1314. This was a challenge to his authority that Edward II could not ignore. His army marched north to Bannockburn.

First day of the battle

The first day of the battle opened as the English army approached Stirling Castle along the old Roman road. Representatives from the castle met with the king and warned him that many Scots were hiding in the woods of the King’s Park on Coxet Hill. Edward sent two scouting parties forward, both numbering about 300 horsemen. One was under the command of Sir Robert Clifford. This was to scout the flat land to the east of the road, known locally as the Carse. The other, under the command of the Earl of Hereford, rode up the old Roman road towards the Scots position. There Hereford’s men came face to face with King Robert himself, inspecting his men at the edge of the woods.

On seeing the king, a young knight called Henry de Bohun immediately challenged the king to a duel. He spurred his horse onwards straight to the Scottish king. Henry de Bohun was considered a great knight, but the king of Scots simply waited until he was almost upon him then sidestepped his horse and killed the English knight by smashing in the back of his head with a war axe. The Scots pikemen then drove off Hereford’s men with ease. Apparently King Robert’s only comment on the event was to complain about his broken battle axe.

Sir Robert Clifford’s advance fared no better. His foray into the Carse had discovered that there were many holes or pots, dug into the ground near the Roman road, but that the Carse itself was flat, if somewhat boggy underfoot. However, before he could procede any further, the Earl of Moray, Thomas Randolph, led his pikemen out of the trees and challenged Clifford’s knights to attack. The result was the same as for Hereford’s men. The knights were unable to penetrate the thick wall of pikes.

After hearing about the two disastrous scouting missions, Edward and his advisers decided to move the entire army during the night. They decided to take up position across the Carse facing the Scots. They hoped this would catch the Scots unprepared and prevent them escaping.

Unfortunately, this meant that the English troops spent a restless night, crossing the burn and standing guard in case of a Scots attack. The English morale had been affected badly by the two defeats the previous day. Worse still was the political infighting among Edward’s advisors. Many of the more experienced and respected nobles had been replaced by Edward, while he took little part in the actual planning. Finally, a Scottish knight defected from Edward’s side and travelled to King Robert. He explained the disorganised position of the English army and advised that the time to fight was now.

Second day of the battle

The Scots began the day by marching from the forest and taking up their positions. King Edward was so amazed that the Scots had not run away he exclaimed, ‘My God will they fight?’ When the Scots kneeled in prayer, he even believed they were asking him his forgiveness.

The English position had become terribly confused during the night. Now the knights and heavy cavalry formed the entire front rank of the Edward’s army. The majority of his foot soldiers had not even crossed the burn. To make matters worse the archers were not in a position to fire on the Scots, for fear of hitting their own men.

When the three Scots schiltrons advanced towards the English, the knights did what was expected of them and charged. For hundreds of years, a charge of heavy knights had usually won battles, but here the conditions were far from ideal. The ground was soft underfoot, making it slippery for the horses.

The Scots had drilled constantly for this kind of fight. Their closely packed formations of long pikes meant it was impossible for the knights to get near them. The Scots kept advancing towards the English, slowly pushing them back towards the burn. The knights had no room to manoeuvre or retreat, and were cut down.

When the English archers did manage to position themselves so that they could fire on the Scots without hitting their own men, Sir Robert Keith and James Douglas attacked with their light horses. The English archers were unable to defend themselves and scattered.

Finally, the Scots reserves, made up of the willing but untrained highlanders and camp followers, rushed down from the top of Coxet Hill waving homemade banners. To the beleaguered English, this appeared to be a fresh Scottish army joining in the battle. Enough was enough and the English broke and ran. Chasing them, the Scots caught up as many tried to cross the burn. The carnage was great, and many English knights and commoners met their death while trying to cross.

King Edward, despite popular myth, fought bravely in the battle. He was forced to defend himself from Scottish soldiers as they tugged at his harness and his clothes. Eventually he was led away and managed to escape.

Overall it was a most impressive victory, but with Edward’s escape the war would continue.

The continuation of the war

While it is true that Bannockburn was a considerable victory for King Robert, it was not a victory that he could use to bring about an end to the war. For another 14 years Robert struggled against Edward II for official recognition as king of Scots.

Only a year after Bannockburn, Robert decided to take the battle to Edward II. He began by opening up a second front in Ireland. His only remaining brother, Edward Bruce, invaded with a sizeable army of Scots. As ambitious as this plan was, Edward Bruce wasn’t quite the leader his brother was, and he eventually failed in his quest to unite the Irish clan chiefs or to destroy the English forces. He eventually died in 1318 at Dundalk, having failed to secure the island.

King Robert also took the battle to England, invading the northern counties every year between 1315 and 1318. By the end of 1318, Berwick had been recaptured and the north of England devastated.

Edward II tried several times to bring King Robert to battle, but the wily Scots commander made good use of guerrilla tactics. When the English king launched cripplingly expensive invasions of Scotland, Robert launched some very profitable counter invasions of England. It all combined to add to the king of Scot’s reputation as a great warrior, and Edward’s reputation as an inept battle king.

The Declaration of Arbroath

While King Edward had little success in defeating King Robert in battle, he did have much more success in isolating Scotland from papal help. The pope, John XXII, had been successfully lobbied to excommunicate Robert as punishment for the murder of Comyn.

In response, a letter to the pope was sent from the Scots nobles to plead for the Scottish cause. A copy of this document survives today, and is known as the Declaration of Arbroath.

The letter is a sophisticated argument detailing the reasons for Scottish independence and justifying King Robert’s usurpation of the throne in 1306. The letter, often quoted by historians, shows that to the Scottish people, their desire for freedom is only matched by determination to keep that freedom. It even goes so far as to suggest that if the king is not successful in maintaining the freedom of the kingdom then he may be replaced with someone who is capable. This was something almost unheard of in the Middle Ages.

The Treaty of Edinburgh

In 1328 King Robert was finally able to bring England to the peace he had so long desired. Now an old man dying of leprosy, the King lasted long enough to see the treaty sealed.

King Robert had seen his opportunity to step up the pressure on the English throne in 1327 when Edward II was deposed by his wife and her lover, Mortimer. A coalition of barons seized power and murdered the king. The young prince was hastily crowned Edward III, and his mother and Mortimer were named his legal guardians, essentially in charge of the whole kingdom until he came of age.

King Robert quickly ordered his friend Douglas to invade northern England, while he launched another invasion of Ireland. The English at first tried to meet these threats, but were unable to counter the swift Scottish attacks. Fearing yet another rebellion among the barons, Mortimer and Edward’s mother, Isabella, agreed to the Scottish terms for peace.

The Treaty of Edinburgh officially recognised King Robert as king of Scots, and the independence of that kingdom from England. King Robert died in 1329, but had lived long enough to see his final victory.