Scotland: The Story of a Nation

TALES OF A GRANDFATHER, CHAPTER VI

Rail travellers who alight at Berwick-upon-Tweed are stepping straight into the cockpit of the troubled history of Anglo – Scottish relations; whether they know it or not, they are standing on the threshold of the so-called Wars of Independence led first by William Wallace (see Chapter 10 (#u0f93bc73-32a0-575d-8e03-8dbdd3337b16)) and then by Robert Bruce (see Chapter 11 (#u3b22e910-5049-5b37-8c82-3ff6e286ecd6)). The notice above Platforms 1 and 2 explains:

This station stands on the site of the Great Hall of Berwick Castle. Here on the 17th November 1292, the claim of Robert Bruce to the crown of Scotland was declined and the decision in favour of John Baliol was given by King Edward I before the full parliament of England and a large gathering of the nobility and populace of both England and Scotland.

Across from the platforms the gaunt remains of the west wall of the old castle define one side of the station.

(#ulink_9b367189-18f6-5bbd-92ea-132fddffb7cd) Not much else is left, apart from the curtain wall which King Edward built from the castle to the shore of the Tweed below after his savage sacking of the town in March 1296 (see below). A steep path leads down from the station forecourt, past a quatrefoil lily-pond, until you emerge on the shingle foreshore of the broad river. To your right, the noble Royal Border Bridge carries rail traffic rumbling and hooting its way across the Tweed; on the far side of this great viaduct Edward’s ‘White Wall’ crow-steps its way right down to the water’s edge.

It is a curiously desolate spot. There is a tang of seaweed in the air, and the melancholy cries of seabirds and waders. The ruined walls and their abandoned defensive works speak sad volumes. And all because a little princess named Margaret, who held the destiny of Scotland in her palm, had died.

The Maid of Norway

The death of Alexander III in March 1286 was a devastating blow for Scotland – but it is only in hindsight that we can see just how devastating it was. The immediate effect was simply a dynastic crisis, because the sole heir of Alexander’s body, and the only surviving descendant in the direct line of the MacMalcolm dynasty, was his granddaughter Margaret, the Maid of Norway, who had been acknowledged as heir presumptive in 1284 (‘our lady and rightful heir’). To fill the sudden vacuum in the business of government, a committee of six Guardians was elected at an assembly or parliament of the ‘Community of the Realm’ at Scone the month after Alexander’s death; the Guardians comprised two bishops (William Fraser of St Andrews and Robert Wishart of Stirling), two earls (Alexander Comyn, Earl of Buchan, and Duncan MacDuff, Earl of Fife) and two barons (James the Steward and John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch). The Bruces, although a powerful family in the south-west of Scotland, were not represented. The seal which the Guardians created for their use showed the royal arms on one side and the image of St Andrew on his cross on the other, with the legend: ‘Andrew be leader of the Scots, your fellow countrymen’.

It was a sign of the growing political maturity of the nation that its leaders could come to such an effective arrangement, despite threatening rumblings of discontent from some of the leading noble families – especially the two who thought themselves legitimate claimants to the throne: the Balliols (supported by the Comyns) and the Bruces.

The uncertainty over the succession continued for a few months, however; Alexander’s young French widow, Yolande, claimed to be pregnant – whether this was genuine or feigned only time would tell – which raised the possibility of the birth of a posthumous heir. Within a few months, however, it became clear that she was not with child, and in October 1286 the Princess Margaret, Maid of Norway, was formally accepted as Queen of Scots.

Meanwhile, embassies were sent to Edward I, the king of England – as a courtesy, at least: Edward was the child’s great-uncle, after all, and England had a legitimate interest in the royal affairs of its neighbour. Besides, Edward was by then one of the most powerful and respected kings in Europe. There was also the question of the Maid of Norway’s marriage prospects. The obvious candidate for the infant queen’s hand, given the ties between the two kingdoms, was Edward I’s two-year-old son, Edward, Earl of Caernarvon, the future Edward II. Edward I also had the stature and authority to ensure the stability of the kingdom during Margaret’s minority.

Soon after Margaret’s birth in Norway, Alexander III had written to Edward hinting at the desirability of a royal marriage between his granddaughter and a member of Edward’s family. A marriage between the Queen of Scots and the heir to the throne of England would have profound dynastic significance, and would probably lead to a Union of the Crowns. Not everyone relished that prospect – the Church in Scotland, in particular, jealously cherished its independence from England – but it seems that Scotland in general preferred a ‘foreign’, English marriage, if only to avoid the tensions which marriage to a Scottish nobleman might produce.

In Norway, King Erik was naturally concerned about his young daughter’s prospects, at the mercy of warring factions, perhaps, and he too made a diplomatic approach to Edward of England. There was a serious problem to overcome, however, because the two infants were closely related – Edward of Caernarvon’s father and the Maid of Norway’s grandmother were brother and sister – and this family relationship was within the prohibited degrees of canon law. Papal dispensation was sought.

The Guardians were determined that Scotland should remain a distinct kingdom in any such dynastic union, and long and painstaking negotiations ensued. At last, by November 1289, all three sides – Scotland, Norway and England – were ready to subscribe to a preliminary treaty, which was confirmed in the Treaty of Birgham, on the north side of the Tweed between Kelso and Coldstream, in July 1290.

The marriage settlement guaranteed that Scotland would remain a separate and independent kingdom. The treaty stipulated that the Scottish realm was to remain ‘separate and divided from England according to its rightful boundaries, free in itself and without subjection’, and that its rights, laws, liberties and customs were ‘wholly and inviolably preserved’ for all time. Should Edward and Margaret die childless, her kingdom would pass to her nearest heir ‘wholly, freely, absolutely, and without any subjection’.

That was the intention, anyway. But Edward’s negotiators added the ominous words: ‘Saving always the right of our lord king, and of any other whomsoever, that has pertained to him … before the time of the present agreement, or which in any just way ought to pertain to him in the future.’ And King Edward, on ratifying the treaty, insisted on appointing the new Bishop of Durham (Anthony Bek) as his ‘lieutenant’ in Scotland on behalf of the royal pair, and required the Scottish Guardians to obey the bishop (in the event, the appointment seems to have been largely ignored in Scotland).

In May 1290, Edward I sent ‘a great ship’ from Yarmouth to fetch his future daughter-in-law from Norway, bearing toothsome gifts of sugar-loaves, gingerbread, figs and raisins. King Erik of Norway insisted on using a Norwegian vessel, however, and the English ship returned without her. In September 1290 the Maid of Norway set sail from Bergen, en route for Leith. It was a wild, storm-tossed voyage, and the ship was driven far off course to Orkney (which was still Norwegian territory). Margaret’s health, never robust, broke under the strain and she was ‘seized with illness at sea’, according to the Norwegian bishop accompanying her. She was carried ashore, more dead than alive, and there she died. Her body was taken back to Bergen, where it was ‘narrowly examined’ by her father and then buried beside her mother in Christ’s Kirk in Bergen. She was not yet eight years old, and had been Queen of Scots for four years and six months. With her sad little death the MacMalcolm dynasty came to an end.

Margaret’s death created a very real crisis of succession: now there was not a minority to deal with, but an interregnum with a disputed succession. The terms of the Treaty of Birgham were nullified, of course, and all thoughts had to turn to identifying the person who had the best claim to the vacant throne.

Now the figure of Edward I of England suddenly loomed larger, and much more ominous:

He was a very brave man, and a good soldier, – wise, skilful, and prudent, but unhappily very ambitious, and desirous of extending his royal authority, without caring much whether he did so by right means or by those which were unjust. And although it is a great sin to covet that which does not belong to you, and a still greater to endeavour to possess yourself of it by any unfair practices, yet his desire of adding the kingdom of Scotland to that of England was so great, that Edward was unable to resist it.

TALES OF A GRANDFATHER, CHAPTER VI

Edward I, who was to be given the posthumous sobriquet of Malleus Scottorum (‘Hammer of the Scots’), was the most compelling of the Plantagenet kings of England. In Scotland he has always been regarded as a ruthless despot, intent only on subjugating his little neighbour to his unscrupulous will; but in England his reputation is coloured by a romantic glow. He was the dashing Crusader knight par excellence, so devoted to his Spanish wife, Eleanor of Castile, that when she died in 1290 in Nottinghamshire he constructed a series of twelve ‘Eleanor Crosses’ to mark the places where the funeral cortège stopped on its way to her burial at Westminster.

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When the crisis of succession struck Scotland in 1290 Edward was fifty years old, a tall, handsome, forceful, dominating figure, experienced in all the arts of war and peace (he was a great lover of poetry, music and chess), a charming friend and a menacing foe. He was totally committed to strengthening the kingdom he had inherited in 1274. He reorganised the financial system, the army and the feudal holdings of his barons. He also concentrated on extending his western frontier: in two violent campaigns (1276–7 and 1282–3) he annexed north and west Wales. This was the man who would become Scotland’s most implacable enemy – but whose enmity, paradoxically, would unite Scotland as a nation.

Fiona Watson, senior lecturer in History at Stirling University and the author of Under the Hammer (1998), makes no secret of her admiration for Edward I:

I am absolutely fascinated by him. Despite what has been written about him – whether in England or Scotland or Ireland or France, because he had an impact on all these areas – I think people always tend to admire him, grudgingly or otherwise. He was an incredibly impressive person, and still is to this day, despite any revisionist ideas we might have. From Scotland’s point of view it was very unfortunate that we had a dynastic crisis at a time when England had such a dynamic king. I think that is one of the biggest tragedies of the period.

The Competitors

The succession to the throne of Scotland was wide open. There were no fewer than thirteen claimants – ‘Competitors’, as they were called; many of them were remote or foreign (they included King Erik of Norway, as father of the Maid of Norway). But there were only two who really mattered: John Balliol (c.1250–1313), Lord of Galloway, and Robert Bruce (1210–95), now in his eighties, the fifth Lord of Annandale and grandfather of the future king.

John Balliol was descended from a Picardy nobleman, John de Bailleul, who had been a landowner in England under William Rufus and whose son, Guy, came to Scotland in the reign of David I. In 1263 his father, John Balliol the elder, had founded Balliol College, Oxford, as an act of penance for assaulting the Bishop of Durham, and his wealthy mother, Devorgilla, Lady of Galloway, had founded the beautiful and romantic Sweetheart Abbey a few miles south of Dumfries in memory of her husband in 1273 – it is his embalmed ‘sweet heart’ which was buried with her there when she died in 1290.

Robert Bruce was descended from an old Normandy family named de Brus, from Bruis (Brix), who were given lands in north Yorkshire by Henry I; the family came to Scotland in the reign of David I in about 1120, when Robert de Brus was granted the Lordship of Annandale and its attendant castles of Annan and Lochmaben as a military fief in what is now Dumfriesshire.

(#ulink_2d7e4d33-0141-58b1-9c83-b8138ba15cee) Robert de Brus was the ancestor of a long line of Bruce Lords of Annandale, most of whom were called, rather confusingly, Robert. The fourth Robert Bruce, Lord of Annandale, married into the King David dynasty, as did one of the Balliol family: they married daughters of David, Earl of Huntingdon, the youngest son of King Malcolm IV and a grandson of David I.

Robert Bruce (the ‘Competitor’) could claim a greater nearness of degree than his rival John Balliol: he was the grandson, on his father’s side, of Isabella, the younger daughter of David, Earl of Huntingdon. Balliol, the younger of the two men, nevertheless had the senior claim: he was the great-grandson, on his mother’s side, of Margaret, the eldest daughter of Earl David. The argument would centre on which was the more important, proximity or primogeniture.

The competition for the throne has come to be known as the ‘Great Cause’. For a while it threatened to degenerate into civil war between supporters of the two factions. The most powerful family in Scotland were the Comyns, Lords of Badenoch and Earls of Buchan; John Comyn, Lord of Badenoch, who was himself one of the lesser Competitors, was Balliol’s brother-in-law, and there was no love lost between the Comyns and the Bruces.

To avert an armed struggle the Guardians approached Edward I to arbitrate between the claimants. Edward was more than willing to undertake the task of honest broker, and summoned the Scots to a parliament to be held on 6 May 1291 at Norham Castle, the great stronghold of the Bishop of Durham on the English side of the Tweed.

The ‘Great Cause’

Day sat on Norham’s castled steep,

And Tweed’s fair river, broad and deep,

And Cheviot’s mountains lone:

The battled towers, the donjon keep,

The loophole grates, where captives weep,

The flanking walls that round it sweep,

In yellow lustre shone.

SIR WALTER SCOTT, MARMION

Norham Castle had been chosen with great care by Edward I as the venue for the business at hand. Its romantic ruins still superintend the southern bank of the River Tweed, ten kilometres south-west of Berwick-upon-Tweed along the A698 and up the B6470. It was the most impregnable (for a time, at least) of all the mighty fortresses built to defend the ‘debatable lands’ on each side of the border, both militarily and diplomatically. Founded by Bishop Ranulph Flambard of Durham in 1121 and greatly strengthened in the 1160s, it was to withstand three prolonged sieges during the Wars of Independence (see Chapter 11 (#u3b22e910-5049-5b37-8c82-3ff6e286ecd6)).

Today the solid remains of the Great Hall stand open in moated splendour in a green sweep of manicured English Heritage grass. This was where the business of the Great Cause was conducted over seventeen long months. High up on the back wall you can still see the outline of the fireplace of the first-floor chamber where matters of state were discussed and banquets served.

Edward I arrived at Norham in May 1291 in full panoply, accompanied by the northern levies of England, to be entertained by Bishop Anthony Bek of Durham. The Scots stopped just north of the border, wanting King Edward to cross the Tweed and come to them, but Edward would not shift. When the Scots reluctantly sent a delegation across the Tweed they were met with a demand that Edward must first be acknowledged as the Lord Superior of Scotland before he would settle the succession – as judge, not arbiter; they were given three weeks to make up their minds.

The Scots were deeply affronted by this reiteration of old pretensions, and argued that only a sovereign could commit a realm in this way. But Edward had made his point, and within a matter of days one of the leading Competitors, Robert Bruce, accepted his overlordship and his right to sasine (legal possession of feudal property) of the kingdom. Others followed this lead; a few days later, John Balliol was the last of the Competitors to accept the inevitable. On 12 June the Scottish Community of the Realm finally came to Norham, and the lengthy process of adjudication began; as a favour to the Scots, King Edward allowed some of the meetings to be held in Berwick Castle, which was then on the Scottish side of the border.

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The adjudication of the Great Cause dragged on, with four lengthy adjournments. The Competitors were whittled down to a short-list of two: John Balliol and Robert Bruce. A panel of 104 arbiters or ‘auditors’ was appointed – forty each nominated by Balliol and Bruce, and twenty-four from Edward’s council. Eventually, on 6 November 1292, the court adjudicated in favour of Balliol – indeed, twenty-nine of Bruce’s own auditors voted for Balliol: primogeniture, it was decided, was more significant than proximity.

Was it a perverse choice? Had Edward somehow manipulated the decision to suit his own ends? Fiona Watson has no doubt that it was the correct outcome: