THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
1297-1328
Edward I had failed to recognize the difference between the Scottish
barons and the Scottish people, to which we have referred in a former
chapter. To the Norman baron, who possessed lands in England and
Scotland alike, it mattered little that he had now but one liege lord
instead of two suzerains. To the people of Scotland, proud and
high-spirited, tenacious of their long traditions of independence,
resentful of the presence of foreigners, it could not but be hateful to
find their country governed by a foreign soldiery. The conduct of
Edward's officials, and especially of Cressingham and Ormsby, and the
cruelty of the English garrisons, served to strengthen this national
feeling, and it only remained for it to find a leader round whom it
might rally.[44] A leader arose in the person of Sir William Wallace, a
heroic and somewhat mysterious figure, who first attracted notice in
the autumn of 1296, and, by the spring of the following year, had
gathered round him a band of guerilla warriors, by whose help he was
able to make serious attacks upon the English garrisons of Lanark and
Scone (May, 1297). These exploits, of little importance in themselves,
sufficed to attract the popular feeling towards Wallace. The domestic
difficulties of Edward I rendered the time opportune for a rising, and,
despite the failure of an ill-conceived and badly-managed attempt on the
part of some of the more patriotic barons, which led to the submission
of Irvine, in 1297, the little army which Wallace had collected rapidly
grew in courage and in numbers, and its leader laid siege to the castle
of Dundee. He had now attained a position of such importance that Surrey
and Cressingham found it necessary to take strong measures against him,
and they assembled at Stirling, whither Wallace marched to meet them.
The battle of Stirling Bridge (or, more strictly, Cambuskenneth Bridge)
was fought on September 11th, 1297. Wallace, with his army of knights
and spearmen, took up his position on the Abbey Craig, with the Forth
between him and the English. Less than a mile from the Scottish camp was
a small bridge over the river, giving access to the Abbey of
Cambuskenneth. Surrey rashly attempted to cross this bridge, in the face
of the Scots, and Wallace, after a considerable number of the enemy had
been allowed to reach the northern bank, ordered an attack. The English
failed to keep the bridge, and their force became divided. Surrey was
unable to offer any assistance to his vanguard, and they fell an easy
prey to the Scots, while the English general, with the remnants of his
army, retreated to Berwick.
Stirling was the great military key of the country, commanding all the
passes from south to north, and the great defeat which the English had
sustained placed the country in the power of Wallace. Along with an
Andrew de Moray, of whose identity we know nothing, he undertook the
government of the country, corresponded in the name of Scotland with
Lübeck and Hamburg, and took the offensive against England in an
expedition which ravaged as far south as Hexham. To the great monastery
of Hexham he granted protection in the name of "the leaders of the army
of Scotland",[45] although he was not successful in restraining the
ferocity of his followers. The document in question is granted in the
name of John, King of Scotland, and in a charter dated March 1298,[46]
Wallace describes himself as Guardian of the Kingdom of Scotland, acting
for the exiled Balliol. In the following summer, Edward marched into
Scotland, and although his forces were in serious difficulties from want
of food, he went forward to meet Wallace, who held a strong position at
Falkirk. Wallace prepared to meet Edward by drawing up his spearmen in
four great "schiltrons" or divisions, with a reserve of cavalry. His
flanks were protected by archers, and he had also placed archers between
the divisions of spearmen. On the English side, Edward himself commanded
the centre, the Earls of Norfolk and Hereford the right, and the Bishop
of Durham the left. The Scottish defeat was the result of a combination
of archers and cavalry. The first attack of the English horse was
completely repulsed by the spearmen. "The front ranks", says Mr. Oman,
"knelt with their spear-butts fixed in the earth; the rear ranks
levelled their lances over their comrades' heads; the thick-set grove of
twelve-foot spears was far too dense for the cavalry to penetrate." But
Edward withdrew the cavalry and ordered the archers to send a shower of
arrows on the Scots. Wallace's cavalry made no attempt to interfere with
the archers; the Scottish bowmen were too few to retaliate; and, when
the English horse next charged, they found many weak points in the
schiltrons, and broke up the Scottish host.
As the battle of Stirling had created the power of Wallace, so that of
Falkirk completely destroyed it. He almost immediately resigned his
office of guardian (mainly, according to tradition, because of the
jealousy with which the great barons regarded him), and took refuge in
France. Edward was still in the midst of difficulties, both foreign and
domestic, and he was unable to reduce the country. The Scots elected new
guardians, who regarded themselves as regents, not for Edward but for
Balliol. They included John Comyn and Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, the
future king. The guardians were successful in persuading both Philip IV
of France and Pope Boniface VIII to intervene in their favour, but
Edward disregarded the papal interference, and though he was too busy to
complete his conquest, he sent an army into Scotland in each of the
years 1300, 1301, and 1302. Military operations were almost entirely
confined to ravaging; but, in February 1302-3, Comyn completely defeated
at Rosslyn, near Edinburgh, an English army under Sir John Segrave and
Ralph de Manton, whom Edward had ordered to make a foray in Scotland
about the beginning of Lent. In the summer of 1303, the English king,
roused perhaps by this small success, and able to give his undivided
attention to Scotland, conducted an invasion on a larger scale. In
September, he traversed the country as far north as Elgin, and,
remaining in Scotland during the winter of 1303-4, he set to work in the
spring to reduce the castle of Stirling, which still held out against
him. When the garrison surrendered, in July, 1304, Scotland lay at
Edward's feet. Comyn had already submitted to the English king, and
Edward's personal vindictiveness was satisfied by the capture of Wallace
by Sir John Menteith, a Scotsman who had been acting in the English
interest. Wallace was taken to London, subjected to a mock trial,
tortured, and put to death with ignominy. On the 23rd August, 1305, his
head was placed on London Bridge, and portions of his body were sent to
Scotland. His memory served as an inspiration for the cause of freedom,
and it is held in just reverence to the present hour. If it is true that
he did not scruple to go beyond what we should regard as the limits of
honourable warfare, it must be remembered that he was fighting an enemy
who had also disregarded these limits, and much may be forgiven to brave
men who are resisting a gratuitous war of conquest. When he died, his
work seemed to have failed. But he had shown his countrymen how to
resist Edward, and he had given sufficient evidence of the strength of
national feeling, if only it could find a suitable leader. The English
had to learn the lesson which, five centuries later, Napoleon had to
learn in Spain, and Scotland cannot forget that Wallace was the first to
teach it.
It is not less pathetic to turn to Edward's scheme for the government of
Scotland. It bears the impress of a mind which was that of a statesman
and a lawyer as well as a soldier. It is impossible to deny a tribute of
admiration to its wisdom, or to question the probability of its success
in other circumstances. Had the course of events been more propitious
for Edward's great plan, Scotland and England might have been spared
much suffering. But Edward failed to realize that the Scots could no
longer regard him as the friend and ally to whose son they had willingly
agreed to marry their queen. He was now but a military conqueror in
temporary possession of their country, an enemy to be resisted by any
means. The new constitution was foredoomed to failure. Carrying out his
scheme of 1296, Edward created no vassal-king, but placed Scotland under
his own nephew, John of Brittany; he interfered as little as might be
with the customs and laws of the country; he placed over it eight
justiciars with sheriffs under them. In 1305, Edward's Parliament, which
met at London, was attended by Scottish representatives. The
incorporation of the country with its larger neighbour was complete, but
it involved as little change as was possible in the circumstances.
The Parliament of 1305 was attended by Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick,
who attended not as a representative of Scotland, but as an English
lord. Bruce was the grandson of the Robert Bruce of Annandale who had
been promised the crown by Alexander II, and who had been one of the
claimants of 1290. His grandfather had done homage to Edward, and Bruce
himself had been generally on the English side, and had fought against
Wallace at Falkirk. When John Balliol had decided to rebel, he had
transferred the lands of Annandale from the Bruces to the Comyns, and
they had been restored by Edward I after Balliol's submission. From 1299
to 1303, Bruce had been associated with Comyn in the guardianship of the
kingdom, but, like Comyn, had submitted to Edward. Nobody in Scotland
could now think of a restoration of Balliol, and if there was to be a
Scottish king at all, it must obviously be either Comyn or Bruce. The
claim of John Comyn the younger was much stronger than that of his
father had been. The elder Comyn had claimed on account of his descent
from Donald Bane, the brother and successor of Malcolm Canmore; but the
younger Comyn had an additional claim in right of his mother, who was a
sister of John Balliol. Between Bruce and Comyn there was a
long-standing feud. In 1299, at a meeting of the Great Council of
Scotland at Peebles, Comyn had attacked Bruce, and they could only be
separated by the use of violence. On the 10th February, 1305-6, Bruce
and the Comyn met in the church of the convent of the Minorite Friars at
Dumfries. Tradition tells that they met to adjust their conflicting
claims, with a view to establishing the independence of the country in
the person of one or other of the rivals; that a dispute arose in which
they came to blows; and that Bruce, after inflicting a severe wound upon
his enemy, left the church. "I doubt I have slain the Red Comyn," he
said to his followers. "Doubt?" was the reply of Sir Roger Fitzpatrick,
"I'll mak siccar." The actual circumstances of the affair are unknown to
us; but Bruce may fairly be relieved of the suspicion of any
premeditation, because it is most unlikely that he would have needlessly
chosen to offend the Church by committing a murder within sanctuary. The
real interest attaching to the circumstances lies in the tradition that
the object of the meeting was to organize a resistance against Edward I.
Whether this was so or not, there can be no doubt that the result of the
conference compelled the Bruce to place himself at the head of the
national cause. A Norman baron, born in England, he was by no means the
natural leader for whose appearance men looked, and there was a grave
chance of his failing to arouse the national sentiment. But the murder
of one claimant to the Scottish throne at the hands of the only other
possible candidate, who thus placed himself in the position of undoubted
heir, could scarcely have been forgiven by Edward I, even if the Comyn
had not, for the past two years, proved a faithful servant of the
English king. There was no alternative, and, on the 27th March, 1306,
Robert, Earl of Carrick and Lord of Annandale, was crowned King of the
Scots at Scone. The ancient royal crown of the Scottish kings had been
removed by Balliol in 1296, and had fallen into the hands of Edward, but
the Countess of Buchan placed on the Bruce's head a hastily made coronet
of gold.
It was far from an auspicious beginning. It is difficult to give Bruce
credit for much patriotic feeling, although, as we have seen, he had
been one of the guardians who had maintained a semblance of
independence. The death of the Comyn had thrown against him the whole
influence of the Church; he was excommunicate, and it was no sin to slay
him. The powerful family, whose head had been cut off by his hand, had
vowed revenge, and its great influence was on the side of the English.
It is no small tribute to the force of the sentiment of nationality that
the Scots rallied round such a leader, and it must be remembered that,
from whatever reason the Bruce adopted the national cause, he proved in
every respect worthy of a great occasion, and as time passed, he came to
deserve the place he occupies as the hero of the epic of a nation's
freedom.
The first blow in the renewed struggle was struck at Methven, near
Perth, where, on the 19th June, 1306, the Earl of Pembroke inflicted a
defeat upon King Robert. The Lowlands were now almost entirely lost to
him; he sent his wife[47] and child to Kildrummie Castle in
Aberdeenshire, whence they fled to the sanctuary of St. Duthac, near
Tain. In August, Bruce was defeated at Dalry, by Alexander of Lorn, a
relative of the Comyn. In September, Kildrummie Castle fell, and Nigel
Bruce, King Robert's brother, fell into the hands of the English and was
put to death at Berwick. To complete the tale of catastrophes, the
Bruce's wife and daughter, two of his sisters, and other two of his
brothers, along with the Countess of Buchan, came into the power of the
English king. Edward placed some of the ladies in cages, and put to
death Sir Thomas Bruce and Alexander Bruce, Dean of Glasgow (February,
1306-7). Meanwhile, King Robert had found it impossible to maintain
himself even in his own lands of Carrick, and he withdrew to the island
of Rathlin, where he wintered. Undeterred by this long series of
calamities, he took the field in the spring of 1307, and now, for the
first time, fortune favoured him. On the 10th May, he defeated the
English, under Pembroke, at Loudon Hill, in Ayrshire. He had been joined
by his brother Edward and by the Lord James of Douglas (the "Black
Douglas"), and the news of his success, slight as it was, helped to
increase at once the spirit and the numbers of his followers. His
position, however, was one of extreme difficulty; he was still only a
king in name, and, in reality, the leader of a guerilla warfare. Edward
was marching northwards at the head of a large army, determined to crush
his audacious subject. But Fate had decreed that the Hammer of the Scots
was never again to set foot in Scotland. At Burgh-on-Sand, near
Carlisle, within sight of his unconquered conquest, the great Edward
breathed his last. His death was the turning-point in the struggle. The
reign of Edward II in England is a most important factor in the
explanation of Bruce's success.
With the death of Edward I the whole aspect of the contest changes. The
English were no longer conducting a great struggle for a statesmanlike
ideal, as they had been under Edward I--however impossible he himself
had made its attainment. There is no longer any sign of conscious
purpose either in their method or in their aims. The nature of the
warfare at once changed; Edward II, despite his father's wish that his
bones should be carried at the head of the army till Scotland was
subdued, contented himself with a fruitless march into Ayrshire, and
then returned to give his father a magnificent burial in Westminster
Abbey. King Robert was left to fight his Scottish enemies without their
English allies. These Scottish enemies may be divided into two
classes--the Anglo-Norman nobles who had supported the English cause
more or less consistently, and the personal enemies of the Bruce, who
increased in numbers after the murder of Comyn. Among the great families
thus alienated from the cause of Scotland were the Highlanders of Argyll
and the Isles, some of the men of Badenach, and certain Galloway clans.
But that this opposition was personal, and not racial, is shown by the
fact that, from the first, some of these Highlanders were loyal to
Bruce, _e.g._ Sir Nigel Campbell and Angus Og. We shall see, further,
that after the first jealousies caused by Comyn's death and Bruce's
success had passed away, the men of Argyll and the Isles took a more
prominent part on the Scottish side. In December, 1307, Bruce routed
John Comyn, the successor of his old rival, at Slains, on the
Aberdeenshire coast, and in the following May, when Comyn had obtained
some slight English assistance, he inflicted a final defeat upon him at
Inverurie. The power of the Comyns in their hereditary earldom of Buchan
had now been suppressed, and King Robert turned his attention to their
allies in the south. In the autumn of 1308, he himself defeated
Alexander of Lorn and subdued the district of Argyll, his brother Edward
reduced Galloway to subjection, and Douglas, along with Randolph, Earl
of Moray, was successful in Tweeddale. Thus, within three years from the
death of Comyn, Bruce had broken the power of the great families, whose
enmity against him had been aroused by that event. One year later the
other great misfortune, which had been brought upon him by the same
cause, was removed by an act which is important evidence at once of the
strength of the anti-English feeling in the country, and of the
confidence which Bruce had inspired. On the 24th February, 1309-10, the
clergy of Scotland met at Dundee and made a solemn declaration[48] of
fealty to King Robert as their lawful king. Scotland was thus united in
its struggle for independence under King Robert I.
It now remained to attack the English garrisons who held the castles of
Scotland. An invasion conducted by Edward II in 1310 proved fruitless,
and the English king returned home to enter on a long quarrel with the
Lords Ordainers, and to see his favourite, Gaveston, first exiled and
then put to death. While the attention of the rulers of England was thus
occupied, Bruce, for the first time since Wallace's inroad of 1297,
carried the war into the enemy's country, invading the north of England
both in 1311 and in 1312. Meanwhile the strongholds of the country were
passing out of the English power. Linlithgow was recovered in 1311;
Perth in January, 1312-13; and Roxburgh a month later. The romantic
capture of the castle of Edinburgh, by Randolph, Earl of Moray, in
March, 1313, is one of the classical stories of Scottish history, and
in the summer of the same year, King Robert restored the Scottish rule
in the Isle of Man. In November, 1313, only Stirling Castle remained in
English hands, and Edward Bruce rashly agreed to raise the siege on
condition that the garrison should surrender if they were not relieved
by June 24th, 1314. Edward II determined to make a heroic effort to
maintain this last vestige of English conquest, and his attempt to do so
has become irrevocably associated with the Field of Bannockburn.
In his preparations for the great struggle, which was to determine the
fate of Scotland, the Bruce carefully avoided the errors which had led
to Wallace's defeat at Falkirk. He selected a position which was
covered, on one side by the Bannock Burn and a morass, and, on the other
side, by the New Park or Forest. His front was protected by the stream
and by the famous series of "pottes", or holes, covered over so as to
deceive the English cavalry. The choice of this narrow position not only
prevented the possibility of a flank attack, but also forced the great
army of Edward II into a small space, where its numbers became a
positive disadvantage. King Robert arranged his infantry in four
divisions; in front were three schiltrons of pikemen, under Randolph,
Edward Bruce, and Sir James Douglas, and Bruce himself commanded the
reserve, which was composed of Highlanders from Argyll and the Islands
and of the men of Carrick.[49] Sir Robert Keith, the Marischal, was in
charge of a small body of cavalry, which did good service by driving
back, at a critical moment, such archers as made their way through the
forest. The English army was in ten divisions, but the limited area in
which they had to fight interfered with their arrangement. As at
Falkirk, the English cavalry made a gallant but useless charge against
the schiltrons, but it was not possible again to save the day by means
of archers, for the archers had no room to deploy, and could only make
vain efforts to shoot over the heads of the horsemen. Bruce strengthened
the Scots with his reserve, and then ensued a general action along the
whole line. The van of the English army was now thoroughly demoralized,
and their comrades in the rear could not, in these narrow limits, press
forward to render any assistance. King Robert's camp-followers, at this
juncture, rushed down a hill behind the Scottish army, and they appeared
to the English as a fresh force come to assist the enemy. The result was
the loss of all sense of discipline: King Edward's magnificent host fled
in complete rout and with great slaughter, and the cause of Scottish
freedom was won.
The victory of Bannockburn did not end the war, for the English refused
to acknowledge the hard-won independence of Scotland, and fighting
continued till the year 1327. The Scots not only invaded England, but
adopted the policy of fighting England in Ireland, and English reprisals
in Scotland were uniformly unsuccessful. Bruce invaded England in 1315;
in the same year, his brother Edward landed with a Scottish army at
Carrickfergus, in the hope of obtaining a throne for himself. He was
crowned King of Ireland in May, 1316, and during that and the following
year, King Robert was personally in Ireland, giving assistance to his
brother. But, in 1318, Edward Bruce was defeated and slain near Dundalk,
and, with his death, this phase of the Bruce's English policy
disappears. A few months before the death of Edward Bruce, King Robert
had captured the border town of Berwick-on-Tweed, which had been held by
the English since 1298. In 1319, Edward II sent an English army to
besiege Berwick, and the Scots replied by an invasion of England in the
course of which Douglas and Randolph defeated the English at
Mitton-on-Swale in Yorkshire. The English were led by the Archbishop of
York, and so many clerks were killed that the battle acquired the name
of the Chapter of Mitton. The war lingered on for three years more. The
year 1322 saw an invasion of England by King Robert and a
counter-invasion of Scotland by Edward II, who destroyed the Abbey of
Dryburgh on his return march. This expedition was, as usual, fruitless,
for the Scots adopted their usual tactics of leaving the country waste
and desolate, and the English army could obtain no food. In October of
the same year King Robert made a further inroad into Yorkshire, and won
a small victory at Biland Abbey. At last, in March, 1323, a truce was
made for thirteen years, but as Edward II persisted in declining to
acknowledge the independence of Scotland, it was obvious that peace
could not be long maintained.
During the fourteen years which followed his victory of Bannockburn,
King Robert was consolidating his kingdom. He had obtained recognition
even in the Western Highlands and Islands, and the sentiment of the
whole nation had gathered around him. The force of this sentiment is
apparent in connection with ecclesiastical difficulties. When Pope John
XXII attempted to make peace in 1317 and refused to acknowledge the
Bruce as king, the papal envoys were driven from the kingdom. For this
the country was placed under the papal ban, and when, in 1324, the pope
offered both to acknowledge King Robert and to remove the
excommunication, on condition that Berwick should be restored to the
English, the Scots refused to comply with his condition. A small
rebellion in 1320 had been firmly repressed by king and Parliament. The
birth of a son to King Robert, on the 5th March, 1323-24, had given
security to the dynasty, and, at the great Parliament which met at
Cambuskenneth in 1326, at which Scottish burghs were, for the first
time, represented, the clergy, the barons, and the people took an oath
of allegiance to the little Prince David, and, should his heirs fail, to
Robert, the son of Bruce's daughter, Marjorie, and her husband, Robert,
the High Steward of Scotland. The same Parliament put the financial
position of the monarch on a satisfactory footing by granting him a
tenth penny of all rents.
The deposition and murder of Edward II created a situation of which the
King of Scots could not fail to take advantage. The truce was broken in
the summer of 1327 by an expedition into England, conducted by Douglas
and Randolph, and the hardiness of the Scottish soldiery surprised the
English and warned them that it was impossible to prolong the contest in
the present condition of the two countries. The regents for the young
Edward III resolved to come to terms with Bruce. The treaty of
Northampton, dated 17th March, 1327-28, is still preserved in Edinburgh.
It acknowledged the complete independence of Scotland and the royal
dignity of King Robert. It promised the restoration of all the symbols
of Scottish independence which Edward I had removed, and it arranged a
marriage between Prince David, the heir to the Scottish throne, and
Joanna, the sister of the young king of England. A marriage ceremony
between the two children was solemnized in the following May, but the
Stone of Fate was never removed from Westminster, owing, it is said, to
the opposition of the abbot. The succession of James VI to the throne of
England, nearly three centuries later, was accepted as the fulfilment of
the prophecy attached to the Coronation Stone, "Lapis ille grandis":
"Ni fallat fatam, Scoti, quocunque locatum,
Invenient lapidem, regnare tenentur ibidem".
Thus closed the portion of Scottish history which is known as the War of
Independence. The condemnation of the policy of Edward I lies simply in
its results. He found the two nations at peace and living together in
amity; he left them at war and each inspired with a bitter hatred of the
other. A policy which aimed at the unification of the island and at
preventing Scotland from proving a source of danger to England, and
which resulted in a warfare covering, almost continuously, more than two
hundred and fifty years, and which, after the lapse of four centuries,
left the policy of Scotland a serious difficulty to English ministers,
can scarcely receive credit for practical sagacity, however wise its
aim. It created for England a relentless and irritating (if not always a
dangerous) enemy, invariably ready to take advantage of English
difficulties. England had to fight Scotland in France and in Ireland,
and Edward IV and Henry VII found the King of Scots the ally of the
House of Lancaster, and the protector of Perkin Warbeck. Only the
accident of the Reformation rendered it possible to disengage Scotland
from its alliance with France, and to bring about a union with England.
Till the emergence of the religious question the English party in
Scotland consisted of traitors and mercenaries, and their efforts to
strengthen English influence form the most discreditable pages of
Scottish history.
We are not here dealing with the domestic history of Scotland; but it is
impossible to avoid a reference to the subject of the influence of the
Scottish victory upon the Scots themselves. It has been argued that
Bannockburn was, for Scotland, a national misfortune, and that Bruce's
defeat would have been for the real welfare of the country. There are,
of course, two stand-points from which we may approach the question. The
apologist of Bannockburn might lay stress on the different effects of
conquest and a hard-won independence upon the national character, and
might fairly point to various national characteristics which have been,
perhaps, of some value to civilization, and which could hardly have been
fostered in a condition of servitude. On the other hand, there arises a
question as to material prosperity. It must be remembered that we are
not here discussing the effect of a peaceful and amicable union, such as
Edward first proposed, but of a successful war of conquest; and in this
connection it is only with thankfulness and gratitude to Wallace and to
Bruce that the Scotsman can regard the parallel case of Ireland, which,
from a century before the time of Edward I, had been annexed by
conquest. The story we have just related goes to create a reasonable
probability that the fate of Scotland could not have been different;
but, further, leaving all such problems of the "might have been", we may
submit that the misery of Scotland in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and
sixteenth centuries has been much exaggerated. It is true that the
borders were in a condition of perpetual feud, and that minorities and
intrigues gravely hampered the progress of the country. But, more
especially in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, there are not
wanting indications of prosperity. The chapter of Scottish history which
tells of the growth of burghs has yet to be written. The construction of
magnificent cathedrals and religious houses, and the rise of three
universities, must not be left out of account. Gifts to the infant
universities, the records of which we possess, prove that for humble
folk the tenure of property was comparatively secure, and that there was
a large amount of comfort among the people. Under James IV, trade and
commerce prospered, and the Scottish navy rivalled that of the Tudors.
The century in which Scottish prosperity received its most severe blows
immediately succeeded the Union of the Crowns. If for three hundred
years the civilizing influence of England can scarcely be traced in the
history of Scottish progress, that of France was predominant, and
Scotland cannot entirely regret the fact. Scotland, from the date of
Bannockburn to that of Pinkie, will not suffer from a comparison with
the England which underwent the strain of the long French wars, the
civil broils of Lancaster and York, and the oppression of the Tudors.
Moreover, there is one further consideration which should not be
overlooked. The postponement of an English union till the seventeenth
century enabled Scotland to work out its own reformation of religion in
the way best adapted to the national needs, and it is difficult to
estimate, from the material stand-point alone, the importance of this
factor in the national progress. The inspiration and the education which
the Scottish Church has given to the Scottish people has found one
result in the impulse it has afforded to the growth of material
prosperity, and it is not easy to regret that Scotland, at the date of
the Reformation, was free to work out its own ecclesiastical destiny.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 44: There is no indication of any racial division in the
attitude of the Scots. Some Highlanders, from various personal causes,
are found on the English side at the beginning of the War of
Independence; but Mr. Lang has shown that of the descendants of Somerled
of Argyll, the ancestor of the Lords of the Isles, only one fought
against Wallace, while the Celts of Moray and Badenach and the Highland
districts of Aberdeenshire, joined his standard. The behaviour of the
Highland chiefs is similar to that of the Lowland barons. If there is
any racial feeling at all, it is not Celtic _v._ Saxon, but Scandinavian
_v._ Scottish, and it is connected with the recent conquest of the
Isles. But even of this there is little trace, and the behaviour of the
Islesmen is, on the whole, marvellously loyal.]
[Footnote 45: Hemingburgh, ii, 141-147.]
[Footnote 46: _Diplomata Scotiæ_, xliii, xliv.]
[Footnote 47: Bruce had married, 1st, Isabella, daughter of the 10th
Earl of Mar, by whom he had a daughter, Marjorie, and 2nd, in 1302,
Elizabeth de Burgh, daughter of the Earl of Ulster.]
[Footnote 48: Nat. MSS. ii. 12, No. XVII. The original is preserved in
the Register House.]
[Footnote 49: Pinkerton suggests that King Robert adopted this
arrangement because he was unable to trust the Highlanders, but this is
unlikely, as their leader, Angus Og, had been consistently faithful to
him throughout.]