Browse content similar to Bishop Makes King. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
As summer drew to a close in 1305, | 0:00:07 | 0:00:10 | |
so too, it seemed, did the history of the Scottish crown. | 0:00:10 | 0:00:15 | |
King Edward I of England, Longshanks, the Lawgiver, | 0:00:15 | 0:00:19 | |
the Hammer of the Scots, | 0:00:19 | 0:00:21 | |
could have been forgiven for thinking that the Kingdom of Scotland was dead. | 0:00:21 | 0:00:25 | |
William Wallace certainly was. | 0:00:25 | 0:00:27 | |
He was food for the crows. | 0:00:27 | 0:00:30 | |
And as for the King of Scotland, John Balliol, he wasn't much better, | 0:00:37 | 0:00:42 | |
an absentee, exiled in France, a broken and beaten man. | 0:00:42 | 0:00:48 | |
Whether or not the crown was his hardly mattered. | 0:00:48 | 0:00:51 | |
He was neither able nor willing to wear it. | 0:00:51 | 0:00:54 | |
Edward was a keen chess player. | 0:00:54 | 0:00:56 | |
As far as he was concerned, this was the endgame. | 0:00:56 | 0:01:00 | |
Yes, Scotland was dead. | 0:01:00 | 0:01:03 | |
By 1305, Scotland had been fighting to defend its independence from England for nine long years. | 0:01:34 | 0:01:41 | |
Edward I had secured significant victories. | 0:01:41 | 0:01:44 | |
He had removed Scotland's King, John Balliol, from the throne with maximum dishonour. | 0:01:44 | 0:01:50 | |
He had captured and killed Scotland's greatest military leader, William Wallace, | 0:02:00 | 0:02:06 | |
with maximum cruelty. | 0:02:06 | 0:02:07 | |
There were some pockets of resistance left, but they were small, | 0:02:10 | 0:02:14 | |
nothing to worry about. | 0:02:14 | 0:02:17 | |
So job done, Edward owned Scotland. | 0:02:17 | 0:02:21 | |
Enough with the iron fist. | 0:02:21 | 0:02:23 | |
He could put the velvet glove back on. | 0:02:23 | 0:02:25 | |
In 1305, Edward set about what he hoped would be the final subjugation of Scotland. | 0:02:25 | 0:02:31 | |
And he slipped out of character. | 0:02:31 | 0:02:34 | |
He went about his business gently. | 0:02:34 | 0:02:36 | |
Edward did deals with all of Scotland's leading men. | 0:02:43 | 0:02:47 | |
He allowed Scotland's nobles to keep their lands as long as they swore loyalty to him as King. | 0:02:47 | 0:02:53 | |
He did deals with Scotland's bishops too, | 0:03:01 | 0:03:05 | |
but two of those bishops would be the very men who | 0:03:05 | 0:03:07 | |
would mastermind a revolution that would restore the Scottish crown. | 0:03:07 | 0:03:12 | |
Bishop William Lamberton of St Andrews was a strategist, | 0:03:14 | 0:03:17 | |
an intellect, a double dealer. | 0:03:17 | 0:03:21 | |
And Bishop Robert Wishart of Glasgow had been fighting for Scotland's independence for almost 20 years. | 0:03:21 | 0:03:28 | |
Edward should have strung them up with Wallace. | 0:03:30 | 0:03:33 | |
The story of the bishops who would rebuild the Scottish crown begins | 0:03:47 | 0:03:52 | |
here in 1301, four years before Edward's final military victory, | 0:03:52 | 0:03:57 | |
for it was in the tiny Italian hill town of Anagni that the Pope now made his court. | 0:03:57 | 0:04:03 | |
The Pope was the highest judge on earth, | 0:04:07 | 0:04:10 | |
closer to God than emperors and kings. | 0:04:10 | 0:04:12 | |
All earthly power came through him. | 0:04:12 | 0:04:15 | |
The Catholic Church held every Christian soul in Western Europe in its grasp. | 0:04:18 | 0:04:24 | |
Its spiritual powers were politics in disguise. | 0:04:24 | 0:04:29 | |
The courts and streets of Anagni would have been full, not just of priests, | 0:04:29 | 0:04:33 | |
but of diplomats and lawyers from every Christian kingdom. | 0:04:33 | 0:04:37 | |
No-one else but the Pope could set the final seal on Edward's success, | 0:04:41 | 0:04:45 | |
so, in 1301, Edward sought the Pope's agreement that John Balliol | 0:04:45 | 0:04:50 | |
was no king on the grounds that there was no Scotland to be king of. | 0:04:50 | 0:04:55 | |
The very existence of Scotland's crown was at stake, | 0:04:58 | 0:05:02 | |
so that summer a small party of Scottish priests were sent to Anagni to defend it, | 0:05:02 | 0:05:08 | |
priests with legal expertise, led by a man called Baldred Bisset, | 0:05:08 | 0:05:14 | |
handpicked to save the Scottish crown by Bishop William Lamberton. | 0:05:14 | 0:05:18 | |
But it wasn't just the Scottish crown that Lamberton wanted him to save. | 0:05:20 | 0:05:25 | |
English bishops largely did as they were told, and the Archbishops | 0:05:29 | 0:05:33 | |
of York and Canterbury were subject to the English King. | 0:05:33 | 0:05:37 | |
The English church was under Edward's thumb. | 0:05:37 | 0:05:40 | |
But in Scotland there was no archbishop, and the Scottish | 0:05:40 | 0:05:44 | |
crown had never fully secured control over church appointments. | 0:05:44 | 0:05:48 | |
Scotland's bishops had power that was independent of the Scottish crown | 0:05:48 | 0:05:53 | |
and the privilege of direct appeal to the Pope himself, | 0:05:53 | 0:05:57 | |
power and independence that could disappear if Scotland became an English province. | 0:05:57 | 0:06:03 | |
It all meant nothing if there was no Scottish King. | 0:06:03 | 0:06:05 | |
If Scotland was to become just another English territory, | 0:06:05 | 0:06:09 | |
then Scottish bishops would have to bend the knee, tug the forelock | 0:06:09 | 0:06:12 | |
and pay the tithes in Canterbury or in York, and they didn't want to. | 0:06:12 | 0:06:16 | |
In fact, they were determined that they would not. | 0:06:16 | 0:06:19 | |
So Bisset had his work cut out. | 0:06:21 | 0:06:23 | |
A crown to save, the independence of his bishops too. | 0:06:23 | 0:06:27 | |
Bisset brought with him a carefully prepared document, a legal brief. | 0:06:31 | 0:06:35 | |
He had three basic arguments to make. | 0:06:35 | 0:06:38 | |
First, he told a story. | 0:06:40 | 0:06:42 | |
The Scots were descended from Noah, they had lived in Scythia, near the Black Sea, then Spain. | 0:06:42 | 0:06:48 | |
One of their ancient kings had married an Egyptian princess called Scota, hence their name. | 0:06:48 | 0:06:54 | |
So the Scots were unique - not Irish, not Welsh, most of all not English. | 0:06:54 | 0:07:00 | |
Second, Bisset reminded His Holiness that Scotland bore the title of Rome's special daughter, | 0:07:00 | 0:07:08 | |
a status that required the Pope's protection. | 0:07:08 | 0:07:11 | |
And third, Bisset turned to the recent past. | 0:07:13 | 0:07:16 | |
Edward I, he said, had wickedly maltreated our legitimate king, exploited his absence | 0:07:16 | 0:07:22 | |
and our resultant weakness, committed boundless atrocities against Scots, | 0:07:22 | 0:07:26 | |
both clerical and lay, peasant and noble, male and female. | 0:07:26 | 0:07:31 | |
Free Balliol, said Bisset, and let him return to Scotland as our King. | 0:07:31 | 0:07:35 | |
The Pope was persuaded. | 0:07:38 | 0:07:41 | |
It was time, said the Pope, to stop the hammering. | 0:07:43 | 0:07:46 | |
He ordered the release of Balliol and let it be known | 0:07:46 | 0:07:49 | |
that in his eyes he was the illustrious King of Scots. | 0:07:49 | 0:07:52 | |
Bisset had saved the Scottish crown. | 0:07:53 | 0:07:56 | |
But Balliol was totally demoralised and made no attempt to resume his rule. | 0:07:56 | 0:08:01 | |
He took refuge in his family's lands in France. | 0:08:02 | 0:08:05 | |
The Scots were lumbered with a useless king. | 0:08:05 | 0:08:08 | |
For the bishops, defending the Scottish crown was no longer the problem. | 0:08:13 | 0:08:17 | |
The problem was the King himself. | 0:08:17 | 0:08:20 | |
How could he be replaced? | 0:08:20 | 0:08:22 | |
It was Bishop Lamberton who took steps. | 0:08:22 | 0:08:25 | |
He sought a secret meeting with a renowned Scottish philosopher, | 0:08:25 | 0:08:29 | |
Duns Scotus, and Scotus outlined an idea with explosive implications. | 0:08:29 | 0:08:35 | |
The real root of royal authority was not inheritance. | 0:08:35 | 0:08:39 | |
True kingship was a contract between King and people, | 0:08:39 | 0:08:43 | |
and when a king had failed, as Balliol had, | 0:08:43 | 0:08:46 | |
his people could reject him and choose someone else instead. | 0:08:46 | 0:08:50 | |
At last, Scotland's bishops could begin to look for someone to replace John Balliol. | 0:08:53 | 0:08:58 | |
But time was running out. | 0:09:01 | 0:09:03 | |
Edward was getting close to finishing his conquest of Scotland. | 0:09:03 | 0:09:07 | |
Edward had no idea that Scotland's bishops were looking for a king who could resist him. | 0:09:11 | 0:09:17 | |
He busied himself with the last moves in his final victory over Scotland's crown. | 0:09:17 | 0:09:23 | |
He spared no expense. | 0:09:23 | 0:09:25 | |
His siege of Stirling Castle was getting nowhere, | 0:09:27 | 0:09:32 | |
so, in 1304, Edward took his spending spree one step further. | 0:09:32 | 0:09:36 | |
He ordered a new siege engine, | 0:10:02 | 0:10:05 | |
a monstrous catapult of a kind known as a trebuchet. | 0:10:05 | 0:10:09 | |
He already had several, the instruments of other bitter victories. | 0:10:13 | 0:10:17 | |
This new machine was christened Warwolf. | 0:10:17 | 0:10:20 | |
It was the largest trebuchet ever built, and its component parts were transported in 27 separate wagons. | 0:10:20 | 0:10:27 | |
It was a weapon of terror. | 0:10:27 | 0:10:29 | |
For a counterweight, Edward used lead stolen from the roofs of local churches. | 0:10:29 | 0:10:34 | |
The hapless defenders of Stirling Castle watched | 0:10:34 | 0:10:38 | |
as this monstrosity took shape beneath their walls, and they surrendered. | 0:10:38 | 0:10:43 | |
Edward ignored them. He wanted to see Warwolf at work. | 0:10:43 | 0:10:46 | |
He even had a little shelter built so that the ladies of the court could watch. | 0:10:46 | 0:10:51 | |
The conquest of Scotland had become entertainment. | 0:10:51 | 0:10:54 | |
Warwolf's first shot shattered a section of the castle's curtain wall. | 0:11:01 | 0:11:05 | |
The ladies were duly impressed. | 0:11:07 | 0:11:09 | |
But Edward was attacking the wrong building. | 0:11:14 | 0:11:18 | |
He should have aimed at the Abbey of Cambuskenneth, no more than a mile away. | 0:11:18 | 0:11:23 | |
As the walls of Stirling Castle fell, Bishop William Lamberton held another secret meeting there, | 0:11:23 | 0:11:29 | |
this time with the future King of Scotland. | 0:11:29 | 0:11:33 | |
Two families had claims to the crown. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:37 | |
The Comyns were led by John Comyn, the Lord of Badenoch. | 0:11:37 | 0:11:41 | |
The Comyns had lands all over Scotland, | 0:11:41 | 0:11:43 | |
but they were blood relations of John Balliol. | 0:11:43 | 0:11:46 | |
And John Comyn himself was a stickler. | 0:11:46 | 0:11:49 | |
A scrupulous man, a doer by the book. | 0:11:49 | 0:11:52 | |
It would be difficult to get him involved in something that sounded | 0:11:52 | 0:11:56 | |
dangerously like the usurpation of the throne. But there was another family, another claim. | 0:11:56 | 0:12:01 | |
There was a man who nursed the secret but unshakable conviction | 0:12:03 | 0:12:07 | |
that the crown should have been given to his grandfather, not John Balliol, | 0:12:07 | 0:12:11 | |
and so Robert the Bruce believed that the crown was now rightfully his. | 0:12:11 | 0:12:16 | |
But until now, he'd had no idea how to go about getting it. | 0:12:18 | 0:12:23 | |
Like Lamberton, he was at this point a vassal of the English King, | 0:12:23 | 0:12:27 | |
but his loyalty to the family claim was considerably greater. | 0:12:27 | 0:12:30 | |
At Cambuskenneth, the Bruce and Lamberton signed a bond. | 0:12:37 | 0:12:42 | |
"They have agreed faithfully to be of one another's counsel in all their business and affairs | 0:12:42 | 0:12:47 | |
"at all times and against whichever individuals." | 0:12:47 | 0:12:50 | |
There can only have been one subject discussed, one purpose for the contract. | 0:12:50 | 0:12:55 | |
Lamberton and the Bruce had agreed that he should take the throne, with the Church's help. | 0:12:55 | 0:13:01 | |
There was no mention of this in the contract, of course. | 0:13:01 | 0:13:04 | |
Writing down such a plan would have been suicidally unwise. | 0:13:04 | 0:13:08 | |
Secrecy was vital. | 0:13:08 | 0:13:10 | |
So the penalty for the failure of either party to keep to the terms | 0:13:10 | 0:13:14 | |
was set at the fantastically high sum of £10,000. | 0:13:14 | 0:13:19 | |
£10,000 - the price of silence | 0:13:19 | 0:13:23 | |
until the time was right. | 0:13:23 | 0:13:25 | |
But Robert the Bruce was already 29, and he was not noted for his patience. | 0:13:30 | 0:13:36 | |
For just over 18 months, he managed to hold his tongue. | 0:13:36 | 0:13:39 | |
Then it started wagging - to the man the church had chosen not to choose, John Comyn. | 0:13:39 | 0:13:45 | |
On Thursday 10th of February 1306, | 0:13:48 | 0:13:52 | |
the sheriff court was in attendance at Dumfries Castle. | 0:13:52 | 0:13:56 | |
Edward's sheriffs, Edward's justice. | 0:13:56 | 0:13:58 | |
As for the King himself, it was widely known that he was lying ill in an English monastery. | 0:13:58 | 0:14:03 | |
Everyone of any importance for miles around was in attendance. | 0:14:03 | 0:14:07 | |
So it was perfectly natural for the Bruce and Comyn to be in town, their seats were local. | 0:14:09 | 0:14:14 | |
They could meet, and the Bruce could try to introduce John Comyn | 0:14:14 | 0:14:18 | |
to a truth he wouldn't like at all - "The bishops want me to be King". | 0:14:18 | 0:14:22 | |
They met at Greyfriars Church in Dumfries and embraced. | 0:14:26 | 0:14:31 | |
Previous meetings between the two had been less cordial. | 0:14:31 | 0:14:35 | |
Seven years before, they had shaken each other gently by the throat, | 0:14:35 | 0:14:39 | |
so today they stood on ceremony. | 0:14:39 | 0:14:41 | |
They were on their best behaviour. | 0:14:41 | 0:14:44 | |
It's almost certain that the bishops suggested such a meeting. | 0:14:45 | 0:14:49 | |
It made perfect sense, after all, for the Bruce to attempt to persuade John Comyn to support his claim. | 0:14:49 | 0:14:55 | |
It didn't make sense for the Bruce to kill him. | 0:15:12 | 0:15:17 | |
Leaving Comyn for dead, the Bruce and his men went to the sheriff's court | 0:15:19 | 0:15:23 | |
to break it up, which was open rebellion. | 0:15:23 | 0:15:25 | |
While he was there, the Bruce received news that the Comyn | 0:15:27 | 0:15:30 | |
was not dead, so he sent a follower back to Greyfriars Church to finish him off. | 0:15:30 | 0:15:36 | |
This was ugly. | 0:15:43 | 0:15:45 | |
This would be hard to spin. | 0:15:45 | 0:15:48 | |
He had murdered someone in a church. | 0:15:52 | 0:15:56 | |
The sin alone was deadly. | 0:15:56 | 0:15:58 | |
The place he had committed it, God's house, that made it infinitely worse. | 0:15:58 | 0:16:03 | |
He faced ruin, certain excommunication, expulsion from the Catholic Church, | 0:16:03 | 0:16:09 | |
and if he died whilst excommunicated, he would be damned eternally. | 0:16:09 | 0:16:14 | |
It was a steep price to pay for an impulsive act, | 0:16:18 | 0:16:21 | |
his immortal soul. | 0:16:21 | 0:16:23 | |
"I have spilt the blood of an innocent man." | 0:16:27 | 0:16:30 | |
The Bruce fled here, to Glasgow Cathedral, | 0:16:41 | 0:16:44 | |
to Bishop Robert Wishart, Lamberton's co-conspirator. | 0:16:44 | 0:16:49 | |
Wishart will have been displeased, to say the least. It was too early. | 0:16:49 | 0:16:54 | |
Almost certainly the bishops had wanted to wait for Edward's death. | 0:16:54 | 0:16:59 | |
The Bruce had ruined that. | 0:16:59 | 0:17:01 | |
Their cover was blown. | 0:17:01 | 0:17:02 | |
Nevertheless, Wishart absolved the Bruce of bloodguilt. | 0:17:04 | 0:17:07 | |
He had no choice, they were in too deep. | 0:17:07 | 0:17:12 | |
Then Wishart made the Bruce swear an oath, | 0:17:12 | 0:17:17 | |
an oath that as King he would always remain obedient to the wishes of the Scottish clergy, | 0:17:17 | 0:17:22 | |
a shameful reminder of his recent crime, a tug at the leash. | 0:17:22 | 0:17:27 | |
And then...it started. | 0:17:27 | 0:17:29 | |
Wishart preached. | 0:17:29 | 0:17:31 | |
He launched the Bruce, the church's candidate. | 0:17:31 | 0:17:35 | |
He told his flock, "This Robert the Bruce will be Robert I, | 0:17:35 | 0:17:39 | |
"he is your King. | 0:17:39 | 0:17:41 | |
"This is a crusade," he told them, "a holy war, fight for him". | 0:17:41 | 0:17:46 | |
As swiftly and as secretly as possible, Wishart and Lamberton | 0:17:49 | 0:17:53 | |
planned the inauguration of the Bruce as King of Scots. | 0:17:53 | 0:17:56 | |
Rumours that Scotland's upstart bishops were about to make a King reached Edward. | 0:17:58 | 0:18:03 | |
Edward was angry, but he wasn't worried. He had it all sewn up. | 0:18:13 | 0:18:18 | |
He'd found out everything the Scots needed to make a King and stolen it. | 0:18:18 | 0:18:23 | |
He'd taken the Stone of Destiny, he'd taken the Black Rood of St Margaret. | 0:18:23 | 0:18:26 | |
He'd even taken the Earl of Fife, who had the privilege of crowning Scottish Kings. | 0:18:26 | 0:18:32 | |
But on March 25th 1306, the bishops went ahead regardless | 0:18:32 | 0:18:37 | |
and made their King. | 0:18:37 | 0:18:39 | |
Scotland had a real King once more, | 0:18:39 | 0:18:41 | |
but there was no time to celebrate. | 0:18:41 | 0:18:44 | |
No parties, no pavilions, no parliaments. | 0:18:44 | 0:18:47 | |
King Robert returned to the Comyn lands in the south-west to secure them. | 0:18:47 | 0:18:52 | |
Bishop Wishart marched to Cupar Castle in Fife. | 0:18:52 | 0:18:55 | |
He took it, as the English later said, "like a man of war," | 0:18:55 | 0:18:59 | |
which is exactly what he was. | 0:18:59 | 0:19:02 | |
By the end of the first week of April, Edward had appointed an agent in Scotland. | 0:19:02 | 0:19:08 | |
Edward ordered him to raise dragon, the banner which signified no quarter, | 0:19:08 | 0:19:13 | |
no prisoners, no mercy, no rules at all. | 0:19:13 | 0:19:18 | |
And the English rode north. | 0:19:25 | 0:19:27 | |
Wishart and Lamberton were swiftly captured. | 0:19:27 | 0:19:29 | |
The English regained Cupar Castle and moved towards Perth. | 0:19:29 | 0:19:33 | |
Robert I rode to meet them with all the forces at his disposal. | 0:19:35 | 0:19:40 | |
King Robert camped in the woods above Methven on the 18th June. | 0:19:42 | 0:19:46 | |
He had failed to draw the English out from Perth to a pitched battle | 0:19:46 | 0:19:50 | |
in the accepted, sporting style of medieval chivalry. | 0:19:50 | 0:19:53 | |
So he would try again tomorrow. | 0:19:53 | 0:19:55 | |
But the dragon banner was flying. | 0:19:55 | 0:19:58 | |
For the English, chivalry was by the by. | 0:19:58 | 0:20:02 | |
They approached under cover of darkness. | 0:20:02 | 0:20:04 | |
It was a rout, a slaughter. | 0:20:04 | 0:20:06 | |
Robert and a few hundred survivors dragged themselves west. | 0:20:16 | 0:20:20 | |
His wife, Elizabeth, was still with them, his daughter and his sisters too, | 0:20:20 | 0:20:25 | |
so he sent the women north, hoping they might find refuge in Norway. | 0:20:25 | 0:20:29 | |
But they were captured and handed over to Edward. | 0:20:32 | 0:20:34 | |
Robert and his remnant suffered a further defeat at Tyndrum, a defeat that must have seemed final. | 0:20:34 | 0:20:42 | |
So the King of Scotland was forced to flee still further west, | 0:20:42 | 0:20:46 | |
to Dunaverty, at the very tip of the Mull of Kintyre. | 0:20:46 | 0:20:49 | |
There was no land left to run to. | 0:20:50 | 0:20:53 | |
He put to sea and disappeared. | 0:20:53 | 0:20:55 | |
He must have sailed with the bitter knowledge that his crown was proving costly. | 0:21:06 | 0:21:10 | |
Bruce's wife and daughter were confined in convents. | 0:21:10 | 0:21:14 | |
He would not see his wife again for eight years. | 0:21:19 | 0:21:22 | |
Back on the mainland, Edward indulged himself in an orgy of executions. | 0:21:29 | 0:21:34 | |
One of the victims was Robert's brother, Neil. | 0:21:34 | 0:21:38 | |
Hung, drawn, quartered, as Wallace had been. | 0:21:38 | 0:21:42 | |
The news of his brother's excruciating death will have bitten deep. | 0:21:42 | 0:21:46 | |
Perhaps this misfortune meant that God didn't want him to be King. | 0:21:46 | 0:21:49 | |
For six months, Robert the Bruce remained in hiding. | 0:21:49 | 0:21:53 | |
In 1828, Walter Scott pulled all the strands of myth and hearsay together and gave the Bruce an encouraging | 0:21:53 | 0:22:01 | |
spider for comfort, but it was just a story. | 0:22:01 | 0:22:06 | |
Where he fled to, precisely, is not known. | 0:22:06 | 0:22:08 | |
Ardnamurchan is the current favourite. | 0:22:08 | 0:22:10 | |
But wherever he went, Sir Walter was right about one thing - the Bruce had a decision to make, | 0:22:10 | 0:22:16 | |
whether to give up or go on. | 0:22:16 | 0:22:18 | |
He had connections. One of his sisters was the Queen of Norway. He could have hidden there. | 0:22:18 | 0:22:23 | |
But that would have left his wife, his other sisters, his daughter and all his bishops in captivity. | 0:22:23 | 0:22:29 | |
It would have left his supporters, his friends and his brother dead | 0:22:29 | 0:22:33 | |
and unprayed for, in purgatory, or worse. | 0:22:33 | 0:22:36 | |
What sort of choice was that? | 0:22:36 | 0:22:38 | |
He chose to fight on. | 0:22:38 | 0:22:41 | |
He gathered a force of Irishmen and Hebrideans and landed secretly | 0:22:50 | 0:22:53 | |
at Turnberry in Ayrshire towards the end of February in 1307. | 0:22:53 | 0:22:57 | |
By the beginning of March, two more of his brothers were dead at English hands. | 0:22:57 | 0:23:02 | |
The price of Robert's throne was rising. | 0:23:05 | 0:23:07 | |
He took his forces, his anger and his grief into the broken lands of south-west Scotland. | 0:23:07 | 0:23:12 | |
He wasn't hiding. He was learning how to fight. | 0:23:12 | 0:23:16 | |
He had no more than a few hundred men. Hardly any knights. | 0:23:16 | 0:23:19 | |
He only had spearmen, foot soldiers, and no intention whatsoever of following Wallace to an early grave. | 0:23:19 | 0:23:26 | |
So he could only wait until the English were where he wanted them to be... | 0:23:26 | 0:23:31 | |
and then surprise them. | 0:23:31 | 0:23:33 | |
In April, Robert and a force of 300 men | 0:23:36 | 0:23:39 | |
surprised an English force of 1,500 here beside Loch Trool in Galloway. | 0:23:39 | 0:23:43 | |
It was an unpleasant surprise. | 0:23:43 | 0:23:45 | |
There was no room for cavalry to manoeuvre and nothing for | 0:23:45 | 0:23:48 | |
the English to do except trip each other up and die. So they ran away. | 0:23:48 | 0:23:53 | |
So this was victory. The Bruce enjoyed the taste. | 0:23:54 | 0:23:58 | |
But was it a fluke? A one-off? | 0:23:58 | 0:24:00 | |
It might be. | 0:24:00 | 0:24:02 | |
By May, Robert was in Ayrshire. | 0:24:02 | 0:24:04 | |
The land was full of the level playing fields that knights adored. | 0:24:04 | 0:24:09 | |
The Bruce chose Loudoun Hill instead. | 0:24:09 | 0:24:13 | |
The Bruce had a few more men to work with now, about 600, and he put them to work gilding the lily, | 0:24:16 | 0:24:21 | |
digging trenches to further reduce the opportunities for a wide assault, | 0:24:21 | 0:24:25 | |
narrowing them down to a point. | 0:24:25 | 0:24:27 | |
On 10th May the English approached, 3,000 strong. | 0:24:27 | 0:24:31 | |
They charged. Then they found out about the valley and the trenches. | 0:24:33 | 0:24:38 | |
They lost their elbow room. | 0:24:38 | 0:24:39 | |
A lot of them lost their horses as well. | 0:24:39 | 0:24:42 | |
When the Bruce and his men attacked it was with such terrible violence that those English troops | 0:24:42 | 0:24:47 | |
at the rear, those not yet engaged, decided not to engage at all. | 0:24:47 | 0:24:51 | |
They broke and ran. | 0:24:51 | 0:24:54 | |
It was no fluke. | 0:24:54 | 0:24:55 | |
Robert I was a winner. God was on his side. | 0:24:55 | 0:24:59 | |
God had also had enough of Longshanks, the Lawgiver, the slaughterer of Scots. | 0:25:03 | 0:25:09 | |
Angered by the failure of his much larger forces to crush the Bruce, | 0:25:09 | 0:25:13 | |
Edward dragged himself out of his sickbed and ordered his armies to muster at Carlisle. | 0:25:13 | 0:25:18 | |
But he was iller than he thought, and older too. | 0:25:18 | 0:25:21 | |
This is as far as he got, the sands and marsh of the Solway Firth. | 0:25:23 | 0:25:28 | |
He died within sight of Scotland. | 0:25:28 | 0:25:31 | |
But the "covetous King" did not go gently. | 0:25:31 | 0:25:34 | |
He asked his son to send his heart to the Holy Land on crusade, | 0:25:34 | 0:25:37 | |
but his bones would go with the army to Scotland to finish the business. | 0:25:37 | 0:25:42 | |
The King is dead. | 0:25:47 | 0:25:49 | |
Long live the King. | 0:25:51 | 0:25:53 | |
Longshanks' bones weren't up to the task, but they weren't the problem. | 0:25:53 | 0:26:00 | |
Edward II was. | 0:26:00 | 0:26:01 | |
He had his father's temper, but nothing else. | 0:26:01 | 0:26:04 | |
Not his intelligence or his learning or his tactical gifts. | 0:26:04 | 0:26:08 | |
His first act as King was to disobey his father's orders | 0:26:08 | 0:26:11 | |
concerning the disposition of his various body parts. | 0:26:11 | 0:26:14 | |
He simply dropped Dad off at Waltham Abbey to await proper burial. | 0:26:14 | 0:26:18 | |
Then, in his own good time, he joined the English army in Scotland. | 0:26:18 | 0:26:22 | |
On arrival he learned they'd been badly provisioned, so he marched them south for a good square meal. | 0:26:22 | 0:26:29 | |
He would leave the Scots in peace, by and large, for the next three years. | 0:26:32 | 0:26:36 | |
And now the Bruce had a job to do, Edward's job. | 0:26:36 | 0:26:41 | |
He had some Scots to slaughter. | 0:26:41 | 0:26:43 | |
The Comyn family and their many supporters were still loyal to the Balliol claim. | 0:26:43 | 0:26:48 | |
There was only one thing to do with such opposition... | 0:26:48 | 0:26:52 | |
..kill it! | 0:26:53 | 0:26:57 | |
He left the borders to his increasingly trusted lieutenant, James Douglas. | 0:26:57 | 0:27:01 | |
Himself, he marched north, accompanied by his brother Edward. | 0:27:01 | 0:27:06 | |
The Bruce's campaign gathered momentum as he moved up the Great Glen. | 0:27:06 | 0:27:11 | |
His forces were never large, although by now they had a reputation. | 0:27:15 | 0:27:20 | |
His tactics were thorough and unpleasant. | 0:27:20 | 0:27:23 | |
He reduced one Comyn castle after another. | 0:27:23 | 0:27:26 | |
He reduced them to rubble. He killed the occupants. | 0:27:28 | 0:27:31 | |
He burnt Nairn to the ground. | 0:27:31 | 0:27:34 | |
A ruined castle, after all, was no use to the Comyns, no use | 0:27:34 | 0:27:37 | |
to the English, if they returned, and no use to a King who had settled on a strategy, hit and run. | 0:27:37 | 0:27:45 | |
Right now, the Bruce had no use for castles. | 0:27:46 | 0:27:50 | |
Castles meant you couldn't move. | 0:27:50 | 0:27:52 | |
So, burn the castle, fill the well, move on. | 0:27:52 | 0:27:56 | |
It took him just two months. | 0:27:56 | 0:27:59 | |
By November, he was in the north-east, his forces now joined by those of the Bishop of Murray. | 0:27:59 | 0:28:05 | |
Another man of war, Bishop Murray. | 0:28:05 | 0:28:07 | |
The vestments were just for weekends. | 0:28:07 | 0:28:10 | |
And then, | 0:28:10 | 0:28:12 | |
the King is ill! | 0:28:12 | 0:28:14 | |
The Bruce's illness was nameless, mysterious. | 0:28:14 | 0:28:18 | |
It left him weak as a kitten. | 0:28:18 | 0:28:20 | |
There was no medicine to hand, no doctor. | 0:28:20 | 0:28:24 | |
He grew steadily weaker as the days passed. | 0:28:24 | 0:28:27 | |
The King is dying. | 0:28:27 | 0:28:29 | |
It was winter. | 0:28:39 | 0:28:41 | |
The army was perilously close to running out of food. | 0:28:41 | 0:28:44 | |
The Earl of Buchan, cousin of the murdered John Comyn, | 0:28:44 | 0:28:47 | |
had gathered a sizeable force and was waiting for the moment to attack. | 0:28:47 | 0:28:51 | |
The Bruce's forces withdrew into the highlands. | 0:28:51 | 0:28:54 | |
The King was taken to a castle, to die, some thought. | 0:28:58 | 0:29:02 | |
And then, magically, as spring came, the King recovered. | 0:29:07 | 0:29:13 | |
He returned to the slaughter. | 0:29:13 | 0:29:14 | |
He came here, to Barra Hill, near Aberdeen. | 0:29:14 | 0:29:18 | |
The Earl of Buchan had dug himself in at the summit, amidst the remnants of an Iron Age hill fort. | 0:29:18 | 0:29:23 | |
It was, he thought, an impregnable location. | 0:29:26 | 0:29:30 | |
He was wrong. By now the Bruce's reputation rode ahead of him. | 0:29:30 | 0:29:35 | |
The Earl of Buchan lost his cavalry to simple terror. | 0:29:35 | 0:29:38 | |
Then he lost the battle too. | 0:29:38 | 0:29:40 | |
John Comyn, Earl of Buchan, last of the Comyn nobility, fled to England. | 0:29:40 | 0:29:45 | |
He was dead within the year. | 0:29:45 | 0:29:48 | |
There were still supporters of the Comyns to exterminate. | 0:29:48 | 0:29:52 | |
King Robert rode north. | 0:29:52 | 0:29:55 | |
He came to Duffus Castle and the Bruce laid waste. | 0:29:55 | 0:29:59 | |
Then he sent his brother, Edward, eastward into Buchan, the heartland of Comyn power. | 0:30:07 | 0:30:13 | |
The Bruce did not forgive it. | 0:30:13 | 0:30:16 | |
On his orders, such damage was done that the land was infertile for a generation. | 0:30:16 | 0:30:22 | |
But it was not the land he damaged. | 0:30:22 | 0:30:25 | |
He didn't just burn the crops. | 0:30:25 | 0:30:27 | |
That would have made the land fertile in the coming year. | 0:30:27 | 0:30:30 | |
He ordered the slaughter of the livestock, and not only the animals, | 0:30:30 | 0:30:34 | |
but those who tended them and who grew the crops, men, women and children. | 0:30:34 | 0:30:39 | |
Parts of Buchan were left barren for a generation, | 0:30:39 | 0:30:42 | |
because there was no-one left alive. | 0:30:42 | 0:30:44 | |
"I have spilt the blood of innocent men..." | 0:30:51 | 0:30:56 | |
By March of 1309, the Bruce had crushed resistance almost everywhere in Scotland. | 0:31:00 | 0:31:06 | |
In the July of the previous year, the Pope had lifted his ban of excommunication. | 0:31:10 | 0:31:14 | |
So he was officially back in the fold, one of the saved, at least for the time being. | 0:31:14 | 0:31:19 | |
Now it was time to get on with the business of kingship. | 0:31:19 | 0:31:22 | |
Here at St Andrews, in a cathedral nearing completion after 150 years, he called his first parliament. | 0:31:22 | 0:31:29 | |
It was a funny sort of parliament, by modern standards. | 0:31:31 | 0:31:36 | |
It only lasted two days and only really did two pieces of business. | 0:31:36 | 0:31:41 | |
Day one, Parliament replied to a letter from the King of France, | 0:31:41 | 0:31:45 | |
who wanted the Scots to go with him on crusade. | 0:31:45 | 0:31:47 | |
"Not just yet," said Parliament, "we're busy". | 0:31:47 | 0:31:52 | |
Day two, Parliament issued an open letter, called the Declaration Of The Clergy. | 0:31:52 | 0:31:57 | |
It's not a famous document, but it should be. | 0:31:57 | 0:32:01 | |
The Declaration Of The Clergy published for the first time | 0:32:04 | 0:32:07 | |
the ideas that Scotland's bishops had borrowed from Duns Scotus. | 0:32:07 | 0:32:11 | |
With great cunning, it wove into Scotland's recent history the idea that a King could be chosen, | 0:32:11 | 0:32:18 | |
and it did it as though everyone should always have known that such a thing could be. | 0:32:18 | 0:32:23 | |
The clergy and the "people", seeing the virtue of Robert the Bruce, | 0:32:23 | 0:32:27 | |
had "agreed" upon him, and "with their concurrence and consent", he was raised to be King. | 0:32:27 | 0:32:34 | |
It's a very important document indeed. | 0:32:35 | 0:32:38 | |
It sounds almost revolutionary. | 0:32:38 | 0:32:40 | |
But in 1309, the "people" really meant the important people, | 0:32:40 | 0:32:44 | |
the nobility, the clergy, the community of the realm, | 0:32:44 | 0:32:47 | |
not the peasants or the drinkers down the pub. | 0:32:47 | 0:32:50 | |
No, the declaration was written for the people, not by the people, | 0:32:50 | 0:32:54 | |
because the people were meant to listen to it. | 0:32:54 | 0:32:57 | |
It was preached in churches. | 0:33:02 | 0:33:04 | |
It was copied, shown around, repeated. | 0:33:04 | 0:33:06 | |
It was the party line from Robert's faithful support and prop, | 0:33:06 | 0:33:10 | |
the Scottish church. | 0:33:10 | 0:33:12 | |
The Declaration Of The Clergy was stage two in Robert's conquest of Scotland, | 0:33:22 | 0:33:27 | |
an attempt to persuade the doubters, and there were still many, that Robert was indeed the rightful King. | 0:33:27 | 0:33:33 | |
This was good. But was it good enough? | 0:33:33 | 0:33:37 | |
The sheer scale of the Bruce's task was becoming clear. | 0:33:37 | 0:33:40 | |
His kingship was still in question. | 0:33:40 | 0:33:44 | |
He was not a legend yet. | 0:33:44 | 0:33:46 | |
Three things needed to be done if he was going to make the throne safe for himself and for his male heir. | 0:33:47 | 0:33:53 | |
One, he had to secure the loyalty of all of Scotland's nobles | 0:33:53 | 0:33:57 | |
and eject the English from any significant holdings. | 0:33:57 | 0:34:00 | |
Two, he had to force the English King to accept the independent status of his throne. | 0:34:00 | 0:34:06 | |
And three, he had to father a male heir. | 0:34:06 | 0:34:10 | |
He hadn't even finished task one, and his wife was still in English hands. | 0:34:10 | 0:34:15 | |
So no chance of an heir then, or not a legitimate one, at least. | 0:34:15 | 0:34:20 | |
But before all of these things, he must become unquestionable. | 0:34:20 | 0:34:24 | |
He must become a legend. | 0:34:24 | 0:34:26 | |
And for that, he would have to wait five years. | 0:34:26 | 0:34:31 | |
He would have to wait for Bannockburn. | 0:34:31 | 0:34:35 | |
By the spring of 1314, the Bruce had almost completed his first task. | 0:34:38 | 0:34:43 | |
Only Stirling and Berwick castles remained in English hands. | 0:34:43 | 0:34:47 | |
Edward II began raising an army to reconquer Scotland. | 0:34:47 | 0:34:52 | |
Edward mustered his forces at Berwick on 10th June. | 0:34:58 | 0:35:02 | |
15,000 foot soldiers, between 2,500 and 3,000 horse. | 0:35:02 | 0:35:05 | |
Edward's nobles were mostly absent | 0:35:08 | 0:35:11 | |
and they hadn't sent as many knights as he would have liked either. | 0:35:11 | 0:35:14 | |
So not exactly a vote of confidence then, but no matter. | 0:35:14 | 0:35:17 | |
Edward had more than enough confidence in himself to make up the shortfall. | 0:35:17 | 0:35:22 | |
They rode north. | 0:35:22 | 0:35:24 | |
The Scottish forces mustered in the Torwood, south of Stirling. | 0:35:24 | 0:35:29 | |
The numbers bore no comparison. | 0:35:29 | 0:35:31 | |
500 light horse, about 6,000 foot. | 0:35:31 | 0:35:34 | |
But size isn't everything. | 0:35:34 | 0:35:36 | |
By now, the Bruce's army was used to war. | 0:35:36 | 0:35:39 | |
The men were used to each other. | 0:35:39 | 0:35:42 | |
His brother Edward, James the Black Douglas, | 0:35:43 | 0:35:45 | |
Thomas Randolph, the Earl of Moray, were experienced, battle-hardened men. | 0:35:45 | 0:35:50 | |
And the foot soldiers of the Scottish army had learnt to fight in schiltroms, | 0:35:50 | 0:35:54 | |
packed together in close order, with spears and shields permanently presented, | 0:35:54 | 0:35:59 | |
like tanks, but made of human bodies. | 0:35:59 | 0:36:02 | |
By Saturday 22nd June, the Bruce had chosen where to fight. | 0:36:02 | 0:36:07 | |
He'd had a lot of practice by now. | 0:36:07 | 0:36:09 | |
He chose wisely, the edges of New Park, near the Bannockburn. | 0:36:09 | 0:36:13 | |
The trees limited cavalry action, and to the south-east the ground | 0:36:13 | 0:36:17 | |
was broken by streams and burns and rills. | 0:36:17 | 0:36:21 | |
On either side of the road leading to the New Park, the Bruce modified the terrain. | 0:36:21 | 0:36:26 | |
Just as he had done at Loudoun Hill, he made the ground treacherous for his foes, this time by ordering | 0:36:26 | 0:36:32 | |
the digging of innumerable pits, disguised with grass and branches. | 0:36:32 | 0:36:36 | |
These would snap the legs of English horse. | 0:36:36 | 0:36:39 | |
The English army itself made camp to the north, and night fell. | 0:36:39 | 0:36:43 | |
The next morning was a Sunday, so the Scots began it with a mass. | 0:36:47 | 0:36:53 | |
The Bishop of Dunkeld presided, and when the mass was finished, he will have got his weapons ready. | 0:36:53 | 0:36:59 | |
This would be the reckoning, the payment, | 0:37:03 | 0:37:06 | |
for the Bruce had lost brothers and friends, family and priests. | 0:37:06 | 0:37:10 | |
His wife and daughter, dear to him, had been imprisoned. | 0:37:10 | 0:37:14 | |
And those who gave allegiance to him had lost still more. | 0:37:14 | 0:37:17 | |
And now, the English King was here, no more than a hundred yards away. | 0:37:17 | 0:37:22 | |
He would be made to pay. | 0:37:22 | 0:37:24 | |
He must be made to pay. | 0:37:24 | 0:37:26 | |
The English opened with their knights, as was traditional, | 0:37:30 | 0:37:34 | |
a massed cavalry charge, and one of the knights, Henry de Bohun, found | 0:37:34 | 0:37:39 | |
himself charging an isolated figure, off to the side of his soldiers, | 0:37:39 | 0:37:43 | |
an isolated figure, wearing a crown. | 0:37:43 | 0:37:46 | |
He lowered his lance and galloped forward. | 0:37:48 | 0:37:50 | |
This was his chance at immortality. But the Bruce dodged it. | 0:37:50 | 0:37:54 | |
He rose up in his stirrups, and with a single blow of his battleaxe | 0:37:54 | 0:37:58 | |
split de Bohun's skull from crown to chin. | 0:37:58 | 0:38:00 | |
With that one stroke, the Bruce became legend. | 0:38:00 | 0:38:03 | |
The schiltroms held. They pushed forward. | 0:38:22 | 0:38:25 | |
The English cavalry were sent in again, but the Earl of Moray's | 0:38:25 | 0:38:28 | |
schiltrom forced them back, and that was the story of Bannockburn. | 0:38:28 | 0:38:33 | |
For two days, the Scottish schiltroms held | 0:38:34 | 0:38:37 | |
and then pressed forward, hemmed the English in for slaughter. | 0:38:37 | 0:38:41 | |
And on the second day, the English had had enough. | 0:38:41 | 0:38:45 | |
So they did what had now become the traditional thing when faced with a | 0:38:45 | 0:38:48 | |
Scottish army, its feet and spears firmly planted on the ground. | 0:38:48 | 0:38:53 | |
They ran away. | 0:38:54 | 0:38:57 | |
The Scots got down to the profitable business of taking prisoners, and Edward took to flight. | 0:38:57 | 0:39:03 | |
Robert had too few mounted men to send a sizeable number in pursuit, so Edward escaped. | 0:39:03 | 0:39:09 | |
Check, but not checkmate. | 0:39:09 | 0:39:12 | |
The haul was impressive. Robert was able to trade his prisoners. | 0:39:18 | 0:39:22 | |
He recovered Bishop Wishart, 74 years old and blind, | 0:39:22 | 0:39:26 | |
his daughter, his sister, and best of all, Elizabeth, his Queen. | 0:39:26 | 0:39:33 | |
Eight years of captivity had left their mark. | 0:39:33 | 0:39:36 | |
And Robert will have known that what she'd suffered was his fault. | 0:39:36 | 0:39:40 | |
All for his costly throne. | 0:39:40 | 0:39:43 | |
All for his legend. | 0:39:43 | 0:39:45 | |
In the history books and by the firesides, | 0:39:46 | 0:39:49 | |
the scale of the victory would swell, just as the tales would grow taller. | 0:39:49 | 0:39:53 | |
In fact, by the 20th century, the King himself had grown by two feet. | 0:39:53 | 0:39:58 | |
But the facts were rather bleaker. | 0:39:59 | 0:40:03 | |
Only the task of removing the English from Scotland was near completion. | 0:40:03 | 0:40:07 | |
The attempt to produce a male heir could now begin, | 0:40:07 | 0:40:10 | |
but it was perfectly possible that Queen Elizabeth might prove barren. | 0:40:10 | 0:40:15 | |
Bannockburn had given him his legend. | 0:40:15 | 0:40:19 | |
But it had changed nothing else. | 0:40:19 | 0:40:21 | |
The road to Scotland's independence seemed very long, and it was blocked. | 0:40:30 | 0:40:35 | |
Progress now depended on Edward II, who had no reason to make any concessions of any kind at all. | 0:40:35 | 0:40:42 | |
For four long years, the Scots raided English territories in the north of England, Ireland too. | 0:40:42 | 0:40:48 | |
Robert lost his last remaining brother, Edward Bruce, all in vain. | 0:40:48 | 0:40:54 | |
Edward took no notice. | 0:40:54 | 0:40:56 | |
He didn't need to. | 0:40:56 | 0:40:58 | |
He couldn't beat the Bruce on a battlefield, | 0:41:00 | 0:41:02 | |
so he'd changed the game. | 0:41:02 | 0:41:04 | |
He'd started playing by the rules that Scotland's bishops used. | 0:41:04 | 0:41:09 | |
He had gone to the Pope. | 0:41:09 | 0:41:10 | |
And the new Pope was desperate to restore papal prestige | 0:41:12 | 0:41:17 | |
by sending all the major crowns of Europe on crusade. | 0:41:17 | 0:41:20 | |
Kings who caused petty national squabbles would not be tolerated. | 0:41:20 | 0:41:25 | |
In 1318, the Scots discovered that the English had convinced the Pope | 0:41:25 | 0:41:29 | |
that the war between England and Scotland was Scotland's fault. | 0:41:29 | 0:41:34 | |
Robert, his lieutenants and his bishops were all excommunicated. | 0:41:37 | 0:41:41 | |
In addition, the Pope ordered that in every English church, three times | 0:41:41 | 0:41:46 | |
a day, a ceremony was to be held at which the name of Bruce was cursed. | 0:41:46 | 0:41:51 | |
The news will have been bitter. | 0:41:57 | 0:41:59 | |
As the curses rose from every English church, the Bruce | 0:41:59 | 0:42:03 | |
came to St Andrew's Cathedral for its day of consecration. | 0:42:03 | 0:42:07 | |
Almost 700 years ago, the Bruce stood here, | 0:42:08 | 0:42:12 | |
along with his old mentor, William Lamberton, but without Wishart, who had died two years before. | 0:42:12 | 0:42:18 | |
He watched as these marks were made. | 0:42:18 | 0:42:21 | |
A generous annuity for the new cathedral was announced. | 0:42:21 | 0:42:24 | |
He was pious, desperately so. | 0:42:24 | 0:42:27 | |
The Bruce's spending on things like this, | 0:42:27 | 0:42:29 | |
churches, chantries, monasteries and chapels, was increasing. | 0:42:29 | 0:42:34 | |
Generous grants were made to institutions dedicated to St Andrew, St Fillan, St Thomas, St Ninian. | 0:42:34 | 0:42:41 | |
His people called him Good King Robert. | 0:42:43 | 0:42:45 | |
But Good King Robert wasn't so sure. | 0:42:45 | 0:42:48 | |
He wanted the saints to intercede on his behalf. | 0:42:48 | 0:42:51 | |
Those English curses didn't seem quite empty, not at least to the man they were intended for. | 0:42:51 | 0:42:57 | |
The fate of the Scottish crown was back in the hands of the papacy. | 0:43:01 | 0:43:05 | |
And the Scottish clergy, once again, was the Bruce's only hope. | 0:43:05 | 0:43:10 | |
In April 1320, a Scottish knight set off for the papal court. | 0:43:10 | 0:43:15 | |
He was a postman of sorts. | 0:43:15 | 0:43:17 | |
He carried with him three letters. | 0:43:17 | 0:43:19 | |
All were written here, in Arbroath Abbey. | 0:43:19 | 0:43:23 | |
One was from King Robert, one was from the bishops, and the third was from the nobles of Scotland. | 0:43:23 | 0:43:30 | |
Only the letter from the nobles survives, and it's now known as the Declaration of Arbroath. | 0:43:30 | 0:43:37 | |
It has become a very famous document. | 0:43:37 | 0:43:40 | |
Some people see it as an astonishingly precocious manifesto for national and democratic freedom. | 0:43:40 | 0:43:47 | |
Some Americans argue that you can see its influence in their own Declaration Of Independence. | 0:43:47 | 0:43:53 | |
In 1320, it was a hard-nosed reply to English spin. | 0:43:53 | 0:43:58 | |
And it spun pretty hard itself. | 0:43:58 | 0:44:01 | |
Of course, it wasn't the nobles who actually wrote it. | 0:44:01 | 0:44:04 | |
This was ventriloquism, with the nobles' dummy sat firmly on the bishops' knee. | 0:44:04 | 0:44:10 | |
It was a potted history and a brandished fist of a document. | 0:44:12 | 0:44:17 | |
The Pope must have enjoyed reading it. | 0:44:19 | 0:44:21 | |
First, it summarised the arguments of Baldred Bisset's brief. | 0:44:23 | 0:44:28 | |
"We are an ancient people. | 0:44:28 | 0:44:29 | |
"We are Rome's special daughter." | 0:44:29 | 0:44:32 | |
Second, it asserted that Robert the Bruce, "by due | 0:44:32 | 0:44:35 | |
"consent and assent of us all", had freed them from the English yoke. | 0:44:35 | 0:44:40 | |
But if he should submit to the English, "We Scots will drive him | 0:44:40 | 0:44:43 | |
"out, and make some other man who was well able to defend us our King. | 0:44:43 | 0:44:49 | |
"For as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we be brought under English rule. | 0:44:49 | 0:44:54 | |
"It is in truth, not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom, | 0:44:54 | 0:45:00 | |
"for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself." | 0:45:00 | 0:45:05 | |
So, the idea of Duns Scotus, that kingship is contractual, with added brass neck | 0:45:09 | 0:45:15 | |
and a generous pinch of broadsword, had finally reached the papal court. | 0:45:15 | 0:45:20 | |
But it hadn't finished yet. | 0:45:20 | 0:45:22 | |
It added that it was the English, not the Scots, who were making excuses for not going on crusade, | 0:45:22 | 0:45:28 | |
and that if His Holiness didn't do something to stop them, then His Holiness would be blamed | 0:45:28 | 0:45:33 | |
by God for the slaughter of bodies and perdition of souls that would inevitably follow. | 0:45:33 | 0:45:38 | |
Cheeky. | 0:45:38 | 0:45:40 | |
The Pope replied in August. | 0:45:49 | 0:45:51 | |
The letters, astonishingly, had had the desired effect. | 0:45:51 | 0:45:54 | |
The excommunications were suspended. | 0:45:54 | 0:45:57 | |
Better still, Pope John wrote to Edward and told him to end the conflict and negotiate. | 0:45:57 | 0:46:02 | |
Edward agreed, with an ill grace. | 0:46:02 | 0:46:05 | |
The treaty negotiations were to take place at Bamburgh, | 0:46:05 | 0:46:08 | |
in Northumberland, in the March of 1321. | 0:46:08 | 0:46:11 | |
So in March, the envoys began to gather. | 0:46:13 | 0:46:16 | |
The papacy and the French King sent agents too. | 0:46:16 | 0:46:20 | |
It was a farce, a drain blocked with all the old arguments. | 0:46:20 | 0:46:25 | |
The English wheeled out the ancient story of immemorial English ownership of the Scottish crown. | 0:46:25 | 0:46:32 | |
The Scots replied with creaky chunks of Bisset and a generous | 0:46:32 | 0:46:36 | |
helping of the Declaration, adding for good measure that the entire Norman and Plantagenet dynasty was | 0:46:36 | 0:46:43 | |
illegitimate, stemming as it did from the "foreign usurpation" | 0:46:43 | 0:46:47 | |
of 1066, an invasion led by someone the Scots chose to refer to as "William the Bastard". | 0:46:47 | 0:46:53 | |
The true and legitimate claim on the English crown, said the Scots, | 0:46:53 | 0:46:58 | |
lay with the house of Wessex, whose sole living representative | 0:46:58 | 0:47:03 | |
was one Robert I of Scotland. | 0:47:03 | 0:47:06 | |
The Bamburgh negotiations came to nothing. | 0:47:06 | 0:47:09 | |
A letter confirming Robert's excommunication arrived a month later. | 0:47:09 | 0:47:13 | |
Stalemate. | 0:47:13 | 0:47:15 | |
And after that, for six years, it was Groundhog Day for Robert the Bruce. | 0:47:17 | 0:47:21 | |
Every time the Scots secured concessions at the papal court, Edward successfully got them undone. | 0:47:21 | 0:47:27 | |
The only day that delivered any variety was the 5th March 1324, when Queen Elizabeth | 0:47:27 | 0:47:33 | |
was delivered of a healthy baby boy, someone to give Scotland to, someone of his blood. | 0:47:33 | 0:47:40 | |
A miraculous male heir. | 0:47:40 | 0:47:42 | |
David. | 0:47:42 | 0:47:44 | |
The Queen was 35. | 0:47:47 | 0:47:50 | |
The King was 50. | 0:47:50 | 0:47:51 | |
For those days, it was near enough to miraculous. | 0:47:51 | 0:47:54 | |
But did it matter? | 0:48:05 | 0:48:07 | |
Every morning, the Bruce awoke to find the English King unchanged. | 0:48:07 | 0:48:12 | |
The Bruce's Groundhog Day lasted until 20th January 1327, | 0:48:16 | 0:48:21 | |
when Edward II was deposed. | 0:48:21 | 0:48:25 | |
Edward was removed from the throne by his wife, Isabel of France, and her lover, Roger Mortimer, | 0:48:25 | 0:48:30 | |
with the tacit approval of an English nobility that was heartily | 0:48:30 | 0:48:34 | |
sick of Edward's incompetence, favouritism, rumoured homosexuality, and corruption. | 0:48:34 | 0:48:40 | |
His son, the Prince of Wales, just 14 years old, | 0:48:43 | 0:48:47 | |
was crowned King Edward III a little less than two weeks later. | 0:48:47 | 0:48:51 | |
This was good news. | 0:48:51 | 0:48:52 | |
This was an opportunity. But King Robert, once again, was ill. | 0:48:52 | 0:48:58 | |
He remained active. | 0:48:58 | 0:48:59 | |
But sometimes he was active almost in effigy, | 0:48:59 | 0:49:02 | |
carried around from place to place, paralysed, like a statue of himself. | 0:49:02 | 0:49:08 | |
The illness came and went, but it came more and went less as time passed. | 0:49:08 | 0:49:13 | |
An eyewitness in July said the King was so ill, he "could scarce move anything but his tongue". | 0:49:15 | 0:49:20 | |
But it was time for one last effort, or this great opportunity would be lost. | 0:49:20 | 0:49:25 | |
And so, miraculously, in August the King was well enough to lay siege | 0:49:25 | 0:49:29 | |
to Norham Castle, while Moray and Douglas made assaults on the castles at Alnwick and Warkworth. | 0:49:29 | 0:49:35 | |
All of these sieges in Northumbria sent a message loud and clear. | 0:49:38 | 0:49:42 | |
The Scots, quite possibly, were about to take the north of England. | 0:49:42 | 0:49:46 | |
The threat was real. | 0:49:46 | 0:49:48 | |
The English folded. | 0:49:48 | 0:49:50 | |
On 18th October, whilst at Berwick, Robert issued his conditions. | 0:49:51 | 0:49:57 | |
The King of England must recognise his throne and the independence of the Scottish crown in perpetuity. | 0:49:57 | 0:50:03 | |
To seal the deal, his son David was to marry the King of England's sister, Joan. | 0:50:03 | 0:50:09 | |
The English hemmed and hawed, but there was little doubt | 0:50:09 | 0:50:12 | |
that they would accept all of the important points. | 0:50:12 | 0:50:15 | |
The Bruce had won. | 0:50:15 | 0:50:18 | |
Queen Elizabeth of Scotland died nine days later. | 0:50:39 | 0:50:42 | |
She was sure of her husband's success, but she was not alive to see it. | 0:50:42 | 0:50:47 | |
The Bruce's blessings were usually mixed. | 0:50:47 | 0:50:50 | |
The peace was finally concluded at the monastery of Holyrood, | 0:50:53 | 0:50:58 | |
where the Bruce lay ill, on 17th March 1328. | 0:50:58 | 0:51:01 | |
One of the English promises was to return the Stone of Destiny. | 0:51:01 | 0:51:06 | |
His earls were in attendance, his bishops too, including William Lamberton, who had chosen him, | 0:51:06 | 0:51:12 | |
with whom he'd signed a very different document 24 years before | 0:51:12 | 0:51:17 | |
and without whom, very likely, none of them would have been there at all. | 0:51:17 | 0:51:21 | |
Lamberton died two months later. | 0:51:21 | 0:51:23 | |
On 12th July, in accordance with the second of Robert's treaty conditions, David, who was only | 0:51:33 | 0:51:39 | |
four, and the princess Joan, who was six, were married in Berwick Church. | 0:51:39 | 0:51:45 | |
Neither king was in attendance. | 0:51:46 | 0:51:49 | |
One was too angry. | 0:51:49 | 0:51:52 | |
The other was too ill. | 0:51:52 | 0:51:54 | |
Peace at last, | 0:51:57 | 0:51:59 | |
after 32 years of struggle and bloodshed. | 0:51:59 | 0:52:02 | |
The Pope let it be known that he recognised the Scottish throne, | 0:52:02 | 0:52:07 | |
and he lifted the ban of excommunication from King Robert. | 0:52:07 | 0:52:10 | |
The Pope was onside. The gates of hell were firmly shut. | 0:52:10 | 0:52:14 | |
King Robert, you might think, could be sure of salvation. | 0:52:14 | 0:52:19 | |
But he wasn't. | 0:52:19 | 0:52:21 | |
Guilt weighed heavily on him. | 0:52:21 | 0:52:23 | |
His nameless illness assured him that he still lacked God's grace. | 0:52:23 | 0:52:27 | |
The crown was his, he wouldn't be parted from it. | 0:52:27 | 0:52:30 | |
But it was steeped in blood, the blood of his family and the blood of others. | 0:52:30 | 0:52:34 | |
He arranged for a chaplain in Buchan to say masses for his brother Neil, | 0:52:34 | 0:52:38 | |
dead since 1306, and made grants to Dunfermline Abbey, where his wife lay buried. | 0:52:38 | 0:52:45 | |
The Bruce and his advisers judged the time was ripe to ask for | 0:52:45 | 0:52:49 | |
something that every European monarchy of status possessed - | 0:52:49 | 0:52:52 | |
an ampulla, a bottle of sacred oil, blessed by the Pope himself. | 0:52:52 | 0:52:59 | |
Oil from such bottles was used to anoint kings at their coronations. | 0:53:01 | 0:53:05 | |
Any attempt to conquer the lands of a king who, by virtue of this oil, | 0:53:05 | 0:53:10 | |
had been anointed by God, was a mortal sin. | 0:53:10 | 0:53:13 | |
The English Kings had an ampulla. | 0:53:13 | 0:53:15 | |
The French did too. But the Scottish Kings didn't, and they wanted one. | 0:53:15 | 0:53:20 | |
It was more than any mere status symbol. | 0:53:20 | 0:53:22 | |
It was a bottle full of independence from the English King. | 0:53:22 | 0:53:26 | |
His illness grew worse. | 0:53:26 | 0:53:29 | |
"The King is dying," people said. | 0:53:29 | 0:53:31 | |
Nobody knew what he was dying of. | 0:53:31 | 0:53:34 | |
But this time it was true. | 0:53:34 | 0:53:36 | |
He had just three months to live, but he went on pilgrimage, | 0:53:36 | 0:53:39 | |
struggled down the south-west coast of Scotland | 0:53:39 | 0:53:42 | |
to the shrine of St Ninian in Whithorn Cathedral. | 0:53:42 | 0:53:46 | |
Too sick to ride, the warrior King was carried on a litter. | 0:53:46 | 0:53:50 | |
The journey took a month. | 0:53:50 | 0:53:52 | |
When he arrived, Robert the Bruce, mortally ill and on the edge of the abyss, did penance. | 0:53:52 | 0:53:58 | |
He fasted and did penance for five days. | 0:53:58 | 0:54:02 | |
After all, the Church had got him his crown. | 0:54:02 | 0:54:05 | |
Surely now God would take him back. | 0:54:05 | 0:54:08 | |
"God forgive me. | 0:54:10 | 0:54:12 | |
"I have spilt the blood of many innocent men..." | 0:54:12 | 0:54:16 | |
On his return, he gathered his earls around him and he spoke to them. | 0:54:20 | 0:54:25 | |
"My day is far gone," he said. | 0:54:25 | 0:54:27 | |
"I thank God for giving me time to repent in this life. | 0:54:27 | 0:54:30 | |
"Because of me and my wars, much blood has been spilt. | 0:54:30 | 0:54:33 | |
"Many innocent men have died. | 0:54:33 | 0:54:35 | |
"So I take this sickness and pain as proper penance for my sins." | 0:54:35 | 0:54:40 | |
And he let it be known that after his death, he wanted his heart to be removed and taken on crusade. | 0:54:40 | 0:54:45 | |
Robert knew he would never live to go himself, | 0:54:48 | 0:54:50 | |
but the Scots had been promising the Pope a crusade since 1320. | 0:54:50 | 0:54:55 | |
Robert died on 7th June 1329. | 0:54:55 | 0:54:58 | |
He was 55 years old. | 0:54:58 | 0:55:01 | |
The illustrious King of Scots was buried here, at Dunfermline Abbey, near his wife. | 0:55:01 | 0:55:07 | |
The dead King, and the first King of something that had never existed before. | 0:55:07 | 0:55:12 | |
The very word "Scots" meant something different. | 0:55:12 | 0:55:16 | |
There was a Scottish people now, loyal to a Scottish throne. | 0:55:16 | 0:55:20 | |
No more confusion, no more divided loyalties. | 0:55:20 | 0:55:23 | |
The bishops and the Bruce had done their job. It was a revolution. | 0:55:23 | 0:55:27 | |
The King is dead. | 0:55:33 | 0:55:35 | |
Long live the King. | 0:55:35 | 0:55:37 | |
His five-year-old son, David, succeeded Robert the Bruce on 7th June 1329. | 0:55:37 | 0:55:43 | |
The following year, James Douglas took the Bruce's heart on crusade | 0:55:43 | 0:55:47 | |
against the Moors in northern Spain, and died there. | 0:55:47 | 0:55:50 | |
The heart, having fulfilled its promise, was found on the | 0:55:50 | 0:55:54 | |
battlefield, returned to Scotland, and buried in Melrose Abbey. | 0:55:54 | 0:55:58 | |
After his death, the legend of the Bruce did what legends do. | 0:56:01 | 0:56:06 | |
It ate things up. It ate the human being. | 0:56:06 | 0:56:09 | |
All that was left was Robert the Bruce, the soldier King who fought for Scottish liberty and won. | 0:56:09 | 0:56:14 | |
It left a suit of armour, and this face, resolute and empty. | 0:56:14 | 0:56:20 | |
The legend hid his consuming guilt. | 0:56:22 | 0:56:24 | |
It rarely mentioned the bishops who'd chosen him and who had guided his every step. | 0:56:26 | 0:56:31 | |
It barely muttered the names of his lost family. | 0:56:31 | 0:56:34 | |
It shrunk the Scottish casualties and multiplied the English armies he'd defeated. | 0:56:34 | 0:56:39 | |
It blurred the medievalness of what he did. | 0:56:39 | 0:56:41 | |
It made it about liberty for all instead of a revolution | 0:56:41 | 0:56:46 | |
that established a free and independent Scottish crown. | 0:56:46 | 0:56:49 | |
On November 24th 1331, David and Joan were enthroned as King and Queen of Scotland. | 0:56:55 | 0:57:02 | |
There was no Stone of Destiny. | 0:57:02 | 0:57:04 | |
Edward III had promised to return it and hadn't. | 0:57:04 | 0:57:07 | |
But at last, there was an ampulla of sacred oil from the Pope, | 0:57:07 | 0:57:11 | |
the bottle of independence from the English crown, | 0:57:11 | 0:57:14 | |
final proof of the Bruce's triumph, | 0:57:14 | 0:57:17 | |
final proof that the Scottish crown was free and quit of English authority, | 0:57:17 | 0:57:22 | |
final proof that the reign of Good King Robert | 0:57:22 | 0:57:25 | |
had been worth everything, all the deaths and horror, | 0:57:25 | 0:57:29 | |
freedom from the English crown at last, for ever. | 0:57:29 | 0:57:35 | |
The next English invasion was in 1332. | 0:57:35 | 0:57:38 | |
So much for bottles and for promises. | 0:57:39 | 0:57:42 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:58:14 | 0:58:16 |