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.