The Scottish wars (1296–1357) were two extended military conflicts in which the Kingdom of England attempted to establish full control over the Kingdom of Scotland. In spite of significant temporary successes, the English efforts in both wars ultimately failed due to Scottish resistance and Scotland remained an independent country. The wars were part of a great crisis for Scotland, and the period became one of the most defining times in its history.
The First War (1296–1328) began with the English invasion of Scotland and ended with the signing of the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton. The Second War (1332–1357) began with the English-supported invasion by Edward Balliol and the "Disinherited" and ended with the signing of the Treaty of Berwick. Notable figures during the Wars of Scottish Independence included several of the Kings of Scotland such as Alexander III of Scotland, John Balliol, Robert the Bruce and David II of Scotland, with other prominent figures such as William Wallace who served as Guardian of Scotland from 1297–1298. Key figures on the English side include monarchs Edward I, Edward II and Edward III, as well as the contested King of Scotland, Edward Balliol.
The wars were important for other reasons, such as the emergence of the longbow as a key weapon in medieval warfare.
The First War of Independence: 1296–1328
Background
King Alexander III of Scotland died in 1286, leaving his three-year-old granddaughter Margaret, Maid of Norway, as his heir. In 1290, the Guardians of Scotland signed the Treaty of Birgham agreeing to the marriage of the Maid of Norway and Edward of Caernarvon, the son of Edward I. This marriage would not create a union between Scotland and England because the Scots insisted that the Treaty declare that Scotland was separate and divided from England and that its rights, laws, liberties and customs were wholly and inviolably preserved for all time.
However, Margaret, travelling to her new kingdom, died shortly after landing in the Orkney Islands around 26 September 1290. After her death, there were 13 rivals for succession. The two leading competitors for the Scottish crown were Robert de Brus, 5th Lord of Annandale (grandfather of the future King Robert the Bruce) and John Balliol, Lord of Galloway. Fearing civil war between the Bruce and Balliol families and supporters, the Guardians of Scotland wrote to Edward I of England, asking him to come north and arbitrate between the claimants in order to avoid civil war.
Edward agreed to meet the guardians at Norham in 1291. Before the process got underway Edward insisted that he be recognised as Lord Paramount of Scotland. When they refused, he gave the claimants three weeks to agree to his terms, knowing that by then his armies would have arrived and the Scots would have no choice. Edward's ploy worked, and the claimants to the crown were forced to acknowledge Edward as their Lord Paramount and accept his arbitration. Their decision was influenced in part by the fact that most of the claimants had large estates in England and, therefore, would have lost them if they had defied the English king. However, many involved were churchmen such as Bishop Wishart for whom such mitigation cannot be claimed.
On 11 June, acting as the Lord Paramount of Scotland, Edward I ordered that every Scottish royal castle be placed temporarily under his control and every Scottish official resign his office and be re-appointed by him. Two days later, in Upsettlington, the Guardians of the Realm and the leading Scottish nobles gathered to swear allegiance to King Edward I as Lord Paramount. All Scots were also required to pay homage to Edward I, either in person or at one of the designated centres by 27 July 1291.
There were 13 meetings from May to August 1291 at Berwick, where the claimants to the crown pleaded their cases before Edward, in what came to be known as the "Great Cause". The claims of most of the competitors were rejected, leaving only the men who could prove direct descent from David I: Balliol; Bruce; Floris V, Count of Holland; and John de Hastings of Abergavenny, 2nd Baron Hastings.
On 3 August, Edward asked Balliol and Bruce to choose 40 arbiters each, while he chose 24, to decide the case. On 12 August, he signed a writ that required the collection of all documents that might concern the competitors' rights or his own title to the superiority of Scotland, which was accordingly executed. Balliol was named king by a majority on 17 November 1292 and on 30 November he was crowned King of Scots at Scone Abbey. On 26 December, at Newcastle upon Tyne, King John swore homage to Edward I for the Kingdom of Scotland. Edward soon made it clear that he regarded the country as a vassal state. Balliol, undermined by members of the Bruce faction, struggled to resist, and the Scots resented Edward's demands. In 1294, Edward summoned John Balliol to appear before him, and then ordered that he had until 1 September 1294 to provide Scottish troops and funds for his invasion of France.
On his return to Scotland, John held a meeting with his council and after a few days of heated debate, plans were made to defy the orders of Edward I. A few weeks later a Scottish parliament was hastily convened and 12 members of a war council (four earls, barons, and bishops, respectively) were selected to advise King John.
Emissaries were immediately dispatched to inform King Philip IV of France of the intentions of the English. They also negotiated a treaty by which the Scots would invade England if the English invaded France, and in return the French would support the Scots. The treaty would be sealed by the arranged marriage of John's son Edward and Philip's niece Joan. Another treaty with King Eric II of Norway was hammered out, in which for the sum of 50,000 groats he would supply 100 ships for four months of the year, so long as hostilities between France and England continued. Although Norway never acted, the Franco-Scottish alliance, later known as the Auld Alliance, was renewed frequently until 1560.
It was not until 1295 that Edward I became aware of the secret Franco-Scottish negotiations. In early October, he began to strengthen his northern defences against a possible invasion. It was at this point that Robert Bruce, 6th Lord of Annandale (father of the future King Robert the Bruce) was appointed by Edward as the governor of Carlisle Castle. Edward also ordered John Balliol to relinquish control of the castles and burghs of Berwick, Jedburgh and Roxburgh. In December, more than 200 of Edward's tenants in Newcastle were summoned to form a militia by March 1296 and in February, a fleet sailed north to meet his land forces in Newcastle.
The movement of English forces along the Anglo-Scottish border did not go unnoticed. In response, King John Balliol summoned all able-bodied Scotsmen to bear arms and gather at Caddonlee by 11 March. Several Scottish nobles chose to ignore the summons, including Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, whose Carrick estates had been seized by John Balliol and reassigned to John 'The Red' Comyn. Robert Bruce had become Earl of Carrick at the resignation of his father earlier that year.
Beginning of the war: 1296–1306
The First War of Scottish Independence can be loosely divided into four phases: the initial English invasion and success in 1296; the campaigns led by William Wallace, Andrew de Moray and various Scottish Guardians from 1297 until John Comyn (the "Red Comyn") negotiated for the general Scottish submission in February 1304; the renewed campaigns led by Robert the Bruce following his killing of the Red Comyn in Dumfries in 1306 to his and the Scottish victory at Bannockburn in 1314; and a final phase of Scottish diplomatic initiatives and military campaigns in Scotland, Ireland and Northern England from 1314 until the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton in 1328.
The war began in earnest with Edward I's brutal sacking of Berwick in March 1296, followed by the Scottish defeat at the Battle of Dunbar and the abdication of John Balliol in July. The English invasion campaign had subdued most of the country by August and, after removing the Stone of Destiny from Scone Abbey and transporting it to Westminster Abbey, Edward convened a parliament at Berwick, where the Scottish nobles paid homage to him as King of England.
The revolts which broke out in early 1297, led by William Wallace, Andrew de Moray and other Scottish nobles, forced Edward to send more forces to deal with the Scots, and although they managed to force the nobles to capitulate at Irvine, Wallace and de Moray's continuing campaigns eventually led to the first key Scottish victory, at Stirling Bridge. Moray was fatally wounded in the fighting at Stirling, and died soon after the battle. This was followed by Scottish raids into northern England and the appointment of Wallace as Guardian of Scotland in March 1298. But in July, Edward invaded again, intending to crush Wallace and his followers, and defeated the Scots at Falkirk. Edward failed to subdue Scotland completely before returning to England.
There have been several stories regarding Wallace and what he did after the Battle of Falkirk. It is said by some sources that Wallace travelled to France and fought for the French King against the English during their own ongoing war while Bishop Lamberton of St Andrews, who gave much support to the Scottish cause, went and spoke to the pope. Wallace was succeeded by Robert Bruce and John Comyn as joint guardians, with William de Lamberton, Bishop of St Andrews, being appointed in 1299 as a third, neutral Guardian to try to maintain order between them.
Further campaigns by Edward in 1300 and 1301 led to a truce between the Scots and the English in 1302. After another campaign in 1303/1304, Stirling Castle, the last major Scottish-held stronghold, fell to the English, and in February 1304, negotiations led to most of the remaining nobles paying homage to Edward and to the Scots all but surrendering. At this point, Robert Bruce and William Lamberton may have made a secret bond of alliance, aiming to place Bruce on the Scottish throne and continue the struggle. However, Lamberton came from a family associated with the Balliol-Comyn faction and his ultimate allegiances are unknown.
After the capture and execution of Wallace in 1305, Scotland seemed to have been finally conquered and the revolt calmed for a period.
King Robert the Bruce: 1306–1328
On 10 February 1306, during a meeting between Bruce and Comyn, the two surviving claimants for the Scottish throne, Bruce quarrelled with and killed John Comyn at Greyfriars Kirk in Dumfries. At this moment the rebellion was sparked again.
Comyn, it seems, had broken an agreement between the two, and informed King Edward of Bruce's plans to be king. The agreement was that one of the two claimants would renounce his claim on the throne of Scotland, but receive lands from the other and support his claim. Comyn appears to have thought to get both the lands and the throne by betraying Bruce to the English. A messenger carrying documents from Comyn to Edward was captured by Bruce and his party, plainly implicating Comyn. Bruce then rallied the Scottish prelates and nobles behind him and had himself crowned King of Scots at Scone less than five weeks after the killing in Dumfries. He then began a new campaign to free his kingdom. After being defeated in the Battle of Methven, he was driven from the Scottish mainland as an outlaw as Edward I declared that his supporters would be given no quarter, and his wife Queen Elizabeth, daughter Marjorie and younger sisters Christina and Mary were captured by the English. Bruce returned to the mainland in 1307. King Robert's forces continued to grow in strength, encouraged in part by the death of Edward I in July 1307. The Battle of Loudoun Hill, the Battle of the Pass of Brander, and the captures of Roxburgh Castle and Edinburgh Castle saw the English continually lose ground in their control of the country. The Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 was a pivotal event in the course of the war, after which the family members of Bruce captive in England were returned. In 1318, the Scots completed the expulsion of the English by retaking the then Scottish city of Berwick-Upon-Tweed in April 1318.
In 1320, the Declaration of Arbroath was sent by a group of Scottish nobles to the Pope affirming Scottish independence from England. Two similar declarations were also sent by the nobles, clergy and Robert I. In 1324, Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray was sent to meet the Pope in person at his court in Avignon. Randolph successfully persuaded Pope John to recognise Robert as King of Scots, a major diplomatic coup. In 1327, Edward II of England was deposed and killed and his son Edward III of England assumed the throne. Repeated invasions of the north of England by Robert or his war leaders, culminating in the Battle of Stanhope Park, in which the English king was nearly captured, forced Edward III to sign the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton on 1 May 1328. This recognised the independence of Scotland and Robert the Bruce as King. To further seal the peace, Robert's son and heir David married the sister of Edward III.