Pre-Falkirk

We’re coming up to the Battle of Falkirk, about the only medieval anniversary I ever remember; largely thanks to the late Patrick McGoohan’s fantastic sneering performance as Longshanks in That Film, betraying and backstabbing everybody all over the place. The movie strains every sinew to get round the awkward fact that the hero, Wallace, got stuffed at Falkirk. Naturally, it was because the other guys cheated, and not at all because Wallace was simply outgunned and outgeneralled on the day. Naturally.

I digress. In a desperate search to find something new to say about the battle, I stumbled across this document in a printed collection. On 8 June 1298, a few weeks before the battle, King Edward’s diplomats met the King of France, Philip le Bel, for talks at Provins in the diocese of Sens. Here they agreed to a truce proposed by the French, along with an exchange of prisoners. This appears to show the French had already dumped Wallace, even before he engaged the English in battle. Among the documents presented by the English diplomats was a list of names of Scottish landholders (attached, above). These men had aided John Balliol in his war against Edward I, before submitting to the English and swearing to aid Edward against their former lord. This agreement was sealed on the day of St John the Baptist, 1296.

The named individuals on the list appear to have been Galwegians, probably drummed up by Robert de Bruce’s father, Bob Senior. Bruce the elder was given authority by King Ted to take submissions in Scotland, and allegedly provided the English with counterfeit banners to dupe the Scots at Berwick into opening their gates. This latter episode was omitted from a later version of the Scotichronicon, presumably because it was politically embarrassing to mention it in a Scotland ruled by Bruce’s descendants. History written by the victors.