It was a less surprising decision than might be considered today. While the Comyns had continued throughout to support John Balliol, for much of the time the Bruces offered their fealty to Edward I, the scourge of their countrymen, in the conviction that if Balliol were deposed Edward would support their own candidature for the Scottish kingship, even if he was likely to demand some restrictions on its power. Indeed, it was Edward’s reneging on his promise to Bruce’s father with regard to the Scottish throne and his attempt to incorporate Scotland within the English crown that in 1297 first led Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, to take the momentous decision of taking a contrary course to his father – who remained true to the English king – and join the opposition forces in Scotland.
At the time Edward I was still confident enough of both Bruces, father and son, for him to order Robert Bruce, Lord of Annandale and Governor of Carlisle, to charge his son with seizing the Douglas estates after Sir William Douglas had united with Wallace. Unexpectedly Bruce, who had only recently regained his lands from Comyn control following the English victory at Dunbar, made no more than a mock attack on Douglasdale and, after assembling his father’s knights of Annandale, explained that his oath of fealty to the English king had been given under duress and as a consequence he had decided to move into the nationalist camp. He justified his decision by citing the loyalty he felt for his followers on the Carrick estate and to his country of Scotland. ‘No man holds his own flesh and blood in hatred and I am no exception … I must join my own people (the men of Carrick) and the nation in which I was born.’1 There seems no reason to doubt Robert Bruce’s feelings for both his own followers and the land of his boyhood, those wide Carrick estates that he had ridden and hunted across with his brothers and sisters. Allied to this was the belief which had also fired his grandfather, that his family’s royal blood gave them an undeniable right to occupy the throne of Scotland. It was this that became the very purpose of his life and with the removal of John Balliol he might well have considered that many Scottish patriots would now turn to him as the most likely contender for the Scottish throne. In the event most of the Annandale knights refused to join him since their own lord still took the part of the English king.
Robert Bruce, however, was not to be deflected and, after raising additional recruits from among his followers at Carrick, he took the dangerous step of moving to join James Stewart and Robert Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow, at Irvine. Following their tame surrender to the English, Bruce paid the price for his show of patriotism – and possible early bid for the Scottish throne – by being deprived of his lands once more. This time they were required by the English who also directed him to hand over his daughter Marjorie, as surety for his continuing good behaviour, a directive he managed to avoid.
It was as well Bruce did so for after Wallace’s victory at Stirling Bridge in September 1297, he and his men of Carrick were out again. In March 1298 it was probably Bruce who knighted Wallace for his achievements and, although Bruce himself remained in the southwest of Scotland it is likely that he provided mounted elements for Wallace’s army at the battle of Falkirk in July 1298. Having defeated Wallace at Falkirk, Edward I showed he recognised Bruce’s ability and potential threat by attempting to go on and deal with him as well, but Bruce was too quick for him; after burning Ayr and destroying its castle he and his followers moved into the desolate hill regions of Carrick out of the king’s reach.
When Wallace was compelled to surrender his sole guardianship of Scotland young Bruce became an obvious candidate to replace him in heading the opposition to the English king, the other outstanding contender being another young nobleman, John Comyn the Red, head of the senior branch of the Comyn family. Unlike Bruce, John Comyn had never wavered in supporting his kinsman John Balliol. In April 1296 he had accompanied the Scottish forces that crossed the English border during the first engagement of the Independence Wars, and he was not likely to forget that when the Scottish forces failed in their attempt to take Carlisle Castle it was being held on behalf of the English king by Robert Bruce, Lord of Annandale, Robert Bruce’s father. Following the Scottish army’s defeat at Dunbar and the fall of John Balliol, John Comyn had been one of the many Scottish nobles imprisoned in England, whereas Robert Bruce had been granted the return of his lands at Carrick which John Balliol had confiscated on behalf of the Comyns. Although the senior Scottish prelates and nobles appointed them as joint guardians to orchestrate resistance against the English, the chances of their success were not helped by the fact that, powerful figure as he was, Comyn entirely lacked Bruce’s magnanimity and could never equal his powers of leadership. The intense rivalry between their two families did not augur well for a smooth working relationship and, in addition, by all accounts John Comyn was a most difficult man to deal with. Their uneasy relationship was first dissolved after an attempt was made in July 1299 to retake Roxburgh Castle in Lothian. The attack failed and as the disappointed party moved back into Peebles woods to reconsider their options a disagreement occurred over lands held by William Wallace, who, as Sir David Graham (a Comyn supporter) maintained, was leaving the kingdom without the guardians’ permission and, therefore, should forfeit them. In the argument that followed John Comyn leapt upon Bruce and seized him by the throat. The quarrel was only patched up when Bishop William Lamberton agreed to be appointed senior guardian over them both.
In the light of such disunity it was as well for Scotland that the English king was experiencing serious difficulties with his own nobles over mounting another ruinously expensive expedition against Scotland. Due largely to Edward’s inactivity the Scots were able to take the initiative. By the end of 1299 they succeeded in retaking Stirling Castle and plans were raised to bring the men of Galloway over to Scotland’s national cause. The latter, however, brought additional strains on the Scottish leadership. The Gallovidians were not only traditional separatists but long-standing enemies of the Bruces, whose estates adjoined their territory. Bruce undoubtedly had other serious disagreements with John Comyn but the need to preserve his family’s interests against the Gallovidians was the likely cause of his final resignation as joint guardian in early 1300. His place was taken by Sir Ingram Umfraville, a strong ally of the Comyns, while Bruce returned to his estates in the southwest where over the next two years he continued to direct opposition against the English.
Edward I pre-empted all Scottish plans affecting Galloway, however, when, in the summer of 1300 after much lobbying with his senior nobles, he headed another army into Scotland with the intention of subduing the southwest, including Galloway. This force was almost as large as that which faced Wallace at Falkirk but because of incessant rain and the Scots’ refusal to offer battle Edward had to be content with the capture of just one castle, that of Caerlaverock. On one occasion the guardians moved to prevent him crossing the River Cree in Galloway but at the approach of his heavy cavalry they thought better of it and fled into the hills. By the end of August Edward had returned to Sweetheart Abbey near Caerlaverock and while there, as a result of Scottish approaches to the Pope, he received a visit from Robert Winchelsey, Archbishop of Canterbury. Both countries had been protesting to the Pope about whether or not Edward’s occupation of an independent Scotland was legal and, as the result of Scottish advocacy in Rome, the archbishop brought the English king a papal bull ordering him to cease inflicting injuries upon the Scots and to withdraw from their country. Infuriated as he was Edward recognised the need for a pause in his military operations to marshal his counter-arguments, and therefore agreed to the request from Philip of France for a truce until May 1301 and to the release of Robert Wishart, Bishop