Four Green Fields: Trollheart's History of Ireland

[Trollheart]

Meanwhile, back in Ireland...



The usual rivalries had been going on since Cromwell's death and the collapse of the Commonwealth in Ireland, and they seized this and declared that, and fought among themselves, trying to establish the right of Charles in Ireland, even inviting him to invade the country, but the exiled king was more interested in regaining his father's throne first. On doing so, and being established as King of England, Charles was unanimously proclaimed King of Ireland and the commonwealth parliamentary union dissolved by the king. Initially he allowed religious toleration, however Catholics in general were not returned the land stolen from them and given to Protestant settlers under Cromwell; some were, but on balance only about twenty percent of the lands were returned to Catholic hands.


The War of the Two Kings: (1688 - 1691)

The reign of James II did not last long. Three years after his accession on the death of his brother, he was deposed and England was once again a Protestant monarchy, and has remained so ever since. His dissolution of Parliament when they refused to pass new tolerance laws aimed at Catholics, and the birth of his own son, a Catholic and now heir to the English throne, barring his daughter Mary, a Protestant, from the succession, led to what is known to history as The Glorious Revolution. Mary ascended the throne as Mary II, ruling jointly with her husband, William of Orange. James, defeated in battle, his army scattered, fled to France.

He landed in Ireland in 1688 with French backing and attacked Ulster, where the majority of Protestants lived. Jacobite* commander Richard Hamilton secured eastern Ulster while a rising in Scotland helped James' cause, and while King William preferred to tackle the Irish invasion at its source - France - he was convinced to commit troops so as not to be seen to be abandoning the Irish Protestants in Ulster. The siege of Derry, which had been going on since April, was broken by William's forces in July, and the death of Viscount Dundee, who had raised the Jacobite forces in Scotland, further weakened James' position, as the war began to swing against him. The final blow that loosed the Jacobite hold on Ulster was the battle of Newtownbutler, where James' forces  failed to take Enniskillen.

Pushed back to Dundalk by the newly-arrived Duke of Schomberg, who took Carrickfergus at the end of August, James holed up there while the battle stalled for the winter. With little resources to rely upon in piss-poor Ireland, supplies had to be shipped in and this was not made any easier by the inexperience of Schomberg's agent, leaving his men virtually to starve after six thousand had died from disease, and leading John Stevens, an English Catholic serving in the Grand Prior Regiment to remark, on surveying the abandoned camp later  "besides the infinite number of graves a vast number of dead bodies was found there unburied, and not a few yet breathing but almost devoured with lice and other vermin. This spectacle not a little astonished such of our men as ventured in amongst them."

As the war entered its second year, the usual rivalries and differences surfaced in the Irish Parliament between the Old Irish, who wanted the lands back which had been confiscated from them by Cromwell, and those under Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnell and Lord Deputy of Ireland, who were in the minority of those who had benefited from the land transfer. These latter, seeing the war dragging on and not turning in their favour, suggested a compromise with William, but the Old Irish, wanting Irish autonomy, were against this. The French, though willing to commit troops to James' cause, only supplied enough to allow him to fight the war, not win it, as keeping William busy meant that his eyes were diverted from France. In other words, as long as the English King was fighting the man who wanted to take (or re-take) his throne, he would not have time to consider invading or making war upon the old enemy.

Not that the French and Irish got on at all, despite both being fiercely Catholic and fiercely anti-English. No, indeed. The Irish hated the French, especially the suggestion of their envoy Jean-Antone de Mesmes, known as d'Avaux, that James retreat to the Shannon in County Clare and destroy everything in between as they went, including the capital of Dublin. For his part, d'Avaux had nothing but contempt for the Irish, confiding to his successor that they were  'a poor-spirited and cowardly people, whose soldiers never fight and whose officers will never obey orders." Oi! C-C-comeover heren' say tha', ye froggie bastad!

* Followers of James II were called Jacobites, don't ask me why.

The Battle of the Boyne (July 11 1690)

Perhaps one of the most famous battles in Irish history, the Battle of the Boyne was the turning point of the war, at least as far as James personally was concerned, the defeat from which he never recovered. William's army of about 36,000 was made up of soldiers from many different nations, perhaps what might be called today a coalition, while James had about 23,000, mostly French and Irish, with some Scottish and a few English. William's troops, though his army had only been recently put together and so had seen little action, were better equipped and drilled than those of his enemy, possessing the newest flintlock muskets, and while James's Jacobite cavalry were a fine fighting force, his infantry was largely made up of Irish peasants, who had little to no fighting experience and often were armed with scythes and pitchforks.

William made his way from his victory at Carrickfergus south towards Dublin, but was stopped by James' forces about thirty miles from the capital, at the River Boyne. Control of the ford on the river would allow them access to the road to Dublin, so William sent a diversionary squad to cross the river at Roughgrange, little realising that there was a deep swampy ravine there, and when James' forces intercepted them, neither could get at the other and had to leave it to the artillery to fight. So move, countermove, volley, slash, attack, pincer blah blah blah and eventually William won the day. James legged it back to France, enraging the Irish who had fought for him, and continued to fight on in his presence. William rode triumphantly to Dublin, and issued the Declaration of Finglas, which offered amnesty to any ordinary Jacobite soldiers, as long as they surrendered by a given date, but excluded their leaders.

The Twelfth

Ever since the founding of the Protestant Orange Order in 1752, William's victory at the Boyne has been celebrated and commemorated on July 12 in Ulster. As the route through which their commemoration march passes goes through Republican areas, tensions have flared and violence erupted historically as nationalists consider the Orangemen to be provoking them by crowing over their victory. The Twelfth was, for a long time, a nexus for unrest, protest and violence in Northern Ireland, especially during The Troubles.

James may have given up the fight, but the Irish still had much at stake and much reason to hate William (though they also now hated James, who they viewed as a despicable coward) and they continued to struggle against the armies of the victorious king of England. Having withdrawn to Limerick, the port which controlled access to Ireland from the south, the Jacobites (if you can call them such; no longer fighting for James but for themselves they probably should just be referred to as the Irish) awaited an assault on the city, knowing William would have to attempt to take it, as he did, in late July. More or less in charge was this fella.


Patrick Sarsfield (1655 - 1693)

An Irish soldier who fought in the Franco-Dutch War and in the Rhineland, Sarsfield was, like all Catholics in England, banned from being in the military after the Popish Plot and the subsequent Test Act. When James came to power though his rights were re-established and he fought for him in the War of the Two Kings in Ireland. He must have been highly regarded, because even d'Avaux (remember him?) who had been so scathing in his comments on the Irish soldiery, remarked that though he was  "not...of noble birth [...], (he) has distinguished himself by his ability, and (his) reputation in this kingdom is greater than that of any man I know [...] He is brave, but above all has a sense of honour and integrity in all that he does". Oddly enough, the king disagreed, calling Sarsfield "brave, but very scantily supplied with brains."

When James returned to France after the Battle of the Boyne, leaving Tyrconnell in charge, the Earl wanted to sue for peace, heading the Peace Party, but Sarsfield, in opposition and flying the flag for Ireland as head of the War Party, vowed to fight on. Sarsfield attacked William's artillery at Ballyneety, breaking the Siege of Limerick, and holding Athlone, though losing Kinsale and Cork, two important ports. When Tyrconnell went to France Sarsfield took advantage of his absence to arrest several of the members of his Peace Party, and went over James's head to ask King Louis XIV of France for aid against William. He also requested Tyrconnell's removal, making himself commander of the Irish forces.

His nemesis returned from France bearing letters making Sarsfield Earl of Lucan, and a large French contingent arrived soon afterwards (though whether this was due to his request of the king or Tyrconnell's representations in person I don't know) though most of these - over 7,000 - would die at the decisive battle of the war, The Battle of Aughrim, in July. He sued for peace soon after, Tyrconnelll dying of a stroke, and was allowed, under the terms of the Treaty of Limerick, to leave for France along with about 14,000 other soldiers, to serve in the French military.

The Battle of Aughrim (July 22 1691)

(Don't these guys all look the same? This is actually Godert de Ginkel, though to be honest he could be yer man Sarsfield above, couldn't he?)

Seeking to bring an end to the three-year war, and establish once and for all the dominion of King William and smash Catholic power forever in Ireland- and, more importantly to him, deny the French a base from which to launch attacks both at England and Holland - Godert de Ginkel, William's commanding officer in Ireland, defeated the French Charles Chalmot de Saint-Ruhe, in charge of the Irish forces, at Athlone and pushed him back towards Limerick. At Aughrim in County Galway Saint-Ruhe decided to make his stand.

The Frenchman used the terrain very much to his advantage, placing his armies where they were protected by bogs on either side, woodland and hills, all of which helped the Jacobites to make significant gains in the battle, as the Williamites struggled in waist-deep water and got stuck - and many drowned - in the bogs. Rather hilariously - or is it tragically? No, definitely hilariously - the Jacobite defence collapsed as Saint-Ruhe, overjoyed by the seeming route of the Williamites, charged across the battlefield roaring "They are running! We will chase them back to the gates of Dublin!" and promptly had his head knocked off by a cannonball! Ah, the whims and chances of war, eh?

With their commander no longer possessing a head, the demoralised Irish were soon defeated though Sarsfield tried to engage in a rearguard action. Pushed by the Williamites up the hill of Killcommandan, the Irish infantry were slaughtered in their thousands, stark evidence of how the loss of a commander can turn the tide of battle quickly. The Jacobites lost thousands of men, including some of their best commanders, and the resistance against William was broken and defeated forever. An observer with the victorious army, with the curiously appropriate name of George Story, had this to say afterwards: "from the top of the Hill where [the Jacobite] Camp had been," the bodies "looked like a great Flock of Sheep, scattered up and down the Countrey for almost four Miles round."

The English dead were buried, but the Irish were left where they fell, their bones scattered across the battlefield, to remain there for years to come. They were left to ravens and wild dogs, some of which of the latter became so fierce that they constituted a hazard to people passing that way. A rather touchingly tragic story is told by the English author John Dunton, of a greyhound who, his master slain at the battle, remained with his corpse, guarding it until shot by a passing soldier the next January.

The Siege of Limerick and the End of the War: The Wild Geese Fly

Sarsfield retreated to Limerick after losing the Battle of Aughrim, and while Galway surrendered soon after the battle, Limerick held out for a while longer. When Irish troops defending the Bridge at Thomond were pushed back by Ginkel's forces towards Limerick city, the French, displaying the enmity they had harboured for the Irish all along, refused to open the gates and let them be slaughtered outside. Furious at this treatment of Irishmen, Sarsfield took over command of the city from the French and began negotiations for peace. Under the Treaty of Limerick he was allowed to leave for France, along with about 19,000 others, in an exodus that became known as the Flight of the Wild Geese. Other assurances, particularly with regard to tolerance for Catholics and the possession of their lands, were overturned, or just ignored by the Protestant Irish Parliament, ensuring Catholics remained second-class citizens in English-occupied Ireland for another two centuries.

The Act for the Abrogating the Oath of Supremacy in Ireland and Appointing Other Oaths, passed in 1691, prevented Catholics from holding any office, as it demanded that they deny transubstantiation, the Catholic belief in the Holy Host actually becoming the Body of Christ during Mass. This being one of the principle tenets of Catholicism, but not held by Protestantism, meant no Catholic would swear such an oath, and so was unable to, for instance, practice law or take a seat in parliament. The Disarming Act of 1695 went further, banning Catholics from owning a weapon or a horse (worth more than five pounds) while a second bill, passed that same year, refused Catholics permission to have their children educated abroad. Exempted from these Acts and bills were those who were covered by the Treaty, though of course by now they had all fled to France, so the matter was somewhat redundant.

The victory of William of Orange, now William III of England, Ireland and Scotland, ensured the domination of the Protestant Ascendancy for the next two hundred years, and the virtual enslavement of Catholics, reduced to all but serfs on the lands of English nobles and subjected to progressively harsher Penal Laws as time went on.

So here we end the seventeenth century, almost, as we did the sixteenth,  ground down by the English once again, our island occupied, our religion banned and our lives regarded as nothing.

Is it any wonder we hate the English?

[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, either in Ireland or abroad, 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?

[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, including of course not to have to do a good impersonation of a candle - 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]

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.

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!

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.

[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. 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 Middle Earth 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 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 odd 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 the 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, Wiley 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!

[Trollheart]

Fail of the Century - The Great Famine (1315 - 1317)

It really must have sucked living in the first half of the fourteenth century in Europe. Not just because of the conditions, the poverty and the really poor wifi signal, but from halfway through the second decade up to more than halfway through the century famine and plague ravaged the land. As already related, the horror of the Black Death swept through Europe like, well, a plague from about 1347 to nearly 1352, wiping out over 200 million people, and this on the back of an already weakened Europe which had succumbed to a series of famines that raged from 1315 onwards. It's amazing anyone survived.

Not that famines were new or unknown. France suffered from three separate ones before "the big one", and a staggering six after it, some of them occurring during, and after, the time of the Black Death, while in England - yes, famine in England! - there were three. Life expectancy in Europe had dropped by 1345 to a mere seventeen years (though admittedly that was at the height of the Plague) from a relative high in 1276 of thirty-five. A spate of unseasonably cold and wet weather, coupled with poor harvests and climbing food prices, to say nothing of an explosion in population and the poor being confined to working on land that was hardly arable, all the best land kept for the nobility, pushed Europe along a steadily-descending spiral into almost constant and perpetual hunger. Nobody had enough to eat, and those who did did not care about those who had nothing. No social welfare, no land reclamation projects, no mechanical assistance to farming, and no mercy from the vagaries of fate.

It all led, in 1315, to what became known as The Great Famine, which was to last for two years and cover all of Europe. Heavy rain in the spring and summer of that year led to bad or in some cases no harvests, no fodder for livestock, and, market forces doing what market forces do, the scarcity of food pushed the price of any that was available beyond the reach of the ordinary worker. In fact, in France, the price of a simple loaf rose so steeply (increasing by, wait for it, three hundred and twenty percent!) that bread could not be purchased, in a stark future echo of events that would lead to revolution there four hundred and fifty years later. England didn't fare any better, with reports from Bristol in 1315 speaking with horror of people being so hungry they ate their children, and new arrivals in the local gaol being fallen upon and devoured by the starving prisoners already there. Don't believe me? Don't blame you. But here.

(From the Bristol Annal: Bristol Archives)
there was: 'a great Famine of Dearth with such mortality that the living coud scarce suffice to Bury the dead, horse flesh and Dogs flesh was accounted good meat, and some eat their own Children. The Thieves that were in Prison did pluck and tear in pieces, such as were newly put into Prison and devoured them half alive.

See? Even Edward II found it hard to find bread, and you know there's a problem when the royal bakery is empty! The year dragged wearily by, but its successor brought no relief, as the rain continued to fall, harvests continued to fail, and some families, unable to sustain their own children, turned them loose to fend for themselves. The horrid word was whispered throughout the continent, though who can say if cannibalism was actually practiced? Then again, who can say it wasn't? If you're hungry and desperate enough...

And on it persisted, with 1317 as wet as the two previous years, though finally in the summer the rain stopped, but by then most of the damage had been done. It would take another eight years before things would begin to stabilise, and another ten after that the rats would arrive. Ironically, in some ways the famine could be seen as a necessary tool that reduced the overpopulation of Europe and allowed the meagre food supply eventually to stretch further, having to feed fewer people. An anonymous poem penned in 1321 probably said it best:

When God saw that the world was so over proud,
He sent a dearth on earth, and made it full hard.
A bushel of wheat was at four shillings or more,
Of which men might have had a quarter before...
And then they turned pale who had laughed so loud,
And they became all docile who before were so proud.
A man's heart might bleed for to hear the cry
Of poor men who called out, "Alas! For hunger I die ...!"

Poem on the Evil Times of Edward II, Anon.

The Great Famine and, later, the Black Death, served to weaken the power of the Catholic Church for, although in the latter (and presumably the former too) the plagues were blamed on man's sins and pride, the Church was unable to deliver its flock from the wrath of God, and so became something of a clay idol; people had before placed all their trust in the priests, the Pope and his ministers, expecting to be saved if they only repented. But in the face of famine and the Black Death the Church was as powerless as the lowest commoner, and Popes died as easily as paupers, and people began to see the Church was not, after all, the all-powerful, indefatigable entity it claimed to be.

The arrival of the Great Famine began to turn the tide against Edward, as his troops began to succumb to the disease and food ran out, and his own general impatience for battle would lead to his and his brother's defeat and death in the Battle of Faughart. Sadly there is no real account of what should have been one of the most important battles of Bruce's career and of the Scottish Wars of Independence, but it seems that Edward took on a much larger force than he could cope with - reckoned around 20,000 - without waiting for reinforcements to arrive from Scotland, and perhaps like the Grand Old Duke of York in the song, he marched them up to the top of the hill at Faughart but did not get a chance to march them down again, as he was slain with most of his men by the English. In possibly an ironic twist, the battle took place close to the town which had been the site of one of the greatest massacres by the Scots, Dundalk.

Despite the defeat of his armies and the death of his brother, Robert the Bruce did manage one victory - two if you include outliving not only Edward I but his son too - in having the Pope formally recognise the independence of Scotland (even if England did no such thing) in 1324 and affirming Robert as King of Scots. Edward II died in 1327 and was replaced by his son Edward III. Robert continued invading and harrying England, and in 1328 the two kings met for the battle which would decide the first War of Scottish Independence.

The Battle of Stanhope Park

The power behind the throne: waiting in the shadows

Edward II's marriage was not good. His wife, Isabella, known as the She-Wolf of France, had had enough of the king and taken a lover, the exiled Roger Mortimer, who had risen against him. While on a diplomatic mission to her native France it is believed Isabella hooked up with Mortimer and the two began to plot the downfall of her husband. Returning to England with a small army, and threatening to disinherit his son Edward III, then only thirteen, Isabella and Mortimer forced Edward II to abdicate, later, according to some accounts, having him murdered, and then taking the crown for themselves, nominally naming the young prince as the new king.

In June 1327 a large Scottish force led by Thomas Earl of Moray, Black Douglas and the Earl of Mar raided across the border into England, and Mortimer along with the young prince raised a large army to meet them. Typical disagreements arose within the English ranks, especially with some mercenaries from the country of Hainault (modern France/Belgium border) which depleted the English ranks as they fought among each other. Having sorted out their differences, Mortimer moved to intercept the Scots.

Except, he didn't.

The Scottish army would not be pinned down; like ravaging ghosts they plundered and burned and pillaged the countryside, their passage marked by towering plumes of smoke that rose into the summer sky, but they never engaged the English force and wherever Mortimer went, there the Scots were not. As a result of this somewhat retreading of William Wallace's original guerilla war supplies began to run low in the English camp and the mood soured. Finally an English scout was captured by the Scots, and sent back with a message to Mortimer that they were ready to do battle. After all the uncrowned king of England had done to try to take his enemy by surprise and catch them at a disadvantage, it was now the Scots who were dictating the terms of the battle, and they met him as directed on the banks of the Wear river, near Stanhope Park.

Apparently all of what follows is true!

The Scots had occupied the high ground, and therefore had the advantage over their enemy. The English sent longbowmen up the river to try to ford it and attack Bruce's men but they were scattered by cavalry. The English next asked the Scots if they didn't agree that it really wasn't cricket, you know, their having the advantage of the higher ground, and wouldn't they be terrific chaps and just come on down onto the plains where everyone would be equal, and the armies could battle it out, man to man? Unsurprisingly, the Scots yelled back "Nae thanks son, we're braw here lad!" And stayed where they were.

Unbelievable.

I can imagine the Tommie at the Somme shouting over to the Germans in their machine-gun nests: "Now look chaps, this really isn't fair is it? Why not climb out of those trenches and we'll duke it out here in No-Man's Land to see who deserves to be the masters of Europe?" Or Osama being told he was being a really bad sport, hiding up there in the mountains where the Americans couldn't catch him, and would he not just do the decent thing and come out and take what was coming to him like a man? Oh, the hilarity of these chivalrous English!

Anyway, unprepared to maintain the traditional stiff upper lip and charge into a hopeless cause in a blaze of very brief glory, the English remained where they were, the Scots remained where they were, and nobody attacked anyone for three days. Bor-ing! I thought they told me when I joined up that it would be non-stop fighting, burning, attacking, cheering, with maybe the odd spot of raping thrown in! Anyone want a game of cards? What do you mean, you didn't bring cards? Now I'm really depressed! When are we going to see some action?

Well, kind of never, lad. The king did get something of a surprise - nearly died of terror really (well he was only a teenager, and barely that) when the Scots slipped down in the night and - wait for it! - cut the guy ropes of his tent, collapsing it, then sodded off back up the mountain! While the English then slept in full body armour, expecting an attack, the Scots buggered off back across the border, negotiating bogs the English had thought impassable, and when they woke up in the morning the English army was alone. D'oh! The discomfort of tossing and turning in armour all night, for nothing! I need to scratch so bad!

The strangest battle I ever read of, I must say. You can't say not a shot was fired or that nobody died (consider the luckless archers of Edward III) but in general there was a three-day do-nothing, where the Scots grinned down at the English and the English glared up at the Scots, and then the Scots went home. And yet, this battle - or, to be fair, the combined effect of the Bruce rampaging throughout northern England - was the final nail in the coffin of Edward's resistance to the idea of Scottish independence. All but bankrupted by the war and the constant invasions, hardly able to pay even the mercenaries mentioned above, and humiliated and smarting from his treatment, he, or rather, Mortimer and Isabella, had no option but to accept King Robert's terms and the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton was ratified in 1328, making Scotland an independent and sovereign kingdom and Robert its rightful king. This drew to a close 32 years of fighting, invasion, counter-invasion and pillage which constituted the First Scottish War of Independence, and a year later King Robert died, leaving Scotland in the hands of his young son, David.

But Edward had never agreed with the terms of the treaty (he had been excluded from the negotiations and from the signing by Mortimer and Isabella) and by the time he had grown to his majority and properly established his royal power he had Mortimer arrested, imprisoned in the Tower of London and later executed without trial, being hanged at Tyburn.

Two years later, the Second War of Scottish Independence began. This would last another quarter of a century.

[Trollheart]

The Second War of Scottish Independence (1332 - 1357)

Old Grievances: Bailol II

Originally chosen by Edward I as King of the Scots, John Bailiol had been forced to abdicate and now his son wanted revenge. He pressed Edward III, newly established as the actual power in England following the arrest of Mortimer, to restore to him his ancestral lands. Edward duly sent a request to the new king of Scotland, David II, the late Robert the Bruce's son, but no reply came, so Edward said to Edward (yeah they were both Edwards - bloody English. And Scots!) "get in there and fill yer boots, son," and Bailiol was not slow to accept the offer, marching into Scotland in 1332 where he met the forces of Donald, Earl of Mar. Well, when I say met...

See, our man Edward Balioil had gone to Scotland with a pretty piddling small army - about 1,500 - in the mistaken belief that he would be hailed as a saviour by the Scots and they would all flock to his banner. This failed to happen, and he even miscalculated by somehow offering Mar the chance to join him. The Earl, with about ten times as many men as the would-be usurper (or perhaps that should be re-usurper, since his dad was king originally?) descended on them as they tried to get off their boats, fighting them, as a famous statesman would note six hundred years later, on the beaches. Nevertheless, despite the negligent size of their force, Bailiol fought Mar off, and the Scots legged it to Perth. Perth in Scotland that is, not Perth in Australia.

Also with Bailiol was the heir of the deposed Earl of Buchan, Henry Beaumont. Having helped themselves to weapons from a burgled Scottish armoury, they too proceeded to Perth where they faced off against the much larger Scottish force. Bad enough that it was - by some estimates - more than thirty times their size (though more likely ten, still a huge disparity), but that was only Mar's lot. The lads commanded by the Earl of March (note that "ch" - not the same guy!) were already on their way, no doubt had they mobile phones they would have been texting Mar to "save sum 4 us!" So Bailiol and Beaumont knew they were in a pretty hopeless cause. The hoped-for Scottish support had not materialised, and here they were, standing against an army far larger than they had expected.

The Scots were so confident that they began to dance and get drunk, even before battle had been joined, but the English snuck into their camp that night and did for them. Sadly for Bailiol and his men, it was just a minor camp they had attacked, and when they saw in the morning that the main force of Mar's army was still ready to engage them, they were, not to put too fine a point on it, more than a little upset. However it was, as it seems to have been down through history more often than not, disagreements among their commanders which undone the Scots.

Robert Bruce - another one; this one a bastard son of the dead king - saw the English crossing the river and immediately accused Mar of being in league with them. He had no doubt been aware of the overtures Bailiol had made to the earl with a view to joining him, and although Mar had declined the English commander's kind invitation, Bruce was up in arms about it. Mar, for his part, told Bruce that far from being a traitor, he would prove how loyal he was by being the first to strike a blow against the enemy. Two can play at that game, thought Bruce, and, not to be outdone, charged his own schilltron at the English.

It was something of a mistake.

You see, what somebody should have told the young bastard is that if you ride too fast for everyone else to keep up with you, well, everyone can't keep up with you. Consequently, his rather rash charge led to him leaving a  lot of his men behind in the Scottish dust, which levelled the playing field a little between him and the English. However the Scots seem to have scorned wearing helmets, or at least visors, which was not a good idea when you're facing a bunch of archers! Exposing their flank to the English as they charged, Bruce's men, blinded by the arrows, began to veer closer together. Mar, of course, was not so hasty.

Um.

Well actually he did the same thing, coming up behind Bruce's men and actually crashing into them in his haste. The English must have been rolling on the floor laughing, seven hundred years before the internet. The Scots, who had vastly outnumbered them at the outset, were doing their work for them! This extract from Wiki explains it all: The struggle continued from a little past dawn until after noon. In the centre of the Scottish mass the result was literally suffocating; men were pressed too tightly together to be able to breathe and any who lost their footing were trampled to death. Contemporary accounts speak of more than a thousand Scots being smothered without coming into contact with the English. One claimed that "more were slain by the Scots themselves than by the English. For ... every one fallen there fell a second, and then a third fell, and those who were behind pressing forward and hastening to the fight, the whole army became a heap of the slain."

But an Englishman does not stand idly by and watch the enemy destroy himself, so in they waded, adding to the confusion, and it's said they had to climb over heaps of dead Scots to get at the living ones. By evening it was all over. Bruce and Mar had both fallen, and the hugely superior army had been routed and had fled, leaving Bailiol and Beaumont to take Perth and fortify it as their base. Never in the field of human conflict had so few triumphed over so many with such hilarious results, maybe.

Despite having far fewer men, the English are reported to have lost less than a hundred while the number of deaths on the Scottish side vary in different accounts from two or three thousand to fifteen, though it can probably be accepted that that last one is an exaggeration. Nonetheless, the only surviving high-ranking Scot was the Earl of Fife, who was captured and changed his tune (sorry), going over to the English side. Guess he realised which side his haggis was buttered on. Sorry again.

Late for battle, the Earl of March turned up a week later, but by then the city of Perth was under Bailiol's control and impregnable. Edward Bailiol was crowned King of Scotland on September 24 1332, but he would not have time to get comfortable on the throne, deposed by David II six months later. For the next four years he could arguably be called the yo-yo king, as he was on and off the throne more times than a man with chronic diarrhea. Edward III would finally take a personal hand in trying to subdue Scotland, and the second war for the country's freedom would go on for another twenty-five years.

To some degree, what Bailiol had hoped for did come to pass, though kind of in retrospect, as with the defeat and death of Bruce and the Earl of Mar, many Scottish nobles did in fact swear their loyalty to him, as the new crowned king. Among these were Archibold Douglas, half-brother to the famous Black Douglas who had kept the high ground at Stanhope Park against Mortimer, and who was now Guardian of Scotland. Feeling he could let his guard down, now that this powerful former enemy was on his side, and perhaps rather foolishly, the new king dismissed most of his men, sent letters to Edward III proclaiming his subservience to him and Scotland's to England (makes you wonder why they wanted an independent country in the first place if all they were going to do was stick their tongues down the back of Edward's breeches, but however), promising to support him in his future wars.

Soon after, Douglas attacked. In concert with the Earl of Moray, Simon Fraser and, um, Robert II - who was King David's nephew and next in line to the throne they took him so completely by surprise that the greater part of his men were wiped out and, in another slice of what I'm going to be calling hilarious history, Edward had to escape through a hole in the wall and ride to Carlisle buck naked! His brother Henry was killed, and so ended the Bailiol line of succession in Scotland, not that that would stop Edward making frequent visits to try on the crown a few times more.

Invasion! V - The Return of the return of the kings: Edward, Edward and the Siege of Berwick

Long seen as the gateway to and from Scotland, Berwick had undergone major fortifications since it had been sacked in 1296, and was now in good shape to withstand a long siege, which was just as well, as that's exactly what happened. Crossing over the border with Bailiol and other disgruntled Scottish nobles, Edward marched to cut Berwick off by land, as his navy had already done by sea. With him he brought people to build siege engines, and operated a scorched-earth policy to ensure that even if the siege were broken temporarily, no food would be available to the defenders. In his army was a man who had defended Berwick against the English, been captured and agreed to work for them; his knowledge of the castle and the town proved invaluable.

Catapults and trebuchets were used to great effect, and historians believe that Berwick had the dubious honour of being the first British town to be shelled by cannon fire. Hilarious history rears its humorous head again, as we learn that the defenders, hoping to burn the ships in the harbour blockading them, set alight driftwood soaked in tar, but instead managed to burn down most of the town! Oops!

The siege began at the start of May, by June the defenders had requested a temporary truce which, under perhaps the odd rules of chivalry, was granted, on the condition that Berwick had one month in which to be relieved, and if not they agreed to surrender. I suppose everyone needed a well-earned break. Meanwhile Douglas tried diversionary tactics, striking into England and taking the town of Tweedmouth, declaring to Edward III that if he did not withdraw his forces from Berwick he, Douglas, would devastate England. "Oh yeah?" the king probably didn't reply, though he literally could have, "You and what army?" To which of course Douglas would have said "This one!"

But enough humour; war is a serious thing, and this siege was about to get even more serious.

In order to ensure the compliance of the Scots in the truce Edward had taken twelve hostages, including Thomas Seton, son of Sir Alexander, Governor of Berwick. When the Scots claimed they did not have to surrender, even though the named date had now passed, as Douglas was relieving them (though not exactly charging at Edward's forces, it must be said) the king snapped back that no, that wasn't how it was at all. Relief had to come from Scotland, from that side of the border, and Douglas had marched from England, so no deal. To reinforce his point, he had a gallows set up outside the gates of the town and hanged Thomas, promising that he would hang two more hostages every day until Berwick surrendered.

New and more specific terms for a potential surrender - with attendant promises of safe conduct for the defenders - were hammered out between the two parties, the defence of the town and the governorship having now passed to Sir William Keith. This time, however, only a four-day window was allowed.

I find it odd, I must say, when I read that the Scottish army under Douglas outnumbered the English by two-to-one that he didn't attack them directly. Instead, he marched to Bamburgh, where the queen was staying, and laid siege to it, hoping to goad Edward into abandoning his position to save his damsel in distress. Not going to happen though. "She's a big girl, and can take care of herself," thought the king, and stayed where he was. Unable to take the town by force, Douglas realised he could no longer avoid battle (why was he trying to?) and headed off to meet Edward's forces.

[Trollheart]

The Battle of Halidon Hill

One thing Scots did not apparently like was not being able to choose the battleground; it seems in most of the battles in which they were defeated the enemy had either forced or tricked them there, or had the advantage when they arrived. There was also the time issue. Whereas before, if conditions were not favourable the Scottish could often postpone or delay battle (witness the shouting and drinking at Stanhope Park) but here there was the town of Berwick to consider. Keith's new treaty with the king specified that the town would be surrendered if relief did not arrive by July 19, and this was... July 19. So basically D-Day. No delaying, no talking or negotiating, no trickery or retreating or regrouping. It was put up or shut up.

Coming down one slope, across marshy ground and then climbing up Halidon Hill, Douglas's forces were again beset by those pesky arrows, and blindness and panic was the order of the day. Apparently they had still to learn about helmets or visors. All that awaited those who did not fall down or off the mountain was a cohort of spear wielders, and the Scots were broken and defeated quickly, Douglas falling on the field. All survivors were executed on the orders of Edward III, including those taken prisoner. The king was no longer a boy, and he wasn't fucking around with these rebels!

Believing his work done here, Edward headed back to London while Bailiol was crowned for the second time, though that wouldn't last long. Granting back all the lands Bruce had taken from the disinherited lords, he opened new wounds and ensured that conflict against his rule would rage across Scotland for years.

With friends like these... Wolves in the throne room: Edward Bailiol is deposed for the second time

It would seem that, in common with much of humanity, when there was no common enemy to fight the Scots fell to bickering and quarrelling among themselves, and it wasn't long before the new/restored King Edward was facing opposing factions within his own power structure. Much of this centred on three nobles, former allies of his - Richard Talbot, husband to one of the deposed Comyns, Henry de Beaumont, heir to the territory of Buchan,  and the unfortunately-named David III Strathbogie, another of the Comyn line. Sounds like a supersonic jet fighter with a bad cold. Anyhow, these three took exception to a decision their king made vis a vis some land that rightfully belonged to the nieces of Alexander de Mowbray, and they decided to do something about it.

That something was rarely try to talk to the king or send a strongly-worded letter, of course, and so these three went over to the side of David II. It didn't do them much good, as Bailiol defeated them, but aware that his fragile and tenuous grip on the throne of Scotland was slipping he called for help from his patron, and Edward III duly answered the call, though neither could have been prepared for what happened next.

Just what we need: more Frenchmen! Philip steps in

King of France, Philip VI had given shelter to the deposed King David II, and was prepared to honour the terms laid down by Philip IV when the Scots signed a treaty with him against Edward I. He sent his ambassador, the Bishop of Avalanches, sorry Avranche, to demand an explanation from Edward as to why he was harassing the poor Scots. Edward invited the bishop to go talk to them, and see what a surly lot they were, impossible to negotiate with, and perhaps sample some of that foul-tasting haggis they were all so fond of, and see if he personally did not want to invade and conquer them. The bishop demurred on that point, but did go to talk to Edward Bailiol, encountering the usual factions and jockeying for position and intrigue and backstabbing and disloyalty that must have made him feel right at home, pining for the court of France, or even for the Holy City.

Meanwhile, Edward massed his armies, waiting for the truce the bishop finally worked out to run out, and for him to bugger off back to France, which he did, in July 1335. The Scots, knowing King Edward (the English one) well, had been expecting his attack and mustered their own forces, ready to meet him.

Invasion! VI - The return, this time, of just the one king: Edward strikes back

With his largest army yet assembled - about 13,000 men - and with the help of King Edward Bailiol, the English king had little trouble defeating the Scots and took Perth, where he settled for a time. Back in France, King Philip VI was unimpressed with the news brought back to him by his bishop (it seemed failure was an option) and gathered his own fleet to sail to bonny Scotland and help out the braw wee lads his pre-pre-pre-something-decessor had sworn to in the Treaty of Paris. Before sending the men on their way (about 6,000) he gave Edward III one last chance: if he would allow France and the Pope to arbitrate the independence of Scotland, he would keep his men at home. Edward told him to stick it, do his worst, come at me bro, and Philip came at him.

The Bogie man cometh - the Battle of Culblean

Back in Scotland, with the departure of King Edward, Bailiol's men set about settling some scores, with David Strathbogie attempting to wipe out all the freeholders who had been awarded land in the time of William Wallace, and who formed the nucleus of the supporters of David II, Robert the Bruce's son and Bailiol's rival claimant for the throne. He went a little far though when he attacked the castle of the wife of the Guardian of Scotland, Andrew Murray, who rushed to its defence.

Although Murray had about a third as many men as Strathbogie, he also had superior knowledge of the terrain and, one would assume, the safety of his lady in question (although accounts seem to note he was more interested in preserving the castle for its strategic importance: charming!), he prevailed and Strathbogie was defeated, killed in battle, as was one of the few remaining Comyns.

Edward, meanwhile, receiving intelligence of the progress of King Philip VI, and fearing that his old enemy would attempt to make Scotland a base from which he could launch an attack on England, set off to secure the town of Aberdeen, the most likely place where the French might land. In terms of invasion forces, this one was much smaller than those Edward had previously mounted, a mere 800 men, but with most of the resistance to his rule eliminated and Edward Bailiol still on the throne, if barely hanging on there, there wasn't too much in the way of organised opposition for the English king to worry about, and he burned Aberdeen to the ground. It was a wasted effort. Philip's privateers had already attacked the town of Orford, on the Suffolk Coast, in the south of England, and when he received news of the attack Edward quickly made his way there, abandoning Scotland for now.

Too late to do anything though by the time he got the word, Edward headed back over the border and wintered at Clyde, carrying on his campaign against the Scots there, determined that Philip should have no base in Scotland. He was, in fact, laying plans to invade France in the spring. Back to England he went to lay his plans, while the Scots wreaked more mischief in his absence, putting Edward Bailiol on an even shakier footing than he had occupied before; with no English king to come to his rescue, and his allies rapidly deserting his cause in their droves, to say nothing of the French taking an interest (surely with a view to restoring David to the throne) it couldn't be long before he was on his way out again.

As is almost always the case in such wars, the ordinary citizen suffered the most, and indeed, at the hands of his own people, as Andrew Murray, in an attempt to smash Bailiol's power forever, laid waste to all around him, seemingly without a care as to what people were to do to feed themselves, find shelter or live. However in 1338 the people were granted some respite when Murray died, though William Douglas continued the fight.

[Trollheart]

Goliath vs David: The return of yet another king

Aided by the French king, David II returned to Scotland in 1341, having reached the majority age of eighteen, and everything was roses as all the Scots accepted him. Well, not quite. Not even close actually. Almost on his arrival he ran into opposition, and even those who were ready to support him turned out to be just as ready to oppose him if they didn't get what they wanted. Eager to impose his authority, the young king made a few decisions that didn't go down too well, and would help Edward III by causing trouble for David without his having to take a hand in things. He had in fact been busy fighting Philip's forces, and had won a major victory, so major in fact that the French king feared an English invasion, and asked David to instead invade England, to draw Edward's attention and forces away from him. David duly obliged.

Invasion! VII - Done up like a kipper

Despite all the infighting and doubt within his people, the Scottish king was able to gather together a pretty massive force of 12,000 men and headed south. Delays in preparation though allowed the English time to muster and they were ready for him when he attacked. They met in what would be David's first battle with the English king, and also turned out to be his first defeat.

The Battle of Neville's Cross

With the bulk of Edward's forces fighting in Normandy, Philip VI advised David that he would have an easy time of it, catching the English both unawares and under-manned, calling England at the time a "defencess void". This would, however, not turn out to be the case. The main problem here was that the English were expecting this; the Scots themselves had said they would break the truce (which none of the three nations honoured in any way and was more or less just words on a page if anything) as soon as France told them to, so it was a matter of when rather than if. Relying on the (faulty) intelligence from the French court, David marched south and was more than surprised when William Douglas almost literally stumbled over the army assembled by the Archbishop of York, in the process losing more than half his men. Reporting to David at the monastery they were in the process of sacking, Douglas gave him the news and David rode to meet the English.

The Archbishop's force had been swelled by a further 3,000 men from Yorkshire, now numbering about 7,000 in all, and Lord Ralph Neville took command of the whole army. David took the higher ground, as the kings and leaders before him had always done, and relied on his schilltrons, with axemen and even cavalry officers in front of them. His cause was not helped by the sudden and cowardly desertion of two of his commanders, Robert Stewart, the illegitimate son of the Bruce, and the Earl of March, Patrick Dunbar, leaving David's flank very much exposed and no doubt plunging Scottish morale into the depths of despair.

Perhaps because of terrain not being in their favour, perhaps because the battle had been thrust upon them rather than their being able to prepare for it, or perhaps even due to David's being, after all, a young man, untested in battle-hardened conditions - and certainly no thanks to the desertion of the two commanders - despite their (originally) superior numbers the Scots were routed, and David himself badly wounded and captured by the English.

Most of the Scottish military hierarchy and nobles were either killed or captured, and the Battle of Neville's Cross was a serious blot on the new king's copybook; his first chance to show his people what he could do, and it resulted in what can only be termed a massacre, decimating the Scottish nobility and leading to the imprisonment of their king.

Fail.

Epic fail.

Some noteworthy points before we go on. How true some of this is I don't know, but accounts say that King David hid after the battle, taking refuge under a bridge, and was only discovered when his reflection was seen in the water flowing under the bridge. He subsequently did at least have enough fight in him to knock the teeth out of one of his captors. During the battle he took arrows in the face, and though removed, parts of them remained and gave him headaches for the rest of his life, as well as, presumably, being a constant reminder of his abject failure as a leader.

Although nobles were traditionally ransomed, Edward wanted to break the Scottish monarchy and so refused to allow many of the more high-profile prisoners be ransomed, keeping them captive instead. Much of this did not go down well with his own people, for if there is one thing that trumps loyalty to the king it is loyalty to the pocket, and take money out of that pocket and you may very well be storing up trouble for yourself. Many lower-value prisoners were executed out of hand, but Edward had a special hatred for the Earl of Menteith, John Graham, who had previously sworn fealty to the English king. Seeing this as treason, Edward had Menteith tried and condemned as a traitor, then drawn, hanged, beheaded and quartered.

The Holy Rood of St. Margaret, originally taken by Edward I and brought to England, later restored to Scotland, was again taken from David and given to Durham Cathedral.

War is over, if you want it - The end of the Second War of Scottish Independence

With the imprisonment of David went the last real hope of Scotland's achieving independence from England. Edward Bailiol popped up again like a bad penny, but Edward III didn't really have much time for him, trying instead to convince the captive David to nominate one of his own sons as his heir, which would have solidified England's hold over Scotland. David himself, at a mere eighteen years old, had no children, but refused constantly to allow this. He must have wished he had stayed in France! Mind you, the French were not doing so well either, as Edward beat them back on their native soil. That's not really relevant though to the history here, so we won't be going into that (don't want to stray too far off the beaten track, and we've wandered a long way already).

Perhaps oddly, considering they ran from battle (though probably few survived to tell the tale, and those who did, with their king defeated and a prisoner of the English, probably knew to keep their mouths shut) the Scottish then rallied behind Robert Stewart and Patrick Dunbar, while Edward tried unsuccessfully to get David to see sense and give him Scotland. Not sure why he thought the king would do this, given how hard he and his predecessors had fought to keep their country free of English influence, but he seems to have made a good fist of it, even adding a ransom demand into the bargain, all of which were turned down. David was even allowed leave England to supposedly ratify a treaty whereby Scotland would become a fief, or dependent kingdom, of England, but the parliament decided against it, literally ruling that the freedom of their king was less important than the freedom of the nation, and sent him back with a thanks but no thanks message.

Invasion! VIII - The Final Countdown

While Edward was again away dealing with those pesky French, Stewart and Dunbar, with French support and encouragement, launched another invasion of England, which was again poorly-defended, most of its army having joined their king in the battle against France. They took the town of Berwick, and when Edward heard what had happened he returned to England as soon as he could, invaded Scotland again, retook the castle and kicked the Scots out. He then went on something of a rampage, destroying Edinburgh and burning most of Lothian. But in the end he realised he wasn't really going to subdue Scotland, and would have to settle for a treaty instead.

The end of the second war of Scottish independence reads to me not so much of triumph but of exhausted acceptance, on both sides. For over seventy years, the two nations had fought, made war, invaded each other, and now, finally, at the end, with victory against the French seeming more in his grasp than ever and Scotland divided with the capture of their king, Edward realised it was time to draw a line under this long conflict. In a treaty which probably satisfied nobody, but did the job, and bringing it all back to where it both started and eventually ended, the Treaty of Berwick was signed in 1357. David was released to go home to Scotland, Edward had now only to fight a war on one front, and Edward Bailiol, the eternal fly in the ointment of the Scottish monarchy, was old and ill, and would die ten years later, childless and mostly forgotten.

[Trollheart]

So why did we get so distracted with the history of Scotland, you ask? You may remember (or you may not; it's been some time now as I went through this) that I was trying to show how the Scottish had as much reason to hate the English as we do. They too fought for their independence, but were thwarted by their southern neighbours at every turn. They were occupied, oppressed, in some cases almost ethnically cleansed by successive English kings, but I suppose at least they weren't persecuted along religious lines in the way we were. Nevertheless, it's clear now, or it should be, why, given a choice between supporting the people who shared the landmass they were on or those of an entirely separate island to the west, Scotland would always consider Ireland to be allies, comrades in arms, fellows in suffering under the English tyrannical boot.

Which brings us back to here.

Skeletons in the Field: Ireland's Forgotten Famine 1740 - 1741

When we think of famine in Ireland, when we recall the hardships that forced hundreds of thousands of our forebears to abandon our native country and seek sanctuary in America, when we talk of coffin ships and bodies piling up in the streets and the inhumanity of the English landowners, we do something of a disservice to those who died in the previous famine, which took place almost a century before the Great Famine, but was, in many ways, worse.

While there had been, as already related, widespread famine across Europe in the earlier centuries, no single country was hit as hard in the eighteenth century than Ireland. This was due to many factors, some of them to do with nature, but more to do with humanity, or rather, the lack of it. The baser parts of humanity - greed, lack of compassion, inequality, brutality, thoughtlessness and prejudice - all helped contribute to one of the biggest humanitarian disasters in Irish history, though sadly not the last. By the time it was finished, it would have wiped out almost twenty percent of the population of Ireland, almost half a million people, making it even more devastating, in ratio, to the Great Famine of 1845-1852.

The principle cause of the famine was the weather, and a reliance by the Irish upon crops that formed the basis of their diet. Grain and potatoes were the staple of Irish families, sometimes (though not by any means always) supplemented by fish or duck, but usually only in coastal areas where such game could be found. After relatively mild winters over the previous decade something called The Great Frost hit Europe. Nobody knows what caused it exactly, though links have been suggested with volcanic activity. Wherever it came from, it froze the land, freezing over rivers like the Shannon, Liffey and Boyne, and even inside it was freezing, indoor temperatures (though few records survive from the time) stated to be -12 Celsius (10 Fahrenheit) while the single outdoor reading spoke of "thirty-two degrees of frost." All across Europe lakes, waterfalls, rivers froze, fish died and howling winter winds battered the continent.

People tried to keep warm but it wasn't easy. There were no coal deliveries for months due to both the coal factories in Cumbria and South Wales freezing, and the quays to which they would have been taken also in the grip of the relentless ice, and when deliveries did resume, perhaps not surprisingly, coal prices had skyrocketed. People desperately salvaged any wood they could find to burn, stripping hedges, ornamental trees and nurseries. Not only that, but had there been any wheat it could not have been milled into bread to feed the hungry populace, as the mill wheels had frozen in place.

To be fair to them and give credit where it's due, the Protestant landowners did not stand idly by, providing coal and meal to the poor, and the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Devonshire, issued an order prohibiting the export of grain outside of Ireland, other than to England. To be cynical about it, these measures were likely not taken out of the goodness of the gentry's hearts; they needed these people to work in their factories, mills and fields, and probably feared that too many deaths would impact upon their business, and therefore their pocket. Still, they did a hell of a lot more than their successors would a century later.

Things went from bad to worse as the potato crop failed, all potatoes destroyed by the frost, and this was followed in the spring by a drought, as the expected rain did not make an appearance, and in addition corn and wheat crops failed, leading to the elimination of virtually the entire food supply in Ireland. The harsh drought, coupled with the ferocious winter winds, which continued into the spring, also killed off much cattle, many sheep and other animals, and rural dwellers had no recourse but to descend on the cities, begging on the streets and leading, eventually and rather inevitably, to conflict.

The trouble was that, for some reason, the country folk had not considered that their urban counterparts might be just as hungry and helpless as they were. Hungry they were, helpless, not quite. In mid-April a band descended on the docks at Drogheda and damaged a ship loaded with oatmeal which was bound for Scotland. Exports were quickly stopped after that. What didn't stop was the unrest, anger and indignation at the authorities, with stories going around of food being hoarded, provided to the more well-off. Food riots broke out, first in Dublin and then all over the country. Many people were shot in an attempt to control these outbreaks.

Some respite seemed finally at hand in Autumn, as the cold decreased and cattle began to recover, but they were weak and few gave milk or birth, then in October a huge blizzard hit the country, and the expected rains finally arrived - no longer welcome  - leading to large-scale flooding. These were backed up by freezing temperatures which turned the rain to ice and clogged up the rivers, proving a hazard to shipping. With the weather so unpredictable and harsh, those who had food to sell knocked its price way up, or hoarded what they had for fear they might not be able to get any more. Food riots again exploded. The country was on the edge of famine.

From the Caledonian Mercury, 1740

Dublin, Jan. 11. The Frost still continues here very severe. Numbers are in Want, the Hardness of the Season not permitting them to work ; and Letters from all Parts of the Country give most melancholy Accounts of its Effects, the Mills being stopt they cannot get their Corn grinded, and the Poor whose chief Support is Potatoes are in extreme Want, they being mostly spoiled in the Ground. All the Rivers in and about Cork in Ireland are so frozen up, that People frequently walk 3 Miles upon the Ice. There are Tables and Forms on the Liffey, at Dublin., for selling Liquors . It was also intended to roaft an Ox upon it: And the Thermometer was many Degrees of Cold more than ever known.

Poet William Dunkin put it in more flowery, but no less deadly language in 1742, in his poem The Frosty Winter of Ireland, in the Year 1739--1740
:
...Beneath the glassy gulph
Fishes benumb'd, and lazy sea-calves freeze
In crystal coalition with the deep.
...The long resounding waves
Of naval ocean, whitening into foam
Boil from the nether bottom, and uprol
Successive, fluid mountains to the stars.
Not sandy shores at other times expos'd
More shatter'd prows, or billow-broken keels:
But if the waves had haply roll'd to land
Some, warm with vital motion, and a-broach
With oozy brine, they stiffen at the breath
Of Boreas, marrow-piercing, and adhere
In senseless union, to the frozy rocks.

Apart from those dying of cold or pure starvation, there were many deaths due to other associated diseases, such as typhus and dysentery, as related in  The Newcastle Courant which reported
...an uncommon Mortality among the poor People by Fevers and Fluxes, owing no doubt in a great Measure to their poor Living, the Price of Corn being risen to an excessive Rate...

The Lord Mayor of Dublin, along with the Chief Justices and the Lord Chancellor, passed legislation to reduce the price of corn, and Archbishop Boulter, one of the aforementioned Chief Justices, used his own money to arrange to feed the poor. Those found to be hoarding private stocks of grain were induced to share it among the hungry poor, and Kathleen Connolly, the widow of the Speaker William Connolly, already having made efforts to feed the poor on her own initiative, provided work for those who had none. Another Chief Justice, Henry Singleton, also put his hand in his pocket to help the needy.

A curate in County Monaghan, Patrick Skelton, described the scene of the famine: "Whole parishes are almost desolate, and the dead have been eaten in the fields by dogs for want of people to bury them. Whole thousands in a barony have perished, some of hunger and others of disorders occasioned by an unnatural, putrid and unwholesome diet."

The weather finally began to turn near the latter half of 1741, and though the harvest was not exactly great, at least there was one. Life began slowly to return to some semblance of normality; the dead could be buried, losses counted and arrangements put in place to ensure something like this, an event which was called "The Year of Slaughter", or in Irish, bliain an áir, never happened again.

Except, of course, it did.

[Trollheart]

Chapter X: Under the English Heel, Part V:
A Time to Stand - Rebellion, Retribution and Revenge

Timeline: 1760 - 1800

Secret Societies: Ireland Goes Underground


There have of course been secret organisations since antiquity, probably dating back to the Egyptians or farther, but they don't seem to have surfaced in Ireland till the eighteenth century, and seem to have come about as a sort of response to the piss-poor treatment Irish Catholics were getting from their Protestant landlords. Part vigilante force, part protest and part almost mafia in makeup, they began to spring up after the Irish Famine and following the harshest of the Penal Laws. Like I said earlier, you could push a man just so far before he would eventually push back, and right or wrong, these bands of individuals - who might, perhaps, be seen as the forerunners of the Irish gangs who fought over control of areas like New York and Boston in the next century - were ready to push back, and hard.

The Whiteboys

Not to be confused with the present-day Proud Boys, or indeed any white supremacist gang, their name derived from the white smocks they wore on their nightly raids. White doesn't seem the perfect choice for night raids, but what do I know? Maybe they were demonstrating their contempt for the landlords, maybe they just couldn't get black ones. An unfortunate name to choose, certainly: makes them sound like the Irish chapter of the KKK, though of course they predate those racist fucks, so technically they'd have been the original... you know what? Let's just cut off that dangerous and pointless line of thought right there before it goes any further.

Anyway, the tactics employed by the Whiteboys included levelling ditches, knocking down fences, threatening behaviour including but not limited to (gasp!) writing letters, and later more direct action such as wounding or killing cattle owned by the landlord and the acquisition of firearms. They were not political in any way, not were they sectarian, welcoming all religions to their ranks. They had a problem only with landlords (though these were invariably English and Protestant) who were forcing, or endeavouring to force, poor farmers and tenants off their lands so that they could be used for grazing cattle and so inflate the landlords' already healthy pocket books.

The first real instance of the Whiteboys arriving on the scene is around 1761 in Limerick, and indeed most of these societies practiced their art in the south, with chapters in Tipperary, Cork and as far east as Waterford. As they grew in power and became emboldened, the Whiteboys seem to have developed into an almost paramilitary force, marching in parades to old Jacobite tunes and shouldering rifles. They threatened landlords, and also those who had gained land taken from those who had been evicted, advising them to move, or they would become targets too. Those who did not accede to the Whiteboys' demands - for instance, putting a light in their house and having horses saddled and ready for their escape if needed - also faced the society's wrath.

It's probably fair to say that while they may have been popular with some citizens, notably any whose lands they reclaimed from the (usually absentee) landlords, the Whiteboys were feared and hated by more, so when the Crown struck back and Charles, Marquess of Drogheda, arrested over 150 Whiteboys, including a priest who had been helping them, there wasn't exactly outrage from the Irish citizenry, even when the priest, tried and convicted of being an accessory to murder by helping the bandits, was hanged. The Whiteboys' somewhat indiscriminatory tactics won them few friends among the people they were supposed to be helping, and they weren't exactly looked upon as Robin Hood figures.

So much of a problem were they seen as being by the authorities that several Whiteboy Acts were passed by Parliament, the first, the original named one, in 1765, with four more up to 1831.

Hearts of Oak

Somewhat in contrast, the Hearts of Oak (also called Oakboys and Greenboys - just get the Orange boys in there now and we'd have the tricolour!) rose in the north, in County Antrim, and were more worried about paying taxes and mending roads than landlords using their land. In Ulster, every man was required to give six days' service and six days of horse work every year building and maintaining roads, mostly for the convenience and comfort of the contribute-nothing gentry. They also resented paying tithes, taxes payable to a Church they did not support, the Church of England. They were mostly farmers and weavers, and their name came from their habit of wearing a piece of oak leaf in their hats (why not then Hats of Oak? Probably didn't sound as hard and cool I guess).

Their protest movement quickly spread to five other counties of Ulster, and they didn't seem to be fans of turnpike toll roads either, which you can understand; if they were responsible for maintaining the roads, why then should they also have to pay to travel them? Then there was the matter of "small dues", where the Church would demand a payment from Catholics or Presbyterians who got married, held funerals or had a child baptised, whether or not it took place in an Anglican church. The Hearts of Oak seem to have had two ways of inducing people to join, one being to force or intimidate them and the other being to attract them via the lavish parades and marches they put on, an almost carnival-like atmosphere that differed radically from their southern counterparts' militaristic displays.

They seem to have been less overtly violent, relying on threats and warnings rather than causing actual harm; they forced landowners, gentry and clergy to sign their petitions, turning up in force outside their houses and bringing along a handy gallows which the homeowner was left in no doubt they would use if he refused, and their power grew to the level that their demands were met, and those who did not comply were often run out of the town by them. Like the Whiteboys, they were eventually routed by the military, but unlike their compatriots, who had, as mentioned, actual Parliamentary Acts passed about them, the Oakboys received a general pardon and by 1763 had more or less disbanded.

Peep o' Day Boys

While the above two groups were a mix of religions - mostly Presbyterian and Catholics - the Peep o' Day Boys (nothing to do with lost sheep) were exclusively Protestant, and they too rose in Armagh, though about twenty years after the Oakboys. In contrast with most of Ulster, Armagh was in fact more or less about equal in its population of Catholics and Protestants, and the relaxing of some of the Penal Laws - specifically those allowing Catholics to vote and purchase land - irked the Protestants, who believed the heretics were getting off too lightly. Neither did they take kindly to being outbid on land plots by mere Catholics! Tensions were simmering and would soon reach a boiling point, though for the record most of the rest of Ireland was relatively at peace.

Not in Armagh though! Gangs began to be formed, like the Presbyterian Nappach Fleet Gang, the Protestant Bawn and the Catholic Bunker Hill Defenders, usually just shortened to Defenders. Each prepared for battle with the others, and in a scene reminiscent of Scorsese's Gangs of New York, agreed to meet on Whit Monday 1785 and duke it out. When the battle was called off, the gangs dispersed but the Nappach Fleet turned to raiding Catholic homes and renamed themselves the Peep o' Day Boys, the name being a local colloquialism for break of  day, to tie in with their dawn raids. These raids were ostensibly to deprive Catholics of weapons, which under the Penal Laws they were forbidden to carry or own (though this law was rarely if ever observed and never enforced), but really it was just a pretext to beat up Catholics, whom they feared were getting too strong and close to being equal with them, which would never do.

As the Catholics armed themselves in defence against these attacks, battle lines were drawn and things were coming to a head.

The Defenders

Originally formed as the Bunker Hill Defenders, this Catholic organisation came into being in direct response to the raids made by the Protestant Peep o' Day Boys. It should have come as no surprise to anyone; Ulster was Protestant-dominated (despite the distribution of populace in Armagh, Penal Laws and local prejudices kept Catholics out of most positions of power, so the authorities were almost exclusively Protestant) and while they did not exactly turn a blind eye to the attacks on Catholic homes, they didn't exactly go after the perpetrators in any real way either, unlike the Whiteboys. There's no evidence to suggest such, but you'd have to think that on some level they might even have tacitly supported or encouraged them. Left with nobody to speak for or protect their people, the Catholics naturally formed their own society.

Perhaps oddly for Catholics, their oath included a promise of loyalty to King George III; they took to patrolling at night, on the lookout for the Peep o' Day Boys, at first buying arms from a Protestant shop but later raiding the homes of the gentry to get their weapons. The Defenders would be the most long-lived of the secret societies in Ireland, later linking up with the Ribbonmen and the United Irishmen as Ireland began to fight back in a serious way. The two gangs regularly fought it out, meeting often at markets and fairs, laying waste to all around them and causing much bodily harm, even occasionally death, and terrorising the towns. These periods of gang warfare were known, in a typically understated Irish way (after all, we called over thirty years of sectarian violence "The Troubles" and for us World War II was "The Emergency"!) as "The Armagh Disturbances".

There we'll leave them for now, but the Defenders have a bigger part to play in the attempt to liberate their country, as we'll see later.

Hearts of Steel

Like the Hearts of Oak, they were a Protestant organisation, but unlike their almost-namesakes they concentrated more on rent and evictions. In that way, they could perhaps be said to be a hybrid organisation, taking elements from the Whiteboys and the Hearts of Oak. They too operated in Antrim, which certainly seemed to be a hotbed of conflict in an otherwise peaceful Ireland in the middle of the eighteenth century. They arose later than the Hearts of Oak, possibly considered their successors, in 1769, as a direct rebuff to the middlemen, speculators who bought land from absentee landlords and rented it at twice or three times the price they had paid, to poor (presumably Protestant) tenants, thereby profiteering.

Incensed by the capture and imprisonment of a tenant who had been forced off his land by a greedy landlord who sold it to a middleman, the tenant charged with maiming the landlord's cattle, the Hearts of Steel surrounded his house and threatened to burn it down if the man was not released. Though charged by the army, the Hearts of Steel carried through on their threat, and rather than see further destruction, the mayor agreed to release the prisoner. High rents and a poor harvest led to deprivation for the poor, and the Hearts of Steel took up this cause and fought for it.

They maimed cattle ("houghing"), demanded land be leased at a fair rate, and forced farmers to sell food at affordable prices. In March 1772 a huge force of about 2000 Steelboys descended on Gifford Castle, scene of the taking of their leaders a few days earlier, and engaged in a pitched battle with the owner of the castle, Richard Johnston, forcing him to flee. He returned however with military support and drove them off, later pursuing and hunting them down so that they could stand trial in Dublin, where, for some reason, none were found guilty.

Nevertheless, the end was near for the Hearts of Steel, as the Irish government, fed up with the Armagh disturbances, sent in the army and brutally repressed the protests.

Although Irishmen had fought against English occupation for hundreds of years, almost always this was along sectarian lines. Catholics, dispossessed and disenfranchised, and under some English monarchs tortured and killed in great numbers, wished really only to be equal with the Protestant settlers who had been forced upon them. Truth to tell, many probably wanted the Ascendancy out of Ireland, but at the same time nobody really envisioned or fought for an independent Ireland, so far as I can see, unlike the Scots who battled bravely for their right to self-governance in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

To some degree, I imagine, the protection of the English king or queen, rather than their wrath, would have been preferred by the Irish, and while they struggled to replace Protestant monarchs on the English throne with more sympathetic Catholic ones, it doesn't seem as if any Irish tried to bring down the actual monarchy. Even the Gunpowder Plot, orchestrated by Catholics, did not see the government of England disappearing, only replaced by one they wanted. In theory, it's likely that, had the monarch of any era granted Catholics in Ireland the same rights as Protestants, the Irish would have been happy to have continued to be subservient to the English Crown.

So it would appear that the first real efforts at true independence for Ireland came in the middle of the eighteenth century, and his was one of the first, if not the first, attempt at releasing Ireland from its forced union with Great Britain.

What's more, he achieved his aim.

Kind of.