Scots at Lewes

I've been thinking a lot lately about my Lewes project. Whilst it's been years since I last added to the army and I've 75% completed the Rebels, I've turned my thoughts to the Scots who rallied to support the English King. I may not put brush to figure until the new year but in the meantime, I can consolidate my thoughts on the first Royalist units and how I intend to represent them.

Scots Division

We know from The Scotish Bruses and the English Crown (c.1200 - 1290) (1) that Robert de Brus was present at Lewes with the King. We also know it was Robert de Brus V of Annandale- referred to as 'the Competitor' - grandfather of the famous first and future King Robert I. Whilst Rishanger's Chronicle refers to the Scots present being led by Robert Bruce and John Comyn, Blakely argues that Robert himself was present as a part of King Henry's Household as retainer and thus would have personally fought at the King's side or under his immediate command. He could have been assigned to command at some point (speculative) but it seems highly improbable that he arrived with the Scots contingent which seems to have been under principle command of the Comyns.

The Scots are believed to have been largely assembled and deployed through the favour of King Alexander III of Scotland to render assistance to King Henry (Alexander's Father-in-Law) and were under the command of the Comyns - the brothers John and Richard. This is supported by John of Forun. Blakely mentioned the possibility that the Scots contingent may have comprised an element from the Bruce's estates in Annandale but of course there is no absolute certainty.

As an aside, John Baliol I (sometimes referred to as 'the elder') was also fighting for the crown at Lewes and was also likely a retainer to Henry in his household. John was Henry's man at Alexander's court, was Sheriff of Nottinghamshire (1261-62). His estates were in country Durham and in spite of his house's claim to the Scottish throne through marriage it's difficult to see how Scottish he actually was. Anyway ... slipped off into a tangent there.

Let's see if we can't piece together a picture of where the Scots solders might have originated.

Estates of Robert de Brus

Chiefly his estates were in Annandale - a southern region of Scotland part bordering England at Cumberland along the Esk River. He had inherited English estates in Country Durham (Hartlepool) and Essex (Writtle and Hatfield Broadoak) which we can ignore for this exercise. Through marriages he gained estates in Cumbria (Ireby) and Sussex (Ripe) - also English. This appears to be the extent of his Scottish estates by the time of Lewes - so it's the men of Annandale which I might represent.

Annandale is definitely part of the Lowlands of Scotland.

Whilst speculative, it seems reasonable to suppose Robert would have called for support from his estate to accompany the Scottish contingent at Henry's behest. If so, it would support and make more sense of Rishangers assertion that the contingent was commanded by Robert de Brus in battle once they arrived.

I don't know when the Scots joined with the royal host.

Estates of John Comyn

John Comyn was Lord of Badenoch which is situated in the heavily wooded and rugged northern Scottish highlands. He was also Justiciar of Galloway from 1258 - the region laying to the Western extremity of the Lowlands. Whilst as Justiciar Comyn is unlikely to have been able to call upon soldiery in his own right, he nevertheless held estates in Nithsdale (Dalswinton and Duncow) from this region.

So, if we speculate that the Scots contingent comprised soldiery from Comyn's lands, we have potentially two very different groups - mostly Highlanders but also Lowlanders.

Royal Scots Contingent

What can we surmise of the make-up of a Scots contingent at Lewes? Well, we know that the Scottish crown and the kingdom was poorer and the population less numerous than the English. Some sources estimate a total population of 1 million and by the mid-twelfth century the new towns founded under David I had likely attained the size of villages only by this period. The population was more dispersed as the agricultural pattern dictated - dominated as it was by pastoralism before the times of enclosures. Even in the lowland regions like Galloway, arable land gives way to highlands as the geography evolves northwards. On top of all this, we have an itinerant monarchy with no fixed capital.

Alexander's household relative to the English or French was a small one and as I'm sure any student of medieval history appreciates, there was no standing, full-time army in the more modern sense. That being understood, it is reasonable to surmise that a contingent of the type sent to Lewes by the crown was likely to be a smaller force and reliant on levies more immediate to hand or efficiently levied. No protracted negotiation would be required to induce Lords to raise their forces when it was the same Lords who dominated court, participating in policy and government.

Alexander was only 22 by the time of Lewes; his second year ruling after his minority During this time the Comyns were dominant at court since 1258. The nature of Alexander's rule at this time is important in ascertaining who might have made up this Scottish contingent. The Comyns and their rivals dominated court and supplanted one another in high office through possession of the King's person. They achieved this quite simply by arriving with an army at their backs. Changes in the balance of power during Alexander's reign were affected by armed coups.

In effect, any King's army at this time would be dominated by the faction or factions with control of the court - in this instance, it includes that of the Comyns. An example of this is the fighting which took place the same year (1264) between a 'great' Scottish army and that of the Norwegian King Haarkon. That Scottish force was also partly commanded by the Comyns - Alexander Comyn and Uileam Comyn.

Troop Types

Knights

Numbers of knights from the feudal establishments predominated in eastern and lowland regions. Established along Norman and French models and founded with immigrants sponsored by the Scotish crown, their numbers were even small during the Scottish wars of independence forty years and more later. Like all Scottish armies, this was an infantry army. Those few armoured knights present are most likely to have been limited to contingent commanders. In every respect they were armed and equipped as all Western European knights with similar heraldry.

Common Weaponry

Archers in this period were ever present but not in significant numbers. Slingers may be presumed.

Infantry would be principally spear armed with swords, daggers and improvised weapons to hand. Like most medieval soldiery in both English and Celtic lands, fighting men came self-equipped and clothed. Given the constant frequency of conflict throughout the Hebrides in this period, the men called upon to take up arms across the kingdom were likely to be personally proficient.

Highland vs Lowland Foot

In terms of equipment, there is unlikley to be a great deal of difference between the fighting foot of the Scottish border regions to that of English Northumbria or Cumberland. In a more general sense, the southern Lowlands of Scotland were more accessible to and more influenced through their access to England and through that conduit, the northern extremities of a Western European culture. This should nevertheless not be exaggerated.

How different in appearance these Gaelic and sometimes English speaking soldiers may have appeared to levies from Southern England might be another matter. I submit it would be reasonable to suppose that all shields would be round. 

Certainly in the periods preceding this high middle age, the shields were round just as the Norse armies shields were round. By the latter fifteenth and sixteenth centuries we see the retention of round shields by the mounted Border-Reivers and in fact the ubiquitous 'tages' are famously retained by the Scots Highland Clansmen right up to the mid-eighteenth century. So, if we can settle on nothing else, let's accept that round shields were one thing which differentiated the Scots foot-soldier from his Southern English counterpart at least.

Across the Hebrides as elsewhere, if a man had access to body armour he invariably wore it in battle - who wouldn't? The common man's body armour was most likely the padded gambeson and there is no reason to suppose that the men in the Lowlands were any different. Likewise, mail armour was also worn but with less frequency but as to how common either was across an armed host we cannot know. We do know it was very expensive and beyond the economic means of most. We do know that in describing Scottish soldiers, the few references we have from outsiders is that they were largely unarmoured meaning without body armour.

Head-wear is likely to have comprised a simple iron helmet, often a kettle-helm which originated in design for this period from Western Europe from the late twelfth century. Perhaps only after a shield, a helmet of any sort is the single most important piece of protective equipment and is likely to be extremely common, if not universal amongst Lowland troops.

The universal garment of the Scottish common man (and woman) throughout the medieval eras and into the fifteenth century was the tunic (leine). In the mid-thirteenth century it was a simple shirt falling to the knees (sometimes higher and sometimes lower) and secured with a belt. The sleeve length of the liene varied also. It is known that prior to the 1600s, the liene was often dyed yellow (commonly with saffron) as a sign of wealth and status by the upper echelons but we do not know when this practice started. I suspect if at all in our period, such a practice was limited to elites.

Tartan was definitely worn in several forms throughout Scotland. This is a subject about which there appears much confusion (I don't know why) but it needs to be addressed here. 

Tartan is the pattern of weaving - stripes and checkers. It is very simply the way people wove and had already been a common form of manufacture for hundreds of years at least before our period. In fact, we know the Ancient Celts to have been fond of tartan. So, where could this tartan cloth appear - in anything really. There is every reason to suppose that the liene would have often been made with a tartan design - in either wool or linen - in both Highland and Lowland societies.

If it needs to be stated, tartans were not regulated within a strict system of clan identification as they became in the 'modern' era but rather are likely to have been subject to the availability of dyes, yarn and the creative preferences and habits of the many, many weavers.

The other distinctive garment for our period worn by the common soldiery was the Brat. The brat was a plaid (effectively a heavy woolen blanket cloth) worn (or you might even infer 'carried') and fixed across the body with a broach. This was an incredibly useful (even essential) garment in cold and often inhospitable climates for people who spent a lot of time outdoors and sleeping rough. Likewise, the brat could have and most assuredly must have commonly been of a tartan weave.

Worn across the body, the brat also would have effectively served as partial body armour, the thick plaid, folded over being highly resistant to slashing strikes from bladed weapons. 

Whilst we see this garment combination most readily identified amongst the Highlanders, there is no reason to suppose the Lowlanders would have been differently dressed. After all, the liene and the brat hail from the Gaelic Irish culture which spread across Highland and Lowland Scotland from the East centuries earlier. Any sense of urbanisation across the Lowland townships lay well in the future. Who wove and how they wove throughout Scotland would have been the same in the South as it was in the North.

Jerkins of hide are also believed to have been worn over the liene - with or without the hair removed.

Common Scots are not generally believed to have worn shoes often at this time and were certainly bare-legged. Elites may have worn trews in winter months but the vast majority of all Scots are naked from the hem of their liene down. In this also, Scots infantry are readily discernible from their English counterparts.

There does not appear to have been a lot of difference between Highland and Lowland infantry of this period except, that is, for comparative wealth and access to goods. 

Highlanders are sometimes depicted with helmets but invariably a simple pot or nasal suggesting less exposure or influence from the South. Hats, capes or hoods do not appear in evidence at all - but as it often said and always worth repeating, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. So who knows? Sculptors invariably like to depict Highlanders of the medieval periods as long haired and bare-headed. On that subject what little historical record we have left to us is utterly silent and we will never know. Conversely at least, no one can say it is wrong. I have no position on the subject.

Frequency of armour within the Highland ranks can only be speculated at - for either gambesons or mail.

I think we need to be very wary of contrivances to support a pre-determined preference one way or another. Recently my opinion on this subject was criticised by a couple of argumentative contributors on the Lead Adventure Forum who prefer to believe (and advocate) for representing the Scots at Lewes as near identical to English foot. My research tells me a very different story.

Afterword

'Everywhere, culture is King' (Herodotus). If we forever keep this observation in mind, it aids understanding as to why the Scottish culture was and still is divergent from the English - albeit less so today.

Perhaps we could think of the border as the 'tartan line' - a fabric so synonymous with the Scots, very much less so with their immediate English neighbors in Northumberland or Cumbria and not at all further South. It wasn't so much their arms and equipment which distinguished a Scots army of this and many other periods with the English: it was their dress.

Invariably bare-legged, with a plaid brat fixed across their liene and carrying a round shield: the Scots at Lewes would have been easy to distinguish from amongst all those Sassenachs. That's certainly how I'll be representing mine.

References

 
(1) The Scotish Bruses and the English Crown (c.1200 - 1290) by Ruth M Blakely an essay contained within Thirteenth Century England IX - Proceedings of the Durham Conference 2001 - edited by Michael Prestwich, Richard Britnell and Robin Frame (available on Google Books)

https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/s/Scotland_in_the_High_Middle_Ages.htm

http://www.marariley.net/celtic/SentToKass/Scotland.htm