A History of England, Period I. Mediæval Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

This closes the first period of the reign, but it is plain that the Barons were not yet satisfied. Their chief enemy was removed, but their policy was not accepted. Thus, when in 1314 the King collected a large army, many of them still held aloof, though they sent their forces. If Scotland was to be saved it was time for energetic action. One by one the fortresses had been taken. Stirling still held out, but the Governor promised to capitulate unless relieved before St. John’s Day. By a rapid march Edward reached the place before the fatal day. But Bruce was ready to receive him. He had arranged his troops a little to the south and east of the castle, with his right resting on the little brook Bannockburn. His position was carefully prepared. His front was partly covered by a marsh, and where this ceased and waste land began he had dug shallow pitfalls, with a pointed stake in each, to check the advance of the heavy cavalry, of which the English army then consisted. His left was defended by the cliffs of the castle. Edward Bruce commanded the right, Thomas Randolf the left, Walter Stewart and James Douglas the centre, a small rearguard was commanded by Bruce himself. On the eve of St. John’s the English attempted to secure Stirling, but were beaten back by Randolf. On the morning of the 24th of June, the Abbot of Inchaffray said mass in the Scotch army. As they knelt, Edward exclaimed, “See, they beg pardon.” But Ingram of Umfranville, a Scotch nobleman, by his side, replied, “Yes, sire, but of Heaven, not of you.” Immediately after this the battle began, and already the weight of the English men-at-arms and the flights of arrows were thinning the Scotch ranks, when Bruce fell upon the flank of the archers with his reserve. The fortune of the day was still doubtful, when troops were seen advancing with flying standards behind the Scotch. They were the camp followers of Bruce’s army, who were eagerly pushing forward to watch the fight, but the English believed it was the arrival of reinforcements. They had already found enough to do, and did not wait the new arrivals. The flight soon became a disorderly rout. The horses stumbled and fell in the pitfalls or stuck fast in the morass, and the Scotch pursued ruthlessly. With difficulty the King, under the guidance of the Earl of Pembroke, escaped from the field, and sought safety with a few hundred men in Dunbar, whence he took ship to Berwick. The Earl of Gloucester, with great numbers of Barons and Knights, were left dead upon the field, and during the retreat the Earl of Hereford was captured at Bothwell. He was subsequently exchanged for the Bishop of Glasgow and Bruce’s wife and daughter, who had long been in honourable custody in England.

Edward refuses to treat. Consequent disasters.

Edward thought for a moment of renewing the war, and again summoned a fresh army; but the condition of England rendered further action impossible. The discontented Earls attributed the disaster to the refusal of the King to accept the Ordinances, and to the influence of his new favourites Beaumont and Despenser. Money, too, was wanting; and the King’s renewed efforts to obtain it from the clergy by means of the new Archbishop Walter were met with firm opposition. But though war was useless, he would not listen to Bruce’s overtures for peace, obstinately refusing to regard that Prince in any other light than that of a rebel. The North of England was thus left open to the fierce inroads of the Scotch.

Wars in Wales and Ireland.

Edward Bruce’s invasion of Ireland.

He is crowned King. 1316.

Is killed at Dundalk.

The loss of the English prestige was more disastrous than the immediate loss of the battle. The Welsh and Irish thought their opportunity had arrived for obtaining their independence. The Welsh insurrection was indeed subdued after a year of fighting; but it required three years before Ireland was again secured to the English Crown. In that country Edward I. had done but little. It was in its usual state of disorder. The feuds among the Norman adventurers, to whom the conquest had been left, were scarcely less constant or bitter than the wars among the native tribes who surrounded them. Against these tribes, however, they exercised the greatest cruelties. To be an Irishman was to be excluded from all justice, to be classed at once as a robber and murderer. The news of the Battle of Bannockburn induced the Irish to beg the assistance of Bruce, and to offer him their crown. He declined it for himself, but his brother Edward, as ambitious as the Scotch King, accepted the offer. In May 1315 he landed, supported by the great tribe of the O’Niells, and probably also by the Norman Lacys, and was victorious over the combined forces of the Butlers and De Burghs. In vain did Edward send John of Hotham, a clergyman, to attempt some combination among the English and the Irish tribes. The English dislike to the royal lieutenant Butler prevented union, and in May 1316, O’Niell of Tyrone gave up his claim to the Irish throne to Edward Bruce, who was crowned King. But a series of separate attacks upon the natives was more successful. At Athenry the O’Connors were almost exterminated. The arrival of King Robert in Ulster, and a march in winter to Limerick and Dublin, produced no permanent effect, and at length, in 1317, Roger Mortimer, landing with a considerable army, succeeded in establishing some order. The Lacys were executed for treason; the tribes began quarrelling among themselves; and finally, in 1318, Edward Bruce fell in a battle, in which he was defeated by John of Birmingham, in the neighbourhood of Dundalk. The English government was re-established in all its oppression.

Distress in England.

Lancaster temporary minister. 1316.