HistoryExtra Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast 2024-09-30T15:19:49.000Z https://www.historyextra.com/people/robert-the-bruce/feed/atom HistoryExtra <![CDATA[Robert the Bruce: the man, the myth, the murderer]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/robert-the-bruce-long-reads-podcast-fiona-watson/ 2024-09-30T15:19:49.000Z 2024-09-23T06:30:25.000Z Robert the Bruce is famed as a national hero, and lauded for his military exploits against the old enemy of England. But how true is this perception? As Scotland marks Bruce's 750th birthday, this Long Read, written by Fiona Watson, reveals the shadowy side of a ruthless noble who schemed and slaughtered his way to the throne.

HistoryExtra Long Reads brings you the best articles from BBC History Magazine, direct to your ears. Today’s feature originally appeared in the August 2024 issue, and has been voiced in partnership with the RNIB.

]]> HistoryExtra <![CDATA[The man, the myth, the murderer: how Robert the Bruce slaughtered his way to the throne]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/robert-bruce/ 2024-07-16T13:56:58.000Z 2024-07-11T11:50:39.000Z He’s the beleaguered king on the run, finding courage and inspiration in the perseverance of a spider. The noble hero on his great horse, gazing across the field of his most famous victory. The inspiration for stirring rhetoric on freedom.

He’s Robert the Bruce, celebrated in poetry and story, in song and on the silver screen. As Scotland celebrates the 750th anniversary of his birth, the great king shows no sign of losing his appeal as a national hero – a medieval David confronting the Goliath of England.

He was certainly remarkable. Indeed, I would argue that the myth cloaking the Bruce has denied him full recognition as a military leader of extraordinary vision and talent. But there’s another side to this coin: cold, calculating ambition and utter ruthlessness, reflected in his flexible loyalty, his efforts to rewrite history – and his role in the murder of his greatest rival to the throne.

Read more | Robert the Bruce: champion of Scotland or murderous usurper?

Competitive spirit

Robert Bruce was born on 11 July 1274, probably on one of his family’s manors in Essex. Like many noble families in the British Isles, the Bruces were of Norman origin.

The first Robert de Brus crossed the Channel around 1100, earning lands and offices in the service of Henry I of England and David I of Scotland. (Almost all Bruce heirs were named Robert, so it’s helpful to give them numbers: the most famous, King Robert I ‘the Bruce’, was Robert 7.) Bruces became wealthy and prominent in both countries. However, it was the Scottish branch of the family, centred on the western border lordship of Annandale, that proved the most upwardly mobile.

Robert 5, known as ‘the Competitor’ – and grandfather of ‘the’ Bruce – was the first to pursue the Scottish crown. He had inherited a considerable property portfolio on both sides of the border, but nurtured higher ambitions bolstered by his royal lineage. He was the eldest son of Isabel of Huntingdon, great-granddaughter of David I of Scotland, and set his sights on the Scottish throne following the deaths of Alexander III in 1286 and that king’s only direct heir, Margaret of Norway, in 1290.

In the ensuing succession crisis – including a brief civil war – the Bruces ultimately lost out to John Balliol, grandson of Isabel of Huntingdon’s elder sister; no doubt they believed they’d been robbed. Certainly, John Balliol’s reign (1292–96) was difficult for the Bruces. By the time war broke out between Scotland and England in 1296, the year after Robert 5 died, they’d lost all Scottish possessions. So Roberts 6 and 7 turned to England.

In spring 1296, both Roberts rode with the army brought north by Edward I to punish Balliol for daring to question English overlordship. King John was also – correctly – accused of seeking a closer relationship with England’s enemy, France. But once John had been stripped of his crown, Robert 6 – who had believed his loyalty to England would be rewarded with the Scottish throne – was gobsmacked to be told by Edward: “Have we nothing else to do than win kingdoms for you?”

Robert 6 remained loyal to Edward, but his son proved to be a chip off his grandfather’s block. By then in his early twenties, Robert 7 decided to take advantage of the political vacuum in Scotland created by the absence – in prison or in exile – of the politically powerful Comyn family. Robert gave a pretty speech to his father’s knights at Lochmaben, near Dumfries, claiming that his oath of allegiance to England had been coerced. “But since no one has ever hated his own flesh... I must go to my people and join my nation from which I was born... And I beseech you... to come with me.”

Though his father’s men refused to back him on this occasion, Robert 7 led an army on behalf of the Scottish political community, supposedly against unprecedented English financial demands. Despite the fact that he soon capitulated, he was still viewed with suspicion by the English government.

Timeline: The rise, fall and rise of Robert Bruce

11 July 1274: Robert the Bruce, the seventh of that name, is born – – probably on his family’s property in Essex, or possibly at Turnberry Castle in Ayrshire. 1286–92: Following the death of King Alexander III, competition for the Scottish throne flares between Robert Bruce (grandfather of the later king) and John Balliol eventually being resolved in the latter’s favour. Spring 1296: The seventh Robert Bruce takes part in the conquest of Scotland launched by Edward I of England. Two years later, he is named guardian of Scotland but is forced out by his co-guardian, John Comyn of Badenoch. 10 February 1306: Robert kills John Comyn at the Greyfriars monastery in Dumfries, and seizes the throne of Scotland. He is inaugurated in Scone six weeks later. 23–24 June 1314: Robert wins a spectacular victory at the site now known as Bannockburn, just south of Stirling, using the terrain and expert tactics to defeat the much larger English army of Edward II. 1319: Irked by Robert’s continued conflict with England, the pope excommunicates Scotland. The next year, Scottish nobles respond with the letter known as the Declaration of Arbroath, asking for recognition of Scotland’s independence. 1323: After years of fighting, Scotland and England conclude a 13-year truce. 5 March 1324: The king’s second wife, Elizabeth de Burgh, gives birth to his only legitimate surviving son, David. In the same year, the pope finally recognises Robert (whose statue is pictured, right) as the king of independent Scotland. 17 March 1328: Robert signs the treaty ending the war with England, which is countersigned by Edward III on 1 May, acknowledging the independence of Scotland. 7 June 1329: Robert Bruce dies in his house in Cardross, near Dumbarton Castle, and is succeeded by his son, David II.

The young Robert was the least of Edward’s worries, though. Revolt was spreading, culminating in Scottish victory at Stirling Bridge in September 1297. A new government was set up, led by the victor, William Wallace, as guardian for the imprisoned King John. But in July 1298, Edward defeated Wallace in person, though Scotland as a whole did not capitulate.

Now Robert, recognising that Wallace’s political career was over, made his move; by the end of the year, he had become guardian – a remarkable political achievement.

He did not rule alone, however. The Comyns had been sent back to Scotland in 1297 to help stabilise Edward’s rule but, after Stirling Bridge, they rejoined the fight for Scottish independence, and John Comyn of Badenoch took power alongside Robert 7.

Comyn was a similar age to Bruce, and just as ambitious; naturally, they hated each other. But Robert’s political clout was no match for his fellow guardian’s, and he was soon forced out. By 1302, he had made his peace with Edward; Comyn, meanwhile, continued as guardian, leading the fight against English forces until 1304 when exhaustion and diplomatic isolation forced the Scots to make peace.

Eye on the throne

As the last castle fell to the English, Robert 7 received news of his father’s death. Immediately, his thoughts seem to have turned to the throne. Edward was clearly ill, and the Scots would not have to wait long for their oaths of loyalty to die with him.

But Robert now faced a problem. John Comyn had not only led the Scots for most of the war; he was also Balliol’s closest relative in Scotland and, once Edward was dead, the man most likely to become king. He was Bruce’s bitter rival.

So Robert couldn’t afford to wait. The events of 10 February 1306 are so obscured by deliberate lies that we’ll never know exactly what happened. It seems that, thanks to their history of animosity, John Comyn would meet Bruce only on sacred ground – the Greyfriars monastery in Dumfries. Did they agree to meet in order to talk about the throne? If so, their conversation was short, because Comyn and his uncle seem to have been stabbed almost immediately. The later story – that Bruce didn’t know if he’d killed his rival – is propaganda designed to exculpate him from having landed the fatal blow.

This murder was not, as Hollywood would have it, something that had to be done for the greater good, and to a man whose grovelling acquiescence to English rule meant he pretty much deserved it. Rather, it was the cold-blooded removal of a rival with better credentials to lead Scotland than Bruce, in terms of blood, political support and experience. John Comyn’s killing came to cast a long shadow over Robert’s reign when he did eventually take the throne.

As the man behind the murder, Bruce knew that only the ailing Edward could save him from the Comyns’ vengeance. Seemingly, he offered to accept the English king’s overlordship in return for the throne. The response was a stunned silence, prompting Robert to declare to the English government that he would “defend himself with the longest stick he had”.

He was enthroned at Scone on 25 March 1306. As Robert Bruce, he was a dead man; as King Robert I of Scotland, he might gather support from those Scots who were not close to the Comyns.

Once king, though, Robert made such basic tactical errors that he soon ended up on the run. Many close supporters, including three of his brothers, were executed by an incandescent Edward I, and his wife and daughter were imprisoned. As the year ebbed, he fled to far north-west Scotland with only a few companions, lucky to be alive. As a result he was dubbed ‘King Hobbe’ – an outlaw who rode not a noble warhorse but a little ‘hobby.’

It was at this point he truly proved his mettle. Spider or not, these undocumented months proved miraculous. While his men languished in the depths of despair, Bruce cheered them by recounting the tale of “worthy Fierabras”, a ‘Saracen’ who faced similar challenges but survived to become one of Charlemagne’s knights. The new king was clearly loved: reunions with friends who thought him dead brought forth “tears of joy”.

Student of warfare

Most importantly, Robert knuckled down to study warfare – notably the victory of the spear-wielding Flemings over the French cavalry in the so-called battle of the Golden Spurs at Courtrai (Kortrijk) in 1302. He surely discussed guerrilla tactics with his Hebridean hosts, too.

Bruce returned to the fray as a warrior king – albeit one who preferred the heather to a castle hearth. His tactics were flexibility and surprise. He might burn fortresses, ambush English forces in tree-covered valleys (at Glen Trool in April 1307), or even fight on an open field, so long as proper precautions were taken to neutralise a cavalry charge, as at Loudoun Hill in May 1307. Even before Edward I’s death in July 1307, Robert’s successes prompted many Scots to take a chance on him.

The new English king, Edward II, had to contend with an empty treasury as well as a nature vulnerable to domineering men who caused political problems. No English army crossed the northern border for another three years, leaving Robert free to deal with the civil war he had unleashed.

While his brother, Edward, took on Balliol’s lordship of Galloway in the south-west, King Robert headed into Comyn territory in the north-east. Winter did not deter them, nor mountains, nor long marches. John Comyn had used similar tactics, but Robert made them into an art form. When severe illness sparked rumours of his demise, Bruce’s presence on the battlefield – propped up on a litter – was enough to prompt his enemies to flee.

By the end of 1308, the Comyns and their supporters had been forced out of Scotland and the earldom of Buchan had been set ablaze, its inhabitants brutally slaughtered in their homes.

Edward II’s presence in Scotland in 1310–11 helped rally anti-Bruce forces – but he could not stay forever. For the moment, Robert preferred to avoid English armies. He launched raids into northern England as a prelude to extracting money in exchange for guarantees not to do it again. He wanted peace, but only if Edward acknowledged Scottish independence and Bruce’s right to rule – which the English king would never do.

More castles fell to Bruce and his audacious commanders by siege, surprise or ruse, and were destroyed. By October 1313, Robert felt strong enough to declare that all Scottish landowners who had not yet accepted him as king had one year to do so or risk forfeiture.

Pivotal showdown

The gauntlet had been thrown down. Edward II duly picked it up, finally putting together a financial package to pay for another army. But Robert laid his plans for a decisive face-off – including determining the location of the clash to his own advantage.

Stirling Castle – the last English stronghold – was besieged by Scottish forces, and its commander agreed to yield if not relieved by Edward II’s army by midsummer 1314. When the English forces arrived to battle Robert’s less numerous troops, the Bruce used the discipline he’d instilled in his men, along with his tactical nous, to win a stunning victory at Bannockburn.

This triumph came in large part through his drilling, over previous weeks, of moveable schiltroms (Scottish spear formations), and his command over an army ordered to take no prisoners or booty until the battle was won. But he did not neglect to inspire his men, either. “You could have lived in serfdom,” he told them the night before his victory. “But because you yearned to have freedom, you are gathered here with me.”

In contrast with Robert, Edward was cocksure but clueless. Yet Bannockburn did not win Robert peace. True, his womenfolk were returned (following their capture by the English in 1306), and many former enemies accepted Bruce as their lord. But even though the raids on northern England continued, and Edward Bruce opened another front in Ireland in 1315, still the English king wouldn’t budge.

Pressure was applied on Robert from abroad, too. Pope John XXII wanted another crusade, which would require the warriors of western Europe to make peace with each other. Bruce, though, defiantly continued his military action, prompting the irate pope to excommunicate the entire nation.

A letter written in Latin and sent by Scottish barons to the papal court in Avignon in 1320 was Scotland’s impassioned response. Known now as the Declaration of Arbroath, it contained lines immortalised in translation on a thousand T-shirts: “As long as a hundred of us remain alive, we will never in any degree be subject to the dominion of the English. It is not for glory, honours or riches that we fight, but for liberty alone, which no good man loses but with his life.”

When Edward Bruce died in Ireland in 1318, his brother was finally persuaded that force wasn’t working, and that he needed friends abroad. By 1323, the warring kings agreed a 13-year truce, binding should either of them die. Since Bruce was older, this was surely meant to buy time for his heir – initially his grandson, Robert Stewart (born in 1316 to his daughter, Marjorie) – to come of age. But in January 1327, Edward II was forced to abdicate; he died eight months later. Breaching the truce, King Robert launched an attack on England. Edward III’s regency government decided they needed to make peace. Despite the fury of the young English king, a treaty was concluded in spring 1328.

Arduous life

Robert the Bruce was by then more than 50 years old. His life had been arduous, and it’s a miracle he had survived so long. Retiring to his new manor at Cardross, he lingered until June 1329; he was succeeded by his son, born in 1324, who ruled as David II.

But even death didn’t end Robert’s endeavours. His great commander and friend James Douglas had promised to take his king’s heart on one final journey, to fulfil Robert’s crusading vow (see the box, right). Though it never reached the Holy Land, the Bruce’s heart did travel farther in death than he did in life.

What should we make of this remarkable life? It’s a pity that Hollywood seems unwilling to recount the real story of a man more ambitious than Shakespeare’s Macbeth – a king who achieved the seemingly impossible, dying in his bed at what was, considering the times and his many travails, the ripe old age of 54.

Robert Bruce was a cold-blooded murderer. The savage example he made of Buchan, slaying its inhabitants, was remembered for generations. It could be argued that brutal times demand brutal men, and that Scotland’s predicament left little room for compassion and compromise – though Bruce, like Edward I, could be statesmanlike when necessary. Yet a much harsher judgment has been passed on Bruce’s enemies. The Comyns had every reason to fight against him, but their reputations – not least as leaders of Scottish resistance to Edward I – have been trashed by Robert’s propagandists and subsequent historians.

History was also rewritten in official documents to the French king and the pope to exaggerate the legitimacy of Robert’s claim to the throne, and to denigrate the rights and character of his predecessor, John Balliol. This process reached its apogee with Archdeacon John Barbour’s romance poem The Bruce, written in the 1370s during the reign of that first King Robert’s grandson, Robert II. This partisan version of events became a cornerstone of Scotland’s story, incorporated into subsequent chronicles and accepted without much question until relatively recently – yet another example of the victor writing history.

Yet Robert Bruce turned out to be exactly what Scotland needed in 1306. He was extraordinary, his single-mindedness and devastating military acumen paving the way for incredible survival and success. And he was loved, his charisma echoing down the centuries in stories of his ability to inspire, even in the most difficult of circumstances. Seen from a safe distance of 700 years, I would not wish him any other way.

The final journey of the Bruce's heart

How part of the Bruce was carried to Spain and back

Robert the Bruce’s grandfather had gone on crusade with Prince Edward of England in 1270, and the king’s desire to go himself seems entirely genuine. But by the time he signed a treaty ending the war with the English in 1328, he was too sick. He had a plan, though. After Robert’s burial, “The good lord [Sir James] Douglas then had a case of fine silver made, cunningly enamelled; he [put] the king’s heart in it [despite papal edicts against evisceration] and wore it always round his neck.” Douglas, long Robert’s trusted commander, travelled by boat – in great style, with an entourage of nearly 30 – to Seville to help Alfonso XI of Castile in his war against the Muslim ruler of Granada, seeing it as a staging post en route to the Holy Land. At the end of August 1330, Alfonso’s army moved to Teba, 85 miles west of Granada, where they prepared for battle. However, the day before the clash, Douglas was killed – along with several other Scots – either because he attacked the Muslims precipitately (which is entirely believable) or while trying to save one of his men. Realising he’d been surrounded and wouldn’t survive, Sir James reputedly took off the casket containing Robert’s heart and hurled it ahead of him, shout- ing “A Douglas! A Douglas!” Whatever the truth of the matter, the Scots blamed Alfonso for the death of their great general. He was brought home to Scotland, along with Bruce’s heart, which was reputedly laid to rest in its casket in Melrose Abbey. Sir James was buried in his family’s mau- soleum in St Bride’s Church, Douglas.

Fiona Watson is a historian and author whose books include Robert the Bruce (The History Press, 2014)

]]> HistoryExtra <![CDATA[The Declaration of Arbroath: your guide to Scotland's historic document]]> https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/declaration-of-arbroath-history-facts/ 2025-12-16T16:25:25.000Z 2023-04-06T07:05:13.000Z What was the Declaration of Arbroath?

The Declaration of Arbroath was a letter written in April 1320 at Arbroath Abbey, on the east coast of Scotland. Around 1,000 words long, and written in Latin on a sheep’s skin, it was addressed to Pope John XXII and outlined particular grievances that the Scots held, including the recent excommunication from the Church of their king Robert I, aka Robert the Bruce.

While not directly asking for the lifting of the excommunication, the letter did request that the pope make an appeal to the English king, Edward II, to cease his invasions of Scotland.

In this, the letter emphasised the proud tradition of Scottish independence – “one hundred and thirteen kings of their own royal stock, the line unbroken by a single foreigner”. As such, the document remains one of the most significant artefacts in the country’s long and storied history.

Who signed the Declaration of Arbroath?

No one actually put ink to sheep’s skin, but the names of 39 Scottish nobles – eight earls and 31 barons – are listed at the head of the letter. The seals of many, if not all, were applied to the Declaration ahead of it being delivered to the papal court in Avignon.

Robert’s seal wasn’t affixed to it; it was felt that the letter would have greater impact if the king himself – the injured party, as it were – wasn’t one of the authors. It is strongly suspected, though, that he was at least its co writer, especially as it was penned at Arbroath Abbey residence of Bernard of Kilwinning, who was also the king’s chancellor. Robert did send his own letter to Avignon, too, as did the Bishop of St Andrews, but neither of these survive.

What is the background to the Declaration of Arbroath?

In 1290, the child queen Margaret of Norway died, leaving no obvious successor to the Scottish throne. A two year interregnum followed, after which 13 candidates staked their claim to the throne, the most prominent of whom were John Balliol and Robert the Bruce. Edward I was appointed to oversee the arbitration of the claims and to select the most credible contender, a duty he agreed to as long as the Scots swore allegiance to him as overlord. Unsurprisingly, Balliol, the candidate most sympathetic to England, was selected to be the next king of Scots.

Even as a puppet king, Balliol was a weak monarch and was forced to abdicate in 1296, less than four years into his reign. For the next 10 years, an ever shifting cast of Guardians governed the country, among them Robert the Bruce, the fearsome leader William Wallace and John Comyn III, Balliol’s nephew and the husband of Edward I’s cousin.

During this time, the English king – later known as the ‘Hammer of the Scots’ – launched a succession of attacks north of the border, seeking to expand his kingdom by annexing Scotland. He forced all Scottish nobles to submit to him, bar Wallace, who was captured and hanged, drawn and quartered in London.

How did Robert the Bruce become king?

Despite being rivals for the throne, Comyn and Robert hatched a secret plan whereby the former would renounce his claim to the throne in return for the latter’s not-inconsiderable land holdings across Scotland. But when Comyn appeared to renege on the deal, Robert summoned him to a clear-the-air meeting at the church of Greyfriars in Dumfries. In the heated exchange that ensued, Comyn was fatally stabbed in front of the altar.

Despite being excommunicated from the Church (for the first time) for the murder, it didn’t stop his passage to the throne, and six weeks later, in March 1306, Robert was crowned king of Scots. In response, Edward once again unleashed the might of his troops in Scotland, forcing Robert to go into hiding and to use guerrilla warfare tactics over the next few years to recapture large swathes of his homeland.

He and his troops laid siege to the English-held Stirling Castle, tempting the English army – by now under the command of Edward II, following his father’s death – northwards and inflicting a severe defeat on them at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314.

Were there other efforts to broker a truce before the Declaration of Arbroath?

Edward II’s defeat at Bannockburn, where he only just escaped with his life, had neither chastened him nor dented English expansionist ambitions. A papal effort to negotiate a truce between the warring factions failed when, in 1318, Robert recaptured the strategically significant town of Berwick-on-Tweed, located right on the border of the two countries. The following year, the pope issued an edict to the Scots king, instructing him and four of his bishops to visit him in Avignon. When they refused, Pope John XXII excommunicated all five, as well as threatening to do likewise to the entire Scottish population.

What did the Declaration of Arbroath ask of the pope?

While outwardly the language appears reverential towards the pope, its words carried a gentle threat. The Scottish nobles warned Pope John XXII that should he continue to favour the English to the detriment of the Scots, “then the slaughter of bodies, the perdition of souls, and all the other misfortunes that will follow, inflicted by them on us and by us on them, will, we believe, be surely laid by the Most High to your charge”.

It was a confident gambit, the implication that not only would the pope have blood on his hands, but that he would also be subject to divine judgment. The Declaration sets out a history of Scottish subjugation at the hands of the English, particularly their treatment by Edward I, who “came in a guise of a friend and ally to harass them as an enemy”.

The letter’s authors issue a lengthy charge sheet against the late king, making sure to include his crimes against the Church: “imprisoning prelates, burning down monasteries, robbing and killing monks and nuns and yet other outrages without number”.

How is Robert the Bruce portrayed in the Declaration of Arbroath?

Alongside Edward I’s character assassination, the Declaration contains a glowing reference for Robert, complete with biblical comparisons: “He, that his people and his heritage might be delivered out of the hands of our enemies, bore cheerfully toil and fatigue, hunger and peril, like another Maccabaeus or Joshua.”

A bust of Robert the Bruce, king of Scots when the Declaration was submitted to Pope John XXII (Photo by RDImages/Epics/Getty Images)

However, rather intriguingly, the authors do stress that their admiration and adoration of the king would be withdrawn if he were “seeking to make us or our kingdom subject to the king of England or the English”. They went further: “as long as a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be subjected to the lordship of the English”.

The pope will have been in no uncertainty about the ardour of their beliefs. When it came to demands for action, the Declaration was more direct. “With our most earnest prayers and suppliant hearts”, the earls and barons request the pope to warn the English king that he should leave the Scots in peace. “[He] ought to be satisfied with what belongs to him since England used once to be enough for seven kings.”

How successful was the Declaration of Arbroath?

Only partially. The letter did provoke the pope to write to Edward II to request the cessation of hostilities, but he continued to refuse to recognise Robert as the legitimate occupant of the Scottish throne – and the excommunication remained in place.

What the Declaration did do was contribute to the wider campaign for Scottish self-governance. Eight years after the three-man deputation delivered the letter to Avignon, a peace accord was finally signed – the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton of 1328.

Still, the importance of the Declaration wasn’t acknowledged until it was translated from Latin into English at the tail end of the 1680s. Only then was it revealed to be an extraordinarily worded document. As the historian Agnes Mure McKenzie would later observe, “the whole thing is magnificently lucid”, possessing a clarity that “is shot through with quiet implications”.

Is there a link between the Declaration of Arbroath and the Declaration of Independence?

Some believe the translated letter to have been a heavy influence on the American Declaration of Independence, another document calling for freedom from English rule.

Nige Tassell is a journalist specialising in history

This article was first published in the April 2022 issue of BBC History Revealed

]]> HistoryExtra <![CDATA[10 things you (probably) didn’t know about Scottish history]]> https://www.historyextra.com/period/general-history/10-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-scottish-history/ 2023-11-16T13:16:41.000Z 2020-06-30T09:30:42.000Z In his book, Scottish History For Dummies, Knox explores the story of Scotland and its place within the historical narratives of Britain, Europe and the rest of the world. Here, writing for HistoryExtra, he reveals 10 surprising facts about Scottish history...

 

There is no genetically pure or original Scot

There is no common ancestral or genetic heritage that links the peoples of Scotland. The country was a patchwork quilt of various peoples grouped together in tribes who certainly never thought of themselves as Scottish. They owed allegiance only to their kith and kin, but in the campaigns against Roman imperialism they built federations that laid the basis of kingdoms.

Ancient Scotland was made up of four separate groups: Angles, Britons, Picts and Gaels (or Scoti), who each spoke a different language. Latin became the common language of the whole country only after the Christianisation of Scotland in the 6th century AD.

 

Kenneth McAlpin (810–858) was not, as is popularly claimed, the first king of Scotland

What McAlpin did was in 842 take advantage of the Picts who had been severely weakened militarily by punitive Viking raids, and unite the kingdom of the Gaels with that of Pictavia. But while he ruled over the whole of Scotland north of the river Forth, large parts of the country were still in the hands of the Vikings in the north and Islands, and in the south the Anglo-Saxons ruled.

But McAlpin was referred to as king of the Picts – a title conferred on him at his coronation on Moot Hill at Scone, Perthshire, in 843 AD. It was not until the reign of Donald II (889–900) that the monarch became known as the ri Alban (king of Alba).

McAlpin’s achievement was to create a long-lasting dynasty that gradually extended the territorial borders of Scotland both north and south, but it was not until 1469 that what we know as Scotland today was established.

 

William the Lion (1165–1214) was not, as his name suggests, a strong and fearless king

Although he was on the throne longer than any other Scottish monarch, with the exception of James VI and I, never was a king so humiliated as William. Captured by the English, he gained his release only by signing the treaty of Falaise in December 1174. By the terms of the treaty he only ruled Scotland with the permission of the English crown. The treaty lasted 15 years and was repealed when the Scots agreed to pay a hefty sum of money.

But the humiliation didn’t end there, as in 1209 he was again forced to pay homage to John I.  Therefore, his contribution was to heraldry rather than statecraft; he put the lion rampant on the Scottish flag.

View oEmbed on the source website

 

William Wallace was not the only patriotic leader of the resistance to the English occupation of Scotland

Equally important was Andrew de Moray. In the winter of 1297 he escaped from an English prison and immediately began to organise the resistance in the north of Scotland against English rule. By the end of the year his forces were in control of Morayshire and had taken possession of the principal castles of the region, including Elgin and Inverness.

De Moray’s success in the north was matched by Wallace’s in the south. After the defeat of the English at Stirling Bridge in September 1297 de Moray was mentioned along with Wallace in letters as ‘the leaders of the army and of the realm of Scotland’. However, victory came at a price: de Moray was wounded at Stirling and died two months later.

Some historians have argued that too much of the credit for this has gone to Wallace, and that the successful campaign of 1297 owed more to de Moray than it did to his more celebrated contemporary.

 

The Scots never won a battle when they were favourites

At Flodden Field in 1513 the largest Scottish army ever assembled to invade England was annihilated by a much smaller English army that inflicted 10,000 causalities on the Scots in just two hours. Again at Solway Moss in 1542 a Scottish force of 15,000 men was defeated by 3,000 English soldiers – and 1,200 Scots were taken prisoner. The defeat was so demoralising that James V took to his bed and died of shame.

When the Scots were the underdogs they did best. At the battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297 a vastly outnumbered Scottish army inflicted a devastating defeat on the English. Just 17 years later at Bannockburn an English army three times that of the Scots was decimated by the forces of Robert the Bruce. In 1745 the rag tag army of the Young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart, walked through Scotland and in to England as far as Derby where it inexplicably turned face and marched home with London within its grasp.

 

The proud boast that Scotland has never been conquered is nonsense

This view is part of the folklore of the Scottish people handed down from one generation to the next. There are of course a few grains of truth contained in the assertion: the Romans were frustrated in their attempts to conquer Caledonia and so resorted to building walls to keep the warring tribes from attacking them.

Likewise Edward I, the hammer of the Scots, occupied large swathes of Scottish territory, but that only sparked a resistance that ended with the defeat of Edward II at Bannockburn in 1314.

The patriotic Scottish boast regarding national prowess begins to look more than a little threadbare when we take account of the Cromwellian occupation of Scotland in the 1650s: Cromwell’s New Model Army inflicted a crushing defeat on the Scots at Dunbar in 1650, and followed it up with another at Worcester a year later – 2,000 Scots were killed and more than 10,000 were taken prisoner, including almost all the Scottish leaders. Scotland was incorporated into 'the free state and Commonwealth of England', with 29 out of 31 shires and 44 of the 58 royal burghs assenting to what was known as the ‘Tender of Union’.

Under the terms of the Cromwellian union, the Scots were given 30 seats (half of them held by English officers) in the Westminster parliament. With General George Monck in charge, the conquest of Scotland was complete, and it was only Cromwell’s death in 1658 and the political chaos that followed it that allowed Scotland to regain its sovereignty.

 

Flora MacDonald (who became famous for helping Bonnie Prince Charlie escape to France after he was beaten at the battle of Culloden, the final confrontation of the 1745 Jacobite Rising) died a Unionist and Hanoverian

Flora MacDonald was and is a Scottish icon ever associated with the romantic but essentially doomed attempt by the Stuart dynasty to reclaim the throne of Great Britain in 1745. After the adventure collapsed following defeat at Culloden in 1746, Charles Stuart took refuge on the island of Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides. Dressed as Flora’s Irish maid, Betty Burke, Charles made his escape.

MacDonald was arrested for her part in the escape and spent some time in the Tower of London, but it was only temporary. Under the amnesty of 1747 she was released from captivity as a prisoner on parole, and lived with Lady Primrose in London. She became a celebrity, and among the many fashionable people who visited her was Frederick Prince of Wales, eldest son of George II.

At the age of 28 Flora married Allan MacDonald of Kingsburgh and moved to the Isle of Skye. Difficult economic times saw the couple emigrate to North Carolina in 1774. When the American Wars of Independence broke out in 1776, her husband and five sons fought not on the side of the rebels but for George III’s royal British army! This gives some credence to MacDonald’s claim that she had helped Charles Stuart out of compassion rather than politics.

Her husband was taken prisoner and she left for Scotland. He joined her two years later, and the family took up residence on Skye once more where she died in 1790 a British patriot.

 

The Labour Party was not a wholly working-class party in Scotland

Although working people constitute the largest section of society north of the border, they were not always supporters of Labour. Most workers in Scotland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries voted Liberal and it was only after the First World War that the vote went to Labour.

However, it was never hegemonic, as the religious divisions in Scotland ensured there was always a sizeable Protestant working-class Unionist (a party that merged with the Conservatives in 1965) vote. The party itself in Scotland was an alliance of skilled male workers and the middle classes –as such it preached against class-based politics, such as those advocated by the far left.

A study of the social backgrounds of inter-war Labour MPs found that around 45 per cent of them were from non-manual backgrounds; a social trend that was to intensify after 1945.

 

Sectarianism was not just a west coast phenomenon

Most people would identify Catholic and Protestant rivalry with Glasgow and its satellite towns. But the bitterest conflicts in the 20th century took place not in Glasgow, but in middle-class Edinburgh in the 1930s.

Led by rabble-rouser John Cormack, leader of the Protestant Action Society, Catholics faced harassment and violence. Employers were pressurised into sacking Catholic employees, priests were spat on in the streets, and Sunday congregations were subject to verbal and physical assault.

On top of this, huge demonstrations were held to disrupt important events in the Catholic Church’s calendar. The high water mark was the riot of 1935, when Cormack led a mob of 20,000 Protestants baying for blood against the Eucharist Congress that was taking place at the Catholic priory in Morningside.

The activism was rewarded with seats on the Edinburgh Town Council; indeed, Protestant Action in the municipal elections of 1936 won 31.97 per cent of the Edinburgh vote, pushed Labour into third place and returned nine councillors.

But the popularity of Cormack and Protestant Action was short-lived, as the outbreak of war in 1939 pushed sectarianism on to the sidelines of politics in Edinburgh. In spite of this, Cormack held his seat on the Town Council until his death in the 1960s.

 

Outside of Canada, the central belt of Scotland was the highest recipient of American inward investment anywhere in the world between 1945 and 1970

This little strip of land in the middle of Scotland saw the influx of giant American corporations such as IBM, Timex, National Cash Registers, Caterpillar and many more besides.

Why did they come? For three good reasons: firstly, it opened up British and European markets; secondly, there existed a highly skilled and educated pool of workers earning historically relatively low wages; and, thirdly, there were no linguistic barriers, as English was the common tongue.

William Knox is a senior lecturer at the Institute of Scottish Historical Research, University of St Andrews. He is the author of seven books and more than 30 articles covering the past 300 years of Scottish history, including Scottish History For Dummies (published by Wiley, July 2014)

To read more about Scottish history, click here.

This article was first published by HistoryExtra in 2014

]]> HistoryExtra <![CDATA[The battle of Bannockburn: Robert Bruce's fight for freedom]]> https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/battle-bannockburn-robert-bruce-civil-war-scottish-history/ 2023-11-23T15:12:58.000Z 2020-06-23T09:50:23.000Z There are only about four hours of proper darkness at midsummer in Scotland. For the English army crossing the boggy ground beneath the town of Stirling, that was just enough time to feed and water horses and men, clean equipment and wonder what lay ahead of them once the sun rose. Morale was low. The foot soldiers were exhausted, having been forced to march as quickly as they could from Edinburgh 30 miles away in order to meet the midsummer deadline agreed for the relief of Stirling Castle. And they had failed to best their Scottish enemies earlier the previous day, 23 June 1314, in a series of encounters including the infamous attempt by Sir Henry de Bohun to kill the Scottish king in single combat, only to be felled by one mighty blow of Robert Bruce’s battle-axe.

Nevertheless, Edward II was prepared. What he did not expect was the Scots to fight, for it was their habit to disappear into the hills when confronted by an English army. But now, as dawn crept into the sky, Edward could see the Scots advancing in three brigades of spearmen before kneeling before him. The English king was exultant, believing that this was a prelude to surrender – until it was pointed out to him that, though the Scots sought mercy, it was from God rather than the English.

If, as appeared to be the case, the Scottish king had decided to fight, it would be the seventh engagement between the two kingdoms in the 18 years since Edward’s father, Edward I, had (temporarily) conquered his northern neighbour in 1296.

The prelude to what was a shockingly dramatic change in the relationship between Scotland and England was the death a decade earlier of the Scottish king, Alexander III, without any surviving male heirs. This had prompted Edward I – Alexander’s former brother-in-law – to begin interfering in the northern kingdom’s affairs.

Edward insisted on presiding over a court looking into the claims of 14 candidates to be king, though the choice was really between John Balliol, Lord of Galloway in Scotland and Barnard Castle (in what is now County Durham), and Robert Bruce of Annandale in Scotland (grandfather of the victor of Bannockburn). Balliol won – a decision that most Scots thought was right – and was crowned King John in 1292. But the Bruces never gave up their royal ambitions.

The verge of war

Edward, meanwhile, was biding his time. Having forced all the candidates for King Alexander’s vacant throne to acknowledge his claims to overlordship over Scotland – claims based on past but equivocal precedent and categorically denied by previous kings of Scots – he made increasing demands on King John. These included an expectation that the latter would send men to fight with Edward against France, with whom England was on the verge of war. The Scots, led by their king’s relatives, the powerful Comyn family, realised that they were losing their independence and negotiated a treaty of mutual defence with France.

Suspecting this, Edward I invaded Scotland in 1296, defeating a Scottish army at Dunbar, deposing and imprisoning Balliol, and setting up his own government. The following year the Scots resumed the war, appointing William Wallace as the first of a series of guardians to rule the kingdom in King John’s absence. Robert Bruce, the future king, spent several years fighting the English, even acting briefly as guardian for Balliol, his family’s rival as monarch, presumably in order to boost his own credentials to lead the Scots.

In 1302, however, Bruce submitted to the English king, having been ousted as guardian by his other great rivals, the Comyns, and having proved to be unable to swallow the prospect of King John’s return with French support after the latter’s release from English prison. However, the French king, Philip IV, soon needed the friendship of Edward I for his own reasons and hopes of King John’s return were extinguished. In 1304, most Scots, led by the current guardian, John Comyn of Badenoch, submitted to Edward I.

The lead characters in the showdown at Bannockburn

King Robert I was born in 1274. He seized the throne of Scotland in 1306 and ruled for 23 years until his death on 7 June 1329. His first marriage was to Isobel, daughter of the Earl of Mar, by whom he had his daughter, Marjorie. Her son, Robert, became the first of the Stewart kings who would rule Scotland, then England, from 1371 until 1714. Edward Bruce, Earl of Carrick, was Bruce’s younger brother. He agreed in May 1314 with Sir Philip Moubray that Stirling Castle would be handed over to the Scots if not relieved by an English army, effectively deciding the site of the battle. He commanded one of Bruce’s divisions on 23/24 June. Sir John Comyn of Badenoch was nephew of the Scottish king, John Balliol, and therefore a contender for the vacant throne. He was murdered by Bruce in 1306, precipitating a bloody civil war, one which Bannockburn largely brought to an end. His son, another John, was killed in the battle. Edward II was the only surviving son of Edward I, succeeding his father in 1307.  Inheriting a bankrupt treasury, his tendency to be led by favourites brought England close to civil war on many occasions. Though no coward, at Bannockburn he had no strategy and divided his commanders among themselves. Sir Philip Moubray was a Scot who sided against Bruce because of the murder of John Comyn. After Bannockburn, he closed the gates of Stirling Castle against King Edward and joined Bruce. He went with Edward Bruce on campaign in Ireland in 1315–18 and died with him there. Sir Robert Clifford was a veteran of the wars in Scotland, having fought in most campaigns for nearly 20 years. On 23 June he took a contingent of knights to try to get between the Scots and Stirling Castle but was beaten back by King Robert’s nephew, Sir Thomas Randolph. Clifford was killed along with the Earl of Gloucester in the first wave of fighting on 24 June.

By 1306 Edward I was known to be very ill, so Robert Bruce began canvassing for support to reactivate his grandfather’s claim to the throne. This, however, completely ignored the fact that John Balliol had been king. If John and his son were unable to return to Scotland (Edward Balliol was still in English custody), then the Scottish king’s nephew, John Comyn of Badenoch, was next in line. He was also a tried and tested war leader, a guardian for most of the period between 1298 and 1304 and the head of a great family with lands and followers across the kingdom.

There may have been an innocuous reason – perhaps associated with a land dispute – why Robert Bruce and John Comyn met at Greyfriars Church in the south-western Scottish town of Dumfries on 10 February 1306. But they probably soon moved onto the inflammatory subject of who might take Scotland’s empty throne to rejuvenate the war effort once Edward was dead, for the meeting ended with Bruce murdering Comyn. Six weeks later, Bruce had himself inaugurated as king – an act that effectively split Scotland in two, as well as unleashing the wrath of Edward I.

Profitable raiding

Though Bannockburn has always been portrayed as England versus Scotland, it was the element of civil war that really caused it to be fought. In October 1313, having spent the previous six years conquering his kingdom from his own people as much as the English, King Robert felt confident enough to issue an ultimatum to all those holding land in Scotland that they should swear homage and fealty to him within a year. And even though a line of castles, from Berwick on the eastern border up to Stirling in the middle of the country, was still held against him, Bruce and his men could pass beneath them at will, en route to some extremely profitable and destructive raiding in northern England.

Even the inept Edward II, who inherited his father’s bankrupt throne in 1307, realised that this ultimatum would force many Scots still prepared to fight against Bruce to change sides if he did nothing to help them. In November 1313, therefore, he ordered an army to muster the following June. Then, in May 1314, it was agreed between the Scots and Stirling’s commander, Sir Philip Moubray, that the castle would be handed over to Bruce unless relieved by 24 June. With that agreement, King Robert had effectively decided where Edward II’s army would march and where, therefore, any battle might be fought.

This time Bruce faced the tantalising prospect that, if he fought and won, he might effectively end the war in Scotland. But if he did not, his ultimatum might well be ignored.

The stakes were high. Should Bruce lose, the military reputation that sustained his kingship, given his dubious accession, would crumble. He needed to fight somewhere that cavalry were at a disadvantage. Even Edward II knew that the ground around Stirling was such a place.

And so Bruce worked with his men to transform the Scottish schiltrom – groups of around a thousand men carrying long spears bristling like a hedgehog – from the stationary unit employed previously. Instead of merely repelling Edward’s cavalry, they would move together on the offensive, allowing the Scots to control the design and tempo of the battle.

Edward arrived the day before the deadline with an army of around 7,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry. Bruce’s army was probably 5,000–6,000-strong, which meant that the opposing sides at Bannockburn were far more evenly matched than the hyperbole of Scottish chroniclers has since suggested.

The Scots were drawn up in the hunting forest south-east of Stirling, blocking Edward’s route to the castle. When the English failed to make any headway on the first day, they crossed the Bannockburn to the north, seeking the protection of the floodplain of the river Forth before taking the field in the early hours of 24 June. Few got more than a wink of sleep during that brief midsummer night.

Meanwhile, morale was already high among the Scots when Sir Alexander Seton arrived in the Scottish camp and was brought before King Robert. Seton was a Scot, one of many who had found Bruce’s murder of Comyn and seizure of the throne abhorrent. Yet he now considered the squabbling and lack of leadership among the English commanders even more problematic and decided to defect. Bruce asked his nobles if they should fight. The response was unanimous: “As you devise, all shall be done.”

How the battle played out

From opening exchanges to bloody rout, a quick guide to the clash at Bannockburn

Bannockburn was fought to the south-east of Stirling Castle in central Scotland. The English army numbered roughly 2,000 cavalry and 7,000 infantry commanded by King Edward II. The Scottish army comprised around 5,000–6,000 spearmen with a few hundred cavalry led by King Robert I of Scotland. The English arrived on 23 June to find their way to Stirling Castle, which they were intent on relieving, blocked by the Scots. A series of skirmishes won by the Scots left Edward’s men demoralised, and they camped overnight down on the floodplain of the river Forth. Early in the morning of 24 June, fully expecting Bruce to retreat as usual, the English were astonished to see the Scots advancing towards them. The English vanguard charged but were overwhelmed and many knights killed. The ground, near or on the floodplain of the river Forth, was difficult for cavalry to negotiate, but it was King Robert’s decision to train his spearmen to march offensively that won the day, along with the lack of leadership in the English army. Thousands of footsoldiers were killed in the bloody aftermath when the Scots were intent on seizing booty and taking noble prisoners.

The next morning, Bruce addressed his men again in terms that went on to immortalise the ensuing battle. “You could have lived in serfdom, but because you yearned to have freedom, you are gathered here with me.” The Scots then advanced to meet an English charge led by the Earl of Gloucester, who was still reeling from accusations of cowardice that greeted his sensible suggestion that the English should wait for the footsoldiers to recover before engaging. Bruce had ordered his men not to take either prisoners or booty until the battle was won, and so Gloucester and other high-ranking nobles, including the murdered John Comyn’s son and the veteran soldier Sir Robert Clifford, were killed.

As the front line of the English cavalry disintegrated, the English infantry behind began to run away, while the English bowmen were kept at bay by the Scottish cavalry. Then, as more Scots appeared, the English king was forced to flee too, leaving the rest of his army to escape, be captured or killed. Many died in the ‘great ditch’ of the Bannockburn, which stood between them and the road home, those that came behind running ‘dry-shod’ across their compatriots’ bodies.

Edward II had taken the field and God had found him wanting, while King Robert had been granted victory despite having murdered Comyn on the high altar of a church. As a result, the legitimate grievances of those Scots who fought against Bruce have long been consigned to history’s landfill.

Eternally glorified

It is difficult to pinpoint the long-term benefits that Bannockburn brought to Bruce. What’s more, the assumption that there was a direct connection between the battle and a 1328 peace treaty concluded in the aftermath of Edward II’s deposition is misplaced. But, in articulating a rhetoric of freedom, the Scottish king won an even greater battle, one that has eternally glorified the name of Bruce and Bannockburn by transforming what was predominantly a brutal civil war into an epic national struggle.

Most crucial to that image is John Barbour’s highly influential poem, The Bruce, written in the 1370s, where the future of Scotland itself was explicitly deemed to hinge on Bannockburn’s outcome. Barbour portrays the Scottish nobles’ determination to pay the ultimate price, if necessary, to liberate Scotland after their king reminded them of English tyranny and injustice.

Here we supposedly have the crux of the matter, explaining why they resolved to fight and why they won. Many Scots today also know the stirring lines of the Declaration of Arbroath, a letter sent to the pope in 1320, arguing why Scotland should be independent of England and why Bruce should be its king: “It is not for glory, riches or honour that we fight, but for freedom alone, which no good man loses but with his life.” Stirring words indeed, but ones that would have stuck in the throats of the family of the murdered Comyn.

But facts are facts and Bruce did bring independence to his kingdom against remarkable odds. As late as the 16th century, the Scots exulted in being “18 hundred years unconquered,” which was more than could be said for England. But this was despite the scarcity of victories against the Auld Enemy after Bannockburn. Otterburn in 1388 and Ancrum Moor in 1545 are the exceptions in a catalogue of defeats, some of them catastrophic – Dupplin Moor, Halidon Hill, Neville’s Cross, Homildon Hill, Flodden, Solway Moss and Pinkie.

Bannockburn cast a long shadow over Scottish military strategy, with commanders continuing to rely on spearmen long after weaponry, particularly hand-held firearms, had evolved to render them obsolete.

The Scots remember Bannockburn, then, as an exceptional victory. But that is not why it has proved such a powerful force in Scottish identity. It is the rhetoric of freedom that has chimed throughout the centuries, particularly once the parliaments of England and Scotland were dismantled in 1707 and recreated as the United Kingdom. Now a modified version of that was needed, and the view was taken that Wallace and Bruce saved Scotland from Edward I’s clutches so that it could join the union as an equal partner.

But for others, as the benefits of empire receded and Scotland’s great manufacturing base began to suffer in the 20th century, issues of freedom became bound up with questions over the political status quo. Every year a rally takes place to Bannockburn, and while the Scottish National Party no longer officially attends, their song is still Robert Burns’s Scots Wha’ Hae, inspired by Bruce’s “glorious struggle for freedom”.

The Scots are not alone in subverting the realities of the past to create a powerful and enduring myth – every nation has them. But the right of a nation to determine its own destiny is a concept that appeals across time and geography, and Scotland was one of the first to articulate such a right in medieval Europe. Bannockburn is responsible for that.

Dr Fiona Watson is a research fellow at the University of Dundee

This article was first published in the July 2014 issue of BBC History Magazine

]]> Dr David Musgrove, FSA <![CDATA[Medieval(ish) matters #4: back to Braveheart, Viking river boats, Picts, and the Crusades]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/medieval-matters-braveheart-viking-river-boats-picts-crusades/ 2025-02-14T14:36:23.000Z 2020-05-20T15:40:58.000Z It’s all about Picts, logboats and the crusades this week, plus the small matter of our virtual Medieval Life and Death Festival.

First up, logboats, which are – as the name suggests – boats made out of logs, otherwise known as dug-out canoes. There have been a fair few such craft found in archaeological contexts, with dated examples back to the Mesolithic and Neolithic.

Because they are hewn out of single logs, they are limited in size and girth, but they would have been perfectly serviceable boats. I actually did my undergraduate dissertation on the possibility of prehistoric logboat navigation on the River Exe. Quite a few people have made replicas to prove what they were capable of, and I’ve seen modern examples being used on pretty large and fast-flowing rivers in Nepal (as I paddled past in a much less elegant modern plastic kayak).

Nevertheless, you don’t necessarily think of Vikings and logboats in the same breath. Vikings travelled around in much grander longships didn’t they?

Well, yes, and no. A week or so ago, Bristol University archaeologist Dr Cat Jarman posted on Twitter about a new potential find of a Viking Age logboat, which I thought was rather exciting, so I asked her for a bit more information.

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She explains: “The logboat was found at the edge of a small lake on a farm in Agder, southern Norway. The farmer, Frode Øina Andreassen, was recutting boggy ground near an old channel when he accidentally came across the boat and lifted it out.

"His great-grandfather had found two very similar boats nearby on the same property in 1932, and those have been dated to 600-900 AD, so Viking Age or just before. Because of that, it's likely that this dates to the same period too and an expert from the Norwegian Maritime Museum has estimated a date of 500-1000 AD.

"They've now taken samples for radiocarbon dating. A Viking Age date would be exciting because it would add to what we know about transport by small vessels in this period.

"Logboats would have been used for hunting and fishing, or for transport of people and goods. Learning more about boats like this is particularly important for understanding the use of rivers and inland waterways, where Viking ships and other boats would be too big or inconvenient.

"In inland parts of Norway, there were important resources like iron, firs, and soapstone that were traded far and wide in exchange for exotic goods.

"We don't have many logboats that securely date to the Viking Age, but historical sources from eastern Europe tell us these boats were used by the Rus (eastern Vikings).

"Using and controlling rivers was a key part of the Vikings' success across Europe, so understanding the mechanisms that made this possible gives us vital new information about the Viking worlds.”

Cat Jarman has a book out called River Kings next year (February 2021), which is going to be looking at Viking river transport, among other things, so we’ll hopefully be going back to her for a podcast when that is out.

A remarkable Pictish hillfort

Someone who I’m planning to have a chat with sooner than that is Professor Gordon Noble, the archaeologist behind the project that has just revealed that a hillfort in Aberdeenshire, Tap o' Noth, was both huge (housing perhaps 4,000 people) and Pictish (5th–6th centuries AD, maybe back to the 3rd century AD) in date.

That’s a pretty remarkable find, and one that’s going to force a bit of a rethink about Pictish society. This follows hard on the heels of the story that sent me off into a fishing frenzy last week about the Pictish diet.

So the Picts are having a bit of a moment – and I’m going to talk to Gordon, and his colleague Dr Nicholas Evans, in the next week or so, to record a podcast on what we now know about this fascinating late Iron Age/early medieval Scottish civilisation (they have a book on the topic). I did have a bit of an email exchange with him straight away after the news of his Tap o' Noth research was released, asking what link there was between the huge, and well-defended, hillfort and the contemporary nearby high-status valley site at Rhynie (where the famous Rhynie Man Pictish symbol stone was found, and where the similarly notable Craw Stone still stands).

Here's what he told me...

“We have three contemporary sites in the valley now - Tap, Barflat (Rhynie) and a ringfort at Cairnmore.

It is possible that Tap was occupied seasonally, and that is an idea we will work on – we are applying to dig more house platforms to address how many are contemporary and questions surrounding seasonality etc. We have only really dug one platform in detail [on Tap o’ Noth] and we had imported Roman pottery (of probable third century date) and metalworking moulds (of the fifth to sixth centuries).

"So, [there is] reasonable evidence of relatively high status occupation of Tap too. And given the investment in platforms and the rampart, I would suspect this was a permanently occupied site – at least for some of the population. My best guess is that Tap is the main settlement whereas the Barflat complex is one for feasting and ritual activities, but may have had a residential component too – for the elites and given the placename (Rhynie derives from the early Celtic word for king – rig) perhaps an elite royal lineage.

"The Rhynie Man carries an axe type linked to animal sacrifice and there is a warrior carving from the cemetery near to the village – so we can see ritual and a warrior ethos part of the symbolism of power down in the lowland sites. But those are just working ideas – we really don’t have any parallels for these sites so it is all cutting edge research on this period and the Picts.”

Dr Nick Evans adds: "Tap O' Noth is so exciting because the period from the Third to Sixth century AD is one where the textual evidence on the Picts is pretty poor, so we have very little idea about social structure and politics in this period. For instance, in the Fourth Century the raids on Roman Britain might indicate that some larger scale political units existed among the Picts. However, that is uncertain, and we don't know what effects the end of Roman rule further south had on those in Britain to their north. We've tended to assume that large kingdoms would have disappeared for a while, until perhaps the late sixth or seventh centuries, but Tap O' Noth, through further investigation, might indicate that our assumption that there were only relatively small-scale kingdoms in that period is mistaken."

If you want to see more about Prof Noble's research in Rhynie and surrounds, there is a great 3-minute video on the Northern Picts Project home page, and Nick Evans has delivered an online lecture about the Picts too. Also, since publishing this blog, I've seen a great tweet of a 3D model rendering of the Tap O' Noth fort, which is worth a look.

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Back to Braveheart

Given all this news on the Picts, I wonder if anyone is planning a feature film on them? It is, after all, 25 years this month (in the US, later in the UK) that another rather famous Hollywood blockbuster on Scottish medieval history came out. I couldn’t secure an interview with Mel Gibson to talk about Braveheart and William Wallace, but you can read a round-up of historically inaccurate films on this very website. If you want to know more about the historical Braveheart, the current issue of BBC History Revealed also has a feature on Wallace, so have a read of that too.

Last year we had another film, Outlaw King, which was more about Robert the Bruce than William Wallace, but in both films, England’s King Edward I is very much the bad guy. Read this piece on the Hammer of the Scots to help you get to grips with what sort of man Edward really was.

Before his Scottish expeditions and indeed before he was king, Edward went on crusade to the Holy Land in 1270. He started for home when he heard of the death of his father Henry III in 1272 (and look out for an upcoming feature in July’s BBC History Magazine and podcast from Professor David Carpenter on Henry III). Edward’s expedition is sometimes called the Ninth Crusade, but Prof Rebecca Rist, who I’ve interviewed for this Sunday’s ‘Everything you want to know’ podcast on the Crusades, didn't count that in the list of main crusades when I asked her the question 'How many crusades were there?'. Listen to the podcast to find out why, and much more besides. It should be live on Sunday lunchtime. In the meantime, we have loads of other great Crusades podcasts in our back catalogue.

Finally, we are right in the thick of our Virtual Medieval Life and Death week. We’ve had some great talks already and a lot of you have already watched the lectures on medieval violence, food, and religion. And we still have love and medicine to come. Don't worry if you've missed them - you can still watch them all on the website. I hope you've enjoyed the talks and the virtual festival feel - I'd love to hear what you thought of them, or any of my witterings – tweet me.

David Musgrove is content director at HistoryExtra. He tweets @DJMusgrove

]]> Emma Mason <![CDATA[Poldark, Peaky Blinders and 6 other historical TV shows that have tourists flocking to Britain]]> https://www.historyextra.com/period/modern/poldark-tv-tourism-holiday-britain-historical/ 2023-11-08T16:22:29.000Z 2019-07-15T14:33:29.000Z The chief executive of Cornish tourist board Visit Cornwall says the area is struggling to cope with an unprecedented surge in holidaymakers, it was reported in 2018. Visitors were encouraged to look beyond popular Poldark filming locations Porthcurno beach and Kynance Cove, which feature as Poldark’s beloved Nampara. Poldark is reported to have influenced around 14 per cent of all visitors to Cornwall, and businesses have long reported a boost in the number of tourists from overseas because of the so-called ‘Poldark effect’.

Aidan Turner (as Poldark) and Eleanor Tomlinson (as Demelza) in the BBC period drama ‘Poldark’. (Photo by Mammoth Screen/BBC)

Poldark is one of many drama series inspiring so-called ‘TV tourism’: in 2018, in its travel trends report, Trip Advisor found that 1 in 5 global travellers visited a location because they saw it on a TV show. Significantly, says Vogue magazine, “TV’s tourism influence is now rivalling that of film – perhaps even surpassing it”. A report from the University of North Texas found that “TV viewing behaviour is the strongest predictor of entertainment-motivated tourism… television series are often watched on regular basis thus, viewers are more likely to be exposed to the destination image for a longer period.”

Set in 18th-century Cornwall, the hugely popular BBC One drama Poldark starring Aidan Turner (as Poldark) and Eleanor Tomlinson (as Demelza) draws inspiration from Winston Graham’s 12 novels, which were written between 1945 and 2002.

Here, we look at seven other historical TV dramas that are attracting tourists from Britain and beyond...

***Please note this article contains spoilers ***
 

Pride and Prejudice

Lyme Park in Disley, Cheshire, which starred as Jane Austen’s Pemberley in the BBC’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, enjoyed a 176 per cent increase in visitor numbers after the series aired in 1995. Fans flocked to the lake where, in what has become an iconic scene in television history, Mr Darcy (played by Colin Firth) meets Elizabeth Bennet after emerging from the water in a soaked, clinging white shirt. The scene was in 2013 named the most memorable moment in British TV drama.

Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’. (Photo by Everett Collection Inc/Alamy Stock Photo)

Lyme Park – a stately home on the edge of the Peak District – is still reaping the benefits of Pride and Prejudice 20 years on, the Guardian reported in 2015. “It’s a win-win for us,” said Harvey Edgington, the National Trust’s head of filming and locations. “It’s a very good way of getting people interested in a property.”

 

Peaky Blinders

The gritty gangster series set in 1920s Birmingham is filmed predominately at the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley. Open to the public, the museum’s canal arm features as the famous Charlie Strong's Yard, with huge factories added using CGI (computer-generated imagery). Tommy Shelby’s iconic walk past the firing furnaces was filmed at the museum’s Rolling Mill, and the dramatic murder of Father Hughes in the finale of season three was shot in the museum’s St James's School.

Peaky Blinders has also worked wonders for Birmingham’s local economy, with tours, themed restaurants and dedicated pub crawls taking place across the city. One pub in Dale End, in the centre of Birmingham, simply named ‘The Peaky Blinder’, serves a Peaky Blinder cocktail made with whisky and blackcurrant, and its staff dress in Shelby-style attire.

 

Game of Thrones

Not exactly a historical drama per se, but the wildly popular Game of Thrones is reported to be worth about £30 million (€34 million) a year to the local economy in Northern Ireland. Tourism NI estimates that around 120,000 Game of Thrones visitors came to Northern Ireland in 2016 to see the real-life Kingsroad or Winterfell, among other sites. Rosemarie McHugh, Tourism NI’s director of product development, told The Irish Times the show has been “transformative” for screen tourism in Northern Ireland.

Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen in ‘Game of Thrones’. (Photo by AF archive/Alamy Stock Photo)

The fantasy drama series is also reported to have helped to turn around Iceland’s struggling economy in the aftermath of the 2008 banking crisis by bolstering its tourism sector. According to FocusEconomics: “Game of Thrones is, at the very least, partly responsible for the major uptick in tourism growth in recent years. Many of Iceland’s glaciers, lakes and national parks serve as the backdrop for the ‘lands beyond the wall’ and the popularity of the show has given rise to massive increases in tourism, as the show’s many diehard fans from around the world make pilgrimages, so to speak, to visit the show’s popular filming locations.”

Game of Thrones fans have also been flocking to Dubrovnik, Croatia, which features as King’s Landing. But the mayor of the medieval city last year announced he is considering capping visitors to just 4,000 per day to prevent “ruinous overcrowding”.

Fort Lovrijenac in Dubrovnik Old Town, Croatia, which features as King’s Landing in ‘Game of Thrones’. (Photo by John Dambik/Alamy Stock Photo)

 

The Crown

The wildly popular Netflix Original series The Crown, which follows the young Queen Elizabeth II from the 1940s through to modern times, is rumoured to have cost a whopping $130 million to produce – making it the most expensive television show ever made. According to a survey conducted by Barclays bank in 2017, the appeal of the quintessentially British biopic abroad is whetting travellers’ appetites for a UK holiday.

Dubbed ‘The Crown effect’, the popularity of the show – plus that of Poldark, Sherlock and Downton Abbey – is encouraging overseas tourists to holiday in places such as the Peak District, the Lake District and the Cotswolds.

Claire Foy as Queen Elizabeth II and Matt Smith as Prince Philip in ‘The Crown’. (Photo by Robert Viglasky/Netflix)

According to the survey of 10,000 respondents, some 44 per cent of Chinese tourists interested in visiting the UK said television programmes had driven their interest. More than a quarter of Americans planning a UK visit said the same.

The first two series of The Crown star Claire Foy as Queen Elizabeth and Matt Smith as Prince Philip. The third series, which will see Olivia Colman and Tobias Menzies take over, is expected to air in 2019.

 

Wolf Hall

The six-part BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize-winning novels Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies was a huge hit both on and off-screen. Starring Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell and Damian Lewis as King Henry VIII, the 2015 drama sent fans flocking to filming locations including Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire, the real-life Wolf Hall; Chastleton House in Oxfordshire, which portrayed scenes from Cromwell’s childhood in Putney; and Montacute House in Somerset, which was used as the setting for Greenwich Palace – Henry VIII’s main London seat and the site of Anne Boleyn’s arrest in Wolf Hall.

Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire, the real-life Wolf Hall. (Photo by Claudio Beduschi/AGF/UIG via Getty Images)

Around 40 per cent of the shoots in Wolf Hall took place at sites owned by the National Trust, with the location fees providing much-needed income to help maintain the properties. The show’s producer, Mark Pybus, said: “The advantages of filming in a historic location are massive. It also helps the actors, if they’re stepping into the buildings that Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell walked around in it helps bring a realness to the project.”

 

Outlander

The time-travel drama in which a Second World War army nurse is carried back to Scotland in 1743 has brought tourists flocking to the country’s castles and other spots where much of the three series were filmed.

According to the ONS Travel Trends 2017 statistics, Doune Castle, which features in the series as the fictional Castle Leoch, has seen a 227 per cent increase in numbers since 2013 when Outlander first aired.

The time-travel drama ‘Outlander’ has brought tourists flocking to Scotland’s castles. (Photo by Sony Pictures Television)

The 15th-century Blackness Castle in West Lothian, which featured as the Fort William headquarters of ‘Black Jack’ Randall (Tobias Menzies), attracted a record 43,763 visitors in 2017, while Linlithgow Palace, which is used as Wentworth Prison where Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan) is imprisoned, welcomed a record 87,254 – up 17 per cent on the previous year, the Daily Express reports.

 

Downton Abbey

Highclere Castle was dangerously unstable and parts of the building were deemed uninhabitable when Julian Fellowes began filming his period drama Downton Abbey there in 2010. The stately home, located five miles south of Newbury in Berkshire and owned by George ‘Geordie’ Herbert, 8th Earl of Carnarvon, was facing a near £12m repair bill.

“It was just after the banking crisis and it was gloom in all directions,” Lord Carnarvon told the Guardian. “Then Downton came along and it became a major tourist attraction.” Visitor numbers doubled, to 1,200 a day, and Highclere is today one of Britain’s most recognisable stately homes.

Highclere Castle, where the ITV period drama ‘Downton Abbey’ was filmed. (Photo by Niklas Halle’n/AFP/Getty Images)

The success of Downton has funded “a rolling programme of building repairs aimed at safeguarding Highclere for the next generation,” the family said.

The Downton cast and crew will return to Highclere in September 2018 to film a feature-length movie.

Have your holidays been inspired by a historical drama? Let us know by tweeting us @HistoryExtra or by posting on our Facebook page. You can also share your holiday photos with us on Instagram.

Emma Mason is the Digital Editor at HistoryExtra.com

]]> Dr Seán Lang <![CDATA[9 of the most overrated battles in history (and one underrated one)]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/overrated-exaggerated-battles-british-bosworth-bannockburn-battle-of-britain/ 2025-02-14T15:03:54.000Z 2019-07-11T09:57:20.000Z To be overrated, a battle must be famous and have been generally regarded as decisive or of great historical significance. Of course, some battles, like those of the Crimean War, never had much reputation to start with; others, such as El Alamein, are genuinely debatable: a sideshow in the grand scheme of things, it helped turn the tide in the Second World War’s north African campaign and was of genuine value in stiffening British morale. Judging a battle to be overrated does not mean it was insignificant; still less does it deny the bravery and sacrifice of those who fought in it. It simply means that it has been accorded a decisive importance that does not necessarily stand up to close scrutiny. For reasons of space, I have restricted this exploration to battles from British history; other peoples can doubtless compile similar lists of their own.

 

Julius Caesar’s invasions of Britain, 55 and 54 BC

The cheeky satirical volume 1066 and All That gave 55 BC as one of the two memorable dates in English history (the other, of course, being 1066), but a memorable date does not prove a battle’s significance. What was Julius Caesar actually doing in Britain? What was his landing supposed to achieve? Caesar himself says it was to punish the Britons for the aid they sent the Gallic tribes during his conquest of Gaul in 58–50 BC, which would make it a sort of punitive expedition, like the ones the British would later launch in their own empire. Either way, it cannot be called a conquest, or even, properly speaking, an invasion.

An illustration of Julius Caesar landing his craft during his invasion on Britain. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

One of the problems with Caesar’s raid, as with so much ancient history, is that we are so heavily dependent on tainted written sources – in this case Caesar’s own written account. Corroborative archaeological evidence for the scale of Caesar’s expedition is relatively sparse. We do know that Caesar’s account was a propaganda exercise to promote his own bid for power, and that it would have suited his purposes to ‘big up’ what was either a large raid or an embarrassingly aborted invasion. Either way, its significance seems to have been overblown.

 

Bannockburn, 1314

Robert the Bruce’s victory over King Edward II at the battle of Bannockburn was unquestionably important, but it wasn’t as decisive as many like to claim. For one thing, Edward II was one of the most incompetent men ever to occupy the English throne; it is hard to imagine his father, Edward I, the fearsome ‘Hammer of the Scots’, walking so blithely into Robert the Bruce’s trap. In the short term, the English were so completely defeated that Bannockburn really did seem to have established Scottish independence. But not for long.

The English kings’ claim to overlordship of Scotland remained in force, so in 1320 Bruce had the Declaration of Arbroath drawn up, addressed to the Pope and asserting Scotland’s right to be a free kingdom. It was needed, because although Bruce got the English to accept Scottish independence in 1328, just over a year later he was dead, leaving his five-year-old son, David II, on the throne. The English promptly invaded, forced the king into exile, put Edward Balliol on the throne and annexed the southern part of the kingdom. It was the end of the reign of the House of Bruce. Later Scottish nationalism was to accord Bannockburn a decisive significance that would not have been so obvious to people in Scotland at the time.

 

Bosworth, 1485

It is still popularly believed that the battle of Bosworth, the battle in which Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, took the throne from the Yorkist King Richard III, marked the end of the Wars of the Roses and therefore of the English Middle Ages. It did nothing of the sort. Militarily, the battle hung on the decision of Lord Stanley as to which side to support; he chose Henry Tudor, which sealed the contest, though the real significance of the day lay in the fact that Richard III himself was killed. It gave Henry just enough of an opening to try to make his rule permanent, but by no means did it indicate that his position was secure.

There were plenty of people with a stronger claim to the throne than Henry Tudor, and he knew it. The Yorkists were a genuine threat, especially as they had good contacts abroad, in France, Burgundy, Ireland and Scotland. It’s too easy for us nowadays to underestimate the importance of the Yorkist pretenders to Henry’s throne: the battle of Stoke Field in 1487, in which Henry VII faced the Irish-backed Yorkists under the pretender Lambert Simnel, required him to mount a robust defence and has a better claim to be the last battle of the Wars of the Roses. Even after Henry’s victory, the Yorkists were able to maintain their military and diplomatic pressure through a second pretender, Perkin Warbeck. Bosworth’s importance in the popular imagination comes from the significance given to it by Henry’s skilful use of propaganda, rather than from events on the battlefield.

An illustration of Richard III at the battle of Bosworth, a clash which historian Sean Lang argues is overrated. (Photo by Print Collector/Getty Images)

 

The Armada, 1588

The defeat of the Spanish Armada was for so long such an iconic moment in English history that it might seem perverse to include it here. Certainly, English naval gunnery was superior, both in technology and in its execution, and as an English propaganda coup, the Armada campaign was a masterpiece: the narrative of the little English ships nipping in and out between the ungainly Spanish galleons, of Drake’s fireship attack at Calais, and above all of Queen Elizabeth’s speech at Tilbury, has stirred patriotic hearts for centuries.

A portrait of the Spanish Armada.

The reality was very different. The English attacks on the Spanish fleet made very little impression on its strong defensive formation, and it was acknowledged even at the time that what really destroyed the Armada was the stormy weather that drove it northwards to be wrecked on the rocky Scottish and Irish coasts. More importantly, the battle did not establish immediate English naval supremacy, as so many have assumed: the English fleet dispersed shortly afterwards and many of the sailors were soon destitute. In 1596–97 the Spanish sent two further invasion armadas, which were again defeated more by the storms in the Channel than by the English fleet. The defeat of the Armada was a major blow to Spanish prestige, but the English had no call to be complacent.

 

Plassey, 1757

For many years, Plassey was up there with Blenheim and Waterloo as a triumph of British arms – a “miracle”, as one historian once called it. This was the battle at which Robert Clive (‘Clive of India’) defeated the treacherous nawab (ruler) of Bengal, avenged the atrocity of the Black Hole of Calcutta and established British rule over India. The trouble is, almost none of that version of events is accurate.

The nawab had driven the British from Calcutta and, in an event still hotly disputed, some of the prisoners he took died in the airless room in which they were confined – the famous ‘Black Hole’. He also flirted with the idea of a French alliance, so Clive was sent to retake Calcutta and deal with the French. He did both of these, and that should have been the end of the campaign – only Clive sensed an opportunity to stage a palace coup and replace the nawab with one of his subordinates, Mir Jafar. The result was a strange non-battle: although his forces heavily outnumbered Clive’s, the nawab didn’t know which of his own men he could trust, while Clive, for the same reason, didn’t want to press home an attack in case he was killing the wrong men. What fighting there was began on the initiative of a British officer who disobeyed Clive’s orders and launched an attack. Politically, Plassey was of the first importance, but as a military exercise it has been heavily overrated.

 

New Orleans, 1815

New Orleans is a battle more overrated in the United States than in Britain, where few people have ever heard of it. It was the climax of the curious Anglo-American War of 1812–14, a sideshow to the main military event of the time, the war against Napoleon. It must rank as one of the most needless conflicts in history: American merchants were caught between the wartime blockades that Britain and France imposed on each other, and opinion was divided in the United States over whether to fight France or Britain. In the end, British impressment of US sailors tipped the balance in favour of war with Britain, but the war began badly for the Americans: their invasion of Canada was defeated and the British were able to outmanoeuvre them and take Washington DC itself, burning the presidential mansion down as they did so.

A war over wartime trade restrictions becomes pointless when that war ends, so when the European war ended in 1814, there was nothing left for Britain and the US to fight about. A number of Wellington’s Peninsular War veterans were shipped over to the States, led by Sir Edward Pakenham, Wellington’s brother-in-law, a competent rather than a gifted commander. The British attack on New Orleans, where the American commander was Andrew Jackson, was not well planned, and Pakenham was himself killed in the fighting. It was certainly an American victory; however, since peace between the two countries had already been signed (the news had not yet crossed the Atlantic), the battle cannot be said to have decided the war one way or the other. It was undoubtedly a source of patriotic pride to the Americans, but of much less significance to the British.

An illustration depicting a scene during the battle of New Orleans, 1815. (Photo by Interim Archives/Getty Images)

 

Rorke’s Drift, 1879

The Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 was as blatant an example of aggressive war as one can find: Britain had no particular quarrel with the Zulu people before invading their land. Moreover, the British commander, Lord Chelmsford, was comprehensively outmanoeuvred by the Zulus and committed the elementary blunder of dividing his force when he could not be certain where his enemy was. That enemy turned out to be attacking Chelmsford’s base camp at Isandlwana, where the British force holding it was wiped out. To the Victorian public, Isandlwana was a defeat of unimaginable proportions. All the more reason, therefore, to make the most of the more successful engagement that followed, at Rorke’s Drift.

The attack on the tiny mission station at Rorke’s drift was led by Zulu commander Prince Dabulamanzi, in defiance of strict orders not to attack fortified positions, especially along the frontier with British territory, as Rorke’s Drift was. He and his men had played no part at Isandlwana and they were keen to ‘wash their spears’ in British blood. The defence was led by two junior officers, Lieutenants Bromhead and Chard, who displayed an almost impressive lack of military imagination, missed the chance to evacuate and just sat there, waiting for the Zulus to attack. In the event, even rudimentary fortifications of mealie bags and biscuit boxes proved enough protection to break the Zulu attack, which was called off before British reinforcements could arrive. No fewer than 11 Victoria Crosses were awarded to the defenders of Rorke’s Drift, and the 1964 film Zulu helped to embed the battle in national consciousness; in reality it was an unnecessary battle, badly planned on both sides, and given a huge importance it never really deserved.

 

The Siege of Mafeking, 1899–1900

When the Boer republics launched pre-emptive strikes into British territory at the start of the Anglo-Boer War towards the end of 1899, they managed to catch the British on the hop and besiege them in a series of townships, including Kimberley, Ladysmith and the railway junction at Mafeking. The British commander at Mafeking, Robert Baden-Powell, having got himself unnecessarily trapped there, went on to make the most of it by a brilliant news management campaign, presenting himself as the plucky lad at the wicket, gallantly blocking some fiendish Boer bowling. When Mafeking was finally relieved by troops under Field Marshal Roberts in May 1900, the British public went wild with joy and relief.

The importance of the siege of Mafeking was always heavily overstated: it gave the Boers some initial propaganda leverage, but in military terms it tied too many troops down and left them unprepared to face the main British attack when it came. The British presented the siege as a sort of test of manly character, though it was of limited importance to the outcome of the war. It also gave them a sense of moral superiority, which was soon undermined by the revelations about the appalling conditions in the concentration camps in which the British held the local Boer population.

 

The Battle of Britain, 1940

You might think you need your eyes tested, or me my brain examined, to see the Battle of Britain in this list. The crucial role of the RAF in denying the Germans control of the air in 1940 and therefore persuading Adolf Hitler to abandon his invasion plans is so well known that it might seem almost sacrilegious to question it. There is, indeed, no cause to question the importance of the battle, but was it solely responsible for saving Britain from invasion? Not quite.

For a ruthless dictator, Hitler was surprisingly sensitive about heavy losses in battle and his navy had taken a pounding in 1940 during the invasion of Norway. The difficulties of launching an amphibious invasion across the Channel were hardly a secret, and he knew the appalling damage that even a relatively small squadron of British ships could inflict on an exposed German fleet of invasion barges if it caught them mid-Channel. The loss of life would be devastating, and so would the blow to German prestige. Had the Germans been able to get hold of the French fleet the odds might have been evened, but Churchill’s ruthless decision to sink it at Mers-el-Kébir denied Hitler that possibility. German control of the air would certainly take a heavy toll on the Royal Navy, but it only needed a few British planes disputing the skies with the Luftwaffe to allow the Navy to destroy the German army in the West. It was probably never worth the risk and Hitler almost certainly knew it.

And one underrated battle:

 

Jutland, 1916

The battle of Jutland was probably the single most important British victory of the First World War, yet not only is it often underrated, some books even suggest it was a British defeat. It was nothing of the sort.

When Winston Churchill called Admiral Jellicoe, in charge of the British Grand Fleet, the one man who could lose the war in an afternoon, he was speaking the truth. If Britain lost control of the sea, the Allies would lose the war. If the Germans controlled the Channel, they could cut British military aid to France, land troops on the undefended French coast and launch a devastating attack in the Allied rear. Submarines could certainly take their toll on Allied shipping, but the Germans’ key to landing a decisive blow lay with the battleships of their High Seas Fleet. All they had to do was command the sea. And that is why Jutland was so important.

Jutland was certainly not decisive in the way Nelson’s battles were: the British actually lost more ships than the Germans, in many cases through poor ship design, and the Germans escaped to fight another day. Except, they didn’t fight another day. As an American journalist put it, the German fleet had assaulted its jailer and was back in jail. Where it stayed until the end of the war – thanks to Jutland.

Sean Lang is a senior lecturer in history at Anglia Ruskin University, specialising in the history of the British empire. He is also a professional playwright and a regular broadcaster on radio and television. You can follow him on Twitter @sf_lang

]]> HistoryExtra <![CDATA[Robert the Bruce: champion of Scotland or murderous usurper?]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/robert-the-bruce-champion-of-scotland-or-murderous-usurper/ 2025-02-14T15:17:32.000Z 2018-08-21T10:40:52.000Z On 10 February 1306, the most important political murder in Scottish history took place. John Comyn, “the Red”, was slaughtered by Robert the Bruce, Earl of Carrick, and his followers in an outburst of violence in the church of the Franciscans, the Greyfriars, at Dumfries.

Comyn and Bruce were leading members of the Scottish nobility. They had been rivals and had recently fought on opposing sides in the wars between Edward I of England and the Scots. In early 1306 with Edward finally recognised as ruler of Scotland, the two lords met together in the Greyfriars church. At first the men seemed friendly and Bruce talked alone with Comyn before the high altar.

Read more:

 

A statue of Robert the Bruce Statue at Stirling Castle, Scotland. (Dreamstime)

Suddenly the mood changed. Bruce accused his rival of treachery. Making to walk away, Robert Bruce then turned back with sword drawn and struck Comyn. Bruce’s followers then rushed in, raining blows on John Comyn who fell to the floor. Comyn’s uncle, who joined the melee, was cut down. Bruce left the church. Mounted on Comyn’s horse he led his followers the short distance to Dumfries Castle where King Edward’s justices were holding court.

Breaking in, Bruce arrested the king’s men but then he heard news that Comyn was still alive. He dispatched two of his men to the friary. They found John Comyn tended by the friars in the vestry, wounded but not dying.

Michael Penman will be speaking on 'Robert Bruce of Scotland (1306-29): Myth and Aftermyth' at our Kings and Queens Weekend in March 2019. Find out more here

The BBC History Magazine Kings and Queens Weekend will take place on 2-3 March 2019

After allowing him to hear confession, Bruce’s men dragged Comyn back into the church and killed him on the altar steps, spattering the altar itself with blood. While Comyn’s corpse was abandoned to the friars, Bruce rode from Dumfries to begin the uprising against Edward I which would climax with his crowning as king of Scots six weeks later.

Those seeking to understand these events saw Comyn’s death as a deliberate step on Bruce’s path to the throne. The English investigation of the murder in 1306 concluded that Comyn was killed because “he would not assent to the treason that Bruce planned against the king of England, it is believed”. In English chronicles of the period, Bruce lured Comyn to Dumfries to kill him. In Scottish accounts, by contrast, Bruce and Comyn agreed to work together for Scotland’s freedom. Comyn, however, betrayed Bruce’s plans to Edward I and was killed in revenge for his treachery.

All these versions agree in identifying Bruce in February 1306 as a man preparing to launch a bid for the kingship and killing Comyn to clear the way. The portrayal of Bruce as either cold-blooded killer or clear-sighted champion of his people suited the conflicting perceptions of later years. It placed the murder at the heart of a planned coup which would also involve Bruce’s seizure of the throne and his war against the English king, a war which ultimately secured recognition of Scotland’s independence.

However, these interpretations also relied on a heavy dose of hindsight. If viewed from the perspective of February 1306 do the conclusions of these accounts seem quite so clear? Was Bruce at that time focused on the seizure of the throne? Was the killing of Comyn on holy ground, an act bound to appal and alienate many Scots, a deed of calculated revolution? Did the immediate aftermath of Comyn’s death, the six weeks before Bruce was crowned king, witness the unfolding of a planned coup? The answers lie in the evidence which emerged before Bruce assumed the reputation and role of hero king or bloody usurper.

A statue of Scottish King Robert the Bruce in Stirling, Scotland. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

The difficult years

In early 1306 Robert Bruce was not an obvious champion of Scottish liberties. He was in his early 30s and his career had been shaped by the decade-long wars between Edward I (ruled England 1272–1307) and the Scots.

The king of England had taken advantage of a succession crisis in Scotland after the death of Alexander III (who ruled Scotland 1249–86). Bruce’s position in this conflict was defined by family interests. Part of this was the Bruce claim to the Scottish throne. This had been rejected in favour of the rival rights of John Balliol in 1292 but with Balliol in exile from 1296 the Bruces did not abandon hope of a crown.

While Bruce was conscious of his family’s royal aspirations, it was his responsibilities as a nobleman which exerted most influence on his activities. As earls of Carrick and lords of Annandale in south-west Scotland and a number of English estates, the Bruces had to preserve lands in two warring kingdoms and protect their friends and tenants in the difficult years since 1296. In these years Bruce had played a shifting role. He had briefly led resistance to Edward I in 1297 and had been a guardian of Scotland between 1298 and 1300 but after both episodes had submitted to the English king.

From 1302 to 1304 he had been active in Edward’s government of Scotland. Bruce’s shifts of side were motivated less by a machiavellian hopes of winning the throne than by the duty to preserve his family’s lands and tenants from the worst effects of war.

His actions were normal amongst the Scottish nobility and were entirely understandable to contemporaries. They do not, though, reveal Bruce as a man committed to the abstract defence of Scotland. Instead they suggest a young lord whose concerns were with more limited and pragmatic issues of lordship and loyalty.

In the months before February 1306 Robert Bruce continued to face these concerns in new circumstances. In 1304 Edward I finally compelled his leading Scottish enemies to submit to his rule. He was now the master of Scotland and during the next year Scotland’s nobles sought his favour and petitioned him for lands and offices. Bruce was one of this group.

In April 1304 his father had died and Bruce approached the king to receive his family’s lordship of Annandale. The succession of enquiries into the Bruces’ ancient rights in their estates probably encouraged Bruce to find allies. To this end, in June 1304 he entered a bond or private alliance with William Lamberton, the bishop of St Andrews.

Deep political rivals

While this was later used by the English to suggest a conspiracy between Bruce and one of the leaders of the Scottish church, its terms do not support this. Instead it was a formal statement of friendship between lords who had recently been on opposite sides in the war but now saw the need to co-operate.

Needing to secure his inheritance and under government scrutiny, Bruce would have found such an alliance valuable, especially as Lamberton became head of Edward’s Scottish council. Issues of land, lordship and influence within this Edwardian Scotland seem to have preoccupied Robert Bruce in 1304–5.

The same issues explain Bruce’s presence in Dumfries on 10 February and his meeting with John Comyn. The king’s justices were holding court in Dumfries and as local landowners it would be natural for Bruce and Comyn to be present. For them to meet in private to discuss the court’s business would also be normal.

However any meeting between these two men came with considerable baggage. There is a garbled tale in several accounts of an indenture between Bruce and Comyn which may indicate a promise of mutual support like that between Bruce and Bishop Lamberton. In the case of Bruce and John however, any written expressions of friendship overlay deep animosity.

The two men were open political rivals. Comyn’s family were long-standing opponents of the Bruces and between 1302 and 1304, while Bruce served King Edward, Comyn had led the king’s enemies. They were also personal enemies. In 1299 Bruce and Comyn were the guardians of Scotland, leading the war against the English. When a dispute broke out between followers of the two men, Comyn turned on Bruce and seized him by the throat.

Accusations of treason were flung at Bruce before the two men were separated. The mistrust and violence between Bruce and Comyn in 1299 may have flared again in February 1306, perhaps sparked by a similarly minor disagreement.

Seeking a deal

The closely contemporary account of Walter of Guisborough hints at this scenario. Bruce and Comyn met to discuss “certain matters touching both of them”. During the conversation Bruce charged Comyn with influencing King Edward against him.

This suggests less the betrayal of a conspiracy than competition for royal favour between rivals which had cost Bruce lands and offices and may have broken a written promise of friendship. Old antagonisms spurred Bruce into an attack on Comyn and others present joined in the fight. The result was not assassination but a bloody scuffle.

The aftermath of the killing suggests that even then Bruce only slowly developed the intention of seizing the throne. It would be six weeks before he was crowned and in this period the consequences of Comyn’s death and the nature of Bruce’s intentions only gradually unfolded.

Vital evidence of this comes from an English report, crucially written in early March before Bruce took the throne. It shows Bruce remaining in the south-west, taking castles and trying to recruit followers in the manner of previous aristocratic rebellions. The report also reveals that Bruce was negotiating with Edward I and his officials and in these talks indicated that he had taken castles “to defend himself with the longest stick that he had”.

This was not the unequivocal defiance of a king in waiting but suggests a man trying to safeguard his position but still seeking a deal, perhaps a pardon for Comyn’s death. However the report shows that such aims were changing.

The writer identifies the key figure in this as Wishart, the bishop of Glasgow. Robert Wishart was a veteran defender of Scottish liberties and in early March, as Bruce’s “chief adviser”, he absolved Bruce from his sins and “freed him to secure his heritage”. This could only mean that Bruce was now determined to bid for the throne. Wishart provided the spiritual support. By releasing Bruce from his oath to Edward and from the sacrilege of slaying Comyn on holy ground the bishop made Bruce a credible leader of the Scots.

It had taken weeks for this move and it was only in March that Bruce started to widen his appeal and win support. On 25 March Bruce was crowned King of Scots at Scone.

The ceremony was makeshift and, if it demonstrated that the new king had gathered support from clergy, nobles and people, a majority stayed away, refusing to recognise the usurper or unwilling to risk sharing in his likely defeat.

Edward I’s terrible retribution

Bruce had taken a huge gamble. He was on a path of no return and by October he and his friends had paid a heavy price. Defeated three times in battle by English and Scottish enemies, Bruce fled the Scottish mainland. Many of his supporters and family suffered worse fates as Edward I wreaked a terrible punishment on those he regarded as perjured rebels.

With stakes so high it would always have been a huge risk to plan a rebellion against Edward. It would not be surprising if Bruce, a wealthy and influential noble with a career of cautious self-interest to his name, baulked at such a gamble. Instead, through lingering personal antagonism which sparked an act of unpremeditated violence, Bruce put his future in jeopardy. By killing Comyn, Bruce had made enemies of John’s family and following. As well as this blood feud Bruce now faced the judgement of Edward I, not a lenient or forgiving ruler.

In these unpromising circumstances and influenced by Bishop Wishart, Bruce took the decision which changed his life and Scotland’s future. He laid claim to the title and authority of king, appealing to his family’s allies and to those Scots who wished to renew the war against the English king. Despite the defeats of 1306 it would be in this role that Bruce would return to Scotland the following year. From 1307 as King of Scots Robert Bruce would begin to win his realm.

Michael Brown is reader in medieval Scottish history at the University of St Andrews. His books include The Wars of Scotland 1214-1371, (Edinburgh University Press, 2004) and Bannockburn: The Scottish War and the British Isles, 1307-1323 (Edinburgh University Press, 2008).

This article was first published in the March 2006 issue of BBC History Magazine

]]> HistoryExtra <![CDATA[Scottish history: 9 steps from Union to Referendum]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/scottish-history-9-steps-from-union-to-referendum/ 2025-02-14T15:41:05.000Z 2015-09-18T12:31:34.000Z 1707: Act of Union passed by Scottish and English Parliaments 

King James VI and I had hoped to create a united kingdom of Great Britain, but the idea found no support in either of his parliaments. After Charles II was crowned in Edinburgh Cromwell led a successful invasion and under the 1651 Tender of Union, reinforced in 1657 by an Act of Union, Scotland was subsumed into Cromwell’s English Republic.

However, the two kingdoms separated again at the Restoration in 1660.  The 1707 Union was put forward in response to Scottish bankruptcy after the Darien fiasco [an unsuccessful attempt by the Kingdom of Scotland to become a world trading nation by establishing a colony called Caledonia on the Isthmus of Panama on the Gulf of Darién in the late 1690s] and English fears that Scotland might restore the Stuarts rather than accept a Protestant Hanoverian succession.

1746: Battle of Culloden – British government forces crush the largely Highland army of the Jacobite claimant, Prince Charles Edward Stuart

The “45” Jacobite Rising was a Scottish civil war: Jacobite support in the lowlands was minimal, and almost non-existent in England (the real focus of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s interest).

Most Scots opposed the Jacobite rising, and many served in the Duke of Cumberland’s army that defeated the Jacobites at Culloden Moor. After the battle, the British engaged in the systematic eradication of traditional highland culture, though they eventually adopted an anglicised form of it for Highland regiments within the British army.

1856: The rebuilt Balmoral Castle opens as a royal residence for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert

Building on the huge popularity of the Waverley novels of Sir Walter Scott, the royal couple spearheaded a Victorian craze for Scottish traditional culture, virtually inventing much of it in the process.

Much of the current paraphernalia of clan tartans, dress kilts and the ubiquitous playing of bagpipes in fact dates no further back than the 19th century. This romanticised image of the Scots, epitomised in Queen Victoria’s highland servant, John Brown, came to dominate English perceptions of Scotland and would eventually be rejected by the later nationalist movement.

1885: Creation of the Scottish Office and revival of the post of Secretary for Scotland (promoted in 1926 to secretary of state with a seat in cabinet)

This was part of a wave of administrative reorganisation that also saw the creation of County Councils and attempts to introduce Home Rule for Ireland; it was not part of a move to introduce anything similar for Scotland, which was still treated essentially as a large, if distinctive, region of the United Kingdom. The post of Secretary for Scotland had existed in the early 18th century but had lapsed after Culloden.

Even though it quickly became standard practice, whichever party was in power, to appoint a Scot to the Scottish Office, it was still usual, including among non-English Britons, to speak of “England” when referring to the whole of the United Kingdom.

1967 Winifred (‘Winnie’) Ewing wins the Hamilton by-election for the SNP

In an unexpected victory for a small fringe party that few at the time took seriously, Winnie Ewing overturned the previous Labour majority and began a surge of popularity for the Scottish nationalists. Although Labour soon retook the seat, she herself remained active in politics, first as an MP and later as MEP for the Highlands and Islands.

In 1999 she presided at the opening of the new Scottish Parliament. Although the SNP’s fortunes fluctuated, and it remained on the political fringe within the United Kingdom as a whole, by the 1970s it had emerged as a rival to Labour within Scotland and retained a small but permanent (and vociferous) presence in Parliament.

1979 Referendum: Scots vote against devolution

The 1973 Kilbrandon Report on the make-up of the United Kingdom had considered but rejected a federal structure, but recommended devolution for Wales and Scotland. The issue was put to both electorates but failed to attract enough support.

In Scotland, where the proposed powers of the devolved assembly were greater than in Wales, the Yes campaign won a majority but fell well short of the threshold of 40 per cent of the possible electorate required for establishing a Scottish assembly. Many assumed, wrongly, that the referendum had disposed of the issue for the foreseeable future.

1988 Mrs Thatcher addresses the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland

Mrs Thatcher’s economic policies had sharply divided opinion in Scotland just as they had in the rest of the United Kingdom. Her ‘Sermon on the Mound’ address to the General Assembly, in which she appeared to be preaching to them the theological basis for capitalism (in a 1980 television interview she had already put the Good Samaritan forward as an example of the practical usefulness of making a bit of money), quickly came to symbolise a gulf in understanding and attitudes that had opened up between even moderate conservative opinion in Scotland and the Conservative Party in England.

Scottish alienation from the Tories was hugely strengthened by the Thatcher government’s decision to pilot the deeply unpopular Community Charge, or Poll Tax, in Scotland before introducing it across the rest of the United Kingdom.

1999 Opening of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh

After the symbolic return to Scotland in 1996 of the Stone of Scone and strong support for a Scottish parliament shown in a referendum held the following year, the Queen travelled to Edinburgh in 1999 to open a Scottish Parliament, the first to have sat since 1707.

It was largely the work of the Labour Scottish Secretary, Donald Dewar, who then became the first holder of the post of Scottish First Minister. Labour hoped and expected, naively, as we can say with hindsight, that the granting of a Parliament, with considerable devolved powers though still under Westminster’s supervision, would take the sting out of their SNP rivals.

2011 SNP wins an outright majority in the Scottish Parliament election

In 2011, to general surprise, the SNP, which had been governing in co-operation with the Scottish Conservatives, won 69 seats, a gain of 23, taking it well over the 65 necessary for an absolute majority.

Alex Salmond continued as First Minister, though he now began to claim greater authority to himself and his administration. He renamed the Scottish Executive the ‘Scottish Government’, and began negotiations with the prime minister, David Cameron, for a referendum on full independence.

The 2012 Edinburgh Agreement laid down the terms, binding all parties to accept the verdict of a straight-majority referendum, with only one question on the ballot paper rather than Salmond’s preferred option of the offer of increased devolution, ‘Devo Max’, as an alternative to either the status quo or independence.

Dr Sean Lang is a senior lecturer in history at Anglia Ruskin University whose research interests include the development of British constitutional identity from the 16th century onwards.

This article was first published by History Extra in September 2014

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