it's a 7th of July. I'm at the Wallace Monument, and this is the perfect
time and place to ask the question: Was Robert the Bruce really a patriot?
Hiya, I'm Bruce Fummey. if you're interested in the people events and places in Scottish
history then subscribe to Scotland History Tours and click the bell symbol
to be notified of new videos. In the meantime, let me tell you a story. Now the
reason why it's appropriate to talk about the patriotism of Robert the Bruce
here and on this day in Scottish history will become clear, but first I
want to take you back to the 7th of July 1297. Now in an earlier video I talked
about the 1296 invasion by Edward the first of England and his massacre or the
population of Berwick upon Tweed. after those atrocities and battle Dunbar,
Edwards subdued Scotland pretty easily. Having done so, he famously said:
'It's a good thing to get rid of a turd.' Aye Edward and you'll be wiping your arse
for the rest year life... and there will always be an annoying tartan skidmark.
Yes, I know skidmarks can't be tartan, but this wasn't Highland clansmen either,
it was medieval Scotland. Only four years before Edward had crushed Wales and
reduced it from an independent Kingdom to a principality. He made his son, the future
Edward II, the Prince of Wales; and the English throne has been the
Prince of Wales ever since. Now I should also point out that Robert
the Bruce's dad (conveniently also called Robert the Bruce) was one of the Knights who fought for and
with Edward to crush the Welsh. Now by this stage
Daddy Bruce was essentially an Essex nobleman, we'll large swathes of land in the
North of England, some lands and Annandale and a son, our hero The Earl of
Carrick, born in Scotland. Edward turned from his conquest and went south home
with The Stone of Scone, the sceptre of Scotland and the portion of the true
cross brought by Queen Margaret two hundred years before. He also took the
Royal records of Scotland, presumably for paper to wipe with. He'd taken the symbols of
kingship, and he expected Scotland to accept the state is of a principality as
Wales had done before. Did I mention the Edward had also taken much of the nobility as
prisoners or hostages leaving a vacuum to be filled by junior, more
energetic, and patriotic young guns. He left three Englishmen in charge, of whom the
Earl of Surrey, left to run Scotland, did it from England and never even bothered
coming north. One man who did, was the treasurer Hugh Cressingham.
His job was to extract money and send it to London, as colonisers do. I've seen
various figures, in old money and new money, but Fiona Watson's excellent book (find a link
below) suggest that in nine months he squeezed
four million pounds in today's times out of impoverished Scotland. There were speed
speed cameras on every corner, and a crack down on TV license fees. All to fund Edwards
wars in France. Its quite a scam really. You invade and subjugate one people. You
bleed them dry of money to fund your invasion of another people. You subjugate
that people, which gives you more money to invade another group. Edward had been
operating this scam for a while and, let's give the guy his due, he was pretty
good at it. But here's the kicker. Once you've been subdued, you are his
subjects. Now that's not just semantics. It means but you don't just have to fund
this campaign, you've got to go and put your neck on the line as foot soldiers in
a brutal conflict doing the subjugating, as he sits in his charger at the back.
Half the Scorch nobility had been carted off to be prisoners hostages in
England and the only we have a jail was to join.
Edward didn't realise it, but in 1297 he'd gone too far in ratcheting up the pressure.
He takes royal authority in the symbols of kingship, the nobility got upset. He
starts imposing taxes, debts on land and seizing wool, the landowners and the
merchants get upset. Now he's conscripting for foreign wars and he's coming for you.
That was when people stopped paying their TV licences. One son of a minor knight
even started pulling down the TV masts. His name was William Wallace. And when
this young hothead, William Wallace, comes on this scene; people are desperate
enough to support him. Edward was going to send them to fight in France. Now given a
choice between fighting the French in France, or fighting in the English here...
you'd rather play at Murrayfield.
Now some minor night knocking over TV aerials is one thing, but it's not a
real threat to Edward. However if suspect nobility got involved... the Bishop of
Carlisle summoned the young Robert Bruce Earl of Carrick to Carlisle to discuss royal
business... and then the bishop says: 'Whlle you're here Robert, I just happen to have
a holy relic in a bank shop. If you just swear an oath that you'll defend
King Edward's interests against these rebellious Scots, you can be on your way.
Of course Bruce swore the oath. His task now was to put down the uprising. So what
did he do? Well, one of the agitators was William Douglas. Right now Douglas and
Wallace were attacking the English at Scone Bruce goes to Douglas's property, burns it
down, kidnaps his wife and the son (the young James Douglas) and he takes them to
the Annandale lands of Robert Bruce's father.
Now, given James Douglas's devotion to Robert the Bruce in later life, the fact
that valuable hostages should have been taken to Carlisle rather than Annandale,
and nobody in English side for a minute believed that this was a genuine attempt
on the part of Bruce, I think we can reasonably assume that this was a ruse ...a
distraction. Now, when he arrived in Annandale to
call his father's knights to support the patriotic cause, they say: 'We'll think about
it.' Aye right! Daddy Bruce is down in Essex
supporting Edward, there's no way they're taking any risks and this is a point.
This was a huge risk for Robert the Bruce.
Longshanks will confiscate his father's lands. These are the lands will become
young Robert's. Not just the lands in Scotland, in Annandale and Carrick,
but the rich lands and Essex and huge swathes of the north of England. His dad
must have been in Essex thinking: 'What on earth are you doing?' Now back in
Annandale young Robert gives a speech to his father's knights. My dear friends, you
know that it's true that recently in Carlisle I swore an oath, as you know and have heard,
but it is null and void, since it was extorted by force. I did this
thing from fear of the body, not from my own free will.
No man holds his own flesh and blood in hatred and I am no exception. I must join
my own people and the nation in which I was born. I ask that you please come with
me and you will be my counselors and close comrades.
So you're not paying your TV licence
Robert? The knights of Annandale said no. So Bruce headed north himself, to
join the William Douglas, Bishop Wishart, James the Steward and the patriotic
cause. Now he had way more to lose than his father's Knights. The easy path would
have been too far as fathers lead and keep his head down. But this wasn't the
last time Robert Bruce looked at a task that seemed impossible, and then took it
on. But on the 7th of July, on this day in Scottish yesterday, what's become known
as the Noble Revolt ended in Irvine in Ayrshire. An English force had been sent
north to meet this small group of patriotic nobility, and those noble
sought to negotiate surrender. Now one of the items on the negotiating table would
undoubtedly have been the great swathes of land that Robert's father would lose, but
the Scots patriots insisted on going back and forth. It's about the TV
licence. It's about fighting in France. It's not about Edward, is about getting tea
breaks and paid bank holidays. They dragged out the negotiations for over
a month... and all the time William Wallace was in The Selkirk forest training foot
soldier to descend from this hill to meet the English down below at Stirling Bridge
Was Robert worried about the lands and titles that his family would lose by
defying Edward? Duh! He was a medieval nobleman. Was he
ruthless in his desire became King of Scots? You betcha! But if he thought that this was
the time to go all in, holding nothing more than a pair of two's, he must be the
worst poker player in history. In the last year: Berwick had been wiped out and
slaughtered, the Battle of Dunbar had been lost, the bulk of the Scottish nobility
were in chains, Scotland was occupyied, his father is essentially a hostage to
Edward, his knights won't support you, and you want to raise the stakes when you
don't even have a cunning plan. Who does that? Unless maybe was a patriot.
I think he probably was... and the nobles revolt was the first time he showed his
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