RECOVERY OF FORTRESSES
Bruce was now in a position to turn his main energies against the
strongholds still in English occupation.
Towards the end of March 1312 he was preparing to besiege Berwick with
an unusually large force. But the operations are not known; and, in any
case, they were soon postponed. On April 26, he held a parliament at
Ayr, and carefully settled the succession to the throne.
The dissensions between Edward and his barons appear to have induced
Bruce to carry the war into the enemy's territory. While the incensed
barons were hunting down Gaveston, he raided the March again, took
tribute, burned Norham, and carried off prisoners and booty. Again, in
the end of June, after Gaveston was beheaded, Bruce made another foray
into the episcopate of Durham. He burnt Hexham, and dealt so severely
with the Priory, that even in 1320, it is said, the canons were unable
to return, while their collectors were still 'wandering about in the
country in 1326, with the archbishop's brief, in quest of funds for the
canons and their church.' It may have been on this occasion that Bruce
sent Douglas to pillage the region of Hartlepool. It is, no doubt, in
reference to a subsequent raid, that the Lanercost chronicler tells how
a detachment entered Durham on market day, burned most of the town,
and slew all that resisted, but did not touch the castle or the abbey.
The episcopate compounded for peace till next midsummer at £2000, the
Scots bargaining for free passage 'whenever they wanted to ride further
into England!' The Palatinate Register records the date as August 16.
The Northumbrians, too, paid down £2000; Westmorland, Coupland, and
Cumberland also paid ransom--money in part, and for the rest hostages,
'sons of the greater lords of the country.' And meantime Edward was
squabbling with his barons. It was enough to make his martial father
rise from his grave.
At last, on December 6, the Lanercost chronicle relates, Bruce suddenly
pounced upon Berwick. His men had placed two ladders, and 'he would
soon have had the castle, as is believed,' had the garrison not been
warned by the barking of a dog. The ladders, says the chronicler, 'were
of a remarkable make, as I myself, who write this, witnessed with my
own eyes.' He describes ladders of ropes, with wooden steps, and iron
hooks to grip the wall top. The alarm being raised, Bruce retired,
leaving the two ladders for the monk's inspection. 'So a dog on that
occasion saved the town, as once geese by their cackling saved Rome.'
Bruce turned north to Perth. According to the Lanercost chronicle,
he took the town by surprise in the night of January 10 (Fordun says
January 8), 1312-13. The governor, Sir William Oliphant--probably this
is the capture of Perth antedated by Barbour--'was bound and sent to
the islands afar'; but, if so, he did not stay long there, for he
was in England within two months, and on October 21, he obtained a
safe-conduct to return to Scotland. The chronicler says that Bruce slew
the better Scots burgesses, but permitted the English to go free; while
Fordun records that he put 'the disloyal people, Scots and English
alike,' to the sword. 'In his clemency,' adds Fordun, 'he spared the
rabble, and granted forgiveness to such as asked it; but he destroyed
the walls and dykes, and consumed everything else with fire.'
Bruce next swept down upon Dumfries. Here his old enemy, Sir Dougal
MacDowall, constable of the castle, had experienced much difficulty all
through summer and autumn in obtaining adequate supplies. He gave up
the castle to Bruce on February 7, the short siege probably indicating
that he was starved into surrender. It is likely, as Mr Bain surmises,
that Buittle, Dalswinton, Lochmaben, and Carlaverock were all recovered
about the same time.
The Scots appear to have derived considerable supplies from Flanders.
On February 15, 1312-13, Edward remonstrated with the Count of
Flanders, begging him to restrain his subjects from all intercourse
with Scotsmen. The Count seized the occasion to demand compensation
for losses and injuries inflicted on his subjects by Englishmen. An
English commission, much to the disgust of the Flemish envoys, rejected
the claims; and presently Flemish seamen plundered English vessels,
the chief depredator being the ingenious John Crab, whom we shall meet
again. On May 1, 1313, Edward invited the Count to send his aggrieved
subjects back to London; but 'now,' he added, 'we hear that thirteen
ships of your power, laden with arms and victuals, quite lately crossed
from the port of Swyn to Scotland--whereat we very much marvel.' The
Flemish quarrel went on; but on May 17, at the instance of the French
king, Edward appointed four commissioners 'to negotiate a truce or
sufferance with the Scots.'
Within a week, however, as Edward was on the point of embarking for
France to confer with Philip about Gascony, he learned from a special
messenger from the lieges of Cumberland that the Scots were again
upon them. He could only tell them to do their best, and he would
hasten back to take order for their safety. On June 6, Bishop Kellawe
of Durham testifies to the forlorn state of the nuns of Halistan on
the March; there are hostile incursions daily, goods and cattle are
reived, and the very nuns are insulted and persecuted by the robbers,
and driven from their homes suffering miserably. Such are examples
of the state of affairs in the mind of the Lanercost chronicler when
he records that 'the people of Northumberland, Westmorland, and
Cumberland, and other men of the Marches, neither having nor hoping
from their King defence or aid, he being then in the remote parts of
England and not appearing to trouble himself about them, offered no
moderate amount--nay, a very large amount--of money to Robert for truce
till September 29, 1314.' Bruce was striking hard and persistently, and
Edward was giving way all along the line of war.
On his return, indeed, Edward at once took measures of retaliation. As
early as April 2, he had answered applications from Northumberland for
aid by a promise of relief before midsummer--a promise that remained
unfulfilled. On July 6, he demanded a subsidy from the bishops, and on
August 13 he made a like appeal to the abbots and convents. In warlike
mood, in the end of July, he had ordered something like a press-gang
muster of boats at the ports from the Wash round to Plymouth. It was
but a spasmodic effort of weakness. About the beginning of October,
Sir Ralph Fitz William reported that 'they are grievously menaced with
treason at Berwick, but, if the garrison are loyal, they will defend
it against the King of France and the King of Scotland for a while
till succour reaches them.' In the end of next month, the Bishop of St
Andrews proceeded to France in the interest of Edward, no doubt with
the object of detaching Philip from co-operation with Bruce. It was a
fatuous choice of an envoy.
The wretched inefficiency of Edward had by this time rendered the
position of his adherents in Scotland all but insupportable. In
November they despatched the Earl of March and Sir Adam de Gordon to
lay their grievances before him. Their petition recounts their heavy
losses at the hands of the enemy during the past three years; their
costly purchase of truce; and especially their intolerable sufferings
from the lawless outrages committed upon them by the garrisons of
Berwick and Roxburgh, who are alleged to have plundered, killed, and
held them to ransom at will, as if they had been enemies. Here is
a substantial repetition of the memorandum of 1307-10. Sir Adam de
Gordon could tell how he had himself been arrested by the constable of
Roxburgh Castle and required to find security for his good behaviour.
The King, replying on November 28, could only give them the cold
comfort of an assurance of his intention to march to their relief at
next midsummer. It is quite natural that such slackness of the central
authority should have given head to such marauding scoundrels on the
Border as Sir Gilbert de Middleton and Thomas de Pencaitland. That
notorious knight of the road, Sir Gilbert, will cross our path again.
It could not have been earlier than autumn 1313 that Bruce recovered
the Peel of Linlithgow, which was held by Sir Archibald de Livingstone,
under the orders of Sir Peter Lubaud, warden and sheriff of Edinburgh.
Barbour makes it harvest time. The peel garrison had cut their hay,
and engaged William Bunnock, a neighbouring farmer, who hated them
patriotically, to 'lead' it for them. Bunnock conceived the notion of
elevating the familiar harvesting process to an operation of war, and
arranged the strategic details with his friends. He planted an ambush
in the early morning, and let the hay lie till the peel men had gone
out to cut their crop. Loading the hay, with eight men hid in it, he
set a hardy yeoman, with a hatchet under his belt, to drive the waggon,
himself walking idly beside. When the waggon was half-way through the
gate, Bunnock shouted the signal, 'Thief! Call all! Call all!' The
driver instantly severed the traces, stopping the waggon; Bunnock slew
the porter; the eight men leapt down from the midst of the hay, and
the ambush swarmed up. They slew the men they found in garrison, and
pursued those that were in the fields towards Edinburgh and Stirling,
killing some in their flight. For this exploit Bruce rewarded Bunnock
worthily. The peel he at once demolished. The story of Bunnock rests on
the sole authority of Barbour.
The next castle to fall was Roxburgh. Douglas had been keeping the
Forest, and harassing Roxburgh and Jedburgh castles. Resolving to win
Roxburgh, he got a handy man, Simon of the Leadhouse, to make him
ladders of hempen ropes, with strong wooden steps and iron hooks, after
the Berwick pattern. Then gathering some sixty men, he approached the
castle on Fastern's Even (Shrove Tuesday), February 27, 1313-14, and
waited till dark. The party left their horses, put black frocks over
their armour, and crept forward on all fours like cattle. The deception
succeeded; Barbour says they overheard the garrison jesting at the
expense of the neighbouring farmer, who, they imagined, had left his
cattle at large to be carried off by the Douglas. The click of a hook
on the wall attracted a sentinel, but Simon, who had mounted first,
stabbed the man dead, and the party quickly scaled the wall. The
garrison were making merry in the hall, when the Scots burst in upon
them with the Douglas war-cry. A sharp conflict ensued. At length Sir
William de Fiennes, the constable, a valorous Gascon, retreated to the
great tower. With daylight, the Scots plied the tower with arrows, and
eventually wounded Sir William so badly in the face that he yielded,
on terms that he and his men should pass safe to England. Douglas
conducted them over the Border, and Sir William soon afterwards died of
his wound. Bruce sent his brother Sir Edward to demolish the castle.
Sir Edward, says Barbour, secured all Teviotdale except Jedburgh
and other places near the English border. On main points Barbour is
corroborated by Sir Thomas Gray and the Lanercost chronicler.
The news of the capture of Roxburgh stimulated the rivalry of Randolph,
who was besieging Sir Peter Lubaud in Edinburgh Castle. Hopeless of
taking the place by assault, Randolph cast about for some likely
stratagem, when William Francis (or William the Frenchman), one of
his men, suggested a plan of extreme boldness. Francis, according to
Barbour, stated that he had at one time lived in the castle, and,
having a sweetheart in the town, had been accustomed to climb the
sheer rock in the darkest nights. All that was needed was good nerve,
and a twelve-foot ladder for the wall on the top. So, on a dark
night--Fordun gives March 14, 1313-14--Randolph, with thirty picked
men, essayed the adventurous ascent. About half way up they stopped
to rest. Here their nerves were dramatically tested. One of the watch
overhead threw down a stone, exclaiming 'Away! I see you well.' It was
a mere joke, the sentry saw nothing; and the stone passed harmlessly
over them. The watchmen passed on without suspicion, and Randolph with
his men hastened up the steeper and steeper crag to the foot of the
wall. Instantly the ladder was fixed, Francis mounting first, then
Sir Andrew Gray, and Randolph himself third. Before all the party got
over the watch was alarmed, the cry of 'Treason! Treason!' resounded
through the castle, and a desperate struggle ensued. Randolph himself
was very sorely bested, but he succeeded in killing the commandant;
whereupon the garrison gave in. The Lanercost chronicler states that a
strong assault was made on the south gate--the only point reasonably
open to assault--where the garrison offered a vigorous resistance; and
that the party mounting the rock on the north side under cover of this
front attack, having surprised and overcome the defenders, opened the
gate to their comrades. Sir Peter Lubaud, the warden, says Barbour,
had been deposed from the command of the garrison on account of some
suspicious intercourse with the enemy, and was found by Randolph in
prison in fetters. He became Bruce's man, but soon afterwards he fell
under suspicion of treason, and, by Bruce's order, was drawn and hanged
(Gray)--or at any rate put in prison, where he died miserably (John
of Tynmouth). The Lanercost writer states that the victors 'slew the
English,' probably meaning the garrison; but the extant rolls show that
there were many Scotsmen in the garrison, 'two of them,' as Mr Bain
remarks, even 'bearing the surname of Douglas.' Bruce demolished the
castle.
Barbour states that Sir Edward Bruce, having won all Galloway and
Nithsdale, and taken Rutherglen Peel and Dundee Castle, laid siege to
Stirling Castle from Lent to midsummer, 1313; and that then Sir Philip
de Mowbray, the constable, agreed to yield the castle, provided it
were not relieved by midsummer 1314. The most recklessly chivalrous
terms are indeed consonant with Sir Edward's character. But if, as
Barbour and the Monk of Malmesbury agree, Mowbray was influenced by a
threatened failure of provisions, the period must have been much less.
He in Stirling would hardly be in any better case for supplies than
was MacDowall in Dumfries. Immediately on investment of the castle,
he would begin to feel the pinch; and the fall of Edinburgh would at
once intimate the hopelessness of his position. But, further, we have
seen Sir Edward demolishing Roxburgh Castle in early March, and it does
not seem likely that he would have left a substitute to look after
Stirling. Besides, the Lanercost chronicler can hardly be mistaken
when he says that Sir Edward entered England on April 17, taking up
his headquarters at the Bishop's manor house at Rose, and sending his
army as far as Englewood Forest, south and west, for three days to burn
and plunder--because the tribute had not been duly paid. Once more,
the Monk of Malmesbury represents that it was after the fall of the
other castles that Mowbray carried to Edward the news of his agreement
for surrender. On the whole, it may be seriously doubted whether the
respite extended beyond a couple of months, or even six weeks. It is
not, apparently, till May 27, that Mowbray's conditional agreement for
surrender is mentioned in any existing official document.
Besides Stirling, the only fortresses of any importance that now
remained in the hands of the English were Berwick, Jedburgh, and
Bothwell. But the immediate interest centres in the fateful attempt to
relieve the castle of Stirling.