英國史第四集：Nations(1216 ——1348)

[00:06.50]In the last decades of the 13th century, [00:09.25] [00:09.41]the nations of Britain found their voices - loud, confident and defiant - [00:15.20] [00:15.37]and they were raised against England. [00:18.12] [00:19.05](WELSHMAN) The people of Snowdon assert [00:21.51] [00:21.69]that even if their prince should give overlordship of them to the English king, [00:26.39] [00:26.56]they would refuse to do homage to any foreigner [00:29.76] [00:29.92]of whose language, customs and law they were ignorant. [00:33.80] [00:34.84](IRISHMAN) On account of the perfidy of the English [00:37.83] [00:38.00]and to recover our native freedom, [00:40.15] [00:40.32]the Irish are compelled to enter a deadly war. [00:43.94] [00:45.43](SCOTSMAN) For as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, [00:48.98] [00:49.15]we will yield in no least way to English dominion. [00:52.54] [00:52.71]We fight not for glory, nor riches, nor honour, but for freedom. [00:57.73] [00:59.86]We know these voices. They've been with us a long time now. [01:03.82] [01:03.98]All the same, it's a shock to hear them this early, [01:07.69] [01:07.86]to discover the politics of birthplace [01:10.33] [01:10.50]uttered with such passion and such pain. [01:13.85] [01:14.01]Once said, they could not be unsaid. [01:17.61] [01:20.57]When the Welsh, the Scots and the Irish acted on their words, [01:24.45] [01:24.61]the bloody wars of the British nations became inevitable. [01:28.28] [01:28.45]And these would not just be battles about territories - [01:31.88] [01:32.04]they were battles for ideas, [01:34.43] [01:34.60]ideas about what a sovereign nation should be. [01:37.32] [01:37.48]An extension of the ruler's will or something wider - [01:41.39] [01:41.56]something involving the people as well as the prince, [01:44.99] [01:45.16]something called "the community of the realm". [01:48.51] [01:48.67]Those battles would be fought between the peoples of Britain. [01:52.46] [01:52.63]Welshmen would die in Scotland, Scotsmen would perish in Ireland, [01:57.34] [01:57.51]the English would kill and be killed everywhere. [02:01.74] [02:02.95]For the fight to the death between princes and principles, [02:06.49] [02:06.66]the battle for the making of a nation [02:09.10] [02:09.26]would begin in the very heart of England. [02:12.62] [02:58.51]One man was responsible for provoking the peoples of Britain [03:02.58] [03:02.75]into an awareness of their nationhood, [03:05.34] [03:05.51]and he was England's own home-grown Caesar - Edward I. [03:10.02] [03:12.70]In 1774, those made curious by his fearsome reputation opened his tomb. [03:19.81] [03:19.98]The man inside was as awesome as contemporaries had recorded, [03:25.29] [03:25.46]dressed in the purple robe of a Roman emperor, [03:29.05] [03:29.21]an impressive six foot two tall, [03:32.28] [03:32.45]fully justifying his nickname, Longshanks. [03:35.96] [03:36.73]Upon that stark marble tomb, the only ornamentation reads... [03:42.56] [03:43.08]"Edwardus Primus Scottorum malleus hic est." [03:49.52] [03:49.68]Hammer of the Scots. [03:53.51] [03:57.04]After a century of rule by kings who were essentially Frenchmen, [04:01.42] [04:01.59]Edward can be called the first truly English king - [04:04.87] [04:05.03]given an old Anglo-Saxon name and imbued with the frightening certainty [04:09.98] [04:10.15]that it was England's imperial mission [04:12.54] [04:12.71]to take its rule to the four corners of the British islands. [04:16.62] [04:16.78]His many enemies compared him to one of the big cat predators. [04:21.90] [04:22.06]Perhaps he will rightly be called a leopard, Leo - [04:26.21] [04:26.38]brave, proud and fierce, the powered, [04:29.73] [04:29.90]wily, devious and treacherous. [04:33.13] [04:36.13]The Leopard Prince was born to splendid, impossible expectations. [04:41.33] [04:41.49]His father, Henry III, had named his son for England's royal saint, [04:46.12] [04:46.29]Edward the Confessor - the paragon, it was thought, of kingly perfection. [04:52.15] [04:52.76](MONKS CHANT) [04:54.75] [04:55.80]Though the Confessor had been dead for almost 200 years, [04:59.03] [04:59.20]Henry ate, drank and worshipped him, [05:02.07] [05:02.24]and finally created for the long-dead king [05:04.91] [05:05.07]a shrine of unparalleled magnificence. [05:07.87] [05:08.91]Of course, such a shrine would need a home that equalled its splendour - [05:13.82] [05:14.75]the new Westminster Abbey. [05:16.94] [05:23.98]Henry demolished the old basilica at Westminster [05:27.13] [05:27.30]and replaced it with an immense Gothic abbey, [05:30.10] [05:30.26]a building that now fitted his vision of an awe-inspiring English monarch. [05:35.33] [05:35.50]From now on, Westminster would be the symbolic heart of the kingdom, [05:39.57] [05:39.73]the place where all English monarchs would be crowned and buried. [05:43.93] [05:45.17]His father, King Henry III, reigned for 56 years. [05:49.45] [05:49.61]He's not remembered for any stirring achievement or blood-soaked conquest, [05:54.00] [05:54.17]but Henry's time on the throne was driven by a magnificent obsession - [05:59.08] [05:59.24]he wanted to turn the monarchy into England's dominant power. [06:03.36] [06:07.60]Henry's great gift to the nation was more than just a fine new church. [06:12.11] [06:13.55]Its secular counterpart was the great hall of the Palace of Westminster. [06:18.99] [06:20.39]The palace was both the seat of government and a residence for Henry [06:24.43] [06:24.59]who, unlike his Angevin ancestors, didn't much like being in the saddle. [06:29.21] [06:31.66]And the hall was a court in both the senses the word suggests - [06:36.05] [06:36.22]a place of judgement and a theatre of ceremony. [06:39.45] [06:41.22]At Westminster, the king had to be seen to be magnificent, [06:46.33] [06:47.41]but the king had also to be seen to be just. [06:51.09] [06:53.81]Westminster may have been the creation of the monarchy, [06:57.12] [06:57.29]but it also belonged to England - a nation of laws, [07:00.75] [07:01.24]the nation of Magna Carta. [07:04.08] [07:06.36]Henry had grown up with the charter, [07:08.79] [07:08.96]signed by his father King John in 1215, [07:12.23] [07:12.40]which put real limits on the power of the king. [07:15.43] [07:15.60]A bit of a blow for a king who wanted absolute authority. [07:19.35] [07:20.15]Kings could no longer ignore the complaints of their subjects. [07:24.22] [07:24.39]They could be forced to submit to a council of the barons. [07:27.98] [07:28.15]That council thought of itself as the voice of the community of the realm, [07:32.62] [07:32.79]and even now began to be called "parliament". [07:35.70] [07:35.86]Its role would be to hold the king to his contract. [07:38.82] [07:42.62]Since Henry had become king as a boy of nine, [07:46.05] [07:46.22]he'd had no choice but to swallow this bitter pill. [07:49.76] [07:49.93]However, as he grew older, Henry burned with frustration [07:54.16] [07:54.33]and became determined to get free of its shackles - [07:57.37] [07:57.53]to restore the unchallenged authority of the crown. [08:01.20] [08:02.21]Knowing that this couldn't happen without a fight, [08:05.36] [08:05.53]Henry accepted a compromise position for many years, [08:08.67] [08:08.84]that the king was not free to govern through pure royal will. [08:12.91] [08:14.80]But Henry III was also a Plantagenet, [08:17.87] [08:18.04]and Plantagenets dreamed dangerous dreams - [08:21.51] [08:21.68]expensive dreams of campaigns far abroad [08:25.22] [08:25.39]which no one in York or Canterbury could quite see the point of. [08:29.35] [08:29.51]When Plantagenets thought they might get unwelcome advice, [08:33.06] [08:33.23]they stopped listening - until, that is, they were made to. [08:37.22] [08:40.18]In 1258, in the very hall that defined his majesty, Westminster, [08:45.38] [08:45.54]seven of the most powerful barons confronted the king. [08:48.89] [08:49.06]Fully armed, they paused only to leave their swords outside. [08:53.53] [08:53.82]They demanded that Henry meet them at a parliament in Oxford [08:58.01] [08:58.17]and stop trying to turn his European dreams into reality. [09:02.40] [09:04.77]The barons were led, in all but name, by the most improbable revolutionary [09:09.84] [09:10.01]in all of British history - Simon de Montfort. [09:13.52] [09:13.68]Here at Kenilworth, he presided over a little empire of culture. [09:18.52] [09:21.20]A French aristocrat who inherited the earldom of Leicester, [09:25.08] [09:25.24]Simon became convinced that he was more English than the English. [09:29.51] [09:29.67]What was good for de Montfort was good for the nation. [09:32.87] [09:33.03]Love him or hate him, [09:34.70] [09:34.87]everyone knew that Simon de Montfort was a man with a mission. [09:38.99] [09:41.27]That mission, embarked on with his fellow barons, [09:44.66] [09:44.83]was to bring the wayward, self-glorifying monarchy to book, [09:48.66] [09:48.82]to make it the servant, not the master of the realm. [09:52.21] [09:53.74]At Oxford, amidst wildfire rumours, a camp of soldiers, [09:58.61] [09:58.78]and the growling hunger of a famine, [10:01.53] [10:01.69]Henry III was treated to the emasculation of his sovereignty. [10:06.40] [10:06.57]A document was drawn up for the king to sign - [10:09.85] [10:10.01]not discuss, just to accept. [10:12.65] [10:12.81]What it said was so startling, so genuinely revolutionary, [10:16.88] [10:17.05]that 1258 ought to be one of those dates engraved on the national memory. [10:22.07] [10:23.36]The Provisions of Oxford were at least as important as Magna Carta. [10:27.99] [10:30.76]In effect, the crown had been replaced by a new council of nobles and clergy. [10:36.27] [10:38.15]That council now virtually ruled England. [10:41.70] [10:41.87]Foreign courtiers were made to disappear. [10:45.22] [10:46.91]It has been ordained that there are to be three parliaments a year [10:50.98] [10:51.14]to view the state of the kingdom. [10:53.42] [10:53.58]It is provided that from each county there are chosen four worthy knights [10:58.53] [10:58.70]to hear all complaints for the common benefit of the whole kingdom. [11:03.37] [11:04.62]When the assembled community of the realm, [11:07.21] [11:07.37]including the king and Prince Edward, [11:09.52] [11:09.69]swore an oath to uphold the provisions, [11:12.36] [11:12.53]they could have been in no doubt about its significance [11:15.73] [11:15.89]for the fate of the nation. [11:17.88] [11:19.81]And so Henry III's facade of omnipotent rule [11:23.08] [11:23.25]had come crashing down around his ears. [11:26.00] [11:26.16]But he was not the only royal with a stake in events. [11:28.31] [11:31.56]How did the 19-year-old Edward feel [11:34.39] [11:34.56]about the drastic shrinkage in the power of the crown - his crown? [11:38.87] [11:39.04]Well, for some time, even the prince was dazzled [11:43.15] [11:43.31]by the intense magnetism of Simon de Montfort's personality, [11:47.78] [11:47.95]and, for a while, Edward went along with it. [11:51.30] [11:57.30]But, inevitably, divisions opened up between the reformers. [12:01.90] [12:03.90]It was all very well to make the king answerable to the barons, [12:08.77] [12:08.94]but ought the barons be answerable to their inferiors? [12:12.85] [12:13.53]De Montfort thought yes. The earls thought no. [12:18.08] [12:18.69]And as those divisions opened wider, [12:21.52] [12:21.69]the Leopard Prince began to change his spots and sharpen his claws. [12:26.92] [12:28.33]It became increasingly clear that the struggle over who was to rule England [12:33.32] [12:33.48]and how they were going to do it centred on two men - Simon and Edward. [12:38.55] [12:38.72]Neither could prevail without the other's total defeat. [12:42.79] [12:44.24]Over five years, [12:45.95] [12:46.12]Henry and Edward manoeuvred against de Montfort for power [12:49.63] [12:49.79]until, finally, words ran out. [12:52.75] [12:52.91]For this was no three-month paper revolution, [12:55.63] [12:55.79]like the original signing of the Magna Carta. [12:58.70] [13:01.95]The issue could now only be settled on the field of battle. [13:05.41] [13:05.58]For the first time since the Norman Conquest, [13:08.18] [13:08.34]the political fate of England was completely fluid, [13:11.41] [13:11.58]its eventual outcome uncertain. [13:13.89] [13:14.06]In 1264, de Montfort won the first round [13:17.68] [13:17.86]at the Battle of Lewes on the Sussex Downs. [13:20.85] [13:21.01]King Henry and Edward were both taken prisoner. [13:24.37] [13:27.77]The year which followed, with de Montfort in charge, [13:30.92] [13:31.09]was the closest England came to a republic [13:33.73] [13:33.89]until the days of Oliver Cromwell. [13:36.03] [13:36.76]And in Parliament, not just aristocrats and bishops, [13:40.31] [13:40.48]but ordinary knights of the shire and even burgesses from the towns [13:44.63] [13:44.80]presumed to discuss the fate of their superiors - a prince and a king. [13:49.67] [13:49.84]But like the later republic, [13:52.11] [13:52.27]this one quickly gained the attributes of a dictatorship. [13:55.82] [13:56.27]With power going to his head, [13:58.42] [13:58.59]Simon seemed more the vainglorious adventurer than a messianic reformer. [14:03.42] [14:03.59]In the end, he simply repelled more people than he attracted. [14:07.70] [14:07.87]With the impotent Henry III firmly under lock and key, [14:11.25] [14:11.42]the crown's future lay with Edward, who outwitted his captors [14:15.73] [14:15.90]and made a dashing horseback getaway. [14:18.57] [14:24.83]Even at this stage, there was something extraordinary about Edward. [14:29.30] [14:29.46]He radiated the kind of charisma [14:31.93] [14:32.10]that drew confused responses of both fear and adoration. [14:36.94] [14:37.10]He purposely kept his signals mixed - [14:40.37] [14:40.54]the better to convert them into loyalty. [14:43.45] [14:45.49]Edward led his following to Evesham in Worcestershire, [14:48.77] [14:48.93]where de Montfort's now outnumbered army camped near the abbey. [14:52.92] [14:59.01]Under stormy skies, the battle was a slaughter. [15:02.68] [15:02.84](BATTLE CRIES) [15:04.91] [15:06.44]Told that his son had been killed, [15:08.43] [15:08.60]Simon replied, "Then it is time to die." [15:11.87] [15:12.04]He charged into the fray and was slain on foot, [15:15.19] [15:15.36]his devoted knights falling with him. [15:17.99] [15:23.31]Edward ignored the rules of war. [15:25.98] [15:28.79]The wounded were stabbed where they lay. [15:31.70] [15:32.91]Simon's head, hands, feet and testicles were cut off... [15:36.86] [15:40.02]...the genitals hung around his nose. [15:43.14] [15:49.70]The crown had won, [15:52.21] [15:52.37]but only after overcoming Kenilworth's mighty defences [15:56.16] [15:56.33]in a siege that lasted nine months. [15:59.61] [15:59.77]But Edward had been given a serious early lesson [16:02.73] [16:02.89]in the political realities of England. [16:05.40] [16:05.57]He wouldn't cringe before the barons, [16:07.79] [16:07.96]but he would have to make them his allies. [16:10.43] [16:10.60]As partners, they would go on to create an English empire of their own, [16:15.12] [16:15.28]the reincarnation of Roman Britannia. [16:18.79] [16:22.64]In 1274, Edward I's coronation finally took place [16:27.23] [16:27.39]in a magnificent sanctuary created by his father. [16:30.86] [16:31.19]The Westminster in which he was crowned would, [16:35.02] [16:35.19]if Edward had anything to do with it, [16:37.18] [16:37.35]be the capital not just of England, but of Britain. [16:40.73] [16:42.58]It was in Wales that Edward first made the seriousness of his ambitions clear. [16:48.53] [16:50.42]Here, the dominant prince was Llewellyn ap Gruffydd, [16:53.85] [16:54.02]ruler of the mountainous kingdom of Gwynedd, Greater Snowdonia. [16:58.49] [16:59.49]Knowing that the difficult, not to say impossible terrain of his country [17:03.85] [17:04.01]had been the graveyard of English armies, [17:06.40] [17:06.57]Llewellyn was determined to resist attempts to subdue central Wales. [17:11.00] [17:12.73]Here, the native Welsh clung on to their language, customs and laws, [17:17.08] [17:17.24]lords in their own lands, but still subjects of the English king. [17:21.44] [17:22.44]By the 13th century, Wales had become divided [17:25.43] [17:25.60]into the Principality of Gwynedd, the disputed centre, [17:29.14] [17:29.32]and the encroaching English baronial and crown lands. [17:32.39] [17:32.55]Encroaching, that is, until 1258, when Llewellyn was strong enough [17:37.42] [17:37.59]to have himself declared "princeps Wallie" - Prince of Wales. [17:42.54] [17:43.75]Exploiting the civil war in England and allying with de Montfort, [17:47.70] [17:47.86]Llewellyn's armies overran the now undefended centre. [17:51.93] [17:52.10]But he then overreached himself, marrying de Montfort's daughter, [17:57.13] [17:57.30]an offence Edward was unlikely to forgive or to forget. [18:01.26] [18:03.13]Years later, Llewellyn handed Edward the perfect pretext for retribution. [18:07.97] [18:08.13]He failed to show up at Edward's coronation [18:11.20] [18:11.37]and ignored a total of five summonses to pay homage to his new king. [18:16.65] [18:17.73]Edward, who needed no tutorials on the connection between ceremonies and power, [18:22.88] [18:23.04]immediately took this as a slap in the face, [18:26.03] [18:26.20]an act of virtual rebellion. [18:28.27] [18:28.44]In 1276, a huge army, the biggest seen in Britain since the Norman Conquest, [18:34.07] [18:34.24]invaded Gwynedd, penetrating right to its furthest corners, [18:38.47] [18:38.63]to Snowdonia and to Anglesey. [18:41.10] [18:41.27]Faced with this invasion, Llewellyn was forced to surrender. [18:45.34] [18:49.11]But, as so often in these years, humiliation bred defiance. [18:53.46] [18:54.54]In 1282, the Welsh launched a surprise attack on an English garrison. [18:59.53] [18:59.70]Edward now bore down again with an even bigger army, [19:03.45] [19:03.62]but this campaign was far from being a walkover. [19:07.33] [19:14.77]Realising this, the Archbishop of Canterbury attempted to conciliate [19:19.16] [19:19.33]between the warring factions, [19:21.40] [19:21.57]offering Llewellyn land and title in England [19:24.68] [19:24.85]if he would renounce his rights in Wales. [19:28.07] [19:28.24]And the answer to this offer was blunt. [19:31.68] [19:32.48]That they must stand by their laws and rights in defence of all Wales. [19:36.92] [19:37.08]The people preferred to die rather than to live under English rule. [19:41.59] [19:41.76]They would not do homage to any stranger [19:44.63] [19:44.79]of whose language, manners and laws they were ignorant. [19:48.39] [19:48.55]They would fight in defence of "nostra natsu" - [19:51.27] [19:51.43]our nation against the English. [19:53.90] [19:56.83]When the war was renewed, it was with fresh and unsparing savagery. [20:02.37] [20:03.70]No quarter was given by either side. [20:06.45] [20:06.62]The Welsh exploited the land, ambushed slow-moving companies of knights, [20:11.97] [20:12.14]and then disappeared off again into the hills and forests. [20:16.41] [20:20.61](BATTLE CRIES) [20:23.08] [20:25.65]Then, in a minor skirmish in central Wales, [20:28.56] [20:28.73]Llewellyn was killed by an anonymous English spearman. [20:32.03] [20:34.88]The final annihilation of resistance took another six months [20:39.19] [20:39.36]before the king could claim Wales to be pacified. [20:43.51] [20:46.48]However, the subjugation of Wales was far more subtle [20:50.35] [20:50.51]than the surgical application of brute force. [20:53.82] [20:53.99]Edward had the chilling, uncannily-modern knowledge [20:57.50] [20:57.67]that to break your enemy you must strip him of his cultural identity. [21:03.30] [21:03.47]Before this place became called Conway by the English, it was Aberconwy. [21:08.54] [21:08.70]It was a monastery that housed the tomb of the most powerful Welsh prince [21:13.45] [21:13.62]and was home to a sacred relic [21:16.05] [21:16.22]that the Welsh believed to be a piece of the true Cross. [21:19.61] [21:21.85]Naturally, the monastery became a fortress [21:25.24] [21:25.41]and the Cross was taken to London along with Llewellyn's crown. [21:30.48] [21:34.53]The lords call themselves Princes of Wales. Fine. [21:38.92] [21:39.08]From 1301, they will be the most English of the English, [21:43.47] [21:43.64]the first son of the king, the heir to the throne, the emperor in waiting. [21:48.79] [21:51.64]The most titanic of all the signs of the English empire were its castles, [21:56.71] [21:56.87]a granite ring of fortresses stretching from Builth to Hope, [22:01.26] [22:01.43]most of them supplied from the sea, [22:03.62] [22:03.79]depriving the Welsh of any hope of liberation. [22:07.10] [22:10.94]For the Welsh of Snowdonia, the great stone fortresses in their midst [22:14.70] [22:14.86]were what one of them called "the magnificent badges of our subjection." [22:20.73] [22:22.94]The symbol not of imperial grandeur, but of crushing national annihilation; [22:28.80] [22:28.97]a permanent, daily, wounding reminder of conquest and humiliation. [22:34.49] [22:36.85]The most colossal exercise, in fact, in colonial domination [22:41.12] [22:41.29]anywhere in medieval Europe. [22:43.72] [22:43.88]Beneath the lion standard of Edward Plantagenet, [22:47.96] [22:48.12]the Welsh inhabitants had now become second-class citizens [22:52.08] [22:52.24]in their own country. [22:54.39] [22:56.56]Well, those natives were treated for the most part like naughty children, [23:00.91] [23:01.07]not allowed to bear arms, of course, but even forced to ask permission [23:05.14] [23:05.31]if they wanted strangers to stay at their house overnight. [23:09.06] [23:09.23]Worst of all, I think, the Welsh were doomed by English superiority [23:14.06] [23:14.23]to become objects of terminal quaintness. [23:17.14] [23:17.30]The quaint language, the quaint songs, [23:19.98] [23:20.14]those amusing choirs and chants. [23:22.86] [23:25.54]It could have been worse, and for the Jews of England, it was. [23:29.89] [23:31.82]The Welsh wars cost ten times the king's annual revenue, [23:35.97] [23:36.13]and the price of victory and castle building [23:38.77] [23:38.93]had so exhaustively bled the Jews - [23:41.28] [23:41.45]the usual source of loans and taxation - [23:44.41] [23:44.57]that they had nothing left to yield, [23:46.72] [23:46.89]and so could be dispensed with altogether. [23:49.60] [23:52.00]Early in his reign, Edward, perhaps acting from religious conviction, [23:56.60] [23:56.76]outlawed money lending, putting most of England's Jews out of business. [24:01.71] [24:04.16]He then forced them to wear yellow felt badges of identification [24:09.35] [24:09.51]and so be recognised as the sub-species of humanity [24:13.14] [24:13.31]he undoubtedly believed they were. [24:16.06] [24:18.07]A year after his first Welsh invasion, [24:20.74] [24:20.91]Edward arrested all the heads of the Jewish households [24:24.50] [24:24.66]and hanged nearly 300 in the Tower. [24:28.45] [24:31.90]Not satisfied with this, [24:33.93] [24:34.10]he expelled the entire community, perhaps 3,000 people, in 1290, [24:39.65] [24:39.81]an act so overwhelmingly popular, especially with the Church, [24:44.49] [24:44.65]that it awarded him a huge tax grant. [24:48.20] [24:51.33]So it's Edward's England which became the first country [24:54.68] [24:54.85]to perform a little act of ethnic cleansing on its Jews, [24:59.07] [24:59.24]the violent uprooting of communities in York, Lincoln and London. [25:04.27] [25:04.44](MOURNFUL SINGING) [25:07.55] [25:10.44]It was not plain sailing for the Jews on one deportation boat in the Thames. [25:15.63] [25:15.79]At Queenborough, the captain encouraged his Jewish passengers [25:19.91] [25:20.07]to stretch their legs as the ship beached on the receding tide. [25:24.38] [25:24.55]As it returned, he barred them from getting back aboard, [25:28.46] [25:28.62]challenging them to call on their god to part the waves [25:31.98] [25:32.14]as he had with the Red Sea. [25:34.45] [25:34.62]But there was no miracle this time. They all drowned. [25:38.90] [25:50.13]In Lincoln Cathedral lie the entrails of Eleanor of Castile, [25:54.68] [25:54.85]Queen to Edward I. [25:56.84] [25:57.01]She died within months of the expulsions, [25:59.80] [25:59.97]leaving her husband, normally so thick-skinned and emotionally coarse, [26:04.35] [26:04.52]distraught, plunged into grief. [26:07.35] [26:08.64]Edward's devotion is reflected in a monument unique in medieval kingship - [26:14.08] [26:14.24]twelve crosses he built to mark the points where Eleanor's body lay [26:18.86] [26:19.03]en route to Westminster Abbey... [26:21.55] [26:22.91]the most famous being Charing Cross in London. [26:26.30] [26:33.47]Eleanor's death seemed to transfer Edward's reserve of passion [26:38.17] [26:38.34]to what now became the real love of his life, [26:41.30] [26:41.46]the single-minded pursuit of imperial power. [26:44.85] [26:47.38]It was Scotland that was destined to be on the receiving end [26:51.00] [26:51.17]of Edward's deadly power games, [26:53.48] [26:53.65]which began, as always, by converting accidents into opportunities. [26:58.77] [27:00.57]The accident was the death in 1290 [27:03.80] [27:03.97]of the last surviving direct heir to Alexander III, [27:07.64] [27:07.80]King of Scotland. [27:09.92] [27:10.08]With her gone, the Scottish nobles were lining up for the throne. [27:13.91] [27:14.08]Someone was needed to judge the contestants. [27:17.51] [27:17.68]Well, guess who? [27:19.71] [27:21.84]The strongest claimants led the two most powerful factions in Scotland - [27:27.30] [27:27.47]the Bruces and the Comyn-Balliol alliance. [27:30.35] [27:30.51]They hated each other. [27:33.34] [27:35.43]Both were determined to have their man made king, [27:38.62] [27:38.79]and if they pushed their rival claims fully, [27:41.46] [27:41.62]their conflict would cause civil war across all of Scotland. [27:46.09] [27:47.38]Edward came north to decide which of the two rivals would be king. [27:52.09] [27:52.26]The competitors met him on either side of the River Tweed, [27:56.13] [27:56.30]near a place called Norham. [27:58.73] [28:01.41]Of course, Edward being Edward, he had a price on his mind [28:04.85] [28:05.01]in return for being adjudicator-godfather to the Scots. [28:08.97] [28:09.13]And that price, needless to say, was homage - [28:12.32] [28:12.49]the bent knee, the kiss on the ring, the devoted sword, [28:16.60] [28:16.76]the acceptance by whoever got the job [28:19.28] [28:19.44]that henceforth he would be Edward's man, [28:22.48] [28:22.64]deeply in his debt, his soldiers at the king's command. [28:26.75] [28:26.92]To prove his point, he gathered an army at Norham, [28:31.15] [28:31.31]an army of monks, scholars and antiquarians. [28:34.43] [28:34.59]Their heavy artillery were ancient charters and chronicles. [28:38.58] [28:38.75]Their job, to find the historical proof of English overlordship. [28:43.70] [28:43.87]But they failed, so the king threw the problem right back to the Scots. [28:49.22] [28:50.74]Edward asked the guardians of the realm to find documentary evidence [28:54.89] [28:55.06]as to why he was not, in fact, their feudal overlord, [28:58.53] [28:58.70]to which he got a wonderfully canny contradiction, [29:02.05] [29:02.22]not at all what he wanted to hear. [29:04.33] [29:04.49]Sire, they said, the "bona gentes", the responsible men who have sent us, [29:09.33] [29:09.49]know full well you couldn't possibly make so great a claim [29:13.56] [29:13.73]unless you actually believed you had a right to it. [29:16.80] [29:16.97]But of this right, we know nothing. [29:19.76] [29:19.92]Which is as much to say, look, you can't be completely off your head [29:24.39] [29:24.56]to come up with this sovereignty stuff, but it's all news to us, chum, [29:29.31] [29:29.48]since the Scottish realm on this side of the river [29:32.35] [29:32.52]is held tribute to no one but God. [29:35.98] [29:36.15]We don't have to prove a thing. [29:38.95] [29:39.11]It's for you to come up with a supermonk with the perfect charter. [29:42.90] [29:43.07]Why don't you let us know when you have it? [29:45.95] [29:48.27]In the end, all those who thought they had a chance at the Scots throne [29:52.78] [29:52.94]did pay homage to Edward. [29:55.58] [29:55.74]But the rest of the Scots community of the realm held their noses and stood aloof. [30:01.02] [30:02.06]Was this, as some Scottish historians have insisted, an Edwardian trap? [30:07.57] [30:07.74]Was he already thinking of turning Scotland into Wales North, [30:11.88] [30:12.05]the next territory to be gobbled up by his imperial appetite? [30:16.65] [30:16.81]Well, I think the appetite grew with the eating. [30:19.88] [30:20.05]A year later, when the final verdict came through, [30:23.83] [30:24.01]Balliol did prove to have the better claim [30:26.56] [30:26.72]and was the clear choice of Scotland. [30:29.11] [30:29.28]Edward did not force him on anybody. [30:32.56] [30:35.20]Once Balliol had acknowledged Edward's overlordship, [30:38.75] [30:38.92]the English king agreed to keep [30:41.07] [30:41.23]the separate identity of Scottish institutions. [30:44.54] [30:44.71]Only if their interest crossed would there be trouble. [30:48.75] [30:48.91]Alas, they did, and trouble there certainly was. [30:53.42] [30:56.03]Edward wasted no time in humiliating Balliol [30:59.54] [30:59.70]on every occasion over the next five years, [31:02.61] [31:02.78]driving the Scots community of the realm - [31:05.17] [31:05.34]the nobles, clergy, gentry and burgesses - [31:08.65] [31:08.82]to stand against their own king. [31:11.46] [31:11.62]When war with France coincided with another Welsh rebellion, [31:16.00] [31:16.17]Edward exercised his overlordship of Scotland [31:19.37] [31:19.53]and summoned their nobility to fight for him. [31:22.76] [31:22.93]They refused and then went one stage further. [31:27.40] [31:27.57]They signed a formal treaty with France against England. [31:32.68] [31:32.84]To Edward, it was self-evidently a declaration of war. [31:36.88] [31:37.04]The army he raised in 1296 put even the Welsh campaign in the shade. [31:42.79] [31:46.08]First to fall was Scotland's wealthiest port, Berwick Upon Tweed. [31:51.10] [31:51.27]The siege lasted only hours... [31:54.39] [31:55.83]the massacre that followed, days. [31:58.86] [32:02.35](SCOTSMAN) The king of England spared no one... [32:05.38] [32:06.42]whatever their age or sex. [32:08.89] [32:10.38]And for two days streams of blood flowed from the bodies of the slain... [32:15.09] [32:17.70]so that mills could be turned round by its flow. [32:21.61] [32:25.89]At Dunbar, the Scots Royal Army was swept aside. [32:30.09] [32:30.25]Now Edward turned imperial conqueror in deadly earnest. [32:33.96] [32:34.61]King John Balliol's arms were torn from his coat [32:38.12] [32:38.28]like a court-martialled subaltern, [32:40.35] [32:40.52]and English officials took over Scottish government. [32:43.88] [32:44.04]Just as he had ripped the heart out of Welsh independence [32:47.59] [32:47.76]by carrying off their sacred relics, [32:50.43] [32:50.60]Edward now took the Stone of Scone, [32:53.27] [32:53.43]symbol of the independent Scottish crown, to Westminster, [32:57.19] [32:57.35]where a magnificent coronation chair was custom-designed to hold it. [33:02.18] [33:03.31]And when Edward was given the broken Scottish royal seal, [33:07.42] [33:07.59]he set it aside, commenting... [33:10.58] [33:10.74]The man does good business when he rids himself of a turd. [33:14.81] [33:16.30]A host of Scots came to do homage to Edward, including the Bruces, [33:22.17] [33:22.34]but there was one who did not - Malcolm Wallace. [33:26.73] [33:26.89]And this Malcolm had a brother. [33:29.80] [33:35.29]Here he is, the standard-issue freedom fighter of the imagination - [33:40.04] [33:40.21]the "give 'em hell" whiskers, the "save me, Jesus" eyes, [33:44.52] [33:44.68]the hamstrings from hell. [33:46.83] [33:48.00]We've not a clue, of course, whether William Wallace looked remotely like this [33:52.47] [33:52.64]any more than we know whether he could have stood in for Mel Gibson, [33:57.03] [33:57.20]who immortalised him in "Braveheart". [33:59.95] [34:00.11]But Wallace is one of those larger-than-life figures [34:03.50] [34:03.67]whose epic romance refuses to go away. [34:07.34] [34:07.51]It just grows, to match this extraordinary monument to him [34:11.71] [34:11.87]dominating the Stirling skyline. [34:14.86] [34:16.58]There's no doubt, of course, that Wallace did count, [34:19.94] [34:20.10]that his brief but incredibly dramatic intervention [34:23.49] [34:23.66]in the English-Scottish wars did change the course of British history, [34:28.49] [34:28.66]if only to show that the armies of Edward I [34:31.65] [34:31.82]were not invincible at all times and in all places. [34:35.65] [34:37.37]Beyond that, Wallace was one of the few Scots [34:40.60] [34:40.77]who never at any stage paid homage to Edward, [34:44.24] [34:44.41]remaining loyal to King John Balliol. [34:47.40] [34:47.57]More gentleman turned outlaw than peasant man of the glens, [34:51.72] [34:51.88]Wallace wasn't a one-man war either. [34:54.68] [34:55.64]My mid-1297, all Scotland was on the boil. [34:59.71] [34:59.88]North of the Forth, Andrew Murray matched or even surpassed him [35:03.71] [35:03.88]by leading a wild and brilliant guerrilla war. [35:06.87] [35:08.59]It was when Murray marched south and Wallace moved north to meet here, [35:13.14] [35:13.31]on the Forth at Stirling - the key to Scotland - [35:16.46] [35:16.63]that a chaotic wildfire uprising turned into a major military campaign. [35:22.14] [35:25.30]On the eve of the Battle of Stirling Bridge, Wallace told the English, [35:29.69] [35:29.86]"We are not here to make peace, [35:32.13] [35:32.30]"but to do battle and to liberate our kingdom." [35:35.73] [35:39.33]The Scots gathered on the Abbey Craig Bridge. [35:42.32] [35:42.49]Below, a narrow wooden bridge led to the castle and to the English. [35:47.88] [35:49.73]Wallace allowed about half of them to cross the fragile structure, [35:53.72] [35:53.89]enough for his forces to deal with. [35:56.19] [36:02.36]And so they did, rushing down from their perch, through the woods, [36:06.40] [36:06.56]and into the English ranks. [36:08.91] [36:14.71]Wallace, on foot, with a great sharp sword, [36:18.54] [36:18.71]goes amongst the very thickest of his foes. [36:21.43] [36:24.51]The Scots vanquished the savage English, [36:27.30] [36:27.46]whom they put into mourning for death. [36:30.98] [36:31.14]Some had their throats cut, others were taken prisoners, others drowned. [36:36.50] [36:39.50]One, the hated English taxman Cressingham, was skinned, [36:43.89] [36:44.05]his fat body made into a belt for Wallace's victorious sword. [36:48.49] [36:52.01]And yet, as so often in Scottish history, [36:54.97] [36:55.13]defeat quickly followed victory down the Forth at Falkirk. [37:00.04] [37:02.28]Wallace's warriors died by the thousands. [37:06.12] [37:08.44]They fell like blossoms in an orchard when the fruit has ripened. [37:12.56] [37:13.08]Bodies covered the ground as thickly as snow in winter. [37:17.07] [37:20.27]Wallace himself managed to escape the slaughter, [37:24.10] [37:24.27]only to be captured years later, [37:27.34] [37:27.51]betrayed by a Scotsman, possibly even the Bruce himself. [37:32.06] [37:35.46]After a mock trial, Wallace endured the most appalling death [37:39.61] [37:39.78]that the king's rage could devise - a live disembowelment. [37:44.01] [37:48.38]In the intervening six years, [37:50.41] [37:50.57]Scotland suffered almost as badly by Edward's hand, [37:54.33] [37:54.49]as the Scots drew inspiration from Wallace and fought on. [37:58.64] [37:59.97]Edward came back from 1297 to 1304. [38:05.12] [38:06.72]The war became a murderous academy of siege warfare. [38:10.95] [38:12.48]Edward came from the south west to Caerlaverock Castle, [38:16.79] [38:16.96]took it, and left with its defenders hanged from the walls. [38:21.51] [38:21.68]North to Bothwell, where a huge siege tower overcame its mighty battlements, [38:27.27] [38:27.43]and on and on. [38:29.42] [38:30.31]Not even Scotland's Westminster was saved from his fury. [38:34.90] [38:36.71]Dunfermline Abbey is one of those places [38:39.70] [38:39.86]where you can almost smell tragedy in the stonework. [38:43.38] [38:43.54]Pretty much everything you see here was built, or rather rebuilt, [38:47.85] [38:48.02]after 1303. [38:50.37] [38:50.54]It was in that year that Edward I, [38:53.37] [38:53.54]in one of his murderously vindictive tantrums, [38:56.77] [38:56.93]torched the place, burnt it to the ground. [39:00.13] [39:00.29]He was, as usual, making a point. [39:04.00] [39:04.17]To smash up a royal mausoleum [39:06.73] [39:06.89]was to strike directly at Scotland's sense of independent history. [39:10.72] [39:13.28]The greatest symbol of that independence, as always, was Stirling. [39:17.59] [39:19.12]Its surrender took the fight out of the Scots. [39:22.63] [39:25.64]In 1304, they submitted to Edward. [39:29.18] [39:29.79]Well, he must have thought, that was that. [39:32.99] [39:33.15]Done with. Peace. [39:35.66] [39:36.23]A mistake. [39:37.98] [39:38.15]For what Edward couldn't possibly have predicted [39:41.18] [39:41.35]was the emergence of a Scottish lion [39:44.02] [39:44.19]even more ruthless than the Leopard himself. [39:47.26] [39:47.42]And he was, of course, the Bruce. [39:50.06] [39:52.02]The strange thing, though, is that the formidable strengths of Robert the Bruce - [39:57.14] [39:57.30]his political cunning, his military ingenuity, [40:00.77] [40:00.94]his steely resolution, even his intermittent fits of rage - [40:04.77] [40:04.93]are rather like the attributes of a man whose work he'd sworn to undo. [40:10.13] [40:10.29]Edward I. [40:12.01] [40:12.17]If he'd read the book of Edward's life, [40:14.96] [40:15.13]he would have known that lesson number one was not beat the foreigner, [40:19.56] [40:19.72]it was first win your battles at home. [40:23.92] [40:26.48]And so, in 1306, Bruce, [40:29.75] [40:29.92]the most politically intelligent and militarily successful figure [40:33.91] [40:34.08]in medieval Scottish history, did just that. [40:37.43] [40:38.67]He met with John Comyn, his main rival, and ended up stabbing him [40:43.35] [40:43.51]before the altar of Greyfriars Church in Dumfries. [40:48.22] [40:53.98]The murder is neither explained nor justified [40:57.42] [40:57.58]by it being the case of a patriot knocking off a quisling - [41:01.21] [41:01.38]Comyn had been more consistent in his opposition to the English than Bruce. [41:06.40] [41:06.58]He remained loyal to King Balliol, who still lived, [41:10.04] [41:10.21]and so had to be removed. [41:12.52] [41:13.49]Barely six weeks after he had murdered Comyn, [41:16.77] [41:16.93]Bruce had himself inaugurated king at Scone. [41:20.97] [41:23.49]Instead of unifying the Scots behind a single leader, [41:26.68] [41:26.84]Bruce's actions only intensified what was already a Scottish civil war, [41:31.99] [41:32.16]one that he initially lost. [41:35.15] [41:39.44]He fled Scotland and so created a vacuum of knowledge, [41:43.87] [41:44.03]filled by heroic mythology - [41:46.26] [41:46.43]the fable of the cave and the spider, [41:49.34] [41:49.51]whose patience gave Robert the resolution to persevere. [41:53.18] [41:55.19]There was no cave, no spider, [41:57.54] [41:57.70]but there was something more extraordinary - [42:00.22] [42:00.38]the polished noble turning himself into a guerrilla captain. [42:04.77] [42:04.94]It was Robert the Bruce, not William Wallace, [42:07.61] [42:07.78]who wrote the book on partisan warfare. [42:10.45] [42:12.06]On his return, four months later, [42:14.52] [42:14.69]adversity now made him a great general, [42:18.29] [42:18.45]attacking his Scots and English foes alike. [42:21.52] [42:23.29]In the end, Robert the Bruce simply outlived the old king, [42:27.84] [42:28.01]who breathed his last fearing the worst [42:31.16] [42:31.32]should ever his son, Edward of Caernarfon, [42:33.84] [42:34.00]have to meet Robert the Bruce on the field of battle. [42:37.52] [42:39.92]Eventually, Edward died, [42:41.87] [42:42.04]here near Carlisle in 1307, [42:45.66] [42:45.84]en route to deal with Bruce himself. [42:49.11] [42:49.27]Ironically, at the end of his life, Edward turned thoughtful, [42:53.71] [42:53.87]even writing that he wanted to promote [42:56.51] [42:56.67]"pleasantness, ease and quiet for our subjects." [42:59.90] [43:01.07]If he really believed this, he must have died a truly disappointed man. [43:05.77] [43:06.78]One story says the king left orders [43:08.93] [43:09.10]for his bones to be boiled away from his flesh [43:12.09] [43:12.26]and carried before his son's army, [43:14.65] [43:14.82]believing that as long as his bones marched north, [43:18.33] [43:18.50]the Scots would never be victorious. [43:21.45] [43:23.41]But Edward Junior was going to need more than his father's shinbone [43:28.04] [43:28.21]if he was to have any chance of success. [43:31.24] [43:32.89]He was certainly not the incarnation of the community of the realm. [43:37.32] [43:37.48]Neither was he the true heir of the Caesar of Britain, [43:41.27] [43:41.44]the monarch of all he surveyed. [43:43.43] [43:43.60]He was just a loser. [43:45.83] [43:47.68]Bruce, on the other hand, was still a winner. [43:51.03] [43:51.72]Over seven years, he regained his kingdom. [43:54.67] [43:54.83]So, by 1314, the English only controlled Bothwell, Berwick, [44:00.06] [44:00.23]Jedborough and the key, Stirling Castle - [44:03.54] [44:03.71]now besieged by the Scots. [44:06.14] [44:07.23]Faced with complete humiliation in Scotland, [44:09.90] [44:10.06]Edward II finally acted and marched north. [44:13.97] [44:14.78]He met his nemesis in a muddy field along the banks of the Bannock burn. [44:20.97] [44:21.90]It was not to be the usual story of charge, arrows away, slash, victory, [44:27.41] [44:27.57]but a relentless two-day affair. [44:30.21] [44:30.93]Outnumbered three to one, Bruce did get to choose the battlefield, [44:35.29] [44:35.45]knowing that even Plantagenet war machines [44:38.20] [44:38.37]don't work well on wet ground. [44:40.67] [44:45.96]However, it was almost all over before it had begun. [44:49.35] [44:49.52]The young Henry de Bohun, English knight, [44:52.24] [44:52.40]caught Bruce unawares and unarmoured on his little mount [44:56.03] [44:56.20]some way off from his soldiers. [44:59.19] [44:59.35]So Henry missed the noble king, and he standing in his stirrups [45:04.71] [45:04.87]with an axe that was both hard and good [45:07.38] [45:07.55]struck him a blow with such great force [45:10.11] [45:10.27]that it cleaved the head to his brains. [45:13.42] [45:13.59]The shaft of the axe left broken in Robert's fist. [45:18.26] [45:20.38]Skirmishing followed as the short June night fell, [45:23.74] [45:23.90]Bruce reminding the Scots... [45:26.17] [45:26.34]The English are bent on obliterating my kingdom. [45:29.96] [45:30.14]Nay, our whole nation. [45:32.52] [45:33.97]The English knights charge. [45:36.09] [45:37.81]The sodden ground and "schiltron" - [45:40.64] [45:40.81]hedgehogs of 1,500 men, each holding a twelve-foot spear - defeat them. [45:47.04] [46:04.95]Ranks of infantry meet head on. [46:07.99] [46:09.55]Such a smashing of spears that men could hear it far away. [46:14.02] [46:15.51]English archers are now swept away by Scots cavalry [46:19.18] [46:19.35]or blocked by the four schiltrons, which unite and push forward. [46:24.34] [46:25.78]And many a splendid mighty blow dealt there on both sides [46:30.73] [46:30.90]until blood burst through the mail coats [46:34.37] [46:34.54]and went streaming down to the earth. [46:37.65] [46:41.13]Edward II fled the field with 500 knights. [46:46.12] [46:47.65]The English force broke behind him and was slaughtered. [46:52.16] [46:52.33]The burn becomes so choked... [46:54.76] [46:54.92]Men could pass dry foot over it on drowned horses and men. [46:59.87] [47:02.92]Edward II left his shield, his seal, his honour [47:07.83] [47:08.00]and perhaps 4,000 English and Welsh dead. [47:12.38] [47:20.59]Having won a victory on the battlefield if not the war itself, [47:24.30] [47:24.47]the Scots now sought international recognition [47:27.70] [47:27.86]of their newly-won liberty. [47:29.85] [47:33.18]The occasion was a letter sent to the Pope, [47:36.25] [47:36.42]setting out the reasons why Scotland's independence [47:39.53] [47:39.70]ought to be recognised by the Church as itself sacred. [47:43.77] [47:45.61]The letter was written here in Arbroath Abbey, [47:48.73] [47:48.89]and more than anything ever produced south of the border [47:52.36] [47:52.53]represented a perfect fusion [47:54.80] [47:54.97]between the two ideas of sovereignty we've seen in action - [47:58.88] [47:59.05]the nation and the prince. [48:01.84] [48:04.72]At the heart of what we call the Declaration of Arbroath [48:08.19] [48:08.36]is something much more powerful, much more deeply moving. [48:12.43] [48:12.60]It is the insistence that the nation lived on, beyond, [48:16.22] [48:16.39]and outside the person of the prince, [48:18.54] [48:18.71]who for a time happened to claim its government. [48:22.07] [48:22.23]We've heard something like this before [48:24.46] [48:24.63]at the very beginning of our story in Oxford in 1258. [48:28.62] [48:28.79]But here in Scotland, it's much more eloquent, [48:32.62] [48:32.78]the image of the free patriot drawn not as a desperado like Wallace [48:37.09] [48:37.26]or a mighty prince like Bruce, [48:39.54] [48:39.70]but as one of a band of brother survivors. [48:43.17] [48:43.34]For as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, [48:47.17] [48:47.34]we will yield in no least way to English dominion. [48:50.49] [48:50.65]We fight not for glory, nor riches, nor honour, but for freedom, [48:55.72] [48:55.89]which no good man gives up except with his life. [49:00.04] [49:02.85]The real lesson of the Battle of Bannockburn [49:05.52] [49:05.68]was that the Scottish king commanded loyalty [49:08.64] [49:08.80]in ways that just never occurred to Edward II. [49:12.11] [49:14.48]Robert the Bruce knew that he could only be successful [49:18.52] [49:18.68]if he could be the personification of Scotland, [49:21.43] [49:21.60]the incarnation of the community of the realm. [49:24.67] [49:24.83]And that's why he was not Scotland's Edward I, [49:28.30] [49:28.47]he was Scotland's Simon de Montfort. [49:31.59] [49:35.99]Like de Montfort, Bruce had pinned his personal cause [49:39.58] [49:39.74]to the flag and to the passions of his country. [49:43.53] [49:48.34]Unlike Edward I, Robert was not just a warlord [49:52.12] [49:52.30]who hammered the country to his will. [49:54.57] [49:54.74]He had managed to forge a true alliance with the people, [49:58.61] [49:58.77]a community of the realm that, when united and led by Robert I, [50:03.24] [50:03.41]could win its freedom. [50:05.64] [50:12.56]And so the emboldened Scots take the war to the English. [50:17.08] [50:20.96]For 22 years, [50:22.44] [50:22.60]the Scots raided and terrorised huge areas of northern England, [50:26.95] [50:27.12]reaching as far south as Yorkshire. [50:29.47] [50:31.31]Abbeys and castles fell, [50:33.30] [50:33.47]cities paid the Scots off to avoid destruction. [50:36.59] [50:39.67]Villages were trashed. [50:41.58] [50:44.34]The border raids on a weakened enemy were what you'd expect. [50:48.10] [50:54.74]In May 1315, Robert Bruce's brother Edward [50:59.09] [50:59.26]landed here in north-east Ireland near Carrickfergus Castle [51:03.29] [51:03.45]with a formidable Scots army of many thousands of men. [51:07.57] [51:07.73]What the Bruces were doing, in effect, [51:10.04] [51:10.21]was opening a second front against the English Empire. [51:14.56] [51:15.85]Robert had written a remarkable letter. [51:18.60] [51:18.76]The Scots would come, he said, [51:20.88] [51:21.04]not as an invader but as liberators, for... [51:24.87] [51:25.04]Our people and your people, free in times past, [51:30.47] [51:30.64]share the same national ancestry and common custom. [51:36.31] [51:41.15]The rhetoric was stirring and it found resonance with the native Irish. [51:45.78] [51:45.95]For nearly a century and a half, [51:48.22] [51:48.39]there had been an entrenched English colony [51:51.10] [51:51.26]in north and eastern Ireland, [51:53.22] [51:53.38]often safe only in castles like Carrickfergus, [51:56.61] [51:56.78]which Edward Bruce now besieged for a year. [52:00.25] [52:00.86]But the timing was unfortunate, [52:03.65] [52:03.82]for 1315 also saw the worst famine in living memory. [52:09.13] [52:09.29]Very soon, Edward Bruce's army became indistinguishable [52:13.89] [52:14.05]from any other disorderly gang of knights [52:16.77] [52:16.93]using force to extract the provisions they desperately needed for their men [52:22.16] [52:22.33]and not choosing to distinguish with any care [52:25.28] [52:25.44]between Gaelic friends and English foes. [52:28.51] [52:28.68]Famished and desperate, [52:30.67] [52:30.84]the Scots took what they needed from the Irish villagers [52:34.47] [52:34.64]and finally resorted, so it was said, to digging up fresh graves [52:39.31] [52:39.48]and eating the decayed bodies. [52:42.23] [52:43.67]Month by month, the Bruce's war of liberation [52:47.03] [52:47.19]turned into something remarkably like an occupation. [52:51.58] [52:53.15]Ambitious Edward Bruce also wanted to be a king - a king in Dublin - [52:58.17] [52:58.34]and he didn't much care what taking the throne would cost the Irish. [53:02.70] [53:03.34]It was the usual story. [53:05.33] [53:05.50]A victory over the Ulster English, then a march south towards Dublin. [53:09.97] [53:10.14]There, many of the population tore down their own houses [53:13.89] [53:14.05]to use as walls against the Scots, rather than surrender the city. [53:18.17] [53:19.25]Not all the Irish nobility and kings opened their arms [53:22.60] [53:22.77]to embrace their Scots "liberators". [53:25.24] [53:25.41]A bitter civil war broke out between native Irish supporters of both sides. [53:30.35] [53:30.52]A climactic battle in the west took, according to contemporaries, [53:34.80] [53:34.96]no fewer than ten thousands lives. [53:37.79] [53:40.36]In 1318, Edward Bruce was himself killed. [53:44.39] [53:44.56]Before the end of the year, the Scots had left. [53:47.59] [53:47.95]Perhaps the experiment of Scots-Irish collaboration deserved to fail [53:53.39] [53:53.55]because, from the beginning, Robert the Bruce had his own [53:57.06] [53:57.23]rather than his Irish brothers' interests at heart, [54:00.18] [54:00.35]needing a second front to divert critical English military resources [54:04.97] [54:05.14]from Scotland to Ireland. [54:07.61] [54:10.14]Not for the last time, the Irish were being used in someone else's quarrel. [54:16.13] [54:18.38]As grim as the story of the Scots in Ireland was, [54:21.60] [54:21.77]they did leave behind something other than widows and tragic ballads. [54:26.48] [54:26.65]The Anglo-Norman colony stopped expanding [54:29.48] [54:29.65]from its base in Ulster and Leinster. [54:32.40] [54:32.57]And the idea of the unstoppable English empire of the Plantagenets [54:36.95] [54:37.12]had the shine knocked right off its myth of invincibility. [54:41.64] [54:46.28]And the Bruces had given Irish leaders their voice of resistance [54:52.14] [54:52.31]...an expression of national identity. [54:55.75] [54:56.39](IRISHMAN) To recover our native freedom, the Irish... [54:59.59] [54:59.75](SCOTSMAN) For as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, [55:03.06] [55:03.23]we will yield in no least way to English dominion. [55:06.34] [55:06.51](WELSHMAN) The people preferred to die [55:08.73] [55:08.90]rather than to live under English rule. [55:11.50] [55:11.66]All these startlingly-modern sounding declarations of national community [55:17.02] [55:17.18]come together as the epitaph [55:19.82] [55:19.98]of the idea of the Plantagenet empire of Britain. [55:23.76] [55:24.77]You hear this language - [55:26.65] [55:26.81]eloquent, fierce, righteously belligerent - [55:30.41] [55:30.57]and you hear a voice which, for better or worse, [55:33.32] [55:33.49]would shout, roar and lament down through the ages. [55:37.76] [55:38.61]Robert the Bruce outlived both Edwards, [55:41.44] [55:41.60]and while war would continue with England for generations, [55:45.07] [55:45.24]the Scots had won English recognition of their truly independent kingdom. [55:51.39] [55:53.12]This is certainly not what Longshanks had imagined [55:56.63] [55:56.80]when he had been crowned before his namesake the Confessor's tomb, [56:00.79] [56:00.95]or when he had seated himself upon the Stone of Scone. [56:05.02] [56:08.15]For Edward's attempt to pound the nations of Britain [56:11.14] [56:11.31]into a united super-state [56:13.30] [56:13.47]ended up just reinforcing their acute sense of difference. [56:18.98] [56:19.14]The hammer that Edward had taken to the Scots [56:22.37] [56:22.54]had rebounded fatally against his dream of a reborn Britannia. [56:28.09] [56:29.42]For the cost of all those endless marches [56:32.85] [56:33.01]and mile upon mile of castle walls [56:35.81] [56:35.97]was political as well as financial. [56:38.64] [56:38.81]It meant parliament was more, not less, necessary to England's government. [56:43.68] [56:43.85]It was parliament which had to agree on how to foot the bills [56:48.20] [56:48.36]and how big those bills ought to be. [56:51.08] [56:52.92]Edward II failed to bring any attention to this new reality. [56:59.11] [57:00.08]Falling back on rule by favourites, [57:02.54] [57:02.72]Edward made himself an alien in his own land. [57:06.34] [57:06.51]The nobility failed to remove him, but his wife succeeded. [57:10.63] [57:11.15]Legend has it that he was killed in Berkeley Castle [57:14.98] [57:15.15]from a hot iron thrust up his rectum. [57:17.98] [57:22.70]Edward's murder was proof that the king could be removed, [57:26.53] [57:26.70]even physically disposed of, if he betrayed the community. [57:31.21] [57:32.06]But England would get a new king - [57:34.89] [57:35.06]more the heir to Edward the First than the Second. [57:38.44] [57:40.21]Edward III knew he couldn't achieve anything [57:43.41] [57:43.57]simply by acts of brutal, imperial will. [57:47.45] [57:47.69]He'd learned something from the long wars of Plantagenet Britain, [57:52.40] [57:52.57]and what he'd learned was that his power depended not just on force, [57:56.68] [57:56.84]but on consent - [57:58.56] [57:58.72]on the consent of his barons and his churchmen, [58:01.87] [58:02.04]on the consent of parliament, [58:03.92] [58:04.08]on the consent of the English community of the realm. [58:08.19] [58:08.36]Not for the first and not for the last time, [58:11.39] [58:11.55]it would take the rest of Britain to teach England just how to be a nation. [58:17.70]

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