The Battle of Bannockburn NTS

Bannockburn World Cup Round #1

Mary Comyn (SCO) vs Maurice, Abbot of Inchaffray (SCO)

Mary Comyn has perhaps the saddest story of anyone associated with the Battle of Bannockburn. Her husband, Sir Edmund Comyn of Kilbride, was killed fighting on the English side at Bannockburn, leaving her a widow with two young daughters Euphemia and Mary. In August 1314, her daughters were given in wardship to minor English lords, and in October Mary was put on trial for having apparently resisted efforts to remove her eldest daughter from her custody (though she was acquitted). In 1316, Mary travelled to Scotland, probably hoping to investigate her chances of extracting revenues from her late husband's lands there. However, Edward II interpreted this as a treasonous act, forfeiting her lands in England and re-granting them to one of the lords who had married her eldest daughter. While living in Scotland, Mary was given lands in Aberdeenshire to support her, though she proved unable to access the revenues due to her as Edmund Comyn's widow. She continued to request permission to return to England and recover her lands there, but not until 1331 did she receive permission to do so.

Maurice became Abbot of Inchaffray in 1304 or 1305, having previously been Prior of Inchmaholme. His Perthshire abbey was home to several relics associated with St Fillan, an eighth-century missionary, making it a popular place of pilgrimage. Maurice may have attended King Robert's inauguration in March 1306, but more importantly may have provided shelter and support for the fugitive king during his difficult first year as king. Bruce appears to have credited his narrow escape from his disastrous defeats at the Battles of Methven and Tyndrum to the intercession of St Fillan, and for the rest of his reign he showed generous patronage to Inchaffray Abbey and to Abbot Maurice in particular. For example, in February 1314, ahead of our battle, Bruce gave a parcel of Perthshire estates to Inchaffray 'for salvation of his soul and for the salvation of the souls of his predecessors and successors, the kings of Scotland'. Abbot Maurice was almost certainly present for - though would not have fought at - Bannockburn, having likely accompanied the relics of St Fillan from Inchaffray to the battlefield to help inspire the troops. The fifteenth-century chronicler Walter Bower credits him with having heard Bruce's confession on 24 June and said mass for the assembled Scots, addressing them with 'a short and effective statement on freedom and the defence of their right'. Bower reports that 'Bare-footed...and wearing his canonicals [i.e., vestments], the said abbot went before them bearing a crucifix like a commander' and encouraged them to kneel and pray to God before the fighting began. In 1322, Maurice was elected Bishop of Dunblane, again probably with Bruce's support, and served in that role until his own death c. 1347.

Hit Like if you want to vote for Mary, hit Love if you want to vote for Maurice.

Bannockburn World Cup Round #1

Robert Bruce (SCO) vs William Francis (SCO)

Robert Bruce should (hopefully) need no introduction. Leader of the Scottish army here at Bannockburn in June 1314, he was the architect of this remarkable Scottish victory. Though he may have been ill earlier in the year, after the English garrison at Stirling offered to surrender the castle if no-one rescued them before St John the Baptist's Day (24 June), Bruce hastily mustered an army in Torwood south of Stirling and set to work training them in the few relatively manoeuvres they would have to master to pull off his battle plan. On 22 June, he deployed his army in the New Park - on the road into Stirling - with honeycombed pits dug to the south of him and areas of wetland protecting his right flank. When the English arrived on 23rd, this forced them to move east onto the Carse - a wide area of farmland crisscrossed with streams. At dawn on 24th, Bruce led his army onto the Carse, trapping the English army between the Bannock Burn and the Pelstream, nullifying their superior numbers and ultimately forcing them into a humiliating retreat. In the aftermath of the battle, Bruce began the process of redistributing lands forfeited from those Scots who still refused to acknowledge him as king, consolidating his authority & giving the great landowners of Scotland a material interest in the survival of his dynasty.

William Francis may be less well known, but he played a crucial role in the events of 1314 according to the later Scottish poet John Barbour. Barbour reports that in March 1314 Bruce's nephew Thomas Randolph, earl of Moray, was looking for a sneaky way to get into Edinburgh Castle without the English garrison noticing. Francis told Randolph that his father had once been the keeper of Edinburgh Castle and during this time Francis used to climb secretly in and out of the castle to visit a woman in the town below. Using Francis's secret route, Randolph and 30 men thus take the garrison by surprise and capture Edinburgh on behalf of King Robert. A William Francis - possibly our man's father - is mentioned in Ragman Rolls associated with Edinburgh. Our William may also have been the William Francis who received £20 of lands forfeited from the king's enemies at Sprouston in Roxburghshire sometime in the 1320s. More recently, Francis lent his name to the spearman depicted in the character stations in our exhibition.

Hit Like to vote for Robert Bruce, hit Heart to vote for William Francis!

in 1329, King Robert I of Scotland died in his manor house at Cardross, near Dumbarton. But what killed him?

This question has been the source of much discussion almost since the time of his death. Jean le Bel, a former mercenary who had served on an English campaign against the Scots in summer 1327, claims that Robert died of 'la grosse maladie', a common contemporary euphemism for leprosy. An anonymous chronicler writing at Lanercost Priory in Cumbria also states that Bruce did not lead a Scottish raid into north-east England in 1327 (the raid Le Bel was employed to resist) because he 'had become leprous'. Another northern English chronicler, Sir Thomas Gray, writing in the 1350s, also claims that it was leprosy that led to Bruce's death.

These are however hostile sources, & we should be cautious of accepting them uncritically. Leprosy was seen in the fourteenth-century as being the judgment of God against his enemies & was thus a useful illness to ascribe to someone whose reputation you wanted to undermine. A contemporary witness to the king's condition when he visited Ireland in 1327 reports that he was 'weak' ('febles') & 'could not move more than his tongue' but does not mention leprosy, though they too were hostile & might be expected to have highlighted it if they suspected that was what Bruce was suffering from.

Certainly, it was an illness of some sort that killed Bruce. He was probably already afflicted with it at the time of Bannockburn, having first fallen ill in late 1307 & then suffered periodic flare-ups for the rest of his life. Bruce was ministered to by several physicians - including one, Maino de Maineri, who came from Milan & had taught at the University of Paris. None of their diagnoses survive, though Maineri beleived that some of Bruce's problems came from eating too many eels! The later Scottish poet John Barbour suggests that Bruce contracted his illness 'throuch his cald lying' - i.e., through the harsh conditions he endured while campaigning.

This time next week the World Cup kicks off, but much more importantly next Monday (8th June) the *Bannockburn* World Cup will begin across our social media platforms.

Over the next six weeks we will be pitting various figures associated with the Battle of Bannockburn against one another and invited our followers on Facebook & Instagram to vote on their preferred winner.

Each post will be accompanied by a brief summary of each individual's achievements, but what criteria you use to make your choice is up to you!

We should probably add that the game depicted in this image - a marginal illustration from a mid fourteenth-century Flemish manuscript of the Roman d'Alexandre - is not football but an early form of bowls.

in 1307 King Robert scored his first victory against the English in battle near Loudoun Hill in Ayrshire. Though small in scale, this was the first time in a war that had dragged on for eleven years already that a King of Scots had led soldiers into battle and emerged victorious, singling Bruce out as a serious threat to English ambitions in Scotland than his rivals had been.

Bruce had lost the first two battles he fought as king in 1306 & during the following winter he disappears from the surviving record altogether. He likely spent this time travelling the Hebrides & the Western Highlands raising a new army from among the local Gaelic-speaking population. Around February 1307 he returned to Carrick - his childhood home - & mustered what support he could there. His early efforts to disrupt English lordship in the south-west were still fairly desultory however, including a fumbled ambush on the English treasurer at Glen Trool in April.

Having apparently received intelligence that the English Guardian of Scotland - Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke - was advancing eastwards roughly along what is now the A71, Bruce dug up the ground on either side of the road, creating three parallel lines of ditches that would force the English to face the Scots on the road. According to the later Scottish poet John Barbour, the Scots were outnumbered 6 to 1, but between the ditches the English would have to face the Scots 1-on-1. If the Scots were overrun at the first ditch, they could retreat to the second, and then again to the third if need be.

In the event, the mounted vanguard of Valence's force appears to have charged the Scots at the first ditch & were repulsed, after which the English withdrew to Ayr. This led a contemporary English observer to complain that Valence 'had retreated before King Hobbe [i.e., Bruce] without doing any exploit'. Nevertheless, the fact that Bruce had inflicted even this minor reversal on an English army made many Scots - such as James Douglas, whose attempts to negotiate with the English crown for the restoration of his lands abruptly stopped after Loudoun Hill - view Bruce as a promising candidate as King of Scots.

The Battle of Loudoun Hill serves as the dramatic climax of the 2018 film 'Outlaw King'. The film gets a lot correct about the battle, including Bruce's anticipation of the English approach & the staggered ditches. It does, however, fudge a number of details. For example, in the film the English charge the ditches, rather than charging at the Scots on the road (admittedly, this serves as a powerful illustration of *why* the English wouldn't charge the ditches). Also, the film has Edward II present at the battle. In reality, he was not only not there, he would not become king until July 1307.

📢JOB OPPORTUNITY📢

We're advertising for a Visitor Services Assistant to join our team! Fixed-Term until December 2026. The closing date for applications is Friday 8th May.

For more information on how to apply head to our website:

https://www.nts.org.uk/volunteering-jobs/job-search/edinburgh-east

📢JOB OPPORTUNITY📢

We're advertising for a Visitor Services Assistant to join our team! 1 Year Fixed-Term until December 2026. The closing date for applications is Friday 8th May.

For more information on how to apply head to our website:

https://www.nts.org.uk/volunteering-jobs/job-search/edinburgh-east

On this day in 1326 the Treaty of Corbeil was drawn up. This proposed the renewal of the alliance between Scotland and France that had originally been arranged in 1295.

In simple terms, the Scots agreed to make war on England if the English attacked France, and the French king - Charles IV, who was the English king Edward II's brother-in-law - promised to make war on England if the English renewed their war with Scotland (at the time Scotland and England were a little over three years into what was meant to be a thirteen-year truce). Most importantly from King Robert's perspective, this represented a formal recognition by the powerful and influential King of France of his status as King of Scots - 'Robert, by the grace of God, King of Scots' ('Robert par la grace de Dieu roi Descoce') as the treasty styles him.

King Robert's nephew Thomas Randolph, earl of Moray, travelled to Corbeil near Paris for the negotiations, accompanied by James Ben, Archdeacon of St Andrews, Master Adam Murray, and Master Walter of Twynholm (who would later serve as chancellor). However, the treaty was ratified by a Scottish parliament at Cambuskenneth Abbey in July. This was only the second time Bruce is known to have held at parliament at Cambuskenneth, the first having been in November 1314 in the wake of his victory here at Bannockburn.

The choice of Cambuskenneth suggests a deliberate effort by Bruce to tie this latest diplomatic success to his earlier military success at Bannockburn. It seems the king wanted his subjects to view the French king's eventual acknowledgement of his royal rights as being a consequence of his achievements as a war leader, which had forced the English into accepting a truce in 1323 and created space for his diplomatic efforts on the Continent to bear fruit.

Happy everyone! King Robert was frequently the subject of rumour & gossip during his lifetime.

Bruce may have learned to court controversy from his mum, Marjory. When Marjory married Robert's father c. 1272, 'the popular opinion of the entire kingdom asserted that she had taken the young man (i.e., Robert's dad) as her husband by force'! In fact, Marjory may simply have been trying to circumvent Alexander III's plans to arrange a marriage for her against her own preferences.

Rumours also circulated about Bruce's relationship with Isabella, countess of Buchan. After Isabella assisted in Bruce's inauguration ceremony in March 1306, a contemporary English poet claimed she had 'transgressed against the bed of her husband, & burned with lust after the crowned fool, calling him 'Daffy''. More likely, Isabella was motivated by a genuine desire to preserve Scotland's independence than any 'lust' for Robert.

At a parliament at Scone in December 1318, King Robert explicitly 'decreed & forbad that anyone should be a conspirator or an inventor of tales or rumours by which a source of discord shall be able to arise between the lord king & his people. And if anyone such shall be found & attainted he should be immediately arrested & sent to the king’s prison & be kept there securely until the lord king shall command his will concerning him'. This was shortly after Bruce had been excommunicated for a second time & his younger brother Edward Bruce had been killed in battle, raising serious questions over the future of the Bruce dynasty. This had emboldened some of Bruce's remaining domestic opponents & the king was trying to limit the ability of these individuals to foment further dissatisfaction with his rule.

Even the circumstances of Bruce's death were the subject of rumour. Several hostile writers - the Lanercost chronicler, Jean le Bel, & Sir Thomas Gray - claim that the illness that killed King Robert was leprosy. We must be cautious about accepting this uncritically, however, since leprosy was seen in the fourteenth-century as the judgment of God against his enemies. These writers may thus have been using this to blacken Bruce's posthumous reputation. The only Scottish writer to offer an explanation for Bruce's final illness is John Barbour, who in the 1370s claimed the king contracted it 'throuch his cald lying/Quhen in his gret myscheiff wes he'. This is plausible enough, since Bruce likely first contracted the illness in the winter of 1307 while he was besieging Banff Castle.

Happy everyone! King Robert employed a Milanese physician named Maino de Maineri during the final years of his life?

King Robert first fell ill with the illness that would kill him in late 1307. What precisely this illness was in unclear. Some hostile sources say it was leprosy, which was seen as the judgement of God against his enemies. A later Scottish account claims that, whatever the illness was, he caught it 'throuch his cald lying', i.e., the during the years he had spent living rough while on campaign. The symptoms would come & go throughout his reign, but from around 1326 his health was in terminal decline.

We know the highly-literate Maineri was employed as Bruce's physician during this time because in 1360 he composed a work called 'Liber medicinalibus octo tractatu' ('The Book of 8 Medical Treatises) in which he wrote:

'I am certain that this fish [eels] should not be eaten because I have seen it during the time I was with the king of the Scots, Robert Bruce, who risked many dangers by eating eels, which are by nature like lampreys.'

Maineri's problem with eels was that they were 'caught in muddy & corrupt waters' & are 'analogous in water to the snake on earth...[&] may be venomous'. He therefore recommends that eels be covered in gelatine & spices then boiled twice in wine & again water before being eaten.

Dr Caroline Proctor of St Andrews University has traced Maineri's career in some detail. Maineri was teaching at the University of Paris in 1326 & was presumably approached while there to take up the appointment as Bruce's physician. He was paid £24 annually, with this money coming from the customs taken at Perth, where he also stayed for at least two years with a local burgess named John Aylebot. Maineri was also given half of the land of Kinfauns in Perthshire, the revenues from which would have further augmented his income while in Scotland. When at court, Maineri was attended by his own squire, a wardrobe-keeper, & a page, indicating the considerable prestige he was afforded. He then returned to the University of Paris after Bruce's death in 1329 before eventually finding employment with the Visconti family in his native Milan.

Robert also employed a Gaelic-speaking physician named Gille Pàdraig Beaton, described by the king as 'our chief physician-surgeon' ('capitali medico nostro surgerie') in 1324. Beaton was one of an entire kindred of courtly physicians who served generations of Scottish kings as well as other secular lords, particularly in the west of Scotland where Gaelic was the predominant language. The surname 'Beaton' was derived from 'MacBheathadh', meaning 'son of life' in Gaelic, which reflected their hereditary role in preserving the lives of their patrons.