Siege of Berwick (1318)
The Capture of Berwick was an event in the First War of Scottish Independence which took place in April 1318. Sir James Douglas, Lord of Douglas took the town and castle of Berwick-upon-Tweed from the English, who had controlled the town since 1296. Following the decisive Scots victory at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, the Scots had recovered all their strongholds, with the exception of Berwick. In September 1317, King Robert Bruce attempted a siege of Berwick, which lasted until November before he withdrew; the following April, an English sergeant was bribed to allow a party of Scots to climb the town wall. The raiding party, led by Sir James Douglas, the Earl of Dunbar, took the town after a fight; the castle was warned when they lost control of their men, who began to plunder and failed to capture the castle. King Robert soon arrived with an army, after an eleven-week siege, the castle garrison capitulated due to a lack of supplies; the English burgesses were expelled, King Robert re-established Berwick as a Scottish trading port, installing his son-in-law Walter Stewart as Keeper.
The retaking of Berwick was a significant victory for the Scots. Historian Michael Brown notes that "symbolically, the capture of town and castle marked the completion of King Robert's realm and kingship." However, Berwick would change hands several more times in the years to come, before permanently becoming part of England when the town was captured in 1482. Brown, Michael. Bannockburn. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 0-7486-3333-2
Battle of Glen Trool
The Battle of Glen Trool was a minor engagement in the First War of Scottish Independence, fought in April 1307. Glen Trool is a narrow glen in the Southern Uplands of Scotland. Loch Trool is aligned on an east-west axis and is flanked on both sides by steep rising hills, making it ideal for an ambush; the battlefield is under research to be inventoried and protected by Historic Scotland under the Scottish Historical Environment Policy of 2009. Robert Bruce had been involved in the murder of John "the Red" Comyn, a leading rival, one of the most powerful men in Scotland, the previous year 1306; this led to a bitter civil war between the Bruce's faction and the Comyns and their allies, notably Edward I. After his defeat at the Battle of Methven and subsequently at the Battle of Dalry in the summer of 1306 the crowned King Robert was little better than a fugitive, disappearing altogether from the historical record for a number of months, it wasn't until the spring of 1307 that he made a reappearance, landing in the south-west of Scotland with soldiers recruited, for the most part, from the Western Isles.
It was an understandable move. More important the countryside itself was well known to Bruce, there were plenty of remote and difficult areas to allow cover and protection for his band of guerillas, but it was a move bold to the point of foolhardiness. The English border was not far distant; when his brothers Thomas and Alexander attempted a landing on the shores of Loch Ryan, they met with disaster at the hands of Dungal MacDougall, the leading Balliol supporter in the area. Bruce managed to establish a firm base in the area but it was vital that he made progress against the enemy if his cause was to attract the additional support, so needed. An early success came with a raid on an English camp on the eastern shores of the Clatteringshaws Loch, it alerted the enemy to his presence. Aymer de Valence, Bruce's second cousin and opponent at Methven, received intelligence that his enemy was encamped at the head of Glen Trool; this was a difficult position to approach, for the loch takes up much of the glen, with only a narrow track bordered by a steep slope.
Near the middle, the hill pushes forward in a precipitous abutment. Valence sent a small raiding party ahead hoping to catch the enemy offguard in much the same fashion as at Methven; this time, Bruce made effective use of the terrain. During the night Bruce sent some of his men up the slope with orders to loosen with levers and crow-bars as many of the detached blocks of granite as they could; as the English approached up the defile, called by the locals the "Steps of Trool", they were forced to proceed single file. Bruce observed their progress from across the loch and, at a given signal, his men pushed the wall of boulders down the slope; this was followed by hand-to-hand combat as Bruce's men charged down the slope. The narrowness of the path prevented support from either the rear. Without room to manoeuvre, many of the English below were killed, the rest withdrew. Bruce not only survived but went on the following month to win his first important engagement at the Battle of Loudon Hill; the English soldiers killed in the skirmish were buried in flat ground at the head of the loch, known as Soldier's Holm.
Much of the information we have about the Battle of Glen Trool comes from the rhyming account of John Barbour. Barbour is an important source. Glen Trool is in many ways best seen as the first wave of the Bruce flag, subject to considerable amplification and exaggeration, it only receives a passing mention in the English records of the time in reference to some horses lost "in the pursuit of Robert de Brus between Glentruyl and Glenheur, on the army's last day in Galloway." It was more a great boost to morale. The rebel king was chased just as as before, it did prove that Bruce had acquired an ability to change and adapt to circumstances, using ambushes and surprise attacks, advancing and retreating as the occasion demanded. Bruce's Stone is a large granite boulder commemorating Bruce’s victory in 1307, it is atop the hill on the north side of Loch Trool. In 1929, on the 600th anniversary of Bruce's death, it was placed high above the northern shore of Loch Trool, from where, legend has it, he had commanded the ambush that took place on the Steps of Trool on the other side of the loch.
It serves as a starting spot for the challenging walk up Merrick, the highest mountain in southern Scotland. Barbour, The Bruce, trans. A. A. H. Douglas, 1964. Bingham C. Robert the Bruce, 1998. Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland, ed. J. Bain, 1881-8. Duncan, A. A. M; the War of the Scots, in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 1992
Edward I of England
Edward I known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. Before his accession to the throne, he was referred to as The Lord Edward; the first son of Henry III, Edward was involved early in the political intrigues of his father's reign, which included an outright rebellion by the English barons. In 1259, he sided with a baronial reform movement, supporting the Provisions of Oxford. After reconciliation with his father, however, he remained loyal throughout the subsequent armed conflict, known as the Second Barons' War. After the Battle of Lewes, Edward was hostage to the rebellious barons, but escaped after a few months and joined the fight against Simon de Montfort. Montfort was defeated at the Battle of Evesham in 1265, within two years the rebellion was extinguished. With England pacified, Edward joined the Ninth Crusade to the Holy Land; the crusade accomplished little, Edward was on his way home in 1272 when he was informed that his father had died.
Making a slow return, he was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 19 August. He spent much of his reign reforming common law. Through an extensive legal inquiry, Edward investigated the tenure of various feudal liberties, while the law was reformed through a series of statutes regulating criminal and property law. However, Edward's attention was drawn towards military affairs. After suppressing a minor rebellion in Wales in 1276–77, Edward responded to a second rebellion in 1282–83 with a full-scale war of conquest. After a successful campaign, Edward subjected Wales to English rule, built a series of castles and towns in the countryside and settled them with English people. Next, his efforts were directed towards Scotland. Invited to arbitrate a succession dispute, Edward claimed feudal suzerainty over the kingdom; the war that followed continued after Edward's death though the English seemed victorious at several points. Edward I found himself at war with France after the French king Philip IV had confiscated the duchy of Aquitaine, which until had been held in personal union with the Kingdom of England.
Although Edward recovered his duchy, this conflict relieved English military pressure against Scotland. At the same time there were problems at home. In the mid-1290s, extensive military campaigns required high levels of taxation, Edward met with both lay and ecclesiastical opposition; these crises were averted, but issues remained unsettled. When the King died in 1307, he left to his son Edward II an ongoing war with Scotland and many financial and political problems. Edward I was a tall man for his era, hence the nickname "Longshanks", he was temperamental, this, along with his height, made him an intimidating man, he instilled fear in his contemporaries. He held the respect of his subjects for the way he embodied the medieval ideal of kingship, as a soldier, an administrator and a man of faith. Modern historians are divided on their assessment of Edward I: while some have praised him for his contribution to the law and administration, others have criticised him for his uncompromising attitude towards his nobility.
Edward I is credited with many accomplishments during his reign, including restoring royal authority after the reign of Henry III, establishing Parliament as a permanent institution and thereby a functional system for raising taxes, reforming the law through statutes. At the same time, he is often criticised for other actions, such as his brutal conduct towards the Welsh and Scots, issuing the Edict of Expulsion in 1290, by which the Jews were expelled from England; the Edict remained in effect for the rest of the Middle Ages, it was over 350 years until it was formally overturned under Oliver Cromwell in 1657. Edward was born at the Palace of Westminster on the night of 17–18 June 1239, to King Henry III and Eleanor of Provence. Edward is an Anglo-Saxon name, was not given among the aristocracy of England after the Norman conquest, but Henry was devoted to the veneration of Edward the Confessor, decided to name his firstborn son after the saint. Among his childhood friends was his cousin Henry of Almain, son of King Henry's brother Richard of Cornwall.
Henry of Almain would remain a close companion of the prince, both through the civil war that followed, during the crusade. Edward was in the care of Hugh Giffard – father of the future Chancellor Godfrey Giffard – until Bartholomew Pecche took over at Giffard's death in 1246. There were concerns about Edward's health as a child, he fell ill in 1246, 1247, 1251. Nonetheless, he became an imposing man; the historian Michael Prestwich states that his "long arms gave him an advantage as a swordsman, long thighs one as a horseman. In youth, his curly hair was blond, his speech, despite a lisp, was said to be persuasive."In 1254, English fears of a Castilian invasion of the English province of Gascony induced Edward's father to arrange a politically expedient marriage between his fifteen-year-old son and thirteen-year-old Eleanor, the half-sister of King Alfonso X of Castile. Eleanor and Edward were married on 1 November 1254 in the Abbey of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas in Castile; as part of the marriage agreement, the young prince received grants of land worth 15,000 marks a year.
Although the endowments King Henry made were sizeable, they offered Edwa
First War of Scottish Independence
The First War of Scottish Independence was the initial chapter of engagements in a series of warring periods between English and Scottish forces lasting from the invasion by England in 1296 until the de jure restoration of Scottish independence with the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton in 1328. De facto independence was established in 1314 at the Battle of Bannockburn. England attempted to establish its authority over Scotland while the Scots fought to keep English rule and authority out of Scotland; the term "War of Independence" did not exist at the time. The war was given that name retroactively many centuries after the American War of Independence made the term popular; when King Alexander III ruled Scotland, his reign had seen a period of peace and economic stability. On 19 March 1286, Alexander died after falling from his horse; the heir to the throne was Alexander's granddaughter, Maid of Norway. As she was still a child and in Norway, the Scottish lords set up a government of guardians.
Margaret fell ill on the voyage to Scotland and died in Orkney on 26 September 1290. The lack of a clear heir led to a period known as Competitors for the Crown of Scotland or the "Great Cause", with several families laying claim to the throne. With Scotland threatening to descend into civil war, King Edward I of England was invited in by the Scottish nobility to arbitrate. Before the process could begin, he insisted that all of the contenders recognise him as Lord Paramount of Scotland. In early November 1292, at a great feudal court held in the castle at Berwick-upon-Tweed, judgement was given in favour of John Balliol having the strongest claim in law. Edward proceeded to reverse the rulings of the Scottish Lords and summoned King John Balliol to stand before the English court as a common plaintiff. John was a weak king, known as "Toom Tabard" or "Empty Coat". John renounced his homage in March 1296 and by the end of the month Edward stormed Berwick-upon-Tweed, sacking the then-Scottish border town.
In April, the Scots were defeated at the Battle of Dunbar in East Lothian and by July, Edward had forced John to abdicate. Edward instructed his officers to receive formal homage from some 1,800 Scottish nobles. Throughout Scotland, there was widespread discontent and disorder after the dominion exercised by the English Crown, acts of defiance were directed against local English officials. In 1297, the country erupted in open revolt, Andrew de Moray and William Wallace emerged as the first significant Scottish patriots. Andrew de Moray was the son of Sir Andrew de Moray of Petty. Andrew and his father were both captured in the rout after the Battle of Dunbar in April 1296. Andrew the younger was held captive in Chester Castle on the Anglo-Welsh border, from which he escaped during the winter of 1296-97, he returned to his father's castle at Avoch on the northern shore of the Moray Firth, where he raised his banner in the name of Scotland's king, John Balliol. Moray gathered a band of like-minded patriots, employing hit-and-run guerrilla tactics, began to attack and devastate every English-garrisoned castle from Banff to Inverness.
The entire province of Moray was soon in revolt against King Edward I's men, before long Moray had secured Moray, leaving him free to turn his attention to the rest of the northeast of Scotland. Wallace rose to prominence in May 1297, when he killed Sir William Haselrig, the English sheriff of Lanark, members of his garrison at Lanark with the aid of Sir Richard Lundie; when news of Wallace's latest attack on the English rippled throughout Scotland, men rallied to him. The rebels were supported by Robert Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow, who longed for the defeat of the English; the blessing of Wishart gave the patriots a mark of respectability. He was soon joined by others. In early June and Douglas planned a symbolic strike to liberate Scone, the seat of the English-appointed Justiciar of Scotland, William de Ormesby, it was from Scone, a site held sacred by the Scots, that Ormesby had been dispensing English justice. Ormesby was hastily fled. On hearing about the start of an aristocratic uprising, Edward I, although engaged in events in France, sent a force of foot soldiers and horsemen under Sir Henry Percy and Sir Robert Clifford to resolve the "Scottish problem".
On receiving reports that Sir William Douglas had defected to the rebels, Edward dispatched Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, together with his father's vassals of Annandale, to attack Douglas's stronghold in Lanarkshire. Whilst traveling north to face Douglas, Bruce began to think about where his loyalties lay, he decided to follow the Scottish cause, being quoted as saying, "No man holds his flesh and blood in hatred, I am no exception. I must join my own people and the nation in whom I was born."The confederacy of men that Bruce joined included James the Steward, Robert Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow and William Douglas. Dissension broke out in the Scottish camp when the Scottish and English armies met in July 1297 near Irvine; the aristocratic revolt halted before it started, but its leaders led long and futile negotiations. It has been suggested that this was a deliberate move in order to provide space and time for Wallace to levy and train men. Percy and Clifford assumed that this was the end of the problem and retired back to the south, only to be followed once more by Wallace and Moray.
These two divided their forces and in a short time again forced the English south of the Forth, leaving them holding only the castle of Dundee. While laying siege to Dundee Castle, Wallace heard that an En
Kingdom of Scotland
The Kingdom of Scotland was a sovereign state in northwest Europe traditionally said to have been founded in 843. Its territories expanded and shrank, but it came to occupy the northern third of the island of Great Britain, sharing a land border to the south with the Kingdom of England, it suffered many invasions by the English, but under Robert I it fought a successful War of Independence and remained an independent state throughout the late Middle Ages. In 1603, James VI of Scotland became King of England, joining Scotland with England in a personal union. In 1707, the two kingdoms were united to form the Kingdom of Great Britain under the terms of the Acts of Union. Following the annexation of the Northern Isles from the Kingdom of Norway in 1472 and final capture of the Royal Burgh of Berwick by the Kingdom of England in 1482, the territory of the Kingdom of Scotland corresponded to that of modern-day Scotland, bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, the North Channel and Irish Sea to the southwest.
The Crown was the most important element of government. The Scottish monarchy in the Middle Ages was a itinerant institution, before Edinburgh developed as a capital city in the second half of the 15th century; the Crown remained at the centre of political life and in the 16th century emerged as a major centre of display and artistic patronage, until it was dissolved with the Union of Crowns in 1603. The Scottish Crown adopted the conventional offices of western European monarchical states of the time and developed a Privy Council and great offices of state. Parliament emerged as a major legal institution, gaining an oversight of taxation and policy, but was never as central to the national life. In the early period, the kings of the Scots depended on the great lords—the mormaers and toísechs—but from the reign of David I, sheriffdoms were introduced, which allowed more direct control and limited the power of the major lordships. In the 17th century, the creation of Justices of Peace and Commissioners of Supply helped to increase the effectiveness of local government.
The continued existence of courts baron and the introduction of kirk sessions helped consolidate the power of local lairds. Scots law was reformed and codified in the 16th and 17th centuries. Under James IV the legal functions of the council were rationalised, with Court of Session meeting daily in Edinburgh. In 1532, the College of Justice was founded, leading to the training and professionalisation of lawyers. David I is the first Scottish king known to have produced his own coinage. At the union of the Crowns in 1603 the Pound Scots was fixed at only one-twelfth the value of the English pound; the Bank of Scotland issued pound notes from 1704. Scottish currency was abolished by the Act of Union, however to the present day, Scotland retains unique banknotes. Geographically, Scotland is divided between the Lowlands; the Highlands had a short growing season, further shortened during the Little Ice Age. From Scotland's foundation to the inception of the Black Death, the population had grown to a million.
It expanded in the first half of the 16th century, reaching 1.2 million by the 1690s. Significant languages in the medieval kingdom included Gaelic, Old English and French. Christianity was introduced into Scotland from the 6th century. In the Norman period the Scottish church underwent a series of changes that led to new monastic orders and organisation. During the 16th century, Scotland underwent a Protestant Reformation that created a predominately Calvinist national kirk. There were a series of religious controversies that resulted in persecutions; the Scottish Crown developed naval forces at various points in its history, but relied on privateers and fought a guerre de course. Land forces centred around the large common army, but adopted European innovations from the 16th century. From the 5th century AD, north Britain was divided into a series of petty kingdoms. Of these, the four most important were those of the Picts in the north-east, the Scots of Dál Riata in the west, the Britons of Strathclyde in the south-west and the Anglian kingdom of Bernicia in the south-east, stretching into modern northern England.
In AD 793, ferocious Viking raids began on monasteries such as those at Iona and Lindisfarne, creating fear and confusion across the kingdoms of north Britain. Orkney and the Western Isles fell to the Norsemen; these threats may have speeded up a long-term process of gaelicisation of the Pictish kingdoms, which adopted Gaelic language and customs. There was a merger of the Gaelic and Pictish kingdoms, although historians debate whether it was a Pictish takeover of Dál Riata, or the other way round; this culminated in the rise of Cínaed mac Ailpín as "king of the Picts" in the 840s, which brought to power the House of Alpin. When he died as king of the combined kingdom in 900 one of his successors, Domnall II, was the first man to be called rí Alban; the term Scotia would be used to describe the heartland of these kings, north of the River Forth, the entire area controlled by its kings would be referred to as Scotland. The long reign of Donald's successor Causantín is regarded as the key to formation of the Kingdom of Alba/Scotland, he was la
Battle of Stirling Bridge
The Battle of Stirling Bridge was a battle of the First War of Scottish Independence. On 11 September 1297, the forces of Andrew Moray and William Wallace defeated the combined English forces of John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey, Hugh de Cressingham near Stirling, on the River Forth; the Earl of Surrey had won a victory over the aristocracy of Scotland at the Battle of Dunbar. However, by August 1297 Moray and Wallace controlled all of Scotland north of the Forth, except for Dundee. Surrey marched north with an army from Wicker to relieve Dundee; the town of Stirling was the key entry point to the north of Scotland. The 6th Earl of Surrey arrived with his supporters at the narrow, wooden bridge over the River Forth near Stirling Castle and determined that he would be at a tactical disadvantage if he attempted to take his main force across there. So he delayed crossing for several days to allow for negotiations, to reconnoiter the area. On 10 September Warenne gave orders to cross the river the next day.
At dawn the English and Welsh infantry started to cross only to be recalled because Warenne had overslept. The Scots arrived first and camped on Abbey Craig, which dominated the soft flat ground north of the river; the English force of English and Scots knights and foot soldiers camped south of the river. Sir Richard Lundie, a Scots knight who joined the English after the Capitulation of Irvine, offered to outflank the enemy by leading a cavalry force over a ford two miles upstream, where sixty horsemen could cross at the same time. Hugh de Cressingham, King Edward's treasurer in Scotland, persuaded the Earl to reject this advice and order a direct attack across the bridge; the small bridge was broad enough to let only two horsemen cross abreast, but offered the safest river crossing, as the Forth widened to the east and the marshland of Flanders Moss lay to the west. The Scots waited as the English knights and infantry made their slow progress across the bridge on the morning of 11 September.
It would have taken several hours for the entire English army to cross. Wallace and Moray waited, according to the Chronicle of Hemingburgh, until "as many of the enemy had come over as they believed they could overcome"; when a substantial number of the troops had crossed the attack was ordered. The Scots spearmen came down from the high ground in rapid advance and fended off a charge by the English heavy cavalry and counterattacked the English infantry, they gained control of the east side of the bridge, cut off the chance of English reinforcements to cross. Caught on the low ground in the loop of the river with no chance of relief or of retreat, most of the outnumbered English on the east side were killed. A few hundred may have escaped by swimming across the river. Marmaduke Thweng managed to fight his way back across the bridge and he thus became the only knight of all those on the far side of the river to survive the battle. Surrey, left with a small contingent of archers, had stayed south of the river and was still in a strong position.
The bulk of his army remained intact and he could have held the line of the Forth, denying the Scots a passage to the south, but his confidence was gone. After the escape of Sir Marmaduke Thweng, Surrey ordered the bridge to be destroyed, retreated towards Berwick, leaving the garrison at Stirling Castle isolated and abandoning the Lowlands to the rebels. James Stewart, the High Steward of Scotland, Malcolm, Earl of Lennox, whose forces had been part of Surrey's army, observing the carnage to the north of the bridge, withdrew; the English supply train was attacked at The Pows, a wooded marshy area, by James Stewart and the other Scots lords, killing many of the fleeing soldiers. This Stirling Bridge is believed to have been about 180 yards upstream from the 15th century stone bridge that crosses the river today. Four stone piers have been found underwater just north and at an angle to the extant 15th-century bridge, along with man-made stonework on one bank in line with the piers; the site of the fighting was along either side of an earthen causeway leading from the Abbey Craig, atop which the Wallace Monument is now, to the north end of the bridge.
The battlefield has been inventoried and protected by Historic Scotland under the Scottish Historical Environment Policy of 2009. The Battle of Stirling Bridge was a shattering defeat for the English: it showed that under certain circumstances infantry could be superior to cavalry, it was some time, before this lesson was absorbed. Contemporary English chronicler Walter of Guisborough recorded the English losses in the battle as 100 cavalry and 5,000 infantry killed. Scottish casualties in the battle are unrecorded, with the exception of Andrew Moray, he died of his injuries around November. De Cressingham's body was subsequently flayed and the skin cut into small pieces for souvenirs of the victory; the Lanercost Chronicle records that Wallace had "a broad strip...taken from the head to the heel, to make therewith a baldrick for his sword". Wallace went on to lead a destructive raid into northern England which did little to advance the Scots objectives, however the raids frightened the English army and stalled their advance.
By March 1298 he had emerged as Guardian of Scotland. His glory was brief; the two men met on the field of Falkirk in the summer of 1298, where Wallace was defeated. The exploits of Wallace were passed on to posterity in the form of tales collected and recounted by the poet Blind Harry, the Minstrel whose original oral sources were never specified. Blind Harry was active some two hundred years after the ev
Anglo-Scottish Wars
The Anglo-Scottish Wars comprise the various battles which continued to be fought between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland from the time of the Wars of Independence in the early 14th century through to the latter years of the 16th century. Although the Wars of Independence, in which Scotland twice resisted attempted conquest by Plantagenet kings of England, formally ended in the treaties of 1328 and 1357 relations between the two countries remained uneasy. Incursions by English kings into Scotland continued under Richard II and Henry IV and informal cross-border conflict remained endemic. Formal flashpoints on the border included places remaining under English occupation, such as Roxburgh Castle or the port of Berwick-upon-Tweed. Roxburgh was recaptured by the Scots in 1460 under Mary of Guelders after the death of James II in the same campaign. Possession of Berwick changed hands a number of times, as one country attempted to take advantage of weakness or instability in the other, culminating in final capture for the English of the Scottish port by Richard, Duke of Gloucester in 1482.
England's preoccupation with civil war during the Wars of the Roses may have been a component in the period of relative recovery for her northern neighbour during the course of the 15th century, by the first decade of the 16th century James IV of Scotland and Henry VII of England were making overtures for lasting peace. This broke down after the accession of the more overtly bellicose Henry VIII to the English throne and James IV's catastrophically misjudged incursion into Northumbria in 1513 ending in the Battle of Flodden. Three decades after the death of James V in 1542, the so-called'rough wooing' at the hands of invading English armies under the Earl of Hertford brought manifest depredations to Scotland; the last pitched battle between Scotland and England as independent states was the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh in September 1547. Periods of fighting and conflict continued. France played a key role throughout the period of the Anglo-Scottish Wars. Scots and English soldiers on French soil during the Hundred Years War fought on opposing sides, with the Scots standing for the French against the English under the Auld Alliance.
France in periods, in turn intervened on Scottish soil for the Scots. This French involvement had complex political consequences for all sides by the 16th century; the Anglo-Scottish Wars can formally be said to have ended with the Union of the Crowns in 1603, wherein England and Scotland entered a personal union under James VI and I, who inherited both crowns. Bloody conflict between the two states continued to arise in different and more complex guise throughout the course of the 17th century. During the mid-15th century there were many conflicts on the border of England and Scotland, most notably the Battle of Sark in 1448. England under Henry VIII declared war on France in 1512. James IV of Scotland invaded England in fulfillment of his alliance with France. In 1513, after preliminary raids by borderers came to grief, James's main army invaded England, his artillery subdued English castles such as Norham and Wark. However, James's overdeveloped sense of chivalry prompted him to issue a formal challenge to the English army under the Earl of Surrey and await him in position.
Surrey's army attacked from the rear. In the resulting disastrous Battle of Flodden, James IV was killed, along with many of his nobles and gentry, the "Flowers of the Forest". James V of Scotland was an infant a year old at his father's death. Various factions among the Scottish nobles contended for power, custody of the young king. While Henry VIII secretly encouraged some of them, English armies and some families of English and nominally Scottish Border Reivers forayed and looted in southwest Scotland, to maintain pressure on the Scottish authorities. After the faction of the Earl of Angus gained control, peaceful relations were restored between England and Scotland; when James V came of age and assumed control, he overthrew the Angus faction, renewed Scotland's Auld Alliance with France. He married first Madeleine of Valois, a daughter of Francis I of France, when she died a few months of tuberculosis, he married Mary of Guise. Tension between England and Scotland increased once again. War broke out in 1541.
Once again there were preliminary border skirmishes, but when James sent a large army into England, its leadership was weak and divided and it suffered a humbling defeat at the Battle of Solway Moss. James died shortly afterward the defeat. Once again, Scotland's monarch was this time Mary, Queen of Scots. Henry tried to pressure a divided Scotland into an alliance, secure the marriage of Mary to his son Edward; when Cardinal Beaton gained control of the government of Scotland and renewed the alliance with France, Henry reacted in 1544 by sending an army under the Earl of Hertford, Edward's uncle, to systematically devastate and slaughter throughout southern Scotland, as a means of inducing a change of heart. Campaigning continued the next year, but some Scottish factions reconciled and won a victory at the Battle of Ancrum Moor, which temporarily halted Eng
Kingdom of Scotland
Kingdom of England
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