MICHAEL BAIGENT AND RICHARD LEIGH
ONE
Robert Bruce : Heir to Celtic Scotland
Bannockburn and the Templars
The Battle of Bannockburn, which was finally to decide the issue of Scottish independence, resulted not from any skilful strategic manoeuvres, but from an almost quaint medieval point of honour . Towards the end of 1313, a small English garrison found itself besieged by Bruce’ s brother , Edward, at Stirling Castle, the gateway to the Highlands and Argyll. The siege dragged on. Unwilling to waste his resources on its indefinite prolongation, Edward Bruce accepted the terms proposed by the defenders: if , by midsummer of the following year , no English army had appeared within three miles of the castle, the garrison would surrender . It was the kind of challenge that King Edward of England could not honourably decline. And Robert Bruce was thus committed by his brother to precisely the kind of set- piece battle he had shunned since Methven in 1306.
The English monarch’ s ostensible objective was to relieve Stirling. The sheer size of his army, however , indicates that his real objectives were considerably more ambitious — to annihilate the Scots, defeat Bruce once and f or all and impose a military occupation on Scotland. Contemporary chroniclers speak of the English army as numbering 100,000 men. This is obviously an exaggeration of the kind typical during the Middle Ages. Never theless, the muster rolls of the time show that Edward called up 21,640 foot soldiers. 13 Not all of these, of course, would actually have arrived in Scotland, after the inevitable attrition resulting from desertion and disease. But those that did would have been complemented by some 3000 mounted knights, each of whom brought his own trained entourage. Modern historians concur that the English forces must have numbered at least 20,000. Such a figure would have given them a numerical superiority of three to one — a ratio echoed in the chronicles of the time. The Scots are believed to have numbered between 7000 and 10,000, with perhaps 500 mounted nobles or ‘ knights’ — f ar less heavily armed and armoured than their English equivalents.
There is still dispute over the precise site of the Battle of Bannockburn, but it is known to be some two and a half miles from Stirling Castle. The main engagement occurred on 24 June 1314. The date is interesting, for 24 June is St John’ s Day, a day of particular significance for the Templars.
The precise details of what happened at Bannockburn are vague. No eye- witness account has survived, and such second – or third- hand testimony as exists is distorted and confused. It is generally accepted that skirmishes occur red the day bef ore. It is generally accepted that Bruce, in a classic single combat, killed the English knight Henry de Bohun. Most historians concur that the Scottish army was made up almost entirely of foot soldiers armed with pikes, spears and axes. They also concur that only mounted men in the Scottish ranks carried swords, and that Bruce had few such men —certainly not enough in numbers, in weight of equipment and horses, to match the English knights. And yet, paradoxically, the four teenth- century chronicler John Barbour states of Bruce that ‘ . . . f rom the Lowlands he could boast, of armoured men, a full great host’ . 14 From such information of the battle as survives, there does indeed seem, at one point, to have been a charge against the English archer s by mounted soldiery, who, until then, had been kept in reserve as part of Bruce’ s personal division. But what is most striking in the chronicles is the decisive intervention – when all the Scottish units were already engaged and the entire battle hung in the balance — of what the English regarded as a ‘ fresh f orce’ , which suddenly erupted with banners flying from the Scottish rear .
According to some accounts, this f resh contingent consisted of yeomen, youngster s, camp- follower s and other non- combatant personnel whom the English mistook for fighting men. They had supposedly elected a captain from their own ranks, made banners out of sheets, armed themselves with homemade weapons and, as a volunteer column, hur led themselves into the fray. It is a stirring, romantic story which does much credit to Scottish patriotism, but it does not ring true. If the intervention was indeed so spontaneous, so improvised and so unexpected, it would have caught the Scots as much by surprise as it did the English. That no confusion spread through the Scottish ranks suggests the intervention was anticipated. Nor is it easy to imagine the heavily armoured English knights — even if they did improbably mistake a horde of peasants and camp- follower s for professional soldiery — fleeing before an attack launched on foot. All the evidence suggests that the decisive intervention came from some reserve of mounted men. Who might these unknown hor semen have been?
The sudden advent of a fresh f orce, whatever their identity, after a day of combat which had left both English and Scottish armies exhausted, determined the outcome of the battle. Panic swept the English ranks. King Edward, together with 500 of his knights, abruptly fled the field. Demoralised, the English foot- soldier s promptly followed suit, and the withdrawal deter iorated quickly into a full- scale rout, the entire English army abandoning their supplies, their baggage, their money, their gold and silver plate, their arms, armour and equipment. But while some chronicles speak of dreadful slaughter , the recorded English losses do not in fact appear to have been very great. Only one earl is reported to have been killed, only thirty- eight barons and knights. The English collapse appears to have been caused not by the ferocity of the Scottish assault, which they were managing to withstand, but simply by fear .
It is hardly credible that peasants and camp- f ollower s could have inspired such fear . On the other hand, it would certainly have been inspired by a contingent of Templar s, even a small one. Whoever the mysterious intruders were, they seem to have been instantly recognisable — which Templars would have been, by their beards, their white mantles and/or their black- and- white banner known as the ‘ Beauséant’ . If they were indeed recognised as such, and if word of their identity spread through the English ranks, the result would have been panic of precisely the sort that occurred.
But why, if the Templar s did play so crucial a role at Bannockburn, is there no mention of them in the chronicles? In fact, there would have been a number of reasons f or such reticence. From the English point of view, what had happened was too ignominious to be discussed at all, and English accounts are predictably quiet about the battle. As for the Scots, they were intent on depicting Bannockburn as a triumph of their people, their culture, their nationalism; and this triumph would have been in some measure tarnished by suggestions of outside intervention. Then, too, Bruce had very specific political reasons for concealing the presence of refugee Templars in his domains. Although he was still excommunicate, he was also, by 1314, eager f or the Church’ s support, and could not risk alienating the Papacy fur ther . Still less could he risk prompting the Pope to preach a full- scale crusade against Scotland. Something of this sort had occurred in the Languedoc precisely a century before, and the ensuing depredations, which lasted for some forty years, were still f resh in people’ s memor ies. Moreover , his chief European suppor ter was Philippe IV of France, the very man who had first instigated the per secution of the Templars.
After the battle, special recognition was conferred on one in par ticular of Bruce’ s vassals, Angus Óg MacDonald:
The traditional claim of the MacDonalds to fight on the right wing of the royal army — a place of honour — is said to have been granted by Bruce to Angus Óg in recognition of the par t played by him and his men in the success of Bannockburn. 15
Of the territory around Kilmartin, Loch Awe and Loch Sween, some was royal domain under the administration of the royal bailiff , Sir Neil Campbell, Bruce’ s brother - in- law. All the rest belonged to the MacDonalds. Any Templar s settled in the region would, as a matter of course, have fought under the nominal command of Angus Óg. Bannockburn was one of the half dozen or so most decisive battles of the Middle Ages, and the largest, probably, ever to be fought on British soil. It ef f ectively put an end to English designs on Scotland, which for the next 289 year s was to remain an independent kingdom. When, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the two countries were united under a single monarch, it was not through conquest, but inheritance.
Bannockburn notwithstanding, however , the remaining fifteen years of Bruce’ s reign were still to be stormy. As he lacked male heirs, there were particular difficulties about whom to designate as his successor . In 1315, some ten months af ter Bannockburn, the succession was finally settled upon his brother , Edward. A month later , Edward Bruce embarked for Ireland, where at Dundalk in May of the following year , he was crowned king of that country. He would thus, in accordance with the old Celtic dream, have been in a position to unite Ireland and Scotland. In October 1318, however , he died, and the succession to both thrones again f ell vacant. In December , it was agreed that on Bruce’ s death the Scottish throne would pass to his grandson, Robert, the son of Marjorie Bruce and Walter the Stewart.
On 6 Apr il 1320, an extraordinary document — the so- called Declaration of Arbroath — was issued. It took the f orm of a letter commissioned and signed by eight earls and thirty- one other nobles, including representatives of the Seton, Sinclair and Graham families. This letter adumbrated the legendary history of the Scots from their alleged origins in Scythia and their conver sion there by St Andrew. It described Robert Bruce as their deliverer and hailed him (with biblical comparisons traditionally dear to the Templar s) as ‘ a second Maccabaeus or Joshua’ . More impor tant, however , is its proclamation of the independence of Scotland and the remarkably modern sophistication of its definition of the relationship of the king to his people:
The divine providence, the right of succession by the laws and customs of the kingdom . . . and the due and lawful consent and assent of all the people, made him our king and prince. To him we are obliged and resolved to adhere in all things, both upon account of his r ight and his own merit, as being the person who hath restored the people’ s saf ety in defence of their liberties. But, after all, if this prince shall leave these principles he hath so nobly pursued, and consent that we or our kingdom be subjected to the king or people of England, we will immediately endeavour to expel him as our enemy, and as the subverter both of his own and our rights, and will make another king who will def end our liber ties. 16 Bruce, in other words, was not king by ‘ divine right’ . He was king only In so far as he discharged the duties incumbent upon his office. In the context of the age, this was an unusually advanced definition of kingship.
In 1322, Edward II launched his last, rather half - hearted, expedition against Scotland. It came to nothing, and Bruce retaliated with incursions into Yorkshire. In 1323, the two countries concluded what was supposed to be a thir teen- year truce, which lasted only for four . In the mean time, Bruce had become embroiled in a new squabble with the Papacy, then in the throes of its own schism, the so- called ‘ Avignon Captivity’ . For some time, Edward of England had longed to rid the Scottish Church of its powerful nationalist bishops — prelates such as Lamberton of St Andrews, Wishart of Glasgow and William Sinclair of Dunkeld (brother of Sir Henry Sinclair of Rosslin, signatory of the Arbroath Declaration). To this end, the English king had badgered successive popes not to consecrate any new native- born bishops into the Scottish Church. In the Avignon- based Pope John XXII he found a sympathetic ear . Bruce, however , aligned himself with his own bishops in defying the Pontiff ’ s wishes and in 1318 he was again excommunicated, along with James Douglas and the Earl of Moray. A year later , the Pope demanded that the bishops of St Andrews, Dunkeld, Aberdeen and Moray appear bef ore him to explain themselves. They ignored him and, in June 1320, were also excommunicated. Throughout the course of this row, the Pope had per sisted in refusing to recognise Bruce as king, pointedly referring to him only as ‘ ruler of the Kingdom of Scotland’ . It was not until 1324 that Pope John XXII relented and Bruce was finally acknowledged monarch in the Church’ s eyes.
In 1329, Bruce died, to be succeeded, as he had arranged, by his grandson, Robert II, the first of the Stuart dynasty. Bef ore his death, he had expressed the wish that his heart be removed, placed in a casket, taken to Jerusalem and buried in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In 1330, theref ore, Sir James Douglas, Sir William Sinclair , Sir William Keith and at least two other knights embarked for the Holy Land, Douglas carrying Bruce’ s hear t in a silver casket hung around his neck. Their itinerary took them through Spain, where they made the acquaintance of King Alfonso XI of Castile and León, and accompanied him on his campaign against the Moor s of Granada. On 25 March 1330, at the Battle of Tebas de Ardales, the Scots, r iding in the vanguard, were sur rounded. According to the four teenth- century chronicle, Douglas removed from his neck the casket containing Bruce’ s heart and hur led it into the attacking host, crying:
Brave hear t, that ever f oremost led, Forward! as thou wast wont. And I Shall f ollow thee, or else shall die! 17
Whether Douglas, in the heat of battle, had either time or inclination to compose his thoughts into verse is, one suspects, questionable. Having hurled Bruce’ s heart at the foe, however , he and his fellow Scots did proceed to follow it, charging headlong into their adversaries. All of them died, with the exception of Sir William Keith, who had broken his arm prior to the battle and so did not par ticipate in it. He is said to have retrieved the heart from the field, miraculously intact in its casket, and to have brought it back with him to Scotland. It was buried in Melrose Abbey, under the east window of the chancel.
Early in the nineteenth century, Bruce’ s grave at Dunfermline Abbey was opened. According to popular traditions prevalent in the age of Sir Walter Scott, he was found with his leg- bones carefully crossed immediately under his skull. In fact, this was not so; there was, apparently, nothing unusual about the corpse. 18 But the traditions are indicative. It is clear that someone had a vested interest in linking Bruce with the Masonic skull- and- crossbones.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar