Stirling Castle: The Most Besieged Castle of the Wars of Independence
Enter the War Wolf!
The following is an extract from my book Bannockburn and Stirling Bridge Exploring Scotland’s Two Great Battles.
So, finally we have reached the castle, a strategic location for at least 2000 years – to control Stirling was to control Scotland. It’s no wonder it changed hands eight times during the Wars of Independence, more than any other castle in Scotland. Indeed, it’s worth remembering that around 1000 AD, Edinburgh and the Lothians had been English.[1] The 1314 siege of course was the casus bellum for the Battle of Bannockburn, the most significant victory in Scottish history. These days, no siege is required and over 600,000 people visit it every year and you really must spend some time here; indeed you could lose whole a day wandering about.
The first record of the castle is from the early 12th century when Alexander I (David I’s older brother) established a chapel and eventually died there. The original castle may have been built by Edgar (both Alexander and David’s older brother). This is likely to have been a substantial tower, perhaps stone built on the highest ground around the Douglas Gardens at the most eastern part of the inner castle, between the King’s Old Building and the Chapel Royal. This would’ve been nearly 200 years old by the Wars of Independence and so will likely have been altered by that point.
Unfortunately very little of what you see today was here 700 years ago, although something is there. The reason that so little survives is of course that both Wallace (after the Battle of Falkirk) and Bruce (after the Battle of Bannockburn) had a go at destroying it. If that wasn’t enough then James IV, James V and James VI all undertook major building projects, adding the massive monumental gates, the Great Hall, the Palace and Chapel Royal to produce one of the best preserved Renaissance Castles in Europe. Stirling Castle – or Snowden as it was called – was linked to Arthurian legend and myth. This tradition was first recorded at David II’s court just after the completion of Second War of Independence. James V’s court poet Sir David Lyndsay also makes a connection to Stirling and King Arthur’s Round Table:
Adieu, fair Snowden, with thy towris hie;
Thy chapel-royal, park and table round;[2]
May, June and July, would I dwell in thee,
Were I ane man to hear the birdis sound,
Whilk doth against thy royal rock redound.
From the 17th century with the introduction of better and better cannons, the castle was given outworks blocking James IV’s magnificent monumental entrance, then finally the rocky approach to the castle was paved over in the 19th century to create the current esplanade.
The best reconstruction of the Castle at this time is by Bob Marshall. Wolf at the Door - Digital Reconstruction of The Siege of Stirling Castle 1304 (bobmarshall.co.uk)
Bob Marshall’s brilliant reconstruction drawing is excellent for the defences and shape of the ground but has by necessity to be a bit vague about the interior. There is a central tower, which would presumably be like Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland, then just to its left another building, which is generally assumed to have been the chapel and presumably the one built for Alexander I. This chapel was probably similar to the 12th century St Margaret’s[3] chapel in Edinburgh Castle. The base of this chapel survives today, nestled between the Palace and the King’s Old Buildings and is the oldest surviving element of the castle.
The remarkable eight times the castle changed hands during the Wars of Independence reflects its enormous strategic and symbolic importance. Rather shamelessly the castle was not besieged after the loss at Dunbar, it was simply handed over to Edward I, which clearly highlights the near total collapse of the Scottish state at that time. Then, a few months after Stirling Bridge, Marmaduke de Thweng handed it over to the Scots. After Falkirk, Wallace abandoned it, though apparently he tried to dismantle it and then burn Stirling down. This might explain why Edward I stayed with the Dominicans, although he had briefly stayed in the castle during the Great Cause and perhaps he simply didn’t like it. However, he does appear to have strengthened its defences.
The castle was besieged again by the Scots in late 1299 and, due to the winter, Edward I was unable to send help so he allowed the English Commander John Sampson to surrender. The Scots installed Sir William Oliphant, who had fought and been captured at Dunbar before returning to the fight. The numbers of Scottish defenders vary from 120 to 25 all ‘gallant men, whom despair rendered braver’[4]. By 1304 Edward I was ready and brought hundreds if not thousands, for what would become the most famous of all of the castle’s sieges. In addition to his own troops he also demanded support from his Scottish followers, who included both Bruce and the Red Comyn at this point. That was still not enough, so he ordered Scottish churches to strip their roofs of lead and that all of ‘Glasgow’s iron as well as great stones and other material from Brechin, Dunfermline and St Andrew’s be brought to him’ to make his siege engines.
Ladies Rock. Is this where Edward I directed the War Wolf from?
The siege began on the 22nd of April 1304 and Edward I built a platform for his Queen to watch it from, to show her the full impact of his mighty efforts, perhaps the most siege engines ever assembled by the English army. The location of the platform is unclear but certainly Ladies Rock[5] is the most obvious location. Edward I asked if Sir William would surrender and Sir William replied that he would have to seek permission from Sir John de Soules[6] who was in France. Edward I would brook no delay and replied ‘By no means; let him consider by himself whether he thinks it better to defend the castle than to surrender it to us’.
So it began, 13 catapults hurled projectiles at the castle day and night, for days, then weeks and then months. Incredibly, not only did Sir William hold out but he also led a number of counter attacks with Scottish artillery and crossbows, narrowly missing killing Edward I twice and, according to ‘Flowers of History’, ‘making a great slaughter of the king’s army’.[7] At one point an English knight, Henry de Beaumont, was caught by a Scottish hook, designed to pull and break up the attacking siege engines. While he was freed from the hook, he was then hit by a bolt from a giant crossbow and believed dead – he only regained consciousness just in time to avoid being buried alive.
However, after three months the food was inevitably running short and so, with honour served and no doubt suffering shell shock, Sir William offered to surrender on the 20th of July. Astonishingly – and in another indication of his black nature – Edward I refused. He had tasked five master carpenters and 50 workmen to build what may have been the largest trebuchet ever built, the loup–de-guerre or Warwolf and was keen to see it in action. It was only when an entire wall of the castle had been destroyed four days later that Edward I let Sir William surrender. He made them leave in bare feet, with ash on their heads before throwing themselves at his feet. Edward I had threatened to have them hanged and disembowelled and it was only the intervention of his Queen that saved them.
I searched, in vain, to find some poetry to describe this incredible siege and the heroic actions of Sir William and his brave defenders, although I did find a pipe tune by Willie McColl. However, I suspect the reason Sir William is not more celebrated is that the siege may have broken him. As you know, within a year of his own surrender, Wallace had been executed - Scotland was crushed. Sir William wound up locked in the Tower of London and was only released when he pledged allegiance to Edward I. Ironically, by 1312, he ended up in charge of Perth on Edward I’s behalf, when it was subject to a failed six week siege by Bruce, who eventually captured the town by sneaking over the walls.[8] Brave Sir William was captured and sent in chains to the Western Isles where he later died, a very sorry end for one of Scotland’s bravest heroes.[9]
After the siege, Stirling became an English controlled town, there were celebrations and jousting tournaments. Sir William Bisset, a Scot who had pledged allegiance to Edward I, was first made Sheriff and latterly Constable of the castle and he organised repairs to Stirling Bridge. It would be 10 years until the Battle of Bannockburn and the 120 soldiers in the castle (large by contemporary standards) would by then have made friends and fathered children in the town.
Of course Sir Philip Mowbray, who would control the castle during the Bruces’ siege of 1314, was also Scottish. After that siege he returned to the Scottish side and died in Ireland fighting with the Bruces. His brother Roger, however, became involved in the Soules Plot and you’ll remember that his corpse was dug up and tried!
Thinking about the Oliphants, the Soules and the Mowbrays, you realise just how important that ‘s’ in Wars of Independence is but also it simply doesn’t do justice to the divided loyalties and complexities of this war and its ever shifting sands. How many pledges and vows could be broken? Why should anyone follow that cold-blooded killer Bruce? What was the honourable and right thing to do?
We’ve already heard that the 1314 siege of Stirling castle was part of a plan to capitalise on the vast break in English supply lines between Berwick and Stirling. Famously, the plan is portrayed as an honourable if naïve mistake by Edward Bruce, which his older brother then had to sort out. Equally, Barbour’s The Brus portrays the English as scoffing at Edward’s mistake:
Thai jugyt all to gret foly,
And thoucht to haiff all thar liking
Giff men abaid thaim in fechting,
And my rendering:
They judged it all great folly,
And thought to have all to their liking
If men stood waiting for the fighting.
Now of course Barbour’s The Brus is written with hindsight and in keeping with Bruce’s own character and mind set in which Bannockburn was his trial by combat, where God himself had judged him worthy. Therefore, inevitably, The Brus sets this up as a classic example of English hubris, with Bruce himself as the inevitable nemesis:
Na mannys mycht may stand agayn
The grace off God that all thing steris
And my own take:
No man may stand against the grace of God who rules everything.
The siege itself is not described in much detail, though we learn from The Brus that there was the odd skirmish but no great acts of chivalry. However, clearly the food was running out – and then of course the battle happened. Sir Philip could see the writing on the wall even if Edward II could not. Again The Brus captures the scene, Edward II and the last vestiges of his forces have ridden full pelt to the castle to seek refuge and Sir Philip replies:
The castell, Schyr, is at your will,
But cum ye in it ye sall se
That ye sall sone assegyt be
And thar sall nane of Ingland
To make recours tak on hand
And but recours may na castell
Be haldyn lang, ye wate this wele.
And here’s my version
The castle, Sir is at your will,
But come inside and you shall see
That you shall soon besieged be
And there is none from England
To supply you and rally round
Thus impossible it is to hold a castle
For long, which you know well.
Edward II fled south from the castle down towards the Royal Park and the ‘Rond Table’ (about which more later), eventually getting on a boat at Dunbar. Sir Philip gave the keys to Bruce the following day and, mindful of what had happened before, Bruce sacked it so it could not be used against him. It’s likely that the one building he did not destroy – which also seems to have been the case at Edinburgh – was St Margret’s Chapel, as this would have been an affront to God. While there was clearly a round of celebrations, Bruce soon retreated north of the Forth which, as Wallace had found, was a more reliable ally than his fellow Scots. This led Bruce to strengthen Clackmannan Tower.
Ahead of the 1319 and 1322 English invasions Bruce implemented a scorched earth policy which again impacted Stirling. The net result of the war and the ongoing and repeated destruction was depopulation and a collapse in the tax returns, which dropped by 60% compared with before the war. It may be that Bruce simply did not trust the locals to reinvest, though he did support Cambuskenneth Abbey – but then he always needed the church’s support!
It was of course precisely because of this underinvestment that the English were able to capture Stirling castle during the second Wars of Independence. In 1336 we have records of an extensive rebuilding programme by Sir Thomas de Rokeby involving new walls, wells, halls, and kitchens, while the ditches were deepened and an outer palisade added on the northern side. The English now controlled the most strategic route in Scotland and were to remain there until 1342 – six more years of foreign occupation. Sir Andrew Moray[10] besieged the castle in 1337 and an attempt to scale the walls by Sir William Keith[11] during this siege failed as he fell to his death, impaled on his own spear. Edward III was able to relieve the castle before the supplies ran low and the siege was abandoned.
Robert the Stewart, Bruce’s grandson via his daughter Marjorie and later King Robert II (the founder of the Stewart line), started a new siege in late 1341 and by April 1342 he had starved Rokeby out. Intriguingly, this may be the first siege in Scotland to have used cannons or ‘crakkis of war’. This was the last time that the English would occupy the castle until Cromwell in the 17th century. However, Rokeby was not yet finished with us. He was a commander at the disastrous Neville’s Cross in 1346, where the Scots suffered a terrible defeat and was responsible for escorting the captured David II to London – and you know how that ended.
Remember that early chapel built by Alexander I? During the excavations of it a number of bodies were recovered and one, a heavy built man, featured sword wounds and was clearly a knight. This was clearly someone who had died defending the castle but it was not known whether he fought on the English or Scottish side. A facial reconstruction of this man, known as Stirling Man, is displayed on the wall of the chapel and he was the subject of an episode of the TV programme History Cold Case, which suggested he may have been an English knight called Sir John de Stricheley, who died in 1341 from a Scottish arrow - however the radiocarbon dating is ambiguous and no clear conclusion could be reached.
[1] You remember the Stirling Burgh seal on the Ragman Roll? Well, the Latin around it’s edge talks about ‘Brute Scots’, clearly meaning people in Stirling did not think of themselves as Scottish, but something better – and to be frank we still do!
[2] Barbour’s ‘The Brus’ also mentions a ‘Rond table’ below the castle, and this is thought to be under the 17th century King’s Knot.
[3] Margaret was Edgar, Alexander and David’s mother but did not become a saint until the mid-13th century.
[4] The source of the dialogue for the 1304 siege is from ‘The Flowers of History, especially such as relate to the Affairs of Britain. From the Beginning of the World to the Year 1307’, by Matthew Paris.
[5] Ladies or Lady’s Rock or Lady’s Hill is often thought to be the location from which ladies of the court watched jousting below or activities in front of the Castle, all of which took place around 200 years after the siege. However, it is more likely to be a former Catholic shrine, Our Lady’s Rock.
[6] The uncle of Sir William Soules, later, the leader of the eponymous Soules Plot against the Bruce.
[7] Remember, in the middle of all of this, Bruce met Bishop Lamberton at Cambuskenneth on the 4th June to discuss the next stage of the rebellion.
[8] Bruce was the second over the walls, but I’ve not been able to confirm who went first.
[9] Sir William is often confused with his cousin, also Sir William Oliphant, who was also at Stirling Castle during the 1304 siege but who remained loyal and signed the Declaration of Arbroath.
[10] The son of the hero of Stirling Bridge and the then current Guardian of Scotland.
[11] Sir William was responsible for bringing The Bruce’s heart back from the Holy Land for reburial at Melrose.