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.