Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-dnltx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T23:46:46.407Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Wall-Breakers and River-Bridgers: Military Engineers in the Scottish Wars of Edward I

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2014

A. Z. Freeman
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Welshmen and Scotsmen provoked their stronger neighbors of England in the late thirteenth century into wars that almost filled the reign of Edward I. Whether in keeping with “Manifest Destiny” or not, King Edward accepted the provocation of the Welsh and sent his troops into their land in an attempt to subjugate them; by a workmanlike series of campaigns he conquered and pacified them between 1277 and 1294. Then began an almost unbroken period of war against the Scots, a period lasting well beyond Edward's own death in 1307. By their persistence and by their tactics the Scots forced Edward and his people to a major effort, one that made every Englishman aware of his obligation, whether to fight, to feed the fighters, or to support the fighters with works.

For medieval soldiers, like their modern descendants, war was mostly a matter of working and waiting. Battles punctuated the wars, then as now, and at these times the combat troops spent their strength. During the long stretches between battles, however, support elements continued to supply the troops and put them into position to fight. The men in the armies of Edward I who kept the war going in this way and kept going themselves were the auxiliaries: the ditchers, woodcutters, smiths, carpenters, paymasters, provisioners, and the engineers. Important as they were in medieval warfare, the engineers have received little credit for it. Their work, bridging, building fortifications, and operating artillery, rarely rates a description in a chronicle and they receive little notice in secondary works.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , May 1971 , pp. 1 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1971

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. T. F. Tout provides the best starting place for this subject in his Chapters in Mediaeval Administrative History (Manchester, 1920–1933), vols. I, II, passimGoogle Scholar. Sir James H. Ramsay has also treated the topic, as part of the general history of the Scottish wars, in his Dawn of the Constitution (Oxford, 1908)Google Scholar. J. E. Morris has provided the best view of auxiliaries in the field, but his interest lay in Wales, so while the system of use and procurement was similar to that in Scotland, the evidence is not direct. Morris, J. E., The Welsh Wars of Edward the First (Oxford, 1901)Google Scholar.

2. Perhaps we should think of these documents as did C. R. Cheney when he said, “Records, like the little children of long ago, only speak when they are spoken to, and they will not talk to strangers.” Cheyney, C. R., The Records of Medieval England: An Inaugural Lecture (Cambridge, 1956), p. 11Google Scholar. These reticent but responsive children are extraordinarily numerous. After the great efforts of the 17th and 18th century antiquaries, the nationalistic compilations of the 19th century added to the valuable pile of records, and by now the number of parchment progeny is vast. The period under discussion is particularly rich in records, partly because the offices whose activity they document expanded their operations, at the same time becoming more nearly public offices than they had been before. The result of this early expression of Parkinson's Law is happy for the medievalist trying to learn the details of military engineers. Now gathered from various unsafe resting places like the Tower of London and many a noble muniment room, the records are safe and available at the Public Record Office and the British Museum.

3. PRO, Exch. Accts., Various, King's Remembrancer E101, passim.

4. Stubbs, William, Select Charters (9th ed.; Oxford, 1946), p. 466Google Scholar.

5. Ramsay, , Dawn of the Constitution, p. 429Google Scholar.

6. Maxwell, H. (ed.), Chronicle of Lanercost, (London, 1913), pp. 142–144Google Scholar.

7. Stevenson, Joseph, Documents Illustrative of the History of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1870), II, 27Google Scholar.

8. Ibid.

9. Bain, Joseph, Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland, (Edinburgh, 1854), II, no. 853Google Scholar.

10. The principal documents that illustrate the change are PRO, Exchequer Accounts, Various, E101/5/26; 354/5; 354/7; 684/50/1; PRO, Chancery Miscellany C47/3/46/33; and Rymer, T. (ed.), Foedera, (London, 1816), I, 840Google Scholar.

11. Rymer, , Foedera, I, no. 882Google Scholar.

12. PRO, Exch. Acct. E101/684/21/2. The “one-foot” and “two-foot” designations for crossbows refer to the method of cocking them, not the length. A one-foot crossbow was cocked by holding its outer end down by placing one foot in a stirrup fixed there while bending the bow through a hook fixed to the bowman's belt. A two-foot crossbow was held by both feet and bent by a windlass.

13. Bain, Calendar, no. 882.

14. PRO, Exch. Acct. E101/7/10.

15. Stevenson, , Documents, II, 314Google Scholar.

16. Stevenson, , Documents, II, 333–35Google Scholar.

17. Stevenson, , Documents, II, 318–25Google Scholar.

18. Ibid.

19. Bain, Calendar, no. 1021.

20. Ibid., no. 1119. Among those taken at Stirling were an engineer and four associates, a smith and one, and a mason and two helpers.

21. For an explanation of the remarkable rise of a beaten Scotland, see Barrow's, G. W. S. masterly book, Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland (London, 1965)Google Scholar.

22. PRO, Exch. Acct. E101/482/17/1.

23. Ibid.

24. PRO, Exch. Accts. E101/8/20/3 and 357/22/4.

25. PRO, Exch. Acct. E101/8/20/3.

26. Rymer, , Foedera, I, 924, 925Google Scholar; Ramsay, , Dawn of the Constitution, p. 474Google Scholar.

27. PRO, Exch. Acct. E101/9/30/88.

28. PRO, Exch. Acct. E101/11/1/30.

29. PRO, Exch. Acct. E101/11/4.

30. Ibid.

31. Ibid.

32. Ibid.

33. PRO, Exch. Acct. E101/11/4/3.

34. Ibid.

35. Ibid.

36. Ibid.

37. Ibid.

38. Ibid.

39. PRO, Exch. Acct. E101/11/4/5.

40. Ramsay, , Dawn of the Constitution, p. 491Google Scholar.

41. Bain, Calendar, no. 1398.

42. PRO, Exch. Acct. E101/11/1/30,31.

43. Ibid., m. 32.

44. BM, Add. MSS, 35,293, mm. 81, 82.

45. Ibid., ram. 29, 32.

46. Stevenson, , Documents, II, 465–66Google Scholar.

47. Bain, Calendar, no. 1536.

48. Ibid., no. 1491.

49. Ibid., no. 1500.

50. Ibid., nos. 1498, 1499; BM, Add. MSS, 35,293, m. 83.

51. PRO, Chanc. Misc. C47/3/32/25.

52. PRO, Chanc. Misc. C47/3/32/25.

53. The Chronicle of Pierre de Langtoft (Rolls Series, 47), II, 357Google Scholar.

54. BM, Add. MSS, 35,293, m.36v.

55. Ramsay, , Dawn of the Constitution, p. 49Google Scholar.

56. Bain, Calendar, no. 1504.

57. BM, Add. MSS, 35,293, m.38v.

58. Stevenson, , Documents, II, 481, 482, 488Google Scholar.

59. Matthew of Westminster, Flores historiarum (Rolls Series, 95), III, 317, 318Google Scholar.

60. Trevet, Nicholas, Annales sex regum Angliae, ed. Hog, Thos. (1845), p. 803Google Scholar.

61. Flores historiarum, III, 320Google Scholar.

62. BM, Add. MSS, 35,293, m.43.

63. For bombards at the siege of Berwick in 1333, see Nicholson, R., Edward III and the Scots (Oxford, 1965), pp. 121–22Google Scholar.