English Bob

 

In March 1302 Robert de Bruce was at Linlithgow, in the company of Sir Robert Clifford and Sir John de St John. These were two of Edward I's knights: Clifford had been in possession of Caerlaverock castle since 1300, while St John was the English seneschal of Galloway. 

As described previously, Bruce had recently abandoned the Balliol Scots and joined Edward. St John had taken Bruce's surrender in the king's name, but the three men soon went their separate ways. Shortly afterwards Bruce was at Maybole grange, where he acknowledged that he would no longer ask the tenants of Roxburgh abbey to serve with him in a Scottish army going 'abroad'. This could mean south of the border or overseas. Instead they would only be asked to serve in the defence of the realm. 

In context, that meant Edward's realm of Scotland. Bruce was now a part of the English establishment, drawing upon English money and supplies to maintain himself. While Edward may not have trusted Bruce entirely, this was no great surprise. Bruce was no more or less trustworthy than any other nobleman, in either kingdom. After almost fifty years in politics, it is doubtful that Edward trusted anyone besides the men he raised to power. These were the likes of Robert Burnell and Walter Langton, of relatively low birth, who owed everything to royal favour. 

Even so, Bruce had to be kept sweet. He was granted a very useful marriage to Elizabeth de Burgh, daughter of Edward's chief ally in Ireland, the earl of Ulster. Liz was played by Florence Pugh (pictured) in Outlaw King.

A kerfuffle in Galloway

Sometime between November 1299-May 1300, Robert de Bruce resigned his position as Guardian of Scotland. This was due to the potential return of John Balliol as King of Scots, which ran counter to Bruce's own desire to be king. 

Not that Bruce had abandoned the Scottish cause (or at least, not yet). He was still prepared to summon his men to defend Scotland against Edward I: for instance, he frequently called up his tenants of Melrose abbey, inside the lordship of Carrick, to do this service. 

Even so, Bruce's decision must have dismayed his friends. While he held the post of Guardian, there was a counter-balance to the Comyn faction. Now Bruce had stepped down, the Comyns reigned supreme. 

This was the situation when Edward came north again in the summer of 1300. On this occasion his intention was not to 'conquer Scotland', as such, but to reinforce the fragile English hold on Galloway in the south-west. The constable of the English garrison at Lochmaben (a former Bruce castle) had appealed desperately to the king for aid, especially against the threat of the rival Scottish garrison at Caerlaverock (pictured). 

The conflict in Galloway is a fascinating sub-plot of the Scottish wars. Edward had previously tried to exploit political divisions by restoring Thomas of Galloway, a bastard son of the last Celtic lord of Galloway, to power. Thomas had lain in a Scottish prison for over sixty years, and we can imagine the state of the poor befuddled old chap, tottering off home with a charter of liberties thrust into his hands. Once he had served his purpose, Thomas was yanked back into custody and probably died in prison. 

Edward's policy worked to an extent, and he enjoyed the consistent support of two important local kindreds, the MacCans and the Macdoualls: it should be remembered that Galloway was not an integral part of Scotland at this time, and many of the local dynasties never accepted the Bruce kings. 

Just to complicate matters further, Galloway was also important to the Comyn faction: many of Balliol's demesne lands had been held there, so control of the region was as vital to them as it was to the English.

A Bruce on a limb

 

August 1299. After Robert de Bruce and John Comyn had stopped trying to throttle each other, the Scottish assembly at Peebles split up. This was due to an urgent letter, informing them that certain Scots loyal to Edward I were ravaging northern Scotland. 

The 'certain Scots' were Sir Alexander Comyn, brother of the Earl of Buchan, and Lachlan MacRuarie. Comyn remained in English allegiance all through 1296-1304, while Lachlan was a west Highland captain of gallowglass infantry. Ironically, in 1297 he and his kinsmen had attacked the lands of Edward's ally, Alexander MacDonald of Islay. Now it was all change.

Apart from the unseemly Bruce-Comyn brawl, the Scottish position was otherwise reasonably secure. The Comyns were able to appoint a Scottish sheriff of Roxburgh, to harass English garrisons in the south-east and even carry war into northern England. The English, meanwhile, had no-one in overall charge of those parts of Scotland under their control. Edward had gone south after the battle of Falkirk, leaving two royal lieutenants whose position was only temporary.

From Bruce's perspective, however, this was no good at all. His rivals, the Comyn faction, were now dominating affairs in Scotland. John Comyn in particular was the effective head of Scottish resistance to Edward I, and it was he who decided military strategy. Bruce, in contrast, was stuck out on a limb.

The awkwardness of his situation was emphasised in a letter sent by the Guardians to Edward in November 1299, agreeing to his truce. This was sent in the names of the 'guardians of the kingdom of Scotland in the name of the renowned prince, the lord John, illustrious king of Scotland, chosen by the community of the said kingdom...'

In other words, the Comyns were now in charge, and they wanted the restoration of the exiled King of Scots, John Balliol. Once he returned - and this was a very real possibility - Bruce's driving ambition to become king would be ruined forever. 

Quibbling lawyers

In January 1303 the citizens of Bordeaux rose up and drove out the French after a nine-year occupation. Bordeaux, the chief city of Gascony and centre of the lucrative wine trade, had been seized by the French after the outbreak of war between France and England in 1294. 

The king of France, Philip the Fair, had attempted to redirect the trade from London to Paris. This failed when the local merchants refused to give up their lucrative trade with England. So, despite being under occupation, the city continued to trade with the English and Edward I.

Philip's conquest of Gascony failed due to a number of reasons. He was overstretched, forced to recall his field army from the duchy (tucked away in south-west France) to fight Edward's allies in Flanders and the Low Countries. The French were not popular in Gascony, where most of the nobility considered themselves independent from Paris. To keep the troublesome citizens in line, Philip took hostages from the wealthier families and imprisoned them in filthy conditions, where many died. Unsurprisingly, this did nothing to improve his popularity. 

In early 1303, after several failed revolts, the citizens finally succeeded in driving out the French. They were encouraged by the battle of Courtrai, fought in Flanders in July 1302, where the French field army crashed to a shock defeat at the hands of Flemish militia. This disaster obliged Philip to throw all his resources at the Flemings, which loosened his already fragile grip on Gascony.

Edward I had already tried to exploit the situation. In August 1302, a few weeks after Courtrai, he sent a new English seneschal to Gascony in anticipation of a revolt. His agents probably made contact with the dissidents in Bordeaux. They were led by a charismatic, violent character named Arnaud Caillau, head of an important local family. 

The French were swept out of Bordeaux with surprising ease. The only serious resistance was offered by a French lawyer, who argued that Gascony rightfully belonged to King Philip. Arnaud tore out the luckless man's tongue and threw him out of an upper-storey window. So much for quibbling lawyers.

By 15 January Caillau was installed as mayor, but the English were not welcomed back immediately. Instead the citizens briefly flirted with the idea of converting Bordeaux into a city-republic, independent of both England and and France. This was not so far-fetched as it might sound: similar autonomous states were being set up in Flanders and northern Italy.

This idea was quashed by the arrival of an army from England, comprising over two thousand Gascon exiles loyal to Edward I. These men had spent the past nine years living on the king's wages, and now he expected them to return the favour.

The Bordelais bowed to pressure. Shortly afterwards one Raymond de Leun, citizen of Bordeaux, arrived at the English court to inform Edward the city had returned to Plantagenet allegiance. It would remain an English possession until the final French conquest of Gascony in 1453. 

A fistfight at Peebles

In August 1299 the Scottish army was camped in Selkirk Forest, poised to swoop down on the English garrison at Roxburgh. Then news arrived that the castle's defences were too strong to attack, despite the bishop of Glasgow's best efforts to undermine the walls from within. 

Nonplussed by this information, the Scots remained at Selkirk until 19 August. Then they moved onto Peebles, where they fell to arguing. The bone of contention was Sir William Wallace, even though the big man himself was sixty miles away, harassing the English garrison at Stirling. 

The row started when Sir David Graham, an ally of John Comyn, demanded the seizure of Wallace's lands and goods. This, he said, was because Wallace proposed to leave the kingdom without the permission or approval of the Guardians. Wallace's brother, Sir Malcolm, retorted that nothing should be taken because Wallace was leaving to work for the good of the kingdom. Both men called each other a liar and whipped out their daggers. 

Someone rushed off to inform the earl of Buchan and John Comyn that a fight had started. Comyn ran to the scene and took a flying leap at Robert de Bruce, seizing him by the throat. Buchan turned to the bishop of St Andrews and declared that treason and lesémajestie (a crime against the state or sovereign ruler) was being plotted. 

The root cause of this unseemly brawl was probably John Balliol's recent transfer into papal custody. Wallace's proposed trip abroad must have looked suspicious to the Comyns: they suspected he meant to gather support among the courts of Europe for placing Bruce on the vacant Scottish throne. 

In fact they were wrong. Despite his early alignment with Bruce, Wallace spent his time abroad in the company of Balliol supporters, and even visited Balliol himself. It seems Wallace had little time for aristocratic infighting, he just wanted to secure Scotland's independence. Whether that meant a Bruce or a Balliol on the throne (but maybe not a Comyn) didn't really matter. 

The man who would be king

The year 1299, while good for the Scots in general, was not good for Robert de Bruce. Even though he was co-Guardian of Scotland, Bruce was now faced with the threat of the return of John Balliol, the exiled King of Scots, with French military support. The restoration of Balliol would spell the end of his hopes of being king - and, dear God, did that man want to be king. 

It would also pose severe difficulties for his enemy, Edward I. Yet it was a case of guessing which way the King of France, Philip the Fair, would choose to jump. That was no mean feat: Philip was famously inscrutable and virtually impossible to second-guess. Hence his nickname (among others) of The Owl, after his unnerving habit of sitting in absolute silence on his throne, stern and unblinking.

After lengthy negotiations, Philip had just agreed to a permanent peace with Edward. To seal the deal, Edward agreed to marry Philip's sister Margaret (about forty years his junior) while his heir, Prince Edward, would marry the French king's daughter Isabella. 

In context, it seems difficult to believe that Philip would shatter the hard-won peace of two kingdoms, all for the sake of aiding the Balliol Scots. To send a French army to Scotland would mean reopening the war with England, almost immediately after both kings had agreed to bury the hatchet. While Philip held the advantage in Flanders and Gascony, his resources were severely overstretched, and only a fool would take such risks. Whatever else might be said about the Iron King, he was no fool. To reopen the war would also place Margaret and Isabella, held at the English court, in grave danger.

No doubt all these calculations passed through Bruce's able mind. Not that he was content to simply wait on events. While King Edward got to know his young French wife, Bruce harried the English garrison occupying his castle at Lochmaben.  

Then, in August 1299, Bruce went north to Glasgow to meet his fellow Guardian, Sir John Comyn, and an impressive array of Scottish nobles. Bruce was accompanied by Sir Malcolm Wallace, one of William's relatively obscure brothers. 

The aim of this meeting was to plan a campaign against the English garrisons in south-east Scotland. Comyn had already sent an advance party into Selkirk Forest, soon followed by the main Scottish force led by Bruce, Comyn, and the great earls and prelates. 

All was set for a major combined assault on Roxburgh. Bruce and Comyn, however, decided to fight each other instead. 

Eadric and the Welsh

Eadric 'the Wild' (otherwise called Wild Edric, Eadric Cild and Eadric the Forester) was an Anglo-Saxon thegn of Shropshire and Herefordshire who led a revolt against William the Conqueror. He allied with two Welsh princes, Bleddyn ap Cynfyn and his brother Rhiwallon, as well as English rebels from Cheshire. This post will look at Eadric and his Welsh allies.

Bleddyn and Rhiwallon were half-brothers of Gruffudd ap Llywelyn, the only High King of Wales (reigned 1055-1063). After the downfall of Gruffudd at the hands of Harold Godwinsson, the brothers were installed as co-rulers of Gwynedd by the English. Bleddyn also became king of Powys, and his descendents continued to rule as the House of Mathrafal. In exchange, Bleddyn and Rhiwallon submitted to Harold and swore homage and fealty to the king of England, Edward the Confessor. 

This relationship probably explains why they joined successive English revolts against the Normans, after Harold's death at the battle of Hastings. In 1067 they allied with Eadric and helped him to ravage Herefordshire as far as the River Lugg. The following year they joined Earls Edwin and Morcar of Northumbria in their attacks upon the Normans. 

The Welsh kings appear to have linked up with Eadric again, and it was probably this combination of forces that was defeated at Stafford in 1069. Although the chronicle accounts are vague, this appears to have been a replay of Hastings, albeit on a smaller scale, in which the Anglo-Welsh were defeated by William in person. Say what you like about the Conqueror, but he lived up to his nickname.

Sadly, within a few years the brothers were dead, both slain in battle. Rhiwallon was killed at the battle of Mechain in 1070, slaughtered by his own nephews, Idwal and Maredudd, sons of the late High King. His nephews were also killed in the fighting, so it ended in a bloody draw. Bleddyn survived another five years, but was snared and killed by King Rhys ab Owain of Deheubarth, after being betrayed by the princes of Ystrad Tywi. 

It seems their old ally, Eadric, met with a somewhat happier fate. He submitted to William in 1070, possibly after being captured by Ranulph Mortimer, and was taken into the king's peace. Eadric later campaigned for William in Scotland and Maine, as well as (oh the irony!) defending Wigmore castle for the king against Ranulph, after the latter revolted against William. Such was the merry-go-round of medieval politics. 

Rebels and diehards

On 1 October 1299, shortly after the Anglo-French peace treaty, Philip the Fair turned his attention to the ongoing conflict in Burgundy. He ordered one of his knights, Geoffrey d'Aucelles, to guard the city of Gray from Jean de Arlay and his confederates. Any ransoms were to be handed over to Philip, though Geoffrey was allowed to keep the profits of captured armour and horses.

The rebels in Burgundy had been at war with Philip for over a decade. He wanted to make the county part of a greater France, but Jean de Arlay and his followers wished to remain part of the Holy Roman Empire. To that end they allied with Adolf of Nassau, the titular Holy Roman Emperor, and Edward I of England. 

In March 1298, after the initial truces with France, Edward renewed his military contract with the Burgundian rebels. In exchange for further English subsidies, they would continue to make war on Philip and harass his flank, distracting him from Edward's affairs in Scotland. 

Now, when final peace talks took place at Rome in the summer, Philip refused to allow the Burgundians to be included in the treaty. This was for the same reason as Edward's insistence that John Balliol and the Scots be excluded: the French king wished to impose his own settlement on Burgundy, without papal interference.

As a result, the war in Burgundy continued. Whether the rebels were still taking Edward's money is uncertain, though he might have considered it worthwhile to keep the subsidies going. As Philip's instruction of October 1299 shows, the rebels were still giving him trouble over a year later. Gray, on the banks of the Saone, was an important river port and trading centre.

Jean de Arlay, the leader of the anti-French confederation, was not dissimilar to William Wallace. Both men fought for years against an aggressive foreign power; both continued to fight even after their allies had fallen away or submitted; both were outnumbered and out-resourced.

The difference lay in Jean's status. He was the head of a powerful family, with political and blood ties to most of the other noble families in Burgundy. As such he was too important to kill, so Philip sought to co-opt him. In 1301, Jean and his followers finally agreed to surrender. After agreeing to pay war damages, they were all pardoned, while Jean was made Philip's seneschal of Burgundy. 

This was the equivalent of Wallace agreeing to become Edward I's lieutenant of Scotland. Wallace, of course, was a hard-liner, and absolutely refused to submit on any terms. Or was he? At least one English chronicler, Pierre Langtoft, claims that Wallace offered to surrender to Edward in 1304, in exchange for a pardon and a plot of land. However, the king angrily refused. 

Several recent historians refuse to accept this tale because it reflects 'neither the Wallace of history or legend'. One cannot help but detect a whiff of hero-worship here: Wallace is perceived as the ultimate diehard hero, and diehards don't surrender. Yet he was only human, after all, and no sane person wants to die on a gibbet. None of us will (hopefully) ever have to make such choices.

Roads to war

When looking at the history of medieval conflict, it is vital to take a broader perspective. The modern tendency is to focus on one's own country - because 'your' country is the best and most interesting, obviously - to the exclusion of everyone else. When one considers the nature of medieval states, the multiple shifting alliances and confederations and so on, this is a hopelessly one-eyed view.

That is certainly true of the Anglo-French wars. The famous Hundred Years War was rooted in a private dispute over sovereignty between two Francophone dynasties, the Plantagenets and the Capets (although strictly speaking I should refer to the former as 'Angevins', since they didn't call themselves Plantagenet until the fifteenth century). By the time of Edward I, my particular interest, Angevin dominions in France had shrunk to the duchy of Gascony and the county of Ponthieu. Both were held as fiefdoms of the Capets, which meant that one crowned head was subordinate to another. 

The tension of this impossible relationship led to war. If one is looking for a culprit, then the finger must be pointed at Philip the Fair, King of France from 1285-1314. It was Philip, probably egged on by his ambitious brother Charles of Valois, who chose to light the touchpaper and renew war with England after decades of peace. 

Without going into the fine detail - I have described it elsewhere - Philip seized upon a convenient pretext to invade Gascony and provoke war with his cousin, Edward I. His devious and ruthless policy was mirrored by Edward's own conduct in Scotland: as Sir Maurice Powicke remarked, the one situation almost reads like a sick parody of the other. Both kings were much alike, fixated on expanding their territory by any means. 

This was very much in the spirit of the time. Remove the patriotic goggles for a moment, and the likes of Prince Llywelyn of Wales and King Robert I of Scotland were no different. Llywelyn's aggressive expansionism inside Wales alienated the majority of his Welsh subjects, while the Bruces invaded Ireland and seriously contemplated making a grab for Wales. 

The war in Gascony, which cost Edward more than his Welsh and Scottish wars combined and beggared France, ended in an unsatisfactory stalemate. Philip had to return the duchy to his cousin, but at the cost of restoring Capetien sovereignty. Thanks to the Treaty of Paris, the Angevins were snared, tied up in a legal bind partially of their own making. The frantic efforts of English lawyers to slide out of the treaty came to nothing. 

Thanks to Philip's aggression (for which many French historians have condemned him, in case this sounds like an Anglocentric view), the old trust between the courts of Paris and London would never be restored. As for the marriage alliance, between the future Edward II and Philip's daughter Isabella, this simply handed the Angevins a (distinctly dubious) claim to the throne of France. All roads led to war. 

The process of Ponthieu

In August 1299, at Montreuil in northern France, the English and French envoys hammered out a final peace. This was a sequel to the talks in July, whereby John Balliol, the ex-King of Scots, was handed over to papal custody. Montreuil was the largest town inside the county of Ponthieu, a lordship on the banks of the Somme. 

As part of the agreement, Ponthieu was handed back to Edward I. Along with the much larger duchy of Gascony, it had been confiscated by Philip the Fair upon the outbreak of the Anglo-French war in 1294. Although Philip did not seize the county outright, he certainly milked its resources: while the status of Ponthieu was debated at the Court of Appeals in Paris, his officers stripped it of revenue and summoned the men of Ponthieu to military service. Ironically, this meant Edward's former subjects were now required to fight against him.

The return of Ponthieu was a significant concession on Philip's part, and a belated admission that he had made a mistake in provoking a war with England. Although the county was small (about half the size of Kent) the very fact Edward's dynasty held any land at all in France was a reversal of Capetian policy. Previously, when one of Philip's advisors was asked by the pope if the French meant to drive the English from their last holdings in France, the man replied:

"Certainly, sir, what you say is true."

Thus, the political importance of Ponthieu far outweighed its geographical size. Further, Edward's renewed status as Count of Ponthieu enabled him to retain a team of lawyers in Paris. Ostensibly they were there to deal with appeals from the county to the parlement, but in practice they gave the English king some influence over French affairs.

Montreuil was the scene of further Anglo-French peace talks in 1306. These meetings were concerned with vital issues of sovereignty and homage, and not particularly successful from an English perspective. The problem, as ever, lay in the one-sided nature of the Treaty of Paris, which gave the French a permanent advantage in law. After weeks of futile talks Edward's attorney, Philip Martel, threw up his hands and declared:

"Of what use is it for Englishmen to go to law against the king of France in his kingdom, against his whole council, and against you who are our co-judges? Certainly none!"

Neverthless, the mere fact Philip allowed the talks to be held at Montreuil was a concession to English interests. In contrast to his earlier belligerence, the French king was now prepared to compromise with England. At the same time he made occasional noises about helping the Scots, Edward's enemies, without actually doing very much. 

Ponthieu remained a treasured Plantagenet possession: Edward I re-granted it to his son, the future Edward II, when the young man was also made Prince of Wales and Lord of Chester. Edward III jealously guarded the county, and the famous battle of Crécy (pictured) was fought within its borders in 1346. As the third Edward's health and fortunes declined however, the French moved in and once again retook possession of Ponthieu, this time forever.