Battle Archives - Aberdeen Voice

Killiecrankie To Waterloo.

Jun 112015

Alan Larsen as one of Bonny Dundee’s Cavalry with a captured French Standard from the Battle of Waterloo.

With thanks to James Rattray.

What does the 1689 Battle of Killiecrankie have in common with the 1815 Battle of Waterloo? The two battles set 120 years apart have one thing in common in the 2015 commemorations and that is New Zealander called Alan Larsen.

Alan Larsen grew up in New Zealand, at a very early age he discovered he had a passion for history.

At the age of 13 years old, when all his friends wanted to ride motor bikes, he decided he needed to learn to ride a horse. Being from Invercargill farming stock, his Aunty Isobel McIntyre provided him with his first horse.

At the age of 17 years he was in communications with Brigadier Peter Young, the founder of the Sealed Knot, the UK‘s oldest re-enactment society, formed in 1968. Alan says:

“Brigadier Peter Young said, come to England and join my Life Guard of Horse. So I did just that. I started my re-enacting journey in 1977.”

His passion for his hobby has led to an unusual career path, Cavalry consultant, advisor to English Heritage, historical event manager, the partial recreation of the Charge of the Light Brigade, the list goes on.

At this year’s June 15th Bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo, ‘the most impressive reconstructions ever seen in Europe, with 5,000 re-enactors, 300 horses and 100 canons.’ Alan Larsen plays the Duke of Wellington.

Five weeks later at the Soldiers of Killiecrankie on Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th July, Alan is one of Bonnie Dundee’s Gentlemen of Horse or cavalry.

James Rattray Chairman of Soldiers of Killiecrankie said:

“Alan Larsen was instrumental in starting the Soldiers of Killiecrankie, his enthusiasm is infectious. He said he would bring Bonnie Dundee’s cavalry back. So with the support of the Killiecrankie Battlefield owners and local farmer, last July we organised our first large event.”

He continued:

“We had lots of really good feedback and non-more so than from the re-enacting world, word went out that Killiecrankie is a great event to take part in. This year we are anticipating even larger numbers of re-enactors, with a contingent travelling from Ireland who are going to tell us why the Irish were at the 1689 Battle.”

The Soldiers of Killiecrankie weekend has cavalry and infantry displays, battlefield tours, a living history camp that gives a unique glimpse behind the scenes of the daily life of the government troops as they wait to go into battle, showing the way in which lives are lived, how the weapons are maintained, the mealtimes, the care of the wounded, the making of musket balls.

There are also ‘period sensitive’ events from traditional storytelling, waulking cloth, dressing up for the whole family in traditional highland clothing for men, women and children, stalls, food, traditional crafts and other activities from targe and sword making for the youngsters, archery, golf, basket weaving, Battlefield Horse stunts, Executions through the Ages, and a popular Saturday night Battlefield Ceilidh.

Soldiers of Killiecrankie is on the Saturday and Sunday 25th and 26th July 2015, 11am to 5pm. Entry is £6 adult, £5 Concessions, £3 children under 16 years, family of four £16 and free car parking.

For further information – www.SoldiersOfKilliecrankie.co.uk
or contact: – James Rattray james@explorescotland.net or 01796 473335.

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The Battle Of Harlaw – 600th Anniversary

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Jul 202011

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By Gordon Casely.

Where will you be in July? I hope to be at the Harlaw Monument on Sunday, 24 July 2011, to recall the 600th anniversary of one of Scotland’s more important encounters.
Essentially the battle was a contest between a Macdonald and a Stewart over an earldom far away from each. The day-long battle was fought two miles west of Inverurie, somewhere north-west from the monument. Yet the way in which Harlaw altered Scotland’s cultural imprint is recognisable to this day.

As a battle however, Harlaw was indecisive. Both sides fought each other to a standstill, bloody and unbowed, and each claimed victory. But under cover of darkness on that warm July evening six centuries ago, both sides retreated.

“Reid Harlaw” and “the sair field o Harlaw” are thoroughly represented in ballad, song, story and legend. Good modern accounts are contained in such books as Peter Marren’s Grampian Battlefields and Raymond Campbell Paterson’s The Lords of the Isles. Lt-General Sir Peter Graham, one-time CO of the Gordons and latterly GOC Scotland, gives a splendid presentation from a military standpoint, describing the forces and the terrain, measuring their qualities, and relating how the command structures might have operated.

The impression Sir Peter conveys is of a hand-to-hand battle that became increasingly desperate as the day wore, on, each side becoming more and more tired, each increasingly weary army hurling bodies at the other, looking for the tiniest advantage to turn the tide. Finally, with one final heave, the forces of one caused the other to step back. But the apparent victors no longer possessed the strength either to deliver the killer blow, or to undertake wholesale pursuit.

The prize of the earldom of Ross created the battle, and in the struggle over power and land, Donald, Lord of the Isles and Alexander Stewart, Earl of Mar, emerged as champions of each side. Whoever controlled Ross, territory stretching from Inverness to Skye, controlled northern Scotland, and held a considerable key in manipulating the rest of Scotland down to the Tay.

On one side was Alexander Stewart, thuggish son of the highly unpleasant Wolf of Badenoch, who gained the earldom of Mar through the murder of the incumbent earl, then forcibly marrying his widow. On the other was Donald, 2nd Lord of the Isles, head of what was a maritime kingdom almost in its own right, and whose forces had by now entered the lands of Ross.

If the intended conquest of Ross was to be made secure, then Donald would have to take out Mar’s forces by a pre-emptive strike. Thus did Harlaw occur.

Ensuing centuries create a David-and-Goliath picture – the chivalrous Stewart, noble Earl of Mar, against the wicked Donald of the Isles. Mar is aided only by minor levies from Aberdeenshire, the Mearns and Angus plus gallant burghers of Aberdeen under Provost Robert Davidson, while the scheming Donald heads 10,000 rapacious caterans. A spin-doctoral touch ensures that the event goes down in history as Highlander versus Lowlander.

the actuality is that he headed some three dozen merchants anxious to protect their business investments.

A glance at the cultural composition of the armies indicates that beyond a small professional core in each, both sides were made up of loons and callants whose commitment to campaign did not extend beyond getting the harvest in. The actual battle possessed neither subtlety nor tactics, with military strategy such as it was confined to a series of heroic encounters.

If the event was portrayed as “Highlander against Lowlander”, then it was mis-cast in the same way as the Jacobite Risings are. There were folk of each persuasion on each side. Mar’s army would have contained a plethora of Gaelic speakers, while the educated in Donald’s forces would have spoken the same languages as Mar’s chief officers.

Among the casualties were Hector Maclean of Duart, Sir Alexander Irvine of Drum and Provost Davidson of Aberdeen. Davidson’s name is the product of more legend. Legend has it that he rode out from Aberdeen heading “a citizen army”; the actuality is that he headed some three dozen merchants anxious to protect their business investments.

The inscription carved by the architect Dr William Kelly on the Harlaw monument refers to “…Davidson and the [36] Burgesses of Aberdeen who fell [at Harlaw]….”. In the great hall of Trinity Hall in Aberdeen are displayed the remains of two banners said to have been carried by members of the Weavers at Harlaw, along with the provost’s sword.

Under his direction, a relic of Harlaw survives to this day

Yet it’s worth asking the question: what would have happened if the pyrrhic victory of the Lord of the Isles had been transformed into actual conquest? What would have been achieved by Highlanders rampaging south from Aberdeen to the Tay? How much of today’s lost Celtic culture would have been restored? And how?

Any answer would have depended on Donald’s Highlanders and Islesmen becoming true regular soldiers, enforcing a conquest, using their talents as an army of occupation to rebuild the countryside in the mould they envisaged, and where Gaelic displaced Scots as the lingua franca. Compare the picture as occurred under the Allies in post-war Europe, and where history has been written by the victors.

Instead, the withdrawal of Donald’s influence in central and eastern Scotland began the gnawing at the strength of the Lordship of the Isles and the natural authority exerted through the clan system. Slowly the wane of each began. The Lordship of the Isles was forfeited in 1493, with the title surviving to be borne by the eldest son of the monarch, as Prince Charles holds now. In Harlaw began the inexorable downfall of the clan system that was dealt a mortal blow at Culloden three centuries later.

Meanwhile, post-Harlaw Aberdeen reacted swiftly to prevent the city ever being threatened again. In 1412, the safekeeping of the town was placed in the hands of……Alexander Stewart, Earl of Mar, who for the next 23 years became Captain and Governor of Aberdeen. Under his direction, a relic of Harlaw survives to this day, for his magistrates quartered the city into municipal wards. From these first four divisions came the electoral wards of today. Harlaw today lives on in balladry, pipe tunes, street names, a school, a room in Aberdeen Town House and as the monicker of a council works depot.

his body was borne back to Aberdeen to be given an honoured burial in the Kirk of St Nicholas.

Harlaw changed for ever the cultural and linguistic face of Scotland. It showed that the power of the Lordship of the Isles was no longer invincible; it proved the start of the end for the clan system; and it gave impetus for the Scots and English languages to prosper at the expense of Gaelic.

Who was Robert Davidson?

Robert Davidson has become something of a cult figure down the years, the only civic head of Aberdeen ever to lead the citizenry into battle, and who six centuries after his death is still revered as a hero.

Yet what do we really know of him? Flora Davidson and Nick Hide, researchers to Clan Davidson, state firmly that he was “a wealthy merchant, an innkeeper, wine importer, customs inspector, provost and pirate”, going on to point out that after the dreadful confrontation, his body was borne back to Aberdeen to be given an honoured burial in the Kirk of St Nicholas.

But there remain puzzles about Davidson the man. His colourful career carries respectability as a merchant, but hardly to the level where he would merit a knighthood. Yet on the ceiling of the St Nicholas Room in the Town House of Aberdeen, he is portrayed as “Sir R Davidson”, with a coat-of-arms best described as putative rather than actually belonging to him.

Equally, there is dubiety whether he was provost at the time of Harlaw. According to data of Clan Davidson, he was provost in 1408.

So where is proof of Davidson’s greatness? My guess is that the answer lies in two points: the first is that he was interred in the Mither Kirk, a resting place reserved only for our most revered citizens. The second is that folk memory, a powerful tool in history, maintains a legend that would be very difficult to disprove.

The bottom line is: why would we want to disprove it anyway? What a magnificent story to relate down the centuries – how a hero provost placed himself at the head of an armed contingent and gave his life in defence of the town he led and loved. Here is a role model readied to be copied by anyone today.

Contributed by Gordon Casely.

The Bruce’s And The Comyns – Part 3

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May 262011

Voice presents the final part of Alex Mitchell’s worthy and informative account of Robert the Bruce’s life and legacy, outlining how Scotland’s noble families gained or lost as a result of King Robert’s rule.

Before the Wars of Independence, there were thirteen earldoms in Scotland. This number remained unchanged at the time of King Robert’s death in 1329.

He recreated the earldom of Moray in 1312, but he destroyed the earldom of Buchan. John Comyn, the last Earl of Buchan and Constable of Scotland, died childless in 1308; his only heirs were his brother’s two daughters.

He had been an irreconcilable enemy of the Bruce.

The ancient earldom of Buchan was chopped to pieces. Half of it went to Margaret Comyn, one of Earl John’s nieces, and therefore to her husband John, the Earl of Ross. The other half escheated to the Crown because Earl John’s other niece, Alice, had married Sir Henry Beaumont and had become irretrievably English. Many of the leading Comyns had been killed at Bannockburn; others fled to England. Those Comyns remaining in Scotland became merely one clan amongst many, often engaged in ferocious and destructive conflict with their neighbours.

The forfeiture to the Crown of this latter half of the former earldom of Buchan, of lands hitherto belonging to John Comyn, Earl of Buchan, and John Comyn, Earl of Badenoch, enabled King Robert to give away large tracts of land in reward to faithful followers, mainly Anglo-Norman and Saxon families from the Borders and Lothians – the Gordons, Keiths, Hays, Leslies, Frasers, Burnetts, Johnstons and Irvines.

The largest share went to the Keiths, Sir Robert Keith the Marischal and his brother (and heir) Edward, in the form of Aden and many other estates in the heart of Buchan, and at Methlick, Monquhitter, New Deer, Ellon, Longside and Foveran.

This had the effect of moving the main centre of that family’s interests from East Lothian to the north-east of Scotland. Sir Gilbert Hay of Erroll was granted the lands and castle of Slains, and was made the Hereditary Great Constable of Scotland. The office of Constable has been held by the Hays of Erroll ever since.

Sir Robert Boyd of Noddsdale in Cunningham received grants of land enabling the Boyds to become major landowners in Kilmarnock and the south-west of Scotland. Archibald Douglas got Crimond and Rattray. None of these men were mere upstarts or adventurers, but they all gained from the Comyns’ losses.

King Robert did not pursue any kind of murderous vendetta against the kinsfolk of the Red Comyn and the Earl of Buchan. Families of this name occupied a respectable, but never again dominant place in the north of Scotland of the later Middle Ages. A considerable body of those Comyns who remained in Scotland changed their name to Farquharson; elsewhere, the name became Cumming, or Buchan.

King Robert rewarded only a few men with really large grants of land and power, and they were almost all his own close relatives

In the same manner, the Strathbogie estates of Earl David of Atholl were granted to the prominent Berwickshire magnate Sir Adam Gordon, commencing the dynasty of the Gordons of Huntly. In 1449, Sir Alexander Gordon was created 1st Earl of Huntly by King James II. In 1452, King James similarly elevated Sir William Hay to the rank of 1st Earl of Erroll; then, in 1457, King James raised Sir William Keith to the rank of 1st Earl Marischal.

These three families – the Gordons, the Hays and the Keiths, with their respective strongholds at Huntly, Slains and Dunnottar – dominated the subsequent history of Buchan and Aberdeenshire, the Garioch and the Mearns. In 1599, George Gordon, the 6th Earl of Huntly, was created Marquis of Huntly by King James VI. The 4th Marquis was made Duke of Gordon in 1684, but the 5th Duke died without issue in 1836, and the title of Duke of Gordon became extinct.

King Robert I’s sole innovation in terms of earldoms was his creation, in 1312, of an earldom of Moray in favour of Thomas Randolph. The earldom of Moray consisted of lands the Crown had held in Moray since the time of King David I (1084-1153), including the Red Comyn’s lordships of Badenoch and Lochaber.

This was more or less equivalent to the lands and rights of the old mormaers – the Celtic earls – of Moray, the last of whom was MacBeth, born 1005 and who, in 1040, killed and succeeded King Duncan I. MacBeth was a powerful and effective king, the last Celtic king of Scotland, until his defeat by Malcolm III (Canmore) at Dunsinane in 1054, and his subsequent death at Lumphanan in 1057.

King Robert rewarded only a few men with really large grants of land and power, and they were almost all his own close relatives. The most favoured were the Stewarts, to whose heir, Walter, King Robert gave in marriage his daughter Marjorie, his only legitimate child, in 1315.

The royal house of Stewart (or Stuart) was thus the creation of Robert Bruce. The Stewarts, long-standing close friends and supporters of the Bruces, became the greatest landowners in Scotland in the 14th century, much as the Comyns had been in the 13th century.

Robert Bruce’s first marriage, to Isabel, the daughter of Donald, the Earl of Mar, is thought to have lasted about six years. Marjorie was their only child, and was 21 or 22 when she died in childbirth in 1317, following a fall from her horse.

Edward Balliol was crowned at Scone in 1333 before being chased back to England.

The infant survived and was named Robert Stewart. Bruce’s second marriage, to Elizabeth de Burgh in 1302, was marred by eight years of enforced separation when she was a prisoner of the English, but they had four children, of whom David, born 5 March 1324, became Bruce’s sole surviving male heir.

Robert Bruce died at his house in Cardross, just across the Firth of Clyde from Dumbarton, on 5 June 1329. He was still only 55, but had been seriously ill for at least two years, almost certainly a victim of leprosy.

King Robert was succeeded by his young son David. The effect of this was that, by the 1330s, the giant figures of Robert Bruce, James Douglas and Thomas Randolph had all departed the scene, and the Throne of Scotland was now occupied by a child of five. This was of obvious advantage to King Edward III of England, and to enemies of the Bruce dynasty – those disinherited of offices and lands by King Robert I, among them Edward Balliol, son of King John.

Edward Balliol regarded himself, with some reason, as the rightful King of Scotland, and was a more assertive individual than his father. An invasion was staged in 1332 and a puppet regime was set up under the support of Edward III of England. Edward Balliol was crowned at Scone in 1333 before being chased back to England.

Bruce’s son, David, returned to claim his kingdom in 1341, aged seventeen. As King David II, he staged a series of raids into England, and was captured at the Battle of Neville’s Cross, near Durham. He remained a prisoner until 1357, when the Scots agreed to pay an enormous ransom for him.

David II has traditionally been regarded as a worthless and incompetent ruler. He died suddenly in 1371, leaving no direct heir.

The Scottish throne passed to David II’s nephew Robert, the son of Robert Bruce’s daughter Marjorie, who became the first Stewart king of Scotland, as King Robert II. He was already aged 56 and in poor health, and showed little flair for kingship. He had fathered 21 children of varying legitimacy, including Alexander Stewart, the infamous “Wolf of Badenoch”.

On his death in 1390 the throne passed to his eldest son, John, who adopted the name King Robert III. Despite being the great-grandson of Robert Bruce, he was neither intellectually nor physically equipped to rule an increasingly lawless and disordered country like Scotland.

By 1399, most of his authority had transferred to his younger brother, the Duke of Albany, and his eldest son, the Duke of Rothesay – the former an ambitious schemer, the latter a licentious profligate. In 1402, Rothesay starved to death whilst held prisoner in Falkland Palace by his uncle Albany.

Early in 1406, King Robert III sent his younger son James, aged twelve, to safety in France. Prince James was captured by pirates and handed over to King Henry IV of England, who kept him prisoner in the Tower of London for 18 years. King Robert III, describing himself as “the worst of kings and the most miserable of men”, died, possibly of a broken heart, in April 1406.

The Duke of Albany became Regent until his death, aged 83, in 1420. He had been effectively in charge of Scotland for some fifty years, on and off. Albany was succeeded as Regent by his incompetent son, Murdoch, until 1424, when, by popular demand – and on payment of a huge ransom of £40,000 – the now thirty year-old Prince James was allowed by King Henry V of England to return to Scotland to be crowned as King James I.

He was the first of the Stewart kings, descendants of the legendary Robert Bruce, really to amount to anything.

The Bruces And The Comyns – Part 2

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May 202011

To coincide with the unveiling of the Robert The Bruce statue at Marischal College, Voice’s Alex Mitchell presents the second of a three part account of King Robert’s life, his impact on historical events, and the role of powerful rival family the Comyns.

Given that England was a larger, richer, more technologically-advanced and much more populous nation than Scotland, it was inevitable that continued warfare between England and Scotland would, in the long term, result in victory for England, if only by a process of attrition – loss of fighting men.

The Scots might win the occasional battle, as at Stirling Bridge, but the English – even under a king less ruthless and determined than Edward I – would eventually win the war. Scotland could survive as an independent nation-state only by arriving at a modus vivendi with England.

Wallace’s famous victory at Stirling Bridge was followed, less than a year later, by utter defeat at the Battle of Falkirk on 22 July 1298. After a further period of unsuccessful guerrilla warfare, Wallace resigned the Guardianship. He was never again in command of a large body of troops.

John (the Red) Comyn of Badenoch and Robert Bruce were made joint Guardians. They were also the leading Competitors for the Scottish throne. John Comyn’s mother was Marjory, sister of King John Balliol; the Comyn had an immediate claim to the Scottish throne should anything happen to Balliol’s sons, Edward and Henry, who were both minors and captives of the English. John Comyn’s claim to the throne was, in fact, slightly stronger than that of Bruce. There was a violent altercation between Comyn and Bruce in Selkirk Forest in 1299, during which Comyn came close to killing Bruce.

King Edward invaded Scotland again in 1300, 1301 and 1303; he entered Aberdeen in late August 1303. He captured Stirling Castle, the last fortress to hold out against him, in the summer of 1304. But Edward was by political and economic necessity a compromiser, preoccupied by his campaigns in France. He could not afford the huge expense in terms of manpower, money and materials required to subjugate Scotland as he had crushed Wales. So Edward had little choice but to enter into bonds and alliances with his former enemies in Scotland, the Bruces and the Comyns.

Robert Bruce had resigned the post of joint Guardian, and made his peace with King Edward. In 1302, he married Elizabeth de Burgh, daughter of the Earl of Ulster, one of Edward’s closest allies. Other Scottish nobles, including allies of the Comyns, and eventually, by 1304, the Comyns themselves, decided to accept the reality of the situation and similarly elected to make their peace with King Edward.

William Wallace was captured by the English, and was hung, drawn and quartered at Smithfield in London in 1305. The same traitor’s death had been inflicted a few years earlier on the Welsh leader, Dafydd ap Gruffudd. Neither he nor Wallace were traitors in any meaningful sense, never having sworn allegiance to King Edward.

Bruce was now an outlaw. He and his supporters seized as many English-held castles as they could.

The issue as to who should be King of Scotland remained unresolved. Robert Bruce offered the Comyns all the Bruce estates if they would support his claim to the throne. Bruce and the Red Comyn met at the Greyfriars Kirk in Dumfries on 10 February 1306.

In the course of an argument – Comyn seems to have neither approved nor supported Bruce’s plan – Bruce drew his dagger and stabbed Comyn in the throat. Bruce’s two brothers attacked Comyn with their swords and then killed his elderly uncle, Sir Robert Comyn. Bruce had not merely murdered the head of the Comyn family, but had done so in a consecrated place – an act of sacrilege, which might, at least, suggest that the crime was not pre-meditated.

Bruce was now an outlaw. He and his supporters seized as many English-held castles as they could. John Balliol’s kinsmen and supporters fled south. King Edward persuaded the Pope to excommunicate Bruce from the Church.

Bruce was enthroned at Scone the following month, on 25 March 1306 – the tenth anniversary of the outbreak of war between King Edward I and the Scots. The new King Robert I was crowned by Isabel, the young Countess of Buchan, who stood in for her 16-year old nephew Duncan, Earl of Fife, who held the hereditary right to crown the Kings of Scotland, but who was completely in the power of King Edward of England.

Isabel’s participation in this makeshift ceremony contradicted the interests of her husband, John Comyn, Earl of Buchan. She was captured by the English not long afterwards, and was imprisoned in a wooden cage fixed high up on Berwick Castle. She was moved to a less harsh confinement after four years, but there is no evidence that she was ever set free.

With their enemy Robert Bruce now crowned King, the Comyns and their allies – men whose patriotic credentials and record of public service were far more impressive than those of Bruce himself – took the view that they had little choice but to side with King Edward of England. This was to be the downfall of the Comyns.

Atrocities were committed, not by the English, but by Scots against their fellow Scots

Even leaving aside Bruce’s obvious skills as a soldier and political strategist, most ordinary folk were bound to identify themselves with a new and successful King of Scots rather than a discredited Balliol/Comyn faction, inevitably tainted by the perceived failures of the exiled King John and, moreover, aligned with the hated Edward of England.

Scotland was plunged into a civil war between the Balliol/Comyn faction and the Bruces and their supporters. Robert Bruce himself was a hunted man, on the run for over a year, during which two of his brothers were killed. But the once-terrifying Edward I was now 68 years old and mortally ill; he died on his way to Scotland on 7July 1307. His son and heir, Edward II, was not, to put it mildly, the man his father had been.

Bruce came out of hiding. Aided by his chief lieutenant, Sir James (the Black) Douglas, Bruce won a series of victories against the Balliol/Comyn elements of the Scottish nobility. The clans rallied to his side. He defeated the Comyns, under the leadership of John Comyn, the Earl of Buchan, at Old Meldrum (Inverurie) in May 1308. John Comyn fled to England, whilst Bruce, who was seriously ill, holed up in Aberdeen.

His brother, Sir Edward Bruce, chased the remnant of Comyn’s men into deepest Buchan, where they were again defeated at Aikey Brae, near Old Deer. There followed the Herschip (Harrying) of Buchan, undertaken with the sole objective of the destruction of the Comyn power base in the north-east of Scotland. Atrocities were committed, not by the English, but by Scots against their fellow Scots. Bruce had his men burn the Comyn earldom of Buchan from end to end, until the whole of the north-east swore allegiance to him.

In 1310, Bruce commenced a series of devastating raids into northern England. In 1311, his troops drove the English garrisons out of all their remaining Scottish strongholds and castles, except Stirling, and he invaded northern England.

King Robert certainly showed considerable gratitude and affection towards Aberdeen and its people

King Edward II finally led a huge army into Scotland in 1314.

Bruce achieved a decisive defeat of the English at the Battle of Bannockburn, near Stirling, on 23-24 June 1314, during which the murdered Red Comyn’s only son and heir was himself killed whilst fighting on the English side.

In 1315, Bruce’s brother Edward invaded the English colony in Ireland and threatened Wales. But it was not until 1328, after the horrific murder of Edward II, that the regents of the young King Edward III finally offered the terms of peace resulting in the Treaty of Northampton-Edinburgh, which recognised Scotland as an independent kingdom and Robert Bruce as its king. By this time, Bruce himself was worn-out and ill. He died in 1329, aged 55 years.

History tends to be written by the victors. John Balliol’s “weakness” was exaggerated by the Bruces and their supporters, so as to justify their own actions. The Comyns were reviled as traitors, for having fought with the English at Bannockburn, but both the Comyns and the Bruces fought on different sides at different times. Both families put their own interests first, and acted accordingly.

Legend has it that the citizens of Aberdeen, who seem to have supported Bruce from the start, attacked the English garrison in the Castle in 1309, and put them to the sword. There is no particular evidence of this – in particular, the historian John Barbour (1320-95) makes no mention of it in his epic poem de Brus of 1375 – but King Robert certainly showed considerable gratitude and affection towards Aberdeen and its people, and spent a disproportionate amount of his time in Aberdeen.

In this he was following the example of previous Kings of Scotland, pre-occupied by the threat from the Vikings in the north. Their power was broken by King Alexander III at the Battle of Largs in 1263 but, even after that, the lowland towns remained under constant threat of incursion and pillage by the Celtic Highlanders. In response, the Scottish kings had built up a defensive framework of castles centred on the great fortress of Kildrummy Castle.

For the first time since the 11th century, the nobility had to decide whether they were to be Scottish or English – they could no longer be both

King Robert lavished gifts and privileges on Aberdeen. The Aberdonians had been amongst the first to rise in defence of the freedom of Scotland; they had been almost his only friends in time of dire trouble.

The Burgh had offered him a refuge when he was ill. He and his son David and their whole family regarded Aberdeen as their own town.

King Robert’s grants and favours to Aberdeen far exceeded in both number and value those he made to other, notionally more important towns, like Edinburgh and Perth. He granted Aberdeen the first of six Royal Charters in 1314, which established the city as a Royal Burgh.

The Burgh was granted the office of Keeper of the Royal Forest of Stocket, which became the basis of the Common Good Fund. In 1319, King Robert amplified his grant into a Great Charter. He bestowed on the burgesses and community of Aberdeen the ownership of the Burgh itself and of the Stocket Forest, in return for an annual payment of £213 6s 8d (Scots).

The lands, mills, river fishings, small customs, tolls, courts and weights and measures were theirs. They could build and develop within the boundaries of the forest – the Freedom Lands, as they came to be known; only the game, the growing of timber and the right of hunting were reserved for the King.

The revenues arising from this bequest gave the Burgh an assured annual income, the basis for real progress and improvement. In 1320, the Brig o’ Balgownie was built across the River Don, funded either at the King’s instigation, or by the King himself. The Brig may have been built to ease the movement of armies northwards, but it greatly facilitated trade with the country north of the River Don, with Buchan, Formartine and the Garioch.

Throughout his reign, King Robert I adhered to the principle that there should be no disinheritance of men (and women) claiming property by hereditary right, provided they were prepared to swear allegiance to him. They could no longer own land in England as well as in Scotland. For the first time since the 11th century, the nobility had to decide whether they were to be Scottish or English – they could no longer be both.

The “disinherited” whom King Robert chose to exclude from the peace terms in 1328 were those who wanted to have it both ways – to enjoy their Scottish lands and yet be subjects of the English king, or vice-versa. To generalise, King Robert imposed forfeiture of Scottish land and estates only on non-Scots who declined to become his subjects, and on those Scotsmen, like the Comyns, who remained to be his irreconcilable enemies.

Alex’s account will conclude in next week’s Voice

The Bruces And The Comyns – Part 1

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May 122011

To coincide with the installation and unveiling of The Robert The Bruce statue in Aberdeen, Voice’s Alex Mitchell presents a three part account of King Robert’s life, his impact on historical events, and the role of powerful rival family the Comyns.

Scotland in the 13th and 14th centuries was an intensely feudal and conservative kingdom.

When Robert Bruce, born 1274 in Ayrshire, made his bid for kingship in 1306, he was supported by a few earls, a fair number of barons and a considerable following of lairds and the lesser gentry.

On his father’s death in 1304, Bruce at the age of thirty was Earl of Carrick, lord of Annandale, …lord of a great estate in Huntingdonshire in England.

He owned a house in London and was lord of the suburban Manor of Tottenham; he was, in fact, the richest man in England. In the north of Scotland he held part of the Garioch and was the keeper of the fortress of Kildrummy and of at least three royal forests – Kintore, Darnaway and Longmorn.

The Scottish nobility was rent asunder by feuds and factions, in an age of horrors, brutality, intrigue and squalor. For Bruce’s bid for power to succeed, he had to achieve either the support or the elimination of John Comyn, Earl of Badenoch.

Like the Bruces, the Comyns were of Norman-French, i.e., Viking, origin. After the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, many of the Norman-French nobility were granted lands in Scotland by King Malcolm (Canmore) III. In 1212, William Comyn married Marjorie, the only child of Fergus, the mormaer or earl of Buchan.

There were now three branches of the Comyn family: the Kilbride Comyns, the Badenoch Comyns and the Buchan Comyns. They were tied together by blood and marriage, and their territories extended all the way across Scotland from the Aberdeenshire coast westwards through Badenoch and Lochaber to Loch Linnhe.

Of the thirteen earldoms in Scotland, the Comyns controlled three.

In 1242, Alexander Comyn was Earl of Buchan, Walter Comyn was Earl of Menteith and John Comyn was Earl of Angus; all as the result of (further) marriages to Celtic dynastic heiresses, with the result that the Comyns had come to have as much Celtic as Norman blood, or genes.

They had also a high degree of influence over the earldoms of Ross, Mar and Atholl. The acknowledged Chief of the Comyns was the feudal Lord of Badenoch and Lochaber. Upwards of sixty belted knights were bound to follow his banner with all their vassals, and he made treaties with princes as a prince himself. The Comyns were the most powerful extended family in Scotland throughout the 13th century, but the tragic events of 18 March1286 marked the beginning of their end.

After an evening of drinking and carousing, King Alexander III, born 1241 and therefore aged 45, decided to make the difficult journey from Edinburgh Castle to the then residence, on the other side of the Firth of Forth, of his young French wife, Yolande. It was a dark and stormy night. Others tried to persuade him to wait until morning. He refused. His horse lost its footing and the King fell down a cliff to his death. This was an absolute and unmitigated disaster for Scotland.

Alexander had been an effective and well-regarded king, as was his father, Alexander II. Their combined reigns, from 1214-86, are regarded as the “Golden Age” of medieval Scotland. Alexander III had been crowned King of Scotland at the age of eight, and was married to Princess Margaret, daughter of King Henry III of England in 1251, when he was ten. But Margaret and all their children pre-deceased him, and Alexander had no living brother, nephew or cousin. His only direct heir was his grand-daughter, Princess Margaret, the Maid of Norway.

King Edward I of England was the Maid’s great-uncle. Soon after she was born, Alexander III and Edward, who were friends as well as brothers-in-law, discussed the possibility of a royal marriage between little Margaret and Edward’s young son, the future Edward II. This would have meant an effective Union of the Crowns of England and Scotland. It was widely felt in Scotland that such a marriage would be preferable to the problems a marriage to any of the Scottish nobility would inevitably create.

King Edward’s troops proceeded to occupy nearly all the major Scottish strongholds, including the Castle of Aberdeen.

In 1290, the eight-year old Margaret was brought by ship from Norway for Scotland; but she became violently sea-sick during the voyage, and died shortly after landing. Scotland now had no clear heir to the throne. The intended Union of the Crowns had to wait, in the event, for over three centuries, until the death of Queen Elizabeth of England in 1603.

King Edward took full advantage of the confused situation. By a combination of promises and threats he became accepted as the Lord Paramount, or Overlord, of the Scottish Kingdom, and was invited to adjudicate in the competition for the Succession. There were thirteen “Competitors” for the Throne of Scotland. King Edward’s troops proceeded to occupy nearly all the major Scottish strongholds, including the Castle of Aberdeen.

Three principal “Competitors” for the throne emerged; John Balliol, Robert Bruce and John “the Black” Comyn, the Earl of Badenoch This last threw his support behind John Balliol, mainly because Balliol was his brother-in-law, but Balliol did have a slightly stronger claim, in terms of descent from King David I, than did Bruce. King Edward favoured Balliol, whom he regarded as weaker and more compliant than Bruce. John Balliol was duly crowned on 17 Nov 1292 and swore fealty to Edward at the latter’s insistence. Balliol rewarded the Comyns with additional lands and titles, and John Comyn became his chief advisor. The Bruces refused to acknowledge or serve the new King.

King Edward had a high degree of influence in Scotland. King John paid homage to Edward, in recognition that Edward was his Overlord. In fact, most of the Scottish nobility had land and interests in England, and therefore had feudal obligations towards the kings of both Scotland and England. This created a potential conflict of interest, especially in the event of any dispute or armed conflict between Scotland and England.

King Edward sought to improve relations with the Comyns. In 1292, he gave John Comyn of Buchan the forests of Durris, Cowie and the Stocket forest at Aberdeen. He also gave permission for the marriage of his cousin’s daughter, Joan de Vallance, to John Comyn of Badenoch.

John Balliol has come to be seen as a weak king, although his perceived weakness was exacerbated by the extraordinary ruthlessness and aggression of King Edward, whose behaviour is difficult to explain in rational terms.

The Bruces had withdrawn from public affairs. They chose not to take part in the defence of Scotland, but instead paid homage to King Edward

It was obviously in the best interests of England to retain and support the relatively compliant John Balliol on the Scottish throne, but instead, Edward set out to destroy him. Balliol retaliated by negotiating a defensive agreement with France – the beginning of the Auld Alliance. In revenge, Edward besieged Berwick – then the largest Scottish town and principal seaport – and massacred all its inhabitants, including women and children.

The Scottish army was defeated at Dunbar in 1296 and the castles of Roxburgh, Edinburgh and Stirling surrendered to the English.

The Comyns were amongst those of the nobility who fought against King Edward. The Bruces had withdrawn from public affairs. They chose not to take part in the defence of Scotland, but instead paid homage to King Edward. They lived mostly in England, and retained possession of their English estates. The Balliols and the Comyns fought hard for the independence of Scotland, and they suffered for it in terms of both lands and freedom.

In anger at Bruce’s inaction, King John (Balliol) confiscated his estate at Annandale and granted it to John Comyn, Earl of Buchan. The Bruces never forgave this insult.

King John (Balliol) submitted to his English overlord at Stracathro on 7July 1296, abdicated his throne and was taken prisoner with his family to the Tower of London. King Edward embarked on a triumphal progress through Scotland; he spent five days in the Castle of Aberdeen in mid-July, 1296. He returned to England in October, leaving Scotland under an English military administration, a harsh form of direct rule.

This led to a major revolt in 1297, involving both the Comyns and the Bruces, but under the joint leadership of William Wallace in the south and Andrew de Moray in the north. They scored a major victory against a much larger English army at the Battle of Stirling Bridge on 10 September 1297.

In March 1298, Wallace was made Guardian Of The Realm in the name of the deposed King John Balliol, and was knighted; but Wallace never sought to be King himself. Andrew de Moray, possibly the real military genius of the two, had been mortally wounded at Stirling Bridge, and died shortly afterwards.

William Wallace, the younger son of a minor landowner in Ayrshire and not, therefore, a member of the Anglo-Norman or Scoto-Norman aristocracy, seems to have been motivated by a combination of genuine patriotism and intense hatred of the English and of anyone he identified as their allies. He led a large and unruly army into Northumberland and Cumbria, which behaved with extraordinary savagery, even by the standards of the time. The English were killed wherever they were found – old men, women and children. King Edward was bound to retaliate.

Dont miss part 2 of this account in Aberdeen Voice next week.

Campaign For Recognition Of Battle Of Nechtansmere Site

Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Articles, Community, Featured, Information, Opinion Comments Off

Mar 082011

With thanks to Kevin Hutchens.

Kevin Hutchens, Scottish Labour’s Scottish Parliament Candidate for Angus North and the Mearns and William Campbell, their candidate in Angus South have united behind the call for formal recognition of the importance of the Battle of Nechtansmere site near Dunnichen in Angus.

According to Kevin Hutchens :

“First indications are that the site of the battle may be near Letham which is clearly in Angus South, however the exact site is unclear, and it is almost certain that skirmishes will have taken place in the Forfar area before and after the main battle and that the battle took place around the area.

What is clear is that at present no archaeological evidence has been found to indicate exactly where the battle site was. So both of us as candidates could lay claim to having the site of this important historical battle in our constituency “.

William Campbell stated:

“Angus is widely known as Scotland’s Birthplace because of the signing of the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320. The Battle of Nechtansmere was arguably even more significant because it established more than six centuries earlier that the Northumbrian forces could not successfully challenge the Picts in their own territories.

It was a defining moment in Scottish history, and Kevin Hutchens and I are therefore issuing a joint call to Fiona Hyslop MSP to ensure that the battle, with its contribution to Scottish history and culture, is fully recognised.”

Kevin Hutchens adds:

“Such recognition is long overdue for this important event that helped shape much of the built landscape and place names of Scotland as we know them today “

Footnote by Fred Wilkinson.

The Battle of Nectansmere is recorded as having taken place on 21st may 685AD and is regarded as a key event which assured Scotlands future as a Nation. The Northumbrian Angles, led by King Ecgfrith sought to expand their territory further at the expense of the Picts led by King Bridei Mac Bili.

It is believed that the Picts tricked the Angles by splitting their force into two armies – one cohort fleeing, only to lead them into an ambush by both cohorts, and overwhelming them with ” a hail of stone and spear, as the Pictish army attacked from both sides.” ( source – http://www.information-britain.co.uk/famdates.php?id=172 )

King Ecgfrith died in the battle, as did the vast majority of the Angles, either as a direct result of conflict, or being drowned in the loch in their attempts to retreat. Of the relatively few survivors, many were enslaved by the Picts.

Previous to the battle of Nechansmere, the Northumbrian Angles had for thirty years steadily expanded their territory North at the expense of the Picts.

The Northumbrian Angles numbers were so decimated in The Battle of Nectansmere that they never again recovered the capacity to advance their territory beyond The Firth Of Forth.

The Old Burghs Of Aberdeen – Part 6

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Oct 012010

Alex Mitchell brings us the final part of his fascinating and informative series of articles on the development of Aberdeen City from its origin as two separate burghs.

Aberdeen was perhaps at its most important, relative to the rest of the world, and as a centre of trade and learning, in the early decades of the 17th century. The population of the two burghs approached 10,000 in the 1630s; about 8,500 in New Aberdeen and 1,000 in Old Aberdeen.

The Burgh maintained close links with the seaports of the Hanseatic League, of which Aberdeen was an early member, and their hinterlands of the Low Countries, Poland, Russia, the Baltic states and Scandinavia. Aberdeen was more open to European influences, to new ideas from the Continent, and was more diverse in its political and religious thinking, than were either Edinburgh or Glasgow.

Aberdeen (Old & New) now had its two small universities and there was hardly a European university of note that did not have an Aberdonian professor. George Keith, the 5th Earl Marischal, had set up a new college in 1593, being Marischal College, on the site of the old Franciscan Priory, to teach a Reformed (Protestant) curriculum in rivalry to King’s College, (originally St. Mary’s College), which had been established by Pope Alexander VI (Borgia) in 1495 at the request of Bishop William Elphinstone (1431-1514).

This reflected the post-Reformation decline in the standing of the Catholic Gordons of Huntly, the de facto protectors of the two Burghs and the real power behind the Menzies dynasty, and, correspondingly, the growing power and influence of the Protestant Keiths, the Earls Marischal, with their power-base at Dunnottar Castle; George Keith had been promoted to Lieutenant of the North by King James VI in 1593. But it was not until 1860 that the two universities of King’s College and Marischal College were united into the single University of Aberdeen. Through King’s College, Aberdeen can claim to have the fifth-oldest university in all of Great Britain.

The Reformation had not been welcomed in the North-East, where, as late as the 1620s, the majority of gentry families led by the Gordons of Huntly and their close allies the Hays of Erroll, remained Catholics “in their hearts”. In Aberdeen itself, this was reflected in the succession of Menzies provosts.

Scotland was effectively put under military occupation during the nine years of Oliver Cromwell’s British Commonwealth

Even as their Gordon overlords slowly weakened, so, perversely, the Menzies family tightened its grip, although their policy on religious matters might best be described as pragmatic; Aberdeen was regarded as a centre of Episcopalianism rather than of either unrepentant Catholicism or radical Presbyterianism.

By May 1638, Aberdeen was the only royal burgh still refusing, on the basis of loyalty to the King, to subscribe to the National Covenant, drawn up in Edinburgh earlier that year; but opinion amongst the townsfolk reflected the wider divisions within Scotland, between the largely Covenanting Lowlands and the Catholic and Royalist Highlands. Aberdeen was on the fringe of both territories and was too big a prize to be overlooked.

The outbreak of civil war between Covenanters and Royalists in 1639 was followed by a succession of invasions, occupations and lootings of the two Burghs by the rival armies, climaxing in 1644 in the three-days-long massacre of the unarmed and defenceless citizens of Aberdeen known as the Battle of Justice Mills, perpetrated by the Irish (Royalist) forces of the Marquis of Montrose. On a number of occasions the town became the battleground for the Royalists and Covenanters. About one-tenth of the population of Aberdeen died in these conflicts; another quarter died in the last but worst-ever outbreak of the bubonic plague in 1647, despite the desperate measures taken to exclude and contain it.

The city was badly affected by the widespread famines of 1695 and 1699; the population fell from about 7,100 in 1695 to 5,600 in 1700

The Marquis of Montrose was executed in Edinburgh in May 1650. One of his hands was sent to Aberdeen and was nailed to the front door of the Tolbooth. It remained there until July, when King Charles II, on his way to his Scottish Coronation at Scone and briefly in residence at Pitfodel’s Lodging, just across the Castlegate, observed the blackened and decaying object and ordered its Christian burial.

Scotland was effectively put under military occupation during the nine years of Oliver Cromwell’s British Commonwealth. General Monck’s troops arrived in Aberdeen in Sept. 1651, built their new fort on the Castle Hill, and did not leave until 1659. The destruction during the Covenanting Wars contributed to a decline in Aberdeen’s commercial importance. Aberdeen had accounted for 8% of all burghal tax revenues in 1635, but for only 4.5% by 1697. The city was badly affected by the widespread famines of 1695 and 1699; the population fell from about 7,100 in 1695 to 5,600 in 1700. It more than recovered by the mid-18th century, being estimated as 15,433 in 1755 and rising to 26,992 by the first census in 1801.

As elsewhere in Scotland, it was the rural hinterland that was worst affected by the ‘Lean Years’ of the 1690s, mainly because of the lack of overland transport and functioning markets via which food could be imported, compounded by the lack of any saleable product that could be traded for food. In Aberdeenshire, population in 1755 had still not regained its 1695 level. These grim circumstances at the close of the 17th century prompted the belief that Scotland could never be economically self-sufficient and had to obtain access to English markets. Thus the Union of Crowns in 1603 was followed by the Union of Parliaments in 1707.

Aberdeen’s relative decline in economic importance continued through the 18th and 19th centuries, mainly because Britain’s expanding trade with the Americas favoured west-coast ports like Glasgow rather than east-coast ports like Aberdeen, Dundee and Leith; also because of the Burgh’s geographical remoteness from the basic resources of the Industrial Revolution, being coal and iron ore.

The ‘Wallace Tower’ in Netherkirkgate which set me off on these researches, as it turns out, had nothing to do with the Scottish patriot William Wallace (1272-1305) since it was not built until 1588. It was properly known as Benholm’s Lodging, being originally the residence of Sir Robert Keith of Benholm, the younger brother of the 5th Earl Marischal, and stood just outside the old Netherkirkgate Port – demolished about 1770 – at the corner of Netherkirkgate and Carnegie’s Brae; about where the M&S Food Hall is now.

Carnegie’s Brae led down to the Green via Putachieside, so-named because the proprietor of Castle Forbes, then known as Putachie, had his town house there; it was latterly a particularly miserable street of slum tenements and was obliterated by the construction of Union St., and then of Market St. and Archibald Simpson’s New Market in 1840.

Benholm’s Lodging was a unique example of a Z-plan tower-house within a Scots town, and was one of only four 16th century buildings remaining in Aberdeen. It was demolished in 1964, along with part of the Netherkirkgate to make way for the extended M&S store, and it is unlikely that I ever actually saw it. A replica building, incorporating some of the original stonework and features was erected in far-off Tillydrone in the same year. This building is now empty, redundant, neglected and vandalised.

The useful suggestion has been made that it should now be moved back to its original location in the heart of Aberdeen, or at least on to our projected ‘Civic Square’ where it would complement Provost Skene’s House, also of the time of Mary Queen of Scots and King James VI.

Footnote. Aberdeen Voice is grateful to Stanley Wright for all photos associated with the above article.