Alternate Irelands 5: Edward Bruce would have supported Celtic
By Gary Oswald.
The key battle of the First War of Scottish Independence was Bannockburn in 1314. After England had conquered Scotland in 1296 and killed William Wallace, the first major rebel against their rule, in 1305, Robert the Bruce then claimed the Scottish throne in 1306. Robert spent the next three years gathering supporters in Scotland and destroying those families who refused to ally with him. By 1309 he was the undisputed ruler of the Scots and began isolating and capturing English outposts within Scotland, taking Linlithgow, Perth, Dumbarton, the Isle of Man, Roxburgh and Edinburgh. Soon, only Sterling and Berwick remained in English hands and by Spring 1314, Sterling was under siege and would fall without relief.
As a result Edward II of England sent a vast army north, the largest England had ever sent to Scotland, to break the siege and save English power in Scotland. It was that army which Robert the Bruce shattered at Bannockburn, sending the King of England himself fleeing to avoid capture. Stirling surrendered the next day and all of modern day Scotland was entirely free from English control (though Berwick and the Isle of Man, both pre-war Scottish territories, were still in English hands after the latter had been recaptured).
Except the war did not end until the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton in 1328, fourteen years after Bannockburn, where England agreed that Scotland was an independent country. For the next 14 years Scotland was de facto independent but not de jure independent and was still fighting a long war, essentially at this point to get the English to agree that they had lost so that fighting could stop and trade could begin again.
These fourteen years are an inconvenient bit of history, something almost entirely skipped over in Wikipedia level descriptions of the conflict, because Bannockburn is the big climax and everything else is just a long epilogue as what was already true became accepted. But it is a very interesting fourteen years as Robert the Bruce tried everything he could to force the English to the peace table.
Part of what Robert did in those fourteen years was diplomatic, reaching out to the heads of Europe – the King of Denmark, the King of France, the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope – to try and win their recognition of his independence and legitimacy as King. Part of it was continuing the war within Scotland, recapturing the Isle of Man in 1317 and taking Berwick in 1318. But a large part of it was taking the war to England.
Scotland could raid deep into England in a way England's other enemies in France or Ireland really couldn't. Those fourteen years saw attack after attack into Northern England by the Scots. Places like Hartlepool were sacked and raided and towns like Durham and Newcastle paid tribute to prevent a similar fate. As well as that, Scottish ships attacked English merchant vessels attempting to bring goods from the North to the South. For most of that time, Northern England could afford to pay no tax to London and exported basically no goods, all of those goods and money were instead flowing to Scotland as either plunder or tribute.
English armies, instead of invading Scotland, were instead trying to fight off Scottish invasions of England. The great Scottish victories after Bannockburn all happened in Yorkshire and Durham, and so it was English, not Scottish, peasants suffering from that fighting.
And this in turn deepened the internal divisions within the English. northern Nobles, seeing their lands despoiled, withdrew their men from planned English invasions of Scotland to keep them at home to guard their lands. Southern nobles likewise kept their men back for use in upcoming civil wars. When those broke out, in 1321 and 1326, the economic losses due to the poor conduct of the war against Scotland was part of the reason for the rebellions, and Robert supported one side against the other in both conflicts as a way of putting pressure on the throne to agree peace. This was one of the reasons the English finally came to terms with him in 1327, Robert agreed in that peace to no longer support any rebels against the English throne.
The peace itself was still however incredibly unpopular within English noble circles, it was called the shameful peace, and avenging that loss by conquering Scotland became a preoccupation of English kings for the next few centuries. But it could have been even worse for them.
Because Bruce didn't just attack the English in England, he also invaded Ireland and Wales.
Ireland and Scotland had long links and a lot of men moved between the two countries. Gallowglass fighters from Scotland made up a huge part of Irish armies during this time and there were Irish fighters in Scotland. Norse-Gael lords who had interests in both Ireland and the Hebrides had been loyal to the Norwegian kings there and as such, after Scotland had conquered the Hebrides from Norway in 1266, launched numerous rebellions against the Scottish crown from Ireland. When England conquered Scotland in 1296, Ireland became a base for rebels against the English Crown as well. Robert the Bruce's own rebellion had support from Ireland.
Ireland at this time was divided between numerous native rulers and large areas ran by foreigners, Anglo-Norman nobles, with both theoretically part of the English Crown which claimed control of the entire island. This control was more nominal than real with English-controlled land in Ireland being essentially only the town of Dublin, though they could normally count on the support of various powerful feudal dukes when fighting against the native Irish. The Battle for the Irish Sea during the First Scottish War of Independence was not really a battle between Robert the Bruce and London, but between Robert and Dublin. Dublin was expected to pay for and enact that war. They would aim to prevent Irish Gaelic support of the Scottish rebels by blockading the North Channel and reinforce the English position with their own forces.
Anglo-Irish forces played a huge part in the English war effort, and Scots who had sided with the English rather than Robert found refuge in Ireland. It was Dublin, not London, who had swapped control of the Isle of Man with Scotland; and it was Dublin, not London, who helped reinforce Carlisle to have it hold out against a Scottish siege. In 1315, London asked Dublin to pave the way for an English Naval attack upon the Scottish West Coast, with the aim of retaking the Irish Sea from the Scottish admiral Thomas Dunn.
Instead Scotland invaded Ireland, disrupting Dublin's plans and encouraging rebellion against them by the Gaelic Irish. Robert's brother, Edward Bruce, was declared High King of Ireland by his allies, the Gaelic rulers of Ulster, in 1315 and would spend the next three years campaigning in Ireland. As his propaganda made much of, he felt the Irish and Scots were one people who shared a single struggle against English tyranny. A Scottish Ireland would massively weaken the English war effort while hugely strengthening the Scottish one and would hopefully be yet another reason for England to agree a peace, before they lost even more.
However, the English rallied and despite losing many battles to the Scots, finally destroyed their army and killed Edward Bruce in 1318 at the Battle of Faughart, solidifying their hold on Ireland. Robert would make one later return to Ireland at the end of the war but that was mostly a scare tactic. He promised to give up any ambition in Ireland in the peace of 1327.
The campaign had not been useless for the Scottish. It had prevented the planned attack of the Western Isles; without it, they probably wouldn't have able to recapture the Isle of Man; and it did cut off Carlisle, though the siege failed anyway. By fighting in English territory, Scotland achieved its goals of preventing Irish men being used to reinforce English position or to take the offensive while putting increasing pressure on the English to come to terms. But Ireland was never conquered and the Scots happily sacrificed those ambitions in the peace.
So how close were they and why did they fail to win in Ireland?
So first of all, the Scots won a number of major battles in Ireland. This was mostly because Dublin was broke and unable to field a properly supplied army. London expected Dublin to not only fund its own running of Ireland but also the war in Scotland. This weak position would result in the Scots smashing them multiple times, and the one battle they did win, at Faughart, was a close-run thing that only happened after the English Crown agreed to start sending money to Dublin. And the defeat of the Scots was the high point of pre-1500 English power in Ireland, which would retreat for the next few hundred years to resurgent native kings.
Twice the Scottish Army approached Dublin, and twice the people of Dublin, knowing that their defences were threadbare due to the lack of money, panicked that they could lose a siege and so with it all of Ireland. But both time the Scots chose not to commit to that siege.
Which brings us to one major reason why the Scottish campaign failed. The Scots struggled at winning sieges.
Carlisle withstood their siege, Carrickfergus in Northern Ireland held on for months after the rest of Ulster was firmly in the Scots control, and Berwick held on for a long time too. Theirs was an army far more comfortable at raids and pitched battles then sieges. Taking Dublin would have been a huge coup, both politically and militarily, in terms of gaining riches and supplies and a defendable major town. But a failed siege would be equally devastating to their mystique and so the Scots were unwilling to commit to it, especially after the buildings outside the Dublin walls were burnt by the English to take it more defendable. They did hire mercenaries from Genoa in Italy with the aim of using them in that siege but there seems to have been a dispute over pay which meant they were never deployed and so their expertise was not available.
One of the main reasons why the Scots did not commit to this, was they had the misfortune to invade Ireland during the Great Famine of 1315-1317. Widespread crop failure and cattle diseases killed thousands of Irish and made supplying an invading army, especially one trying to siege enemy territory, very difficult. If you change it so there’s just better weather in 1315, the Scots probably have a much easier time and are willing to commit to the siege.
Because of this famine, the Scots had a very hard time winning hearts and minds. To be successful they really needed mass support from the Gaelic Irish, but the Irish were too divided for this to happen. There was a renewed rebellion against the English by those emboldened by the Scots, but the strongest of those, in the West of Ireland, was defeated by an English army at Athenry and the rest were too divided to give much aid to the Scots. Most of the Gaelic Irish outside of Ulster either stayed neutral or supported the English. Several of the men who had recognised Edward as King even ended up attacking him instead with the brutality of the Bruce campaign during a famine turning them off the Scots. As an Irish record of the time put it, Bruce proved himself “less noble then our own foreigners [the English]”. The Gaelic allies of the English were equally unreliable in terms of switching sides but Edward had come as the representation of the native Irish, so being unable to command their loyalty was a big blow.
But not only did they fail to win over the Gaelic Irish outside of Ulster, they also failed to win over the English. One of the worries of Dublin was that the powerful Anglo-Norman dukes in would switch sides to fight with the Bruce family, who were themselves of Norman descent. People like Maurice FitzGerald, Richard de Burgh and the de Lacy family were all treated with suspicion as potential traitors who could side with the Scots. But none did. That loyalty, reinforced by increasingly desperate threats and bribes from London, meant that Scottish control withered outside of the Gaelic parts of Ulster, which was their only real bedrock of support.
And lastly the Anglo-Irish, with money from London, managed in 1317 to kill Thomas Dunn, destroy his fleet and retake naval control of the Irish Sea, cutting Edward off from Scotland. Again, if the Genoese mercenaries, which included a lot of ships, had managed to be deployed, this might not have happened, but it swung the war in the favour of Dublin.
So could this have gone better for Scotland? Without the bad weather causing the famine of 1315, yes. If we considered that a fixed point in time, possibly. If you delay the main campaigning to 1318 then Edward would probably do better but the campaign happened in 1315 for good reasons (cutting off supplies to Carlisle and Mann and pre-empting the English attack on the Western Isles) and the fact the Scots continued to campaign through 1316 and 1317 rather than waiting for the weather to improve seems to have been as part of a pre agreed arrangement with Irish and Welsh rebels which Edward couldn't easily break.
But I think even that 1315 campaign could have been won. Athenry was a winnable battle for the Irish and Faughart was a winnable battle for the Scottish. More people could have defected and Dublin could have been besieged, especially if the Genoese could be paid.
So let’s say Dublin falls and the Anglo-Normans and Gaelic Irish alike recognise Edward as their new ruler as a result. This is a huge boost for Robert, it probably leads to another try at Carlisle with Irish reinforcements, but if anything it just further encourages the English to stay in the fight as they now have two kingdoms to win back, one of which they have ruled for a lot longer.
There are issues long-term with Scottish control in Ireland, especially if the High King of Ireland is going to be the younger brother or younger son of the King of Scotland. First of all, the native Irish are going to be a strong force, one not universally happy about their choice of allies, and Scottish control over them is probably not going to be much more extensive than English control was without a massive campaign which leaves the Scots very vulnerable elsewhere. Secondly you still have the English. This was the Scottish at their very strongest compared to the English and when the balance shifts later Ireland is going to be vulnerable.
Thirdly, how comfortable is the High King of Ireland going to be at being a Scottish vassal? On the one hand, they probably need Scottish military support given points one and two, on the other, well, it'd be a good position for an ambitious man to build up his own power base. They have a clear claim to the Scottish throne, which is going to be pushed if, as there inevitably will be, there are contested successions. Ireland will remain a good place for rebels against Scotland to recruit.
Fourthly, what's the succession in Ireland once Edward Bruce dies? Is it going to be a hereditary Scottish dynasty or do the native Irish have a chance of picking one of their own, the way they elected Edward? And if Edward's thinks it’s the former but his allies the latter, who wins? Now the Irish inability to unify to drive out the English will probably still be true with a Scottish king, but relying on disunity is not a recipe for a long term union and it is difficult to see the Irish being happy to just swap one foreigner for another.
But in the short term, we know what the next plan was if Ireland fell. Edward was going to go after Wales.
Edward had already sent letters to the Welsh asking them to rebel and Thomas Dunn had used his fleet to attack English ports in Anglesey in 1315. Anglesey, as a sister island to the Isle of Man, was the obvious next target for the Scottish fleet once Mann had fell in 1317, which would be hugely reinforced by the fall of Dublin. Dunn openly said as much before he died. From there the Scottish could threaten the English west coast and support rebels in Wales, while the English would have to bring an army either through the mountains or by sea to get to them. This is another obvious way to put pressure on the English to come to terms, though it is not impossible for this to backfire and the Scottish army to be trapped and destroyed in Wales if the English can retake control of the Irish Sea.
It is notable that the most powerful rebels who rose up against the English Crown in 1321 were the Welsh Marcher Lords, men who had largely refused to send men to Scotland but would be most threatened by this attack. With a more threatening Scotland in their back yard this could lead to an earlier civil war as they move against the King who can't protect them, or alternatively a reconciliation to the crown and a commitment to the war in Northern England because Scotland can no longer be ignored.
Given the Scottish repeatedly beat up the English in OTL between Edward's death in 1318 and the peace in 1328, that probably still happens in this timeline. Eventually much like OTL, a 'shameful peace' recognising the obvious must be agreed, at this point probably with the fear that if it doesn't Wales will also be lost, but this time Ireland and Scotland are both recognised as independent, and possibly a more southern Scottish border is agreed if Carlisle had fallen, a huge blow to English prestige.
The Second War of Scottish Independence was fought from 1332 to 1357 and began only four years after the peace treaty, when an English-backed army invaded Scotland to avenge their previous loss. That war ended up with Scotland remaining independent but losing Berwick and the Isle of Man to the English. In a world where Ireland is part of the Scottish realm, there is going to be a major front of that war in Ireland. Except that war was launched against Robert II, a child king of Robert the Bruce. If Edward had survived, he's an obvious choice for Guardian of Robert and possibly, as an experienced commander, he simply defeats the invasion at Dupplin Moor, where the Scots had a numbers advantage, preventing the Second War from ever happening.
If we assume a stronger Scotland holds off the English attack then that probably prevents them from getting involved in the Hundred Years War on the French side. With Scotland more tied up in Ireland, then there is less reason to renew the Auld Alliance. And without Scottish aid there’s a weaker French response, which means the war lasts longer. Joan of Arc in particular would have had less success without Scottish armies fighting in France.
The choice of a nameless Genoan mercenary leader to send his men home after a dispute over pay, might have changed the history of all of Western Europe.
But, while Edward died without ever being recognised as a true High King of Ireland, he never truly lost the support of the Gaelic men of Ulster which formed his powerbase. Western Scotland, where Edward was born, has always been closely linked to Northern Ireland and those same ties can be found now. Only instead of fighting for an invading Scottish Army against their English landlords, the descendants of the Gaelic men of Ulster now support Glasgow Celtic when they play the local team of Linfield in Europe. Football, like war, is simply a continuation of politics by other means.
Gary Oswald is the editor of the Grapeshot and Guillotines, Emerald Isles, and If We'd Just Got That Penalty anthologies.
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