To catch a Bruce

On his return from Stirling, Edward I crossed the scene of his victory at Falkirk en route to Edinburgh and Berwick. Then, on 21 August, he made a sudden about-turn and dashed over to Ayr in the west. According to Guisborough, the king deviated from his intended route after reaching Selkirk Forest.

The king had presumably been alerted to trouble in the west. Robert de Bruce, who submitted to the English in 1297, had swung back to the Scottish cause; a curious decision, in light of the recent battle. Edward arrived too late to catch Bruce, who took to the hills and left the town of Ayr in flames. He had to content himself with seizing Bruce’s castle of Lochmaben (pictured), which fell to the English on 3 September. 

Edward had already split his army. The infantry were in Carlisle, while a company of men-at-arms had been sent off under Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, to ravage Perth and St Andrews. Lacy also took Cupar castle: it was later noted that William Ramsay, a Scot admitted to royal wages, had been ‘one of the keepers of Cupar Castle in Fife, at the time when the castle surrendered to the earl of Lincoln at the end of July 1298’.