Edward's Scottish Campaign of 1322, Pt 3: The Retreat

Edward started his return to England from Edinburgh soon after 26th August. On the way, parts of his army, still foraging for food, became detached from the main force and sacked the monasteries of Holyrood and Melrose. It was at Melrose that the Scots, under the command of the very experienced and capable Black Douglas, ambushed and attacked the English. It was a skirmish rather than a battle, but English losses were heavy and the incident curtailed any more foraging away from the main army.

Edward’s route of retreat was down the east coast, via Auchencrow, Stamford and Newbiggin (see map). He later gave his reason for this route as that he would be able to cause more damage to the enemy. Precisely what enemy was around and how he had damaged them though is not recorded. The journey was undertaken quickly but there was certainly no hint of panic, despite the incident at Melrose. In any case, there were no further attacks on the main force of Edward’s army as he went south and he crossed over into England once more and tried to make out that the whole expedition had, actually been a success!

(Click on map to make it larger)

He reached Newcastle Upon Tyne on the 10th September and stayed there until the 24th. Upon recrossing the border, Edward had dismissed most of his troops – the ones that were left anyway. Those that stayed included John de Bermingham, the first and only earl of Louth; Edward’s Steward, Richard D’Amory; Ralph Neville and, of course, Hugh Despenser the younger. But despite this, the king had not given up his ambition to crush the Scots once and for all. Sending Isabella and her ladies to Tynemouth for their protection*, he was determined to raise a new army against his enemies, as the below entry in the Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland shows:

“The K. to Sir Thomas de Grey constable of Norham castle. Thanks him for his letters sent by Robert de Oggel and the present bearer, and his good services. Commands him to be vigilant, as he has sent the Queen to stay at Tynemouth, while he himself is going through the country collecting force to keep down the enemy. The garrisons in the castles of the east March have been charged to aid him if necessary.”

How Edward thought he could raise another army, equip and feed it before the winter, heaven only knows. He had already used the best fighting men in the last effort and there was no guarantee that exactly the same thing wouldn’t have happened again. But the king was obviously now desperate for a victory and seemed determined to throw away rationality and practicality. He should have at least re-grouped in York and taken the Queen further south where she would have been safety; instead his actions seem to show a completely misplaced confidence in his ability to conduct a second campaign on the back of a first, disastrous one.

It was probably in order to raise this new army that he first went to Durham and then onto Barnard Castle, reaching it on 29th September. Meanwhile, Bruce must have been aware of the chaos in the England ranks. Edward was away from the safety of York and only had the smallest of forces to defend himself and was therefore a tempting target to the Scottish leader. Bruce decided to press home his advantage and crossed the English border on around the 30th September. He didn’t immediately head south though, surprisingly, but waited for a week around Carlisle. Maybe he was waiting for commanders such as the Black Douglas who had, themselves, been busy - not just around Melrose but possibly in harrying and besieging the border castles as well (such as Norham and Bamburgh).

However, once Bruce got on the road, he moved with speed, heading for the area where his spies told him Edward was. By now, the English king had moved on to Yarm, still trying to find men who were able (willing didn’t come into it) to fight for him. A clash was now inevitable.

* More on the Tynemouth episode in the last post in this series.

Sources:

The Close Rolls 1318-1323
The Patent Rolls 1321-1324
Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland
Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke 1307-1324, J.R.S. Philips
The Tyranny and Fall of Edward II 1321-1326, Natalie Fryde
Edward II 1307-1327, Mary Saaler
King Edward II, Roy Martin Haynes
The Itinerary of Edward II and His Household, Elizabeth Hallam

Edward II’s Scottish Campaign of 1322, Pt 2: Invasion

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The months of April, May, June and July saw the continuation of Edward’s preparations for his Scottish campaign. As well as the on going mustering of the country’s footmen, archers and men-at-arms, the logistical side also had to be taken into consideration.

As the saying goes: ‘an army marches on it stomach’, so Edward had to ensure there was enough food to supply his troops as they marched northwards. In addition to the purveyance orders mentioned in the last post, he also issued orders to make sure that no foreign merchants, bringing essentials supplies into the country, were arrested or molested in any way, although in some places the tax on the sale of wine and wool was increased as a way of raising money to pay for it all (adding to the money from the collection of forfeited monies and goods of rebels, clerical subsidies and scutage). Hugh the younger’s eldest son (Hugh), who was about 14 at the time was sent out with huntsmen, dogs and larderers to go and take ‘fat venison of this season in the king’s forests, chaces and parks’.

Another important piece of the jigsaw puzzle was transport. After all, the food had to be got to the right places at the right times. Edward conscripted a number of ships from the Cinque and other ports to form a naval force for this purpose and also to carry the Irish contingent across the Irish Sea. They were to take the victuals to Tynemouth and Newcastle Upon Tyne, ready to be carried further north to resupply the army when required.

However, the shipping ran into a very big problem in the form of the Flemish fleet. For some reason that I have not yet discovered, the Count of Flanders had decided to informally ally himself with the Scots and was intent on harassing Edward’s ships. Edward sent a letter to him on the12th April about a peace treaty but this was seemingly ignored and just under a month later word reached England that all Englishmen were being made to leave Flanders under pain of death. An order, sent out to the eastern ports on April 20^th, sums up the situation quite neatly:

“To the bailiffs and men of Great Yarmouth. Order to prepare, together with all others of the ports of Norfolk and Suffolk and of the other ports of those parts, ships and men-at-arms in as great force as possible, so that they be ready when summoned by the king to repress the malice of the Flemings and others, and of other enemies of the king, who understands that the Flemings and others lie in wait about the coast with a naval force for his men, and that they pursue and the ships of his men and despoil them, and that they do not fear inflicting the last punishment upon innocent persons, sparing no man of this realm, and that they do not permit the victuals ordained for the war in Scotland to be taken to that land, so that it may be conjectured that they are scheming, as aiders of the Scots, to carry on war against the king at his back.”

However, these ships do not seem to have had much effect on the Flemings’ piracy and menace at all – a situation that was later to have a devastating effect on the war.

While Edward was busy making all of these preparations, Robert Bruce decided to take advantage of the slow-moving war machine that was England and raid over the border. This was one of his most audacious raids yet, entering England by Carlisle on the western side on June 17^th and pushing southward as far as Lancaster. They plundered and despoiled the countryside and towns they encountered (apart from those able to pay him protection money) and even left Preston in flames before they headed back up north again.

The King had, by now, changed the date for the muster at Newcastle Upon Tyne from the previous one of the octaves of Trinity to the eve of St James the Apostle (July 24^th) and by that date most of his army had, indeed, gathered. But there was still a wait before the march north (as it was, Edward himself didn’t arrive until August 1^st and there were plenty of other latecomers), and in the intervening period there were reports of the English and Welsh fighting amongst themselves and with the citizens of Newcastle. Not an auspicious start.

By August 7^th, however, all was at last ready and Edward’s banners were unfurled as his large army headed out of Newcastle towards the Scottish border which they crossed on August 10^th. As Natalie Fryde points out in The Tyranny and Fall of Edward II, the numbers making up the English army are hard to calculate due to the number of its contingents constantly fluctuating (late arrivals, deserters etc), but a reasonable estimate of its size during late August is around 300 knights, 950 fully armoured men-at-arms and around 21700 infantry and hobelars. There were also around 6300 Welsh footmen and archers as well as an elite band of 200 Gascon bowmen (figures taken from Fryde’s book, above).

All in all it was a huge army, quite an achievement considering it had been raised in the wake of a destructive civil war. On the other hand, that same civil war meant that England was without some of its most experienced warriors – as they had been among the executed and imprisoned rebels caught after Boroughbridge. It also meant that the army’s cavalry contingent was smaller than usual – though whether this was a good or bad thing is hard to say, especially after Bannockburn.

Edward’s route took him via Roxborough (13^th August), Lowder (17^th August) and Musselburgh (19^th August). But Bruce, as always, was already one step ahead of him. Predicting the English route, he drove off all of the livestock and burned any crops along the way, thus denying Edward any easy way of resupplying his men from the land. To add to the misery, the English ships were also having trouble getting through – thanks to the Flemish fleet, so hunger became a new enemy.

As for the Scots themselves, they seemed to have vanished – pulling their usual trick of not meeting the English in open battle. In fact, it seemed as if the whole countryside was devoid of life. The poet chronicler Barbour recounts (although it could just be a case of ‘embroidering’ his tale) that the earl of Surrey, upon seeing one lame cow, remarked that it was ‘the dearest beef that ever I saw: surely it has cost a thousand pounds and more.’

Upon reaching Leith, in Edinburgh, at least one piece of good news reached the troops: some supplies had got through at last. But they obviously weren’t enough and it seems that no others were to be forthcoming. It wasn’t just the fear of the Flemish which was now causing problems for the fleet, but also severe storms which managed to sink 14 of the ships. Adding to the misery, Edward’s army began to disintegrate. Dysentery had struck a large proportion; others just melted away back to their homes. After a few days in Edinburgh it must have been clear to Edward and his counsellors that they had no choice but to head back to England and abandon any hopes of defeating the Scots.

Sources:

The Close Rolls 1318-1323
The Patent Rolls 1321-1324
Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland
Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke 1307-1324, J.R.S. Philips
The Tyranny and Fall of Edward II 1321-1326, Natalie Fryde
Edward II 1307-1327, Mary Saaler
King Edward II, Roy Martin Haynes
The Itinerary of Edward II and His Household, Elizabeth Hallam

Edward’s Scottish Campaign 1322, Pt1: After Boroughbridge

First of all, this post was originally going to be about the accusation that Hugh was responsible for abandoning Isabella at Tynemouth Priory in 1322. But then, like Topsy, it began to grow and grow as I did the research. I soon realised that any discussion of the issue could not be seriously considered without an in-depth look into the reasons why she was there in the first place. This in turn led to other considerations about the Battle of Byland (so-called) and the 1322 Scottish campaign in general. Actually, it’s been quite fascinating digging out stuff on a period that generally only gets a cursory page or so glance in text-books – but it has taken time, hence the long gap between posts. My research on the topic is by no means complete though – as I need to investigate some more primary sources in The National Archives and British Museum – but here are my findings so far…

Edward’s Scottish campaign of 1322 has, invariably, been called a dismal failure by commentators both contemporary and modern day. Technically it was certainly a failure – and a bit of a disaster for Edward. But was it dismal? Was it really a complete cock-up from start to finish?

After the Battle of Boroughbridge on 16th March 1322, Edward must have been pretty elated. After all, he’d defeated his enemies, the rebel earls who had exiled his favourites, the Despensers and attempted to control him; their downfall had proved that he was capable of winning a military campaign. Which was just as well, because, while he’d been busy with his civil war, Robert the Bruce had taken advantage by attacking his northern borders (the two year truce of 1319 had also just ended).

The month after Boroughbridge was spent mainly on dealing with the fallout: executions, imprisonments, land forfeitures etc of rebel lords and their families. But Edward was already considering a new campaign against the Scots. Natalie Fryde in The Tyranny and Fall of Edward II has put forward that Edward was actually thinking about a war against the Scots as early as February (while in the middle of his campaign against the Contrariants). This may be due to certain entries in the Close and Patent Rolls, for example, an entry on February 14th 1322:

“Commission to Griffin Ap Rees and Giles de Bello Campo to array 2,200 footmen in the following counties, viz. 800 in Angleseye, 800 in Karnarvan, and 600 in Merionyth, and to march them to Coventry to the king by Friday after the first Sunday in Lent for service against the Scots and rebels.”

This does not mean to say that Edward was preparing for a war against the Scots separately from the rebels: at the time it was believed, due to certain intercepted letters, that the earl of Lancaster and the Contrariants were colluding with Bruce, and therefore Edward was preparing to face a combined front of rebels and Scottish forces. As it turned out, the royalist army caught up with the fleeing Lancaster before he reached the Scottish border (if, indeed, that was where he was going), at Boroughbridge, so there was no full on confrontation between England and Scotland at this point. *

But the Scots were certainly a continual threat. As early as January, Bruce, together with the earl of Moray and James Douglas, entered England and plundered Durham before moving southwards towards Hartlepool, Cleveland and Richmond. Those who could buy off the invaders (a kind of Medieval protection racket), did – the ones that couldn’t, suffered seeing their houses burned and their stock driven away. Lancaster, the obvious lord in the area to see off the invaders, remained at his castle, unwilling to fight. Andrew de Harclay, so heroic at Boroughbridge, with a similarly heroic reputation in his fights against Scottish raiders, was alarmed enough to ride to Edward to request his aid in repulsing the attack. Edward, however, was too preoccupied in his own fight against his dissenting earls to be able to respond favourably.

However, after March 16th, Edward could at last look towards Scotland again: something obviously had to be done against these men who invaded his northern lands with impunity. He decided to stay in the north and ordered his exchequer to travel from London and set itself up in York, so as to help with the administration. This was done in early April, with the manuscripts in London having to first be sorted, bundled up and then transported to York in reconditioned beer-barrels. Hence, March must have been a time of absolute chaos in the ‘corridors of power’ wherever they happened to be at the time (Edward was in Burton-on-Trent, Derby, Doncaster and Pontefract during March): the lands of the rebels had to be administered, ‘normal’ governance of the realm carried out and a war to organise, all the while dealing with a vital department at the other end of the country which was preparing itself for an immense upheaval.

Nevertheless, Edward was now committed to war with Scotland and the wheels had to be set in motion. The first indication of his intentions is seen in an entry in the Patent Rolls for March 18th:

“Mandate to the bailiffs of the town of Kyngeston on Hull, as the king is coming to the parts of York on an expedition against the Scots, to cause proclamation to be made that all merchants, native and alien, may come in safety to that town with victuals and goods and sell the same there and that no one shall take goods or wares for use of any person without due payment.”

In other words, he was starting to set in motion the machinery whereby his household and army in the north could be supplied with food and drink, bought from merchants. Of course, this alone would never feed an army and on March 24th, the first purveyance order was sent out to various counties and to Ireland for quotas of wheat, oats, barley-malt, livestock (hogs), fish, salt, wine and other essentials – all to arrive at Newcastle upon Tyne by the ‘octaves of Holy Trinity**’.

On March 25th, the first order of array is seen:

“Commission to Thomas Lercedekne and Reginald de Botereux to select 500 footmen in Cornwall for the Scotch expedition and to conduct them to the king at Newcastle on Tyne by the octaves of Holy Trinity.”

This order was repeated for many other places in England, all with varying quotas of men to be found.

Also on the 25th March, Andrew de Harclay at last received his well-deserved reward for his actions at Boroughbridge: he was made earl of Carlisle and was granted 1000 marks a year for the upkeep of his office. But, along with the accolade, Harclay must also have realised that a great deal would be expected of him during the forthcoming war: his practical experience and knowledge of Bruce’s tactics was exactly what Edward needed.

The first steps had now been taken towards war. In the next post, I’ll write a bit more about Edward’s preparations and his march into Scotland.


* However, just to confuse matters, there is an odd entry in the Patent Rolls for February 11th, 1322:

“Safe-conduct and writ of aid until Whitsunday for Hugh le Despenser the elder, and Hugh le Despenser, the younger and their men at arms proceeding against the king’s enemies, the Scots, who have invaded the realm.”

** From what I understand, this should be the Sunday following Holy Trinity Sunday, which is a week after Pentecost. Please correct me if I'm wrong, and if anyone can accurately date this for 1322, it would be a great help!


Sources:
The Close Rolls 1318-1323
The Patent Rolls 1321-1324
Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland
Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke 1307-1324, J.R.S. Philips
The Tyranny and Fall of Edward II 1321-1326, Natalie Fryde
Edward II 1307-1327, Mary Saaler
King Edward II, Roy Martin Haynes
The Itinerary of Edward II and His Household, Elizabeth Hallam