Wars of Scottish Independence

1296 – 1357

Overview

The wars grew out of a disputed succession. Alexander III of Scotland died in 1286, and his granddaughter and heir, Margaret of Norway, died in 1290. Edward I of England was asked to judge between the rival claimants, and in 1292 he awarded the crown to John Balliol, while insisting that he himself was overlord of Scotland. When the Scots made an alliance with France in 1295, Edward invaded. In 1296 he sacked Berwick, defeated the Scottish nobles at Dunbar, deposed Balliol and carried off the Stone of Scone.

Revolt followed in 1297. William Wallace and Andrew Moray won the Battle of Stirling Bridge in September, but Edward destroyed Wallace's army at Falkirk in July 1298. Resistance went on under other leaders until most of them submitted in 1304. Wallace was captured and executed in London in August 1305. In February 1306 Robert Bruce killed his rival John Comyn at Dumfries and had himself crowned king at Scone. He was driven into hiding at first, but Edward I died in 1307, and under the weaker Edward II the English hold on Scotland slipped. Bruce took castle after castle and on 23 and 24 June 1314 defeated a large English army at Bannockburn, near Stirling. The Declaration of Arbroath of 1320 set out the Scottish case to the Pope. In 1328, by the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton, England recognized Robert I as king of an independent Scotland.

Bruce died in 1329, leaving a child, David II. In 1332 Edward Balliol, son of King John, invaded with a group of dispossessed lords and won at Dupplin Moor. Edward III backed him and beat the Scots at Halidon Hill in 1333. David was sent to France for safety and came home in 1341. He invaded England in 1346 and was captured at Neville's Cross. The Treaty of Berwick in 1357 released him for a heavy ransom, and the Bruce line kept the throne.

Arms of the Wars

Scottish armies were made up mostly of men on foot. Their chief weapon was the long spear used in the packed formation called the schiltron, described under Schiltron Spear. Many wore a padded coat and a simple helmet such as the Kettle Hat, and they also carried axes, swords and knives. English armies were built round armored cavalry in the Mail Hauberk, increasingly reinforced with plate, with the Great Helm or later the Bascinet, the Knight's Lance and the Arming Sword. Scottish knights were equipped in the same way but were far fewer. The weapon that most often decided battles was the English Longbow. Archers broke the schiltrons at Falkirk, and at Dupplin Moor and Halidon Hill they were posted on the flanks of dismounted men-at-arms, the method England later used in France. Sieges mattered as much as battles. Edward I used great trebuchets against Stirling Castle in 1304, and Bruce, who had little siege equipment, took castles by surprise and then pulled them down. The weapons of the Scots are surveyed under Scottish Arms & Weapons; the two-handed Scottish Claymore is a later weapon.

Why It Mattered

The wars settled that Scotland would remain a separate kingdom, which it did until the crowns were united in 1603. They tied Scotland to France in an alliance that lasted for more than two centuries. They also changed how wars were fought. Stirling Bridge and Bannockburn showed that disciplined infantry could defeat mounted knights. In response the English learned to fight on foot with massed archers, and that combination won them Crécy and Poitiers in the Hundred Years War.

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