Wine to the infantry...or not

One of the most notorious episodes in the Falkirk campaign of 1298 was the revolt of Welsh infantry in the army of Edward I. The story goes that the army was starving at Kirkliston, west of Edinburgh, thanks to the non-arrival of supply ships from Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. When a few ships did get through, they were only carrying two hundred barrels of wine, which were then issued to Welsh soldiers. The Welsh got drunk and rioted, so Edward sent in his household knights to restore order. Eighty Welshmen were killed, along with eighteen priests who had tried to mediate.

This story comes from the quill of Walter of Guisborough, a notable fantasist when it came to Welsh affairs. The actual evidence tells a different story. In July 1298 seventeen supply ships from Yorkshire arrived at Berwick. Only five of these reached the army at Kirkliston before the battle, fought on the 22. The inventory survives for the victuals aboard these ships, and reads as follows:

63 quarters of malt, 7 meat carcasses, 250 quarters of oats, 725 quarters of wheat.

As you can see, there was no wine; certainly not 200 barrels of the stuff, to the exclusion of all else. It also doubtful that anyone would have been stupid enough to issue wine to the infantry on empty stomachs. The above supplies have been calculated as enough to feed 20,000 men for a week. The payrolls for the army present a confused picture. A comparison of numbers for the Welsh contingents in July show an overall increase from 10,260 men to 10,584, but six of these contingents lost a total of 195 men in the same period.

By the usual standards of desertion and ‘natural wastage’ in medieval armies, this wasn’t too alarming. Far more serious was the decrease in numbers among the English infantry. For the period up to 20 July infantry numbers reached a peak of 25,781. In the next 24 hours - before the battle - there was a drop of over 3000 to 22,497. It seems desertion was reaching chronic levels, and the battle occurred just in time to prevent the army falling apart.