Bannockburn. Peter Reese

MacDonald of the Isles.⁸ From Dunaverty it is likely Bruce and his companions went to the Isle of Rathlin off the coast of Ireland or alternatively to Islay, the centre of MacDonald territory. More improbably he could have continued to Ulster itself. Although Rathlin was just six and a half miles long by one and a half miles wide and there were enemies all around him he would certainly have been able to use Angus Og MacDonald’s galleys to call on his estates for men and money in order to rebuild his strength. Wherever his winter base, by the spring of 1307 he had gathered enough strength to undertake a two-pronged attack on the mainland. Bruce himself with thirty-three small galleys went to Arran prior to making landfall on the Ayrshire coast while his two younger brothers, Thomas and Alexander, accompanied by Sir Reginald Crawford along with several hundred northern Irish recruits, made for Galloway, with the intention of creating a diversion to cover Bruce’s more northerly attack. On landing, Crawford’s party was ambushed and Crawford himself, together with Thomas and Alexander Bruce, were taken to Carlisle and hanged, drawn and quartered. The fact that Thomas Bruce had received serious wounds in the encounter did not save him from being spread-eagled on a hurdle and drawn by horses through the streets of Carlisle before being executed.

      Meanwhile, Robert Bruce had arranged for a fire to be lit on the mainland coast if the local people were willing to join him. Seeing a fire his small band landed only to find it was not the work of his messenger, who appeared in a near frenzy telling them the nearby castle of Turnberry was garrisoned by 100 English under their commander, Henry Percy, while a further 200 were garrisoned in the adjoining village, and that Carrick was so thick with English soldiers no locals dared rise to assist Bruce. With so little to lose Bruce and his men opted to take the offensive. They surrounded the village and surprised its soldiers, killing them all except one man who alerted Henry Percy. Uncertain about the size of Bruce’s force Percy remained in the castle while Bruce captured much-needed supplies, including war horses, before moving into the Carrick hills.⁹

      With his limited strength Bruce had little choice of tactics. Faced with such massively superior English garrisons and with the majority of Scottish nobles and their followers either continuing to support the Comyns or regarding Bruce as nothing better than a usurper following a lost cause, he had to remain in the rugged hill country and use the classic guerrilla methods of speed, surprise and elusiveness. Yet as Bruce’s handful of followers continued to avoid capture, small numbers of men started to join him, including one sizeable party of forty men commanded by Bruce’s former mistress, Christiana of Carrick. It was Christian who told Bruce about the fate of his womenfolk and the men who had been captured with them.