Scotland

F

The War for Independence

Many Scottish nobles and the overwhelming majority of the Scottish people bitterly resented English interference in their national affairs. Acceding to popular demand for termination of English control, Baliol in 1295 formed an alliance with France, which was then at war with England, and summoned his people to revolt. The first phase of the Scottish war of independence ended victoriously for Edward, who crushed Baliol’s army at Dunbar in April 1296 and decreed the annexation of Scotland to England. Baliol was deposed, and his kingdom was placed under military occupation.

F

1

William Wallace

The Scottish struggle against England was resumed in 1297, under the leadership of the Scottish patriot Sir William Wallace. With soldiers recruited from all sections of the nation, Wallace destroyed an English army at Stirling in September and, acting as the agent of John de Baliol, reinstituted Scottish rule. The following year Edward led a huge army into Scotland and in July won a decisive victory at Falkirk. After this setback Wallace waged incessant guerrilla warfare against the English. He was outlawed by Edward in 1304, following another large-scale English invasion. The year after, Wallace was betrayed to the English, convicted of treason, and executed.

F

2

Robert Bruce

After Wallace’s death, Robert Bruce, a descendant of David I, assumed the leadership of the resistance movement. Although Bruce had opposed Wallace, most of the Scottish nobility and clergy rallied to his support. He was crowned Robert I, king of Scotland, in March 1306. During the first year of his reign Bruce suffered several reverses at the hands of the English. In 1307, on the accession to the English throne of Edward II, who abandoned his father’s plan to subjugate Scotland, Bruce began a systematic guerrilla campaign against the pro-English section of the Scottish nobility and against English garrisons in Scotland. Between 1307 and 1314 he won numerous battles against his enemies and, on a number of occasions, even invaded northern England. Edward II finally led a punitive expedition into Scotland in the spring of 1314. Meeting this invasion force at Bannockburn on June 24, the Scottish army inflicted on it one of the most disastrous defeats in the military annals of England (see Bannockburn, Battle of). Edward II refused to grant independence to Scotland, however, and the war between the two nations continued for more than a decade. During this phase of the struggle, the common people of Scotland secured representation, for the first time, in the Scottish Parliament in 1326. The war against England ended victoriously in 1328, when the regents of the young Edward III of England approved the Treaty of Northampton. By the terms of this document, Scotland obtained recognition as an independent kingdom.

G

David II

For more than 200 years after Bruce’s death in 1329 and the accession of his infant son as David II, Scotland was the scene of almost continuous strife among the nobility. The feudal anarchy was especially pronounced because of the prevalence of the clan system in the Highlands and various other areas. In these regions, where close personal relations existed among the clan members and their chiefs, the latter were powerful and contemptuous of royal authority. The period was also marked by almost uninterrupted warfare with England and the development of Scotland’s Parliament.

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Within four years after the conclusion of the Treaty of Northampton, Edward III renewed the struggle to reduce Scotland to vassalage. Initially, this venture took the form of support to Edward de Baliol, a son of John de Baliol and a pretender to the Scottish crown. Baliol invaded Scotland from England in 1332 and, after winning a victory at Dupplin Moor, had himself crowned king. He was quickly driven out of the country. In 1333 Edward III led an army northward and routed the Scots near Berwick-upon-Tweed. The English king thereupon occupied a large part of southeastern Scotland. In 1337, after he became involved in the Hundred Years’ War, he abandoned Baliol and neglected his Scottish possessions; by 1341 the Scots had liberated several of the more important occupied areas, including Edinburgh. In 1346 David II, allied with France, led an invasion of northern England but was defeated near Durham and taken prisoner. A large section of southern Scotland was immediately reoccupied by the English. David was not released until 1357, after the Scots had agreed to pay an enormous ransom.

H

The Stuart Kings

Under the first two kings of the Stuart dynasty, Robert II (reigned 1371-1390) and Robert III (reigned 1390-1406), the country was further devastated by the war with England, and royal authority was weak. James I (reigned 1406-1437) attempted to restore order in the strife-torn country. He imposed various curbs on the nobility and secured parliamentary approval of many legislative reforms. Without the cooperation of the feudal barons, however, these reforms were unenforceable. James I was murdered in 1437.

During the remainder of the 15th century the successors of James I—namely, James II, James III, and James IV—sought to impose restraints on the turbulent nobility, but only James IV accomplished significant results. The alliance with France was maintained, and by 1460 the English had been expelled from southern Scotland. Among other outstanding developments of the 15th century was the recovery, through the marriage of James III to a Danish princess, of the Orkney and Shetland islands. Shortly after the turn of the century James IV married Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII of England, but friction between the two nations continued. In 1513, after Henry VIII invaded France, James IV led an army into England. The Scots and English met at Flodden Field, where James was killed and his army routed.

Following the rupture between Henry VIII and the Roman Catholic church in the 1530s, Henry tried in vain to enlist James V on the side of fundamental ecclesiastical reform and to secure an end to the Franco-Scottish alliance. The Protestant Reformation shortly began to gain headway in Scotland, and the Protestants tended to oppose the connection with France. In 1538 James V married Mary of Guise, a member of the French royal family, and, in another war with England, was defeated at Solway Moss in 1542. He died a few weeks after the battle.