CHAPTER II.

THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.

The county of Stirling has aptly been called the “Battlefield of Scotland,” for no less than six memorable conflicts have taken place in this district within historical times. During the wars with England, in the period of the Stewart sovereigns, the Borders and the neighbourhood of Edinburgh were the principal scenes of operations; but Stirling Castle was the centre of hostilities in the stirring days of Wallace and Bruce. Edinburgh, though an important fortress and town, was not the capital of the country at the time of the War of Independence. In later years, the armies of England did not need to advance any further than Lothian. The heart of Scotland lay south of the Firth of Forth; a blow struck there was felt throughout the kingdom. But in the beginning of the fourteenth century no fixed seat of government existed; and thus the chief aim of the leaders of both nations was to occupy the place of greatest strategic value. The strong position of Stirling Castle, near the head of the country’s most important estuary, guarding the fords of the River Forth, and keeping watch over the passes leading to the Highlands, made the castle the focus of the military operations of both the English and the Scots. Seven times in half a century the veteran fortress changed hands.

When Edward I. agreed to act as arbiter in the case of the Scottish succession he startled the competitors by demanding their acknowledgment of his claim to be Lord Paramount of Scotland. The selfish disputants, each anxious to obtain the prize of even a vassal kingdom, and not being stirred with the patriotism which was to be born of the coming struggle, reluctantly consented to admit the English King’s pretension, while the guardians of the realm apparently saw no way of avoiding civil war except by concurring in this base arrangement. It was agreed, therefore, in 1291, that Edward should have seisine of Scotland and its royal castles until two months after the award of his arbitrament; and in accordance with this compact a southerner, named Norman Darcy, was placed in command of Stirling Castle.

In November, 1292, judgment was given in favour of the feeble John Balliol, who almost immediately swore fealty to the English King and who was crowned soon afterwards at Scone. Weak though he was, however, the new King of Scots could not endure the oppressive exactions of his overlord. At first he obeyed when his suzerain summoned him to court, but soon he renounced his allegiance and opened negotiations with France, thus forming a friendship that developed into a close alliance to last till the reign of Queen Mary. Edward invaded Scotland with a powerful army to punish his perfidious vassal. The town of Berwick was mercilessly sacked, the Scots were defeated by Surrey at Dunbar, and the English monarch made a triumphal procession through Scotland, arriving at Stirling in the middle of June, 1296. So dispirited had John Balliol’s subjects become that the castle garrison fled at the approach of the invading host, leaving only the porter to deliver the keys of the fortress to the English King.[12]

The rise of Wallace inspired the Scots with courage. They required a man of might to lead them and not a “Toom Tabard,” or empty jacket, as they called their English-made King. It was a fearless band of patriots that was posted on the Abbey Craig on an autumn day of 1297, waiting to swoop down on the troops of Warenne and Cressingham. The English commanders made the mistake of attempting to cross the Forth by Stirling Bridge, thus playing into the hands of Wallace, whose spearmen rushed from the steep hillside and caught their foes in a trap. A great many of the garrison, including the constable, were slain or were drowned in this valley of death hardly more than half a mile from their fortress.[13]

After the defeat, Sir Marmaduke de Twenge endeavoured to hold Stirling Castle for King Edward, but, receiving no succour from the south, he was soon obliged to retire from his dangerous seat, leaving it to Wallace and the Scots. Falkirk, in the following year, avenged the battle of the bridge. Wallace, with a number of fugitives, fled to Stirling Castle, but realising the impossibility of holding the fortress against the English army, he dismantled it and withdrew. Edward pushed on to Stirling, where he rested for some days to recover from a kick from his horse, his men being employed in rebuilding the castle as a station for another English garrison.

Little more than a year elapsed, however, before the Scots laid siege to the fortress. The defenders appealed to their King for aid; but the winter had set in, and Edward could not induce his barons to advance into the heart of Scotland. The only course open to him, therefore, was to authorise the governor, John Sampson, to surrender. The garrison, accordingly, some ninety in number, delivered up the stronghold to the patriots, whose commander’s name of Gilbert Malerbe seems unsuited to a leader of a band of Scots.[14] This same Gilbert proved faithless to the Scottish cause, and years afterwards he was hanged at Perth for treachery to King Robert the Bruce.

The custody of the perilous castle of Stirling was entrusted to the chivalrous knight, Sir William Oliphant. He must have almost daily expected his hour of trial to be at hand; but not until 1304 was the stronghold besieged by King Edward, for on two previous occasions when he journeyed past Stirling, the King was not prepared to attack the strongest castle in Scotland. In that year, however, every effort was made to secure the fortress for England. Oliphant informed the King that he held the castle for Sir John de Soulis, one of the Scottish guardians, who was at this time resident in France, and that if Edward would grant him a truce to enable him to go abroad, he would bring back word from his superior.

But the King, furious at the stubborn opposition of the Scots, replied: “To no such terms will I agree; if he will not surrender the castle let him keep it against us at his peril.” On receiving this answer the garrison felt that their only course of action was to hold out to the last extremity. The siege began on the 22nd of April, and for three months the gallant defenders withstood the attack of the most formidable artillery which the English King could command. Edward had written to the Prince of Wales urging him to strip the lead from the churches of Perth, Dunblane and other places--leaving only the altars covered--in order to provide weights for the military engines.[15] He commanded also the Sheriff of York to dispatch forty cross-bowmen and forty carpenters to Stirling,[16] while the governor of the Tower of London was required to send north all the ammunition that was under his care in that arsenal.[17] So anxious indeed was the King to secure the assistance of his most experienced soldiers, that he forbade his knights to participate in tournaments without his special permission.[18]

While the English battered the walls of the castle with stones and leaden balls, and threw the combustible known as Greek Fire to damage the engines and injure the men, the defenders kept up a constant shower of javelins and other missiles. The King himself was struck by a weapon that lodged in a joint of his armour, and once a large stone fell so near his horse that the animal took fright and fell with his royal master. At last the stronghold was rendered untenable, for the walls were broken down in many places and the food supply was exhausted; but before the starving survivors of the garrison were allowed to issue forth, Edward experimented on the long-suffering fort with his most formidable engine, the War-Wolf. The Queen and her ladies viewed this assault from an oriel window constructed for the purpose.[19]

The Scottish historians maintain that Edward broke his word to the defenders, but they seem to have surrendered unconditionally, not being in a position to make stipulations. William Oliphant, William de Dupplin, William de Ramsay, Ralph de Halliburton, Alan de Vipont, John Napier and others were led half-naked before His Majesty, who spared their lives, but put them in chains and sent them to various English prisons. The King entered into possession of the castle on July 24th, 1304.

All the Scottish fortresses were now in Edward’s hands, and in the following year his arch-enemy, Wallace, was captured and put to death. But Scotland, though crushed, was by no means conquered, for just at this time rose Robert Bruce to kindle the almost extinguished sparks of patriotism into an unquenchable flame. Stirling Castle, however, remained for ten years in English keeping in charge of various constables. John Lovel was the first to take over the fortress, but he was succeeded next year by William Bisset, a Scot in the King of England’s service. Another Scotsman was Philip Mowbray, who held the castle for Edward II. after all the other strongholds in the country, except Berwick and Bothwell, had been won for King Robert the Bruce. The English tenure ceased the day after the decisive Scottish victory at Bannockburn.

The great battle that established the freedom of Scotland was fought almost under Stirling rock. Indeed, to reach the castle itself was the object of the English invasion. The events leading up to the conflict are well known. In the spring of 1313, Edward Bruce, brother of King Robert, invested Stirling, but growing impatient with the long-protracted siege, he imprudently agreed to the one-sided bargain which Mowbray audaciously proposed. The compact was that the fortress should surrender if not relieved by June 24th, Saint John the Baptist’s Day, in the following year. Edward Bruce’s consent to this arrangement may have been given in the hope that it would terminate the war by bringing about a decisive pitched battle. Both nations, at any rate, prepared for the coming struggle; for it was clear that the duty of the English monarch was to succour his northern castle, while the Scottish King’s task was to block the way of any relieving army.

On June 23rd, 1314, Edward II., with his vast feudal host, amounting, perhaps, to fifty thousand men, came in sight of Stirling Castle, but between him and his goal lay Bruce’s Scottish troops, relying not upon their numbers but upon their valour and the skill of their commanders. The main body of the English army apparently kept to the low ground near the Forth, while the advanced guard marched on the higher land to the south, and encountered the Scots on the border of the New Park. Here Bruce slew de Bohun in single combat, while Sir Robert Clifford, with a troop of horse, pushed on to relieve the Castle of Stirling. Randolph, with a company of spearmen, intercepted this English force, and after a stubborn engagement drove them back on their own lines. King Robert’s successful duel and the triumph of Randolph’s men caused the whole of King Edward’s advanced guard to retreat before the elated Scots. It was on the next day, the 24th of June, that the armies came fully into contact. The English had passed the night in the carse, which in those days, even in summer, was a marshy tract of country. Barbour, the author of _The Brus_, was told that the Stirling garrison assisted the movements of the Southrons by carrying doors and shutters from the castle, under cover of darkness, and laying them over the numerous pools.

The question of the exact site of the battle has provoked a good deal of dispute. Tradition favours the ground between the Borestone Hill and the burn, and this most likely was the scene of the skirmish that followed the death of de Bohun. The great conflict of the ensuing day, however, seems to have been fought out on the low land near the confluence of the Bannock and the Forth, where the English, hemmed in by the two streams, were unable to take advantage of their superiority in numbers.[20] The Lanercost chronicler mentions that he heard from an eye-witness that the English in the rear were unable to fight owing to the leading division being in the way, and that there was nothing they could do but take to flight.

Barbour states that after the battle the King of England fled to Stirling Castle, but was counselled by Mowbray to depart with all speed, as the place could no longer be held. There are people who find it impossible to believe this and another statement by the same writer to the effect that many fugitives sought refuge on the castle rock, for the most obvious way of retreat would be south-eastwards, across the Bannock. Great weight, however, must be given to Barbour’s account, for the poet derived his information from men who had actually fought in those wars, and in many cases his testimony is corroborated by other records and documents. The _Scalacronica_ makes Sir Giles de Argentine urge the King to flee to the castle. The author of that work, Sir Thomas Gray, no doubt acquired his knowledge from his father, who witnessed but did not take part in the battle, having been brought by Randolph to the Scottish camp after the engagement with Clifford. Most of the fugitives probably escaped across the Bannock, but doubtless some found their way to the castle past the Scottish left flank; and it must be remembered that King Robert kept his men well in hand and would not allow them to begin the pursuit till the day was indisputably won, lest their foes, realising the strength of their own numbers, should make a successful rally. History furnishes other examples of portions of defeated armies retreating round and behind their conquerors. It is well known that after the Battle of Prestonpans, Sir John Cope’s soldiers fled in all directions except towards the Firth of Forth.

Stirling Castle surrendered on the following day, and Sir Philip Mowbray transferred his allegiance to the King of Scots when he handed over the keys of the fortress. Bruce, in accordance with his policy of dismantling all strongholds that might harbour English garrisons, destroyed the fortifications, but in his later years he sometimes resided within its weakened walls.

Although the War of Independence is usually regarded as having been brought to a close at Bannockburn, it is more correct to consider the latter part of Bruce’s reign as a break in the long-enduring struggle. After King Robert had been laid to rest, Edward Balliol saw his chance of winning his father’s crown, and soon the King of England advanced the old claim put forward by his grandfather, The Hammer of the Scots. Balliol’s victory at Dupplin in 1332 was followed a year later by the Battle of Halidon Hill, the English revenge of Bannockburn. Edward III. garrisoned the defenceless castle of Stirling in 1336, placing Sir Thomas de Rokeby in command. The work of renovation was straightway begun. New walls were at once constructed, two wells--one in the castle proper, the other in the nether bailey--were cleared out and deepened;[21] hall, pantry, kitchen, larder, etc., were all repaired, and men were employed in Gargunnock Wood in hewing down trees for the timber-work of the fortress. The Scots were not long in attacking the strengthened castle, but before the defenders were reduced to their last extremity, the King of England appeared upon the scene and immediately raised the siege. Wyntoun and Fordun tell of a Scottish knight named Keith, who, when attempting to scale the wall, lost his footing and was killed by falling on his spear. Quantities of provisions were thereafter sent to Sir Thomas de Rokeby, lest the Scots should again surround the rock and cut off his supplies.[22] These precautions were indeed necessary, for the patriots under Robert the Steward renewed the siege towards the end of 1341, but so well had the garrison been victualled that not until April of the following year was it compelled by hunger to capitulate. The English garrison consisted of Sir Thomas de Rokeby, Sir Hugh de Montgomery, fifty-seven esquires, ten watchmen and sixty-two archers.[23]

According to Froissart, cannon were employed during this investiture of Stirling. His statement is not substantiated by any other authority, but as he was in the habit of enquiring eagerly for details about the events of which he wrote, and as he visited Scotland before the generation had passed away that had taken part in these wars, it is probable that his information is correct. This seems to have been the first occasion on which gunpowder was used in Scotland, for Barbour mentions that the town of Berwick was not provided with “gynis for crakkis” when the English laid siege to it in 1319, but he says that during the invasion of England in 1327 the Scots saw for the first time the mysterious “crakkis of wer.”

No further attempts were made by King Edward to regain possession of Stirling Castle. His efforts to win the crown of France diverted his attention, and the Hundred Years’ War had already broken out. No second Bannockburn closed the latter portion of the War of Independence; such a triumph could not take place under so unpatriotic and degenerate a King as the son of the valiant Bruce. Yet Scotland wrestled through the storm, though not until the High Steward had succeeded his worthless uncle on the throne was the nation safe from the grasping hand of her more powerful neighbour.