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His grandfather and father did homage to English kings. Both claimed the Scottish crown but were refused by Edward I. Robert the Bruce hailed from a Norman family – but born and raised a Scot, it was he who ultimately delivered his country’s independence.
When Alexander III of Scotland died in March 1286, his sole surviving heir was a three-year-old granddaughter, Margaret, the ‘Maid of Norway’. Edward I – also known as Longshanks – saw an opportunity to dominate Scotland by marrying her to his infant son, the Prince of Wales and future Edward II. These plans were thwarted, however, when Margaret died en route from Norway in September 1290. The subsequent succession crisis saw 13 claimants for the Scottish throne brought down to two: Robert de Brus, 5th Lord of Annandale (the grandfather of Robert the Bruce), and John Balliol, Lord of Galloway. Asked to arbitrate, Edward I chose the more pliable Balliol, treating him as his vassal (having insisted the Scots should acknowledge his historic claim to suzerain overlordship). Balliol was crowned at Scone, near Perth, on St Andrew’s Day 1292.
Born on 11 July 1274, at Lochmaben in Dumfriesshire, or Turnberry in Ayrshire, or possibly even in Essex, the younger Bruce also swore fealty (as Earl of Carrick) to Edward I (at Berwick in 1296, renewing the oath of homage at Carlisle in 1297). Meanwhile, Bruce fought for the English against Balliol (in 1296), the humiliated Balliol having finally turned against Edward and allied with France (1295), kicking off both the ‘Auld Alliance’ and the Wars of Independence. Edward’s retribution saw 30,000 men march into Scotland, razing ports, butchering citizenry, taking castles (Berwick, Edinburgh, Stirling, and Roxburgh). Ultimately, Balliol would fester in the Tower with the ‘Stone of Destiny’ (used in the coronation of Scottish monarchs) removed to London. Bruce hoped siding with Edward might see him on the Scottish throne, but the English king was scornful. It’s fair to say the period 1296-1306 was vacillatory for Bruce, as he favoured one side then t’other; ultimately, if he wanted the throne, he would have to fight the English.
In 1297, Bruce, with his Carrick vassals, joined the revolt led by the Scottish knight William Wallace, which won a rare victory at Stirling Bridge (11 September 1297). Bruce quickly made peace with the English via a treaty called the Capitulation of Irvine. In 1298, however, he rose again against Edward, and after the Battle of Falkirk and Wallace’s defeat (22 July 1298 – the first important battle where the longbow’s power was felt) had his lands wasted by the English as Edward launched an unsuccessful manhunt for the young claimant. Wallace went into hiding, too, but was captured and executed in August 1305.
After Falkirk, Bruce became one of four Scottish regents, or guardians of the realm, along with John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch. He defected, however, submitting to the English in 1302-1305, and not fighting Longshanks again until the final rebellion of 1306. It was a bad time to be resisting Edward, as the Auld Alliance had stalled in May 1303, with the French forced to make peace with the English. Bruce aided Edward in his 1304 campaign, when even formidable Stirling Castle was forced. In the year of Wallace’s decapitation (1305), Edward summoned a parliament at Perth with a plan for Scottish governance as an English land; foremost among the councillors and co-author of the recommendation was Bruce. Ultimately, though, it would be Bruce who was the hero of the Scottish War of Independence, although the film Braveheart (see box below) might have the unsuspecting thinking otherwise.
Bruce schemed as well as soldiered, and appears to have conspired with John Comyn, the nephew of King John Balliol, regarding their rival claims to the throne. This turned out less than amicably: a meeting in the church of the Minorite Friars in Dumfries (10 February 1306) resulting in a quarrel, Bruce’s stabbing of Comyn before the high altar, and his being dispatched courtesy of some bloke called Kirkpatrick. It was Bruce’s time to defy Edward afresh, as Longshanks’ army headed north intent on suppressing the rebellion.
With Comyn gone, Bruce gathered his vassals and declared his right to the throne. Less than two months later, on 25 March 1306, he was crowned Robert I at Scone. He would be king from 1306 to 1329. A diplomatic battle ensued. The Lincoln Declaration (1301) had asserted the English king’s ‘rights’, while the Scots insisted the kingdom was theirs pleno jure (‘with full authority’). The papacy favoured the English; murderer Bruce was excommunicated for his crime. He mounted a campaign to drive the English from Scotland, yet suffered repeated defeats as Balliol partisans rebelled.
English retaliation was swift. Aymer de Valence, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, took Perth, driving Bruce, whose forces were defeated on 19 June 1306 at Methven, into the wilds of Athole. A few weeks later, Bruce’s despondent troops were defeated by Comyn’s cousin (and therefore an unforgiving Scottish enemy) John Macdougall, a.k.a. ‘John Bacach’ (‘the Lame’) or John of Lorne (or Lorn), at Dalry near Tyndrum. They sought refuge first in the Highlands, relying on guerrilla attacks with a few hundred men, then in Rathlin, off Ireland’s north coast. Kildrummy Castle, in Aberdeenshire, was taken in September, its commander, Robert’s brother Sir Neil Bruce, hanged, drawn, and beheaded. Bruce’s queen and daughter were taken at Tain and headed for English captivity. In the spring of 1307, Bruce renewed his campaign, landing in Ayrshire, surprising an English garrison in his own castle at Turnberry, then defeating Pembroke at Loudon Hill (10 May 1307).
Changing of the guard
Edward I died on 7 July 1307, and was succeeded by his less martial son Edward II. This offered Bruce breathing space and the chance to sort out Balliol’s supporters. Over 1307-1309 he emerged from hiding to be acknowledged as king by almost all Scotland. Notable exceptions were Alexander Macdougall and his son John Bacach (see above). Alexander hated Bruce for murdering his nephew, Comyn, and Bruce’s passage through the Argyllshire Pass of Brander in late-summer 1308 gave the opportunity for revenge – even if the Macdougalls’ 2,000 men were outnumbered. Intent on ambush, Alexander’s force was part-way up Ben Cruachan, overlooking the pass. Bruce was prepared: he split his force, sending archers under James Douglas out of sight, but up the slopes, while he led the remainder through the pass. Sighting Bruce’s column and believing that to be his whole army, Macdougall’s force attacked, only to be taken in the rear by Douglas’s arrows. The battle degenerated into rout.
Edward launched invasions in 1310 and 1312, but achieved little, as the English were gradually cleared from Scotland – with Bruce accepted as king, in some quarters grudgingly, by 1313. The great castles were recovered, excepting Berwick, Dunbar, and Stirling, which the Scots besieged (December 1313), courtesy of Bruce’s brother, Sir Edward Bruce – with the governor/seneschal Sir Philip Mowbray swearing to concede if not relieved by midsummer, when his garrison’s supplies would be spent. Robert rebuked his brother: having studiously avoided a pitched battle for six years, he was almost certainly facing one now, as Edward must rescue Stirling. Come spring 1314, it was the only forward castle holding out for Edward, who had made his intentions clear – summoning 93 tenants-in-chief on 23 December 1313, and issuing Commissions of Array, which gave prominent men of the counties authority to muster and train all men able to bear arms in the king’s name, with final writs for service issued on 27 May 1314. From the northern counties, 21,540 infantry were summoned; Irish chieftains were tapped. The Welsh Marches provided archers – the growing number of skilled bowmen being the single most important development of the period, and deemed vital for breaking Scottish schiltrons. Nothing was left to chance. Stirling, strategic bastion and gateway to the Scottish Lowlands, must not fall. Bruce, knowing what was coming, began training and drilling from early April.
Towards Bannockburn
Stirling’s fate caused Bannockburn, the landmark battle fought on the day the governor’s oath expired: 24 June 1314. First, though, the English mustered and trained, assembling at Berwick on 10 June. Up to 20,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry reported; the preponderance of foot was deliberate, for Edward was no fool. Briefed as to the going around Stirling, he’d informed his tenants-in-chief that Bruce would resist in a ‘strong and marshy place’ and ‘a great part of the exploit will come to footmen’. It is quite possible, therefore, that Edward’s knights numbered fewer than 3,000, maybe nearer 1,000, with his overall strength perhaps no more than 18,000. He crossed the border amid suggestions of division, with malcontent earls absent. Nevertheless, it was the largest force assembled since Falkirk 15 years before.
Edward began advancing north on 12 June. Behind followed 110 supply wagons, each hauled by eight oxen, and 106 four-horse carts – a wagon train alleged to have extended 20 miles. Come 21 June, he had reached Edinburgh, his wagons augmented with fleet provisions. Resuming the march, the following evening the English were in Falkirk, ten miles from Stirling. Bruce meanwhile raised his standard at Torwood, a few miles north-east of Falkirk. With a numerically smaller army (14,000), he gained a wooded plateau two miles beneath Stirling, preparing to fight defensively on ground of his choosing; a decent position was essential due to weakness in horse. He intended the Bannock Burn to cover his front amid bogs. A Roman road forded the burn opposite the Scottish centre, and Bruce strengthened here. He ordered ‘pottes’ dug (bracken-covered knee-deep holes, either side of the road north of the burn) and the scattering of four-pointed ‘calthrops’ – one point uppermost to maim a horse. His right was covered by scrub and forest, his left by St Ninian’s kirk and the Carse, a boggy plain of rough ground leading to the Forth. With the English in Falkirk, Bruce’s defences got his thumbs-up on 22 June. He had no desire to see his infantry scattered by English horse, as occurred at Falkirk. Bannockburn would be the day persistence paid off for Bruce, as he secured the decisive victory that had eluded Wallace.
Bannockburn: prelude
That Wallace’s exploits were significant is undisputed – but it was Bannockburn, almost a decade after his death, that established a Scottish nation that lasted. We are unsure where this decisive battle was fought, but somewhere on Stirling’s southern edge.
The English were routed, with Bruce’s army exploiting marshy ground to gain a tactical victory over a larger and better-equipped foe (numbers are disputed, but something like 18,000-22,000 versus 8,000-14,000 is the ballpark). Bruce divided his army into four ‘battles’ of spearmen, commanded by Randolph, Earl of Moray (vanguard), Edward Bruce (centre), the Earl of Douglas and Walter the Steward (rearguard), and Bruce himself (a strong reserve), leaving his modest cavalry commanded by Sir Robert Keith, the Marshal of Scotland.
On Sunday afternoon, 23 June, the English approached the Burn, halting a mile south. Sir Philip Mowbray attended, arguing that Edward’s army need advance no further, for technically speaking Stirling was relieved, although an attempt to break through by the Earl of Clifford was thwarted by Moray’s spearmen. Mowbray also reported quantities of Scottish infantry in New Park, south-west of where battle would be joined. Edward ordered two cavalry squadrons to reconnoitre, which is when the famed Bruce–de Bohun single combat occurred. Sir Henry de Bohun sploshed across the Burn to find himself staring at Bruce; he charged with lance, which was deflected by Bruce, who buried his axe in Bohun’s skull – or, as the early Scots poet John Barbour put it, ‘cleft de Bohun to the brisket’. As the English fled, Bruce lamented: ‘I have broke my guid battle-axe’.
The other English detachment fared badly, too. Led by Sir Robert de Clifford and Henry de Beaumont, these horsemen were scattered after arguments among their commanders and nifty Scottish work with 12-foot spears. Although the Scots had prospered, Bruce contemplated withdrawal as night fell – but an English deserter, Sir Alexander Seton, informed him of his enemy’s likely collapse if attacked with purpose. Bruce resolved to attack, and in so doing was his legend burnished.
Bannockburn: joined
On the night of 23 June, the English approach from Falkirk saw them venture into the Carse as they forded the Bannock Burn below the village of the same name, then halted on marshy ground, waiting for dawn. Edward arranged his congested forces with nine cavalry squadrons to his front, each maybe 250 in number, and a larger cavalry division massed left and forward, effectively the van. The king’s infantry was assembled behind en masse. To the Scots, the English appeared as one amorphous mass, with the exception of the cavalry vanguard.
Bruce responded by swinging his ‘battles’ round to face his enemy. Their dispositions were now altered: King Robert brought his reserve into the line on its left, with the Earl of Douglas and Walter the Steward immediately to his right, the Earl of Moray to their right, and finally Bruce’s brother Edward on the extreme right. The cavalry was now positioned a bit north, or left of King Robert’s ‘battle’. The English resolved to avoid a frontal assault, so Bruce ensured battle was joined by ordering his troops forward in echelon. Edward was possibly surprised to see an outnumbered foe advancing, surprise shared by his knights who underestimated their opponent, failing to form up properly, and attacking piecemeal.
Disputes among the English leadership continued, this time in the cavalry vanguard where the Earl of Gloucester threw a wobbly, disputing the Earl of Hereford’s right to command, then questioning the whole strategy, before charging the nearest Scottish schiltron on the left – a rash move that saw the 24-year-old slain. The Scottish ‘battles’ came on, concentrating as they did. It was against this mass the English cavalry moved: horses on to pikes. The two irresistible forces locked, any dismounted knight prey to short stabbing swords and dirks. Edward’s archers were rendered largely impotent, their arrows as likely to strike their own cavalry as Scots pikemen, while Edward’s foot watched the heaving struggle, many never to be engaged. Some of Edward’s archers gathered on their army’s right, aiming to make a pincushion of Douglas on the Scots’ left – but they were seen off by Keith’s cavalry in a crisis moment, their lack of spearmen rendering them defenceless against enemy horse. Edward had failed to heed Falkirk’s lesson that cavalry must be supported by bowmen to break the Scots’ schiltrons.
Meanwhile, Edward was in the melee – no back seat for the monarch oft depicted as lacking martial valour. Brave he was, and a soldier of some experience, but he lacked his father’s abilities, and Bruce proved the better general. The struggle lasted around an hour, until the English were spooked by more men appearing on a hill, some say Gillies Hill, south-west of the field in the New Park area. Assumed to be Scottish reinforcements – but possibly lightly armed and ill-trained camp followers known as ‘small folk’, 3,000 strong – it was enough to unnerve the horsemen, who showed their backs for the first time. Sir Giles d’Argentine (or d’Argentan) led the king to safety before returning to the fray. He was later buried in St Cuthbert’s, close to Edinburgh. Another casualty was Sir Edward Manley, Steward of England. Rout ensued, and it was only the light’s dying that stopped it. Some 100 English horsemen died, while 22 barons and 68 knights yielded. The Scots lost spearmen, but only two knights, Sir William de Vepont and Sir Walter de Ross. Edward realised the day was lost and departed with 500 knights, his one success being the capture of Cambuskenneth Abbey, replete with supplies. Its commander Sir John Aith and his men were killed.
The English were chastened, sent ‘homeward, tae think again’, according to ‘Flower of Scotland’, the country’s unofficial national anthem. King Edward, refused entry by Mowbray, was taken to Dunbar – whence he took to the water to reach Berwick and England. He was lucky. The Earl of Hereford and Sir Ingram de Umfraville got to Bothwell Castle with 600 men-at-arms and 1,000 foot, but the castellan Sir Walter Gilbertson only admitted barons and knights, leaving the rest to Scottish horsemen who made short work of more than a thousand leaderless English. Gilbertson, a nasty piece of work by all accounts, then handed over his prizes to the Scots. These included Robert Northburgh, Keeper of the Privy Seal, and the precious seal itself.
Bruce may have been outnumbered and lacking cavalry, but he marshalled his forces to best advantage, fighting on his terms. He claimed his victory’s high-water mark was the charge of his right (Macdonalds), which would see Macdonalds claiming precedence thenceforward on the right wing of Scottish royal armies. The night march, which left the English crowded, chilled, and mired in ground unsuited to cavalry undoubtedly harmed their cause. Given Edward had effectively a new army, it was an ambitious manoeuvre, probably too much so, while leaving his bowmen with support from neither men-at-arms nor cavalry was a blunder. The English learned lessons from Bannockburn, and Edward’s son, Edward III, combined archers and men-at-arms to devastating effect, the French suffering the consequences during the Hundred Years War. Also, the days of the feudal levy were numbered: those French wars would be fought by professional armies recruited via an indenture, or contract system. For Scotland, meanwhile, Bruce’s victory finished Wallace’s work and gained the independence that lasted four centuries.
THE REAL BRAVEHEART
William Wallace is glorified as ‘Braveheart’ in the 1995 film of the same name – and yet it was Robert the Bruce who was posthumously referred to as ‘Braveheart’, not Wallace. The film also shows Bruce betraying Wallace at the decisive Battle of Falkirk, on 22 July 1298, yet there is no evidence that this happened. In fact, Bruce’s role in the battle, if any, remains a mystery.
Aftermath
In 1317, Bruce went to Ireland to assist his brother Edward Bruce in defeating the Anglo-Irish at Slane. The Declaration of Arbroath (1320), a letter from the Scottish barons to Pope John XXII, asserted their country’s freedom. The rhetoric is stirring: ‘For so long as there shall remain but one hundred of us alive, we will never consent to subject ourselves to the dominion of the English.’ It is the classic statement of Scottish independence: ‘For we fight, not for glory nor for riches nor for honours, but only and alone for freedom, which no good man surrenders but with his life.’ The Pope approved the Scottish claim, before English pressure made him backtrack.
Edward raided Scotland in 1322, but only after impressive Scottish gains: they captured Berwick (1318), and defeated the English at Mytton (1319) – which forced Edward to abandon his siege of Berwick – and again at Byland (1322). In fact, until a truce of 1323, the Scots repeatedly invaded England.
Edward II’s death in 1327 saw the accession of his son, Edward III, a chip off his grand-father’s block. The reign began badly, though, with renewed Scottish aggression and inroads into northern England. This phase of the Scottish Wars was closed by the English parliament’s ratification of the Treaty of Northampton (4 May 1328), previously framed in Edinburgh. This recognised Scotland’s independence and Bruce’s right to rule as Robert I in return for a feeble £20,000 and the marriage of Edward’s young sister to Bruce’s infant son. Everything Longshanks fought for in Scotland was forfeit.
On 7 June 1329, Robert the Bruce died of leprosy at Cardross Castle on the Firth of Clyde. His heart was meant to be taken to Palestine and buried in Jerusalem – but the organ’s protector, Douglas, was killed fighting against the Moors in Spain, and the relic was brought instead to Scotland, where it was buried inside Melrose Abbey. Bruce’s body was interred in the Abbey of Dunfermline. He was succeeded by his son as David II. Today, a fine statue of Robert the Bruce stands at Bannockburn; it was sculpted by an Englishman, Charles d’Orville Pilkington Jackson, in 1964.
Further Reading:
S Spinks (2024) Robert the Bruce: Champion of a Nation (Stroud: Amberley Publishing).
P Carradice (2024) Robert the Bruce: Scotland’s True Braveheart (Barnsley: Pen & Sword History).
All images: Wikimedia Commons, unless otherwise stated
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