How the brave Black Agnes of Dunbar kept the English at bay

Called Black because of her jet-black hair, dark eyes and sallow complexion, Agnes was a remarkable woman who defended her home against England’s attacks, and in doing so roused the country to fight for independence.

The feats of Agnes are the stuff of legend, and centre on a five-month period in 1338 when she almost single-handedly stood up to an English invasion force besieging her home, Dunbar Castle, and sent it homeward to think again. It was one of the turning points of Scotland’s Second War of Independence and greatly boosted morale among the Scottish resistance at the time.

The early part of the Second War can be seen as a civil war between the forces loyal to the rightful king, David II, son of Robert the Bruce, and those who followed Edward Balliol, the usurper who had himself crowned King of Scots after his army – made up of English troops and the men of the “disinherited” nobles who had fought against King Robert and were trying to regain their confiscated lands – won the Battle of Dupplin Moor in 1332.

We have seen over the last two weeks how the Bruce loyalists, despite such reverses as the Battle of Halidon Hill, gradually forced Balliol’s forces back towards the Border, and the usurper’s own men were effectively defeated by 1336.

But Edward III of England was determined to preserve the counties and castle ceded to him by Balliol – a huge swathe of southern Scotland – and as of Ne’erday 1338, the English were still in control of large amounts of territory, roughly equivalent to the modern areas of the Scottish Borders, Dumfries and Galloway, the Lothians and parts of Ayrshire and Lanarkshire.

Taking back those lands was vital for the Scots, as this really was now a war for independence – Edward III no longer made any pretence that he was acting in support of Balliol’s claim to the Scottish throne. He was out to conquer as much of Scotland as he could, although even he was not fool enough to attack the Highlands and islands. Eventually, though, he would have done, and if his vastly greater armies had been able to concentrate on conquering Scotland, the chances are that this country would have been subsumed into greater England – which some say we now are … The complication for Edward III, grandson of Edward Longshanks, was that he now faced war on two fronts. His preoccupation with France had led to the start of what would become the Hundred Years’ War when Scotland’s ally King Phillipe VI of France in 1337 confiscated the English-controlled territory of Gascony – a bitter blow to the English as the area was the source of the wine England drank.

Edward III needed men and money to pay his continental allies and mercenaries if he was going to take back Gascony, but he was still reluctant to abandon his holdings in Scotland. He decided on a full-scale invasion of the east coast from Berwick-upon-Tweed up to Edinburgh, concentrated on the most impressive fortification on that coast, Dunbar Castle – unless the castle could be taken there was always the danger of the Scots raiding from there to disrupt the English occupation of the Lothians.

This invasion was probably partly in response to the Scottish siege of Edinburgh Castle in November, which ended with an English victory and the castle occupied by English troops.

The best chronicle of that time was the one composed in Latin by monks at Lanercost Priory near Carlisle in Cumbria. I am quoting from Sir Herbert Maxwell’s translation of the Lanercost Chronicle.

Lanercost tells us that King Edward “sent my lord William de Montagu(e), Earl of Salisbury, the Earl of Gloucester, the Earl of Derby, three barons, de Percy, de Nevill and de Stafford, and the Earl of Redesdale, with 20,000 men … commanding them to besiege closely and effectively the castle of Dunbar, the castle of Earl Patrick, traitor alike to himself and the kingdom because it was irksome and oppressive to the whole district of Lothian.”

Here the monk shows his English patriotic bias, because Patrick, the Earl of Dunbar and March (partly in modern-day Northumberland) was no traitor – he had simply renounced the oath of loyalty to the English king that he had been forced to make. Nor can we be sure how many lords attacked Dunbar – the later Book of Pluscarden mentions Salisbury and the Earl of Arundel, so either way we can be sure it was Salisbury at the head of a large army.

Lanercost adds: “Dunbar Castle at that time was still in the hands of Earl Patrick, having been neither besieged nor taken by the English, the whole of the surrounding district of Lothian, although it was then in the King of England’s peace, paid each week one mark to those within the castle, more, it is thought, out of fear lest it should be forced from them than from love.”

The siege began on January 13, 1338. Earl Patrick was absent, probably with the Scottish loyal forces whose base was now at Dumbarton Castle, and left in charge was his wife Agnes.

It was not unusual for the wives of nobles to take charge of households when their husbands were away from home, but Agnes faced something few noblewomen had to confront – an invading army quite literally at her front door.

Agnes was the daughter of Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, the great friend and ally of Robert the Bruce who was the first Regent of Scotland for Robert’s son King David II. Her brother Thomas, the 2nd Earl, was killed while commanding a division at Dupplin Moor – in the space of a month she lost her father and brother, and her other brother John, the 3rd Earl of Moray, was captured by the English in 1335 while he was joint Regent of Scotland. The other Regent, Robert Stewart, the future King Robert II, sided with Balliol in 1335, which opened the way for Sir Andrew Murray to become Guardian of Scotland.

Agnes was married to Earl Patrick when she was just 12 and the marriage appears not to have been a happy one. They had no children, and Agnes was furious when Earl Patrick, who was also governor of Berwick, briefly switched sides to support Edward III – this may have been to stop the English king emulating his grandfather and sacking Berwick.

It also allowed Patrick to time to rebuild and fortify Dunbar Castle which stood – some of it still stands – on a promontory between the town and the Firth of Forth.

The Scots soon learned of Salisbury’s invasion, but there was nothing they could do except allow him to besiege the castle, then occupied by Agnes, her maids, her guardsmen including archers, and their women and families.

A later poem succinctly sums up Agnes’s attitude: “Of Scotland’s King I haud my house, He pays me meat and fee, and I will keep my gude auld house, while my house will keep me.”

Lanercost records: “Close siege, therefore, was laid to the castle: those inside were surrounded by a deep trench, so that they could not get out; wooden houses were constructed before the gate, and pavilions or tents were set up for the lodging of the chief persons in the army.”

Salisbury had also hired two Genoese galleys to stop the castle being supplied from sea. The whole siege would cost more than £1000 per month – a vast sum in those days.

It was a brutal siege at first. There is confusion between fact and legend as to what happened, but there’s no doubt Salisbury’s forces assailed the walls of the castle with catapults throwing huge boulders.

An illustration of Black Agnes defending Dunbar Castle against the English commanded by the Earl of Salisbury

The story goes that Agnes and/or her maids would go out to the walls and using their lace handkerchiefs would wipe the dust off the impact sites.

The Book of Pluscarden records: “She was a very wise and clever and wary woman. She indeed laughed at the English and would, in the sight of all, wipe with a most beautiful cloth the spot where the stone from the engine hit the castle wall.”

While the siege was going on, the Guardian of Scotland, Murray, took every opportunity that he could to attack the English across the south of Scotland. It is recorded that several parties of reinforcements were attacked by the Scots under Murray and forced to return home.

Disaster struck when Murray fell ill and died, probably in late February or early March 1338, but still Agnes kept her doors barred.

The legends grew: Salisbury brought up a huge battering ram which was called “the sow”. Agnes calculated where and when it would attack and had the boulders that the English had lobbed at the castle turned around and sent down on the sow, smashing it to smithereens and sending the English troops running. “Behold a litter of pigs,” cried Agnes.

Provisioned for the winter, supplies were running low, but one of the leaders of the Scottish resistance, Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie, said he would get relief to Agnes. With 40 men, he commandeered a couple of fishing boats on the Forth and waiting until the galleys were out of sight, Ramsay landed on the rocks below the castle and fought his way in, bringing plenty food and supplies.

Agnes promptly sent some food to Salisbury because she knew he, too, was low on provisions, and then ostentatiously held a banquet to infuriate the watching English.

Salisbury was riding around the castle one day when a Scottish archer, named as William Spens, fired at him from distance – the arrow grazed Salisbury and pierced the chest of his adjacent man-at-arms. Montague said: “Agnes’s love-shafts go straight to the heart.”

Now the English broke all the rules of chivalry. They had Agnes’s brother John as a captive and threatened to hang him in front of the castle if she did not surrender. She told them that would only make her the Countess of Moray in her own right and even more powerful – in fact she was not in line to succeed John Randolph, but the English didn’t know that and spared the Earl.

Salisbury attempted to bribe his way in, but the gatekeeper was loyal to Agnes and she set a trap. As soon as Salisbury would pass the first gate, the portcullis would be lowered, trapping him. But one of his soldiers, named by Pluscarden as Coupland, spotted the trap and threw the Earl backwards, while Coupland was captured.

Enough was enough. Word came to Salisbury that Edward III would be landing an army in France in July and on June 16, 1338, he abandoned the siege of Dunbar and went to fight in France. Agnes’s final words to Salisbury are supposed to have been: “Adieu, adieu, my Lord Montague.”

The rest of Agnes’s life is somewhat lost to history but her story raced around Scotland and England and a ballad was soon being sung that put these words in Salisbury’s mouth: “She kept a stir in tower and trench, that brawling boisterous Scottish wench; Cam’ I early, cam’ I late, I found Agnes at the gate.”

Regular readers will know I can be quite sceptical about Sir Walter Scott’s histories of Scotland. But he wrote of Black Agnes: “From the record of Scottish heroes, none can presume to erase her.”

On this occasion, old Wattie got it right. Next week we’ll conclude this short series on the Second War of Independence.