History - The Rough Guide to Scottish Highlands and Islands - page 406

managed to include Kintyre in his swag by being hauled across the isthmus at Tarbet
sitting in a boat, thus proving it an “island”, as it could be circumnavigated. In
practice, however, power in this Viking kingdom of Sú ∂ reyjar (Southern Islands) was
in the control of local chiefs, lieutenants of a king on the Isle of Man who was himself
subordinate to the king of Norway. By marrying the daughter of one of the Manx
kings and skilful raiding of neighbouring islands, Somerled , King of Argyll,
established himself and his successors as Lords of the Isles. Their natural ally was to
the Scottish rather than the Norwegian king, and when Alexander III (1249-86),
Scotland's strongest king in two centuries, sought to buy back the Hebrides from
King Håkon of Norway in 1263, the offended Norwegian king sent a fleet of 120
ships to teach the Scots a lesson and drag the islands back into line. Initially the
bullying tactics worked, but the fleet lingered too long, was battered by a series of
autumnal storms, and retreated back to Orkney in disarray following a skirmish
with Alexander's army at the Battle of Largs on the Clyde coast. While in Orkney,
King Håkon died, and three years later the Treaty of Perth of 1266 returned the Isle of
Man and the Hebrides to Scotland in exchange for an annual rent.

The Wars of Scottish Independence
In 1286 Alexander III died, and a hotly disputed succession gave Edward I, King of
England, an opportunity to subjugate Scotland. In 1291 Edward presided over a
conference where the rival claimants to the Scottish throne presented their cases.
Edward chose John Balliol in preference to Robert the Bruce, his main rival, and
obliged John to pay him homage, thus turning Scotland into a vassal kingdom. Bruce
refused to accept the decision, thereby continuing the conflict, and in 1295 Balliol
renounced his allegiance to Edward and formed an alliance with France - the
beginning of what is known as the “ Auld Alliance ”. In the conflict that followed, the
Bruce family sided with the English, Balliol was defeated and imprisoned, and Edward
seized control of almost all of Scotland.
Edward had shown little mercy during his conquest of Scotland - he had, for
example, had most of the population of Berwick massacred - and his cruelty seems to
have provoked a truly national resistance. This focused on William Wallace , a man of
relatively lowly origins from southwest Scotland who forged an army of peasants, lesser
knights and townsmen that was fundamentally different to the armies raised by the
nobility. Figures like Balliol, holding lands in England, France and Scotland, were part
of an international aristocracy for whom warfare was merely the means by which they
struggled for power. Wallace, by contrast, led proto-nationalist forces drawn from both
Lowlands and Highlands determined to expel the English from their country. Probably
for that very reason Wallace never received the support of the nobility and, after a bitter
ten-year campaign, he was betrayed and executed in London in 1305.
With Wallace out of the way, feudal intrigue resumed. In 1306 Robert the Bruce ,
the erstwhile ally of the English, defied Edward and had himself crowned king of
Scotland. Edward died the following year, but the unrest dragged on until 1314,
when Bruce decisively defeated a huge English army under Edward II at the Battle
of Bannockburn . At last Bruce was firmly in control of his kingdom, and in 1320
the Scots asserted their right to independence in a successful petition to the pope,
now known as the Declaration of Arbroath .

1286 1314 1320

Death of Alexander III
sparks the Wars of
Scottish Independence

Under Robert the Bruce,
the Scots defeat the
English at the Battle
of Bannockburn

The Declaration of Arbroath,
asserting Scottish independence,
is sent to the pope