Back in the day: How Scots have interfered with England’s history

Whenever I hear people talking about winning Scottish independence I take a minute or so to correct them. The factual position is that at the next referendum we will be regaining Scottish independence. Alternatively you could say “winning back” independence for this country, for Scotland was a truly independent nation for many centuries more than it has been subjugated in this United Kingdom.

I use that word subjugated advisedly, for what was originally a treaty between two independent countries both equal in status, albeit one of those was much larger population-wise than the other, has become a grossly unequal unified state. Events of recent years, indeed even those of recent days, have shown just how much Scotland is now ruled by England – we will soon have an English prime minister elected by English Tories with only around 9000 Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party members having a say in the matter as to who ultimately rules over Scotland and delivers Brexit against the wishes of the Scottish people.

You don’t need to know the history of Scotland to see how unfair that is, and if that is not an overwhelming reason for winning back Scottish independence, then I don’t know what is.

By choosing to take back independence we are not going on an untravelled road – Scotland has been here before. The task of all who believe in independence is simply to convince Scotland’s voters to take back our former status as an independent nation, one which, I remind you, was sold by a parcel of rogues for a hireling traitor’s wages, much against the wishes of the majority of Scots at the time.

Most English kings from Æthelstan (r.924-939) onwards fully recognised the independence of Scotland, apart from William the Conqueror and Edward I, who both demanded, and got, homage from Malcolm Canmore and John Balliol respectively. Most other English kings of the mediaeval period acknowledged Scotland’s independence, albeit they usually tried to claim some sort of overlordship.

And we were very much an independent country from Bannockburn in 1314 onwards, despite failed English attempts to supplant Scottish monarchs with puppet kings. Henry VIII tried to impose his rule on Scotland but signally failed to do so, Elizabeth Gloriana never bothered, and of course James VI and I then came down from Edinburgh as the acknowledged king of an independent separate country to sit on the throne of England – which incorporated Wales – and Ireland.

From 1603 up to the Act of Union in 1707, apart from the period in the 1650s when Oliver Cromwell conquered Scotland and imposed a union of sorts with General George Monck as commander-in-chief and governor, Scotland remained stubbornly independent, fighting against English influence, often on religious grounds. It took the heinous Aliens Act of 1705 to force the issue of the Union, and even that legislation in the English parliament very much recognised that Scotland was a different independent country.

In short, despite many instances of military invasion and political interference from down south, Scotland as we know her was truly independent for just short of 900 years – longer than England, which really only came into being when Æthelstan of the House of Wessex conquered the Vikings of York in 927.

Given all the English invasions of Scotland, it seems only fair to chronicle some of the many Scottish interventions in England. They were almost all military invasions, and the fact that they happened at all proves just how independent Scotland was.

There had been early Scottish invasions of what is now England over many centuries – that was why the Romans built Hadrian’s Wall – but it was Æthelstan who resisted the most powerful intervention into his new kingdom.

Æthelstan and King Constantine II of Scotland (then known as Alba and roughly equivalent to the land north of the Forth and Clyde except the Isles) and Owen, King of Strathclyde (which was basically the south-west of Scotland and a lot of north-west England) are supposed to have signed a peace treaty, but Æthelstan invaded Strathclyde and points north before Constantine, Owen and Olaf, king of the Vikings at Dublin, joined an alliance and sailed and marched into England.

At the Battle of Brunanburh in 937, the combined invasion force was defeated by Æthelstan’s Anglo-Saxon army. King Constantine barely escaped with his life and his son was killed, as were other nobility and a great many Scots and Vikings.

King Malcom II (r.1005-1034) raided deep into Northumbria which then claimed Lothian as its territory, and was defeated by Earl Uhtred of Bernicia in 1006. Malcolm again marched into the enemy territory in 1018 and this time defeated the Northumbrians at the Battle of Carham, in which the King of Strathclyde, Owen the Bald, may have been killed. It is fairly certain that Malcolm gained the Lothians and Strathclyde for Scotland after Carham and set the southern border of his kingdom as the River Tweed.

Despite once swearing fealty to William the Conqueror, Malcolm III (r.1058-1093) known as Canmore – the name means great chief, not big head – invaded England four times, trying to annexe Northumbria and Cumbria. He never succeeded and was killed along with his son and heir Edward at the Battle of Alnwick in November, 1093.

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Malcolm’s son David I (r.1124-1153) revolutionised Scotland with his church and judicial activities, but he, too, intervened in English matters, siding with his niece, the Empress Matilda, in the civil war against King Stephen (r.1135-1154) while also attempting to expand Scotland south of the Tweed. Defeat for the Scots at the Battle of the Standard at Northallerton in August, 1138, stopped that war in its tracks.

About William the Lion (r.1165-1214), the least said the better. He was obsessed with gaining Northumbria for Scotland but got himself captured at Alnwick by the forces of King Henry II (r.1154-1189) and was forced into the utterly humiliating Treaty of Falaise.

The Wars of Independence saw many Scottish raids into England, including Sir William Wallace’s harrying of Northumberland after the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297. Robert the Bruce (r.1306-1329) personally led invasions deep into England in 1318 and 1322, the latter seeing the Scottish victory at the Battle of Old Byland that forced Edward II (r.1307-1327) to realise that Scottish independence was a reality – he infamously ran away and left his own clothes at nearby Rievaulx Abbey.

The most important invasion late in Bruce’s rule was in 1327 when the teenaged King Edward III (r.1327-1377) was almost captured during the Battle of Stanhope Park, a famous Scottish victory. Not surprisingly, Edward signed the Treaty of Northampton-Edinburgh the following year guaranteeing Scotland’s independence.

It was international affairs that caused the Scottish invasion of England in 1345-46, King Philip VI of France (r.1293-1350) calling on the Bruce’s son, King David II (r.1329-1371) to mount a second front to relieve his own forces that were facing invasion from Edward III’s army.

“I beg you, I implore you. Do for me what I would willingly do for you in such a crisis and do it as quickly as you are able,” wrote Philip. The Scottish army was 12,000 strong but was humiliated at the Battle of Neville’s Cross with David captured and forced to sign a peace treaty with England that lasted 40 years.

That treaty had huge repercussions. From Scotland’s point of view, the worst invasion of England was the one that made the least distance over the Border. For the Battle of Flodden in 1513 took place just a few miles inside England in the village of Branxton in what is now Northumberland. I have written about the battle before in this column and will include an updated and revised version in my forthcoming book Back in Scotland’s Day which I hope to publish in the months ahead.

What is interesting is how Flodden came about. England’s King Henry VIII (r.1509-1547) had joined the Holy League fighting against France with Pope Julius II and his allies Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain and the Doge of Venice.

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Invoking the Auld Alliance again, just as King Philip VI had done, the French King Louis XII (r.1498-1515) appealed to James IV, King of Scots (r.1488-1513), to go to war against England, yet again displaying that rulers on the continent very much saw Scotland as a very independent country. With his head full of chivalry and anxious to be seen as a warrior king, James IV assembled the largest ever invading Scottish army – but they had not been active or trained for combat for many years after Neville’s Cross.

They got as far as Flodden Field, where James lost his head and then his life after leading a charge from a superior position downhill to where the English army of the North decimated the Scots, killing James plus 11 earls, nine lords, two archbishops, several clan chiefs, two archbishops and thousands of infantry.

It would be a very long time before Scots invaded England again, despite Henry VIII’s severe provocation with the Rough Wooing.

It is typical of the arrogance of English historians, not to mention the ignorance of many people across the world, that the conflicts between parliament and monarchy which engulfed these islands in the middle of the 17th century are often lumped under the heading English Civil War.

More accurately they should be collectively known as the War of the Three Kingdoms. As I chronicled last year, Scotland was heavily involved, not least in handing over King Charles I (r.1625-1649) to his fate at the hands of Oliver Cromwell – not one of the Scots’ better interventions though to be fair, the Presbyterian leaders of the then Scottish government had been assured that Scotland’s king would not be executed. In the last major conflict of the war, the Battle of Worcester in September 1651, more than half the royalist army were Scots. They lost and most of them were sold into slavery.

England had several other civil wars in which Scotland became involved, not the least of which was the Wars of the Roses, the long conflict which more accurately deserves the title of the English Civil War, though it did involve Wales and Scotland.

Scotland’s role is often forgotten and came about because Margaret of Anjou, Queen Consort of Henry VI (r1422-1461 and 1470-1471) of the House of Lancaster appealed to Mary of Gueldres, Queen Consort to James II (r.1437-1460) for help to restore her husband, who was probably suffering from schizophrenia, to the throne which had been usurped by the House of York. A Scots army duly marched south and won battles for Margaret, but Edward IV (r. 1461-1470 and 1471-1483) made peace with the Scots and they withdrew from the conflict.