Peace talks

On 30 October 1300 Edward I concluded a truce with the Scots, through the mediation of Philip le Bel of France, to last until 21 May 1301. This was the first time Edward had agreed to a truce in Scotland, and shows the effectiveness of Scottish resistance after 1296.

According to Rishanger, during the peace talks Edward had threatened to “set light to Scotland from sea to sea” and force the people into submission. This was hardly the language of diplomacy, and most unlikely since the talks ended in a temporary peace. The quote makes for good copy, but is yet another example of monkish chroniclers adding the spicy sauce of invention to the dull pottage of humdrum politics. Or something like that: feel free to invent your own metaphor, because mine is awful.

Edward was certainly in a vile mood, but his rage wasn’t directed at the Scots. He had made some tactical gains on his summer campaign in 1300, but was forced to make peace after his army fell apart. This was due to the mass desertion of the English infantry, which did more to scupper the campaign than the ineffectual efforts of the Guardians under the Earl of Buchan. By early September Edward had just 500 infantry left from the 9000 that had mustered at Carlisle a few weeks earlier.

Why did the infantry desert? There were the usual supply problems, which meant their wages were often overdue. Many were drawn from the northern counties, and preferred to stay at home to protect their families than march about Galloway with the king. While the gentry class in England were still keen on the Scottish war, enthusiasm among the commons had drained away since the first heady rush of war in 1296.

A revealing order went out in July 1300, when the campaign was still in progress. Edward sent a furious letter to the sheriffs in England, ordering them to imprison those bailiffs and ministers responsible for raising infantry: they had, the king claimed, caused a great part of his infantry to desert ‘by malice among themselves’, which suggests some kind of conspiracy. Possibly Edward was just being paranoid, though it is known that local officials were frequently bribed to excuse men from military service.

Lord Hunsdon

The king particularly blamed the men of the county of York, and this wasn’t the last time Yorkshiremen were suspected of a lack of enthusiasm. A later Warden of the East March, Lord Hunsdon, once caustically remarked that the army of York would not have ‘put their noses over Doncaster bridge’ if others hadn’t ‘beaten the bush for them’.

Team Guardian

On 8 August 1300 the main body of the English army reached the estuary of the Cree in southwest Scotland. The previous day this had been the scene of a skirmish between the Scots and an English foraging party, which ended with the capture of several Scottish knights. Piers Gaveston, Edward II’s future best friend, had sampled the waters of the Cree when his horse was killed under him.

Facing the English, on the western bank of the Cree, was a Scottish army. They were led by the brand-new team of Guardians; the Earl of Buchan, Ingram de Umfraville and John ‘the Red Comyn’ of Badenoch. This was an interesting phase in Scottish leadership: Sir William Wallace was relegated to the sidelines after his defeat at Falkirk, and Robert de Bruce had recently been sacked as Guardian in favour of Umfraville. The defence of Scotland was now in the hands of the Comyn faction.

After the disaster at Falkirk, the general policy of the Scots between 1298-1314 was to avoid open battle. In August 1300 Buchan and his lieutenants decided to risk a confrontation with Edward I, possibly in the hope that a victory would not only end the war, but shove Bruce into his box forever. The omens were not especially good: Buchan’s men had come off worst in skirmishes over the past couple of days, and the high desertion rate of Edward’s infantry still left the small matter of 2000 English knights and men-at-arms to deal with.

Edward also wanted a battle, but wasn’t about to rush into anything. At low tide some of his infantry crossed the ford and exchanged missiles with the Scots. The Prince of Wales rode up and down the bank, watching the skirmish with interest. The king ordered his vanguard to cross the ford. Then he was informed the Scots meant to lure him into an ambush, so he stopped and told the Earl of Hereford to recall the infantry. The footsoldiers mistook Hereford’s approach for the signal to attack, and charged the Scots. Their comrades on the other side rushed over to help, led by Prince Edward at the head of his Castilian lancers.

Edward senior had gone back to his pavilion. A galloper came tearing up to inform him that his only adult male heir had just triggered a general engagement. Cursing, Edward scrambled onto his destrier and roared at Earl Warenne to get on parade. The rickety old Warenne, for whom Scotland was his own private hell, puffed and clambered aboard his horse and followed the king into battle; as he had done for much of the past forty years. Trumpets screamed, and together they led two divisions of cavalry down to the ford. At this point Scottish morale disintegrated.

When the king’s banner was seen advancing into the field - the “three leopards courant gold” - Buchan’s division collapsed and his men fled in all directions. Panic spread through the ranks, as it always did in medieval armies, and the other two divisions were “scattered in a moment like hares in front of greyhounds”. Struck by “excessive fear”, the Scots were driven as far ten leagues into the mountains and groves. Over four hundred were killed in the rout, and all their baggage and equipment fell into English hands. The only recorded casualty on the English side was the loss of a single horse, belonging to one Thomas de Kingsemuthe.

Though a humiliation for Team Guardian, the Cree was not a disaster. Edward had raised no Welsh infantry or light horse for this campaign, so was unable to pursue the Guardians further and wipe them out. Thus, the chronicler concluded, “victory was suspended on both sides”.

Skirmishes and ambuscades

After the siege of Caerlaverock in July 1300 the English moved west, along the southern Galloway coast. King Edward’s probable intention was to hunt down the Earl of Buchan, who held Cruggleton on the western banks of the Cree. Buchan was known to be in the area, trying to persuade those Gallovidians who supported Edward to switch to the Scots. The capture of Caerlaverock had strengthened the king’s hold over Galloway, and defeating Buchan would remove another threat.

Buchan seems to have tracked the progress of the English army. All he had to do was wait, as the English infantry were deserting in large numbers; of the 9000 who had originally mustered at Carlisle on 1 July, barely 4500 remained with the king by mid-August. There were no military police in the thirteenth century, and Edward had no means of preventing his footsoldiers from running off home.

Buchan was emboldened enough to go on the offensive. Between 6-9 August a number of skirmishes were fought at the mouth of the river Fleet, where the English men-at-arms were presumably foraging for supplies. Among them was a young Gascon squire named Piers Gaveston, who lost his horse in the fighting. Otherwise these tentative forays were a disaster for the Scots; the marshal of Scotland, Sir Robert Keith, was captured along with Sir Thomas Soules, Robert Barde, William Charteris and Laurence Ramsay. These men, described by the king as some of his “worst enemies”, were sent off to prison in England. Robert Barde in particular was a useful catch, since he and his seven brothers had been wreaking havoc in the Marches.

The Scots then tried a stratagem. One of Buchan’s men approached an English earl and pretended to have deserted the Scots. The earl (which one isn’t stated) gave him command of two hundred soldiers, whom the Scot led into an ambush. Some of the English were killed, but the survivors managed to flee back to the king. Edward immediately sent out more men, who attacked the pursuing Scots and chased them off. According to Rishanger, Buchan’s men were ‘inebriati’, which can mean drunk or light-headed; possibly both. If they had been hitting the booze, that might explain the failure of the ambush.

Despite his victory, Edward was in no mood to celebrate:

“…the losses of the day distressed the king's heart, as what he had hoped for only barely succeeded.”*

The Scottish spy can possibly be identified as one Robert Skort, who was delivered from gaol in Cumberland on 9 September. Skort was described as a Scotsman who had come to the king’s peace on three occasions, and each time defected back to the Scots with information on the state of England. The jury found that he was a spy, but Skort was recommitted to gaol until the king was consulted. At the next gaol delivery, on 7 March 1300, Skort was found guilty of ‘divers robberies’ and hanged.

*Thanks to Rich Price for the translation from Rishanger.

The sea-girt land of marsh and wood

In July 1300, at the height of an especially wet Scottish summer, the siege of Caerlaverock began. The English herald provides a vivid description of the castle and its surroundings:

“Mighty was Caerlaverock Castle. Siege it feared not, scorned surrender —wherefore came the King in person. Many a resolute defender, well supplied with stores and engines, ‘gainst assault the fortress manned. Shield-shaped, was it. corner-towered, gate and draw-bridge barbican’d. strongly walled, and girt with ditches filled with water brimmingly. Ne’er was castle lovelier sited: westward lay the Irish Sea, north a countryside of beauty by an arm of sea embraced. On two sides, whoe’er approached it danger from the waters faced; nor was easier the southward — sea-girt land of marsh and wood: therefore from the east we neared it, up the slope on which it stood.”

The king divided his army into three squadrons, and the forest of silken banners and pennons made a splendid sight; “aglow was all that place with gold, silver and rich colours”. The herald dwelled on the courage of King Edward’s knights, but the poor bloody infantry were sent in first. They charged at the castle, “discharging arrows, bolts and stones against the hold”. After an hour of exchanging missiles with the defenders, many of the English footsoldiers were dead or maimed. The infantry had been deserting in droves ever since the campaign began - and no wonder, if this was the treatment they could expect.

Then the English knights went in. There was nothing subtle about the assault; they simply charged on foot and tried to batter down the gates. Stones were dropped on their heads; “as caps and helms would pound to dust, shatter shields and batter targes; kill and wound was now their lust.” The herald praises the courage of individual knights (but not the peasants, naturally). Sir Robert Willoughby disdained to carry a shield, and so took a crossbow bolt to the chest. Ralph de Gorges stood under a hail of rocks and ‘refused to depart’; a knight named ‘le Kirkbride’ was virtually buried under a hail of rocks, bolts and arrows. Sir Robert Tony, dressed all in white, managed to climb onto the rampart and fight the Scots hand to hand.

Among the host were some Breton knights, led by the king’s nephew John of Brittany. These men forced the gates - “fierce as mountain lions were they, and their weapons wielded well” - but were pushed back by the defenders.

While “the fray continued fierce day and night”, a monk of Durham named Brother Robert prepared four great war-engines that had been dragged up from Berwick. One of these was called Robinet and would be used again at the siege of Stirling. These engines battered the castle, “devastating in their action, such that neither fort nor tower could withstand their mighty pounding”.

At last the roof of the gatehouse was smashed in, and most of the exhausted defenders offered to surrender. One of the Scots raised a flag to signal parley, only to be shot through the hand and face by an enraged archer who had no desire to yield. He was a lone voice, and the others agreed to surrender Caerlaverock to the king’s “mercy and grace”. Around sixty Scots survived the siege. The constable, Walter Benechase, and eleven of his fellows were sent off to prison at Newcastle. The fate of the others is unknown, though some were probably hanged.Caerlaverock was then granted to Robert Clifford, after which the army departed:

“Then the war-wise King directed how the army should be led, by what roads and by what passes, through the hostile land ahead.”

Back to the border (6)

Two notable records exist of the English army that rumbled into the Scottish west march in the summer of 1300. One is the Galloway Roll, the earliest armorial of its type that records the names of 251 knights bachelor and men-at-arms and the retinues they served in. The other is The Siege of Caerlaverock, a lengthy rhyme, probably composed by a herald of the royal army, that describes the siege of Caerlaverock Castle near Dumfries.

A single copy of the Galloway Roll survives and is held at the College of Arms (pictured). The original is long gone, and the copy was made by Thomas Wriothesley, garter king of arms, in the early sixteenth century. The copy is still a remarkable document, a facsimile of an original roll that was drawn up just three weeks after the siege at Caerlaverock had ended. The herald probably drew up the roll by sight, and the timing suggests he witnessed the English army draw up for battle on the banks of the river Cree in August.

The arms on the rolls are blazoned (described) rather than drawn, which suggests that he quickly jotted down the arms he saw in each division before compiling a complete list later. Such visual identification would have come naturally to a practiced herald or minstrel. Many of the individuals named on the roll can be cross-referenced with other sources. John de Merk, for instance, had served as a centenar (mounted officer) of a thousand Cheshire infantry in the war in Wales in 1294-5. He served in Flanders in 1297 and at the battle of Falkirk in 1298, where his horse was killed under him when the English cavalry charged the Scottish schiltrons. John de Fulbourne had served at the head of a company of Anglo-Welsh infantry in Ireland, and been captured by the O’Connors; he was ransomed by the king just in time to be thrown into the Scottish wars.

The Galloway roll also gives a snapshot of the state of the English military ‘community’ at this time. By 1300 England had been at war, on and off, for almost thirty years. The survivors formed the nucleus of the English cavalry force; of the 251 named knights whose armes were blazoned, 78 were veterans whose record of service went all the way back to the first Welsh war of 1276. They were outnumbered two to one by relative newbies who had first served in the invasion of Scotland in 1296. Yet the latter could hardly be described as novices: between 1296-1300 the English were constantly at war in Scotland, Flanders and Gascony, so these boys had to grow up very quickly.

Back to the border (5)

Over the winter of 1299-1300, the English continued to lose ground in the western marches of Scotland. Their main problem was the Scottish garrison at Caerlaverock, which launched a series of attacks on the rival English garrison at Lochmaben, about seventeen miles to the north.

Caerlaverock

On 4 October 1299 the Scots sallied out of Caerlaverock and attempted to storm Lochmaben. Robert Felton, the English constable of Lochmaben, reported to Edward I that he had repelled the Scots and killed the constable of Caerlaverock, Robert Cunningham. As a symbol of his ‘great success’, Felton stuck Cunningham’s head on the great tower of Lochmaben.

Felton then gave the game away by admitting that he was unable to venture out of Lochmaben to buy a new robe for himself. If he had won such a great victory, why was he stranded inside his outpost, begging the king to come and rescue him? The payrolls for the English garrison paint an equally bleak picture. Between 28 September and 19 October, their numbers were cut from a total strength of 303 to 141, including the loss of several officers. Between 20 October and 19 November this number was reduced again to 101.

The letter from Felton

It is always difficult to account for decrease in garrison numbers, but the likelihood is that most of these men were casualties. The slightly desperate tone of Felton’s letter, pleading with the king ‘to turn his face towards Scotland’, implies that Lochmaben was in serious danger.

Peter Langtoft, a rabidly pro-English chronicler, poured scorn on the garrison at Caerlaverock. He claimed it was a ‘poor little castle’ occupied by a few insignificant ‘ribalds’. On the contrary, it was an important Scottish strongpoint and a major thorn in the side of the English in the west.

Edward was certainly under no illusions. As early as late August 1299 - even before he received Felton’s report - the king placed Sir John Dolive in charge of the construction of siege engines at Carlisle. These were intended for the assault on Caerlaverock in the summer and named Belfry, Multon and the Cat. Belfry was an enormous siege tower and, along with War-Wolf, would become one of Edward’s favourite toys. When in doubt, build a really big siege tower.

Longsword 5!

The fifth instalment in my Longsword series - Longsword (V): The King’s Rebels - is now available on Kindle pre-order - release date 1 November!

1277 AD. England prepares for war. Prince Llywelyn of Wales refuses to swear loyalty to the king, Edward I, and dreams of independence for his country. To defy the might of the English crown, Llywelyn will need allies. He looks to the west, to Ireland, where the rebellious Clan MacMurrough plan to set up their chieftain as High King. Together, the Welsh and Irish leaders plan to drive Edward’s forces from their land.

Sir Hugh Longsword is summoned by the king to deal with the crisis. With enemies at home thirsting for his blood, he is only too grateful to be sent to Ireland. There he encounters the galloglass, ferocious Gaelic warriors who will fight to the last man on the battlefield. Hugh has survived civil war in England, but will need all his skill and experience to survive the hell of Irish warfare.

Meanwhile an old friend is at work in Wales. Emma, the girl Hugh once rescued, is also working as a spy for the crown. As he fights in Ireland, she is ordered to break up the confederacy of Welsh princes. United, the king’s rebels may well be strong enough to overcome the English. Divided, King Edward can pick them off one by one. Yet, even as the clouds of war gather on every front, an old threat lurks in the background… 

Longsword V: The King’s Rebels is the latest historical adventure novel by David Pilling, author of Reiver, Soldier of Fortune, The Half-Hanged Man, Caesar’s Sword and many more novels and short stories.

Longsword (V): The King's Rebels on Amazon US

Longsword (V): The King's Rebels on Amazon UK

Back to the border (4)

On 10 May 1300 the Scottish parliament held at Rutherglen broke up due to the non-appearance of the Earl of Buchan, because he was “away in Galloway to treat with the Gallovidians”. Without his presence and other “great men of Scotland”, there was no point in the assembly going ahead, so it was adjourned until December.

Caerlaverock

This was all contained in a report from Sir John Kingston, the English constable of Edinburgh castle, to Edward I. Buchan was trying to win the loyalty of the Gallovidians, who had always resisted attempts by the kings of Scots to do away with their separate laws and customs: it wasn’t just the Plantagenets and the Capets who sought to stamp their authority on neighbouring regions in this era.

In 1296 Edward had tried to exploit this separatism by wheeling out Thomas of Galloway, bastard son of the last ‘Celtic’ lord of Galloway, who had been in prison for sixty years. The poor old sod was eighty-eight years old. Edward sent him home to Galloway with a charter of liberties on offer to the men of Galloway, calculated to win their support for the English crown. The ploy succeeded to an extent as the most important families in Galloway, the MacCanns and the MacDoualls, fought for Edward in the next decade. That said, many other Gallovidians joined William Wallace.

Chuck Heston

The charter of liberties was one of Edward’s favourite strategems. After the second conquest of Wales in 1295 he undermined the Marcher lords by issuing similar charters to Welsh communities; it was an easy way to win the popular vote while making his political opponents look like petty tyrants.

Sir William Wallace

In this context, the king must have been alarmed to hear of Buchan sowing seeds in Galloway. Control of the western marches of Scotland was already in flux, with two competing wardens and rival garrisons at Lochmaben and Dumfries (English) and Caerlaverock (Scottish). Edward had been aware of the threat of Caerlaverock since 1299, when he ordered siege engines to be constructed to reduce the castle.

With all the above at stake, there was nothing else for it: the sixty-one year old king had to strap on that damned dirty armour yet again and haul his ageing guts up to the border.*

 *The ‘damned dirty armour’ is a quote from Charlton Heston in The War Lord, hence the pic.

Back to the border (3)

One of the problems with maintaining garrisons in Scotland - or anywhere a long way from one’s economic base - was lack of supplies. In medieval England food was raised for soldiers in wartime via the laws of purveyance and prise. What were these? In brief:

Purveyance: the king’s agents take all your food and goods and promise to pay for it later.

Prise: they take all your food and goods and don’t pay for it at all. Hence the term to ‘prise’ or exact.

In 1300 the English garrisons in the Scottish west march were suffering from a lack of victuals. On 2 May Edward I wrote to his treasurer, expressing concern that the supplies at Carlisle were nearly all used up. Therefore the treasurer was to order purveyance in Ireland, to be sent to Carlisle by 24 June. In the last decade of the reign Edward turned increasingly to Ireland to shore up his position in Scotland, milking the country of men, money and food.

The Scots did their best to make the situation worse (or better from their point of view), attacking the already overstretched English supply lines. For instance, they ambushed a supply train on its way from Silloth, on the west coast of Carlisle, to the English garrison at Lochmaben castle (pictured). Two carts and seven horses were taken, along with a consignment of wine.

At the same time there were supply problems in the east. Edward’s position was technically strongest here, since he had garrisons at Berwick and Edinburgh. Yet in March the warden of the east march, Sir Robert Fitz Roger, reported his need of ‘a great store of victuals’ to support his men at Berwick and elsewhere. 

There was more bad news for the king. Skirmishes were fought against the Scots up and down the border line: one engagement at Hawick saw the English lose five horses. Outside of their fortified strongpoints, the English garrisons enjoyed little security. In May Sir John Kingston, the constable of Edinburgh castle, reported that the Scots had held a parliament at Rutherglen, south of Glasgow. This was deeply worrying for Edward: if his enemies could hold parliaments so far south, his control of the land really was slipping.

The bright spot for Edward was that the Guardians had fallen out with each other (again). This was probably another outbreak of the Bruce/Comyn feud, in which Sir John Comyn declared he would no longer serve as Guardian alongside Robert de Bruce and his supporters. The other Guardians agreed, and Bruce was ousted in favour of Ingram de Umfraville, a strong Balliol-Comyn supporter.

Even so, it was clear that Edward was going to have come north yet again to re-impose his authority. Like his cousin Philip le Bel in Flanders, he was finding out the hard way that it was one thing to occupy another country, quite another to hold it.

Back to the border (2)

John de St John’s appointment as warden of the Scottish west march in 1300 seems to have put his predecessor’s nose out of joint. This was Sir Robert Clifford, who had served as warden from 25 November 1298 until August 1299. Clifford was ordered to remain in service with thirty men-at-arms under St John, but had to be persuaded to stick around. He was paid a considerable sum of 500 marks for his service from January-June 1300, and allowed to lodge at the new houses he had built in the pele at Lochmaben.

Clifford was also permitted to leave if he had business elsewhere, but only with St John’s permission, and if he left enough men behind to guard the pele. This was no good from Edward I’s perspective: he needed men in Scotland who wanted to serve, not those who had to be forced.

Arms of Clifford

Thus, on 5 January, St John’s men were ordered to muster at Carlisle and “hold themselves in readiness”. What happened next has to be picked out of some very obscure accounts. On 14 February, at Westminster, the king gave offerings in his chapel “because of good rumours in Scotland”. This presumably relates to the actions of St John; the very next day he was ordered to keep at the king’s wages twenty or thirty men-at-arms and as many Irish hobelars as he needed.

On 1 March the new English offensive in Galloway was officially launched. Again a certain lack of enthusiasm can be detected. St John was ordered to “distrain, punish and amerce [fine] all persons who do not obey the summons of the said John to come to the defence of the marches and go against the enemy”. Despite his problems, St John got some results. On 11 March offerings were made in the chapel at Berwick for more “good rumours heard from Scotland”. This probably relates to the capture of Dumfries castle, which on 24 March was granted by the king to Sir John Dolive.

Otherwise it is difficult to know what St John got up to. On 22 April one of his messengers arrived at Westminster “hastily from parts of Scotland”. Perhaps he brought not-so-good rumours, but then a week later another messenger arrived “to reassure the king of the state of the march”.

Back to the border (1)

Shortly after the end of the war in Scotland in 1304, Stephen Brampton, the English constable of Bothwell, sought recompense from Edward I for his ‘painful’ service. Brampton claimed that he had defended Bothwell against the Scots for a year and nine weeks, until all the garrison were dead except himself and a few companions. These were kept in ‘dure prison’ in Scotland for three years.

This probably relates to the year 1300, when the Scots took Stirling, the key to the Forth. It would make sense for them to march onto Bothwell afterwards, and the siege may have begun sometime between January-April 1300. Edward’s intention to campaign in Scotland in 1299, aborted because most of his infantry deserted, gave the Scots a breathing space.

From January 1300 the gears of the English war-machine started to grind again. On 5 January the king wisely appointed John de St John as constable of the troubled West March, where English control was fragile: there was also a competing Scottish constable in the shape of Sir Adam Gordon (no relation to the famous outlaw Adam Gurdon of Hampshire). St John was one of Edward’s most competent lieutenants, and the king had paid an eye-watering ransom of £5000 to get him back from a French prison. St John and his colleague John of Brittany returned from Gascony in time to fight at Falkirk.

St John was given some intriguing private instructions. On 25 September he was paid over £413 in ‘secret expenses’ for performing some mysterious task, probably involving cloaks and daggers. Both English and Scots made effective use of spies, including women and children: one particularly enterprising ‘boy’ seems to have taken money from both sides.

St John also possessed a degree of charm, sorely lacking in most of Edward’s officials in Scotland. The gentry of Gascony had fond memories of his time as seneschal, and flocked to his banner when St John arrived in the duchy to repel the French: they even named a town after him on the edge of the Pyrenees. After the excesses of the vile Cressingham, Edward may have hoped St John would perform a similar trick north of the border.

Foix the fail

Gaston I of Foix-Béarn was the 9th Count of Foix and 22nd Viscount of Béarn as well as Co-Prince of Andorra, a landlocked microstate in the Pyrenees sandwiched between France and Spain. His father was Roger the Dodger alias Count Roger-Bernard III of Foix-Béarn, and his mother Marguerite, daughter of the notorious Gaston de Béarn who gave Henry III, Simon de Montfort, Edward I and Philip III so much trouble before he was finally ‘persuaded’ to go to the Holy Land.

Gaston’s namesake and grandson was a chip off the old rotten block. After the final peace was declared between England and France in 1303, he chose to revive his dynastic feud against the house of Armagnac, which had gone into abeyance during the Anglo-French war. He bided his time and finally took up arms in August 1305, just when it looked as though Gascony might recover from the years of conflict. The seneschal, John de Havering, was entertaining the pope at Bordeaux when news reached him of the invasion of Armagnac. A memorandum survives in the form of a medieval ‘newsletter’, describing the outbreak of war:

Item: the lord seneschal, in the city of Bordeaux, received reliable reports that on the 16th day of August the count of Foix had entered the territory of the count of Armagnac with a very great host of armed men, ravaging the said count's homeland and holdings with murder, plundering, and the burning of castles, towns and churches within the realm of the said lord king and duke, in contempt of his kingly honour.

Havering summoned his council. This included the Savoyard knight Othon de Grandson, Edward I’s long-term friend and one of the few survivors of the Bridge of Boats in North Wales in 1282. The Foix-Armagnac war was a far more serious affair than the recent Albert-Caumont affair, and so Havering decided to lead the police operation in person. He raised an army of at least 370 Gascon nobles and their retinues, probably the largest field army seen in Gascony since Henry III’s expedition in 1253.

The seneschal marched against Gaston, ‘to defeat the rebels, to rout these enemies and to set right the aforesaid outrages’. Gaston quickly realised his mistake: his father had profited while England and France were at war, but in time of peace there was no way of playing off one kingdom against another. To save himself he adopted his grandfather’s policy of squealing to a higher authority. As the memorandum states:

When the lord seneschal of Gascony came on with the above-mentioned army in pursuit of the count of Foix and his accomplices, the count foresaw that he could not well escape it, and that he would be taken prisoner and destroyed because of his crimes and outrages. To avoid imminent danger and irresistible ruin, he requested the lord pope, through the mediation of the countess his mother, the countess of Bearn, the lady Constance, his sister, and many nobles on behalf of the said count, to deign to intervene to make peace; he, favouring their supplications, and with the advice of his college, stilled and checked the aforesaid war by the means he proposed, to wit that the count of Foix would, before a set date, cause all the harm which had been done by him or carried out in whatever way by his order in the aforesaid region of Armagnac, to be compensated.

Thus Gaston threw himself on the mercy of Pope Clement, who agreed to protect him from Havering’s wrath so long as he paid war damages. And so all was quiet again. For a while.

Clement attitudes

In June 1305 the cardinals at Rome finally agreed to the election of Cardinal Bertand de Got as Pope Clement V. The conclave had been torn apart (again) by rows between French and Italians, Black Guelphs and White, Colonna and Caetani, so the election of Bertrand was a necessary compromise. As a Gascon, he stood aloof from Italian quarrels, and his French sympathies were neatly divided: he was both a subject of Edward I, in the latter’s capacity as Duke of Gascony, and on very friendly terms with Philip le Bel. A mild, clubbable, tea-with-vicar sort of chap.

His first act as pope was to visit his old see at Bordeaux, the capital of Gascony. The seneschal, John de Havering, who had only just crushed a private war in the duchy, tore off his helmet and quickly donned the hat marked ‘diplomacy’ instead. He decided to send a team of envoys to meet Clement at the frontier, presumably to stall him while the English scrambled to make Bordeaux fit for a pope. His expenses included four pieces of rich cloth, two of “cameline’” and two striped, and two lengths of green “sindon” for linings. These were to make robes for himself, his escort of eight knights, and the mayor of Bordeaux.

When the English met the new pope at Saintes, it became clear an even larger armed guard was necessary. Among Clement’s retinue were several French nobles. These included Charles of Valois, who had conquered much of Gascony for the French in 1294 and was hated by the people of Bordeaux for the cruelties he had inflicted on them - the old story of conquerors and oppressed. To save these men from having their throats cut, Havering had to guard them all the way from Saintes to Bordeaux, “benignly, honourably and in quiet”. Throughout their stay at the capital the streets were policed day and night, in case the Bordelais rose up and tried to kill Havering’s French guests. Then word arrived that another private war had erupted in southern Gascony.

Charles of Valois

Mortimer antics

A petition from 1322:

THE WELSH LIEGEMEN OF THE COMMUNITY OF WEST WALES TO THE KING AND COUNCIL:

The lord the King, father of the present King, after the conquest of Wales granted them their laws and customs which they had before the conquest, which are called Cyfraith Hywel, and which they and their ancestors have used in all particulars until the thirteenth year of the present King [1319-20] when Roger de Mortimer, former Justice of Wales, had before him in his Sessions at Llanbadarn, Cardigan, Carmarthen, and Emlyn, introduced the law of England which is unfamiliar to your liege people and entirely contrary to their laws and usages, to the great loss and disinheritance of the same. And the present Justice and Rees ap Gruffydd introduced them in the same manner, as did Sir Roger de Mortimer; wherefore all the people of those parts feel themselves seriously aggrieved, and pray the King that they may have their laws and customs in all particulars as he had granted them after the conquest and that the Justice be commanded to do thus, otherwise they cannot live in those parts.

The petition goes on to list more specific grievances, such as the constables of royal castles in Wales taking beasts without warrant, Welsh people being forced to perform labour services etc.

This is one of a stream of complaints from Wales submitted to the parliament of 1321-22. They were all aimed at the abuses committed by Roger Mortimer of Chirk, Justice of Wales, and his nephew Roger Mortimer (the more famous one, executed in 1330). Edward II had previously granted relief from these oppressions in the parliament of 1316 (attached), but it seems the Mortimers chose to ignore the mandate. This is another example of royal ministers doing as they liked in Wales, regardless of what the king said.

The 1316 instruction contains details of the native laws that the Mortimers had repealed in favour of English law. They were:

Amobr: payment due to the lord when a maiden was married or otherwise lose her maidenhood.

Blodwyte: a fine for shedding blood, derived from Anglo-Saxon law.

Gwestfa: a food render supplied to the princely court.

Surprisingly, one of the ministers accused of abuses and removing Welsh law was Rhys ap Gruffudd, a Welsh knight. Overall it seems the Mortimers attempted to govern Wales as a semi-independent state, which fits with their ambitions and antics in this era.

Moved by pity

A petition dated c.1307-9:

IORWERTH AP LLYWELYN AND OTHERS TO THE KING AND COUNCIL:

Iorwerth ap Llywelyn and Gruffith ap Adam and Howel ap Adam, heirs of Adam ap David of the County of Meryonneth, that their fathers, in the time of Llywelyn, formerly Prince of Wales, and before the conquest, and in this time of war deceased; whence their lands were extended at the extent and true value; afterwards the King, moved by pity, with regard to the lands of any who were killed or died by any other death against the King in his wars of Wales, by his grace pardoned [gap in letter] granting their lands to men of this sort on better conditions than their fathers and ancestors held them before. Now, however, in spite of the King’s grace, the heirs are constrained by the King’s bailiffs and ministers further to pay that heavy extent, and also the usual extent to which their fathers in their time were wont to pay. Wherefore they pray the King to provide suitable remedy for this.

This relates to the war of Madog ap Llywelyn in 1294-5. According to the Record of Caernarvon, Edward I twice issued a general amnesty towards the heirs of those Welshmen who had died fighting against him: once in 1283, after the capture of Prince Dafydd, and once in 1295, after the defeat of Madog. Whether the king was ‘moved by pity’, or a practical desire to settle Wales as quickly as possible, is a moot point. There was certainly no large-scale expropriation of land from the gentry or uchelwyr class.

Interestingly, this petition and others state that the heirs were granted their lands on more favourable terms than their ancestors had held them under the native princes. This meant reducing the initial rate of payment initially assessed after the conquest. The ‘extent’ referred to is the rent money. However, the king’s ministers then ignored the royal mandate and started demanding the initial rent, and on top of that the rent paid while Prince Llywelyn was still alive. This was fairly typical of English royal government in Wales, in which the administration at local level tended to treat the king's instructions as interesting suggestions.

The petitioners were told to bring their complaints before the Chamberlain, but then the trail runs cold.

Another old soldier

Another petition from an old Welsh soldier, c.1322-34:

RIRID AP CARWET TO THE KING AND COUNCIL:

He served King Edward I in Aragon, Gascony and other places and lands loyally all his days. The said King, after his conquest in the parts of North Wales, ordained and granted to all freemen of those parts to hold from that time forward their lands and tenements of which they were then seised in the same manner as they held them before, as is contained in the Statute of Rhuddlan. Ririd, a free tenant of the King, by this grant, this statute and his ancient seisin, held peaceably after the conquest a fishery near Aberglaslyn in the commote of Eifionydd, as his father and ancestors held it all their times, which fishery is situated in a fresh water river running there, lying between the lands of Ririd on the one part and the other. Notwithstanding this statute, Sir William Trumwyn, formerly sheriff of Caernarvon, came and, without any trespass or forfeit of Ririd, wrongfully and voluntarily deprived and diseissed him of his fishery and took it into the King’s hands; so that from that time, from year to year, the King had received all the issues of the fishery and Riris has been entirely deprived of the same. For which wrong Ririd seeks a remedy.

This is essentially another complaint against Roger Mortimer of Chirk, who held the office of Justice in Wales from 1308-15 and then again from 1316-22. Trumwyn was sheriff of Caernarvon from 1309-14, and would have deprived Ririd of his land under Mortimer’s auspice. Edward II’s response to Ririd’s plea was vague, and it may be the king wished to avoid offending Mortimer. For all his apparent popularity in Wales, Edward had no qualms about re-appointing a notoriously corrupt and oppressive nobleman to govern the Welsh. 

Ririd must have been getting on in years. His claim to have served in Aragon can only relate to 1282-3, when Philip III of France summoned Edward I as his vassal to do military service against the king of Aragon. In 1283 troops were raised in Bordeaux for the campaign, though it isn’t clear whether any were actually sent to Aragon. If Ririd’s petition is correct, at least one Welshman made his way over the Pyrenees (pictured above).

Petitions, petitions

The Calendar of Ancient Petitions relating to Wales contains - as the title suggests - lots of petitions from Welsh individuals and communities to the crown dating from the mid-1200s to the end of the 15th century. They give an insight into the concerns of people a bit lower down the social ladder than the usual lords and princes. They contain some epic family sagas. For instance:

‘Gronow Loit ap y Penwyn to the King and Council: His father served the dead King in the conquest of Wales, and afterwards Thudur, petitioner’s brother, the present King’s esquire, was killed in the battle of Stirling in his service, and also Gronow himself was twice in his expeditions of war and will always be ready, as a faithful and loyal man, for all his commands; wherefore he prays the King to grant him, before all others and for whatever term he shall please, the manor and the mill of Tryverew (Trefriw) in Nantconwy with their appurtenances, at the farm extended in the Exchequer of Caernarvon’.

It is useful to cross-reference these petitions with other records. The Calendar of Fine Rolls states that Gronow’s father, Iorwerth Penwyn, worked as a labourer on Edward I’s castles in North Wales for 86 weeks from November 1285-July 1287, at a wage of 16d (pence) per week. He held the rhaglawry (bailiff) and havotry (cattle farm) of Nantconwy, but after his death these were re-granted to William Schaldeford of Anglesey.

Why did Gronow’s sons not inherit? The Fine Rolls record that William Schaldeford was the lieutenant of Roger Mortimer - he of Mortimer and Isabella fame - and that Gronow and his brothers were robbed of their land by the dastardly Mortimer and his accomplice. This is one of many complaints levied by Welsh communities against Mortimer, a grasping individual even by the standards of his family.

In 1330, after Mortimer fell from power, Gronow came before Edward III and submitted the petition above. It was found that his family had done good service to all three Edwards, and that his brother Thudur had been killed at Bannockburn, or the battle of Stirling as it was known. Gronow was re-granted the rhaglawry of Nantconwy, as well as the havotry at Dolwyddelan, and the mill and demesne lands at Penmachno. He was still farming six acres at Penmachno in 1352.

Little wars

In the summer of 1305 the seneschal of Gascony, John de Havering, was engaged in suppressing a private war between Amanieu d’Albret and the Sire de Caumont. Full details survive for this little campaign, which gives us an insight into how ducal armies were raised and maintained in this era. The war was ignored by chroniclers, possibly because it was an internal affair and shed no particular glory on anyone.

Havering was a no-bullshit government hatchet man who had captured Madog ap Llywelyn in Wales and engineered the recapture of Bordeaux. He raised an army made up of reliable loyalists, most of whom had spent years in exile in England during the Anglo-French war. Such men were unlikely to accept bribes or stab Havering in the back.

The soldiers these men brought are styled in the rolls as ‘militibus’ (knights), ‘scutiferis’ (esquires) and ‘servientibus’ (foot-sergeants). The details of each lord and the strength of his retinue are provided, such as: 

Bernard Trencaléon, twenty-three esquires and thirty sergeants

Auger de Pouillon, thirty-four foot-sergeants 

Assieu de Galard, eighteen esquires and twenty-five foot-sergeants

Etcetera. Havering gave command of the army to Pons de Castillon, who brought two knights and twelve esquires in his company. The terms of payment are also listed. A baron who served with horses and arms got 4 shillings a day; the knights 2 shillings; the esquires 12 pence; the foot-sergeants 2 pence. Twopence a day was roughly the same earned by a common labourer in this era, so the ordinary soldier wouldn’t expect to get very fat on his wages alone. Hence all the pillaging.

Once he was suited and booted, Pons set off on his mission. First he marched to La Réole on the bank of the Garonne, southeast of Bordeaux. This was always a nest of potential rebels, and Pons saw fit to grab it before the citizens went into revolt. He then marched to the Albret and Caumont strongholds of Casteljaloux and Le Mas, arrested both lords and seized their castles. Albret was imprisoned at Bordeaux and Caumont at La Réole. Meanwhile other ‘malefactors, rebels and disturbers of the peace’ were mopped up and detained in other strongholds held by the king-duke.

The entire operation took twenty-six days and cost a total of £486 and 13 shillings. Much of this expense was taken up by the loss of a single war-horse, which cost £300. A palfrey was also killed, valued at 70 livres tournois. Otherwise the ducal force suffered no casualties.

Job done.

Robber knights

In May 1305 a private war erupted in Gascony between the lords of Albret and Caumont. John de Havering, Edward I’s seneschal, reported that ‘the whole duchy was thrown into disorder’ and set about raising an army to quell the disturbance.

The trouble quickly spread to Poitou, Saintonge, Périgord, the Toulousain and Commines. Other families got involved, jumping in one side or another, until Havering was forced to send messengers to the French seneschals of neighbouring areas. They were asked to prevent men-at-arms from those regions from converging on Gascony ‘by reason of the aforesaid wars’.

This was nothing new. Gascony had always been a troublesome, war-torn place. In March 1250 Simon de Montfort, then seneschal, wrote to warn Henry III of the antics of Gascon gentry:

‘...for they will do nothing but rob the lands, and burn and plunder, and put the people to ransom, and ride by night like thieves by thirty or forty in different parts’.

Part of the problem was the slackening of the crusading effort against the infidel. Members of the Gascon nobility had been prominent in the Reconquista in Spain, and the decline of military action on the Iberian peninsula after 1264 left them at a loose end. A few chose to go to Outremer, even after the fall of the last Christian strongholds. As late as 1319 the countess of Foix, Margaret, paid a Béarnais noble of her family to serve in the Holy Land.

The other problem was the proliferation of younger sons among the lesser Gascon gentry. Inheritance laws in the duchy were complex, and cadet or bastard sons often had little to do except fight, booze and screw. Since they were all gentry, these robber knights were often protected by their kinsmen. In 1311, for instance, an outlaw nicknamed ‘Burd’, bastard son of Amanieu de Fossat, was spared the gallows because his father was lieutenant to the seneschal.

The over-population of young gentry folk in Gascony was a serious issue. Castles and manor houses were often shared, which led to some awkward living arrangements. A notarial instrument of April 1288 records that one Raymond-Guillaume was to inherit the hall and living quarters of his father’s castle, while his brother Guillaume was to have the tower. Both were forbidden from making windows, apparently so they didn’t have to look at each other. This custom of shared accommodation, called ‘Condominium’, often led to disputes and yet more private wars.