History Scotland Magazine: Review - The Jacobites and Russia, 1715-1750

The Second Scottish Wars of Independence 1332-1363

Chris Brown

Tempus Publishing Ltd 2002 ISBN 0 7524 2312 6 157pp, 64 b/w and 23 colour illustrations, pb 16.99.

This book fills a yawning void in the Scottish popular historical market. It covers a subject about which few non-academics have much awareness. To most folk, Robert Bruce won the struggle for independence, certainly before his death in 1329 and, in the popular imagination, most resoundingly at Bannockburn in 1314. Yet, it is barely appreciated that by 1332, his regime would be brought crashing in ruins and that Scotland once again faced subjugation to England. There is even less appreciation that the man who achieved this situation was Edward Balliol, rightful king of Scots, son of the man deposed by Edward I of England in 1296.

Chris Brown explodes the myth of the invincible Bruces. His narrative charts the emerging crisis; the hostility of the young English king, Edward III; and the ambitions of the exiled Edward Balliol. From here, he traces the war through vignettes formed by the key battles Dupplin, Halidon Hill, Culblean and Nevilles Cross linked by outline discussion of more localised warfare, political manoeuvring, and the international diplomacy. Threaded through the book are discussions of arms, armour and military tactics of the period, which dispel the fantasy of the Scottish soldier as a bare-arsed barbarian wearing travelling rugs, hair-extenders and blue and white face-paint la Mel Gibson.

Those are the positive sides. The negatives, however, are significant. While accepting that this study is directed towards the military ebb and flow of the wars, it is imbalanced and does not satisfactorily address the course of the conflict away from the set-piece battles. Overall, it lacks context, with Scottish and English domestic politics largely ignored, and international affairs trivialised. There is, in particular, neither any real discussion of the wider Balliol party in Scotland, nor of factional strife within the Bruce party. Wider narrative detail is sacrificed in favour of blow-by-blow accounts of battles which add nothing to wider understanding of the wars. Structurally, too, the book disappoints. Chapters 5 and 7, for example, disrupt the chronological flow of the rest of the text and should be placed together at the end of the existing text for better effect, and should be followed by a more detailed conclusion that gives a more expansive account of events post-1346.

Overall, however, this is a useful addition to the history of the Scottish Wars of Independence. It is lucid and highly readable, if not as informative as this reviewer might have hoped.

Richard Oram,
Department of History,
University of Stirling