I SHOWED last week that the establishment of the Border between Scotland and England along the line from the mouth of the River Tweed to the Solway Firth by the Treaty of York in 1237, and the subsequent passing of treaties and laws that established the legal entities known as the Marches, greatly contributed to the 13th-century growth of the economies on either side of that Border.

One town in particular massively benefited and that was Berwick-upon-Tweed as it is now known (or simply Berwick), which became the de facto capital of the Scottish Borders. It was very much Scottish, the most important royal burgh in the country and the largest port, with taxes on trade through Berwick equivalent to a quarter of all similar taxation in the whole of England.

Berwick Castle, of which only fragments remain around the town’s railway station, dominated the land for miles around and was seen as the principal defence of the region against English intrusion over many decades – not that there was too much before the 1290s, with the exception of King John’s abortive attempt to invade Scotland in 1216 during which the wooden bridge over the Tweed was destroyed.

King Edward I, known as Longshanks, massacred thousands of Scots at the Sack of Berwick in 1296 (Image: Archive)

Then along came one man determined to impose his world vision on Scotland. Edward I – "Longshanks" – is portrayed in the film Braveheart as a very nasty monarch indeed, that great actor Patrick McGoohan capturing his essential dominating nature, and he certainly was guilty of all sorts of horrible acts. A more nuanced view is that he brought in laws and policies that made England hugely powerful, and that he conquered Wales and brought that land under English control, while also trying to do the same to Scotland.

Scotland’s nobility made the mistake of inviting Longshanks to preside over the issue of who should become King of Scots after the death of the Maid of Norway in 1290 left no direct succession to the throne.

At Berwick Castle’s Great Hall, Edward chose John Balliol who was crowned at Scone on St Andrew’s Day, 1292. Longshanks expected the fealty of Balliol and demanded Scottish money and support for his war with France.

Under pressure from his aristocracy, Balliol then signed the Auld Alliance with France in 1295, a direct challenge to Edward. In furtherance of the Auld Alliance, the Scots besieged Carlisle, with no less than seven earls and their troops failing to take its formidable castle.

READ MORE: This War of Independence victory is second only to Bannockburn

Longshanks decided the Scots needed a lesson and marched north with a huge army, crossing the Tweed at Coldstream and turning east to lay siege to Berwick at the end of March 1296.

Some accounts indicate that Edward gave the citizens of Berwick – who were led by William “The Hardy” Douglas, commander of the castle garrison – three days to surrender. Douglas, the father of Sir James Douglas, a friend and ally of Robert the Bruce, refused to capitulate and Longshanks ordered his commander, the formidable soldier Robert de Clifford, to take the town around the castle. They outnumbered the Scots by at least three to one, and this conquest was accomplished within hours.

At some point Douglas offered to surrender the castle if his men were spared. He was hauled off to prison – Douglas died in the Tower of London the following year – and de Clifford’s troops duly committed massive war crimes, butchering somewhere between 7000 and 8000 of the inhabitants, nearly half of the population, in what became known as the Sack of Berwick.

Although written 150 years later, the Scotichronicon by Walter Bower, abbot of Inchcolm, is reckoned to be an accurate account of what happened: “Edward spared no-one, whatever the age or sex, and for two days streams of blood flowed from the bodies of the slain, for in his tyrannous rage he ordered 7500 souls of both sexes to be massacred ... So that mills could be turned by the flow of their blood.”

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News of events at Berwick spread fast and provoked horror across Scotland and beyond. Longshanks’s terror tactics worked, as the Scots were cowed.

Edward’s reputation was besmirched forever by the slaughter of innocent civilians but he was then only preoccupied with capturing Balliol. After the decisive Battle of Dunbar gave the English control of Scotland, Balliol was humiliated and exiled to France.

The following year saw the rising led by William Wallace and Andrew de Moray (or Murray, as I prefer). The astonishing Scottish victory at Stirling Bridge on September 11, 1297 – which is 727 years ago tomorrow – saw the English army routed and its leader, the Earl of Surrey, forced to flee.

Longshanks came north the following year and routed the Scots at Falkirk. Most of Scotland was now in his hands, including Berwick. The town never recovered from Longshanks’s devastation.

I am firmly of the belief that if Edward I had acted honourably and accepted the surrender without sacking the burgh, Berwick would have grown even stronger and would have remained Scottish to this day.

 A depiction of Edward I, known as Longshanks

As it was, from 1296 onwards the ancient town’s strategic importance meant it was fought over and changed hands many times, which also hindered its economy, so its fortunes declined.

Its importance during the Wars of Independence was highlighted in 1305 when Berwick was one of the towns selected for the display of an arm of the quartered Wallace. And in 1314, King Edward II mustered his army at Berwick before the English marched to defeat at Bannockburn.

Ever a patient man, King Robert the Bruce bided his time before his forces recaptured Berwick in 1318. Fittingly, it was William “The Hardy” Douglas’ son Sir James who led the successful assault on the castle. It was very much seen as completing the king’s task of ridding Scotland of the Auld Enemy, and he restored Berwick as a royal burgh and port, putting his son-in-law Walter Stewart in charge of the town – Walter was by then already the father of the future King Robert II.

The English finally took the town forever in 1482 and the Scottish Borders lost its largest burgh and fortress.

All those tales about how Berwick is still Scottish, or completely independent and still at war with Russia? They are just stories and don’t stand up to scrutiny – though I know there are people in Berwick who consider themselves Scottish and the town’s football and rugby teams play in Scottish leagues.

READ MORE: Of romance and Romans in Scott’s beloved Borders

At the outset of the Wars of Independence, the Scottish Borders were seen as a buffer zone and often paid a heavy price when the English invaded. Having arranged peace with France in 1299, Longshanks led an army into the western part of the Borders, ransacking Nithsdale, Annandale and Galloway. According to English accounts the army consisted of 20,000 men, including heavy cavalry, but the Scots would not commit to a full battle and instead launched a series of raids on the English force, striking from the cover of the forests.

Edward I then decided to lay siege to Caerlaverock Castle, south of Dumfries. It was built earlier in the 13th century by the Maxwell family whose stronghold it was when Longshanks arrived in July 1300 with an army numbering in the thousands.

We know it was a huge force because some 87 barons and Edward’s own son, the future Edward II, were represented in the army. A poem was commissioned to acknowledge their service.

The English duly laid siege to Caerlaverock and eventually the Scottish garrison had to surrender. It was found that just 60 men had held off the huge English army. The Pope demanded he make peace but Edward Longshanks ignored papal authority and marched north. He only got as far as Stirling before returning south.

The English came north again in 1303 with a much smaller force, assembled at Wark on Tweed. This time they marched through the Borders to Biggar and then via West Linton, the northernmost village in the Scottish Borders, coming to Roslin (home of Rosslyn Chapel) which is now in Midlothian. All the way through, the Scots carried out hit-and-run attacks on the invading force who were also denied food and supplies by the “scorched earth” tactics the Scottish leadership used often during the Wars.

As one of the Guardians appointed to rule in place of Balliol, Lord John “The Red” Comyn and his ally Sir Simon Fraser knew they would have to battle the English force led by Sir John Segrave, then the Keeper of Berwick Castle.

In his Chronicle, John of Fordun states: ”John Comyn, then guardian of Scotland and Simon Fraser with their followers, day and night, did their best to harass and to annoy, by their general prowess, the aforesaid king’s officers and bailiffs ...

“But the aforesaid John Comyn and Simon, with their abettors, hearing of their arrival, and wishing to steal a march rather than have one stolen upon them, came briskly through from Biggar to Rosslyn, in one night, with some chosen men, who chose rather death before unworthy subjection to the English nation; and all of a sudden they fearlessly fell upon the enemy.”

I have visited the site several times and am in no doubt that the Scots used their knowledge of the terrain to huge advantage. I also have no doubt that the local legend that the River North Esk ran red with English blood is accurate.

Segrave was seriously wounded but he returned to the Scottish Borders the following year and defeated a Scottish force under Wallace at Happrew near Stobo. This is a little-known battle nowadays but was instrumental in exposing Wallace to his eventual capture.

Fraser and Comyn both met sticky ends. The former was tried for treason by Longshanks and executed in 1305, his head impaled on a spike near that of Wallace, while Comyn was, of course, killed by Robert the Bruce at Greyfriars kirk in Dumfries in 1306.

A statue of Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn(Image: Archive)

Despite initial setbacks, the Bruce slowly but surely built a nation under his kingship and gradually he expelled the English garrisons that remained from the days of Longshanks. One of those fortresses which stayed in English hands after King Edward II took the throne was Roxburgh Castle, on the walls of which King Robert’s sister Mary was imprisoned in a cage for four years.

The English occupiers forced the locals to build walls and ditches around the castle but on February 19, 1314, Sir James Douglas and his men – all dressed in black so that they looked from a distance like cattle – surprised the garrison and captured the castle, which was duly demolished.

The Lanercost Chronicle says: “All that beautiful castle the Scots pulled down to the ground, like the other castles that they had succeeded in capturing, lest the English should ever again rule the land by holding the castles.”

After Bannockburn, the remainder of the English army marched south through the Borders, harried all the way by Douglas, known to the Scots as Good Sir James but to the English as Black Douglas.

Edward II was not in the class of his father as a warrior, but he did mount more invasions of Scotland, and during one of these in 1322, his army reached Edinburgh but were forced to turn back via Lauderdale. Both Melrose and Dryburgh abbeys were burned by the supposedly Christian English troops, and the latter could not be fully restored.

It was just part of the heavy price the Borders paid for Scotland’s independence.