Background
King Alexander III of Scotland died in 1286, leaving his three-year old grand-daughter Margaret (called 'the Maid of Norway') as his heir. In 1290, the Guardians of Scotland signed the Treaty of Birgham agreeing to the marriage of the Maid of Norway and Edward of Caernarvon, the son of Edward I, who was Margaret's great-uncle. This marriage would create a union between Scotland and England. The Scots insisted that the Treaty declare that Scotland was separate and divided from England and that its rights, laws, liberties and customs were wholly and inviolably preserved for all time.
However, Margaret, travelling to her new kingdom, died shortly after landing on the Orkney Islands around September 26, 1290. With her death, the House of Dunkeld came to an end and thirteen competitors claimed their rights to the Scottish crown. The two main competitors were Robert Bruce, 5th Lord of Annandale (grandfather of the future King Robert the Bruce) and John Balliol, Lord of Galloway. Fearing civil war between the Bruce and Balliol families and their supporters, the Guardians of Scotland wrote to Edward I of England, asking him to come north and arbitrate among the claimants in order to avoid civil war. Edward I saw this as the opportunity he had long been waiting for to conquer Scotland as he had conquered Wales and rule over all the British Isles.
Edward came north in 1291 and asserted that he had come as the Lord Paramount of Scotland to act as the adviser on the successor to the Scottish Crown and had to be recognised as Lord Paramount. This put the Scots in a very vulnerable position. All during the meeting, Edward had his army standing by in case of trouble. He gave the claimants three weeks to agree to his terms. With no King and with no army ready, the Scots had little choice, and the claimants acknowledged Edward as their Lord Paramount and were willing to receive his judgement. Their decision might have been influenced by the fact that the majority of the claimants had large estates in England and therefore would have lost these estates if they had defied Edward.
On June 11, acting as the Lord Paramount of Scotland, Edward I ordered that on a "temporary basis" every Scottish Castle be placed under his control and all Scottish officials were to resign their offices and be re-appointed by him. Two days later, in Upsettlington, the Guardians and the leading Scottish nobles gathered to swear allegiance to King Edward I as their superior and Lord Paramount. All Scots were also required to pay homage to Edward I, either in person or at one of the designated centres by July 27, 1291.
There were thirteen meetings from May to August 1291 at Berwick, where the claimants pleaded their claim before Edward in what came to be known as the 'Great Cause.' The claims of most of the competitors were rejected as they were of illegitimate descent and the choice was between Balliol, Bruce and John de Hastings, 2nd Baron Hastings. Hastings wished the kingdom to be divided in three equal parts, for the three men; while Balliol and Bruce maintained that the country was indivisible. The Scots obviously wanted to keep the country together, so Hastings was disqualified. On August 3, Edward asked both Balliol and Bruce to choose forty arbiters each, while he chose twenty-four, to decide the case. There was then an adjournment until June 1292. Upon reconvening, the 104 arbiters wouldn't make a firm decision on the claimants. There was another recess until October 10, 1292, and at this time Edward got the arbiters to agree that as Lord Paramount of Scotland, he had the right to grant the kingship of Scotland as he would an earldom or barony.
He chose Balliol on November 17, 1292 and on November 30, he was crowned as King of Scots at Scone Abbey. On December 26, at Newcastle upon Tyne, King John swore homage to Edward I for the kingdom of Scotland. Edward soon made it clear that he regarded the country as his vassal state. Balliol was too weak to resist, and the Scots resented Edward's demands. In 1294, Edward summoned John Balliol to appear before him, and then ordered that he had until September 1, 1294 to provide Scottish troops and funds for his invasion of France.
On his return to Scotland, John held a meeting with his council and after a few days of heated debate plans were made to defy the orders of Edward I. A few weeks later a Scottish parliament was hastily convened and twelve members of a war council (four Earls, Barons, and Bishops respectively) were selected to advise King John.
Emissaries were immediately dispatched to inform King Philip IV of France of the intentions of the English. They also negotiated a treaty by which the Scots would invade England if the English invaded France, and in return the French would support the Scots. The treaty would be sealed by the arranged marriage of Edward Balliol (John's son) and Jeanne de Valois (Philip's niece). Another treaty with King Eric II of Norway was hammered out, in which for the sum of fifty thousand groats he would supply one hundred battleships for four months of the year, so long as hostilities between France and England continued. Although Norway never acted, the Franco-Scottish alliance, later known as the Auld Alliance, was effective until 1560.
It was not until 1295 that Edward I was even aware of the secret Franco-Scottish negotiations. In early October, Edward began to strengthen his northern defences against a possible invasion by a revitalised Scottish army. It was also at this point that Robert Bruce, 6th Lord of Annandale (father of the future King Robert the Bruce) was appointed governor of Carlisle Castle. Edward also ordered John Balliol to relinquish control of the castles and burghs of Berwick, Jedburgh and Roxburgh. In December, more than two hundred of Edward's tenants in Newcastle were summoned to form a militia by March 1296 and in February, a fleet of ships sailed north to rendezvous with his land forces in Newcastle.
The build up of English forces south of the Anglo-Scottish border did not go undetected and in response, King John Balliol summoned all able-bodied Scotsmen to bear arms and converge near the border at Caddonlee by March 11. Several of the Scottish nobles choose to ignore the summons, including Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, whose father had his Annandale estate seized by John Balliol and reassigned to John 'The Red' Comyn, Earl of Buchan.
The First War of Scottish Independence can be loosely divided into four phases: the initial English invasion and success in 1296; the campaigns led by William Wallace, Andrew de Moray and various Scottish Guardians from 1297 until John Comyn negotiated for the general Scottish submission in February 1304; the renewed campaigns led by Robert the Bruce between his coronation in 1306 and the Scottish victory at Bannockburn in 1314; and a final phase of Scottish diplomatic initiatives and military campaigns in Scotland, Ireland and Northern England from 1314 until the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton in 1328.
The war began in earnest with Edward I's sacking of Berwick in March 1296, followed by the Scottish defeat at the Battle of Dunbar and the abdication of John Balliol in July. The English invasion campaign had subdued most of the country by August and, after removing the Stone of Destiny from Scone Abbey and transporting it to Westminster Abbey, Edward convened a parliament at Berwick, where the Scottish nobles paid homage to him as King of England. Scotland had been all but conquered.
The revolts which broke out in early 1297, led by William Wallace, Andrew de Moray and other Scottish nobles, forced Edward to send more forces to deal with the Scots, and although they managed to force the nobles to capitulate at Irvine, Wallace and de Moray's continuing campaigns eventually led to the first key Scottish victory, at Stirling Bridge. This was followed by Scottish raids into northern England and the appointment of Wallace as Guardian of Scotland in March 1298. But in July, Edward invaded again, intending to crush Wallace and his followers, and defeated the Scots at Falkirk. Although Edward failed to subdue Scotland completely before returning to England, Wallace's military reputation was ruined, and he went into hiding, resigning the guardianship.
Wallace was succeeded by Robert Bruce and John Comyn as joint guardians, with William Lamberton, Bishop of St Andrews being appointed in 1299 as a third, neutral Guardian to try and maintain order between them. During that year, diplomatic pressure from France and Rome persuaded Edward to release the imprisoned King John into the custody of the Pope, and Wallace was sent to France to seek the aid of Philip IV, he possibly also travelled to Rome.
Further campaigns by Edward in 1300 and 1301 led to a truce between the Scots and the English in 1302. After another campaign in 1303/1304, Stirling Castle, the last major Scottish held stronghold, fell to the English, and in February 1304, negotiations led to most of the remaining nobles paying homage to Edward and to the Scots all but surrendering. At this point, Robert Bruce and William Lamberton made a secret bond of alliance, aiming to place Bruce on the Scottish throne and continue the struggle.
After the capture and execution of Wallace in 1305, Scotland seemed to have been finally conquered and the revolt calmed for a period. But in 1306, during a meeting between Bruce and Comyn, the two surviving claimants for the Scottish throne, Bruce quarrelled with and killed John Comyn. Comyn, it seems, had broken an agreement between the two, and informed King Edward of Bruce's plans to be king. The agreement was that one of the two claimants would renounce his claim on the throne of Scotland, but receive lands from the other and support his claim. Comyn appears to have thought to get both the lands and the throne by betraying Bruce to the English. A messenger carrying documents from Comyn to Edward was captured by Bruce and his party, plainly implicating Comyn. Bruce then rallied the Scottish prelates and nobles behind him and had himself crowned King of Scots at Scone. He then began a new campaign to free his kingdom. After being defeated in battle he was driven from the Scottish mainland as an outlaw. While hiding in a damp cave, considering giving up his seemingly forlorn cause, Bruce is reported to have watched a small spider trying to spin a line across a seemingly impossibly wide gap. As Bruce watched, the spider tried and tried and tried. "Foolish spider" thought Bruce, but continued to watch. Suddenly, the spider succeeded in leaping across the gap with its thread. Bruce considered this, and took it as an encouragement that he, too, should continue to persevere regardless of seeming circumstances. Bruce later came out of hiding in 1307. The Scots thronged to him, and he defeated the English in a number of battles. His forces continued to grow in strength, encouraged in part by the death of Edward I in July 1307.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_Scottish_Independence#The_First_War_of_Independence:_1296-1328
The Scots almost won this war it seems. Very cool.
King Alexander III of Scotland died in 1286, leaving his three-year old grand-daughter Margaret (called 'the Maid of Norway') as his heir. In 1290, the Guardians of Scotland signed the Treaty of Birgham agreeing to the marriage of the Maid of Norway and Edward of Caernarvon, the son of Edward I, who was Margaret's great-uncle. This marriage would create a union between Scotland and England. The Scots insisted that the Treaty declare that Scotland was separate and divided from England and that its rights, laws, liberties and customs were wholly and inviolably preserved for all time.
However, Margaret, travelling to her new kingdom, died shortly after landing on the Orkney Islands around September 26, 1290. With her death, the House of Dunkeld came to an end and thirteen competitors claimed their rights to the Scottish crown. The two main competitors were Robert Bruce, 5th Lord of Annandale (grandfather of the future King Robert the Bruce) and John Balliol, Lord of Galloway. Fearing civil war between the Bruce and Balliol families and their supporters, the Guardians of Scotland wrote to Edward I of England, asking him to come north and arbitrate among the claimants in order to avoid civil war. Edward I saw this as the opportunity he had long been waiting for to conquer Scotland as he had conquered Wales and rule over all the British Isles.
Edward came north in 1291 and asserted that he had come as the Lord Paramount of Scotland to act as the adviser on the successor to the Scottish Crown and had to be recognised as Lord Paramount. This put the Scots in a very vulnerable position. All during the meeting, Edward had his army standing by in case of trouble. He gave the claimants three weeks to agree to his terms. With no King and with no army ready, the Scots had little choice, and the claimants acknowledged Edward as their Lord Paramount and were willing to receive his judgement. Their decision might have been influenced by the fact that the majority of the claimants had large estates in England and therefore would have lost these estates if they had defied Edward.
On June 11, acting as the Lord Paramount of Scotland, Edward I ordered that on a "temporary basis" every Scottish Castle be placed under his control and all Scottish officials were to resign their offices and be re-appointed by him. Two days later, in Upsettlington, the Guardians and the leading Scottish nobles gathered to swear allegiance to King Edward I as their superior and Lord Paramount. All Scots were also required to pay homage to Edward I, either in person or at one of the designated centres by July 27, 1291.
There were thirteen meetings from May to August 1291 at Berwick, where the claimants pleaded their claim before Edward in what came to be known as the 'Great Cause.' The claims of most of the competitors were rejected as they were of illegitimate descent and the choice was between Balliol, Bruce and John de Hastings, 2nd Baron Hastings. Hastings wished the kingdom to be divided in three equal parts, for the three men; while Balliol and Bruce maintained that the country was indivisible. The Scots obviously wanted to keep the country together, so Hastings was disqualified. On August 3, Edward asked both Balliol and Bruce to choose forty arbiters each, while he chose twenty-four, to decide the case. There was then an adjournment until June 1292. Upon reconvening, the 104 arbiters wouldn't make a firm decision on the claimants. There was another recess until October 10, 1292, and at this time Edward got the arbiters to agree that as Lord Paramount of Scotland, he had the right to grant the kingship of Scotland as he would an earldom or barony.
He chose Balliol on November 17, 1292 and on November 30, he was crowned as King of Scots at Scone Abbey. On December 26, at Newcastle upon Tyne, King John swore homage to Edward I for the kingdom of Scotland. Edward soon made it clear that he regarded the country as his vassal state. Balliol was too weak to resist, and the Scots resented Edward's demands. In 1294, Edward summoned John Balliol to appear before him, and then ordered that he had until September 1, 1294 to provide Scottish troops and funds for his invasion of France.
On his return to Scotland, John held a meeting with his council and after a few days of heated debate plans were made to defy the orders of Edward I. A few weeks later a Scottish parliament was hastily convened and twelve members of a war council (four Earls, Barons, and Bishops respectively) were selected to advise King John.
Emissaries were immediately dispatched to inform King Philip IV of France of the intentions of the English. They also negotiated a treaty by which the Scots would invade England if the English invaded France, and in return the French would support the Scots. The treaty would be sealed by the arranged marriage of Edward Balliol (John's son) and Jeanne de Valois (Philip's niece). Another treaty with King Eric II of Norway was hammered out, in which for the sum of fifty thousand groats he would supply one hundred battleships for four months of the year, so long as hostilities between France and England continued. Although Norway never acted, the Franco-Scottish alliance, later known as the Auld Alliance, was effective until 1560.
It was not until 1295 that Edward I was even aware of the secret Franco-Scottish negotiations. In early October, Edward began to strengthen his northern defences against a possible invasion by a revitalised Scottish army. It was also at this point that Robert Bruce, 6th Lord of Annandale (father of the future King Robert the Bruce) was appointed governor of Carlisle Castle. Edward also ordered John Balliol to relinquish control of the castles and burghs of Berwick, Jedburgh and Roxburgh. In December, more than two hundred of Edward's tenants in Newcastle were summoned to form a militia by March 1296 and in February, a fleet of ships sailed north to rendezvous with his land forces in Newcastle.
The build up of English forces south of the Anglo-Scottish border did not go undetected and in response, King John Balliol summoned all able-bodied Scotsmen to bear arms and converge near the border at Caddonlee by March 11. Several of the Scottish nobles choose to ignore the summons, including Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, whose father had his Annandale estate seized by John Balliol and reassigned to John 'The Red' Comyn, Earl of Buchan.
The First War of Scottish Independence can be loosely divided into four phases: the initial English invasion and success in 1296; the campaigns led by William Wallace, Andrew de Moray and various Scottish Guardians from 1297 until John Comyn negotiated for the general Scottish submission in February 1304; the renewed campaigns led by Robert the Bruce between his coronation in 1306 and the Scottish victory at Bannockburn in 1314; and a final phase of Scottish diplomatic initiatives and military campaigns in Scotland, Ireland and Northern England from 1314 until the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton in 1328.
The war began in earnest with Edward I's sacking of Berwick in March 1296, followed by the Scottish defeat at the Battle of Dunbar and the abdication of John Balliol in July. The English invasion campaign had subdued most of the country by August and, after removing the Stone of Destiny from Scone Abbey and transporting it to Westminster Abbey, Edward convened a parliament at Berwick, where the Scottish nobles paid homage to him as King of England. Scotland had been all but conquered.
The revolts which broke out in early 1297, led by William Wallace, Andrew de Moray and other Scottish nobles, forced Edward to send more forces to deal with the Scots, and although they managed to force the nobles to capitulate at Irvine, Wallace and de Moray's continuing campaigns eventually led to the first key Scottish victory, at Stirling Bridge. This was followed by Scottish raids into northern England and the appointment of Wallace as Guardian of Scotland in March 1298. But in July, Edward invaded again, intending to crush Wallace and his followers, and defeated the Scots at Falkirk. Although Edward failed to subdue Scotland completely before returning to England, Wallace's military reputation was ruined, and he went into hiding, resigning the guardianship.
Wallace was succeeded by Robert Bruce and John Comyn as joint guardians, with William Lamberton, Bishop of St Andrews being appointed in 1299 as a third, neutral Guardian to try and maintain order between them. During that year, diplomatic pressure from France and Rome persuaded Edward to release the imprisoned King John into the custody of the Pope, and Wallace was sent to France to seek the aid of Philip IV, he possibly also travelled to Rome.
Further campaigns by Edward in 1300 and 1301 led to a truce between the Scots and the English in 1302. After another campaign in 1303/1304, Stirling Castle, the last major Scottish held stronghold, fell to the English, and in February 1304, negotiations led to most of the remaining nobles paying homage to Edward and to the Scots all but surrendering. At this point, Robert Bruce and William Lamberton made a secret bond of alliance, aiming to place Bruce on the Scottish throne and continue the struggle.
After the capture and execution of Wallace in 1305, Scotland seemed to have been finally conquered and the revolt calmed for a period. But in 1306, during a meeting between Bruce and Comyn, the two surviving claimants for the Scottish throne, Bruce quarrelled with and killed John Comyn. Comyn, it seems, had broken an agreement between the two, and informed King Edward of Bruce's plans to be king. The agreement was that one of the two claimants would renounce his claim on the throne of Scotland, but receive lands from the other and support his claim. Comyn appears to have thought to get both the lands and the throne by betraying Bruce to the English. A messenger carrying documents from Comyn to Edward was captured by Bruce and his party, plainly implicating Comyn. Bruce then rallied the Scottish prelates and nobles behind him and had himself crowned King of Scots at Scone. He then began a new campaign to free his kingdom. After being defeated in battle he was driven from the Scottish mainland as an outlaw. While hiding in a damp cave, considering giving up his seemingly forlorn cause, Bruce is reported to have watched a small spider trying to spin a line across a seemingly impossibly wide gap. As Bruce watched, the spider tried and tried and tried. "Foolish spider" thought Bruce, but continued to watch. Suddenly, the spider succeeded in leaping across the gap with its thread. Bruce considered this, and took it as an encouragement that he, too, should continue to persevere regardless of seeming circumstances. Bruce later came out of hiding in 1307. The Scots thronged to him, and he defeated the English in a number of battles. His forces continued to grow in strength, encouraged in part by the death of Edward I in July 1307.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_Scottish_Independence#The_First_War_of_Independence:_1296-1328
The Scots almost won this war it seems. Very cool.
