Part 156

"The western Highlands and Islands formed the original territory of the Scots. But we have seen how the Norwegians and Danes, seizing Shetland and Orkney, spread themselves over the western Archipelago, even as far south as Man, thereby putting an end, for 300 years, to the intercommunication between the mainlands of Scotland and Ireland. These islands long formed a sort of maritime community, sometimes under the active authority of the kings of Norway, sometimes connected with the Norwegian settlers in Ireland—Ostmen, as they were called; sometimes partially ruled by kings of Man, but more generally subject to chieftains more or less powerful, who, when opportunity offered, made encroachments even on the mainland. … {2844} Alexander II. seems to have determined to bring this sort of interregnum to a close, and he was engaged in an expedition for that purpose when he died at the little island of Kerrera, near Oban. His son, as he advanced to manhood, appears to have revived the idea of completely re-annexing the Islands. Complaints were made by the islanders to Haco, king of Norway, of aggressions by the earl of Ross and other mainland magnates, in the interest of the king of Scots; and Haco, who was at once a powerful and a despotic monarch, resolved to vindicate his claims as suzerain of the isles. … Haco accordingly fitted out a splendid fleet, consisting of 100 vessels, mostly of large size, fully equipped, and crowded with gallant soldiers and seamen. … On the 10th of July, 1263, 'the mightiest armament that ever left the shores of Norway sailed from the haven of Herlover.' … The island chieftains, Magnus of the Orkneys, Magnus, king of Man, Dougal MacRoderic, and others, met the triumphant fleet, swelling its numbers as it advanced amongst the islands. Most of the chiefs made their peace with Haco; though there were exceptions. … The invading fleet entered the Clyde, numbering by this time as many as 160 ships. A squadron of 60 sail proceeded up Loch-long; the crews drew their boats across the narrow isthmus at Tarbet, launched on Loch-lomond, and spread their ravages, by fire and sword, over the Lennox and Stirlingshire. … The alarm spread over the surrounding country, and gradually a Scottish army began to gather on the Ayrshire side of the firth. … Whether voluntarily, or from stress of weather, some portion of the Norwegians made a landing near Largs, on the Ayrshire coast, opposite to Bute. These being attacked by the Scots, reinforcements were landed, and a fierce but desultory struggle was kept up, with varying success, from morning till night. Many of the ships were driven ashore. Most of the Norwegians who had landed were slain. The remainder of the fleet was seriously damaged. … Retracing its course among the islands, on the 20th of October it reached Kirkwall in Orkney, where king Haco expired on 15th December. Such was the result of an expedition which had set out with such fair promises of success."

_W. Burns, The Scottish War of Independence, chapter 13 (volume 1)._

"In the Norse annals our famous Battle of Largs makes small figure, or almost none at all, among Hakon's battles and feats. … Of Largs there is no mention whatever in Norse books. But beyond any doubt, such is the other evidence, Hakon did land there; land and fight, not conquering, probably rather beaten; and very certainly 'retiring to his ships,' as in either case he behooved to do! It is further certain he was dreadfully maltreated by the weather on those wild coasts; and altogether credible, as the Scotch records bear, that he was so at Largs very specially. The Norse Records or Sagas say merely he lost many of his ships by the tempests, and many of his men by land fighting in various parts,—tacitly including Largs, no doubt, which was the last of these misfortunes to him. … To this day, on a little plain to the south of the village, now town, of Largs, in Ayrshire, there are seen stone cairns and monumental heaps, and, until within a century ago, one huge, solitary, upright stone; still mutely testifying to a battle there—altogether clearly to this battle of King Hakon's; who by the Norse records, too, was in these neighbourhoods at that same date, and evidently in an aggressive, high kind of humour."

_T. Carlyle, Early Kings of Norway, chapter 15._

ALSO IN: _J. H. Burton, History of Scotland, chapter 15 (volume 2)._

See, also, NORMANS. NORTHMEN: 8-9TH CENTURIES, and 10-13TH CENTURIES.

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1266. Acquisition of the Western Islands.

Three years after the battle of Largs, "in 1266, Magnus IV., the new King [of Norway], by formal treaty ceded to the King of Scots Man and all the Western Isles, specially reserving Orkney and Shetland to the crown of Norway. On the other hand, the King of Scots agreed to pay down a ransom for them of a thousand marks, and an annual rent of a hundred marks."

_J. H. Burton, History of Scotland, chapter 15 (volume 2)._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1286. Accession of Queen Margaret (called The Maid of Norway) who died on her way to Scotland in 1290.

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1290-1305. Death of the Maid of Norway. Reign of John Balliol. English conquest by Edward I. Exploits of Wallace.

Alexander III. of Scotland, dying in 1286, left only an infant granddaughter to inherit his crown. This was the child of his daughter Margaret, married to the king of Norway and dead after her first confinement. The baby queen, known in Scottish history as the Maid of Norway, was betrothed in her sixth year to Prince Edward of England, son of Edward I., and all looked promising for an early union of the Scottish and English crowns. "But this project was abruptly frustrated by the child's death on her voyage to Scotland, and with the rise of claimant after claimant of the vacant throne Edward was drawn into far other relations to the Scottish realm. Of the thirteen pretenders to the throne of Scotland, only three could be regarded as serious claimants. By the extinction of the line of William the Lion, the right of succession passed to the daughters of his brother David. The claim of John Balliol, Lord of Galloway, rested on his descent from the eldest of these; that of Robert Bruce, Lord of Annandale, on his descent from the second; that of John Hastings, Lord of Abergavenny, on his descent from the third. … All the rights of a feudal suzerain were at once assumed by the English King; he entered into the possession of the country as into that of a disputed fief to be held by its overlord till the dispute was settled. … Scotland was thus reduced to the subjection which she had experienced under Henry II. … The commissioners whom he named to report on the claims to the throne were mainly Scotch; a proposal for the partition of the realm among the claimants was rejected as contrary to Scotch law, and the claim of Balliol as representative of the elder branch was finally preferred to that of his rivals. The castles were at once delivered to the new monarch, and Balliol did homage to Edward with full acknowledgment of the services due to him from the realm of Scotland. For a time there was peace." But, presently, Edward made claims upon the Scotch nobles for service in his foreign wars which were resented and disregarded. He also asserted for his courts a right of hearing appeals from the Scottish tribunals, which was angrily denied. Barons and people were provoked to a hostility that forced Balliol to challenge war. He obtained from the pope absolution from his oath of fealty and he entered into a secret alliance with the king of France. {2845} In the spring of 1296 Edward invaded Scotland, carried Berwick by storm, slaughtered 8,000 of its citizens, defeated the Scots with great slaughter at Dunbar, occupied Edinburgh, Stirling and Perth, and received, in July, the surrender of Balliol, who was sent to imprisonment in the Tower of London. "No further punishment, however, was exacted from the prostrate realm. Edward simply treated it as a fief, and declared its forfeiture to be the legal consequence of Balliol's treason. It lapsed in fact to the overlord, and its earls, barons and gentry swore homage in Parliament at Berwick to Edward as their king. … The government of the new dependency was intrusted to Warenne, Earl of Surrey, at the head of an English Council of Regency. … The disgraceful submission of their leaders brought the people themselves to the front. … The genius of an outlaw knight, William Wallace, saw in their smouldering discontent a hope of freedom for his country, and his daring raids on outlying parties of the English soldiery roused the country at last into revolt. Of Wallace himself, of his life or temper, we know little or nothing; the very traditions of his gigantic stature and enormous strength are dim and unhistorical. But the instinct of the Scotch people has guided it aright in choosing Wallace for its national hero. He … called the people itself to arms." At Stirling, in September, 1297, Wallace caught the English army in the midst of its passage of the Forth, cut half of it in pieces and put the remainder to flight. At Falkirk, in the following July, Edward avenged himself upon the forces of Wallace with terrible slaughter, and the Scottish leader narrowly escaped. In the struggle which the Scots still maintained for several years, he seems to have borne no longer a prominent part. But when they submitted, in 1303, Wallace refused Edward's offered amnesty; he was afterwards captured, sent to London for trial, and executed, his head being placed on London Bridge, according to the barbarous custom of the time.

_J. R. Green, Short History of the English People, chapter 4, section 3._

ALSO: _J. H. Burton, History of Scotland, chapters 15 and 18-22._

_C. H. Pearson, History of England during the Early and Middle Ages, volume 2, chapters 12-13._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1305-1307. The rising under Robert Bruce.

After the submission of Scotland in 1303, King Edward of England "set to work to complete the union of the two kingdoms. In the meantime Scotland was to be governed by a Lieutenant aided by a council of barons and churchmen. It was to be represented in the English parliament by ten deputies,—four churchmen, four barons, and two members of the commons, one for the country north of the Firths, one for the south. These members attended one parliament at Westminster, and an ordinance was issued for the government of Scotland. … But the great difficulty in dealing with the Scots was that they never knew when they were conquered, and, just when Edward hoped that his scheme for union was carried out, they rose in arms once more. The leader this time was Robert Bruce, Lord of Annandale, Earl of Carrick in right of his mother, and the grandson and heir of the rival of Balliol. He had joined Wallace, but had again sworn fealty to Edward at the Convention of Irvine, and had since then received many favours from the English king. Bruce signed a bond with William Lamberton, Bishop of St. Andrews, who had also been one of Wallace's supporters. In this bond each party swore to stand by the other in all his undertakings, no matter what, and not to act without the knowledge of the other. … This bond became known to Edward; and Bruce, afraid of his anger, fled from London to Dumfries. There in the Church of the Grey Friars he had an interview with John Comyn of Badenoch, called the Red Comyn, who, after Balliol and his sons, was the next heir to the throne. … What passed between them cannot be certainly known, as they met alone"—but Comyn was slain. "By this murder and sacrilege Bruce put himself at once out of the pale of the law and of the Church, but by it he became the nearest heir to the crown, after the Balliols. This gave him a great hold on the people, whose faith in the virtue of hereditary succession was strong, and on whom the English yoke weighed heavily. On March 27, 1306, Bruce was crowned [at Scone] with as near an imitation of the old ceremonies as could be compassed on such short notice. The actual crowning was done by Isabella, Countess of Buchan, who, though her husband was a Comyn, and, as such, a sworn foe of Bruce, came secretly to uphold the right of her own family, the Macduffs, to place the crown on the head of the King of Scots. Edward determined this time to put down the Scots with rigour. … All who had taken any part in the murder of the Red Comyn were denounced as traitors, and death was to be the fate of all persons taken in arms. Bruce was excommunicated by a special bull from the Pope. The Countess of Buchan was confined in a room, made like a cage, in one of the towers of Berwick Castle. One of King Robert's sisters was condemned to a like punishment. His brother Nigel, his brother-in-law Christopher Seaton, and three other nobles were taken prisoners, and were put to death as traitors. … Edward this time made greater preparations than ever. All classes of his subjects from all parts of his dominions were invited to join the army, and he exhorted his son, Edward Prince of Wales, and 300 newly-created knights, to win their spurs worthily in the reduction of contumacious Scotland. It was well for Scotland that he did not live to carry out his vows of vengeance. He died at Burgh-on-the-Sands, July 30th. His death proved a turning-point in the history of Scotland, for, though the English still remained in possession of the strongholds, Edward II. took no effective steps to crush the rebels. He only brought the army raised by his father as far as Cumnock in Ayrshire, and retreated without doing anything."

_M. MacArthur, History of Scotland, chapter 3._

ALSO IN: _Sir W. Scott, History of Scotland, volume 1, chapters 8-9._

_W. Burns, Scottish War of Independence, volume 2, chapters 21-22._

{2846}

SCOTLAND: A. D, 1314. The Battle of Bannockburn.

"It is extremely difficult to give distinctness and chronological sequence to the events in Scotland from 1306 to 1310: the conditions are indeed antagonistic to distinctness. We have a people restless and feverishly excited to efforts for their liberty when opportunity should come, but not yet embodied in open war against their invaders, and therefore doing nothing distinct enough to hold a place in history. … The other prominent feature in the historical conditions was the new-made king [Robert Bruce], … a tall strong man, of comely, attractive, and commanding countenance. … He is steady and sanguine of temperament; his good spirits and good-humour never fail, and in the midst of misery and peril he can keep up the spirits of his followers by chivalrous stories and pleasant banter. … The English were driven out of the strong places one by one—sometimes by the people of the district. We hear of the fall of Edinburgh, Roxburgh, Linlithgow, Perth, Dundee, Rutherglen, and Dumfries. … In the beginning of the year 1309 Scotland was so far consolidated as to be getting into a place in European diplomacy. The King of France advised his son-in-law, Edward II., to agree to a souffrance or truce with the Scots. … While the negotiations with France went on, countenance still more important was given to the new order of things at home. The clergy in council set forth their adherence to King Robert, with the reasons for it. … This was an extremely important matter, for it meant, of course, that the Church would do its best to protect him from all ecclesiastical risk arising from the death of Comyn. … A crisis came at last which roused the Government of England to a great effort. After the fortresses had fallen one by one, Stirling Castle still held out. It was besieged by Edward Bruce [brother of Robert] before the end of the year 1313. Mowbray, the governor, stipulated that he would surrender if not relieved before the Feast of St. John the Baptist in the following year, or the 24th of June. The taking of this fortress was an achievement of which King Edward [I.] was prouder than of anything else he had done in the invasions of Scotland. … That the crowning acquisition of their mighty king should thus be allowed to pass away, and stamp emphatically the utter loss of the great conquest he had made for the English crown, was a consummation too humiliating for the chivalry of England to endure without an effort. Stirling Castle must be relieved before St. John's Day, and the relieving of Stirling Castle meant a thorough invasion and resubjection of Scotland." On both sides the utmost efforts were made,—the one to relieve the Castle, the other to strengthen its besiegers. "On the 23d of June [1314] the two armies were visible to each other. If the Scots had, as it was said, between 30,000 and 40,000 men, it was a great force for the country at that time to furnish. Looking at the urgency of the measures taken to draw out the feudal array of England, to the presence of the Welsh and Irish, and to a large body of Gascons and other foreigners, it is easy to be believed that the army carried into Scotland might be, as it was said to be, 100,000 in all. The efficient force, however, was in the mounted men, and these were supposed to be about equal in number to the whole Scottish army." The Scots occupied a position of great strength and advantage (on the banks of the Bunnock Burn), which they had skilfully improved by honeycombing all the flat ground with hidden pits, to make it impassable for cavalry. The English attacked them at daybreak on the 24th of June, and suffered a most ignominious and awful defeat. "The end was rout, confused and hopeless. The pitted field added to the disasters; for though they avoided it in their advance, many horsemen were pressed into it in the retreat, and floundered among the pitfalls. Through all the history of her great wars before and since, never did England suffer a humiliation deep enough to approach even comparison with this. Besides the inferiority of the victorious army, Bannockburn is exceptional among battles by the utter helplessness of the defeated. There seems to have been no rallying point anywhere. … None of the parts of that mighty host could keep together, and the very chaos among the multitudes around seems to have perplexed the orderly army of the Scots. The foot-soldiers of the English army seem simply to have dispersed at all points, and the little said of them is painfully suggestive of the poor wanderers having to face the two alternatives—starvation in the wilds, or death at the hands of the peasantry. The cavalry fled right out towards England. … Stirling Castle was delivered up in terms of the stipulation."

_J. H. Burton, History of Scotland, volume 2, chapter 23._

"The defeated army … left dead upon the field about 30,000 men, including 200 knights and 700 esquires."

_W. Burns, Scottish War of Independence, chapter 23 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN: _P. F. Tytler, History of Scotland, volume 1, chapter 3._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1314-1328. After Bannockburn. The consequences of the battle in different views.

"A very general impression exists, especially among Englishmen, that the defeat at Bannockburn put an end to the attempted subjugation of Scotland. This is a mistake. … No doubt the defeat was of so decisive a character as to render the final result all but certain. But it required many others, though of a minor kind, to bring about the conviction described by Mr. Froude [that the Scotch would never stoop to the supremacy inflicted upon Wales]; and it was yet fourteen long years till the treaty of Northampton."

_W. Burns, The Scottish War of Independence, chapter 24 (volume 2)._

"No defeat, however crushing, ever proved half so injurious to any country as the victory of Bannockburn did to Scotland. This is the testimony borne by men whose patriotism cannot be called in question. … It drove from Scotland the very elements of its growing civilization and its material wealth. The artisans of North Britain were at that time mostly English. These retired or were driven from Scotland, and with them the commercial importance of the Scottish towns was lost. The estates held by Englishmen in Scotland were confiscated, and the wealth which through the hands of these proprietors had found its way from the southern parts of the kingdom and fertilized the more barren soil of the north, at once ceased. The higher and more cultured clergy were English; these retired when the severance of Scotland from England was effected, and with them Scottish scholarship was almost extinguished, and the budding literature of the north disappeared. How calamitous was the period which followed upon Bannockburn may be partially estimated by two significant facts. Of the six princes who had nominal rule in Scotland from the death of Robert III. to James VI., not one died a natural death. Of the ten kings whose names are entered on the roll of Scottish history from the death of Robert Bruce, seven came to the throne whilst minors, and James I. was detained in England for nineteen years. The country during these long minorities, and the time of the captivity of James, was exposed to the strife commonly attendant on minorities.… {2847} The war commenced by Bruce lingered for almost three centuries, either in the shape of formal warfare proclaimed by heralds and by the ceremonials usually observed at the beginning of national strife, or in the informal but equally destructive hostilities which neighbours indulge in, and which partake of the bitterness of civil war. … For three centuries the lands south of the Tweed, and almost as far as the Tyne at its mouth, were exposed to the ceaseless ravages of moss-troopers. … For a while men were killed, and women outraged and murdered, and children slain without pity, and houses plundered and then burnt, and cattle swept off the grazing lands between Tweed and Tyne, until none cared, unless they were outlaws, to occupy any part of the country within a night's ride of the borders of Scotland. The sufferers in their turn soon learned to recognize no law save that of might, and avenged their wrongs by inflicting like wrongs upon others; and thus there grew up along the frontiers of either country a savage population, whose occupation was murder and plunder, and whose sole wealth was what they had obtained by violence. … The war, indeed, which has been called a war of independence, and fills so large a part of the annals of England and Scotland during the Middle Ages, was successful so far as its main object was concerned, the preservation of power in the hands of 'barbarous chieftains who neither feared the king nor pitied the people'; the war was a miserable failure if we regard the well-being of the people themselves and the progress of the nation."