Leadership contest AD1306: Badenoch brutally eliminated...
Hillwalking meets high politics in southwest Scotland [1500 words 7 mins
Tory leadership 2024: what a tame affair it is! At least when compared against the full-blooded contest for the kingdom of Scotland in 1306, when John Comyn, Earl of Badenoch, was knifed down in hot blood below the high altar in Greyfriars Kirk, Dumfries. And whatever ordeals the successful Tory claimants get put through by way of £200,000 in cash and a live debate at the party conference – we can be pretty sure there won't be any call on their skills in wilderness survival and long distance mountain walks.1
Robert Bruce, Lord of Annandale, met rival candidate Badenoch2 in the Greyfriars Church to decide who should have first run for the crown, in a forerunner of the Blair-Brown meeting of 1994 in Islington's Granita Restaurant. The outcome was different, however, as the Bruce-Badenoch meeting developed into a knife fight in which Comyn the Earl of Badenoch was killed.
Straightforward murder wouldn't have mattered much, but murder in a church did limit Bruce's future. You don’t have to be Donald Trump to see the one way out of that one. The thing to do was get himself crowned king straight away, before the news of his wicked deed could reach the Pope and the order excommunicating him from the Church could get back to Scotland.
He was quickly defeated by Edward’s supporters at Methven. He was then defeated again at Dalrigh (the Field of the King) on the West Highland Way just south of Tyndrum. On that occasion it was the MacDougalls of Lorne who were after him: one of them grabbed his cloak as he galloped away. Bruce killed the MacDougall but lost his cloak along with the ornamental brooch that clasped it; the proud MacDougalls still haven’t given that brooch back.
Bruce’s army was now reduced to around 200 men. Three of his brothers had been captured and executed by England's Edward; his sister Mary captured and suspended in a cage from the walls of Roxburgh Castle (presumably in the hope that Bruce would try to rescue her); his young daughter Marjorie captured and immured in a nunnery; Elizabeth his queen captured and (because her powerful father was still an ally on Edward’s side) merely imprisoned in England without any clean bed linen.
It was around this time that he was encouraged in a cave by a spider. Indeed, dutifully supporting the future Scottish tourist industry, he managed to be encouraged by three separate spiders in three separate caves: one on Arran, one near Gretna on the English Border, and one on Rathlin Island off the Antrim coast. Accepting the arachnid’s advice, in 1307 he returned from Ireland, to establish a safe base in his home ground of Galloway.
Guerilla warfare in Galloway
Galloway’s low but very rugged hills are formed of bare granite interspersed with harshly tussocky grass, black peat, and a dozen lochans. It was ground Bruce knew well, hunting the deer here in happier days. The downside was that the local Galwegians, who also knew the ground, had come down on behalf of the stabbed Earl of Badenoch.
Below the waterfalls of Buchan Burn, King Robert, single-handed, held off a force of 200 enemies at the awkward ford. Well, he did according to the later propaganda poem 'The Brus', written by John Barbour over 377 pages of robust Early Scots that's particularly appropriate to the Galloway hill country.
Just at the point where the dead bodies were blocking up the burn to give his enemies a clear crossing, his reinforcements arrived. Allowing Bruce to escape northwards up the Gairland Burn, between narrowing rocky slopes to the sudden arrival at Loch Valley. The Gallovidians were hot behind him; so it was on through the heather to the waterlily corner of Loch Neldricken. The name means loch of the ambush, though who ambushed whom is lost among the glacier mounds and peaty hollows.
And still it's onwards, up between two lines of low crag, following a stream heard rather than seen down among the boulders, for the surprise arrival at Loch Enoch. Here, on heathery camp grounds alongside the lapping water, Bruce could feel safe.
Well, most of the time he could. But those local Galwegians also know how to get here... And now a second group of enemies is coming up from Loch Doon Castle on the other side. Bruce escapes over the rocky pass called Nick of the Dungeon. Unfortunately, the pursuers have brought along one of Bruce's own bloodhounds. They chase him through the valley of Gala Lane, below the high slabbed sides of Craignaw and the Dungeon Hill. One of his companions shoots the hound with an arrow, and Bruce has escaped – this time.
Below the Kells ridge, on the side branch to Cairnsgarroch, there's the King's Well and Stone. Here you can rest your buttocks at the exact spot sat on by King Robert, gazing out over the Glenkens to see if the English army under Aymer de Valence has got here yet. Which it did in April 1307, camping up underneath the present-day Clatteringshaws Reservoir. Bruce and his small team attacked at night, aided by a herd of goats driven over the hill by a helpful peasant, the wife (or carlin) of Polmaddie Mill. At the crucial moment the shaggy beasts were mistaken for Bruce's reinforcements.
The huge cairn on the hill above is Bronze Age, but somewhat messed about by later visitors. It marks the grant of land by King Robert to the carlin wifie and her descendants.3
But the attack at Clatteringshaws was just a provocation, to lure them into chasing him along the narrow path on the south side of Loch Trool. Bruce himself co-ordinated the ambush from across the loch, where his Stone now stands.4
Bot thai had standyn bot a thraw
Rycht at thar hand quhen that thai saw
Thar fayis throu the wod cummand
Armyt on fute with sper in hand
That sped thaim full enforcely.
The noyis begouth sone and the cryJohn Barbour, The Brus (c.1375)
They had no long time waiting stood / Till coming at them through the wood / They saw the Englishmen appear / Marching on foot with levelled spear. / Mightily onward came the foes / And soon loud battle shouts arose.
Translation: Michael MacMillan, The Bruce of Bannockburn (1914)
Large boulders came tumbling down the steepest part of the slope; any natural granite erratics, with their rounded shapes, will have been especially convenient. The stonefall was followed by a hail of arrows and then Bruce’s lightly armed and agile fighters.
It was the first small victory that would turn around his credibility gap, leading to more supporters and slightly bigger victories. Seven years it would take, working on his PR, winning over the people of Scotland, and carving up his enemies with big swords. Seven years until, at Bannockburn, he would eventually take power over the country.
Meanwhile, prospective leaders of the Tory Party are casting about for a nice cosy cave with some spiders.
A! fredome is ane nobill thing,
Fredome mais man to haf liking;
Fredome all solas to man gifis:
He lifis at es that frely lifis!‘The Brus’ John Barbour
Ah! freedom is a noble thing, / Freedom makes man to have liking; / Freedom all solace to man gives: / He lives at ease that freely lives!
Other hiking monarchs include James IV, the ‘Gaberlunzie Man’, dedicated rambler throughout the Kingdom; Bonnie Prince Charlie, coast-to-coast across the Highlands; Queen Victoria, 9 Munros. US President Jimmy Carter reached 5756m on Kilimanjaro.
Pronounced bade-noch (two syllables). The Earl’s family name was John Comyn (or Cummins), also known as the Red Comyn. And for readers outside the UK, or UK readers who can’t be bothered with politics, Kemi Badenoch is one of the four contenders for the leadership of our recently defeated Conservative Party. Except that by the time you read this there will be only two of them left. (With the ‘nasty-party’ vote homing in on Robert Jenrick, and the ‘let’s-try-to-be-normal’ vote going towards James Cleverly, today may well be when the current Badenoch gets ejected.)
Historically minded readers may have noted that Bruce’s campaign did not take place in the Bronze Age. Accordingly, at least one of these Carlin’s Cairn claims has to be spurious.
Thus King Robert distinguished himeself by being in battles on both the West Highland Way, and the Southern Upland one, within a single year.
a lesson in how to make history interesting. A good tale, enjoyed it.
Unlike the Tories. Where's the Brus now that we need him?
By the by I have a now deceased relative Walter Turnbull who achieved some eminence many, many decades back. He told me the history of the Turnbull name, a charming legend involving King Robert I recall.