Comyns and their followers, who with the exception of the southwest, controlled most of Scotland. At this time, before Bruce or the Comyns were able to come out on top, Scotland’s leadership was more divided than ever.
Facing such terrible dangers Bruce needed above all to establish the legitimacy of his position, without which uncommitted men were unlikely to join him, while simultaneously securing a base from where he could build up his military forces. As his sister was Queen Dowager in Norway he could have moved away from his enemies and assembled a following with the object of returning to Scotland after Edward’s death. In fact he opted for the more hazardous course of remaining in his country from the beginning. In Scotland he could call on the support of his family and their traditional adherents who together with their retinues of fighting men offered him the framework of an army, however poorly it might compare with the strength of his opponents.
Of equal importance was the question of his legitimacy. This received a powerful boost from the Scottish church where men like Bishop William Lamberton had already acknowledged him as the best hope to recover their country’s independence. Bishop Wishart of Glasgow absolved him for his dual sin and in return Bruce agreed to respect the church’s traditional liberties.
In his perilous situation it was Bruce’s personal attributes that were likely to prove all-important. While he had already shown outstanding skills in the jousting field and before 1302 his activities as a guerrilla leader in the southwest had acted as a thorn in England’s side, after joining the English king he had given little indication that he had the ability to become a genuine military commander. Energy and resilience were vital now and the hot-headedness that had characterised his conduct against John Comyn – and which had placed him and his whole family in such jeopardy – had to be curbed.
To survive at all Bruce needed practical and strategic awareness. John de Soules, as guardian, had already demonstrated the effectiveness of manoeuvre and evasion against the English. Conversely Wallace’s victory at Stirling along with the initial achievements of Scottish spearmen at Falkirk showed that Bruce needed stand-up battles to win back Scotland from his Comyn enemies and hopefully eventually against the English too.
With so many powerful opponents and the strong likelihood of defeat and capture before him Bruce had little time for exhilaration at assuming what he had so long believed was his rightful role. Nor was there at this stage much opportunity to consider possible tactics before he knew the size or nature of the force he could raise. Decisions would have to be made in the saddle and longer-term thinking would be restricted to his short periods of rest. Whether the one-time self-seeking nobleman had the ability to take on the mantle and responsibilities of a warrior king was soon to become evident.
CHAPTER THREE
WINNING A KINGDOM
‘Potential is more than mass, decision and courage of more value than numbers, and energy the deciding factor.’
Hilaire Belloc
BRUCE HAD GOOD REASON to believe that few other aspirants to the Scottish crown had ever faced so many powerful and implacable enemies. Consequently, during the six weeks between 10 February 1306 when he killed John Comyn and his coronation at Scone, his energy was never more marked. This was essential for a man whom the English maintained had murdered Comyn because he would not join Bruce in fighting King Edward,1 someone with the effrontery to declare himself ruler of a country whose strongholds were all garrisoned by the English and the large majority of whose nobles supported the Comyns. As if this were not enough his sacrilegious act of murder had put him at odds with the papacy and much of the Scottish church. However tenuous his hold, Bruce’s declared heritage must also have seemed unpromising, for middle Scotland had been laid waste from ten years of war. In comparison, although Edward I’s Scottish campaigns had stretched England’s finances to breaking point, it remained a far more powerful and influential country than its northern neighbour.
In these six weeks Bruce set out to strengthen his base in southwest Scotland with his family’s estates at Carrick and Annandale as its core. These were opposite the western approaches from Ulster with whom the Bruces had traditional ties and from where they could bring reinforcements. The MacDonalds of the Western Isles were Bruce’s allies and their galleys could either bring him more men from the Outer Isles or if everything failed, place him safely on one of the remote islands or in Ulster. Along with his followers Bruce succeeded in obtaining a string of castles among which were Ayr on the west coast, Dumfries, Dalswinton and Tibbers in Galloway, and the trio Inverkip, Rothesay and Dunaverty that commanded the Firth of Clyde. These he prudently stocked with provisions and supplies. In Glasgow Bruce ordered all men of military age to be on twenty-four hours notice of mobilisation as he sent a formal request to Edward I that he should be recognised as king of Scotland. Unsurprisingly, Edward replied by furiously demanding him to return the castles he had seized, to which Bruce responded that until Edward acknowledged him as king he ‘would defend himself with the longest stick he had’.2
His next step was to adopt the revered mantle of kingship. Here Bruce received notable assistance from the one-time guardian of Scotland and staunchly nationalist Bishop of Glasgow, Robert Wishart, who after absolving him for his crime provided vestments for his coronation together with a royal banner carrying the lion and scarlet lilies that Wishart had long been saving for such an occasion. As yet there was no crown and urgent orders had to be sent out to make up the circlet of gold to be placed on Bruce’s head.3
With so many enemies it was crucial that Bruce’s coronation should be as dignified and heavily supported as possible. In the event the Scottish church was well represented not only by Robert Wishart but by Scotland’s two other senior bishops, William Lamberton of St Andrews and David of Moray, while the bishops of Dunkeld and Brechin were probably in attendance, together with various abbots and other senior clergy. Foremost among the non-clerics were the four earls sympathetic to Bruce, Atholl, Lennox, Menteith and Mar, as well as Bruce’s own kin. A hundred lesser nobles attended, including Robert Boyd, Reginald Crawford, Neil Campbell and the teenage James Douglas, disinherited by Edward from the Douglas estates, who was to become Bruce’s foremost commander. As a ward of the English court the young Earl of Fife was unable to perform his hereditary office of crowning the new king but his aunt Isabel, married to the Earl of Buchan, who supported Edward I, seized her husband’s best horses and rode to Scone to act on her nephew’s behalf. She arrived a day late but on 25 March, forty-eight hours after the first inauguration placed the coronet upon Bruce’s head in a second ceremony. Scotland might have a fighting king again but he was as yet so weak militarily that when his wife Elizabeth heard the news of his coronation she exclaimed ‘Alas we are but King and Queen of the May’.
The chances of her fears being realised appeared all too likely when by 5 April the English king appointed Aymer de Valence, his own half-cousin and the Red Comyn’s brother-in-law, as special lieutenant in Scotland, and armed him with the widest powers. Valence was authorised to ride under the dragon banner which released him from the few restraints on warfare at this time; knights supporting Bruce lost their privileges of ransom and were to be regarded as outlaws: a terrible end awaited any of Bruce’s followers, or anyone found sheltering them. By June 1306 Valence had captured bishops Lamberton and Wishart who were only saved from hanging by their cloth, although this did not prevent them being despatched to England in chains. By 18 June Valence reached Perth, while Bruce was in the northeast raising support both from the Atholl and Mar estates and from among the followers of Bishop Moray. By such means Bruce managed to collect a sizeable military force of some 4500 men, although it was considerably smaller than Valence’s and lacked his armoured cavalry.
Bruce moved his men across to Perth where, no doubt exhilarated by all he had achieved so far, he showed a degree of over-confidence about his chances of defeating Valence, a man
