Turner, James The Scottish Rebellion against Robert the Bruce

Exiles and Traitors

In July 1331, a most unusual army assembled, its quarters scattered across the humble ports of Yorkshire's east coast. Its objective: the invasion of Scotland and the overthrow of the fledgling Bruce dynasty. This was a formidable task, disproportionate to the small army attempting to command it. It was an objective they would ultimately fail to achieve, though not without some spectacular successes that forever altered the balance of power in Scottish politics. The most notable of these triumphs were the Battle of Dupplin Moor and the more widely known Battle of Halidon Hill. Such unexpected victories lent credibility to their cause and ignited another decade of war. The army was largely English, but its leaders were the disinherited sons and grandsons of the once-flourishing Scottish knighthood, an alliance of related Scottish nobles who had been banished from Scotland for continuing to refuse to acknowledge Robert Bruce's claim to the throne. Although they eagerly sought the support of the reigning English king, Edward III, they were not mere puppetstheir fathers and grandfathers had been among the most ardent defenders of Scottish liberty and independence. Edward I of England had exploited the succession crisis following the death of Alexander III to thrust himself into the center of Scottish politics and force the Scottish nobility to acknowledge his claims to overlordship. The ensuing war, however, was defined as much by the struggle between rival Scottish dynasties as by the imperial ambitions of successive English kings. Parallel to the war against English overlordship in Scotland, an internal conflict raged, with various factions of the Scottish nobility vying for the throne. Both the Bruce family and the Comyn family, from which most of the exiles descended, vacillated between loyalist and collaboratorial positions in their attempts to dominate Scottish politics. The Bruces and their allies ultimately triumphed in this dual conflict, but it was a victory for the family and their faction, not for the kingdom or the nation. The return of these disinherited nobles and the war they unleashed rekindled English ambitions to annex Scotland, leading to the Second War of Scottish Independence. This book examines the history of the families from which these exiles came, as well as their conduct in both wars of independence, to offer a valuable new perspective on Scotland's historical struggle for independence and to uncover the truth about the almost forgotten civil war that so profoundly shaped Scotland.