Four Green Fields: Trollheart's History of Ireland

[Minx]

Although the Celts did not or could not write, they did have a very rudimentary alphabet. It consisted of a number of straight lines, sometimes slanted and/or crossing other lines. This was called Ogham

I wonder how this compares to Runes

Ogham versus Runes – Is Ogham the same as Elder Futhark Runes?

There are some similarities between the gods that created them (Ogma and Odin), and they may have been used simultaneously around the same time period. However, Oghams have no direct connection with the Elder Futhark Rune symbols.

However, it is interesting to note the English word “rune” is from the Norse word runa, which means secret or mystery. Likewise, the Irish word rùn also means secret or mystery.

[Trollheart]

Only the Nordies!

[Trollheart]

@Minx

Chapter 1

who were hunter-gatherers, and are believed (or assumed) to have come over from the mainland of Scotland to settle in what is now Northern Ireland, or the province of Ulster.

So, the Irish are actually Scottish by ancestry…

Only the Nordies!

[Minx]

often by way of huge stone crosses which can still be seen on graves today, though of course the ones that mark headstones these days are replicas and copies. Still, originals can be found in various archaeological sites, and most people know what you mean when you speak of a Celtic Cross.

Popular legend in Ireland says that the Christian cross was introduced by Saint Patrick or possibly Saint Declan, though there are no examples from this early period. It has often been claimed that Patrick combined the symbol of Christianity with the sun cross to give pagan followers an idea of the importance of the cross. By linking it with the idea of the life-giving properties of the sun, these two ideas were linked to appeal to pagans. Other interpretations claim that placing the cross on top of the circle represents Christ’s supremacy over the pagan sun. [Reference Wikipedia]

[Psmith]

Chapter V1, phew! You don’t have to watch Game of Thrones just read the history of Ireland.

[Psmith]

@Trollheart

Is it any wonder we hate the English?

But no English living at the moment had anything to do with it.
I think the 30 years war was going as well.Now is definitely the best time to be on the planet (for most of us)

[Trollheart]

Chapter IX: Under the English Heel, Part III:
Settling Old Scores - Catholics, Celts and the Crown

This Land is (No Longer) Your Land: the Continuing Disenfranchisement of Ireland’s Catholics

Timeline: 1701-1741

Orwell once wrote, if you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on an upturned face forever, and in some ways this must have been how it felt to be Irish - or at least, native and Catholic Irish - for centuries. The over-arching title of this section has been “Under the English Heel”, and indeed that’s how it was. Apart from sporadic risings, rebellions and joining occasional forces with England’s enemies in the hope of kicking His or Her Majesty’s troops and settlers off our island, we remained under English, later British control, rule and law until well into the twentieth century, and like most occupiers, the English were not soft and pleasant masters. Burning enmity between the two schisms of the Christian Church - for which we cannot only blame Luther, as all his accusations were mostly based on truth, but a succession of power-hungry popes too, and a Vatican that seemed more interested in shoring up its power and filling up its coffers than tending to the needs of its flock - meant that whoever was in power would ensure to put down and repress the other, and for hundreds of years, even under the odd Catholic monarch, or at least those nominally tolerant of Catholicism, we Irish were seen as lower life forms, heretics and peasants, an underclass to be kept down almost in the same way a failed painter from Vienna would one day see the Jews.

Not that I’m attempting to equate Irish occupation with the Holocaust, of course. Many, many Irish may have died in the various uprisings, wars, and under the oppressive regimes that characterised successive occupants of the English throne, but at least there was no mass genocide practiced on the Irish people. Well, unless you count the famines, which we will come to in due course. The point though I’m trying to make here is that for the Irish, life under an English king or queen was never going to be easy, never going to be profitable and never going to be tolerant, which is why full independence was the only way Erin’s sons would ever get out from under the boot of the British. It would, however, take another two hundred years before this would finally be accomplished, and we could, in theory - in the South at least - wave a not-so-fond farewell to the agents of the Crown.

But at the beginning of the eighteenth century, as noted in the closing lines of the previous chapter, we were still well and truly all but slaves. The Plantation of Ulster had ensured that power lay in the hands of Protestants, and with the Flight of the Wild Geese in 1691, nobody was left to fight for the Catholic cause, nobody would raise the flag for Ireland, except vaguely in exile, most of which attempts would come to nothing.

The Art of (Reneging on) the Deal

Nobody, least of all myself, would venture to suggest that all Irish - or even any Irish - were fine, upstanding citizens, to whom the mere suggestion of breaking their word was anathema. Nobody is a paragon. Everyone lies, everyone cheats, everyone breaks promises. This is doubly applicable to politics, and not unknown to kings either. However the duplicity of the English Crown after the Battle of Limerick was, to put it mildly, appalling. Having promised, in the Treaty of Limerick, certain concessions to the Irish Catholics, the Protestant-controlled Parliament threw almost all of these undertakings out, and set about making Irish Catholics the worst treated creatures in their native country, hoping, in the end, to destroy and eliminate once and for all the religion they saw as heretical, and opposed to the Crown.

With the ordination of bishops prohibited, no new priests could be installed to replace those killed or who had fled during the pogroms following the burst of anti-Catholic sentiment resulting from the Great Fire in 1666. No new clergy were allowed enter the country from abroad, and as Catholics were banned from attending school, the future looked bleak for Irish Catholicism. More stringent and harsher Penal Laws passed in England led to the eventual direct rule from Westminster of Ireland, meaning the King and his Parliament could, if they wished and if it was expedient or profited them, overrule any laws passed by its counterpart in Ireland.

Meanwhile, the conquered island became the breadbasket of England, or perhaps it might be more accurate to say it became its supply depot, as the land was stripped of its lush forests to supply His Majesty’s Navy with timber, its food produce - pork, butter, cheese, beef etc - going to feed the sailors and also supply the rest of England as well as its colonies in the West Indies, all of which would inevitably lead to the first, but sadly not the last, Great Famine in Ireland. There would be, of course, little to no sympathy across the water for the starving millions in Ireland, as the Catholics were universally despised and reviled by the English, and no help would ever be forthcoming from those who had much (mostly due to the hard and badly-paid work of the poor Irish Catholics) for those who had little, or indeed nothing. To some degree, whether it’s true or not, you would have to wonder how many tears might have been shed had the entire Catholic population of Ireland starved to death? Not many, I would venture to suggest.

Of course, had the grinding, stamping boot been on the other foot, there’s no doubt that the result would have been the same. If somehow the positions had been reversed and it had been England suffering from starvation and want, I somehow doubt that my ancestors would have been piling food into boats to send to them. No, more as a matter of circumstance than anything else, these two factions hated and loathed each other, and the one would have been happy to have seen the other disappear from the face of the earth, enemies to the end of time it would appear. Talk about Arabs and Israelis! They ain’t got nothing on the hatred between the Irish and the English.

Some Catholic landowners did convert to Protestantism, if only to avoid losing their lands, but would always been looked on (and down) as mere “converts” and sneered at by the Ascendancy, who would never consider them part of its august assembly. Most though clung to their religion and thereby lost their lands, their rights to own property, their and their children’s right to an education, and the right to worship, though how strongly reprisals against masses and so forth were prosecuted I don’t know. In Cromwell’s time, yes; after him, not so sure they wanted to waste the energy, and anyway, they had a ready-made slave labour class here, so why try to change it?

[realspeed]

With all that information is it true that in Ireland on busy roads they paint triple yellow lines to stop parking. This is done with 3 yellow lines" to be sure to be sure to be sure"

[Trollheart]

Intermission: Catholic England? The Trouser Serpent Enters Eden

Here I’d like to diverge slightly away from the timeline, and look back to see how things could have been different, for Ireland and for England. What I’ll propose here will of course be simplistic and I’m sure there are plenty of valid reasons for the hatreds between our two countries, but it can’t be denied that the biggest bone of contention - even when England left a remnant of its eight-hundred-year occupation behind it to stagger through almost into the twenty-first century - between us has been religion.

So, the question becomes: what if England had remained Catholic?

It’s not as crazy a question, I think, as it seems. England had been, after all, staunchly Catholic for thousands of years, if only because up to then there was only Catholicism in Christianity. It was the early fifteenth century that saw the rise of Martin Luther and what would become known as Protestantism, which slowly spread across Europe, but England resisted it, even to the point of its then king, Henry VIII, writing in vigorous defence of Catholicism and denouncing Luther, earning him the title Fidei Defensor, or Defender of the Faith, bestowed upon him by a grateful Pope Leo X. Remember, at this point England was a world power, and the pope would have been concerned had its king turned against him. Of course, later that’s exactly what he did (though not specifically against the Pope himself, but against his allies) but that’s history and here we’re considering an alternate timeline.

Henry’s problem with Catholicism - or more properly, the Pope - was that the Bishop of Rome refused to annul or make invalid his marriage to Catherine of Aragon in order to allow him marry Anne Boleyn. There were of course many reasons for this, not least among them being that Catherine was the aunt of Charles V of Spain, the Holy Roman Emperor and an important ally of the then pope, Clement VII, the sanctity of marriage (the moreso between a king and his wife) within the Catholic Church, and the possibility of disinheriting and effectively bastardising Catherine’s daughter Mary, who would be next in line to the throne.

So Henry decided, after trying to cajole, force or trick the pope into annulling the marriage, he didn’t need him. He would do it himself, and so, like a child annoyed at the rules of the game and making his own game, taking his ball and going home, Henry VIII of England set himself up as head of his own religion, his own breakaway faction from the Church, following (mostly, or as far as it benefited him to do so) the precepts of the fledgling Protestant movement being taught and disseminated by Martin Luther, thereby creating the Church of England and making England a Protestant country.

But consider: what if the pope had allowed the annulment? Yes, the historical ramifications would have been huge - Queen Mary, known to history as “Bloody Mary” for her persecution of Protestants when she came to power - would never have ruled, and her sister, Elizabeth, would have ascended the throne unopposed, rather than, as she was, seen throughout her reign by Catholics - the pope especially - as a bastard and a Protestant usurper. Plots to dethrone or assassinate her would not have been hatched, and in all likelihood, England might have been stronger against its enemies, being a cohesive, truly united kingdom.

Apart from the Scots, of course. Damn Scots! They ruined Scotland!

Meanwhile, Ireland might not have been such a prize, or, if it was, might have acceded more readily to a king who followed the same religion as them. Much of the opposition to England’s invasion and occupation and rule of Ireland was that it was performed under the banner of Protestantism, the Anglican Protestantism taught by and compulsorily required by the Church of England. Irish Catholics feared the erosion, even destruction of their faith, and so fought with everything they had against this foreign oppressor. But had Henry got what he wanted from the pope, it’s highly unlikely England would have changed religions. Up until the time of the “king’s great matter” as they referred to his pending demand for divorce or annulment of his marriage to Catherine, Protestants and Lutherans in England were seen as heretics, and imprisoned, tortured and burned with the full approval and knowledge of the king. It was only when Henry began to see - or be shown, by men like Thomas Cromwell and Thomas Cranmer, who had much to gain by swaying His Majesty’s allegiances their way - that allowing, even embracing and finally insisting on Luther’s new anti-Rome religion could help him to get what he needed that he broke with Rome.

Though there were plenty of Protestants in England at the time, and many at Henry’s court, before the “great matter” (or before the king met Anne Boleyn) none of them would have admitted it, for to be branded a follower of Luther was to repudiate the Catholic Church, seen at the time as the only Church, and Luther’s ideas as heretical and nothing more than the ramblings of a sect or cult leader, and that was punishable by death, usually very painful death. Henry’s about-turn in accepting Protestantism was motivated purely by his own lust and his desire to get his own way, and set in motion by the refusal of the pope to grant this.

So had Henry either been able to keep it in his pants, or convince the pope that kicking Catherine to the kerb was the best policy, England might now still be a Catholic country, and everything from the Famine to the Rising and right up to the Troubles need never have happened.

The first and only time I have heard of in history where a man set up an entire religion and his people were later persecuted, imprisoned, burned and hanged because the king wanted to get his end away. Well, technically he could do that anyway, but since Durex would not be invented for about another four hundred years, he wanted to make sure any sprogs his new bit of totty dropped were legitimate heirs, especially if he hit the jackpot and got a son.

[Trollheart]

You think anyone in Ireland is ever sober enough to paint lines? Hell, you takes your chances over here!

[Trollheart]

Fragmentation of Faith: Schisms within the Schism

However, he did and so we end up with the situation we now have, which makes it necessary, even important that we look into the basics of Luther’s rebellion against Rome, which we have already detailed, but more importantly, how the divisions and cracks appeared in the alternative to Catholicism, and how, obviously, they affected Ireland.

See, this is what I find so stupid about religion. Invent a new one and you can be guaranteed that of those who join up, some at least will have an issue with something within your religion. It might be a minor sticking point, or it might be a fundamental basic tenet, but nobody is going to agree with everything your religion stands for. And as invariably happens in such cases, the chances are they’ll start their own version, probably taking what they like from yours and leaving behind the things they don’t agree with.

Thus it was with Protestantism, originally called Lutheranism. It quickly split into… right. Hmmm.

It is indeed like a minefield out there. Ask about the divisions in Protestantism and you can get everything from Baptists and Quakers to Wesleyans and Methodists. But a lot of them are American-based, and as we’re only concerned here with Ireland and England - and to some lesser extent, Scotland, I’m going to try to concentrate on the branches that refer to or impact on them.

Lutheranism, is of course the granddaddy of them all, named for the man who started it, Martin Luther. Now the word Protestant of course refers to someone who protests against something, in this case the Church of Rome and the Pope, so I think it’s possible (though I’m open to being corrected) that you can equate the two. When Henry VIII decided to embrace Protestantism (Lutheran teachings) for his own political and personal benefits, and made himself head of the Church of England, the state religion was Anglican Protestantism (I assume that refers to its being English). From what I read - and my recent watching of the series The Tudors, which of course may be rife with historical inaccuracies but I think gets the religion part right - Anglicanism was basically a sort of “poor man’s Catholicism”, retaining many of the trappings, including mass, hymns, statues and recognition of the sacraments, while flatly and outright denying any authority from Rome over its church (the whole point, after all, of setting the damn thing up in the first place).

John Calvin, father of Calvinism

In Scotland you had Presbyterianism, from presbyter, or elder, which was and is the state church of the country. I’m unsure about the differences between it and Anglicanism, so I’m just going to drop this direct quote from Wiki in here, which may or may not clarify it. Presbyterian theology typically emphasizes the sovereignty of God, the authority of the Scriptures, and the necessity of grace through faith in Christ. Right. All nice and clear then. What about other offshoots from, as it were, the main tree? Well there’s also Calvinism, named for John Calvin, who started the whole thing off north of the border. Calvinism appears to be… the wellspring of Presbyterianism. D’oh! Now I’m totally confused.

Let’s see if we can sort this out. Basically Anglican Protestants - the Church of England - had (and presumably still have) fundamental differences of belief with the Church of Scotland, the Presbyterian Protestants, founded and based on Calvinism. Maybe it would be easier - if entirely simplistic, but I’m drownin’ here - to say that English Protestants (Anglicans) didn’t like and certainly did not concur with the beliefs of Scottish Protestants (Presbyterians). To return to our dilemma in Ulster then, the Scottish settlers there, all or mostly Presbyterians, would have been shunned and ridiculed by the ruling English Anglicans, and while not censured as harshly as the Catholics, would still have had their share of oppression from the English.

Something that does seem to have been a major sticking point between the two - Anglican Protestantism and Presbyterian Protestantism (try saying that after six pints!) - is fealty to the King of England. As Henry had established himself as the head of the Church of England, he demanded all “proper” Protestants recognise that. Scotland did not do this, of course, being a separate kingdom, and probably also disputing that any mortal could speak for God, be he King or Pope. I’m not entirely sure what or who Presbyterians saw as the supreme head of their church, but I think it may have been nobody less than God.

This refusal to accept Henry led to Calvinists, Presbyterians and others being labelled “dissenters”, for obvious reasons, and while they weren’t as persecuted or hated as Catholics, they were no friend to the Anglican Church, and no friend to Henry. So far as I know, even Lutherans - the original Protestants - were not welcome in England, and may even have been burned even after the establishment of the Church of England. With Henry VIII, as with English kings down through history, it was his way or no way.

Okay, well that as I say is putting it in puppets and diagrams style, simplifying it to the nth degree, and probably also wildly inaccurate, but it does at least explain why this happened.

Ulster Says No: Presbyterianism in the North

One fact was not in dispute, and that was that Presbyterians were descended mostly from Scottish settlers who came to Ulster, and to be honest, if there’s one thing an Englishman hates almost as much as an Irishman or a Frenchman it’s a Scot. So the descendants of Scots in Ulster were also hit by the draconian Penal Laws passed in the early seventeenth century. Not as hard as the Catholics, mind - they could sit in Parliament but could not hold office - but they too were banned from occupations such as the legal profession, the judiciary and the army, and while Ulster, once the holdout kingdom, would remain more or less fiercely loyal to the Crown following the Plantation, its inhabitants were nevertheless looked upon by the ruling Ascendancy as inferior.

Catholic as Charged: The Penal Laws (1607-1678/93 (technically 1829)

Penal of course means of the penis… no really, it refers to punishment and that is exactly what the Penal Laws passed over (some might say, and with good cause, pissed over) Ireland during the eighteenth century were supposed to be. They specifically set out to disenfranchise, punish and impoverish, both financially and intellectually as well as spiritually and morally, the hated Catholics of Ireland who had so long resisted English rule, and who were seen by the Crown as heretics and heathens. More to the point though, they were couched in such a way as to afford the best deals possible for the Protestant Ascendancy, the settlers from England and Scotland who had come over at the invitation of the English government to take lands from Irish chieftains and lords and colonise the country.

Although initially reluctant to damage their support base among English Catholics, particularly the old English landowners, the ascension to the throne of the fiercely Protestant James I and final victory over the Irish in the Nine Years War in 1603, and the events such as the Gunpowder Plot two years later, coupled with the Flight of the Earls in 1607 provided impetus for harsher treatment of Catholics, and Irish in general, and the first of the Penal Laws was passed in 1607, banning Catholics from holding public office or joining the army. Much worse was of course to come, and some of the laws have been discussed in the previous chapter, but other, tougher ones had yet to be passed.

After ruling that Catholics could not educate themselves or their children (or send the latter abroad to be educated), priests and bishops to be exiled and land confiscated from Irish Catholics in favour of Protestant settlers, the Popery Act of 1703 sought to change how Catholics could inherit land on the death of their father. Unlike English (Protestant) law, this Act ruled that the land must be divided up amongst all the sons of the late landowner. However, if the eldest son was to convert to the “true religion” he could then inherit the land for himself. Daughters, of course, had no rights either way, so if a man died with only female offspring, well, I don’t know what happened in those cases.

The Popery Act also forbade Catholics to hold public office, as mentioned above, and anyone holding public or military office other than Catholics had to swear an oath of denying transubstantiation, which as already mentioned is the process by which, according to Catholic belief, the wine and the host are changed into the literal body and blood of Our Lord at the mass. No Catholic was likely to deny the most sacred tenet of his religion, which effectively excluded him then from public office. Under the Popery Act, Catholic landholding, already at a minimal level of 25%, shrunk by a further 20% over the next seventy-five years.

This Act also attacked Presbyterians and other “nonconformist” Protestants, who were similarly commanded to make the declaration and, if they could not, had to step down from the post they held. This resulted in the resignation of hundreds of Presbyterians and Calvinists from their positions, thus leaving the jobs for loyal Anglicans to fill.

[I]Note: this should not be confused with an earlier, identically-named Act passed in 1698 (that one by the English Parliament, the above by the Irish) in which a bounty was placed on the head of all priests in England, people encouraged to spy on and betray, hunt and turn in any priest seen or suspected of “popish behaviour”, such as saying mass (or trying to), offering the sacrament or praying publicly, contrary to English law. Similar to the later Act passed in Ireland, Catholics were prohibited from being educated and owning land or holding public office.

Further note: Neither of the above should be confused with the Papist Act, passed in 1778, which we will come to in due course, and which was in fact a relaxing and relenting of the harsh and draconian laws levied on Catholics, seen as one of the first of what were known as Roman Catholic Relief Laws. Ironically, perhaps, this single Act would lead to unrest and riot in England, as the Catholics were seen to be getting treated with too much lenience. Oh, you English, you! [/I]

The other big one was the Disenfranchisement Act, passed in 1728, which did exactly what it said on the tin, disenfranchised Catholics by making it illegal for them to vote. In a chilling foreshadowing perhaps of the Third Reich two hundred years later, an Act was also passed forbidding the intermarriage of Catholics and Protestants, while Presbyterian marriages were not recognised by the state. Some of the laws were all but inhuman, such as the one which forbade Catholic families adopting orphans (I’m not sure if that only applied to Catholic orphans, though I would doubt it, because why would the English care?) and a particularly cruel one ruling that, should priests or other illegal persons be discovered in a village or town, and not reported by the inhabitants of that town, the reward given for capturing the fugitive would be levied on the people there. It sounds a little confusing, doesn’t it, so here’s the transcript from the Big W.

Any and all rewards not paid by the crown for alerting authorities of offences to be levied upon the Catholic populace within parish and county.
Teaching even in private homes of Catholics was also forbidden, leading to the famous idea of the “hedge school”, where usually priests and nuns would undertake to attempt to educate children out in the fields, perhaps as a way to defeat the spirit of the law by sticking to the letter of the law.

As for the king’s subjects, they had better not even think of converting (can’t imagine why any would of course) as there were very stiff penalties for such, including losing the king’s protection - essentially I guess leaving you in a “Purge”-like situation where anyone could do anything to you and the king’s law would not punish them, forfeiture of all lands and inheritance and imprisonment for a period of time to be decided by the king.

You can surely see the metaphor here of someone (English Crown and Parliament) using a long stick to push and hit the Irish Catholics, shoving them further and further back across an imaginary line marked “extinction”. The problem with that is the very stick you’re beating and pushing your opponent with can become your own undoing, when they grab it and hit you with it. After eight centuries of this treatment, while the Penal Laws would not prove the final straw that broke His Majesty’s back, he would find that stick turned on him, though it would be another two hundred years before he would have to take his lumps.

Outlaws, Robbers and Politicians: The Rise of the Tories

Anyone who hates the Conservatives will be grinning when I tell you that the word does indeed come from the old Irish for robber or outlaw, the word, tóraí, coming from the slightly shorter word tóir, meaning “pursuit”, as outlaws and robbers were chased or pursued men. Having its origins in the English Civil War, the Tory Party supported the then king Charles I, and opposed the attempts by Parliament to reduce him to a figurehead without any real power. Their efforts were thwarted however by the coup by Oliver Cromwell and the New Model Army, and they had to wait for the Restoration of 1660 when Charles II returned from exile in triumph to re-establish the monarchy. Ranged against them were the Whigs, Protestant agitators (many of whom had been part of Cromwell’s army) who began to accuse the king of endeavouring to undo the work of Henry VIII and return England to the Catholic faith. In this they were helped by the fact that the king’s brother, James Duke of York (who would succeed to the throne as James II on the death of his brother in 1685, though only for three years before being deposed and replaced by the Protestant William of Orange) was a Catholic.

Unable to politically attack the king directly, as to do so was an act of treason, The Whigs tried to implicate the top Tory, Count Redmond O’Hanlon in a supposed plot with the Earl of Ormonde, James FitzThomas Butler, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, to murder famous liar and forger Titus Oates (remember him?) but to no avail. Used as a derogatory term from 1681, the opponents to the Whigs were called Tories, and a leading nonconformist minister called Oliver Heywood likened the two factions to the old Roundheads (supporters of Cromwell and Parliament) and Cavaliers (those who took the side of the king) prevalent leading up to and during the English Civil War. It should not however be misconstrued that the Tories were any friend to the Catholics, as they supported the Church of England and approved of and advocated the continued suppression of both Catholics and nonconformist Protestants. Well, of course they did.

[Psmith]

@Trollheart

And as invariably happens in such cases, the chances are they’ll start their own version, probably taking what they like from yours and leaving behind the things they don’t agree with.

There was at least one chapel in every small village of my childhood and all different denominations.There’s none now of course.

[realspeed]

ammended post

[realspeed]

I have been to Northern Ireland to my own best mans wedding in Belfast back in 1971. Apart from the jokes one hears I found the Irish so nice . Even going down to a local pub no one would even let us buy our own beer. Did travel around and stood on the Giants Causway, went to Stormont government building and also to the docks to see the huge cranes called Samson and Goliath.
There was political unrest and where we stayed with the brides relatives the local newpaper factory/offices were blown up a couple of streets away, so a bit scary. Few months later the reception venue hotel got hit

[Trollheart]

Yeah, going to Belfast in the 70s seems to have been like heading into Syria wiht a big poster proclaiming Mohammed was a wanker or something. Very very dangerous. I recall my friend used to play in bands, and they toured Northern Ireland. Each night they would end the night by playing the national anthem appropriate to whether it was Republican or Loyalist. One night they were playing and completely forgot which area they were in, so they started playing “God Save the Queen”. Total angry silence and they knew they were in a nationalist Republican area. Smooth as silk - as Tony told it - guitarist slides into the Irish national anthem. Eruptions of applause: they thought the band were making fun of the Brits!

[Trollheart]

Yo Trollheart you numbnuts! Isn’t this supposed to be the story of Ireland? What’s with all the English history dude?

I hear ya. I do. But here’s the thing. Whether we like it or not (and we don’t, as a rule) the history of our country is inextricably tied up with that of England, Britain, or the United Kingdom - whatever you decide to call it. After all, were it not for the English, we would most likely have been left in peace to carry on with our lives. We’re not - never have been, never will be - a conquering race; we barely have an army, and what there is of it is usually on loan to the United Nations on peacekeeping duty in some godawful place, so we don’t exactly sit around maps of Europe, or anywhere else, greedily licking our lips and trying to figure out how we can get control of their resources, economy, politics or all three.

But first the Romans, then the Vikings, and finally the English pushed us to take up arms, so because the English have had such a huge impact on how our country developed (after all, we’re probably one of the only nations who doesn’t use their own national language) I feel it’s important that we keep abreast of the developments across the pond in parallel with Irish history. So who was on the throne at any given time, what their religious proclivities were (almost all of them were and continue to be Protestant Anglicans, but some were more tolerant towards Catholicism than others) and how they viewed Ireland is something we need to deal with. Some of the time, events not actually taking place in Ireland had a huge impact on our history, such as, as already related, the Great Fire of London, which pushed anti-Catholic sentiment to even higher levels, and the French Revolution of 1789.

So from time to time I will seem to veer off into something that could be mistaken for the History of England. It’s not. That’s a separate journal. It’s just that our history did not take place in a vacuum, and events around the world, from Rome to, obviously, London, had a profound effect on our development as a nation. So bear with me as we say hi to the newest arse on the English throne, though after five years of her reign that behind would be sitting on the throne of the newly-designated Great Britain.

Queen Anne (1665 - 1714)

Born, as you can see, one year before the aforementioned Great Fire, Anne was the daughter of James, Duke of York, brother of Charles II, who, as we already discussed, was a secret-though-not-so-secret Catholic, and as he was next in line for the throne, the English nobility feared he would return their country to the worship of Catholicism. Therefore, Charles instructed that his two nieces (the other being Mary, who married William of Orange and reigned jointly with him as Mary II, not to be confused with Bloody Mary) should be raised in the Anglican faith. Not entirely sure what say their father had in this, but it was the king’s will and so it was done. I suppose he couldn’t have really opposed his brother’s wishes, at least not in public, as he was trying to keep his Catholic leanings low-key, and would not want to add any truth to fears that his two daughters might also end up as Catholic monarchs.

At any rate, on the death of Mary William reigned alone after the Glorious Revolution in which his wife’s father was deposed and sent packing, and on his death, Anne succeeded her cousin to the English throne. To allay any fears, Anne had married Prince George of Denmark and Norway, a Lutheran, so there was little chance she was going to have any Catholic sympathies, and nineteen years after her marriage George became the royal consort, given the title Duke of Cumberland, and if anyone feared he might be an ambitious man, endeavour to control England from behind Anne’s throne, this statement he made would have put the issue to rest: God send me, he wrote, a quiet life somewhere, for I shall not be long able to bear this perpetual motion.

It was far from an idyllic marriage though. Blessed(!) with seventeen(!) children, Anne was to see none of them survive, as early in her marriage George caught smallpox (which she had already had, and which had prevented her attending the coronation of her sister) and became very sick, while their two young daughters died of the disease. Another child was stillborn, and this would continue to be the pattern through Anne’s life - children either died at birth, were miscarriages or lived barely long enough to be acknowledged as such. Twelve were stillborn, four died before the age of two years, with the final surviving child, Prince William of Gloucester, a potential heir to the throne, lasting eleven years, but still not old enough to claim his birthright. Historians and medical experts disagree on what he died from, but smallpox is one of the favoured theories, and given that Anne’s children had died of this disease, she had had it herself and so had George, it seems fair to assume that was the cause. In any case, it deprived England of its heir, leaving Anne childless at the age of thirty-five, an age thought beyond childbearing in those days. Indeed, she only lasted another fourteen years on the Earth after William’s passing. Severe gout, which caused her to gain weight and grow “corpulent”, necessitating her having to be carried or wheeled everywhere, coupled no doubt with the terrible stresses of so many pregnancies and losses, told against her and she died in 1714.

She had been, however, a popular monarch, despite being the daughter of the much-hated James, and on her coronation had this to say: "As I know my heart to be entirely English, I can very sincerely assure you there is not anything you can expect or desire from me which I shall not be ready to do for the happiness and prosperity of England.” Already afflicted with the gout which was to so trouble her and possibly shorten her life, she had to be carried to her coronation in a sedan chair. Less than two weeks after her accession to the throne, England became entangled in the War of Spanish Succession, which so far as I can see has no direct bearing on Irish history so will not be covered here. She was a patron of Handel and Newton, and greatly interested in the arts, theatre and music as well as poetry.


See you Jimmy! The Act of Union (1707)

Anne was the first English monarch to preside over four nations, when the Act of Union formally bound England, Ireland, Wales and the recalcitrant Scotland as the Kingdom of Great Britain, later the United Kingdom, giving her the quirk of reigning over England until 1707 and then all of Britain until her death in 1714.

And to understand this, I’m afraid we have to take yet another detour, this time to the north.

[Trollheart]

If there was a kingdom more staunchly opposed to English rule than Ireland, it was of course Scotland, and anyone who’s seen Braveheart knows the contempt the English kings held the “northern savages” in, and how the brave Scots refused to bow down. So why, after all that man did, after the hideous death he endured to try to ensure the independence of his nation, did Scotland bend the knee?

I’ll be damned if I know, and I’ve wondered, but I just bet you it has to do with coins clinking into hands. Let’s see if it was money that made the merger possible.

Highland Warriors: A Brief History of an Independent Scotland

There’s always been a very strong bond between the Irish and the Scots. We both originate from Celtic tribes, Gaels from Northern Europe who settled here around the time of the Roman Empire, and we retain many similarities both in our language and our culture. Scots call a nice thing braw, whereas we say brea, we call the English na sasenaigh, their name for them is sassenachs, and most of our names hinge on the paternal - son of; Mc or Mac (Mach, for son) or O, as in of - so MacDermott, O’Neill and so on. But if there’s one thing that’s common to both of us more than any other factor it’s our dislike of the English. Even now, call a Scotsman or woman English and you’re looking for a Glasgow kiss! You don’t want to know what that is, if you don’t already know.

Scotland, called in the time of the Romans, Caledonia, was originally inhabited by ancient tribes called the picti, or picts, but unlike the original Irish, whom the Celts defeated and supplanted in Ireland, the reverse seems to have occurred in Scotland, as the Picts attacked and destroyed the scotia town of Dal Riada. Converted first to Celtic Christianity by Irish missionaries and later to Roman Christianity by the mission mounted in the sixth century by Pope Gregory the Great to convert the Anglo-Saxons, the picts nevertheless became known as scoti, or scots, to the English, and their land forever named Scotland. The invasions by the Vikings though at the end of the eighth century forced the remaining Scoti (Gaels) to ally with the Picts to resist the Norsemen, and the Kingdom of Scotland was established.

That was in the ninth century, and as you might expect, the Scots spent the next three hundred years knocking seven shades of shite out of each other in struggles for the Scottish throne, till England’s Edward I decided he rather looked the like of it, and decided to pinch it for himself. Into the story of Scotland then of course strides William Wallace, portrayed by Mel Gibson (rather unrealistically and historically inaccurately, so I’m told) on the big screen, to fight for Scotland’s independence. It wouldn’t be the first or last fight the northern kingdom would engage in with its larger southern neighbour.

The Wars of Scottish Independence (note the usage of the plural there; the Scots didn’t admit defeat easily!)

Timeline: 1296 - 1357

As ever, blame the kids. Or rather, lack of them. When King Alexander III died he left only one heir, strictly speaking an heiress, his granddaughter Margaret, herself the scion of a mere fifteen year old king, Eric II of Norway. Being the daughter of Alexander’s daughter (also called Margaret - not very imaginative, these people!) and as the line of succession in Norway proceeded along strictly male lines, she was to inherit the Scottish throne if Margaret (the mother) did not produce any male heirs for Alexander. Margaret (for the sake of clarity and my sanity, we’ll refer to the young Margaret as she was known, the Maid of Norway, or for us, just the Maid) was the sister of Edward I, so there were some pretty strong ties to England there already.

When Margaret died in 1258, Alexander, having no male heir, thought to take a new wife, and settled on Yolanda of Dreux. To give him due credit, he waited ten years before marrying again. However a year later he was killed, breaking his neck. I don’t know under what circumstances, whether or not foul play was involved. What I do know is that his death threw the whole question of succession into turmoil, as Yolanda was by then pregnant, and six regents were chosen, called “the Guardians of Scotland” to hold the throne for whomever ended up being its rightful occupant. As it went, Yolanda’s child was stillborn, which left the Maid as the only legitimate claimant for the monarchy.

And so in due course King Eric’s envoy arrived in Scotland to claim the throne on behalf of the three-year old Maid, but ran into opposition when Robert Bruce (not Robert the Bruce; he was later) raised a rebellion against the decision. He was defeated though, but the situation was deemed too dangerous by Eric to send his daughter there, and he instead asked his father-in-law to arbitrate. Edward was only too happy to exert his power and influence over the choosing as to who would rule Scotland, and to nobody’s surprise ruled in favour of his grandniece. As he also retained the right to choose her husband, the Maid was promised to King Edward’s son, also called Edward, now to be King of Scotland, and with the signing of the Treaty of Salisbury in 1289 Margaret, Maid of Norway was agreed to be and confirmed as the heir to the throne of Scotland, while the Treaty of Birgham the following year enshrined Scotland’s independence as a separate kingdom from England.

Eric accordingly sent his granddaughter, now seven years old, to claim her right, but by the time she arrived in Orkney Island she was sick and soon died, her body being returned to Bergen for burial. No definite reason is given for her death, but hey, back then people seemed to die at the drop of a horned helmet, so could have been anything. Maybe someone poisoned her? Either way, all the work Edward and his ministers had done, all the wrangling and coming to a decision and the Treaty of Salisbury all came to nothing.

And then, all hell broke loose.

With no further legal claimants on the throne, no less than thirteen candidates stepped forward to duke it out, including one pretender who was burned at the stake for her pains. We’ll look at them all now, including her.

Unlucky for some? The Scramble for the Scottish Throne

Not much time to mourn the never-coronated new queen, as news of her death inspired an undignified power grab by anyone who believed they had a claim to the kingship of Scotland. They were:

With at least a legitimate claim

John Balliol: Descended almost directly in a bloodline from King William the Lion, Scotland’s longest-reigning monarch prior to the rule of James VI (who would later become James I of England - not the same James, Duke of York, who was brother to King Charles II), Balliol was the son of John, 5th Baron of Balliol and Dervorguilla of Galloway, granddaughter of David, Earl of Huntingdon, himself brother to William the Lion. As claims go, his was definitely the strongest.

Robert Bruce (de Bruis): He was also related to the great king’s brother David, through his mother Isobel of Huntingdon, making him David’s grandson. Bruce served as Regent of Scotland before King Alexander could take his place on the throne, and was the closest surviving male relative to the king. Named heir presumptive, he lost out on his chance when Alexander’s wife brought forth three children, seeing his last chance vanish when Margaret, Maid of Norway was brought over to take the throne, having been confirmed by Edward I as the legitimate heir. When Margaret died though, Bruce saw his chance and put his claim forward.

John Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings: The first claimant who was not Scottish but English, he was also a Welsh noble, but seems to have based his claim to the Scottish crown on his being a grandson of the daughter of David, Earl of Huntingdon.

Floris V, Count of Holland. He too claimed right to the throne through his great-grandmother Ada, daughter of David of Huntingdon.

John Comyn II of Badenoch: called “The Black”, he was one of the six regents of Scotland chosen to hold the throne for its rightful heir (which turned out to be the Maid of Norway and then on her untimely death descended into chaos). He claimed right through being descended from another Scottish King, Donald II, but his claim was sort of half-hearted, as he knew and expected his brother-in-law, John Baliol would be chosen.

Eric II of Norway: As father of the Maid, he certainly had a claim, but had neither the support nor the force of arms to push such a cause. It’s unlikely he really wanted it anyway, mourning for the death of his daughter, and he would die a mere nine years later anyway.

That takes care of the legitimate, or at least credible applicants. But of course, there will always be pretenders, chances, people-who-know-people and think that gives them the right and so on, so let’s check out the less likely claimants.

Less than a snowball’s chance

Nicholas de Soules: he claimed right to the throne on the basis of being the grandson of Marjorie of Scotland, illegitimate daughter to King Alexander II. He was also brother to one of the Guardians of Scotland.

Patrick Galithly: His claim was considerably more dubious, in that it relied on his being the grandson of a supposed illegitimate son of William the Lion. Yeah, that was never going to fly.

William de Ros: Nor was his claim, being based on his being the great-grandson of an alleged illegitimate daughter of William the Lion.

William de Vesci, Baron de Vesci: Relations to a bastard were also behind his claim, this to another illegitimate daughter of William the Lion, Margaret (yes, another one) whom he claimed to be his grandmother. He’s the only one with any Irish connection I can see, in that he founded the abbey in Kildare in 1260 for the Franciscans. Didn’t help his claim for the throne though.

Patrick Dunbar, Earl of Dunbar: Also claimed the right due to being a great-grandson of Ada, King William the Lion’s bastard daughter.

Richard de Mandeville: He claimed he was a great-great-grandson of yet another bastard daughter of William, this time Aufrica.

Sir Roger de Pinkeney, Baron de Pinkeney: His claim came from being a great-grandson of Marjorie of Scotland, like de Soules only a generation removed.

Norway is that going to work! The False Margaret

Technically, not a claimant for the Scottish throne, though I suppose she could have been seen as a late entry, had anyone fallen for it. Some did, but nobody of real consequence. Her name is Margaret, or at least that’s how history remembers her, her real name lost to time, and she is, as noted above, referred to as the False Margaret. Why? Well you remember Margaret, the Maid of Norway, and how she was supposed to have died on the way to claim her birthright at seven years old? Right, well, this one apparently appeared in Bergen 1301, eleven years after the Maid was supposed to have snuffed it, and coincidentally (or not really) two years after her dad, King Eric II of Norway, had followed her into the afterlife.

Claiming to be, wait for it, the Maid, not half as dead as people thought, she declared that she had been taken prisoner and sent to Germany where she had lived in secret. Now she was back, and she claimed her throne. While as I say some people fell for this, most remembered a rather important point - two, actually: the first being that the old king had personally identified the body of his daughter when it had been returned to Bergen, and while it might be true that many fathers don’t really know their daughters as well as they think, it’s a pretty safe bet that any of them could identify the corpse of their little darling, which is what a heartbroken Eric did.

The other point - perhaps more damning and making this attempt more laughable than your next-door neighbour casually confiding to you that he is in fact the risen Christ, and not a waster whose wife left him for the milkman six years ago - was her age. If the Maid had in fact survived, and not died in 1290, then by 1301 she would have been coming up to her seventeenth birthday, and while some women are lucky and don’t look their age (or are told they don’t), this Margaret was well in her forties. So unless the Maid had slipped through some sort of temporal wormhole and had been living a quiet existence in Narnia or Middlesex for nigh on thirty years, there was no way this woman could be who she claimed to be.

The king thought so, too. Haakon V, brother to Eric, dismissed her claims - which included accusations of treason by some of his court - and had her burned at the stake. Her husband, who had plotted with her, literally lost his head, though some accounts say he was burned alongside her. Rumours that she may have been used in a plot by Audun Hugleiksson, right hand to two different kings (though neither Eric nor Haakon), led to his execution a year later. He had already been imprisoned before the False Margaret landed in Norway, and it’s possible that had she been accepted as queen he would have expected to have been released. As it was, he was hanged.

Those who did believe Margaret was the Maid formed a martyr cult around her, and a church was built on the spot where she was burned, but later it was demolished.

The Great Cause

As often, almost always happens when there is more than one claimant to a throne, Darwin’s principles come into play and the fittest, or indeed fastest or most cunning or richest survive. Alliances are made, promises are given, inducements handed over, positions promised, and whoever has the biggest army can take the throne by force. This of course often does not go down well with the other hopefuls, and war, often civil war, can break out, and usually does.

And so it would have, as the claimant with the best chance of securing the throne, John Bailiol, drew powerful nobles, including the English Bishop of Durham, Antony Bek, who was Edward I’s representative in Scotland, and declared he was the king. “We’ll just see abou’ tha’!” shouted Robert Bruce, angrily, as he enlisted both the Earl of Mar and the Earl of Atholl to his cause, the two forces facing off against each other.

And of course, England, which has always been the peacemaker in such disputes, stepped in.

Well, not quite.

Fearing civil war, the Guardians of Scotland turned to Edward I to arbitrate. Everyone would have to listen to the king and abide by his decision, as most if not all retained substantial lands south of the border. Edward had long been annoyed that Scotland refused to acknowledge him as its overall king (even though he and his predecessors still styled themselves as “king/queen of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland” - words are cheap) and demanded that before he agree to mediate the dispute and help choose a king, the country must swear fealty to him. “Och awa’ wi’ ye!” they all said, or something similar, but a compromise was reached and Edward consented to sort the mess out. I suppose he thought that whichever king he chose, they would owe him gratitude for taking his side, gratitude he could capitalise on later if needed.

In the end it came down to four: John Bailiol, who was seen to have the strongest claim by the ancient right of primogeniture, Robert Bruce as the nearest blood kin, John Hastings who, though a descendant of David I, was an Englishman and therefore hardly eligible, even though he tried to argue Scotland was not a real kingdom (an odd stance to take, I would have thought, if you’re planning to rule the place!) and Floris V, who had some spurious claim that David I had ceded the right to rule as king to his brother William, but this was throne (sorry I mean thrown) out for lack of evidence. Edward chose Bailiol and made sure all the other claimants and the Guardians supported and agreed with his decision, and the Great Cause was settled.

Scotland had her new king.

[Trollheart]

Invasion!

It’s probably fair to say that nobody in Scotland actually trusted Edward, and that war with England could not have been too far from anyone’s mind, especially when the king, after having chosen the new ruler of his troublesome northern neighbour, started throwing his weight around: demanding cases be heard in England and not Scotland, summoning the king himself, John Bailiol, to court (he refused to go, sending his envoy instead, which must have spoken volumes). But Baliol, though a weak and ineffectual king (and possibly chosen by Edward for that very reason, where the fiery Bruce, who had nearly as strong a claim, might have made a more formidable opponent for him) knew Scotland could not hope to oppose the might of England alone, and so sought help.

Turning to England’s old enemy (no, not Ireland: what use would we have been to the Scots?) Balioli sent emissaries to King Phillipe IV of France, seeking a treaty, which was duly signed as the Treaty of Paris in 1296. Suffice to say, Edward was not amused and sent his armies to attack Scotland, mustering on the borders of Newcastle. They were met by a Scottish army headed by John Comyn (not the same one who had contested the crown, but his cousin) who took and burned Carlisle, but without siege engines had to leg it back across the border. Edward’s armies then crossed into Scotland and took Berwick, and the two armies finally met for battle at Dunbar in April 1296.

It was over in a matter of months. Roundly defeated at the so-called Battle of Dunbar, the Scots retreated and Edward advanced, taking Edinburgh and Stirling Castle (the latter of which had been abandoned), and by July John Bailiol had surrendered. Edward stripped him of his crown and had him and his nobles sent back to London to the Tower, Scotland completely under his heel now. He forced all the nobles and clergy to swear loyalty to him, and to reinforce the point that Scotland’s independence was at an end, took the famous Stone of Scone, which had been the location used for the coronation of the Scottish kings since the ninth century, back to Westminster, along with the other trappings of Scotland’s monarchy, the Black Rood of St. Margaret - said to have been a piece of the cross on which Jesus was crucified - and the Scottish Crown.

Invasion! - the Rematch: Brave Hearts and Broken Bones

Defeated but ready to rise again, Scotland simmered with anger at the treatment meted out to it by the English king, and as the country rose in open revolt against its English occupiers, two famous names were to be written in the annals of Scottish history. One we all know, the other perhaps not so much.

Andrew de Moray (died c. 1297)

The Moray dynasty was no stranger to independence; they even resisted joining the Scottish nation until the 12th century, when the Flemish noble, Freskin, to whom Andrew’s family traced their lineage, led an uprising on behalf of the king, David I, and took Moray for him. However resistance continued through the reign of successive kings, and it would not be broken until Alexander II brought events to a final - and fatal - excuse the pun, head. This was accomplished by having his soldiers take the infant heir to the throne of Moray and smash her head against the market-cross. Proof that Scottish kings could be just as brutal as English ones.

During the first Scottish War of Independence, Andrew rode with his father against Robert Bruce in Carlisle, in the army raised by John Comyn, wreaking havoc across the countryside when they could not get into the castle, killing and burning and pillaging, and all the sort of things you do when you can’t get into a castle and do all your killing there. But when the Scots were quickly defeated by the army of Edward I, Andrew’s father was taken prisoner and died in the Tower of London two years later, while he himself was held at the lower-security Chester Castle.

After defeating the Scots Edward was not exactly magnanimous in victory, imposing heavy taxes on the people, seizing castles and installing English lords to run the place. His plan to force Scottish men - including nobles - to fight in his armies in Flanders did not go down well, and resentment, already simmering, began to boil over. At the beginning of 1207 Andrew Moray escaped from Chester Castle and made his way back to Scotland, just as another rebel raised his flag against the English. You may have heard of him.

William Wallace (c. 1270 - 1305)

If Scotland was polytheistic instead of Christian, it’s pretty certain that WIlliam Wallace would rank high among its pantheon. As it is, he is known as one of Scotland’s greatest and most legendary heroes, and even if the movie Braveheart has taken some liberties with history and the truth, Wallace is certainly remembered as one of the country’s finest and most noble and loyal sons. Described as “a tall man with the body of a giant … with lengthy flanks … broad in the hips, with strong arms and legs … with all his limbs very strong and firm” and though historians differ on various aspects of his story, it is known that his first act of rebellion took place as Andrew Moray was making his escape from English captivity, the murder of the High Sherrif of Lanark, William de Heselrig, after which he joined William the Hardy, Lord of Douglas, to carry out the Raid of Scone, where they put the Justice of Scotland (appointed of course by Edward) William de Ormesby, to flight, and then set up base on Etthick Forest, in a sort of Scottish echo, perhaps, of another famous outlaw.

Wallace’s greatest triumph though undoubtedly was the Battle of Stirling Bridge, where he and the forces of Andrew Moray, who had joined up earlier, dealt the English a crippling blow.

The Battle of Stirling Bridge (September 11 1297)

Playing for time, the Earl of Surrey, who held Stirling Castle for Edward, sent emissaries, including two Dominican friars to negotiate with Wallace and Moray. He was concerned about the long narrow passage from the castle across the river which would put him at a disadvantage, facing a superior number of his enemies, and no doubt hoped for reinforcements. Wallace was unimpressed: “We are not here to make peace but to do battle to defend ourselves and liberate our kingdom. Let them come on and we shall prove this to their very beards.”

Can’t get much plainer spoken than that! Opting, for some reason, for a direct attack from across the bridge, rather than trying to outflank the Scots further upriver, as had been suggested to him, the Earl led as many of his men onto the bridge as would fit at once, but the Scots poured down from the hills onto the bridge and slaughtered them, cutting off any chance of reinforcements from the rear. Losing his nerve completely, the Earl ordered the bridge destroyed, and retreated, leaving Wallace and Moray victorious, though Moray had been mortally wounded and would die soon after.

Stirling Bridge nevertheless ranks as a huge achievement for the Scots, the first time their armies had taken on the English and not only won, but routed them utterly, and on their home soil. Wallace went on to lead an large scale invasion of England, through Northumbria and Cumberland, and Edward prepared to reciprocate.

Wallace, however, was no fool, and knew that despite his victories he could not hope to take on the full might of the English army, so his men avoided Edward’s troops, shadowing them and relying on falling morale to send the English back home as food supplies began to run out. Partially, this did work, as Edward had to put down a mutiny by his own men, mostly Welsh adventurers, but then received intelligence that Wallace was camped at Falkirk, waiting to harass his forces (but not expecting a full-on battle) and he rode to meet them. This time, things didn’t go so well for Braveheart.

The Battle of Falkirk (July 22 1298)

The terrain was not on the Scots’ side now, a flanking strategy preferred by Edward’s commanders who picked off the cavalry ranged behind their formations of schilltrons - tightly packed formations of men with spears and pikes - but could not make any further progress against the spear walls. However with their own archers picked off by the English, this left the schilltrons unprotected, with nowhere to run once the English arrows began falling, and as the lines of spearmen began to fall in numbers, opening gaps in the wall, the English cavalry charged in, wreaking havoc. Backed up by the infantry, it wasn’t long before they had slaughtered or routed all the Scots, and the day was Edward’s.

The problem appeared to be twofold: first, the Scottish had not been prepared for or expecting a battle, unlike at Stirling, where they had controlled everything, and second, the main military genius behind that previous victory is believed to have been Moray, who was dead by the time Falkirk was fought. Wallace, though an able commander when performing hit and run, guerilla-style raids, turned out not to be a strategically-minded man, and basically led his forces into a trap against overwhelming odds and with no real plan.

After Falkirk Wallace renounced the Guardianship of Scotland, conferred upon him when he had been made a knight of the realm after Stirling, and is believed to have travelled to France to look for assistance from the other old enemy of the English, with a possibility of also going to Rome, though this is not confirmed. He returned to Scotland in 1304, where he fought against the English for another year before finally being betrayed and delivered to the English king. Tried for high treason, he sneered that “I could never be a traitor to Edward as I was never his subject.” The king was not impressed, and ordered him to be hung, drawn and quartered at Smithfield. In case anyone for some reason doesn’t know that that entails (haven’t you seen Braveheart? They more or less got it spot on) here are all the gory details.

When hanging was too good for them - the awful price of treason

Reserved, so far as I know, for the capital offence of treason alone, hanging, drawing and quartering was perhaps the most gruesome, humiliating and painful death ever devised by man. Well, maybe crucifixion, but still - it gets you out in the fresh air, doesn’t it? Treason was probably the very worst crime a subject of the king or queen could commit, and so it was proportionately punished, both to ensure the miscreant died the worst death possible and to serve as a dire and stark warning to others who might be considering doing the same.

It all began (after, presumably, days of torture, whether for information, confession or just revenge is probably unimportant) with the criminal being dragged - sometimes on a board, sometimes just on a rope or chain - through the streets behind a horse to his or her place of execution. Obviously hardly the least comfortable of ways to travel, the prisoner would already be in pretty poor shape by the time he arrived at the gallows, at which point he would be strung up, hanged, but not in the traditional way. There would be no drop, no quick breaking of the neck, oh no. This was not hanging to kill - not yet - merely to hurt, cause panic, humiliate, terrify. And it was far from the worst of the punishment.

After a few minutes being choked on the end of a rope (as the audience cheered, spat, threw things and cursed at the criminal) he would be laid flat on the platform, his chest bared. A none too gentle incision would be made in his chest, something I guess like they do in a Caesarian section, except rather than draw forth a baby the executioner would draw forth the innards and guts of the man, which would be pulled out and burned before his - supposedly still alive and able to see - eyes, his,um, tackle cut off and burned too, his head then removed and his heart torn from his chest (not sure if that happened before or after the beheading, but given that he was supposed to witness the burning of his other organs, and that removal of the heart causes instant death, I’d say after). Finally, quite dead now, his body could be quartered.

This entailed chopping the body up into four parts, most often centring on the two legs and two arms, these often sent to places in the country where the criminal had been supported, lived, fought or which for some other reason had connection to him. His head would usually be placed on a spike atop London Bridge or the Tower of London, as a clear and visible and enduring (until it eventually fell apart or was picked clean by birds) warning of the terrible price to be paid by those who raised their hand against the monarch.

[Trollheart]

Back to King Edward and those pesky Scots though. While he had scored a major victory in defeating and breaking the armies of both Moray and Wallace, and having the latter pay the ultimate price for what he saw as treason, Edward’s campaign in Scotland did not go to plan, and in the end the Pope commanded him to withdraw, and he did. For now. But he was back in 1301, this time with his son. Again, he failed to conquer the country and sodded off back to England, declaring a nine-month truce as the following year began.

Robert (the) Bruce (1274 - 1329)

The next Scottish patriot to rise against the king was arguably the most well-known, other than perhaps Rob Roy, and in no small part as he also features in the movie Braveheart. After Wallace resigned the Guardianship of Scotland following his defeat at Falkirk, Bruce held it jointly with John Comyn, though the two men did not see eye to eye. Descended in an unbroken line from the Scottish King David I, Bruce had been (as already related) one of the claimants for the crown on the death of the Maid of Norway, which led to Scotland’s Great Cause, but though his claim had been one of the strongest he was passed over in favour of John Bailiol. He then initially fought on the side of King Edward, holding Carlisle Castle when John Comyn and his men attacked it just prior to Edward’s first invasion of Scotland. When Scotland rose up in the face of the harsh treatment and lack of respect the king paid them, Bruce switched sides and rode against Edward.

At Irvine he had his men drawn up for battle against Henry de Percy, grandson of the Warden of Scotland appointed by Edward, but dissension and in-fighting among the Scots led to their capitulation, and while William Wallace was busy raiding Scone, his supposed ally Bruce was swearing fealty once again to Edward. But while Bruce was at the English court word came to the king that John Bailiol had made a deal with him to abdicate the throne of Scotland in Bruce’s favour, and he ordered Bruce be arrested. Bruce, however, forewarned, hauled ass back to Scotland, where he prepared for war against his old master.

When Bruce found out that Comyn had reneged on the deal, that it was in fact he who had spilled the beans to Edward, he confronted him in the Abbey of Greyfriars and stabbed him. Some accounts say his supporters finished the king off, others that knights loyal to Bruce returned to the chapel, Comyn only having been wounded, and “made sure”. Either way, the king was dead, long live the king, and Bruce claimed the throne he believed he should have had in the first place. For breaking the sanctity of the church and spilling blood in the holy place, Bruce was excommunicated.

King Robert Bruce - Heavy Hangs the Head

The new king’s reign did not start off on the best footing. He had to be crowned twice, as the wife of John Comyn (not the one Bruce murdered, another one - between that many Andrews and Roberts and Johns, you’d wonder how any Scot ever knew who was being addressed!) claimed the right to crown Robert for her young brother, the Earl of Fife, who was a prisoner of the English. Yeah I know: I don’t get it either. But even though he ended up having two coronations, Robert couldn’t have missed the very glaring fact that he would have been the first Scottish king not to be able to sit on the Stone of Scone as the crown was placed on his head, Edward having half-inched it and trotted off merrily back to England where it was kept under, presumably, lock and key.

Chivalry is dead - and so are you: The Battle of Methven

He lost his first battle against the English king, at the Battle of Methven when he faced the new Lord Lieutenant of Scotland, the Earl of Pembroke, Aymer de Valance. His boss, fed up with the annoying Scots resisting his power, gave the earl orders to spare nobody, take no prisoners, show no mercy. Unaware of this order, I guess, Robert the Bruce offered to meet de Valance in single combat, but the earl shouted back “can’t manage it today, old bean. Bit too late for me. Let me check my diary: oh yes, indeed, splendid. I can fit you in the morning, how’s that?” I suppose the exact dialogue went somewhat differently, but you get the picture. “Fair doos,” responded the new Scottish king, agreeing. “I’ll see ye in the morn then ye sassenach!”

Little did he know though that de Valance cared little about his chivalric behaviour, and when the Bruce and his men bedded down for the night, they had a nasty visit from the English, who fell upon them in their jammies, possibly, and soon put the Bruce and any of his men who could manage to get away to flight, the rest I suppose killed, as per the orders from the king. Worse was to follow for the harried king though, as his hated enemy - or at least, an ally of same - was waiting for him as he made his escape. What took place could very well have ended the reign of Robert the Bruce, and nearly did.

The Battle of Dalrigh: Caught between a loch and a hard place

Alexander MacDougall, head of the MacDougall clan and descended from Somerled, the First King of the Isles and Lord of the Hebrides, was related by marriage to John Bailiol, the deposed king of Scotland chosen by Edward I, and his cousin, John Comyn. Having naturally taken the side of Bailiol and Comyn, the MacDougalls lost everything when the former was killed by Robert the Bruce and he, Bruce, was crowned king. MacDougall, therefore, was only waiting for his chance to avenge himself on the man he saw as the usurper, and that chance came directly after the Battle of Methven, as the remnants of Bruce’s army - said to number no more than 500, including women and older people who were hardly in a condition to fight - ran into an ambush led by his son John (oh yes god damn it, another one!) which he had laid with his over 1000 men.

Battle was joined but very one-sided, the king reported at one point to be personally fighting alone almost literally between a rock and a hard place - stuck in a narrow passage between a loch (lake) and a hill, and there was a very good chance he could have fallen, which would have changed Scottish history considerably. Against a superior force, unprepared and unable to use his trick of making the terrain work for him, as MacDougall knew it as well as he did, he was quickly routed. He did survive, but as a fighting force his army was over and done with.

Some short time later members of Bruce’s family were captured, and other than the women, all killed. Some respite was on the horizon for the outlaw Scottish king though, as in July of 1307 Edward finally died, though his campaign was carried on by his son, Prince Edward, now Edward II. Another link with Ireland suggests the possibility that Bruce went into hiding here, as he waited for a chance to strike back at the king, though there are other places it’s agreed he could also have taken shelter.

In spring Bruce returned to Scotland, now mostly under English control or held by nobles hostile to him, and scored a minor victory when, at the Battle of Glen Trool, he had his men loosen boulders at the top of a hill and, Wile E. Coyote-like, rain them down on the approaching English soldiers, killing most of them. It was his old adversary, Aymer de Valence, who led them, and he was to meet him again in battle when they clashed at Loudon Hill. Unlike his contemporary Wallace, and like Andrew Moray, Bruce had learned an important lesson waging his guerilla war against the English, and that was that he who knew and could use the terrain to his best advantage was more likely to win, even if the numbers were against him. De Valence had not known about the loose boulders at the top of Glen Trool, and this had been his undoing. His lack of knowledge about Loudon Hill, and the digging by Bruce of three large trenches to focus the earl into approaching his enemy in single file was another way of turning his familiarity with the land to his advantage, and again he won the day, though de Valence escaped.

It’s a Scottish thing - ye wouldnae unnerstan’ - The Defeat of John Comyn (another one)

When Edward II had to return across the border to deal with domestic issues at home, Bruce rampaged through Scotland, scoring some victories, but his main aim was to end the feud between his family and that of the Comyns. He had no intention though of burying the hatchet, anywhere other than in Comyn’s head, that is. You’ll remember that Bruce killed another John Comyn in the Greyfriars Chapel, an action for which he was excommunicated. Since then, not surprisingly, the Comyns and the Bruces, and the allies of each, had been at war within the Scottish kingdom, and finally one of the cousins of the slain ex-king and the now-fugitive king met at Inverurie to settle the matter once and for all.

The Battle of Inverurie

A strange one, this. It seems that all that harrying, dodging, sneaking, attacking and retreating had taken its toll on poor King Robert the Bruce, and he got very sick. It doesn’t say what he suffered from, but maybe nervous exhaustion? Who knows? But the point is that at the time of this battle he was being ferried around by his men on a kind of litter, unable to walk or ride a horse. The news of this had spread, and had given Comyn’s men heart, so when the king struggled out of bed and onto a horse in order to face his old enemy, it seems Comyn’s army just, well, got scared and all ran off. Seems odd I know, but that’s what the account says. Comyn escaped but had to flee to England, where he died later that year, removing the power of the Comyns from Scotland and providing Robert the Bruce with a powerful and telling victory.

Scotland’s Shame: The Harrying of Buchan

In the wake of Comyn’s defeat he flew to his stronghold, Fyvie Castle, but it was well defended and Bruce did not intend to waste time and men laying siege to it. However there is nothing quite so dangerous as a vengeful king, other than a woman who has been told that her bum does indeed look big in that, and so Bruce took his anger at Comyn out on his people, burning villages, killing cattle and livestock, slaughtering men, women and children and basically giving the people of Buchan a taste of what Oliver Cromwell would dish out in Drogheda three hundred years later.

Technically, of course, he didn’t do it: he was too sick, despite his show of bravery at the battle, but he ordered his brother Edward (again, not too much in the way of originality about the choosing of names here -at one point, Edward could have been said to have been fighting against the combined forces of Edward and Edward!) to carry out his wishes, and so he did. For months the countryside was laid waste to, people harassed and harried, presumably a lot of the old rape and pillage taking place, and castles were “reduced”, whatever that means. Reduced to rubble? Reduced in size? Reduced to having to swear fealty to Robert? Reduced in power? Who knows? One thing is certain though: it was not good for those who held those castles.

The flight of Comyn and the resultant destruction of his lands by the raging king’s brother served to rob Bruce’s ex-rival of any loyalty he had in the area. It took thirty years before John Comyn’s successor, Henry Beaumont, stuck his nose into the area and he withdrew it again pretty quickly when he was attacked, legging it to England where he popped his clogs, no doubt lamenting the loss of Buchan to the Bruces, in 1340. His own son, John (yeah, yet another one!) had the good sense to back away, hands raised and say “Nah, nah, you’re all right there mate. Don’t want it thanks all the same” when offered the earldom. Nobody of the Comyn line wanted Buchan, and Buchan did not want them. A century of Comyn rule was over.

Bruce now turned his vengeance on the MacDougalls, allies of his hated enemy.

Hell’s coming five paces behind me: The Battle of the Pass of Brander

Having destroyed the power of the Comyns in Scotland forever, Bruce started mopping up their supporters, and first on his list was the MacDougall clan. He had not forgotten what he must surely have seen as the shameful attack on a tiny force composed of old men and women, at the Battle of Dalrigh - and more importantly, perhaps, his own ignominious flight from there into hiding, and he meant to pay them back in spades, or whatever phrase Scots use instead of spades. This time he was an unstoppable force, not only marching with legions of soldiers but also commanding galleys which sailed up Loch Linne, and though his old adversary was too sick to fight at this time, Alexander MacDougall’s son, John, who had dealt Robert such a crippling blow at Dalrigh, stood ready to take him on.

They were hopelessly outnumbered though, and demoralised by the size of the force facing them, and when Sir James Douglas (known as Black Douglas), one of Bruce’s chief commanders and most loyal supporters led a force of archers high up onto Ben Cruachan, the highest mountain in Argyll, the MacDougalls’ cause was doomed. John escaped in a galley while Alexander had no alternative but to swear loyalty to Bruce, though he later fled to England, where he died in 1310.

With the defeat of the MacDougalls Bruce’s power in Scotland was uncontested, all his enemies slain, fled or forced to pledge their fealty to him. In a quite amazing feat of military prowess, Robert the Bruce had, in two short years, gone from being a fugitive outlaw king in name only to making himself the undisputed ruler of Scotland, the most powerful man in the country.

But England awaited…

[Trollheart]

Invasion! III - Like Father, Like Son

By 1314 Robert the Bruce had achieved what no previous Scottish king in recent memory had, by uniting - or forcing to bend the knee - all of Scotland under his rule. In a triumphant echo of the victory - only victory really - of William Wallace some years earlier, he besieged Stirling Castle. This fortress was important not only for tradition, having been the site of the first and really only major defeat of the English army, but strategically too, as it controlled access to Scotland from over the border. Outnumbered, the garrison there were told that if they were not relieved by midsummer they must surrender. This was of course a direct provocation to the new king, son of Edward I, and accordingly Edward II began mustering troops for yet another invasion, the largest Scotland had ever seen.

On the face of it, Bruce was facing disaster. Although a weaker king than his father, Edward had learned the hard lesson that the Scottish leaders, from Moray and Wallace to Bruce himself, had, which was that the land determined the fighting strategy. As King Henry V had shown the French at Agincourt, not much point having heavily armoured mounted men trying to charge across boggy, marshy ground. So Edward knew that the Scots would make use of the bogs in the north around Stirling, and briefed his men accordingly. The army heading north, although smaller than the king would have liked (many promised infantry had not turned up, no reason given) was still about twice as large as the combined forces of Robert the Bruce.

Sins of the Father: The Battle of Bannockburn (1314)

The two armies clashed at a point which has been named Bannockburn, but may be somewhere else (the trouble with these medieval battles, apparently, is separating the truth from the propaganda and determining the facts, which is not always possible) and Robert the Bruce faced off in single combat with Henry de Bruhan, nephew of one of the two commanders of the force, the Earl of Hereford. As they rushed at each other on horseback, Bruce swung out his axe and split the head of his enemy. Shocked at this unexpected and high-value loss, the English scattered when the Scots attacked.

The second English force was led by Henry de Beaumont (remember him?) and the 1st Baron of Clifford, and was attacked by the Earl of Moray, Thomas Randolph. No doubt wishing to avenge himself on Bruce for his having lost his ancestral lands in Buchan, de Beaumont tried to lure Moray in, but a hot-headed youngster in his ranks, spurred to action, did a Leroy Jenkins and charged into the thick of the Scots, killing his horse on their pikes and getting himself captured, while the rest of the army was routed by Moray.

And so ended day one of the battle.

During the night the English had crossed over the Bannockburn, but were betrayed by a Scottish knight who had been fighting on the English side. He encouraged Bruce to attack, that English morale was low. “If it’s tha’ low,” Bruce reportedly did not say, “it will wait till the mornin’. Ah’m fer bed.” But as true as his word, the next morning the king led his forces against the English, who were already, indeed, very depressed, so much so that they were fighting among each other, the Earl of Hereford accusing the Earl of Gloucester of cowardice for his suggestion the battle might be postponed. “I’ll show you who’s a coward!” snorted the Earl (of Gloucester) and so he did, riding right into the thick of the Scots. Unfortunately, his men seemed to agree with Shakespeare about the better part of valour and stayed behind, and the Earl was surrounded and killed.

Morale wasn’t going to improve much after that.

Bruce’s men advanced with their schilltrons, Edward’s archers were asked if they would mind awfully if they could stop shooting, as their arrows were killing their own men. They soon had worse things to worry about, as five hundred Scottish cavalry descended upon them, and as the English were pushed back to the Bannockburn, Aymer de Valence (yes him again) and another knight called D’Argentan (sounds suspiciously like D’Artagnan doesn’t he?) led the king to safety. Our man D’Argentan however decided death was better than dishonour and once the king was safe he headed back to the battle, where he quickly found out he was wrong. De Valence, by contrast, lived to a ripe old age, finally dropping dead in France ten years later.

Once the army saw their king running, the retreat became a rout and as they went on their way they were even attacked by ordinary folk, who no doubt sensed victory in the air for their king. Estimates of Edward’s losses vary, but it’s agreed very few of his troops made it home, and Bruce’s army sustained extremely low losses. It was, without question, the greatest victory Scotland had ever managed over the hated English, and it established Robert the Bruce forever as a legend and a hero in Scotland. Nobody, not even the English king, could now doubt or bring into question or challenge his right to rule Scotland.

But for this tough Scottish king, one kingdom would not be enough.

Invasion! IV - You’ll Never Beat the Irish

So much for solidarity among Celts, then. So much for that scene in Braveheart where the Irish soldiers brought to Scotland with Edward I refuse to fight for the English king and instead join up with William Wallace! Hollywood hokum, eh?

Well, let’s not be too hasty.

As I said way back at the beginning of this section, when we diverged from the history of Ireland into that of Scotland, the two have been strongly linked for centuries, and each feels a kinship to the other. I’m sure there was the usual enmity between Scots and Irish that you get with all red-blooded warrior races, but other than those who might have fought on the side of other countries - even England - against Ireland, I don’t see evidence for any dislike between the two, or any real reason to make war upon, or try to conquer one another. The Irish didn’t covet Scotland (or anywhere; happy to stay at home, we were, once we were left alone) nor did the Scottish yearn to possess Ireland.

So why did Robert the Bruce decide to invade our island?

For the answer, or one or two possible ones, it’s necessary to remember that we’re talking about an Ireland occupied by the English here, basically an outpost of the kingdom of England. Robert would have considered invading Ireland a way of making himself a further thorn in the side of Edward II and maybe drawing him out. He would also have seen it as a way of cutting off part of the king’s powerbase, by denying him Ireland as a staging point, training ground or supply point for his troops. Cutting off the revenue stream from Ireland for King Edward too, through taxation of the Irish, would help to weaken the English cause. Forcing Edward to fight him on two fronts would not be something the English king would want, and would strengthen Robert’s hand.

Added to this was the vision of a grand Gaelic alliance, possibly to even include the Welsh, fellow Celts who had no love for the English, with the King of Tyrone, Domnall mac Brian Ó Néill asking Robert for aid against the Normans plaguing his kingdom, and Robert agreeing on the condition that Ó Néill recognise him as King of Ireland.

Though ordered by Robert, it was in fact his brother Edward (oh god damn these unoriginal parents and their naming their sons after themselves!) who led the invasion on his behalf. He landed in Larne (Northern Ireland/Ulster) in May 1315 and gave battle with the Earl of Ulster, but under Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, they were victorious and took the town of Carrickfergus. In June Ó Néill and ten other Irish lords met Edward and pronounced him King of Ireland, swearing their loyalty to him. Though two of them quickly reneged, trying to ambush him at the Moiry Pass, the gateway to the south, but they were both defeated and Edward marched on to take Dundalk.

Sadly County Louth bore witness to a massacre, as it would again in three centuries when Cromwell would annihilate the town of Drogheda. Here, Edward’s men indiscriminately killed everyone in Dundalk, whether they were Irish or English. Although made aware of the seriousness of the situation as Bruce marched further south, taking all in his path and defeating English lord after English lord, Edward II dithered and really did nothing, probably not too bothered about Ireland when he had other things to occupy his attention. Burning, pillaging and killing as they went, Bruce’s army tore through Ireland, but when they looked to Rome for support the Pope was not interested - he was staying well out of it!