Chapter CCCXCVIII: Section 7 (26)

"The fact that the West-Saxon or English Kings, from Eadward
the Elder [son of Alfred the Great] onwards, did exercise an
external supremacy over the Celtic princes of the island is a
fact too clear to be misunderstood by anyone who looks the
evidence on the matter fairly in the face. I date their
supremacy over Scotland from the reign of Eadward the Elder,
because there is no certain earlier instance of submission on
the part of the Scots to any West-Saxon King. … The submission
of Wales [A. D. 828] dates from the time of Ecgberht; but it
evidently received a more distinct and formal acknowledgement
[A. D. 922] in the reign of Eadward. Two years after followed
the Commendation of Scotland and Strathclyde. … I use the
feudal word Commendation, because that word seems to me better
than any other to express the real state of the case. The
transaction between Eadward and the Celtic princes was simply
an application, on an international scale, of the general
principle of the Comitatus. … A man 'chose his Lord'; he
sought some one more powerful than himself, with whom he
entered into the relation of Comitatus; as feudal ideas
strengthened, he commonly surrendered his allodial land to the
Lord so chosen, and received it back again from him on a
feudal tenure. This was the process of Commendation, a process
of everyday occurrence in the case of private men choosing
their Lords, whether those Lords were simple gentlemen or
Kings. And the process was equally familiar among sovereign
princes themselves. … There was nothing unusual or degrading
in the relation; if Scotland, Wales, Strathclyde, commended
themselves to the West-Saxon King, they only put themselves in
the same relation to their powerful neighbour in which every
continental prince stood in theory, and most of them in actual
fact, to the Emperor, Lord of the World. … The original
Commendation to the Eadward of the tenth century, confirmed by
a series of acts of submission spread over the whole of the
intermediate time, is the true justification for the acts of
his glorious namesake [Edward I.] in the thirteenth century.
The only difference was that, during that time, feudal notions
had greatly developed on both sides; the original Commendation
of the Scottish King and people to a Lord had changed, in the
ideas of both sides, into a feudal tenure of the land of the
Scottish Kingdom. But this change was simply the universal
change which had come over all such relations everywhere. …
But it is here needful to point out two other distinct events
which have often been confounded with the Commendation of
Scotland, a confusion through which the real state of the case
has often been misunderstood. … It is hard to make people
understand that there have not always been Kingdoms of England
and Scotland, with the Tweed and the Cheviot Hills as the
boundaries between them. It must be borne in mind that in the
tenth century no such boundaries existed, and that the names
of England and Scotland were only just beginning to be known.
At the time of the Commendation the country which is now
called Scotland was divided among three quite distinct
sovereignties.
{2841}
North of the Forth and Clyde reigned the King of Scots, an
independent Celtic prince reigning over a Celtic people, the
Picts and Scots, the exact relation between which two tribes
is a matter of perfect indifference to my present purpose.
South of the two great firths the Scottish name and the
Scottish dominion were unknown. The south-west part of modern
Scotland formed part of the Kingdom of the Strathclyde Welsh,
which up to 924 was, like the Kingdom of the Scots, an
independent Celtic principality. The south-eastern part of
modern Scotland, Lothian in the wide sense of the word, was
purely English or Danish, as in language it remains to this
day. It was part of the Kingdom of Northumberland, and it had
its share in all the revolutions of that Kingdom. In the year
924 Lothian was ruled by the Danish Kings of Northumberland,
subject only to that precarious superiority on the part of
Wessex which had been handed on from Ecgberht and Ælfred. In
the year 924, when the three Kingdoms, Scotland, Strathclyde
and Northumberland, all commended themselves to Eadward, the
relation was something new on the part of Scotland and
Strathclyde; but on the part of Lothian, as an integral part
of Northumberland, it was only a renewal of the relation which
had been formerly entered into with Ecgberht and Ælfred. … The
transactions which brought Scotland, Strathclyde, and Lothian
into their relations to one another and to the English Crown
were quite distinct from each other. They were as
follows:—First, the Commendation of the King and people of the
Scots to Eadward in 924. Secondly, the grant of Cumberland by
Eadmund to Malcolm in 945. … In 945 the reigning King [of
Cumberland, or Strathclyde] revolted against his over-lord
Eadmund; he was overthrown and his Kingdom ravaged; it was
then granted on tenure of military service to his kinsman
Malcolm King of Scots. … The southern part of this territory
was afterwards … annexed to Eng]and; the northern part was
retained by the Scottish Kings, and was gradually, though very
gradually, incorporated with their own Kingdom. The
distinction between the two states seems to have been quite
forgotten in the 13th century." The third transaction was "the
grant of Lothian to the Scottish kings, either under Eadgar or
under Cnut. … The date of the grant of Lothian is not
perfectly clear. But whatever was the date of the grant, there
can be no doubt at all as to its nature. Lothian, an integral
part of England, could be granted only as any other part of
England could be granted, namely to be held as part of
England, its ruler being in the position of an English Earl. …
But in such a grant the seeds of separation were sown. A part
of the Kingdom which was governed by a foreign sovereign, on
whatever terms of dependence, could not long remain in the
position of a province governed by an ordinary Earl. … That
the possession of Lothian would under all ordinary
circumstances remain hereditary, must have been looked for
from the beginning. This alone would distinguish Lothian from
all other Earldoms. … It was then to be expected that Lothian,
when once granted to the King of Scots, should gradually be
merged in the Kingdom of Scotland. But the peculiar and
singular destiny of this country could hardly have been looked
for. Neither Eadgar nor Kenneth could dream that this purely
English or Danish province would become the historical
Scotland. The different tenures of Scotland and Lothian got
confounded; the Kings of Scots, from the end of the eleventh
century, became English in manners and language; they were not
without some pretensions to the Crown of England, and not
without some hopes of winning it. They thus learned to attach
more and more value to the English part of their dominions,
and they laboured to spread its language and manners over
their original Celtic territory. They retained their ancient
title of Kings of Scots, but they became in truth Kings of
English Lothian and of Anglicized Fife. A state was thus
formed, politically distinct from England, and which political
circumstances gradually made bitterly hostile to England, a
state which indeed retained a dark and mysterious Celtic
background, but which, as it appears in history, is English in
laws, language and manners, more truly English indeed, in many
respects, than England itself remained after the Norman
Conquest."

_E. A. Freeman,
History of the Norman Conquest of England,
chapter 3, section. 4._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1005-1034.
The kingdom acquires its final name.

"The mixed population of Picts and Scots had now become to a
great extent amalgamated, and under the influence of the
dominant race of the Scots were identified with them in name.
Their power was now to be further consolidated, and their
influence extended during the thirty years' reign of a king
who proved to be the last of his race, and who was to bequeath
the kingdom, under the name of Scotia, to a new line of kings.
This was Malcolm, the son of Kenneth, who slew his
predecessor, Kenneth, the son of Dubh, at Monzievaird. … With
Malcolm the descendants of Kenneth Mac Alpin, the founder of
the Scottish dynasty, became extinct in the male line."

_W. F. Skene,
Celtic Scotland,
book 1, chapter 8._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1039-1054.
The reign of Macbeth or Macbeda.

Malcolm was succeeded by his daughter's son, Duncan. "There is
little noticeable in his [Duncan's] life but its conclusion.
He had made vain efforts to extend his frontiers southward
through Northumberland, and was engaged in a war with the
holders of the northern independent states at his death in the
year 1039. … He was slain in 'Bothgowan,' which is held to be
Gaelic for 'a smith's hut.' The person who slew him, whether
with his own hand or not, was Macbeda, the Maarmor of Ross, or
of Ross and Moray; the ruler, in short, of the district
stretching from the Moray Frith and Loch Ness northwards. The
place where the smith's hut stood is said to have been near
Elgin. This has not been very distinctly established; but at
all events it was near if not actually within the territory
ruled by Macbeda, and Duncan was there with aggressive
designs. The maarmor's wife was Gruach, a granddaughter of
Kenneth IV. If there was a grandson of Kenneth killed by
Malcolm, this was his sister. But whether or not she had this
inheritance of revenge, she was, according to the Scots
authorities, the representative of the Kenneth whom the
grandfather of Duncan had deprived of his throne and his life.
… The deeds which raised Macbeda and his wife to power were
not to appearance much worse than others of their day done for
similar ends. However he may have gained his power, he
exercised it with good repute, according to the reports
nearest to his time.
{2842}
It is among the most curious of the antagonisms that sometimes
separate the popular opinion of people of mark from anything
positively known about them, that this man, in a manner sacred
to splendid infamy, is the first whose name appears in the
ecclesiastical records both as a king of Scotland and a
benefactor of the Church; and is also the first who, as king
of Scotland, is said by the chroniclers to have offered his
services to the Bishop of Rome. The ecclesiastical records of
St. Andrews tell how he and his queen made over certain lands
to the Culdees of Lochleven, and there is no such fact on
record of any earlier king of Scotland. Of his connection with
Rome, it is a question whether he went there himself. … That
he sent money there, however, was so very notorious as not
only to be recorded by the insular authorities, but to be
noticed on the Continent as a significant event. … The reign
of this Macbeda or Macbeth forms a noticeable period in our
history. He had a wider dominion than any previous ruler,
having command over all the country now known as Scotland,
except the Isles and a portion of the Western Highlands. …
With him, too, ended that mixed or alternative regal
succession which, whether it was systematic or followed the
law of force, is exceedingly troublesome to the inquirer. …
From Macbeth downwards … the rule of hereditary succession
holds, at all events to the extent that a son, where there is
one, succeeds to his father. Hence this reign is a sort of
turning-point in the constitutional history of the Scottish
crown."

_J. H. Burton,
History of Scotland,
volume 1, chapter 10._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1066-1093.
Effects of the Norman Conquest of England.
Civilization and growth of the Northern Kingdom.
Reign of Malcolm III.

"The Norman Conquest of England produced a great effect upon
their neighbours. In the first place, a very great number of
the Saxons who fled from the cruelty of William the Conqueror,
retired into Scotland, and this had a considerable effect in
civilizing the southern parts of that country; for if the
Saxons were inferior to the Normans in arts and in learning,
they were, on the other hand, much superior to the Scots, who
were a rude and very ignorant people. These exiles were headed
and accompanied by what remained of the Saxon royal family,
and particularly by a young prince named Edgar Etheling, who
was a near kinsman of Edward the Confessor, and the heir of
his throne, but dispossessed by the Norman Conqueror. This
prince brought with him to Scotland two sisters, named
Margaret and Christian. They were received with much kindness
by Malcolm III., called Canmore [Ceanmore] (or Great Head),
who remembered the assistance which he had received from
Edward the Confessor. … He himself married the Princess
Margaret (1068), and made her the Queen of Scotland. … When
Malcolm, King of Scotland, was thus connected with the Saxon
royal family of England, he began to think of chasing away the
Normans, and of restoring Edgar Etheling to the English
throne. This was an enterprise for which he had not sufficient
strength; but he made deep and bloody inroads into the
northern parts of England, and brought away so many captives,
that they were to be found for many years afterwards in every
Scottish village, nay, in every Scottish hovel. No doubt, the
number of Saxons thus introduced into Scotland tended much to
improve and civilize the manners of the people. … Not only the
Saxons, but afterwards a number of the Normans themselves,
came to settle in Scotland, … and were welcomed by King
Malcolm. He was desirous to retain these brave men in his
service, and for that purpose he gave them great grants of
land, to be held for military services; and most of the
Scottish nobility are of Norman descent. And thus the Feudal
System was introduced into Scotland as well as England, and
went on gradually gaining strength, till it became the general
law of the country, as indeed it was that of Europe at large.
Malcolm Canmore, thus increasing in power, and obtaining
re-enforcements of warlike and civilized subjects, began
greatly to enlarge his dominions. At first he had resided
almost entirely in the province of Fife, and at the town of
Dunfermline, where there are still the ruins of a small tower
which served him for a palace. But as he found his power
increase, he ventured across the Frith of Forth, and took
possession of Edinburgh, and the surrounding country, which
had hitherto been accounted part of England. The great
strength of the castle of Edinburgh, situated upon a lofty
rock, led him to choose that town frequently for his
residence, so that in time it became the metropolis, or chief
city of Scotland. This king Malcolm was a brave and wise
prince, though without education. He often made war upon King
William the Conqueror of England, and upon his son and
successor, William, who, from his complexion, was called
William Rufus, that is, Red William. Malcolm was sometimes
beaten in these wars, but he was more frequently successful;
and not only made a complete conquest of Lothian, but
threatened also to possess himself of the great English
province of Northumberland, which he frequently invaded."
Malcolm Canmore was killed in battle at Alnwick Castle (1093),
during one of his invasions of English territory.

_Sir W. Scott,
Tales of a Grandfather (Scotland);
abridged by E. Ginn,
chapter 4._

ALSO IN:
_J. H. Burton,
History of Scotland,
volume 1, chapter 11._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1093-1153.
Successors of Malcolm III.
The reign of David I.
His civilizing work and influence.

"Six sons and two daughters were the offspring of the marriage
between Malcolm and Margaret. Edward, the eldest, perished
with his father, and Ethelred, created Abbot of Dunkeld and
Earl of Fife, appears to have survived his parents for a very
short time: Edmund died in an English cloister, a penitent and
mysterious recluse; Edgar, Alexander, and David, lived to
wear, in succession, the crown of Scotland. Of the two
daughters, Editha … became the queen of Henry of England. …
Three parties may be said to have divided Scot·land at the
period of Malcolm's death." One of these parties, inspired
with jealousy of the English influence which had come into the
kingdom with queen Margaret, succeeded in raising Donald Bane,
a brother of the late king Malcolm, to the throne. Donald was
soon displaced by Edmund, who is sometimes said to have been
an illegitimate son of Malcolm; and in 1097 Edmund was
dethroned by Edgar, the son of Malcolm and Margaret. Edgar,
dying in 1107, was succeeded by Alexander I., and he, in 1124,
by David I.
{2843}
The reign of David was contemporary with the dark and troubled
time of Stephen in England, and he took an unfortunate part in
the struggle between Stephen and the Empress Matilda,
suffering a dreadful defeat in the famous Battle of the
Standard (see STANDARD, BATTLE OF). But "the whole of the
north of England beyond the Tees" was "for several years …
under the influence, if not under the direct authority, of the
Scottish king, and the comparative prosperity of this part of
the kingdom, contrasting strongly with the anarchy prevailing
in every other quarter, naturally inclined the population of
the northern counties to look with favour upon a continuance
of the Scottish connection. … Pursuing the policy inaugurated
by his mother [the English princess Margaret] …, he
encouraged the resort of foreign merchants to the ports of
Scotland, insuring to native traders the same advantages which
they had enjoyed during the reign of his father; whilst he
familiarized his Gaelic nobles, in their attendance upon the
royal court, with habits of luxury and magnificence, remitting
three years' rent and tribute—according to the account of his
contemporary Malmesbury—to all his people who were willing to
improve their dwellings, to dress with greater elegance, and
to adopt increased refinement in their general manner of
living. Even in the occupations of his leisure moments he
seems to have wished to exercise a softening influence over
his countrymen, for, like many men of his character, he was
fond of gardening, and he delighted in indoctrinating his
people in the peaceful arts of horticulture, and in the
mysteries of planting and of grafting. For similar reasons he
sedulously promoted the improvement of agriculture, or rather,
perhaps, directed increased attention to it; for the Scots of
that period were still a pastoral, and, in some respects, a
migratory people. … David hoped to convert the lower orders
into a more settled and industrious population; whilst he
enjoined the higher classes to 'live like noblemen' upon their
own estates, and not to waste the property of their
neighbours. … In consequence of these measures feudal castles
began, ere long, to replace the earlier buildings of wood and
wattles rudely fortified by earthworks; and towns rapidly grew
up around the royal castles and about the principal localities
of commerce. … The prosperity of the country during the last
fifteen years of his reign [he died in 1153] contrasted
strongly with the miseries of England under the disastrous
rule of Stephen; Scotland became the granary from which her
neighbour's wants were supplied; and to the court of
Scotland's king resorted the knights and nobles of foreign
origin, whom the commotions of the Continent had hitherto
driven to take refuge in England."

_E. W. Robertson,
Scotland under her Early Kings,
volume 1, chapters 6-8._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1153.
Accession of Malcolm IV.

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1165.
Accession of William IV. (called The Lion).

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1174-1189.
Captivity of William the Lion, his oath of fealty to the
English king, and his release from it.

In 1174, on the occasion of a general conspiracy of rebellion
against Henry II., contrived at Paris, headed by his wife and
sons, and joined by great numbers of the nobles throughout his
dominions, both in England and in France, William the Lion,
king of Scotland, was induced to assist the rebellion by the
promise of Northumberland for himself. Henry was in France
until July, 1174, when he was warned that "only his own
presence could retrieve England, where a Scotch army was
pouring in from the north, while David of Huntingdon headed an
army in the midland counties, and the young prince was
preparing to bring over fresh forces from Gravelines. Henry
crossed the channel in a storm, and, by advice of a Norman
bishop, proceeded at once to do penance at Becket's shrine. On
the day of his humiliation, the Scotch king, William the Lion,
was surprised at Alnwick and captured. This, in fact, ended
the war, for David of Huntingdon was forced to return into
Scotland, where the old feud of Gael and Saxon had broken out.
The English rebels purchased peace by a prompt submission. In
less than a month Henry was able to leave England to itself."
The king of Scotland was taken as a prisoner to Falaise, in
Normandy, where he was detained for several months. "By advice
of a deputation of Scotch prelates and barons he at last
consented to swear fealty to Henry as his liege lord, and to
do provisional homage for his son. His chief vassals
guaranteed this engagement; hostages were given; and English
garrisons received into three Scotch towns, Roxburgh, Berwick,
and Edinburgh. Next year [1175] the treaty was solemnly
ratified at York."

_C. H. Pearson,
History of England during the Early and Middle Ages,
volume 1, chapter 31._

This engagement of fealty on the part of William the Lion is
often referred to as the Treaty of Falaise. Fourteen years
afterwards, when Henry's son, Richard, Cœur de Lion, had
succeeded to the throne, the Scotch king was absolved from it.
"Early in December [1189], while Richard was at Canterbury on
his way to the sea [preparing to embark upon his crusade],
William the Lion came to visit him, and a bargain was struck
to the satisfaction of both parties. Richard received from
William a sum of 10,000 marks, and his homage for his English
estates, as they had been held by his brother Malcolm; in
return, he restored to him the castles of Roxburgh and
Berwick, and released him and his heirs for ever from the
homage for Scotland itself, enforced by Henry in 1175."

_K. Norgate,
England under the Angevin Kings,
volume 2, chapter 7._

ALSO IN:
_W. Burns,
Scottish War of Independence,
volume 1, chapter 12._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1214.
Accession of Alexander II.

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1249.
Accession of Alexander III.

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1263.
The Norwegian invasion and the Battle of Largs.

"The western Highlands and Islands formed the original
territory of the Scots. But we have seen how the Norwegians
and Danes, seizing Shetland and Orkney, spread themselves over
the western Archipelago, even as far south as Man, thereby
putting an end, for 300 years, to the intercommunication
between the mainlands of Scotland and Ireland. These islands
long formed a sort of maritime community, sometimes under the
active authority of the kings of Norway, sometimes connected
with the Norwegian settlers in Ireland—Ostmen, as they were
called; sometimes partially ruled by kings of Man, but more
generally subject to chieftains more or less powerful, who,
when opportunity offered, made encroachments even on the
mainland. …
{2844}
Alexander II. seems to have determined to bring this sort of
interregnum to a close, and he was engaged in an expedition
for that purpose when he died at the little island of Kerrera,
near Oban. His son, as he advanced to manhood, appears to have
revived the idea of completely re-annexing the Islands.
Complaints were made by the islanders to Haco, king of Norway,
of aggressions by the earl of Ross and other mainland
magnates, in the interest of the king of Scots; and Haco, who
was at once a powerful and a despotic monarch, resolved to
vindicate his claims as suzerain of the isles. … Haco
accordingly fitted out a splendid fleet, consisting of 100
vessels, mostly of large size, fully equipped, and crowded
with gallant soldiers and seamen. … On the 10th of July, 1263,
'the mightiest armament that ever left the shores of Norway
sailed from the haven of Herlover.' … The island chieftains,
Magnus of the Orkneys, Magnus, king of Man, Dougal MacRoderic,
and others, met the triumphant fleet, swelling its numbers as
it advanced amongst the islands. Most of the chiefs made their
peace with Haco; though there were exceptions. … The invading
fleet entered the Clyde, numbering by this time as many as 160
ships. A squadron of 60 sail proceeded up Loch-long; the crews
drew their boats across the narrow isthmus at Tarbet, launched
on Loch-lomond, and spread their ravages, by fire and sword,
over the Lennox and Stirlingshire. … The alarm spread over the
surrounding country, and gradually a Scottish army began to
gather on the Ayrshire side of the firth. … Whether
voluntarily, or from stress of weather, some portion of the
Norwegians made a landing near Largs, on the Ayrshire coast,
opposite to Bute. These being attacked by the Scots,
reinforcements were landed, and a fierce but desultory
struggle was kept up, with varying success, from morning till
night. Many of the ships were driven ashore. Most of the
Norwegians who had landed were slain. The remainder of the
fleet was seriously damaged. … Retracing its course among the
islands, on the 20th of October it reached Kirkwall in Orkney,
where king Haco expired on 15th December. Such was the result
of an expedition which had set out with such fair promises of
success."

_W. Burns,
The Scottish War of Independence,
chapter 13 (volume 1)._

"In the Norse annals our famous Battle of Largs makes small
figure, or almost none at all, among Hakon's battles and
feats. … Of Largs there is no mention whatever in Norse books.
But beyond any doubt, such is the other evidence, Hakon did
land there; land and fight, not conquering, probably rather
beaten; and very certainly 'retiring to his ships,' as in
either case he behooved to do! It is further certain he was
dreadfully maltreated by the weather on those wild coasts; and
altogether credible, as the Scotch records bear, that he was
so at Largs very specially. The Norse Records or Sagas say
merely he lost many of his ships by the tempests, and many of
his men by land fighting in various parts,—tacitly including
Largs, no doubt, which was the last of these misfortunes to
him. … To this day, on a little plain to the south of the
village, now town, of Largs, in Ayrshire, there are seen stone
cairns and monumental heaps, and, until within a century ago,
one huge, solitary, upright stone; still mutely testifying to
a battle there—altogether clearly to this battle of King
Hakon's; who by the Norse records, too, was in these
neighbourhoods at that same date, and evidently in an
aggressive, high kind of humour."

_T. Carlyle,
Early Kings of Norway,
chapter 15._

ALSO IN:
_J. H. Burton,
History of Scotland,
chapter 15 (volume 2)._

See, also,
NORMANS.
NORTHMEN: 8-9TH CENTURIES,
and 10-13TH CENTURIES.

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1266.
Acquisition of the Western Islands.

Three years after the battle of Largs, "in 1266, Magnus IV.,
the new King [of Norway], by formal treaty ceded to the King
of Scots Man and all the Western Isles, specially reserving
Orkney and Shetland to the crown of Norway. On the other hand,
the King of Scots agreed to pay down a ransom for them of a
thousand marks, and an annual rent of a hundred marks."

_J. H. Burton,
History of Scotland,
chapter 15 (volume 2)._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1286.
Accession of Queen Margaret (called The Maid of Norway)
who died on her way to Scotland in 1290.

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1290-1305.
Death of the Maid of Norway.
Reign of John Balliol.
English conquest by Edward I.
Exploits of Wallace.

Alexander III. of Scotland, dying in 1286, left only an infant
granddaughter to inherit his crown. This was the child of his
daughter Margaret, married to the king of Norway and dead
after her first confinement. The baby queen, known in Scottish
history as the Maid of Norway, was betrothed in her sixth year
to Prince Edward of England, son of Edward I., and all looked
promising for an early union of the Scottish and English
crowns. "But this project was abruptly frustrated by the
child's death on her voyage to Scotland, and with the rise of
claimant after claimant of the vacant throne Edward was drawn
into far other relations to the Scottish realm. Of the
thirteen pretenders to the throne of Scotland, only three
could be regarded as serious claimants. By the extinction of
the line of William the Lion, the right of succession passed
to the daughters of his brother David. The claim of John
Balliol, Lord of Galloway, rested on his descent from the
eldest of these; that of Robert Bruce, Lord of Annandale, on
his descent from the second; that of John Hastings, Lord of
Abergavenny, on his descent from the third. … All the rights
of a feudal suzerain were at once assumed by the English King;
he entered into the possession of the country as into that of
a disputed fief to be held by its overlord till the dispute
was settled. … Scotland was thus reduced to the subjection
which she had experienced under Henry II. … The commissioners
whom he named to report on the claims to the throne were
mainly Scotch; a proposal for the partition of the realm among
the claimants was rejected as contrary to Scotch law, and the
claim of Balliol as representative of the elder branch was
finally preferred to that of his rivals. The castles were at
once delivered to the new monarch, and Balliol did homage to
Edward with full acknowledgment of the services due to him
from the realm of Scotland. For a time there was peace." But,
presently, Edward made claims upon the Scotch nobles for
service in his foreign wars which were resented and
disregarded. He also asserted for his courts a right of
hearing appeals from the Scottish tribunals, which was angrily
denied. Barons and people were provoked to a hostility that
forced Balliol to challenge war. He obtained from the pope
absolution from his oath of fealty and he entered into a
secret alliance with the king of France.
{2845}
In the spring of 1296 Edward invaded Scotland, carried Berwick
by storm, slaughtered 8,000 of its citizens, defeated the
Scots with great slaughter at Dunbar, occupied Edinburgh,
Stirling and Perth, and received, in July, the surrender of
Balliol, who was sent to imprisonment in the Tower of London.
"No further punishment, however, was exacted from the
prostrate realm. Edward simply treated it as a fief, and
declared its forfeiture to be the legal consequence of
Balliol's treason. It lapsed in fact to the overlord, and its
earls, barons and gentry swore homage in Parliament at Berwick
to Edward as their king. … The government of the new
dependency was intrusted to Warenne, Earl of Surrey, at the
head of an English Council of Regency. … The disgraceful
submission of their leaders brought the people themselves to
the front. … The genius of an outlaw knight, William Wallace,
saw in their smouldering discontent a hope of freedom for his
country, and his daring raids on outlying parties of the
English soldiery roused the country at last into revolt. Of
Wallace himself, of his life or temper, we know little or
nothing; the very traditions of his gigantic stature and
enormous strength are dim and unhistorical. But the instinct
of the Scotch people has guided it aright in choosing Wallace
for its national hero. He … called the people itself to arms."
At Stirling, in September, 1297, Wallace caught the English
army in the midst of its passage of the Forth, cut half of it
in pieces and put the remainder to flight. At Falkirk, in the
following July, Edward avenged himself upon the forces of
Wallace with terrible slaughter, and the Scottish leader
narrowly escaped. In the struggle which the Scots still
maintained for several years, he seems to have borne no longer
a prominent part. But when they submitted, in 1303, Wallace
refused Edward's offered amnesty; he was afterwards captured,
sent to London for trial, and executed, his head being placed
on London Bridge, according to the barbarous custom of the
time.

_J. R. Green,
Short History of the English People,
chapter 4, section 3._

ALSO:
_J. H. Burton,
History of Scotland,
chapters 15 and 18-22._

_C. H. Pearson,
History of England during the Early and Middle Ages,
volume 2, chapters 12-13._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1305-1307.
The rising under Robert Bruce.

After the submission of Scotland in 1303, King Edward of
England "set to work to complete the union of the two
kingdoms. In the meantime Scotland was to be governed by a
Lieutenant aided by a council of barons and churchmen. It was
to be represented in the English parliament by ten
deputies,—four churchmen, four barons, and two members of the
commons, one for the country north of the Firths, one for the
south. These members attended one parliament at Westminster,
and an ordinance was issued for the government of Scotland. …
But the great difficulty in dealing with the Scots was that
they never knew when they were conquered, and, just when
Edward hoped that his scheme for union was carried out, they
rose in arms once more. The leader this time was Robert Bruce,
Lord of Annandale, Earl of Carrick in right of his mother, and
the grandson and heir of the rival of Balliol. He had joined
Wallace, but had again sworn fealty to Edward at the
Convention of Irvine, and had since then received many favours
from the English king. Bruce signed a bond with William
Lamberton, Bishop of St. Andrews, who had also been one of
Wallace's supporters. In this bond each party swore to stand
by the other in all his undertakings, no matter what, and not
to act without the knowledge of the other. … This bond became
known to Edward; and Bruce, afraid of his anger, fled from
London to Dumfries. There in the Church of the Grey Friars he
had an interview with John Comyn of Badenoch, called the Red
Comyn, who, after Balliol and his sons, was the next heir to
the throne. … What passed between them cannot be certainly
known, as they met alone"—but Comyn was slain. "By this murder
and sacrilege Bruce put himself at once out of the pale of the
law and of the Church, but by it he became the nearest heir to
the crown, after the Balliols. This gave him a great hold on
the people, whose faith in the virtue of hereditary succession
was strong, and on whom the English yoke weighed heavily. On
March 27, 1306, Bruce was crowned [at Scone] with as near an
imitation of the old ceremonies as could be compassed on such
short notice. The actual crowning was done by Isabella,
Countess of Buchan, who, though her husband was a Comyn, and,
as such, a sworn foe of Bruce, came secretly to uphold the
right of her own family, the Macduffs, to place the crown on
the head of the King of Scots. Edward determined this time to
put down the Scots with rigour. … All who had taken any part
in the murder of the Red Comyn were denounced as traitors, and
death was to be the fate of all persons taken in arms. Bruce
was excommunicated by a special bull from the Pope. The
Countess of Buchan was confined in a room, made like a cage,
in one of the towers of Berwick Castle. One of King Robert's
sisters was condemned to a like punishment. His brother Nigel,
his brother-in-law Christopher Seaton, and three other nobles
were taken prisoners, and were put to death as traitors. …
Edward this time made greater preparations than ever. All
classes of his subjects from all parts of his dominions were
invited to join the army, and he exhorted his son, Edward
Prince of Wales, and 300 newly-created knights, to win their
spurs worthily in the reduction of contumacious Scotland. It
was well for Scotland that he did not live to carry out his
vows of vengeance. He died at Burgh-on-the-Sands, July 30th.
His death proved a turning-point in the history of Scotland,
for, though the English still remained in possession of the
strongholds, Edward II. took no effective steps to crush the
rebels. He only brought the army raised by his father as far
as Cumnock in Ayrshire, and retreated without doing anything."

_M. MacArthur,
History of Scotland,
chapter 3._

ALSO IN:
_Sir W. Scott,
History of Scotland,
volume 1, chapters 8-9._

_W. Burns,
Scottish War of Independence,
volume 2, chapters 21-22._

{2846}

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1314.
The Battle of Bannockburn.

"It is extremely difficult to give distinctness and
chronological sequence to the events in Scotland from 1306 to
1310: the conditions are indeed antagonistic to distinctness.
We have a people restless and feverishly excited to efforts
for their liberty when opportunity should come, but not yet
embodied in open war against their invaders, and therefore
doing nothing distinct enough to hold a place in history. …
The other prominent feature in the historical conditions was
the new-made king [Robert Bruce], … a tall strong man, of
comely, attractive, and commanding countenance. … He is steady
and sanguine of temperament; his good spirits and good-humour
never fail, and in the midst of misery and peril he can keep
up the spirits of his followers by chivalrous stories and
pleasant banter. … The English were driven out of the strong
places one by one—sometimes by the people of the district. We
hear of the fall of Edinburgh, Roxburgh, Linlithgow, Perth,
Dundee, Rutherglen, and Dumfries. … In the beginning of the
year 1309 Scotland was so far consolidated as to be getting
into a place in European diplomacy. The King of France advised
his son-in-law, Edward II., to agree to a souffrance or truce
with the Scots. … While the negotiations with France went on,
countenance still more important was given to the new order of
things at home. The clergy in council set forth their
adherence to King Robert, with the reasons for it. … This was
an extremely important matter, for it meant, of course, that
the Church would do its best to protect him from all
ecclesiastical risk arising from the death of Comyn. … A
crisis came at last which roused the Government of England to
a great effort. After the fortresses had fallen one by one,
Stirling Castle still held out. It was besieged by Edward
Bruce [brother of Robert] before the end of the year 1313.
Mowbray, the governor, stipulated that he would surrender if
not relieved before the Feast of St. John the Baptist in the
following year, or the 24th of June. The taking of this
fortress was an achievement of which King Edward [I.] was
prouder than of anything else he had done in the invasions of
Scotland. … That the crowning acquisition of their mighty king
should thus be allowed to pass away, and stamp emphatically
the utter loss of the great conquest he had made for the
English crown, was a consummation too humiliating for the
chivalry of England to endure without an effort. Stirling
Castle must be relieved before St. John's Day, and the
relieving of Stirling Castle meant a thorough invasion and
resubjection of Scotland." On both sides the utmost efforts
were made,—the one to relieve the Castle, the other to
strengthen its besiegers. "On the 23d of June [1314] the two
armies were visible to each other. If the Scots had, as it was
said, between 30,000 and 40,000 men, it was a great force for
the country at that time to furnish. Looking at the urgency of
the measures taken to draw out the feudal array of England, to
the presence of the Welsh and Irish, and to a large body of
Gascons and other foreigners, it is easy to be believed that
the army carried into Scotland might be, as it was said to be,
100,000 in all. The efficient force, however, was in the
mounted men, and these were supposed to be about equal in
number to the whole Scottish army." The Scots occupied a
position of great strength and advantage (on the banks of the
Bunnock Burn), which they had skilfully improved by
honeycombing all the flat ground with hidden pits, to make it
impassable for cavalry. The English attacked them at daybreak
on the 24th of June, and suffered a most ignominious and awful
defeat. "The end was rout, confused and hopeless. The pitted
field added to the disasters; for though they avoided it in
their advance, many horsemen were pressed into it in the
retreat, and floundered among the pitfalls. Through all the
history of her great wars before and since, never did England
suffer a humiliation deep enough to approach even comparison
with this. Besides the inferiority of the victorious army,
Bannockburn is exceptional among battles by the utter
helplessness of the defeated. There seems to have been no
rallying point anywhere. … None of the parts of that mighty
host could keep together, and the very chaos among the
multitudes around seems to have perplexed the orderly army of
the Scots. The foot-soldiers of the English army seem simply
to have dispersed at all points, and the little said of them
is painfully suggestive of the poor wanderers having to face
the two alternatives—starvation in the wilds, or death at the
hands of the peasantry. The cavalry fled right out towards
England. … Stirling Castle was delivered up in terms of the
stipulation."

_J. H. Burton,
History of Scotland,
volume 2, chapter 23._

"The defeated army … left dead upon the field about 30,000
men, including 200 knights and 700 esquires."

_W. Burns,
Scottish War of Independence,
chapter 23 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN:
_P. F. Tytler,
History of Scotland,
volume 1, chapter 3._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1314-1328.
After Bannockburn.
The consequences of the battle in different views.

"A very general impression exists, especially among
Englishmen, that the defeat at Bannockburn put an end to the
attempted subjugation of Scotland. This is a mistake. … No
doubt the defeat was of so decisive a character as to render
the final result all but certain. But it required many others,
though of a minor kind, to bring about the conviction
described by Mr. Froude [that the Scotch would never stoop to
the supremacy inflicted upon Wales]; and it was yet fourteen
long years till the treaty of Northampton."

_W. Burns,
The Scottish War of Independence,
chapter 24 (volume 2)._

"No defeat, however crushing, ever proved half so injurious to
any country as the victory of Bannockburn did to Scotland.
This is the testimony borne by men whose patriotism cannot be
called in question. … It drove from Scotland the very elements
of its growing civilization and its material wealth. The
artisans of North Britain were at that time mostly English.
These retired or were driven from Scotland, and with them the
commercial importance of the Scottish towns was lost. The
estates held by Englishmen in Scotland were confiscated, and
the wealth which through the hands of these proprietors had
found its way from the southern parts of the kingdom and
fertilized the more barren soil of the north, at once ceased.
The higher and more cultured clergy were English; these
retired when the severance of Scotland from England was
effected, and with them Scottish scholarship was almost
extinguished, and the budding literature of the north
disappeared. How calamitous was the period which followed upon
Bannockburn may be partially estimated by two significant
facts. Of the six princes who had nominal rule in Scotland
from the death of Robert III. to James VI., not one died a
natural death. Of the ten kings whose names are entered on the
roll of Scottish history from the death of Robert Bruce, seven
came to the throne whilst minors, and James I. was detained in
England for nineteen years. The country during these long
minorities, and the time of the captivity of James, was
exposed to the strife commonly attendant on minorities.…
{2847}
The war commenced by Bruce lingered for almost three
centuries, either in the shape of formal warfare proclaimed by
heralds and by the ceremonials usually observed at the
beginning of national strife, or in the informal but equally
destructive hostilities which neighbours indulge in, and which
partake of the bitterness of civil war. … For three centuries
the lands south of the Tweed, and almost as far as the Tyne at
its mouth, were exposed to the ceaseless ravages of
moss-troopers. … For a while men were killed, and women
outraged and murdered, and children slain without pity, and
houses plundered and then burnt, and cattle swept off the
grazing lands between Tweed and Tyne, until none cared, unless
they were outlaws, to occupy any part of the country within a
night's ride of the borders of Scotland. The sufferers in
their turn soon learned to recognize no law save that of
might, and avenged their wrongs by inflicting like wrongs upon
others; and thus there grew up along the frontiers of either
country a savage population, whose occupation was murder and
plunder, and whose sole wealth was what they had obtained by
violence. … The war, indeed, which has been called a war of
independence, and fills so large a part of the annals of
England and Scotland during the Middle Ages, was successful so
far as its main object was concerned, the preservation of
power in the hands of 'barbarous chieftains who neither feared
the king nor pitied the people'; the war was a miserable
failure if we regard the well-being of the people themselves
and the progress of the nation."

_W. Denton,
England in the Fifteenth Century,
pages 68-78._

On the other side: "It [the battle of Bannockburn] put an end
for ever to all hopes upon the part of England of
accomplishing the conquest of her sister country. … Nor have
the consequences of this victory been partial or confined.
Their duration throughout succeeding centuries of Scottish
history and Scottish liberty, down to the hour in which this
is written, cannot be questioned; and without launching out
into any inappropriate field of historical speculation, we
have only to think of the most obvious consequences which must
have resulted from Scotland becoming a conquered province of
England; and if we wish for proof, to fix our eyes on the
present condition of Ireland, in order to feel the reality of
all that we owe to the victory at Bannockburn, and to the
memory of such men as Bruce, Randolph, and Douglas."

_P. F. Tytler,
History of Scotland,
volume 1, chapter 3._

"It is impossible, even now, after the lapse of more than 570
years, to read any account of that battle—or still more to
visit the field—without emotion. For we must remember all the
political and social questions which depended on it. For good
or for evil, tremendous issues follow on the gain or on the
loss of national independence. … Where the seeds of a strong
national civilisation, of a strong national character, and of
intellectual wealth have been deeply sown in any human soil,
the preservation of it from conquest, and from invasion, and
from foreign rule, is the essential condition of its yielding
its due contribution to the progress of the world. Who, then,
can compute or reckon up the debt which Scotland owes to the
few and gallant men who, inspired by a splendid courage and a
noble faith, stood by The Bruce in the War of Independence,
and on June 24, 1314, saw the armies of the invader flying
down the Carse of Stirling?"

_The Duke of Argyll,
Scotland as it was and as it is,
volume 1, chapter 2._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1326-1603.
The formation of the Scottish Parliament.

"As many causes contributed to bring government earlier to
perfection in Eng]and than in Scotland; as the rigour of the
feudal institutions abated sooner, and its defects were
supplied with greater facility in the one kingdom than in the
other; England led the way in all these changes, and burgesses
and knights of the shire appeared in the parliaments of that
nation, before they were heard of in ours. Burgesses were
first admitted into the Scottish parliaments by Robert Bruce
[A. D. 1326]; and in the preamble to the laws of Robert III.
they are ranked among the constituent members of that
assembly. The lesser barons were indebted to James I. [A. D.
1427] for a statute exempting them from personal attendance,
and permitting them to elect representatives: the exemption
was eagerly laid hold on, but the privilege was so little
valued that, except one or two instances, it lay neglected
during one hundred and sixty years; and James VI. first
obliged them to send representatives regularly to parliament.
A Scottish parliament, then, consisted anciently of great
barons, of ecclesiastics, and a few representatives of
boroughs. Nor were these divided, as in Eng]and, into two
houses, but composed one assembly, in which the lord
chancellor presided. … The great barons, or lords of
parliament, were extremely few; even so late as the beginning
of the reign of James VI. they amounted only to 53. The
ecclesiastics equalled them in number, and, being devoted
implicitly to the crown, … rendered all hopes of victory in
any struggle desperate. … As far back as our records enable us
to trace the constitution of our parliaments, we find a
committee distinguished by the name of lords of articles. It
was their business to prepare and to digest all matters which
were to be laid before the parliament. There was rarely any
business introduced into parliament but what had passed
through the channel of this committee. … This committee owed
the extraordinary powers vested in it to the military genius
of the ancient nobles, too impatient to submit to the drudgery
of civil business. … The lords of articles, then, not only
directed all the proceedings of parliament, but possessed a
negative before debate. That committee was chosen and
constituted in such a manner as put this valuable privilege
entirely in the king's hands. It is extremely probable that
our kings once had the sole right of nominating the lords of
articles. They came afterwards to be elected by the
parliament, and consisted of an equal number out of each
estate."

_W. Robertson,
History of Scotland,
book 1._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1328.
The Peace of Northampton.